Kicking off this Four P’s with a reminder that, as the temperature drops (it was 24 in New York degrees when we woke up Sunday!), climate change remains very real. Idiots who point to cold temperatures as an opportunity to question “global warming” clearly need to go back to 8th grade Earth Science class. So, in short, wear a glove and hat with your mask. Or just stay in bed and read/watch/listen to these self-evident truths.
This week’s edition includes:
Working from home… for now
Long December with Long Division
Misinformation and Disinformation
Democracy and a Crisis of Trust
Something Professional: Working From Home, For Now
Chances are, that as you read this today, you're sitting somewhere in your home...which may also be your temporary office. Some of you may love this, some of you may be tolerating it, and others are definitely ready to get back to a more collaborative office environment.
While the one thing we have in common -- the need to crush COVID -- may not be going away any time soon, all of our circumstances and situations are different. So the conversation I started up on Twitter last week about working from home permanently (and continued in several concurrent DM threads) requires further conversation.
The Stipulations:
In the short-term, and until things are safe, only essential workers who MUST be in a professional work setting should be leaving their homes.
The viability of permanent work from home varies by industry, company and personal situations (kids/no kids; roommates/live alone; city/suburbia, etc).
Many businesses have no choice but to be "in-person," whether immediately or long-term: Manufacturing, transportation, medical, home repair, blacksmiths, locksmiths, waiters at The Smith, wood choppers, and many, many more.
That said, I firmly believe that the viability and success of people-focused businesses: strategic, creative and agencies require a return to an office-like environment as soon as it is safe. I have no doubt whatsoever that being together in some capacity is better than being permanently apart. This may not mean 5 days a week, inflexibly, in a small office. Not at all. But virtual and remote work is not going to support our personal, professional, social or economic growth long-term.
"When, Not If"
A prominent CEO with whom I spoke last week explained this using what I believe to be a perfect metaphor. We went our separate ways back in March with minds and skills finely-tuned. Our axes were sharp, and our ability to adjust to the new technologies and organizational communication and collaboration came rather easily.
But over the past few months, he believes, our blades have dulled.
Only by being together again in some evolved capacity will we be able to sharpen those axes again.
Something Personal: Long December with Long Division
One of the byproducts of being home more is that I’m increasingly involved in my childrens’ school and academic lives. Which is a good thing. Maybe?
The question is… Am I doing more harm than good for all of us?
For some reason, our first grader has no homework (which is absurd, really), so we’ll leave her out of this for now. But with a fourth grader going deep into multiplication and division, you’d think this is an area where I can be of some assistance. I crushed advanced calculus at an Ivy League University. I used advanced math every day, right?
But as many parents have already learned, they teach math concepts differently now. And it has taken me more hours to learn the ways they teach multiplication and division than I’d care to admit. Sure, I'd heard of parents of elementary school students complaining about Common Core math for a few years, but I, "How bad can it be? It's elementary school math."
Well, it’s idiotic. The new way of teaching and learning requires many more steps, and slows down the process? Why? So the foundational concepts can take root, they say. In truth, I think they’re doing it to fuck with parents. But the real impact is that it’s making math less fun for everyone.
Something Practical: Misinformation and Disinformation
With all that we've experienced and been exposed to in the past few years, here's a question: Do you know the difference between “misinformation” and “disinformation?” Many people use these terms interchangeably, and understandably so. Something quite practical would be helping to understand these different definitions.
Misinformation is something that’s simply wrong, whereas disinformation is purposely intended to mislead people.
As we navigate an increasingly complex ecosystem of dangerous and untrustworthy information, the onus falls on us, consumers of information, to be more discerning between the fakes... and the "fake news."
Technology can help, but it also has exacerbated these challenges. For example, AI used to create “deepfake” images, videos and audio clips is already leading us down a dark path of mis- and disinformation. It manipulates reality to produce an entirely believable – and completely unreal – new world. It's becoming literally impossible to tell when something is fake.
Propaganda is a concept as old as civilization, itself, but tech-enabled disinformation has accelerated in the last 50 years. The Soviets spread disinformation about the United States spreading AIDS to Africa as biological weapon. While entirely untrue, it tarnished America’s global reputation, but it also divided the country from within.
That playbook has been used many times since, including the most recent Russian disinformation campaign came in 2016. No longer doubted or questioned by either American political party, the election interference further divided the country and turned voters against Hillary Clinton. It worked as fake U.S. citizens flooded social media channels and created communities based around political identities.
Something Political: Democracy and the Crisis of Trust
The seeds of eroded trust have taken root. Nearly 2/3 of of people who live in democracies feel that their government “rarely” or “never” acts in the interest of the public. And that number has nearly doubled since 2015. It's no surprise why.
Donald Trump lied a lot to us over the past four years, and has done so in a way that alienated most of us, yet still received over 70MM votes in the election a month ago. It's a dilution of truth, relying on an old dictator's trick: the “liar’s dividend.” This is a tactic where somebody dismisses anything they don’t like as “fake,” even if it’s true.
Yet he also embraces things that are fake and purports them as potential truths. This has made the United States a more divided and dangerous country. He normalizes polarization, distrust, and deceit. We were on the verge of a tipping point even before the COVID pandemic reached our shores.
Over the past few months, stories that COVID-19 was created by the US government as a bioweapon against China emanated from Russia. Trump has retweeted theories that the virus may have been a Chinese bioweapon. Back in February, he downplayed the risk of the virus, calling it a hoax and an attempt by democrats to smear his name. Once he realized he didn't have what it took as a leader to mitigate the spread, he began his own mis- and disinformation campaign, One drowns out accurate information with noise... the other contradicts it. The effect is compounded, and no doubt, cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
As a society, we have a choice. It’s up to us to decide whether or not we want to live in a world where the real and the fake are hopelessly intertwined. With Trump on his way out, either by submission or legal force, our collective resistance must quickly transform to a to "repair and rebuild" approach. Trump leaves press freedom and trust in institutions in tatters. And President Biden must take these bold steps to repair the damage. Really, what we need is a common language and alignment on terminology. The good news is, society as a whole is becoming more familiar with the terms “disinformation,” “misinformation,” and “deepfakes.”
Bs smart, be vigilant and be well.