Collared
This week, I was running a strategy retreat at a hotel where this display was part of the interior design:
For about 100 years, up until the pre-WW2 period, detachable collars were widely sold. They met a need for presentable attire in an era with limited access to laundry — and often even washing. Men could wear a shirt repeatedly, but change collars daily as they got grimy. Formality required jackets and ties to be worn, so the body of the shirt was mostly invisible, leaving only the collar on show.
This display of a once-familiar object put me in mind of the most common strategic question right now about ChatGPT: “What jobs will AI displace?”
As to answers, there appear to be two schools of thought:
a) The buggy whip school: “As cars replaced horses, all buggy whip makers disappeared”.
b) The printing press school: “Far more jobs were created by the rise of literacy than eliminated.”
I suspect the true answer will evolve the way detachable collar makers did. It’s no one technology, or social shift, or fashion that determines whether an entire product category or occupation will continue. Rather, it’s the combination of technologies, plus social shifts, plus fashions that will determine how it changes.
After all, collars didn’t disappear — they simply changed their look and their function. Jobs won’t disappear either — they will simply change how they look, and how they’re valued.
Question: In your organisation, what job functions will change how they look, and how they’re valued?
Hands
I was fortunate this week to see The Necks perform live. In 2020, they made Rolling Stone magazine’s “50 Greatest Australian Artists” and yet they’re certainly not rock’n’roll.
So what are they?
I’d call them ‘improvisational ambient-jazz-noise’ — and they’ve been one of my favourites since they formed in the late 1980s. Their signature sound is a slow build-up of a hypnotic rhythm, which dissolves over 45 minutes or so into a mesmerising tsunami of sound, before dying away to silence.
But, because this is a strategy newsletter, not a music column, I’ll ask you to pay attention to just one thing. You can see it in the photos above, taken by yours truly from his front-row seat.
I couldn’t stop looking at their hands.
The Necks’ kinetic energy and layered momentum require a finesse that we alone possess amongst all animals. Our fine motor skills come from our ability to modulate just a small amount of muscle fibre, not just the whole muscle. This means that we can precisely position our hands — and the tools (or musical instruments) they wield.
But, as they said in the late-night steak knife ads of my childhood, “And that’s not all!”
Our unique fine motor skills, when combined with our cognitive skills, mean we can set intentions, make millisecond-specific decisions, and give non-conscious instructions to our musculature. And, The Necks have applied this combination to thousands of performances and dozens of recordings over 35 years.
But, that’s not all.
They’ve also applied the social layer: watching The Necks for close to two hours revealed remarkable three-way non-verbal communication that created a cohesive whole. And, even this is all the more remarkable when you consider that as the first notes are struck, they have no idea where they’ll end up close to an hour later.
Question: What finesse — of judgement, thinking or physical activity — do you actively practise to make your value stand out?
Ingenious, or not really?
Here’s a third photo from my life this week. Can you work out what it is?
I enjoyed a great dinner at the home of a good friend who is a brewer at Dainton Brewery in Melbourne, Australia. He and his colleagues, also fascinated by the rise of ChatGPT, wondered, “Could it design a beer?”
So, they gave it instructions. Something like this: “Give us a recipe for an IPA (India Pale Ale). Make it above 6% alcohol.” They specified a few other, brewer-type things, about the varieties of hops they had access to, and equipment they had.
And, voila, within seconds, ChatGPT had a recipe for them.
After a few tweaks, the brewers agreed it was ready for production. While that was happening, they asked ChatGPT to design the can. And write the text. And lay that out too. And, while it’s at it, write the marketing spiel. Which it did.
The beer in my hand was tasty: hoppy, malty and smooth. I’d definitely drink it again, although the artwork isn’t to my taste!
But, it got me wondering if AI can be put to work in ALL design fields.
Is there anything that can’t be designed (or co-designed) in this way that my clients are doing on a daily basis: digital user interfaces, signage and wayfinding, building layout, uniforms, service journey mapping, staff training programs?
Question: What design tasks in your organisation should you at least enlist AI to help with, alongside humans? What should replace humans altogether, now or eventually?
Today’s 5MSM is more ‘human’ and less strategy, so let me know that you’ve enjoyed reading by clicking the 'heart’. It means a lot to know you’re out there in the virtual world as a flesh-and-blood person.
Until next Friday, enjoy predicting what’s disappearing, and what’s merely changing.
Andrew
Hi Andrew , we are always surrounded by change and trends.Funny “coincidence”this week I am in the Uk and a similar white collar display in a hotel lobby .Got me thinking is this a new trend !
Hi Andrew
Always thought provoking. I wonder what the next generation will think of the inventions of our time that have been life changing, telephone, mobile phone, computer