Strands of Genius: Can 9 Year Olds Predict The Future Better Than ‘Experts’, Is Growth Even Good, What Is Life

Guest curated by James Addlestone, Head of Data Arts @ Saatchi London

Nov 07, 2024

:: A BIT MORE ABOUT GUEST CURATOR, JAMES ADDLESTONE ::

LOCATION: North Yorkshire, UK

Hi, I’m James - Head of Data Arts at Saatchi London.

I met Faris courtesy of a video I’d posted on LinkedIn which, fittingly, he was looking to steal. After being introduced by a couple of mutual friends, I had a chat with Faris and left feeling inspired and energised (anyone who has spoken to Faris even briefly must surely relate).

But I was also left thinking ‘marketing really is complex’. In some ways, uniquely so.

Consider this. Knowledge of the following will almost certainly help you become a better marketer:

A history of art. Neuroscience. Poetry. How tech platforms work. A history of measurement. Cult films. Anthropology. TikTok. How to read a balance sheet. Semiotics. Change management. Choice architecture.

I think that’s in part the genius behind Strands of Genius. We simply have to rely on those we trust to feed us curated knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines. Nobody could have the time to deepdive into each and every subject matter needed to be a great marketer.

So without further ado - here are my hopefully fittingly wide-ranging links…

Editor’s Note (Genius Steals): Marketing is many things, but predictable? Not even close. Our guest curator this week, James Addlestone, gets it—sometimes the best insights come from the most unexpected places. Faris had a blast catching up with James (and hopes James wasn’t too late because of him)!

From letting nine-year-olds try their hand at predicting the future to rethinking whether economic growth is all it’s cracked up to be, James’s picks serve up the kind of perspective shifts we love. Who knew that marketing wisdom could come from debates over life’s randomness or the surprising accuracy of kids’ predictions? So dive in, buckle up, and enjoy James’s wide-ranging curation. Here’s to rethinking the rules!

:: THE LINKS ::

CAN 9 YEAR OLDS PREDICT THE FUTURE BETTER THAN ‘EXPERTS’?

Part of the complexity of marketing is identifying our own personal biases - acknowledging that sometimes instinct trumps over-thinking. This hit home recently when I read a book called Superforecasting by Tetlock (which in part shows that whilst there are some genuinely great forecasters, normally these aren’t ‘experts in the field’) and the same week came across a book written by children in 1999 trying to predict events in the new millennium. It only takes 15 minutes of scanning reports over the past 20 years to realise how poor we are at predicting the future. Sometimes listening to kids, who generally don’t have the strongly held assumptions we often erroneously hold as adults, is a helpful research mechanic. Here’s a video of predictions made by kids in the 1990s, and a bonus link to an article by ‘experts’ in The Guardian. I’ll let you decide who came closest… (YouTube & The Guardian )

IS GROWTH EVEN GOOD?

I studied economics at university. The course outline can be roughly summed up as follows:

Year 1: Here are some really important assumptions about how the economy works
Year 2: Here are some really complicated models using maths to show what happens to the economy when things change, based on those assumptions
Year 3: Oh and by the way, all those assumptions are wrong and we still don’t really know what’s going on.

In fact, possibly the most important assumption in economics - which was never explicitly taught but was simply assumed as a perennial truth - was that growth is good.

If we optimise towards the wrong metrics, it’s no surprise that we end up with the wrong outcomes. And in a world increasingly driven by AI, where optimisation is often the name of the game, it’s more important than ever to have clarity on what, if anything, we are truly optimising against.

(Fortunately lots of changes have been made to how economics is taught. From ‘Doughnut Economics’ through to ‘Behavioural Economics’, pioneered by the late and great Daniel Kahnemann.) (KK.org)

WHAT IS LIFE?

I was lucky enough to see Phillip Ball do a similar talk live a few weeks ago. I love this talk (and the book itself of course) for two reasons.

Because it shows us just how much agency and randomness exists even at a cellular level. If we can’t accurately predict what is going on at the most granular level, it’s naive to think that any amount of data can help us truly understand the chaotic world we live in. All we can do is get as close to the truth as possible…
Because it showed me just how much we have learnt even within a generation, and how little we probably do know about the world. Most of what I read in the book was contrary to what I was taught at school. I love this because it makes me excited at just how much the next generation will know relative to us and how advanced - especially with AI as a copilot - our thinking might become. Our very understanding of gene theory, for example, is likely to evolve (pun intended) as a result of this thinking alone.

This talk also gave me more licence to realise it’s within all of our gifts to challenge prevailing theory, and I hope it does the same for you. (YouTube; The Royal Institution)

Looking for more from James? Coming Friday, look for an interview from him in your inbox!

:: AND NOW… SOME FAST FAVORITES ::

:: Game :: Risk

:: City :: York (the old one)

:: A LITERAL REPRESENTATION OF MY JOB TITLE ::

Please reach out on LinkedIn.

Hopefully speak soon!

-James

Strands of Genius is currently read by more than 15,000 subscribers. Support us by sponsoring an issue, encouraging friends or colleagues to subscribe.

It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.

Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based out of Washington, our company is registered in Tennessee, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.

Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)

Strands of Genius