👋 A round-up of this week's most remarkable stories at the intersection of innovation ecosystem and platform organization.
The lifecycle of Uncomfortable Tech
The people who feel uncomfortable with your new technology are the “early majority” in the classic Technology Adoption Lifecycle. They’re on the distant, other side of the chasm from you, and they’re beginning to learn about Generative Tech and really just beginning to grapple with concerns about potential changes to their status in the network. This not only includes visual artists, musicians and writers, but also includes paralegals, investment bankers, analysts, software programmers, venture capitalists and more.
🎢 We shape the tool, and then the tool reshapes us - by James Currier
The rise of the ‘chief remote officer’
Appointing a figurehead to steer an organisation through uncharted waters in the new world of work makes sense, says Tsedal Neeley, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. “You now have a workforce predominantly working online: you need new ways of thinking about recruiting, training, developing and promoting employees. It represents a radical shift in the management, design and culture of a company, so having someone in charge of it is smart.”
🎭 TopDown tendencies: Can you have someone in charge of culture? - by Alex Christian
Airbnb’s Double Disruption
With this move, Airbnb is setting its sites on the rental housing market as a whole. It would help it secure more supply for short-term stays, but it ultimately represents a much larger opportunity than the hotel market… In the 19th Century, hotels were synonymous with apartment buildings: families often resided in hotels for months, and apartment buildings offered services such as communal dining rooms, furnished rooms, "turndown," and laundry. Airbnb's trajectory shows how disruption in one market ultimately affects others. It'll be interesting to see how far they go.
🏡 Everything depends on everything- by Dror Poleg
All the other things happening in tech part 1.
There is three parts there. One of them is the devotion to the craft of trying to understand what will get views and how the algorithm works, and how to optimise it, and having a 5 person thumbnail team. The second is having a creative spark of making a certain kind of thing that people want to watch. It’s not just optimising the idea, it is the idea. And then there’s the thinking about how you can proliferate that into a business… If you look at where we are consuming all of this content, we are all consuming this on Youtube… People are not only looking at Youtube as a stepping stone, but a final destination of where they want to create their content. And even if Youtube does become the first stepping stone to creating multiple businesses, where we are all consuming these businesses is back on Youtube. So even if Youtube is the starting point, we still end up back on Youtube consuming more content. That’s brilliant.
🌀 on a very powerful Flywheel of the World and Internet - in Another Podcast
If you like this digest, you might appreciate the sister newsletter at the intersection of technology, business, design, and culture as well. This week's edition is all about Uncomfortable Tech.
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