#48 – On stepping into ideas, being savagely selective, and designing culture
Happy Friday everyone,
This week’s Strategy Bites is all about the art of stepping into an idea, the power of humility, the necessity of being savagely selective, the digital dilemma of Starbucks, what (product) design tells us about culture, and how digital changes our relationships.
Enjoy the read!
Six Links of Inspiration
The Subtle Art of Stepping Into an Idea. Wonderfully thoughtful piece by Martin Weigel about, well, the art of stepping into an idea. As we walk towards this main point, we' learn a whole lot of other things (for example, how communication really works) before we realise why it’s not an easy thing to allow truly groundbreaking, novel ideas to flourish. We (1) don’t give them enough time and (2) approach them with the wrong mindset: “There will be a time and a place to critique, analyze, assess, deconstruct, refine, improve. For let’s be clear - subjecting ideas to scrutiny and critique can and does make them better. Ideas get tightened, more focused, more fit for purpose. […] But the first task is not to feedback or critique. The first task is to fully step into the idea. Yet far too often, nascent, half-baked, vaguely sketched out ideas find themselves […] surrounded not by accomplices, but by judges.”
The Most Important Thing I Teach My Students Isn’t on the Syllabus. A lovely piece about the power of humility that could form the antidote to grievance. “We live in an era defined and overwhelmed by grievance — by too many Americans’ obsession with how they’ve been wronged and their insistence on wallowing in ire. This anger reflects a pessimism that previous generations didn’t feel. The ascent of identity politics and the influence of social media, it turned out, were better at inflaming us than uniting us. They promote a self-obsession at odds with community, civility, comity and compromise. It’s a problem of humility.” The reason we all could do with a bit more humility is, firstly, obvious, and secondly, a key ingredient in making space for other people’s perspective, be that in our lives or in our work.
Extraordinary Vocabulary, Word #8: Reductionism. I’ve worked with Fernando at a previous agency and have always admired his beautiful brain. If you want to see bits of it in action, read his series “Extraordinary Vocabulary” that he publishes over on LinkedIn. This one is about getting to the point. And then staying there. It’s a long piece making a very simple point elegantly and beautifully: “Be savagely selective.”
Starbucks Digital Dilemma. This is an interesting case study in how to digitise your product into irrelevance. (I’m being dramatic here.) The argument goes somewhat like this: by removing all the friction from the brand experience, there’s not much brand left that people are willing to pay for. “In America, 31% of sales are made through the mobile order and pay feature. While this sounds dope, Schultz originally built Starbucks as a "Third Place" for people in a community to hang out, in addition to the workplace or home. The brand was able to justify a premium price by offering a decent product and upscale interiors. However, the increasing digitalization of the business is slowly eroding the soul of the brand. Meanwhile, there are now thousands of mom and pop cafes gaining market share from Starbucks by successfully capturing its old "Third Place" vibe.”
About design as an embodiment of culture. Nice little post about what the Cybertruck tells us about the state of culture these days. “Design is a reflection cultural values and the Cybertruck is the most cynical design of the 21st century […] The Cybertruck’s design offers no subtlety, no nuance, no layers – just blunt directness.”
How digital body language is changing our relationships. Wrapping this edition with another piece about how digital is eroding an experience, this time the most basic of human experiences: communication. “Nowadays digital body language is associated with the increased use of emojis, which present stylised versions of various emotional responses. Emojis may seem to make communication more direct, in fact research increasingly shows that they complicate matters.”
That’s it for this time. Thanks for reading this far – and if you enjoyed what you found in your inbox, please feel free to share this with your wider network.
Happy weekend!
Maximilian