Into the Archives, Middle Power Moves and Smart is Sexy (again)
The weekly look at three signals to reframe for optimism in dark times, plus curious ‘how might we…’ ideas for what we can do, moving forward.
All About the Archives
Alexi Gunner called it in his piece on Archive-futurism and recently it seems to be taking hold. Between Galliano re-authoring Zara’s archives, 032c in Berlin like, tomorrow, Marimekko opening up theirs at Matter and Shape, and Matthieu Blazy reinstating the interlocking Chanel C’s. Everyone is elbow deep in their archives. But are they channeling or flattening the archive? Is this the part where we look back before lurching forward?
Moving forward: Get nerdy with it. How might we dig into the details of the forgotten, the overlooked, the pre-internet world as raw material for brand spanking, big new ideas that don't exist yet?
Middle Power Moves
Monocle’s conversation on a new diplomatic focus among middle powers with Mark Carney is worth a watch. The section on variable geometry especially caught my eye: “you’re not going to agree with everybody on everything at the same time with the same intensity.” Preach. Closer to home, The European Commission both announced a free-trade agreement with Australia AND proposed EU Inc., a digital corporate framework to simplify business operations across the EU inspired by The Draghi Report on EU competitiveness. What a week.
Moving forward: Is this what strength in numbers looks like? Let’s take this one to the theatre of office politics: how might we build more and criticise less? What would the first small step toward that look like this week?
Knowledge is Power
Not a new signal by any stretch of the imagination, but dorothy I think its entering the mainstream now. Good. The very subjective side of me wants to see this through the lens of the innovation-adoption curve: could this be the early adopters bucking the theatre of politics as idiocracy trend? (And also, while we’re at it…literally just read for yourself not a trend).
Moving forward: Avoid the siren call of performativity. How might we create spaces in our teams, feeds and friendships where ideas get explored in a dialogue rather than just shared like irl status updates or devolving into bad faith “debate”?
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