Strands of Genius: WARC Webinar, OutOfOffice Hours, Fearless Strategy, Netflix Party, Fictional Characters Reacting to COVID
plus: three opportunities to hang out with us this week, our thoughts on being better when we're apart, bounded rationality, efficiencies and resilience in business
WRITING FROM | Beersheba Springs, TN
WORKING ON | finishing touches for our WARC webinar on Weds!
LOOKING AHEAD
March 21-April 16: Beersheba Springs, TN
April 16-May 22: Greenville, SC
˗ˏˋ THREE OPPORTUNITIES TO CONNECT WITH US THIS WEEK ˊˎ˗
April 15th: WARC Webinar | (Register here)
TOPIC: Push, Pull, Pause or Pivot: Strategy in the Time of COVID
April 17th: 8a PT / 10a ET / 3p GMT | (30GBP, Register Here - Link to the talk below)
TOPIC: Uncertainty is the Problem, Fearless Strategy is the Solution (Rosie)
(for: entrepreneurs & freelance marketers)
TOPIC: Reframing Disabilities, The Secret Superpower of Creativity and Collaboration (Ashley)April 17th: 9a PT / 12p ET / 5p GMT | via ZOOM
TOPIC: Office Hours | Challenging Conventions, with special guest Asad Shaykh
Email Ashley@GeniusSteals.co if you’d like to be included on the calendar invite,
or click the link above to be taken into our ZOOM waiting room
:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::
These are our final few days in Beersheba Springs, TN, and for the first time in seven years, we’ve seen the seasons change, y’all. Seriously. Faris and I couldn't believe it. We came here and the trees were empty and we could see our neighbors. Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve pointed out green buds on the trees, and then leaves, and now a few flowers. And now, there’s so much green, we can’t see our neighbors. We’ve been incredibly lucky to get to stay here for the past few weeks, but it’s prime time in the Cumberland Mountains, and this is a shared space, so we’re handing it back over to the fam. On Wednesday, we’re heading to Greenville, SC to spend the rest of our quarantine with Rachel & Mike. (You might remember them from our Whole30 adventure, or from being some of our best friends.) We’re feeling guilty about moving in with friends because of the whole isolation recommendations, but when you are nomadic and had planned to be elsewhere until October, you do the best you can with what you’ve got!
And for those of you looking for an update on our neighbor, Steve: We returned his Tupperware from his elk stew, and brought him a Whole30 recipe: Pork Roll In A Bowl (you’re welcome). He came back two days ago raving about it, and brought us chicken & dumplins. When I asked him how he was doing and if we could do anything for him, he mentioned that he had to go for an MRI this week. “Never drank or smoke a day in my life, but they found nodes on my lungs.” I told him I was sorry to hear that, but had to follow up with, “You never drank or smoked?! What was your vice, Steve?” “Women,” he said, with a big grin spreading across his face. It cracked me up, and he laughed too, clarifying, “But not anymore. I’m 83 now.” So, we aren’t sure what we are more sad to leave: the family house, or our food exchange & growing friendship with Steve!!
This week, we’re especially thankful for:
Madison’s birthday secret date night, a Seamless Easter Sunday, butter chicken casserole (India x Betty Crocker), more postcard making, homemade waffles (from my all-time, favorite mix, ever) walks around the block, Steve, cleaning pantries, 3%, ZOOM dates (duh), yoga, yoga, yoga, and of course, YOU!
Genius Steals x Out-of-Office Hours | Challenging Conventions
April 17th @ 9a PT / 12p ET / 5p GMT with special guest Asad Shaykh
We’re hosting a ZOOM chat with our friend Asad, who is the Creative Strategist for London Pride. He’s worked with brands like Vodaphone, Coca Cola, and UNIQLO amongst others, and he’s mentored many in our industry. Join the ZOOM to hear us talk about how challenging conventions has served us well, and how you might leverage some of our practices in your own life. (Email ashley@geniussteals.co to be added to the invite, or join the ZOOM virtual waiting room here.)
:: THE LINKS ::
ICYMI: WARC WEBINAR: PUSH, PULL, PAUSE, PIVOT?
On Wednesday, April 15th, we’ll be hosting a Warc Webinar called Push, Pull, Pause or Pivot: Strategy in the Time of COVID. Humans are wired to have difficulty with uncertainty - and strategy is our coping tool. Because at its core, strategy is about allocating finite resources for competitive advantage in conditions of uncertainty. With COVID conversations abound, uncertainty has increased, leading marketers to wonder if they should pull, pause, or pivot?We’ll return to your screens to give you tools and frameworks you can use to help navigate your next move. (WARC)
WATCH WITH YOUR FRIENDS: NETFLIX PARTY
Social norms are going to have to change, for an as yet to be determined amount of time. One published paper the CDC references suggests that the only way they suppression strategy works (social distancing, self-isolation) is if we do it not just until a vaccine is created, but readily available. Best guest from doctors on the former is 14-18months at minimal, and that’s just to finish testing. We’re crossing our fingers for a better outcome, but until we hear otherwise, we’re trading movie nights with friends for NetflixParty, which allows you to stream and chat, with synced start times. Right now, this is only available as a Chrome extension, but it seems likely that other companies will create something similar for other browsers. (NetflixParty)
We’re curious — any other tools/apps/resources that during this time you’re finding especially helpful?
IF I WROTE A COVID EPISODE (30 ROCK, FRASIER AND MORE)
The Vulture asks Tina Fey, Mike Schur and 35 other TV writers to imagine a COVID episode, with the characters they’ve developed. There’s a lot to get lost in. (The Vulture)
:: WHAT WE’RE THINKING ABOUT: BOUNDED RATIONALITY AND EFFICIENCY VS RESILIENCE ::
Despite what economists like to model, humans aren’t perfectly rational, and we can’t be… for perfectly rational reasons ;) Perfect ratiocination requires perfect information, which we can never have. (Rosie’s note: yes, ‘ratiocination’ is a word, and yes, I often have to look up what Faris is talking about. Ratiocination means ‘to form a judgement by the process of logic and reason.’)
We have limited time in which to make a decision, which is another limiting factor. Finally, we are only ever us, with all that entails. We have limitations in the cognitive and bias boundaries of our minds, meaning we make decisions in the same circumstances that another wouldn’t, or couldn’t.
In a rapidly changing scenario, the situation changes, rapidly, [by definition, lol]. That means situational awareness is fraught with anxiety, because new information is coming in very fast. It also means the context which informs the decisions were made is changing rapidly, which necessarily requires changing the strategy. There are limited priors that can inform us accurately as to what is going to happen, as well as vast amounts of misinformation in the system already.
Armchair epidemiologists all over have taken to twitter to complain about whoever’s approach. It’s clear that some countries are experiencing more second and third order system level shocks than others, because those countries managed to suppress the spread of the virus faster, and have more robust health and social care infrastructure.
The modern neo-liberal economies operate on a principle of efficiency. In part, this is efficiency as an approach to business. Efficiency in a business context often being: stripping costs as aggressively as possible, through outsourcing, automation, challenging regulation through lobbying, and union busting.
However, it is also about the efficient allocation of capital. Since interest rates have been negligible for years, capital needs to be constantly reallocated to generate returns. That’s why, when US corporations received a massive windfall from changes in the tax code, they used these profits to buy back their own shares.
The structural and tax incentives do not reward companies for investing in the future or their own people.
What the crisis exposes so starkly, is that efficiency and resilience are limiting factors on each other.
Using just-in-time supply chains and short-term credit to fund cash flow is fine when everything is going well, but problematic when there are large, rapid changes in the global transport infrastructure, demand, and credit availability.
Business resilience requires redundancies - a second pilot and a second jet engine (even though you only need one of each) makes flying safer, for example. But cash, or a lack thereof, is the great leveler. The biggest U.S. airlines, including American, United, Delta and Southwest, have spent 96% of free cash flows to repurchase stock during the past decade, according to a Bloomberg News analysis. That leaves little for a rainy day.
Using the boundaries of their rationality, managers, investors and whole economies make decisions about what is likely to happen and act accordingly. Since unusual events happen rarely, it is reasonable for a commercial entity to heavily discount them, and thus leave itself unprepared for system level shocks. It is inherently inefficient to have backups, or a lot of liquidity, right until you need them.
Boundaries also exist on behavior, in the form of incentives and regulations. When the incentives work they way they currently do without regulation, the system becomes increasingly fragile, running hot, when each actor is behaving rationally. Crises expose fragilities and strengths.
:: AND NOW… CHRIS CAIRNS X JACK JOHNSON REMIND YOU THAT IT’S NOT ALWAYS BETTER WHEN WE’RE TOGETHER ::
our friend Chris put this brilliant reminder together <3
We’re still here, on the other end of this email, but forgive us if it takes a little longer than usual for us to respond. We appreciate you, and hope you are staying safe and as sane as possible. We’re sending you big hugs from the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee.
rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co
@faris is always tweeting
@rosieyakob & @ashley hang out on instagram
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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 :)