Having advised the Founders of Apple, Airbnb, Glossier, Snap and many more, FNDR provides other Founders with a radical, practical and unique perspective on their business. https://www.fndr.co - Medium

FNDR - Medium

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Wh7IMXpeDwQNUdUJL-URoA.png" /><figcaption>Illustration: <a href="https://www.calvaryfisher.com/">Calvary Fisher</a></figcaption></figure><h3>The Smoothing</h3>User Experience vs. The Human ExperienceSmooth, Seamless, Intuitive, Ergonomic, Sleek: the gold standard of experience design in the digital age. As the mediums of interaction change, our behaviors change to mirror them. On a macro level, we know humans are changing, but in our personal lives, it’s hard to catalog the effects, much less the implications on our wellbeing. Intuitive is predictable. Sleek becomes slippery. Smooth lacks grit. There’s an ongoing conversation amongst UX designers about digital humanism but a scarce few brands actually implement it on a mass scale.Somewhere between cheap thrills through instant dopamine, perfectly measured efficiency, and DMV-style tediousness lies a balance that will make you happier. This article is an exploration of that balance.<ol><li>THE DIGITAL GOLDFISH</li></ol>Do you ever open Instagram and not know why?If you stop and think about it, the buzzing of your phone is the technological manifestation of a nervous tick. An itch that is so meticulously crafted that even when it’s not pinging and prodding your attention will wander to it. We are in a symbiotic relationship with these amazing and aggravating little glass rectangles.Which leads to a second, more important question: Does it make you feel good?If you’ve been around marketing for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard this proverb: “The average consumer has a shorter attention span than a goldfish.” I’ve always wondered what that actually means. More than likely, this is just an interesting way to say, “make it short and make it good.” However, the fact that we’ve all nodded along to this comparison is more telling than the observation itself.The optimists will likely say that it is simply humans adapting to a new digital way of living. To the realists, this must be the result of a fast nervous planet. The pessimists will argue that it was better in their day, when things actually meant something. The ever-so-clever cynics will grin at their Facebook Inc. stock and wonder how much more advertising an ADHD generation can consume. As for me, I’m left wondering how you can determine the attention span of a goldfish.Goldfish aside, it feels as if we are moving incredibly fast. Ideas, content, conversations, and people are flickering past as we glide like a bullet train through our day-to-day. More people are texting and driving, flitting between web pages at work, and struggling to stay focused on this article. We’ve created a sea of digital information and the average person is alternating between skipping across the surface and frantically doggy paddling to stay afloat.I do not know yet if this is a good or a bad thing for the human condition. But I can sense that The Great Acceleration is happening. You feel it. We all do.2. THE AGE OF ANXIETYanxiety (noun) anx·​i·​ety | \ aŋ-ˈzī-ə-tē \ plural anxietiesDefinition of anxiety Medical : an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physical signs (such as tension, sweating, and increased pulse rate), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one’s capacity to cope with it.Anxiety has surpassed depression to become the most prevalent mental disorder in the United States. The interesting thing about anxiety is that it’s caused by both too much and too little. You can develop anxiety because you are paralyzed, like a deer in the headlights, by an upcoming work week. #SUNDAYSCARIES. You can develop anxiety because you are worried that you’re not doing anything with your life and that you’ll die meaningless and alone. #MEIRL. It’s rooted in anticipation. It’s a cognitive disconnect between what the ego decides should be happening and what is happening. It’s the feeling of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles">Sword of Damocles</a> dangling above your head. Too much silence can be deafening.We built this for ourselves. Mankind has painstakingly, over generations and millennia, tamed the world. As billions and billions of people trod towards the future we’ve flattened and polished the inefficiencies of life. In the digital era, this smoothening is the pinnacle of innovation. Everything has been crafted with efficiency and convenience in mind.Everyone has their own custom-tailored bit of the internet. Your little slice remembers you, is molded to you, and tries its level best to deliver exactly what you want as you want it. We’ve built a world of our own design, and yet, we are uncomfortable in it.Consider this: You’re bored on a Thursday afternoon. You don’t want to do work but you need to get something done. You click around a website and buy something you only sort of need. You are delivered a fleeting hit of dopamine. The website remembers you. You check out in one click. #SELFCARE. It’ll be here Friday. Easy, seamless and efficient give way to smooth and slippery. This is exactly what we’ve decided we wanted. You get a ping on your phone. Your package has shown up. TY Mr. Bezos.You swear this used to make you happier.3. <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/zoomer">OK ZOOMER</a>By now, you’re probably dreading the impending “if these kids would just get off their darn Instagrams, they’d just be able to focus on pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.”For this first generation of digital natives, myself included, unplugging is no longer an option. The digital world and the physical one have melded into one existence and it is ridiculous to believe you can remove yourself from it. Humanity exists as much on the internet as we do in real life. Don’t believe me? Try to get a job, education, or house without creating a digital identity. If bootstraps still exist, they surely are made of ones and zeros.So that leaves us stuck between two extreme schools of thought. On one hand, the good-ole days, where things were harder but simpler. You might have had to walk both ways uphill in the pouring rain to get a Coke, but by golly did it taste sweeter (it was the cane sugar). On the other hand, The Great Acceleration, where mass has become multi-niche, attention is currency, and culture moves at a mile a minute. It’s enough to make your head spin.We’ve been so caught up in exploring how fast humans can go that we’ve forgotten that we have a breaking point. We’ve process-itized and optimized our human experience by designing for variables that don’t actually make human’s lives any better; only quicker. Leaving you with more and more time to stare at your reflection on the screen.It’s not that we’re doomed. Perhaps digital innovation just needs to have a quarter life crisis. Remember; we’ve had to deal with widespread internet for all of 25 years. In human terms, it’s a recent grad still finding out what it wants to make out of itself. It just needs to wake up in the middle of the night sweating and wonder if anything it’s doing will actually make anyone happy.We are facing a conflict between what we want and what we need. We want systems that reflect the potential of mankind. We build systems for our idealized version of ourselves: rational, productive, driven. These mythical “users” will interface perfectly with the mechanism and accomplish the goal as quickly as possible. And yet, humans aren’t just users, they are humans. We are imperfect creatures trying to build a perfect world and then wondering why we feel out of place in it. The digital natives designing our interactions aren’t just writing code, they are laying the building the architecture of a new human experience.We are starting to get there. If Instagram is your social media garden perfectly groomed, Snapchat is playing with your dog in the mud. Snapchat was, at its core, unpolished, inefficient, and incredibly fun. There’s room for both refinement and eccentricity, but one makes better memories. Hinge made its name on a clever profile system that pushes you to buck up and actually go on some awkward first dates instead of just shopping for hot singles in your area. Hipcamp encourages city dwellers to get out of their comfort zones and explore. All of these companies have managed to build experiences with surprises, texture, a little bit of struggle, and ultimately meaning.The next generation is on the way, nipping at the incumbents’ heels. With a little luck, and a lot of hard work, they are going to build digital analogs to the human experience. It’ll be amazing, revolutionary, and generate a ton of value for shareholders. All I’m asking is that they remember that we are not as fast and as smooth as the machines we create.<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=2e519695b6f2" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/the-smoothening-2e519695b6f2">THE SMOOTHENING</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

THE SMOOTHENING

We’ve stopped investigating and are living in a state of negligence.“Illusion is the first of all pleasures” — Voltaire<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*HWM_OyNZ3dzLGLA1Xyn5mw.png" /><figcaption>Illustration: <a href="https://calvaryfisher.com/">Calvary Fisher</a></figcaption></figure>Technology and humanity have become inextricably linked and it’s more pressing than ever to understand the impact on our collective consciousness.Reflecting back on the last ten years of technology, we saw social networks promising connection morph into social media platforms measured on performance, an overabundance of information designed to be shared not processed and the rise of machine learning, AI-powered algorithms laden with bias.We’re living in a dopamine-driven economy, addicted to algorithms that perpetuate our bias. Drowning in information but starved for knowledge. The underlying impact is a sense of urgency leading to flash decisions and closing the aperture on curiosity.What does the world become when all that’s left are echo chambers and confirmation bias? What does it mean for individuality when groupthink takes over? What is our responsibility when <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/08/false-news-spreads-faster-than-truth-online-thanks-to-human-nature/">falsehoods</a> spread faster and farther than truth online?These questions were sparked after I read an article about a liberal Jewish boy who was drawn to the darkest corners of the Internet and joined the alt-right at the age of 13. Three years later, after returning to digital consciousness, he wrote about his experience in<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90438818/i-became-part-of-the-alt-right-at-age-13-thanks-to-reddit-and-google"> Fast Company</a>.What started as a search for belonging at an impressionable age left him believing that the wage gap was a fallacy fabricated by feminists, that black Americans committed homicide at a higher rate than whites, and that Jews controlled global financial networks.The line between fantasy and reality is thinning in our society as a whole, and especially among our youth.<a href="https://news.utexas.edu/2006/11/27/young-children-learn-to-distinguish-between-fact-and-fiction-research-at-university-of-texas-at-austin-finds/"> Studies</a> have shown that children are able to distinguish between reality and fantasy between the ages of 3 and 5, but what happens when we, as a culture, become untethered from reality?Sascha Baron Cohen gave a<a href="https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-address-at-adls-2019-never-is-now-summit-on-anti-semitism"> poignant keynote</a> at last year’s ADL awards capturing the state of our times with clarity:It’s as if the Age of Reason — the era of evidential argument — is ending, and now knowledge is delegitimized and scientific consensus is dismissed. Democracy, which depends on shared truths, is in<a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2019/democracy-in-retreat"> retreat</a>, and autocracy, which depends on shared lies, is on the march. Hate crimes are<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/hate-crimes-fbi-report.html"> surging</a>, as are murderous attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.In 2016, while Trump’s Presidential Campaign was charging full steam ahead, Oxford Dictionary announced their word of the year:<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600"> post-truth</a>, reflecting what it called a “highly-charged” political 12 months. It is defined as an adjective relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals.In 2017,<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/02/fake-news-is-very-real-word-of-the-year-for-2017"> fake news</a> was the word of the year by Collins Dictionary.The spread of disinformation doesn’t just impact us politically. In the last three years we saw status seeking Millennials flock to the non-existent <a href="https://tandem-interactive.com/fyre-festival-social-media-marketing/">Fyre Festival </a>(a marketing campaign that relied heavily on social media tactics), families follow deadly health advice from <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/fake-news-health-facebook-cruel-damaging-social-media-mike-adams-natural-health-ranger-conspiracy-a7498201.html">Facebook</a> and flat Earth conspiracies spread around the globe on <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-49021903/flat-earth-how-did-youtube-help-spread-a-conspiracy-theory">YouTube</a>.The democratization of online platforms and conversations around free speech have created an unruly landscape where anyone can upload anything, at any time, from anywhere. And our appetite to indulge in internet absurdities without question leading us down a dangerous path.We’ve put too much trust in the hands of predictive AI, targeting and big tech. Ultimately removing something<a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/2014/07/what-makes-us-human-our-innate-curiosity-and-our-ability-laugh"> innately human</a>: our ability question, to ask ‘why’. Spend time with anyone under six and they’ll ask a string of questions starting with ‘why?’We don’t fact check, we throw out outrageous claims as justified truths. We read headlines but not the whole article. We buy Instagram brands and are disappointed when its quality is poor and 10x smaller than we thought when scrolling the 4:5 frame.The Internet has its own language and wraps everything in it, from the profound to the profane, making every topic of the same importance. This flattened space holds no weight or repercussions. We consume Trump tweets about war in Iran next to memes of baby Yoda next to dinner recipe ideas. Time has bent on this new plane and nothing has a lasting impact. We are living in a new form of surrealism. One we can’t escape or look away from.Technology has made things easy, convenient and efficient. But the better technology gets at automating tasks and anticipating our behavior, the greater the threat to our own skills. We’re thinking in memes, talking in Tweets, learning from Reddit and dependent on Google for our answers while reasoning, <a href="https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/7/32082-are-we-losing-our-ability-to-think-critically/abstract">critical thinking</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/09/stanford-psychology-expert-most-important-work-skill-of-the-future.html">focus</a> are weakening.In a world where we can find exactly what we’re looking for, confirm any belief possible, and follow it as the rule, we need to bring back a sense of skepticism. To question and be curious about what is served up to us.Skepticism will become a critical skill for the future.Skepticism is defined as:doubt as to the truth of somethinga person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factualSkepticism helps scientists to remain objective when performing scientific inquiry and research. It forces them to examine claims (their own and those of others) to be certain that there is sufficient evidence to back them up.The Greek word skepsis means investigation. When we investigate, we bring a healthy dose of questioning to a seemingly solid case. We become inquisitive and soften to new ideas. Our curiosity is piqued. Curiosity is an essential tool in understanding differing opinions.In the<a href="https://hbr.org/podcast/2015/04/brian-grazer-on-the-power-of-curiosity"> words</a> of Brian Grazer, [curiosity] empowers– enables me to have a better, more accurate sense of what ideas feel authentic and what ideas feel inauthentic or copycats of other ideas. So in my– in the business of storytelling, you look for– you know, storytelling meaning movies or television or documentaries– you’re looking for originality.You’re looking for originality in the subject, and you’re looking for originality in terms of a point of view. And having all these different sort of curiosity conversations and being interested in other people and other subjects, it gives me a deeper, richer filter in which to create ideas and hear ideas.I propose three ways to bring skepticism to the Internet, starting with the individual, expanding to big tech and infiltrating our education system:<ol><li>From groupthink → To independent working minds</li></ol>In our personal life, we need to identify our own filters blocking us from reasoning and empathizing. To be a little more curious. To entertain other sides of a story and make our own assumptions. To welcome, challenge and understand diverse schools of thought.2. From algorithms confirming bias → To algorithms that prod for skepticismBig tech needs to take responsibility for the impact they’re having. How can we rearchitecture these platforms with new behaviors and the whole human in mind?3. From sourcing papers → To spotting fallaciesOur education system needs to be redesigned for the Digital Age to help the next generation of leaders identify false claims and spot deepfakes. Thinking back to English class, we learned how to write papers, properly sourcing and citing our facts. What would a digital curriculum look like with this new objective?We must challenge people to come to the internet not with blind acceptance, but a healthy dose of skepticism. To be curious.We must preserve and protect our independent working minds. They’re becoming endangered species.Sources<ul><li>False news spreads faster than truth online thanks to human nature,<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/08/false-news-spreads-faster-than-truth-online-thanks-to-human-nature/"> TechCrunch</a> 2018</li><li>The number of young American girls turning to self-harm is skyrocketing, <a href="https://qz.com/1136366/the-number-of-young-american-girls-turning-to-self-harm-is-skyrocketing/">QZ</a>, 2017</li><li>I became part of the alt-right at age 13, thanks to Reddit and Google,<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90438818/i-became-part-of-the-alt-right-at-age-13-thanks-to-reddit-and-google"> Fast Company</a> 2019</li><li>Sacha Baron Cohen’s Keynote Address at ADL’s 2019 Never Is Now Summit on Anti-Semitism and Hate, <a href="https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-address-at-adls-2019-never-is-now-summit-on-anti-semitism">ADL</a>, 2019</li><li>Fake news is ‘very real’ word of the year for 2017, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/02/fake-news-is-very-real-word-of-the-year-for-2017">The Guardian</a>, 2017</li><li>‘Post-truth’ declared word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600">BBC</a>, 2016</li><li>Fyre Festival: The Most Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign for a Failed Music Festival, Ever, <a href="https://tandem-interactive.com/fyre-festival-social-media-marketing/">Tandem Interactive</a>, 2019</li><li>REVEALED: HOW DANGEROUS FAKE HEALTH NEWS CONQUERED FACEBOOK, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/fake-news-health-facebook-cruel-damaging-social-media-mike-adams-natural-health-ranger-conspiracy-a7498201.html">The Independent</a>, 2017</li><li>Flat Earth: How did YouTube help spread a conspiracy theory?, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-49021903/flat-earth-how-did-youtube-help-spread-a-conspiracy-theory">BBC</a>, 2019</li><li>What makes us human? <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/2014/07/what-makes-us-human-our-innate-curiosity-and-our-ability-laugh,">Newsstatesman</a>, 2014</li><li>Are We Losing Our Ability to Think Critically? <a href="https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/7/32082-are-we-losing-our-ability-to-think-critically/abstract">Communications of ACM</a>, 2009</li><li>Stanford psychology expert: This is the №1 work skill of the future — but most fail to realize it, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/09/stanford-psychology-expert-most-important-work-skill-of-the-future.html">CNBC</a>, 2019</li><li>Brian Grazer on the Power of Curiosity, <a href="https://hbr.org/podcast/2015/04/brian-grazer-on-the-power-of-curiosity">Harvard Business Review</a>, 2014</li></ul><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=37471960328e" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/read-with-skepticism-37471960328e">Read with Skepticism</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Read with Skepticism

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*4C5LzpI1n2NuKKk3tkCV3g.png" /><figcaption>Illustration: <a href="https://calvaryfisher.com/">Calvary Fisher</a></figcaption></figure>How the internet created 5 Billion digital refugees.For almost thirty years we have tried to fathom the internet; how it came to be and what its lasting effect will be. To understand this sprawling metaverse of digital connectivity is no easier than looking upon a far away planet like Mars. A part of our consciousness yet something other, distant, out of sight, yet all too real.The internet is a dematerialized universal condition but to unpack it one needs to look at it through a universal metaphor of reality.Let’s imagine, if you would, an unimaginable scenario.What would happen if the entire world, or at least the majority bar a few bemused bystanders, showed up in one place on planet Earth thirsting for something?What you can imagine, if it was even logistically possible, is the ensuing chaos. A crushing weight of humanity beyond what the eye could see or the mind could comprehend. Without hierarchy, order, or hope of maintenance. A crowd that would overwhelm and break any existing best laid systems. A crowd that could not communicate from the center because the center ceased to exist. Left instead to distribute the information to the extremes through unstable word of mouth. What you would have is less system shock than total system failure.Now let us try to imagine what it is or was that drew them to this place. What was it that could cause this mass migration of humanity to up sticks, leave the safety and reality of their worlds behind and gamble on the idea that they might get some, some of whatever it was that started the stampede in the first place. What was it that first drew a curious trickle that would in turn cause the tectonic shifts that would create a human tsunami?What if it was ‘Attention’.As humans we are born needing attention, we crave being attended. Our mental, social and physical wellbeing are dependent upon a high level of attention.In early times it wasn’t a problem getting attention. We lived and moved in small groups and individuals in need of attention were easily identified and satisfied. But as our populations grew we had to fight for attention. Attention became scarce and, in turn, a privilege. Some had plenty and others had none. It became a form of wealth, as much about economics as human nature. The economically wealthy countries tended by nature to be attention rich whilst those worse off were attention poor. The levels of attention and conflict became related. High attention countries were peaceful and low attention countries were more prone to unrest. Or rich countries could be attended to and poor countries neglected. But even in the most well off societies it wasn’t equally distributed.As the world’s population exploded it became harder to find and even harder to get. We were being starved of attention. The privileged got greedy and the poor got needy. The world as we knew it was out of balance, an unsustainable need had overwhelmed our now limited resources of attention.So God created the internet and it captured the whole world’s attention. Here was an infinite space, a new gold rush with the promise of riches beyond our imagination, but most importantly, an attentive audience. An attention rich universe created on a universal platform upon which everyone could perform for attention. The internet turned us all into performers who sacrificed our humanity for a single Attention coin. It became the attention capital, drawing first the speculators followed by the dilapidated souls and, in time, the rest of us would follow, motivated by either our greed or our need. But this attention was different: it lacked origin, context or feeling. The performance, the unrequited cry for attention without the possibility for true resolution. It is a metric illusion based on an emotional delusion. This is not real or safe, we are eternal outsiders seeking to integrate ourselves by ingratiating ourselves to others. This distorts our sense of self. The reality of this connection defies our expectation for true detection.On the interface we are all refugees, untethered from origins or borders and starved of attention, we are seeking much needed solace. On the internet we can be free of origin, without origin we stand out (that is good yes?) yet over time we become unrecognizable to ourselves (that is bad no?). The interface does not assimilate it appropriates — a population too vast to be intimate it doesn’t so much give us attention then beg and steal from us.So where does that leave us at the beginning of the next chapter of our digital age?Now more than ever we need to see the wood from the trees so that we don’t mindlessly destroy the forest and starve ourselves of the wood. The greatest regret of the internet is that it is the stage upon which technology itself has been judged.Is technology good? Is technology great? I suspect it is both but the platform upon which it is measured on a daily basis distorts our ability to see the good from the bad. By making it [the internet] a destination, we corrupt and undermine technology’s true value as a tool.The legacy of the internet is that technology and our need for attention have become indistinguishably entwined. We crave it and loathe it all in the same breath.We need a renewed approach, one that disaggregates technology from the internet so we may look beyond the attention of the interface and see the TRUE intention of technology. A power tool which can help us meaningfully attend to ourselves and others around by putting our human EQ on top of technology’s IQ.<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=bd3dac6b1941" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/broken-fruit-bd3dac6b1941">Broken Fruit</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Broken Fruit

<div class="medium-feed-item"><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/upgrade-culture-were-all-obsolescents-c2f645555ff?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2600/1*nc1Kjit5VlSsQEdrWuWaFQ.png" width="4800"></a>We don&#x2019;t have to live at the speed of tech<a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/upgrade-culture-were-all-obsolescents-c2f645555ff?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4">Continue reading on FNDR »</a></div>

We don’t have to live at the speed of techContinue reading on FNDR »

Upgrade Culture: We’re all Obsolescents

Will a new generation of Founders get it just right?<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*guy9cXLvLPssW5xiT50yGw.png" /><figcaption>Illustration: Calvary Fisher</figcaption></figure>In 1999, as we headed towards New Year’s Eve to ring in the new millennium, I was as intrigued as anyone about Y2K. Would the clocks stop? Would the ball stop dropping? Were the Doomsday predictions right? We all had this expectation that everything could collapse in on itself. The technology we had created might fail us, turn on us …But as the ball dropped and champagne glasses clinked, we began to realize that, perhaps, the Apocalypse wasn’t coming for us right then and there — it was as if we were given a free pass. We could go wild. Create, challenge conventionality, break things, build anew. Redistribute, democratize, capitalize! Connect, work, commute — all digitally. Speed everything up. Hide our insecurities, expose our vulnerabilities, and, with nothing more than a pointed finger, like, swipe and scroll through this new world…Every action became lighter, simpler, faster and more convenient. We saw technology as the promise we could take control, and we did.I can’t imagine going back to life without an iPhone, asking Google everything, shopping on Amazon instead of doing just about any errand or being able to hop on the Peloton before my son wakes up in the morning. We can just app our way through the mundane bits and pieces of life and fast-forward to the “good stuff”.But as I stop to take stock of just how far we’ve come in the first 20 years of the 21st century, I find myself wondering if all of this innovation has really changed us as humans for the better.With all of this innovation, have we really created something new or have we just solved for new methods of distribution with Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix? Have we really created connection or have we simply created new forms of distraction with Facebook or Instagram? Have we understood that we’ve crowned new monarchies while forgetting we wanted democracies? Have we even begun to realize the unintended consequences of it all or the price we are paying with our data?Are we really getting to the “good stuff” in life, in business, and for the world, or have we just created a new set of systems that we are all in service of?We’ve seen technology power a wave of innovation that has created new businesses and entire new industries, with progress unrivaled by any other time in history. But with it, we’ve become obsessed with the scale, and our sole metric has become growth. We’ve lost sight of the fundamentals of good business and created systems designed to maximize shareholder value at the expense of human impact. We’ve crowned new leaders because they could code, not because they had a higher order human ethics or ideals.With it, we’ve given up so much power to the leaders of the companies who drive so much of our lives, but we don’t understand their intentions or motivations, and they certainly aren’t accountable to us, the consumers.I’d propose that the focus of innovation needs to shift and that innovation as we’ve known it, is not the true opportunity of the future. To put it simply, technology has been outpacing the human condition and we need to create a new balance. We need to focus on innovation that not only creates value, but captures value for businesses, shareholders and, most critically, for the people participating in them.Luckily, the shift has already started, and we’re seeing it come to life working with some of the Founders creating this next wave. These Founders are not the same — they are not pure technologists, but they understand the human condition — they have multidimensional human experiences and are focused on designing for empathy, connection and trust. They are building right-sized businesses that are equally as good for the business as the people who will use them. They have a clear human intention and are driven to live up to it.At FNDR, we’ve identified three fundamental shifts the Founders of the next wave are creating:1) A shift from Disruption to Adaptation. Rather than breaking down and reclaiming existing solutions, they are creating new innovation around the way we want to live. If the ethos of the last wave was “move fast and break things”, the ethos of the new wave is “move forward and make things.”2) A shift from Distribution to Contribution. The first wave created never before seen access and methods of distribution. We have better, easier ways to get to the things we want, but did things fundamentally change? The next wave will succeed by solving for the content itself, not just for the way to get it.3) And, finally, a shift from Distraction to Interaction. The first wave created platforms to capture our attention and capitalize on us. The next wave needs to live up to its original intent of creating real human connections and interactions — those that bring true value to the end user.So as we wake up to a fresh decade, with renewed spirits and hope for a future filled with new opportunities, we need a new set of Founders to take up and lead the new wave. Maybe it won’t be as fast, or as big or as the last wave, but maybe that’s a good thing. I think we’ll all be better off for it.<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=9d085c40f081" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/the-next-wave-9d085c40f081">The Next Wave</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Next Wave

<div class="medium-feed-item"><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/business-is-the-new-performance-art-2a408832c66a?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2600/1*GkZZVmIGXnAkIg0WYxQBtw.png" width="4800"></a>As business becomes unreasonable, CEOs are ringleaders and clowns<a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/business-is-the-new-performance-art-2a408832c66a?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4">Continue reading on FNDR »</a></div>

As business becomes unreasonable, CEOs are ringleaders and clownsContinue reading on FNDR »

Business is the New Performance Art

<div class="medium-feed-item"><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/the-gods-must-be-crazy-ed34e6ab8dc2?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2600/1*RDA__CpR4ocKP8LYAzzK1g.png" width="4800"></a>How we progressed from being God fearing to fearing the idea that we may be Gods<a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/the-gods-must-be-crazy-ed34e6ab8dc2?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4">Continue reading on FNDR »</a></div>

How we progressed from being God fearing to fearing the idea that we may be GodsContinue reading on FNDR »

The Gods Must Be Crazy

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*zsq4ah4dXPlmv4v6idOeqA.png" /><figcaption>Illustration: <a href="https://calvaryfisher.com/">Calvary Fisher</a></figcaption></figure>A reflection on what happens when “tech-forwardness” takes us backwards.A few weeks ago, I paid a visit to Reformation on Main Street in Santa Monica. I walked into the minimally designed store with a clear plan: spend time exploring, and hopefully, leave with a dress that gave me a Lizzo-level of confidence.Not too much to ask, right? Reformation had something different in mind, and as a result, my experience was fully hijacked. Not due to a catty sales associate or obnoxiously loud music (@Abercrombie). It imploded because of a screen.On average, Americans spend more than ten hours daily in front of a screen, and I’m no stranger to this state of digital being. That week, I had been glued to my MacBook Pro, iPhone, TV, Kindle, iPad… and do Jumbotrons count? (went to a Dodgers game). What’s more, I had spent about an hour (surely an underestimate to make myself feel better) checking out Instagram, shopping apps, and the Internet in search of the aforementioned dress. I did not realize that I was suffering from pixel exhaustion until I walked in to Reformation’s store.The sales associate greeted me, and without hesitation, ushered me over to a flat-screen TV mounted onto the shop’s wall. She explained:“As a tech-forward company, we do it differently here at Reformation. Use the touch screen to choose what you’d like in your size, and it will appear in a changing room once you’ve pressed ‘try on.’”I glanced around at the surrounding racks of clothing, begging to be touched, not touch-screened. Awkwardly, I succumbed to the pressure of “shopping in a new way” and my fear I’d be on my way to getting “ok Boomered” if I did not embrace “tech-forwardness.” Back to the interface I went. The only difference being I had an audience of two sales associates watching me… watching a screen. I picked a floral-printed linen dress and went to the changing room where I opened two cupboard doors to find it “magically” ready for me. As I felt the fabric, I was disheartened by the scratchiness and dulled colors. And no, it did not look the same on me as the on-screen model (expected, but nonetheless added insult to injury).I left empty handed. And super annoyed.Turning to the Internet, I hoped that outrage culture had already targeted and destroyed this “new” shopping experience with cathartic precision. To my surprise, I found nothing but praise: “Reformation’s high-tech store reimagines clothing shopping from the ground up,” read one article. The sentiment went further: a stream of headlines littered with praiseworthy buzzwords like “innovation” and “disruption”.Entrepreneurial culture loves a classic “tech-forward” company story where founders rethink antiquated systems in the name of progress. There is a romantic fervor to crushing existing models in favor of new tech-powered frameworks. This rebelliousness resonates with a savvy consumer world that desires continual upgrades and novelty. It’s no wonder that brands spanning from food to weed to real estate all self-identify as tech companies. They claim technology drives their business, and therefore, they are a technology company. And while this may be in part true, the hilarity of Peloton and MedMen claiming tech as their differentiator has been lost on the public. In October, WeWork filed for an IPO… pitching as a tech company (the word “technology” appears 110 times in its prospectus). This flies in the face of their very core offering: a physical space for coworking. We are seeing that the obsession for “big tech” status spares no corporation these days. As demonstrated most recently by none other than McDonald’s. Yes, the golden arches will be powered by algorithms rather than lightbulbs and french fries. From an interface, AI-infused drive-through experience to its very own incubator in Silicon Valley, McDonald’s “does indeed feel a bit like shopping online” and has begun to turn into “a saltier, greasier version of Amazon,” reports The New York Times. And guess what? The kiosks don’t take cash. So while McDonalds designs for a “tech-future,” it turns its back on the 8.4m households that don’t have a credit or debit card. Up to 60% of their customers pay in cash, begging the critique that McDonald’s “tech-forwardness” strains, or worse, excludes the people that eat their food.There has been no considered pause to evaluate the ostensibly innovative nature of McDonald’s new customer-facing experience, Peloton’s riding experience, Domino’s ordering experience, or Reformation’s retail experience. At the end of the day, no matter how you slice it, we are simply staring at a screen more and more. Okay, you don’t have to leave your home to access a cycling instructor. Okay, you no longer have to pick up the phone to call — a pizza emoji will suffice. But, does that really move us “forward”? Does more screen time yet less sociability and tactility reflect the romantic idealism in disruption?The interface has begun to dilute a space that was once meant for human interaction. Reformation is a cautionary tale of when tech becomes fashionable. ‘Tech-Forwardness’ is in vogue, and the tax we pay is the rich, social interactions all human beings crave. We are so in awe of our supposed disruption, we don’t question its validity. Let’s face it, the interface is hardly a disruptive idea in 2019.Ironically, it was not a screen that delivered on the dress… it was a friend who lent me one of hers. Two glasses of wine and some sushi later, I was reminded that real “forward” momentum can simply be quality time spent with a friend. In person.A ‘reformation’ is defined as an action or process of reforming an institution or practice. Encouraging the omnipresent tech behaviors of scrolling, staring, and non-verbal communication does not qualify as a reformative practice. Indeed, when brands execute tech-forwardness by adhering to the status quo, their actions can be interpreted quite differently: they are conforming. As tech innovation roars and rages with disruptive intentions and the (virtual) standing ovation of an easily excitable audience, many businesses are in danger of confusing perceived progress with actual momentum, of being conformists disguised as reformists.<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=5269191374c2" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/the-new-conformists-5269191374c2">The New Conformists</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The New Conformists

<blockquote>We’re buying more but loving it less</blockquote><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*Y1rL0D7opMdN-EFur5hsQg.png" /><figcaption>Illustration: <a href="https://calvaryfisher.com/">Calvary Fisher</a></figcaption></figure>Back in the day, when we used to take our spears out and go find some large mammals to kill, we didn’t just come back with meat. We came back with information. Info that made the next hunt safer, easier, more productive. Info that turned into anecdotes, and the best anecdotes lived way beyond the last of the charred flesh.Back in the day, when we used shells to trade, we weren’t just trading things. We were trading new materials, techniques and ideas about other places. Trade brought us together and took humans around the world. And as we traded stuff, we created and traded stories.From bazaars to fayres to bodegas, shopping has always thrown off tales and characters: The Old Curiosity Shop, Au Bonheur des Dames, the flower shop at the beginning of Mrs Dalloway, Ollivander’s wand shop in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The King’s Road was instrumental in welcoming in — and equipping — the Swinging Sixties. The department store used to be where romance, intrigue, transformation occurred — think Big, Elf, Pretty Woman, Jackie Brown, Superbad — not where mannequins went to die.And while we have often trivialized the role of shopping, trust a psychologist to see the real meaning behind our (trans)actions. As April Lane-Benson, pHD puts it: “Whether for a plant, a pair of pumps, or a political candidate, shopping is a way we search for ourselves and our place in the world.” Makes it sound like a valuable quest.Then the Internet. We moved from window shopping to a different sized glass: our screens. The interface arrived. And while the Internet has made it easier and faster and cheaper to get more of anything you want, it has not been kind to shopping. The ease and frequency of transactions — where anything is a swipe or two away and before you know it, tossed outside your door — diminishes the importance of any individual purchase. Our once rich experiences appear thin, creating an insatiable appetite for the infinite stuff.The Internet is unattended, so there is no-one to see how much or how often we shop. Left to our own devices, we pile it up… and return a good portion of what we order. A 2019 study by Big Commerce reported that online return rates in the US are over 30 percent. And Gen Z is two times more likely than Millennials and Gen X, and six times more likely than Boomers, to <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/create-a-returns-and-exchanges-policy-that-sells/">order multiple items with the intention of making returns</a>. When things arrive and disappear without friction we become careless.The interface doesn’t give much in the way of story, unless it’s those heartbreaking pictures of <a href="http://www.viralnova.com/online-shopping-fails/">“online shopping fails”</a>. The chasm between hope and reality.What has happened: we think we are shopping but we are just buying. Shopping has been diminished; shrunken from a rich and enjoyable process that included anticipation, preparation, discovery, surprise, relief, banter, pride, and often a great tale at the end of it. Shrunken to a transact-deliver-return loop that means we continue to desire the emotion of shopping but are continually frustrated — while never satiated — by the behavior of buying.The annual Black Friday <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK3q7-J8LTw">battles</a> show what happens when the expectations of frictionless, immediate gratification — and savings! — meet the inconvenient physical reality of other shoppers all after the same bargains.In Psychology Today, Kruger and Byker suggest that “modern shopping behaviors are an adaptation of our species ancestral hunting and gathering skills”. This romantic interpretation suggests a level of collaboration that is rarely seen in the annual free-for-all, fueled by individual desire rather than communal needs.There’s a British informal use of the verb “to shop”. It means to betray. It means to put in prison. Shopping has been blindsided and locked within flat glass boxes. It’s had the life sucked out of it.And while I said there’s no-one to see how much we shop, we are, of course, always being watched. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B5di5l_ARSu/">Personalization is the mechanization of personality</a>, it’s the trick that trackers and algorithms play. They pretend they know and understand you, but really, they just remember you, in order to nudge you towards your next purchase.This is the wrong kind of attention. Where a few past actions are used as rudimentary steers as to our future needs. Which is why you get a slew of ads for some damn thing you already bought. It’s why your Instagram feed seems like it’s always talking to a distorted view of you, one that gets the surface right but misses the soul.How do we move from our attention economy — where our attention is drawn to an ever increasing blur of things some algorithm thinks we want — to an intention economy, where someone actually understands what we need?There are signs that interface companies are trying to bring a little more texture and humanity back to shopping. Curated recently raised nearly $27.5m in funding for its platform that matches shoppers with experts. Curated suggests that not all purchases should be solitary and immediate. Sometimes it helps to speak to someone. And in a world of same day delivery, because Curated’s experts are human, and now always immediately available, Curated has introduced a welcome pause, which in turn allows for anticipation and reflection.In the same month, The Yes, founded by retail veteran Julie Bornstein, raised $30 million. Bornstein’s resume includes Nordstrom, Starbucks, Urban Outfitters and Sephora, so she knows her shopping. She explains The Yes mission simply: “to address the issue of overwhelm in shopping today”.These feel like less personalized, more personable shopping spaces. Where we’re not trying to repeat or imitate an analogue experience on the interface, but where people are still the interactive element. Because if people aren’t involved, you only have a transaction, not an interaction. Can they help bring the story of shopping back to life?<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=a4d4e9eddbec" width="1" height="1"><hr><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/how-the-internet-shopped-shopping-a4d4e9eddbec">How the Internet Shopped Shopping</a> was originally published in <a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r">FNDR</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How the Internet Shopped Shopping

<div class="medium-feed-item"><a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/founders-wanted-335dbafae2bf?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2600/1*PxFOqWo9Tg92aGE7Z9r7kg.png" width="4800"></a>To build a new Social Contract between People and Technology.<a href="https://medium.com/f-nd-r/founders-wanted-335dbafae2bf?source=rss----3fad8ed1ca76---4">Continue reading on FNDR »</a></div>

To build a new Social Contract between People and Technology.Continue reading on FNDR »

Founders Wanted

What We Do

Through a series of provocative sessions, we provide founders with a radical, unique and practical perspective on their business. An Intentional Narrative inspires and guides everything from internal cultural behaviors to external customer engagement, from product development decisions to designing organizational structures, and from next day actions to ten year plans.

Building businesses that culture deserves

Create

Grow

Renew

We bring process and experience to the table to help founders who are in one of three phases of their evolution; Create, Grow or Renew. Together, we invent a meaningful way from here to there.