Theresa May went to Salzburg this week looking to find common ground with the EU on her Chequers plan. Instead, that plan was roundly rejected. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, noted that an agreement was still possible. But he said it would not happen under the terms of May’s plan. With Chequers […]
Is it Time to Curb the Technology Bandwagon?
Technology is a broad concept. We tend to think of it in terms of the flashy new devices, but it’s so much more than that. Generally speaking, it’s a lever through which we apply knowledge to gain benefits. Major advances throughout human history are obvious reminders of the things tech has enabled. From the time […]
Story-Based Holistic Design
A framework for sustainable, participatory design… The Human-Centered Design (HCD) framework facilitates change. I designed Story-Based Holistic Design (SBHD) as an update to HCD to help improve the sustainability of design outcomes. SBHD differs from HCD in three ways. SBHD integrates system thinking processes with the existing processes in the Human-Centered Design framework.Storytelling is included throughout the […]
Will Robots Do Our Work?
For millennia, everything was done by human hand and so a good work ethic was an important value to ingrain into society. The field was not going to sow itself, nor would the house be self-built. Each had to pull their own weight to ensure their basic needs were met.
Since the first stone tools were used, technology has been augmenting work. It typically creeps in at a pace that is not broadly disruptive, but it occasionally lurches forward in periods we call “industrial revolutions”.
Crashing into Reality: the Brexit Deadline Approaches
Politicians have played fast and loose with the truth in recent years. Yes, they have long, if not always, had challenges keeping their stories fully-aligned with the truth, but the stuff we’ve been witnessing seems to be something of a different sort from what we were long used to.
Are the productivity gains from tech fading?
I’ve struggled with an idea for a while, the idea that economic productivity gains from technology are stalling out. Productivity in general had a good run leading up to the Great Recession, but the long run average has faded ever since (as shown in this graph from the FT). Productivity was long a key metric […]
Are Guns the Problem?
Are guns the problem? It's time to have an honest conversation. https://t.co/WhTJyQE9HQ — Governor Matt Bevin (@GovMattBevin) February 16, 2018 Kentucky’s governor Matt Bevin gave a short interview to the Cincinnati Enquirer about the issue of guns in America. Below is the CC transcript of the interview from YouTube. (Hence the lack of punctuation.) I’ve […]
Confessions of an Independent Publisher (who learns everything the hard way)
About five years ago, the idea of becoming an independent publisher, one that focused on humanity’s biggest challenges, took hold of me. It was an intoxicating vision. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, but publishing thought-provoking books on such challenges was just the kind of work I wanted to do. I had no idea what I was […]