Welcome to this 90th issue of our newsletter “Weak Signals and other Trends”. Each week, I sift through hundreds of sources of inspiration to track where we’re heading. If you are a new subscriber to this newsletter, take the time to send me a note and introduce yourself, I love to understand who is reading.
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I am sending this newsletter this Friday from St-Césaire, in Quebec, Canada. This is what I noticed this week. Thank you for sharing with those who look into the future.
Estelle.
Competitive Intelligence
A study of lights at night suggests dictators lie about economic growth. 5 basic techniques for automating investigations using the Wayback Machine. Use Visualping.io to track a website. To gather as much information about a place as possible, try to compare its image on different maps. Download the entire #WaybackMachine archive for a given URL. Touched by AI: Competitive intelligence culls new data insights.
We have scheduled the dates for 2023 for our courses. “Advanced Search Techniques for Competitive and Customer Intelligence” will be offered on February 15, 2023. Registrations are now open.
Strategic blindspots
Looking at the familiar with “alien eyes” allows you to unlock new business model opportunities while avoiding risks stemming from strategic blindspots.
AMC will determine ticket prices based on seat location. The natural food color business. Microsoft is working on an “intelligent shoe”. Redefining Old Age. A Better Path Toward Criticizing Data Visualizations. The disruption index. Discovering the untalented. What your supermarket knows about you. TikTok discreetly launched in-app shopping in the US with brands like Pacsun and KimChi Chic. AI radio.
Our future
Climatarian? Regenivore? New diets take aim at climate change. The predictionary. Becoming strange in the Long Singularity. The rolling office. A Lunar South Pole Oxygen Pipeline. City clusters. What does a world with billions of old people look like? 100 trends. Your next product could be designed by a machine. AI dreaming up drugs noone has ever seen. Plant-inspired E-seeds drill themselves into the dirt when moistened. PathwAI is a website which attempts to map some of the possible developments in AI technology against a theoretical future timeline.
We keep you updated on those trends and more on Twitter.
Weak signals
Weak signals are indicators of a change, a trend or an emerging risk that might become significant for the future. They allow us to run hypothesis, expand our thinking, and challenge assumptions. How will you interpret those in your industry or field of expertise?
A bill right now that would reward inmates for donating organs or bone marrow with a reduction in their sentence. Watch me forever. A rejuvenation story. Voice actors say contracts are increasingly including language around signing their voices away to AI. Australia became the first country to officially recognize psychedelics as medicines. AI is de-ageing stars. Suing Reddit. This debit card lets doctors prescribe free fruits and vegetables. Hyundai announced software patch that will stop thieves from using TikTok instructions to steal its cars.
Down the rabbit hole
This section highlights a subject that lead me to many useful threads, or a single site, that opened many doors: “A rabbit hole is not a distraction. A rabbit hole is your brain trying to tell you to pay attention to something you’re curious about. Ignore algorithmic rabbit holes” ( by are.na)
This week, I fell into this astonishing site: Growing.
Hodgepodge discovery
Articles for curious minds and the polymaths
Ancient aquifers. Lorem ipsum. How did school buses become yellow? Set of renderings that depict unbuilt projects by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. How the young spend their money. Imagination infrastructure. Who Owns the Generative AI Platform? We’ve always been distracted. Living with parents. Europe’s digital cultural heritage. European population density. Skyfalls. Big Mac index shows how burger prices are changing. The unidentified attacker. Brief observations concerning trade, and interest of money.
Numbers
300%- Since 2019, employers have tripled their use of the word "lead" in early-career tech jobs, upped their use of "principal" by 57%, and cut their use of the word "junior" by half.
10,000- A little over 10,000 days ago, Bill Gates, then CEO of Microsoft, wrote a memo, The Internet Tidal Wave
93- The Loop is a 93-kilometer, climate-controlled highway that will enable 80% of Dubai’s residents to walk or cycle to their workplace and local amenities within 20 minutes
Feeling good
Lighthouse friends. Growing is a personal interface for Wikipedia. The violin doctor. A forest map of Canada.
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