Pitfall: Newsletter Edition
Happy Spring/Fall,
When I was but a young futurist to be in the early-to-middling 1980s, the image above was what I looked at during most non-school hours. The also ancient among you might quickly ID this a screenshot from Pitfall, an Atari classic. It was a sidescroller, consistently mostly of swinging and jumping and grabbing the occasional shiny object, all while running ahead. So, essentially independent commerce.
This has also been our experience running a moderately successful but small consulting group, particularly when it comes to the various softwares and web-based platforms which contain important parts of our business. Bookmarking and research tools sunset, APIs are closed off, links break, protocols get broken and data streams severed. As we talk about in “How to Future,,” our scanning tools migrate every few years, for example. We’re on our third accounting platform, with the previous one just ceasing to do business in Europe due to new regulations. Our bank stopped offering accessible data feeds of activity a while back. At a certain size, mass and disposition, you’re always running and jumping, trying to stay clear of the technology crocodiles snapping at you, and just trying to maintain.
As you may notice, this newsletter is coming to you via a different provider, Buttondown. If you subscribed in the past few years, do would have done so via Substack. The veteran subs among you may recall a short-lived Tinyletter from Changeist around 2014-2015. Substack worked, but it also came with an increasing amount of baggage. We didn’t like that baggage, so we’ve migrated again, subscription lists, archives and all. All GDPR compliant as far as we can tell.
If you would like to carry on hearing from us 4-5 times a year, do nothing. If you wish to unsubscribe, fair. Otherwise, look for the newsletter with this look and feel until some technical or moral debt accrues to the point it’s neccesary to pack off to yet another service provider.
In the meantime, drop us a line from time to time. Let us hear how the future is looking from where you sit. Tomorrow at 6PM CET, we will be on Clubhouse in Uncertainty Club discussing whether and how the future is coming back as recovery stirs in some quarters. Find out more here. This should be a fun discussion, and as with newsletters, we’ll continue to occasionally use Clubhouse as a conversation space while it has value.
Strategic Storyforms US/Canada
This is a last reminder of our upcoming Strategic Storyforms workshop for US and Canada, 21-23 April, running online on EDT. We’re now in pre-read time. Remember, if you are signing up two or more individuals from the same organization, we can offer a code for a 20% discount on all registrations for that organization. Contact us directly and let us know how many participants you plan to register, and we will send a discount code for your organization to use.
Thanks as always for your support and interest. Stay safe, get vaccinated if you are able, or help someone else in need.
Scott
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