5th November 2016
How the middle classes of today and the Victorian bourgeoisie used similar techniques to assert class dominance. ‘Spin classes, artisanal food, and the college application process have replaced Sunday Revolutionised, evening lectures, and weekly salons. But make no mistake, they serve the same purpose: transforming class privilege into individual virtue, thereby shoring up social dominance.’ Welcome to the Twenty First Century Victorians.
Interesting piece from HBR on how successful companies don’t adapt, they prepare. ‘Truly great companies don’t scramble to adapt to the future, because they create the future. Take a look at any great business and it becomes clear that what made it great wasn’t the ability to pivot, but a dedication to creating, delivering and capturing new value in the marketplace.‘
Somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of changes happening at Facebook? Then hopefully this will help – my post on the @econsultancy blog this week; Facebook : A handy roundup of latest developments and commercial opportunities.
From The Long and The Short . ‘Blockchain, the technology underlying Bitcoin, could be used to run anything from a protest movement to a nation – promising an impartial and networked democracy suited to 21st century life. It’s an exciting prospect, but can it actually work?‘
IBM’s campaign to commercialise Watson, the company’s version of artificial intelligence technology, stands out, even during the current A.I. frenzy in the tech industry. ‘The technology…has the potential to make precision medicine and tailored therapies available to millions of cancer patients, instead of the small number now treated at elite medical centres.‘
The very wonderful, not for profit, venture Street Wisdom (a good friend of the Filter) was the focus of a rather charming article in The Times recently. I did a TEDx talk on Street Wisdom in the summer and so am very pleased to see it receiving increasing amounts of coverage.
The iPod is 15 years old – doesn’t it seem so much older than that??! Here is Monday Note’s observations on how this product (and the oft forgotten iTunes) transformed Apple, enabled the Smartphone 2.0 era, and unlocked hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue for the company.
In apparently the first autonomous delivery, here is Ubers’s robot truck delivering 45,000 cans of Budweiser.
Apparently (unbelievably?) half of Heathrow’s 25,000 noise complaints were made by the same 10 people.
And finally, always worth looking back at this. From @vanityfair : How Jon Stewart took over The Daily Show and revolutionised Late-Night TV: An Oral History.