Peter Fisk

In writing my next book, Business Recoded, I’ve explored many fascinating stories of our changing business world, discovered some incredible organisations, and interviewed some truly inspiring leaders. I’ve also come across quite a few quirks of the system – effects and paradoxes – which, whether they are true or not, make you think. Here are a few:

• 90/9/1 Rule: 90% of social network users read content, 9% contribute a little content, 1% of users contribute almost all the content. Therefore most of the content on social media only represents a very few people.
• Abilene Paradox: A group decides to do something that no one in the group wants to do because everyone mistakenly assumes they’re the only ones who object to the idea and they don’t want to rock the boat by speaking up.
• Actor-Observer Asymmetry: We judge others based solely on their actions, but when judging ourselves we have an internal dialogue that justifies our mistakes and bad decisions.
• Anscombe’s Quartet: Four sets of numbers that look identical on paper (mean average, variance, correlation, etc.) but look completely different when graphed. Describes a situation where exact calculations don’t offer a good representation of how the world works.
• Appeal to Consequences: Arguing that a hypothesis must be true (or false) because the outcome is something you like (or dislike). The classic example is arguing that climate change isn’t real because combating climate change will hurt the economy.
• Apophenia: A tendency to perceive correlations between unrelated things, because your mind can only deal with tiny sample sizes and assuming things are correlated creates easy/comforting explanations of how the world works.
• Aumann’s Agreement Theorem: If you understand your opponent’s beliefs you cannot agree to disagree. If you agree to disagree it’s because one side doesn’t understand the other side’s view.
• Backfiring Effect: A supercharged version of confirmation bias where being presented with evidence that goes against your beliefs makes you double down on your initial beliefs because you feel you’re being attacked.
• Base Rates: The success rate of everyone who’s done what you’re about to try.
• Base-Rate Neglect: Assuming the success rate of everyone who’s done what you’re about to try doesn’t apply to you, caused by overestimating the extent to which you do things differently than everyone else.
• Behavioral Inevitability: “History never repeats itself; man always does.” – Voltaire
• Berkson’s Paradox: Strong correlations can fall apart when combined with a larger population. Among hospital patients, motorcycle crash victims wearing helmets are more likely to be seriously injured than those not wearing helmets. But that’s because most crash victims saved by helmets did not need to become hospital patients, and those without helmets are more likely to die before becoming a hospital patient.
• Bizarreness Effect: Crazy things are easier to remember than common things, providing a distorted sense of “normal.”
• Boomerang Effect: Trying to persuade someone to do one thing can make them more likely to do the opposite, because the act of persuasion can feel like someone stealing your freedom and doing the opposite makes you feel like you’re taking your freedom back.
• Bounded Rationality: People can’t be fully rational because your brain is a hormone machine, not an Excel spreadsheet.
• Braess’s Paradox: Adding more roads can make traffic worse because new shortcuts become popular and overcrowded.
• Buridan’s Ass: A thirsty donkey is placed exactly midway between two pails of water. It dies because it can’t make a rational decision about which one to choose. A form of decision paralysis.
• Chronological Snobbery: “The assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also ‘a period,’ and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions.” – C.S. Lewis
• Clustering Illusions: Falsely assuming that the inevitable bunching of random results in a large sample indicates a trend.
• Cobra Effect: Attempting to solve a problem makes that problem worse. Comes from an Indian story about a city infested with snakes offering a bounty for every dead cobra, which caused entrepreneurs to start breeding cobras for slaughter.
• Collective Narcissism: Exaggerating the importance and influence of your social group (country, industry, company, department, etc.).
• Compassion Fade: People have more compassion for small groups of victims than larger groups, because the smaller the group the easier it is to identify individual victims.
• Courtesy Bias: Giving opinions that are likely to offend people the least, rather than what you actually believe.
• Cumulative advantage: Social status snowballs in either direction because people like associating with successful people, so doors are opened for them, and avoid associating with unsuccessful people, for whom doors are closed.
• Declinism: Perpetually viewing society as in decline, because you’re afflicted by the Pollyanna Principle and you forget how much things sucked in the past.
• Denomination Effect: One hundred $1 bills feels like less money than one $100 bill. Also explains stock splits – buying 10 shares for $10 each feels cheaper than one share for $100.
• Depressive Realism: Depressed people have a more accurate view of the world because they’re more realistic about how risky and fragile life is. The opposite of “blissfully unaware.”
• Dunning-Kruger Effect: Knowing the limits of your intelligence requires a certain level of intelligence, so some people are too stupid to know how stupid they are.
• Emotional Competence: The ability to recognize others’ emotions and respond to them productively. Harder and rarer than it sounds.
• Emotional Contagion: One person’s emotions trigger the same emotions in other people, because evolution has selected for empathizing with those in your social group whose actions you rely on.
• Empathy Gap: Underestimating how you’ll behave when you’re “hot” (angry/aroused/rushed), caused by the inability to accurately foresee how your body’s physical response to situations (dopamine, adrenaline, etc.) will influence decision-making.
• Fact-Check Scarcity Principle: This article is called 100 Little Ideas but there are fewer than 100 ideas. 99% of readers won’t notice because they’re not checking, and most of those who notice won’t say anything. Don’t believe everything you read.
• False-Consensus Effect: Overestimating how widely held your own beliefs are, caused by the difficulty of imagining the experiences of other people.
• False Uniqueness Effect: Assuming your skills are unique when they’re not. Comes from conflating “I’m good at this” with “Others are bad at this.”
• Feedback Loops: Falling stock prices scare people, which cause them to sell, which makes prices fall, which scares more people, which causes more people to sell, and so on. Works both ways.
• Fluency Heuristic: Ideas that can be explained simply are more likely to be believed than those that are complex, even if the simple-sounding ideas are nonsense. It occurs because ideas that are easy to grasp are hard to distinguish from ideas you’re familiar with.
• Focusing Effect: Overemphasizing factors that seem important but exist as part of a complex system. People from the Midwest assume Californians are happier because the weather is better, but they’re not because Californians also deal with traffic, bad bosses, unhappy marriages, etc, which more than offset the happiness boost from sunny skies.
• Foundational Species: A single thing that plays an outsized role in supporting an ecosystem, whose loss would pull down many others with it. In nature: kelp, algae, and coral. In business: The Federal Reserve and Amazon.
• Founder’s Syndrome: When a CEO is so emotionally invested in a company that they can’t effectively delegate decisions.
• Fredkin’s Paradox: Confronted with two equally good options, you struggle to decide, even though your decision doesn’t matter because both options are equally good. The more equal the options, the harder the decision.
• Frequency Bias: Noticing an idea everywhere you look as soon as it’s brought to your attention in a way that makes you overestimate its prevalence.
• Friendship Paradox: On average, people have fewer friends than their friends have. Occurs because people with an abnormally high number of friends are more likely to be one of your friends. It’s a fundamental part of social network dynamics and makes most people feel less popular than they are.
• Gambler’s Ruin: Has many meanings, the most important of which is that playing a negative-probability game persistently enough guarantees going broke.
• Golem Effect: Performance declines when supervisors/teachers have low expectations of your abilities.
• Google Scholar Effect: Scientific research depends on citing other research, and the research that gets cited the most is whatever shows up in the top results of Google Scholar searches, regardless of its contribution to the field.
• Group Attribution Error: Incorrectly assuming that the views of a group member reflect those of the whole group.
• Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
• Hard-Easy Effect: Hard tasks promote overconfidence because the rewards are high and fun to dream about; easy tasks promote underconfidence because they’re boring and easy to put off.
• Hawthorne Effect: Being watched/studied changes how people behave, making it difficult to conduct social studies that accurately reflect the real world.
• Hedonic Treadmill: Expectations rise with results, so nothing feels as good as you’d imagine for as long as you’d expect.
• Historical Wisdom: “The dead outnumber the living 14 to 1, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril.” – Niall Ferguson
• Hormesis: Something that hurts you in a high dose can be good for you in small doses. (Weight on your bones, drinking red wine, etc.)
• Impostor Syndrome: Fear of being exposed as less talented than people think you are, often because talent is owed to cumulative advantage rather than actual effort or skill.
• In-Group Favoritism: Giving preference to people from your social group regardless of their objective qualifications.
• Inversion: Avoiding problems can be more important than scoring wins.
• Ironic Process Theory: Going out of your way to suppress thoughts makes those thoughts more prominent in your mind.
• Knightian Uncertainty: Risk that can’t be measured; admitting that you don’t know what you don’t know.
• Ludic Fallacy: Falsely associated simulations with real life. Nassim Taleb: “Organized competitive fighting trains the athlete to focus on the game and, in order not to dissipate his concentration, to ignore the possibility of what is not specifically allowed by the rules, such as kicks to the groin, a surprise knife, et cetera. So those who win the gold medal might be precisely those who will be most vulnerable in real life.”
• Luxury Paradox: The more expensive something is the less likely you are to use it, so the relationship between price and utility is an inverted U. Ferraris sit in garages; Hondas get driven.
• Meat Paradox: Dogs are family, pigs are food. Some animals classified as food are wrongly perceived to have lower intelligence than those classified as pets. An example of morality depending on utility.
• Middle Ground Fallacy: Falsely assuming that splitting the difference between two polar opposite views is a healthy compromise. If one person says vaccines cause autism and another person says they don’t, it’s not right to compromise and say vaccines sometimes cause autism.
• Moderating Relationship: The correlation between two variables depends on a third, seemingly unrelated variable. The quality of a marriage may be dependent on a spouse’s work project that’s causing stress.
• McNamara Fallacy: A belief that rational decisions can be made with quantitative measures alone, when in fact the things you can’t measure are often the most consequential. Named after Defense Secretary McNamara, who tried to quantify every aspect of the Vietnam War.
• Moral Luck: Praising someone for a good deed they didn’t have full control over. “Avoid calling heroes those who had no other choice.” – Taleb.
• Neglect of Probability: Arguing that Nate Silver was wrong when he said Hillary Clinton has a 70% chance of winning, and using Donald Trump’s victory as your proof. Good predictions are based on probabilities, but the assessment of predictions are always binary, right or wrong.
• Non-Ergodic: When group probabilities don’t apply to singular events. If 100 people play Russian Roulette once, the odds of dying might be, say, 10%. But if one person plays Russian Roulette 100 times, the odds are dying are practically 100%.
• Nonlinearity: Outputs aren’t always proportional to inputs, so the world is a barrage of massive wins and horrible losses that surprise people.
• Normalcy Bias: Underestimating the odds of disaster because it’s comforting to assume things will keep functioning the way they’ve always functioned.
• Ostrich Effect: Avoiding negative information that might challenge views that you desperately want to be right.
• Pareto Principle: The majority of outcomes are driven by a minority of events.
• Perfect Solution Fallacy: Comparing reality with an idealized alternative. Prevalent in any field governed by uncertainty.
• Peter Principle: Good workers will continue to be promoted until they end up in a role they’re bad at.
• Plain Folks Fallacy: People of authority acquiring trust by presenting themselves as Average Joe’s, when in fact their authority proves they are different from everyone else.
• Planck’s Principle: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
• Poisoning the Well: Presenting irrelevant adverse information about someone in a way that makes everything else that person says seem untrustworthy. “Before you hear my opponent’s healthcare plan, let me remind you that he got a DUI in college.”
• Pollyanna Principle: It’s easier to remember happy memories than bad ones.
• Positive Illusions: Excessively rosy views about the decisions you’ve made to maintain self-esteem in a world where everyone makes bad decisions all the time.
• Principle of Least Effort: When seeking information, effort declines as soon as the minimum acceptable result is reached.
• Rebound Effect: New symptoms, or supercharged old symptoms, emerge when medicine or other protections are withdrawn.
• Reflexivity: When cause and effect are the same. People think Tesla will sell a lot of cars, so Tesla stock goes up, which lets Tesla raise a bunch of new capital, which helps Tesla sell a lot of cars.
• Ringelmann Effect: Members of a group become lazier as the size of their group increases. Based on the assumption that “someone else is probably taking care of that.”
• Second Half of the Chessboard: Put one grain of rice on the first chessboard square, two on the next, four on the next, then eight, then sixteen, etc, doubling the amount of rice on each square. When you’ve covered half the chessboard’s squares you’re dealing with an amount of rice that can fit in your lap; in the second half you quickly get to a pile that will consume an entire city. That’s how compounding works: slowly, then ferociously.
• Self-Handicapping: Avoiding effort because you don’t want to deal with the emotional pain of that effort failing.
• Semmelweis Reflex: Automatically rejecting evidence that contradicts your tribe’s established norms. Named after a Hungarian doctor who discovered that patients treated by doctors who wash their hands suffer fewer infections, but struggled to convince other doctors that his finding was true.
• Skill Compensation: People who are exceptionally good at one thing tend to be exceptionally poor at another.
• Sturgeon’s Law: “90% of everything is crap.” The obvious inverse of the Pareto Principle, but hard to accept in practice.
• System Justification Theory: Inefficient systems will be defended and maintained if they serve the needs of people who benefit from them – individual incentives can sustain systemic stupidity.
• Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy: Goals set retroactively after an activity, like shooting a blank wall and then drawing a bullseye around the holes you left, or picking a benchmark after you’ve invested.
• Three Men Make a Tiger: People will believe anything if enough people tell them it’s true. It comes from a Chinese proverb that if one person tells you there’s a tiger roaming around your neighborhood, you can assume they’re lying. If two people tell you, you begin to wonder. If three say it’s true, you’re convinced there’s a tiger in your neighborhood and you panic.
• Tribal Affiliation: Beliefs can be swayed by identity and a desire to fit in over rational analysis. There is little correlation between climate change denial and scientific literacy. But there is a strong correlation between climate change denial and political affiliation.
• Weasel Words: Phrases that appear to have meaning but convey nothing tangible. “Growth was solid last quarter,” or “Many people believe.”
• Woozle Effect: “A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.” – Daniel Kahneman.

Running: it’s not what you think it is.

In 1934 a young woman named Florence Illot surpassed expectations and defied social norms by taking on a challenge and running across a famous bridge in London.

This film celebrates the way Florence ‘gave it a go’ and explores five other women’s relationships with running in London today and how it has become an integral part of all their lives. We are taken on a journey of how these women have re-coded what running really means to them, both individually and as a collective, before we witness them all come together to take on the challenge that Florence set all those years ago. The film is a true collection of the ever-growing London running community, and all it brings to the women who are part of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYAB9rWSWP4

Running is being recoded in real time by runners who are ripping it apart and sticking it back together. Runners who defy convention. Respect tradition. Who believe there is no right way to run, as long as you run.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIQWU8FoJw0

Running is being recoded by runners who respect tradition, but defy convention. Meet the Trash Runners from Shanghai, a running crew that started making a change by picking up trash in the streets and ended up challenging the whole consumption culture in their community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3Ksc-2sVLI

Two of the most innovative brands in the universe come together for a new era of innovation in space to empower athletes on Earth. Featuring Kid Cudi, Shaunae Miller-Uibo and Noah Lyles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUon4SthcDc

In the wake of record-breaking times from runners wearing Nike’s Vaporfly shoes, and new regulations from the sport’s governing body, Adidas and other brands are racing to roll out new carbon-enhanced shoes ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

The idea that businesses should look beyond the balance sheet and examine their impact on society has become increasingly mainstream. Everywhere we hear about companies increasingly not just accepting more social and environmental responsibility, but being structured around that as the defining purpose.

New philosophies and legal structures keep emerging. Most significantly is the fusion between making money and doing good. That’s important. Even the most conscious charities still need to make money to pay their core staff and fund their projects. But increasingly we see fully commercial brands embracing higher causes, which is great because the power of business, brands and consumerism is a potent force which can be channeled to change the world.

So what are the main types of organisation structures, or business models?

B Corp

Certification | For Profit
B Corps are “certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.” To apply for B Corp status, an organization must score at least 80 out of 200 on the B Impact Assessment. The Assessment measures the positive impact a company has on key stakeholders including its workers, suppliers, local community and the environment.

More: B Corporation Website | What Are B Corps?

Benefit Corporation

Legal Structure | For Profit
Benefit corporations exist to make a profit AND make a positive environmental or social impact. It’s a self-selected legal classification that gives companies the freedom to work towards a positive impact without facing lawsuits from investors concerned only with monetary dividends. Benefit corporations must release an annual benefit report in which they assess their own progress toward their social and environmental goals. This structure is not nationally recognized but so far 26 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation recognizing the benefit corporation as a legal business entity.

More: Benefit Corp Information Center | FAQ

Conscious Business Enterprises / Conscious Capitalism

Concept | For Profit
Conscious businesses operate with the awareness that their actions can either benefit or harm others, then aim to minimize the harm and maximize the benefit. They work towards a specific purpose and along the way try to foster “peace and happiness in the individual, respect and solidarity in the community, and mission accomplishment in the organization” (Fred Kofman, from Conscious Business).

More: Triple Pundit | Defining Conscious Capitalism

Cooperative

Legal Structure | For Profit / Nonprofit
Cooperatives are owned by those who staff them or by those they serve. Members, or user-owners, distribute profits and earnings amongst themselves. Some cooperatives are incorporated while others are not. The laws surrounding cooperatives vary between states, but all adopt the seven cooperative principles:
1. Voluntary and open membership
2. Democratic member control
3. Members’ economic participation
4. Autonomy and independence
5. Education, training, and information
6. Cooperation among cooperatives
7. Concern for community

More: National Cooperative Business Association | 7 Cooperative Principles
U.S. Small Business Administration | Cooperatives

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Concept | For Profit
A contemporary definition of CSR is when a company voluntarily engages in “actions that appear to further some social good” beyond the financial interests of the company and beyond actions required by law (source referenced below). The concept encourages companies to take responsibility for their actions and the impact they have on employees, the environment, consumers and others. In many ways, the idea of CSR laid the foundation for other types of socially responsible organizations to catch on and grow.

More: United Nations Industrial Development Organization | What is CSR?

Creating Shared Value (CSV)

Concept | For Profit
This business approach posits a link between the competitiveness of a company and the health of the communities around it. Companies that incorporate “doing good” into their business plans maximize value for themselves and those around them. They can accomplish good by reconceiving existing products and markets to meet social needs, consuming social goods as efficiently and productively as possible, and investing outside of their own business to resolve obstacles limiting their growth potential.

More: Harvard Business Review | Creating Shared Value

Green Business

Certification or Concept | For-profit / Nonprofit
This term can be applied in an informal sense to describe an organization operating in an environmentally conscious way OR can be used formally to mean a business with one of the many different “green” certifications.

Certifications can be sector-specific, like the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certification for fiber sourcing or geographically specific, like the Montgomery County, Maryland, Green Business Certification Program. In the U.S. organizations like Green America and The Green Business Bureau offer widely recognized certifications and resources for green businesses.

More: Green Business Network | What’s a Green Business

Hybrid Organization

Legal Structure | For-profit/ Nonprofit
Hybrid organizations combine values and approaches from the public sector, the private sector and the voluntary sector to meet a specific objective. Often, hybrid models link a for-profit company and a nonprofit counterpart, with the idea being that the revenue generated by the company can fund the initiatives of the nonprofit. For example, the Mozilla Foundation is responsible for developing the open-source browser Firefox, while the Mozilla Corporation negotiates revenue-sharing contracts with Mozilla’s search partners. The term can also be used to refer loosely to any organization working for a profit and a purpose.

More:  Stanford Social Innovation Review | In Search of the Hybrid Ideal
The New York Times | Hybrid Model for Nonprofits Hits Snags

Low-profit Limited Liability Company (L3C)

Legal Structure | For Profit
An Low-profit Limited Liability Company is a for-profit social enterprise with a primary aim of achieving a charitable mission. To attract investments from private foundations, L3Cs are designed to meet the requirements of a program related investment (PRI) from the start. L3Cs are free to distribute profits to members/owners. Currently, the model is legally recognized in only 10 states but 26 others have written authorization legislation that has not yet been introduced.

More: Triple Pundit | The L3C: A More Creative Capitalism

Triple Bottom Line Model

Concept | For Profit
Practitioners of the triple bottom line model aim to use their business operations to create positive value in the domains of people, planet and profit. For example, a clothing company might use sustainable materials like bamboo and pay those who manufacture its clothing fair wages so that it does right by the planet and its people while making a profit.

More: Indiana Business Review | The Triple Bottom Line: What Is It and How Does it Work?

Nonprofit

Legal Structure | Nonprofit
To be a nonprofit, an organization must use its surplus revenues to achieve its mission (for-profit organizations distribute surplus profits to their shareholders). A nonprofit’s surplus revenues can go towards expansion, planning, and administration. There are several types of nonprofit organizations including:

1. Public Charities – The most prevalent type of nonprofit, public charities provide free and low-cost services to those in need. They’re funded by the government, individuals, corporations and foundations.
2. Foundations – Families, communities or businesses establish foundations to sponsor programs and events and distribute funding to other nonprofits.
3. Social Advocacy Organizations – These membership-based organizations form to advance a specific belief or achieve specific objectives. Donations and membership dues fund their outreach and advocacy efforts.
4. Professional and Trade Associations – These membership-based organizations provide professionals in a specific niche with programs and services to support their professional performance and development.

More: Houston Chronicle | Small Business | Different Types of Nonprofit Organizations

Nonprofit with Earned Income

Legal Structure | Nonprofit With Profit
Whereas most nonprofits rely on donations, some incorporate a source of income to help diversify and bolster their income. For example, the Girl Scouts of the USA sell cookies and the profits go back into the organization to further its mission.

More: Inc. | The Social Entrepreneurship Spectrum: Nonprofits With Earned Income

Social Business

Concept | For Profit
As defined by the first to coin the concept “Social Business,” Muhammad Yunus, a social business is a cause-driven business whose owners operate it to achieve social objectives rather than to realize profit. In its strictest sense, Yunus states that “the investors/owners can gradually recoup the money invested, but cannot take any dividend beyond that point.” Its profits should sustain and grow the business’ positive impact on people or the environment.

So all social businesses are social enterprises, but not all social enterprises are social businesses. Weird.

More: Yunus Centre | Social Business

Social Enterprise

Concept | For Profit / Nonprofit
Social enterprises are organizations that apply commercial strategies to create positive outcomes for people and the environment. Many different kinds of organizations fall into this category including for-profits, nonprofits, cooperatives, social businesses and charities.

More: Social Enterprise Alliance | What’s A Social Enterprise?

Social Entrepreneurship

Concept | For Profit
Social entrepreneurship is an attempt to use business techniques to “act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss to improve systems, invent new approaches, and create solutions to change social for the better.” A social venture is an undertaking by a social entrepreneur that attempts to provide systemic solutions to achieve a social objective.

More: Ashoka | Social Entrepreneur
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship | What is a social entrepreneur?

Sustainable Business

Concept | For Profit
Although “sustainable business” literally means a business that can sustain its own existence, the term is used to describe businesses that work to minimize their negative impact on the environment, community, society and economy. Businesses of this kind serve the triple bottom line. By definition, they consider their impact on the environment in their business decisions and have integrated the environment’s well-being into their business operations. It used to be that sustainable business meant “green business” but the definition of sustainable business and what it’s meant to sustain has expanded rapidly over the past decade to include social and economic concerns as well as environmental.

More: The University of Vermont | What is the definition of Sustainability?
Financial Times | Definition of Business Sustainability

Brands are swamped by noise in a world of frenetic marketing, and even more chaotic social media-driven chat. It’s not easy to stand out in a world of obsessive clutter.

Innovation should be the answer, but most creative ideas still struggle to rise up, so brands try even harder to create ideas that will become talked about, spread rapidly, and become desired. Yes, it encourages gimmicks, trivial creativity that has a shellfire of days, but it also creates a story, which the brand and its more enduring products and services can potentially ride off.

The challenge of course is to ensure that the “gimmick”, and the creative execution, has some form of strategic logic behind it – understanding the mindset of the target audience (typically the mobile hugging, viral Tiktok messaging, young audience), and the values which the brand seeks to identify itself with. I’m not sure this is always the case.

In just the last week, 4 examples include:

Supreme Oreos

Oreo last week became the latest brand to link up with fashion superbrand Supreme, and follows many other Supreme collaboration including with Louis Vuitton, Commes des Garcons, Nike, Champion, and many others. The Supreme Oreos cost $8 for three of these cookies, a considerable markup considering a normal Oreo pack of 39 which sells for around $3.50. However things have gone crazy on eBay with bidding reaching $92,000.

Supreme started as an American skateboarding shop and clothing brand established in New York City in April 1994, launched by James Jebia.  The brand produces clothes and accessories and also manufactures skateboards. It’s shoes, clothing, and accessories are sold extensively in the secondary market, meaning that huge queues wait for new lines to be launched, before immediately rushing to upload them to eBay and sell for many times what they cost, such is the hyped demand for the cult brand and its collaborations.

Crystal Pepsi Diamond Ring

Pepsi has released an engagement ring made that, while sporting a lab-grown diamond, is also infused with Crystal Pepsi. The ring consists of a 1.53-carat diamond on a platinum band. Pepsi fans can tweet their ideas for the perfect proposal for a chance to win the sparkler. In the official contest rules, Pepsi says the prize is an “IGI Laboratory Grown Diamond Crystal Pepsi engagement ring” with a value of about $3,000.

According to AdWeek, the diamond “was made by boiling down Pepsi’s clear beverage to its most basic carbon form, resulting in a powder.” The powder was incorporated in the diamond-growing process. Entries must include the hashtags #PepsiProposal and #Contest, and the @Pepsi Twitter account must be tagged. They can include up to four photos and one video up to 30 seconds long. A winner will be announced on March 16.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk_AC_ofG6U

McDonalds Burger-Scented Candles

McDonalds has launched a collection of burger-scented candles. Each candle is made to replicate the scent of the ingredients that make up its quarter pounder: 100% fresh beef, ketchup, pickle, cheese, onion and sesame seed bun. the set of 6 custom scented candles celebrate the burger’s 50th anniversary being on the menu. the listing on the fan club website recommends burning all the scents at once for ‘maximum deliciousness.’

McDonald’s debuted the collection of ‘quarter pounder’ scented candles as part of its quarter pounder fan club, a series of merchandise crafted for its quarter pounder fans. other items include a quarter pounder with love locket, couples quarter pounder mittens, 2020 quarter pounder calendar, quarter pounder fan club t-shirt.

The limited-edition merchandise is available online, with items available throughout the week, according to McDonald’s. the chain also said fans can find out more about the release date of each by following McDonald’s on instagram. On February 26 McDonald’s will also be honouring a lucky city for taking its quarter pounder fandom to new heights with a special monument.

Burger King’s Mouldy Whopper

Burger King is using a mouldy Whopper in its new advertising campaign, seeking to demonstrate that its products are now free of artificial additives. The television ads – running in Europe and the US – begin with someone making a fresh burger to the sound of Dinah Washington’s song What Difference A Day Makes, and then uses a time-lapse showing it rotting over 34 days. The fast food chain says the campaign is highlighting its decision to remove artificial preservatives from the product. In a tweet , Burger King said: “The beauty of real food is that it gets ugly.”

The Whopper is topped with onions, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and pickles, all of which will contain no artificial preservatives. The firm, based in Miami, Florida, said it has removed them from the Whopper in several European countries – including France, Sweden and Spain – and around 400 of its 7,346 US restaurants. It plans to get rid of preservatives from the burger served in all of its restaurants this year. It is acknowledged as the work of ad maverick CMO Fernando Merchado. To me it just looks disgusting, and I wouldn’t want my brand to leave such a negative image in consumers’ minds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSDC4C3_16Y

Through positive wellness and personalised pharma, robotics and genetics, digital applications and patient-centric business models … the future of health is about specialisation and innovation, patient-centric solutions that are faster and more efficient. The fast-changing science is one factor, however far more significant is the convergence of pharma and biotech, insurance and hospitals, physicians and pharmacists … working together to make life better.

For just $99 we can see our life before us, with a DNA profile from 23 and Me, and as a result we go to PatientsLikeMe to find out how others have responded. We eat the best foods from GSK, and check our daily fitness with Nike+, maybe with a little help from Avumio’s diagnostic apps and online advice from Dr Koop.

If we need help, we turn to ZocDoc where a local nurse with Epocrates at his fingertips, who prescribes a standard drug from Wuxi, or a custom prescription from Genentech. A night in W Hotel’s clinic, or a surgical trip to Antalya is unlikely. Instead we spray on our L’Oreal skin protection, sip on our super-vitamin Zespri kiwi juice, and smile.

7 “gamechangers” in healthcare

The future of healthcare is personal, predictive and proactive, using advanced diagnostics so that people can themselves understand their likely conditions, and take better actions now to reduce risks or avoid illnesses. In this sense it is about positive wellbeing, rather than caring or curing. However when misfortune does strike, then care is about patients and personalisation, putting people at the heart of the medical process, supported by physicians and pharmaceuticals which are right for individuals.

• 23andMe – The $99 DNA profile could change your life
• Babylon Health – Everyone’s personal, mobile health service
• Buurtzorg – The revolutionary Dutch healthcare model
• CVS Health – From negative pharmacy to positive wellness
• Grail – To detect cancer early, when it can be cured
• One Medical – Healthcare reinvented, any service, when you need it
• Organovo – 3D printing of body parts to order

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xksm8ZGgLmw

What’s new in 2020?

Technological innovations are transforming healthcare – from the most advanced surgical procedures, to the way in which generic drugs are sold and delivered. But while all eyes are on blockchain, 3D printing, machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and internet of things (IoT),  technology is is only one part of the story. The key factor will be shifts in consumer behavior.

Putting personal information online is the new normal. And in turn, people are becoming increasingly comfortable sharing details about their lives – including their health and wellbeing. Equally, people increasingly trust digital interfaces rather than demanding human interactions in all cases.

Improved telecoms, 5G and mobile devices enable real time support:

• Stuward VU: Switzerland-based healthcare company Stuward recently launched a telemedicine application amid the roll-out of 5G. The service helps connect independent medical professionals with people seeking online consultations. It was created partly to help doctors better compete with the much larger tech companies that generally have significantly larger marketing budgets and other administrative resources at their disposal.

• Eedoctors from Switzerland has created the first virtual doctor’s office using smartphones. The company established this app to enable formal diagnoses through virtual consultations, which had been a challenge for previous telemedicine companies because of bandwidth issues and other limitations. This remote consultation service is quickly becoming a prominent healthcare trend in Switzerland and facilitates online visits with general practitioners and emergency physicians.

Data enables healthcare to be more predictive:

• Medopad is a London-based healthcare startup supported by pharmaceutical company Bayer. The company has developed an app that compiles and analyzes health data from patient wearables, mobile devices, and medical bodies to predict chronic diseases. With the use of both big data and machine learning, the startup wants to “understand, treat, and ultimately prevent ill health“. Medopad recently acquired rival Sherbit, another startup that also uses personal data collected from sensors, apps, and devices in uncovering health insights.

• AIME, which stands for artificial intelligence in medical epidemiology, is a US-based startup that uses machine learning and big data analytics to predict in real-time where and when infectious disease outbreaks will occur. The end goal is to detect outbreaks in advance and keep them in check. AIME has a bot named REDINT that scours over 40 databases of weather, geographical, and epidemiological data. According to AIME’s CEO, Dr. Helmi Zakariah, AIME’s use throughout the healthcare sector is crucial to its success. The system will be ineffective if it does not have “a continuous stream of new disease incidence data” that it can use to continue learning.

Drug distribution improves through automation and robotics

• Pensiamo, a technology spinoff of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), has recently developed CognitiveRx, a tool for predicting drug supply disruption risk. The tool was developed together with supply chain technology provider Premier. Powered by machine learning, CognitiveRx is a valuable tool that hospitals can use in the rapid identification of solutions related to purchasing and inventory. Jim Szilagy, chief supply chain officer of UPMC and Pensiamo’s CEO, says that with CognitiveRx, patients across the United States will have a higher chance of receiving the medication they need at the time they need it. US Healthcare Provider Premier will soon offer CognitiveRx to its member health systems and hospitals.

• Matternet: Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles used as a solution to logistical problems in healthcare is one of the healthcare trends in the US to watch. The United Parcel Service (UPS), for example, is currently partnering with California-based drone technology startup Matternet to work on the delivery of medical samples across WakeMed Health & Hospitals’ campus in Raleigh, North Carolina. The expectation is that with drone delivery, same-day and on-demand delivery of medical specimens and samples will be possible, and consequently, hospital costs will be reduced, and the patient experience will improve. It was in 2015 in Zurich, Switzerland, that Matternet first tested a drone delivery system for transporting pathology and blood samples. Since then, Matternet has significantly expanded its Swiss operations and has conducted over 1,700 drone flights to execute over 850 deliveries of patient samples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8NIN8dJqdc

AI is transforming making healthcare more personal and predictive

• iCarbonX is a healthcare startup that‘s created a patient data platform to collect patient information, and monitor, understand, analyze, and improve the lives of its users through technology. The platform uses AI combined with the patients’ medical history, behavioral, and biological data to create a map of human health based on information collected from patients all over the world. The information collected is then used to learn from diseases, classify conditions, make more accurate diagnoses, and provide better treatments.

• PathAI is one of the top startups disrupting the healthcare industry with AI. PathAI’s goal is to use AI to improve cancer diagnosis and solve pathology problems. PathAI uses data collected over many years and combines it with AI to integrate technologies that improve decision-making and treatment. According to Adhitya Khosla, CTO of the company, PathAI will help pathologists through algorithms that extract images from the clients’ blood, tissues, or scans to detect cancer, decreasing the rate of human error, and detecting cancer earlier.

 

The 2020s will be a decade of transformation. It will be a decade of shifting power, driven by incredible technologies, connected and intelligent, which are accelerating the economic and political shifts across the world, but are also needed to address the resource and demographic changes which we see from climate change to ageing populations.

A world that is connected more across nations, also sees a huge shift in the nature of power.

The future of power … a tipping point, from hard to soft power

Power used to be “hard” – driven by hierarchy and control – now it is primarily “soft” – more human and social.

Hard power belonged to a world defined by border, by institutions and hierarchies – prescriptive and rational, seeking control and stability. Soft power belongs to a world defined by connections, trust and collaboration – personal and emotional, seeking action and progress.

Nations were effectively a construct of hard power. They defined independence, boundaries and defensiveness. But trust in all forms of institutions – most notably governments – has declined. People generally distrust the old hierarchies, and instead turn to other like them to trust more. We see this in business, the rise of influence, word of mouth, and communities. Tribes, be they in the form of friends, social networks, diasporas, organisations, shared passions, have little respect for these old boundaries.

Indeed what is a nation, when these boundaries blur, when cities become melting pots of multi-cultures and ethnicities; when most businesses see themselves as multi-nationals, with global audiences largely digital; when most sports are global activities, take eSports with 2.2 billion players who have no sense of nationalism; when the biggest issues in the world are global issues, and need urgent responses by countries working together?

Who do people turn to in a world of change? They turn to the people, the organisations, maybe even the nations, who inspire hope, who facilitate solutions, and drive progress.

We are at a tipping point, from hard to soft power.

If nations want to play in a world of soft power, they need to act differently. Hard power, from military forces to economic sanctions, was asserted. Soft power is in the hands of people, and has to be earned.

Download the full article The Future of Power: Megatrends and Metapower by Peter Fisk 

Global Soft Power Index 2020 … China’s rising star, UAE’s future potential

Brand Finance today launched a new Global Soft Power Index, based on a huge research study of 50,000 people, and many experts, across the world. It explored the awareness, influence and reputation of nations, and more importantly what they were doing in the different dimensions of soft power.

The index was built around a construct of 7 pillars of soft power. To me, these pillars were more the legacy of a hard power world, where nations could still assert their actions on the world, rather than engage with the new sources of power. The index delivered a rather predictable ranking of nations, largely because the details were scaled up by GDP and so big nations dominated.

USA unsurprisingly came out as the world’s #1 soft power. Yes it has huge influence across the world, economically and militarily, but equally in terms of aspects like entertainment and sport. But its reputation has been hugely tarnished by crude and isolationist politics, and its soft power has certainly declined from what it was. Germany and UK followed, the former built on its technical excellence of recent decades, whilst UK’s diplomacy and heritage still shines for some. In both these cases, their soft power is looking increasingly fragile amidst the global shifts in power, and changing positions in the world.

More interesting were the rising stars of the global stage.

China, in fifth place, is likely to be a leader in years to come. Whilst the huge nation is far from homogenous – 34 of the world’s 45 megacities sit within its borders – it is also highly influential in a world of change. And whilst there are many elements of hard power – City Brains and social credits, for example – there is much soft too. Carrot and stick. Chinese businesses are the most exciting innovators today. A few hours in Shanghai or Shenzhen will transform your worldview, with businesses form Alibaba to Bytedance, Tencent to Wanda, transforming the worlds of technology, retail, media, entertainment and more. The Belt and Road Initiative is a story of soft power, building connections across the nations to enable trade and help many nations to grow.

Other rising stars include South Korea – where the “Hallya”, or Korean Wave, from the world’s most popular music band BTS to Oscar-winning Parasite – has changed the way in which people see the nation; Sweden and Denmark, leading the way in sustainable practices – take Orsted, for example, the Danish energy company that transformed itself from 95% carbon-based, to zero-carbon within 10 years, showing what is possible, and becoming the “world’s most sustainable company” this year.

And smaller nations like UAE are sparkling in this new world too. In December, I was working at the Ministry of Possibilities in Dubai (How many nations have one of those?) In it, I met their Minister for AI (How many have one of those?) UAE is choosing to focus on the future, just as it seeks to demonstrate at Expo 2020 this year. It does not need to do everything itself, but can be much more of a global hub, just like its airline, Emirates. With a focus on driving the tech-enabled future, it becomes a hub of ideas, a hub of knowledge, a hub of talent. This is a soft power strategy to build a nation’s future.

Download the full report Global Soft Power Index 2020 by Brand Finance   

Global Soft Power Summit 2o20 … Ban Ki-moon’s passionate call for collaboration

The new index was launched today at the summit, where it was fabulous to contribute alongside a host of other experts from across nations and diverse perspectives. Brand Finance’s David Haigh kicked off by demonstrating the shifting nature of hard, soft and economic power – how economies have risen as armies have declined.

The British Council’s Sir Ciaran Devane talked about trust, despite its decline in governments, and the power of stories. Seb Coe, President of World Athletics, made a passionate argument for how sport changes societies, from Jesse Owens to Black Power, Moscow to Qatar.  And Omar Salha talked about the power of new forms of diplomacy – from fashion to gastro-diplomacy.

Most significant, was former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon’s keynote, that combined pride in his home nation’s soft power, and passion for a world to come together and solve the most desperate problems it faces today.

Here are some of his best quotes:

• “In a time of increasing nationalism, I’m of the view that soft power is now of more importance than ever … it matters more than ever amidst nationalism, uncertainty and transnational issues”
• “Soft power builds bridges and brings the world together … for peaceful, inclusive, resilient societies.  Soft Power can help peace and development goals, including the SDGs“
• “3 key UN pillars – peace and security, sustainable development and human rights – are all in line with objectives of soft power. Soft Power can bring people together through cooperation and partnership.”
• “I respectfully call on all of you here today to play your part in continuing to center the UN’s global goals in your ongoing work to leverage soft power”
• “Soft Power, as opposed to hard power, reinforces constructive cooperation and partnership. It transcends borders, builds bridges and brings the world together. Hard power coerces”
• “Donald Trump has been reckless and irresponsible in choosing not to embrace some of the biggest issues in the world today, preferring to retreat and become isolationist”
• “Governments and organisations like UN and WHO must work together to address issues like coronavirus. The initial measures from China might have been insufficient, inadequate so that’s why it has spread without any stopping.”

 

Download the full article The Future of Power: Megatrends and Metapower by Peter Fisk 

Download the full report Global Soft Power Index 2020 by Brand Finance   

• Download the full article The Future of Power: Megatrends and Metapower by Peter Fisk 
• Download the full report Global Soft Power Index 2020 by Brand Finance   

We live in a time of incredible change. Dramatic, pervasive, and relentless. More change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years. The challenges are numerous, the opportunities are greater. Incredible technologies transforming our lives and work, expectant consumers and disruptive competitors, power shifts economically and culturally, climate crisis and social distrust. The 2020s will be a decade of transformation.

The 2020s will be a decade of transformation. It will be a decade of shifting power. Whilst we used to think of power as hard and hierarchical, new power is soft and social. I call it “Meta Power” because it goes beyond our traditional sources of power, and boundaries of control. In particular it goes beyond nations, beyond the power nodes and codes of the past.

Megatrends and Metapower

Meta power is not about having the largest army, it is about having the best story. It harnesses the new structures of our society, and is achieved through inspiration and influence. It comes from the voice of people who are loved and respected. It is the emotion stirred through culture and sport. It is the actions that positively contribute to a better society, healthier and happier. It is less tangible and less structural, more human and collaborative. It is a pull not a push, a carrot not a stick.

Thunberg is more respected than Trump, U2 has more influence than the UN, Messi is more followed than Macron. Leaders realise that social media is more effective than press releases, nations realise that culture is more potent than politics, media realise that people love stories of real people beyond celebrity. The best brands win through word of mouth rather than advertising, music and movies are promoted through immersive experiences.

Think of the power of social media in driving the Arab Spring, which no nation was able to influence or contain. Think about reality television which immerse people in trivial yet everyday lives. Think about the most memorable Olympic stories: Jesse Owens as he underminded Hitler in Berlin, Eric “the Eel” Moussambani who have never swum in a pool before Sydney, or Sarah Attar, who ran in London in a headscarf, and inspired the liberation of women in Saudi Arabia.

We are only starting to appreciate the seismic nature of change in our world, technologically and socially, and how it is changing the very concepts of power.

We are all familiar with how the smartphone has transformed the way we live, how we shop and connect, how we work and learn, how we vote and identify ourselves. The rising economies of Asia, its new brands and new middle class, transform business, but also the power behind movies, fashion, and sports. Jurassic Park to Harvey Nichols, Volvo Cars to Weetabix. We might be concerned about Huawei, we should probably be more concerned about TikTok, and its disruptive impact on our children. Indeed, artificial intelligence will be the most powerful transformative force of all, with its applications from genetic recoding to self-learning machines.

Take a look at three megatrends shaping our decade ahead, and the consequences for power, be it for nations, and also for entities that exist beyond or across nations:

• Cities and tribes are the new the power nodes

Rapid urbanisation is redefining our world, the nature of markets and nations. 1.5 million more people live in cities every week. By 2025, Asia will be home to 33 of the world’s 49 megacities, of over 10 million people. In fact China expects to have 200 cities with a population of over one million people by 2025. To tackle overcrowding in Beijing, China is building a new city – Xiongan New Area – from scratch 100km southwest of the capital. Delhi will replace Tokyo as the world’s largest city, whilst all 10 of the world’s fastest growing cities will be in India, with the port of Surat growing fastest of all.

Economic growth is driving the rise of a new global middle class, 3.2 billion people today, growing across Asia to 5.3 billion by 2030, the world’s fastest growing market. At the same time, people have migrated across the world. Nations are increasingly heterogeneous, multi-cultural and diverse. Over 350 million people live in a different country from their birth, a number that will triple in 10 years. Diasporas and tribes, driven by culture or religion, a love of hip hop or running will spread across the world, dispersed but connected.

“Meta power” lies in the new communities of cities, and the global tribes of the future.

• Social issues are the new power drivers

Environmental threats are intensifying, challenging our desire for industrialisation and progress, demanding a new balance between short- and long-term impacts. As individuals and brands embrace more resource-efficient behaviours, from bike-sharing to material recycling, social and environmental issues have become critical drivers of decision making. 66% of consumers, including 73% of millennials, say they will pay more for environmentally-friendly products.

Last year Formula 1 pledged to become carbon-neutral by 2030, and to make all grand prix sustainable by 2025. For a sport that produces 225,000 tonnes of CO2 each session, and transports 10 teams to 21 races around the globe, this is a huge commitment, and demonstrates the shift in society’s priorities. In a world under threat, people seek positive solutions, authenticity and hope, more human and sustainable solutions. Economic inequality is at an all-time high, whilst trust in all types of institutions is at an all-time low.

“Meta power” lies in stories of humanity, and improved lives and social progress.

• Technology platforms are the new power brokers

Connective technology means that by 2020 there will be 7 times as many connected devices as people on the planet. The power of networks, formal and informal, grows exponentially, as we can see from the rise of new platform-based companies – Alibaba to Amazon, Airbnb to Netflix. They thrive as exchanges, fuelled by immense amounts of data. 90% of all data on the planet was created in the last 2 years. Intelligence accelerates growth, through personal relevance and precision influence. These businesses realise that they don’t need to be big to be powerful, instead they are smart and collaborative. Maybe this is a model for the future of nation power.

AI accelerates the data trend, from driverless cars to smart homes, personalised medicines to brain-linked controls. 90% of stock market trading is now done by algorithm. Look too at the addictive power of participation through technology – 2.2 billion people now participate in eSports, more than any other social activity, whilst games like Fortnite drive youth culture and aspiration.

“Meta power” lies in the hyper-connectedness and intelligence achieved through technologies, augmenting and fusing with the real world.

Welcome to a new power generation

“Hard power” succeeded in a world of borders and controls. It is aggressive and coercive, imposed through physical size and strength. “Soft power” is more effective in a world of connections and cooperation. It is more engaging and influential, independent of physicality. Meta power goes further, it harness the new structures and dynamics of a changing world.

We have reached a tipping point. The notion of power has changed, and its effectiveness.

Nations are wasting huge amounts of public money on traditional forms of hard power such as military interventions and economic sanctions, increasingly ineffective in today’s world. Instead they should refocus investments into activities that have a positive influence on other nations, communities and individuals.

Soft power activities, such as more cultural and sporting investment, more humanitarian and environmental support, deliver a better return on their investments, enabling nations to influence their stakeholders and build positive national reputations with enlightened influence.

Meta power goes beyond nations, but can be embraced by them.

In a world of blurred boundaries and multicultural tribes, power lies in the new stories of society – the sports teams we love, the influencers we follow, the movies we watch, the people who reflect our aspirations. This new power transcends nationalism, it embraces globalism, but in relevant ways. It gives individual people the freedom to choose how they are influenced.

Perhaps the most potent source of power in today’s world is change itself. Embrace the changing world, its new structures and codes, and become more powerful. Neglect it, and your power will rapidly diminish.

Change is power, because it is the story of the future, which any one of us can write, and shape to our advantage.

© Peter Fisk 2020

The Global Soft Power Index 2020 is the world’s most comprehensive soft power study, developed by Brand Finance, surveying opinions of over 50,000 people in more than 85 countries.

It specifically explores the ranking of nations, built on a new model of six power drivers. It seeks to understand the relative standing of countries by publics around the world, how effectively they build this new power, and what they can do to better more effective.

The Global Soft Power Summit 2020 will explore what does foreign policy success look like? Is soft power at the heart of diplomacy? Are we witnessing a shift in global soft and hard power dynamics? What are the key drivers of soft power? Is hard power making a resurgence?

Peter Fisk, global thought leader on strategy and innovation, explores the changing nature of power. He will look forwards to the future, making sense of the megatrends driving society and business, to understand where is power heading, and how can it be built and deployed for the future.

Other speakers include:

• Ban Ki-Moon, 8th Secretary-General, United Nations
• Sebastian Coe, President, World Athletics
• Sir Ciarán Devane, CEO, British Council
• Dr Yu Jie, Asia-Pacific Programme, Chatham House
• David Haigh, CEO, Brand Finance
• Mishal Husain. International Broadcaster

There are two summits, in London and Oxford. Free tickets by email softpower@brandfinance.com … Details below: