S05E01: The New New Normal

Welcome to a new year - I hope you've been having a good start of it.

You'll notice this installment of Connection Problem is titled S05E01. Season 4 kinda-sorta fizzled out quietly late last year, so I'm taking this opportunity for a new mini-reset. Let's start over, shall we? Welcome to 2019!

We spent New Years Eve fleeing the city, out in a large house in a very, very small town with a bunch of friends: It was a large groups, somewhat scary numbers of little kids were involved. It was in a building from the 17th century, now run by an honest-to-god commune that rents this out as a space for retreats and seminars. They sold their own organic vegetables next door. Welcome to 2019.

So there's some housekeeping to do ("what happened last month"), and some pondering for things ongoing and soon-maybe-to-be-ongoing. I'm just re-emerging from a few months that were a bit of a haze in that it was a lot of work and some extra strain on sleep and other restorative rituals, what with two people working across time zones and large networks while taking care of a baby at home. But you know as well as we do that we like it that way, and also daycare for little K is starting so we can settle into a less rigorous shift system going forward, which means that things are bound to flow a little smoother still. Welcome to 2019.

So some of these thoughts are riding the tail end of this phase, being a bit jumbled; rough gems, hopefully, or maybe a few rocks that just looked promising at first glance but will turn out to be duds. You'll have noticed by now that I'm heavily mixing metaphors today, and may be over-extending some. That, too, is 2019.

So, to business.* (See my note at the end of this email.)

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I'm writing this from my hotel room on Saturday afternoon after two days of event craziness: I co-hosted the annual ThingsCon conference in Rotterdam; although I was so distracted by also launching the Trustable Technology Mark that all credit there goes to the team on the ground around Iskander, Monique, Marcel, Dries, Pieter and the gang. A big thank you there! So I'm kind of hiding in the hotel after intense socializing, media work and heavy multi-tasking, finishing up some presentations for the next stops on this trip, but also with an officially launched Trustmark to show for - and hence very happy indeed. Let's dive in, shall we?

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What's been happening last month

Most of this was already covered in the last installment of 2018, so just the quickest of re-caps:

We launched the Trustable Technology Mark at ThingsCon Rotterdam. There's been a ton of media attention, and it's been opening all kinds of interesting conversations from smart city policy to digital agenda setting to AI ethics. These conversations have had me bouncing around Europe and to NYC, working with orgs like Aspen, FEPS, SAMAK, city governments, and many others. It's still the very early days and I'm still processing those conversations, and having a lot of calls about all of this. More than grateful!

I'll leave it at that; today, there are bigger proverbial fish to fry. (No animals were harmed writing this newsletter.)

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The State of the World 2019 / The New New Normal

The WELL's State of the World is out. I almost missed it, it seems, but there I found it - or really, it found me - and here we are, and it's as always a great read and excellent trigger of thoughts. It's always kind of helped me bring certain things into focus that had previously been swimming around my head, seeming relevant but hard to grasp; The SotW often reinforces those, and puts them more eloquently than I could. Turns out professional writers are good that way!

So, the State of the World. There's a lot there about New-Dark Hot-Peace, the idea that the world is both darker/grimmer, and also in a state of not-quiet peace but rather constant slightly violent state of not-war-not-piece. Again, New-Dark Hot-Piece puts it more eloquently. That's one thread that seems obviously true.

The other thread, the one that yanked my attention chain a little harder, is some stuff that SoTW guest author (and very smart, nice person) James Bridle drops in there; early thoughts and questions about how it'll be to live with the now-not-so-new reality of the tech companies in a post-disruption world. GAFAM-BAT + X: GoogleAmazonFacebookAppleMicrosoft-BaiduAlibabaTencent + some others you might want to include. (James suggests Samsung and Netflix; I'm not sure, but that's not the point.)

This is a thread I find immensely interesting to explore, and oh boy is there exploring to do there.

We live in wondrous, strange times indeed, and this is a core aspect of it, maybe one of the most influential ones. (Global warming and structural global economic issues being the other one, if it's even remotely possible to unravel one from the other, which I guess it's not.)

If I had to try to put some labels on the world in 2019 to even begin making sense of it, it'd be these: It's post-open; post-capitalist (or rather, late capitalist), post-Westphalian (in ways we won't see fully play out for a long time yet); and certainly post-GAFAM (see the addition of BAT + X, meaning a global tectonic shift of power) away from the US to China and potentially others.

Now these are all post-something somethings, meaning the labels still define the new thing by its relation to the old. Not super helpful, but maybe a first start! Whatever it is, I think of it as the New New Normal, also hat-tipping James Bridle, because the old New Normal already feels strangely dated even though it does hold up in many ways.

So I hope I get to explore the New New Normal at some depth this year. Let's figure it out together.

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Transition phases

Speaking of transition phases to the New New Normal: Just anecdotally and personally, there's hardly a day where folks in my peer group don't end up having some flavor of this conversation:

• A: The world looks different now than 10 years ago. What were we thinking? I think it's time for something new, something with more purpose.
• B: Exactly what I've been thinking! I need to find a new focus area, something with [sustainability/ethics/ecology/good governance].
• A: Right on, let's do it.

Or, y'know, something like that. And SURPRISE, I'm no different. It's a thought that's been forming inside of me for a while, and in 2019 I'll take a hard look at my work of the last 10 years and see where I want to focus my attention and efforts for the next 10 years.

(Also, as a side note, I find myself with a maybe somewhat irrational urge to join good, inspiring, groups. I might finally join the WELL for real, and the Long Now Foundation. Maybe some others, and then see which ones I can put some time in. I might retire some social account for each of the new ones, Kondo-style.)

I've always been lucky in that I had a lot of autonomy in picking what I got to work on; that's been a real privilege. Now with a year of my Mozilla Fellowship under my belt my desire to not just focus on purely commercial work is stronger than ever, so I'll send out some feelers for ideas on how to best work at the intersection of emerging tech and social impact. Maybe in philanthropy, if I find the right kind of organization? I know there's a lot of work to be done there, but I'm not yet sure what format is the most effective to do it.

ThingsCon, sure, that's one avenue for me; but there might be others, too. To riff on the well-known public service announcements, if you see something, say something!

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The third wave of crypto?

With crypto currency prices in the dump, relatively speaking, we'll see an exodus of the less-desirable part of that ecosystem. This might open the door for real innovation there, something useful. A second or third wave of crypto and blockchain technology (and use cases) to solve actual problems rather than just burn up the planet. I'll be watching keenly.

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AI by the masses, for the masses

Finland, which I love, has announced a fantastic program: To train 1% of the population in basic AI skills. Not programming, but basic understanding (Politico has some details.). This is so good, the idea to engage a wide range of the population with finding applications and with rethinking their work and personal lives through this lens is, well, very Nordic and pragmatic and smart. Did I mention I love Finland? Impossible to think that the German government would support something like this, it's just a different culture.

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What's next?

Two months or so to get our Trustmark on track for a more sustainable structure, plan more ThingsCon goodness, further integrate the newly-ish merged ThingsCon chapters of Germany, Netherlands and Belgium into one website and all the other assets. A lot of writing, my list of things waiting to be written up is immense, and I can't wait. An attempt of a largely flight-free first quarter to see how this could work in the longer term. Planning for Q2 and Q3.

I wish you an excellent weekend.

Yours truly,
Peter
 

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Who writes here? Peter Bihr explores the impact of emerging technologies — like Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence. He is the founder of The Waving Cat, a boutique research, strategy & foresight company. He co-founded ThingsCon, a non-profit that fosters the creation of a responsible Internet of Things. In 2018, Peter is a Mozilla Fellow. He tweets at @peterbihr. Interested in working together? Let’s have a chat.

Know someone who might enjoy this newsletter or benefit from it? A shout out to tinyletter.com/pbihr or a forward is appreciated!

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The VaiKai Companion dolls are the first product to ship with the our Trustable Technology Mark. Seeing this with my own eyes made me incredibly happy.

Pictures: my own.