Tracing the evolution from visual thinking frameworks like Group Partners’ 4D to Structured Visual Thinking (SVT) and beyond, this newsletter reveals how visuals became powerful tools for clarifying strategy, aligning teams, and driving execution and why rigid models and rare skills limited their impact. The article highlights why ‘Structured Thought’ is the next step: taking the clarity of visuals and coupling it with principles that make strategy adaptable, scalable, and actionable for any organisation.

Read The Full Article

If you want to talk more - I certainly do.

Let's set up some time to explore how Structured Thought can be used to help your business transition into the ‘Age of Experience’.

https://cal.com/jphilpin/60

Visual thinking has shaped strategy work for decades, from Arnheim’s 1960s theories to the whiteboard sketchers and infographic craze. But without structure, it too often drifts into decoration instead of decision. This piece traces that history and sets up why I developed Structured Thought - a way to turn visuals from creative flourishes into business advantage.

Read The Full Article

If you want to talk more - I certainly do.

Let's set up some time to explore how Structured Thought can be used to help your business transition into the ‘Age of Experience’.

https://cal.com/jphilpin/60

Stop calling it Content

Start calling it your article, book, photo, image, white paper, art, story newsletter blog, thought … just not content.

Content is a horrible, generic, cheap, replaceable, switchable kind of word. Which is why it has no value - because if the content they need is not available they will use some other content, because 'anything will do'.

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As long as 'we the creators' fall into the trap of using low cost, homogenous, non-descript words like 'content' to describe our work, our soul, our beliefs our passion, our effort, then our work will continue to be viewed as 'free--to--cheap--to--low--cost', homogenised, non-differentiated, interchangeable fodder and we will only have ourselves to blame as the payment for our art, our thinking, our ideas continues to race to the bottom.

You find content stored in silos. Where all the other COMMODITIES are stored and if one supplier can't fill up your silo - somebody else will.

STOP using the words of the Silo owners to describe OUR work. OUR soul. OUR beliefs. OUR passion. OUR effort.

START using OUR words to describe OUR work. OUR soul. OUR beliefs. OUR passion. OUR effort.

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The Living Version Of This Thought, where I will add links to highlights like this;

Living because I will start adding an index to the history of posts and comments

‘Serious Literary Author’ AKA has been hiding in plain sight since the beginning.

Long time followers can’t fail to have noticed that his numerous replies are protests highlighting his pain resulting from people just failing to understand that he is an SLA. In short his very integrity is brought into question. Constantly.

His only recourse? Replying. And there reveals his pain.

In short SLA ‘Daniel Piper’s nom de plume is ‘Replied Pain’ - an anagram in plain sight.

Extra weight given because of course - all SLAs have ‘nom de plumes’.

Short Sharp Shocks are not delivered through email where the words find you - but remain in place and let you find them.
If you subscribe to my larger occasional missives, those words will find you.

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Not quite sure when this happened - but Substack have added to the idea of ‘posting a note on the fly’ - and now we can post a post (redundant?) on the fly.

I tried it once. I tried it twice. I kinda liked it. This is number three. A little longer and a little explanation that I hinted at here, when I talked about the ‘buzz in the brain’.

First - unlike the original Short Sharp Shocks, the default is NOT to drop this in anyone’s Inbox1. Rather they will sit within this world much like a blog. (BTW - I have one of those - and it continues a pace. The Short Sharp Shocks will not run at anything that kind of rate.

I also plan to properly move my podcast over here. The episodes are already in place, I just need to start doing them again and also close out the old place.

That’s it. For now. I could go on - but then it wouldn’t be Short or Sharp and writing something short will at least be a shock 😂 ❓

Later today I hope to (will?) return and I’ll fill you in on the ‘buzz in the brain’ that has emerged.

… when it’s like this is not too shabby. Stopping for now to see what happens next — I’ve just hit the big Orange plus sign .. so I’m not altogether sure. And of course the thought below is Hugh’s .. but it struck me that it’s something we might all keep in mind.

We live in a world of data farms, mountains and lakes … we used to call them ’warehouses’ - but I think the names changed because farms, mountains and lakes sound so much more natural and thus ‘acceptable’ … than warehouses.

Bottom line … you know who some of the culprits are, though in some cases you don’t because names like ‘Palantir’ fly below the radar in the mind of the general public.

Another name that you wouldn’t automatically associate with the surveillance economy is Oracle …

Oracle is an important part of the tracking and data industry. It has claimed to have amassed detailed dossiers on 5 billion people and generates $42.4 billion in annual revenue.

~ Source

On the click-through, is a piece about a class action against Oracle’s worldwide surveillance machine. If you are in the tech industry, you know who Oracle is. I myself spent close to 9 years of my life in the institution and still I didn’t know how deep down the rabbit hole they had disappeared … though given their core competency, it makes sense.

And let’s not forget that Oracle is now being trusted to run the US TikTok servers. What could possibly go wrong?

Now Imagine A Different World.

Imagine a world where each of us manages and controls access to our data and shares it on an as-needed basis with any organization that asks for it - on our terms.

Far fetched?

Never take off?

Well - the technology exists. The processes exist. What is missing is whether ‘we the people’ care enough to insist this is how we want to do business.

Yeah. It’s not going to happen!

But what if we demonstrated to businesses that if they take this approach … an approach where a business only connects to data and doesn’t collect data … that will allow the business to;

• make more money

• build better customer relationships

• reduce costs

• create richer experiences

… maybe then the world will change?

I KNOW …. two issues in as many days … what is going on? Bear with me.

First … do you read The Red Hand Files?

If like me, you find yourself disappearing down the rabbit holes of global conflict, global warming, the surveillance economy, the changing nature of work, divisive politics, the next pandemic or human trafficking … you might stop and look around and …

You may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
You may ask yourself
Where does that highway go to?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? Am I wrong?
And you may say yourself
"My God! What have I done?”

~ David Byrne

Byrne is one of a small group of people that sit in my ‘canon of great music artists’. To be a member requires said artist to be a great songwriter and someone who doesn’t sit on their laurels and crosses over to other mediums and has longevity and sometimes doesn’t ‘get it right’ and a host of other criteria that I won’t bore you with here.

Byrne is also behind one of my favourite feed sources ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ .. which is a truly wonderful place to visit to counter that list of issues that I opened up this newsletter with.

David Byrne is the founder and in-house headline writer of Reasons to be Cheerful, and the founder of the Arbutus Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to re-imagining the world through projects that inspire and educate. Reasons to be Cheerful is the Arbutus Foundation’s first project.

Another artist in that group is the inimitable Nick Cave. You probably know who Byrne is, but I don’t think Nick is as widely recognized. That said, you almost certainly know one of his songs …

Highlighting Nick because like Byrne, he too has a ‘go to’ web site that provides another counterbalance to the world’s ills … The Red Hand Files.

So Where Is This Going?

A post from Nick last week came in response to a reader who wrote and asked if he was ok - because there had been a pause in the posts. Nick answered …

…. I’ve been on tour for three months and although I read all the questions that come in, I just can’t get it together to write a response. A Red Hand File requires not so much an emotional resilience as a certain amount of energy and the capacity to think.

It resonated. Me too. This is the second newsletter in two days - as I seek to catch up on the backlog of what I have in my head. OK - I’m not on tour, and there is no question that my writing clearly does not extract my energy as much as The Red Hand Files does to Nick - but it still takes energy.

When I launched the Short Sharp Shock, my intent was to reduce the weight of expectancy on delivering something each and every week, the theory being that shorter is easier than longer. It isn’t. And meanwhile, time continues to march on - no matter what.

All this to say ‘sorry’ for missing last week’s issue and hope we are now caught up!

Meanwhile

Sharing v Shareholder economy?

Yes - more to come in a future newsletter, but before I send that one …

By the numbers there’s my driver’s license,

car registration, license plate, zip code,

various accounts, street address, birthdate

home, work, and cell phones, passport, credit cards

debit cards, PINs, social security

frequent fliers, internet passwords, stocks

checking, HMO, IRA, museums

library card, land and enneagram.

I know its a lot to remember, but

thank god i finally know who I am

~ Jim Woessner

The poem is something that Jim calls a ‘square poem’ - that is 10 lines of precisely 10 syllables each. It is part of a larger collection called ‘Little Boxes’ … a book that contains “a unique style of poetry in which each poem is a short story told in only 100 syllables.”

One hundred poems. Ten thousand syllables.

Loved it when it first came out. Still do and hope you do too.

It is of course a perfect example of something Oscar wrote over 130 years ago.

"Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life"

~ Oscar Wilde

If you were setting out to build a house, or even a garden shed, you need tools and materials, which you might buy from your local hardware store that likely promotes itself as a purveyor of ‘quality hardware materials’.

When next in London, you might pop into one of the quality tailors on Saville Row to invest in a new suit … made using only the best materials - of course.

Saville Row is of course famous for its tailors and I am sure that many a customer bought a quality suit if they were heading to court as a material witness.

My point? ‘Material’ is a word of substance and character that we also once used to describe our writing, art and scripts. No longer.

I can’t imagine that when George Schlatter first saw Robin Williams perform at the Comedy Store that he asked him if he had any more content!

The new word, ‘content’ is a transient word, ephemeral and not differentiated.

In the days when creative forces had books full of material, silos were where you found content.

Of course, that hasn’t changed. The modern silos are online places like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram et al - and that’s where so much of the world’s creativity is being poured - only to be released through algorithmic spigots - so I guess it’s appropriate, but that doesn’t make it right.

It also doesn’t mean we should accept it. Just because the silos need content that we have to date provided for free in return for a few likes, doesn’t mean that we should continue the practice.

If we stopped, then the new silos would look just like the old unused silos.

Or even better - repurposed.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

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In a previous life, I worked with a company that built websites for creative people. One of the messages asked …

‘Why spend time building websites, when that takes time away from doing what you love - and get paid for?

Not a bad question. I feel the same way about jobs.

If you work in a company in any capacity, part of your job is ‘what’s next, where next, income, etc …’

It’s distracting at best.

How much more efficient could you be, how much more time could you have … if you knew you had a business partner who had your back?

Not only that - but don’t you always feel better if someone else is negotiating on your behalf?

The thing is that if you are an actor, director, athlete, writer … <enter your creative job title of choice>, you already have that.

So here’s the real question

If personal agents are good for people, why aren’t they more widely used in other industries?

If they are not good for people, why do people in the sports and entertainment industries continue with the model?

A contradiction in terms? No - because I am not asking for the unexpected to have a ‘line item’ in the business plan (although there can be).

You can never plan the future by the past.
~ 💬 Edmund Burke

Planning for the unexpected is not to know the specifics of what is ‘barreling down the pike towards you’, but rather to understand that you can’t know everything and be agile in your response.

The Known | Unknown’ Model

Your business plan is likely focussed on what you know and what can be known (1). There are also things you know you don’t know, so you build that into the plan .. you might call the line item ‘contingency planning’ (2).

Meanwhile, ‘Unknown Knowns’ are almost certainly not part of the plan. Who will win the next election? What happens if two countries go to war? Important thinking. Many a debate in the local hostelry, but not part of the plan (3) … because pragmatism.

“If you try to account for everything in the plan, you’ll never finish the plan.”

This brings us nicely to that final quadrant. The ‘Unknown Unknowns’.

Those things that you don’t know, and likely neither do most other people. Once an unknown becomes known it is moved to quadrant 2 - and fits into your contingency plan OR it can be safely ignored - and moved to quadrant 3.

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Example

You might want to put ‘global pandemic’ into box 4 because you aren’t typically going to plan what your business is going to do in the event of a global pandemic.

When it does occur, you need to decide if it is a ‘box 2’ or a ‘box 3’.

Potential Outcome A: It is not going to affect me, so I can ignore it - box 3.

Potential Outcome B: It is going to affect me, so I cannot ignore it - box 2.

Questions

• How well do you think and plan for ‘unknown unknowns’?

• How well did you think and plan for COVID?

• Did you move the Known/Unknown of COVID into box 2 or box 3?

• Was that the right decision?

• Will your actions be different when the next ‘unknown unknown’ occurs?

• How are you thinking and planning for

  • Ongoing COVID?

  • ‘COVID2’?

  • Monkeypox?

  • The Russian/Ukraine War?

Bottom Line

Agility in thinking provides agility in planning which best prepares you for ‘unknown unknowns’.

You can buy the book here 1 or get a free graphic on a single-page overview here.

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Let's Talk

I am no accountant, but I do get that the ‘liability’ is not about people per se, but rather things like accrued income of staff.

Accounting is one of the oldest professions in the world1 and was built over centuries. Any change to those standards will take time and will not be easy. But change they must and the measurement of business through a purely fiscal lens needs to be overturned.

Yes - and ‘Stakeholder Capitalism’ is the solution!

Not so fast.

Putting aside the idea that it might not be, let’s assume it is.

Stakeholder Capitalism has really been taking hold in certain circles over the past few years - but it isn’t a new idea.2 Adoption is hard and it is going to take time. Meanwhile, BSBAU3 continues. If you want to know more about Stakeholder Capitalism, this is an excellent read from Klaus Schwab, or get the book.

The whole premise is core to People First thinking, but don’t underestimate how hard this will be. Don’t believe me? Consider ‘Climate Change’ - or ‘Global Warming’ as we used to call it.4

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Global warming and its possible attribution to people was first suggested in 1896 by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius.

And yet here we are 126 years later with not just proof, but examples across the planet of the challenge we are facing like these two images that appeared in the past 24 hours.

From Space.com;

From Wunderground;

And with that context … two headlines.

US supreme court rules against EPA and hobbles government power to limit harmful emissions.

Biden says he will act on climate after talks collapse in Senate

If we can’t get people in positions of power to move on something as critical to people as climate change, I am not holding my breath for the upending of centuries of accounting practice.

Before I ‘get into it’ - my apologies for missing this week’s ‘long form’ People First newsletter. No excuse, but a very good reason that I will write about in next week’s edition.

Meanwhile, the ‘Short Sharp Shock’ continues. Just like life … right?

Fixing Wrongs

In last week’s issue, I referenced Geoffrey Moore’s book ‘The Infinite Staircase’ and commented that I disagreed with him regarding a statement he made regarding ‘values’. Happy to report that Geoffrey ‘put me right’ in the comment section … and we are all now back on the same page!

This Week’s Observation

… emerges from some work I am doing around ‘team friction’. More to come when we are ready, but for now, would be great to hear your thoughts.

If you are a LinkedIn member, you might want to comment there, or you can add your thoughts here.

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My PoV

The next time HR or your line manager talks to you about the company's '360-degree assessment' model, stop for two minutes and think about what is being asked of you.

Quite apart from the mathematician in me screaming for a 4π Steradian model (We are after all people living in a three-dimensional world), there are so many more facets to people than these models allow for.

'Ten Off The Top'

• Results are presented as absolute. They aren't, they are relative.

• Models only measure what you think of, not what you need.

• Complexity is reduced to abstract, over-simplistic homilies.

• Assessments should be integrated into the business, but more often than not are just 'one more thing that needs to be done'.

• Systems are gamed.

• Results are ignored.

• It's a 'We' world, not a 'Me' world.

• Context is lost faster than the exercise can be completed.

• Because you can measure something doesn’t mean you should.

• Because you can't measure something, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

My ‘values’ are constant and unchanging and might include concepts like trust, transparency, honesty and equality.

My ‘value’ is variable and dependent on the buyer of my services and product;

• Does it right the first time.

• Cheapest.

• Quickest.

That’s not to say that they can’t overlap.

The question is by how much?

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A little side note this week. Have you read the excellent ‘Infinite Staircase’ by Geoffrey Moore? Not this one, nor even this one …

Rather, this one - The Infinite Staircase is an excellent book by Geoffrey Moore, the author of Zone To Win and Crossing The Chasm and by his own admission, not his usual fayre.

Prompted to mention it because Geoff published this post in the last 24 hours as a response to a review of his book by William Bartlett. Linking here, now for two reasons;

1. Two people can disagree and have a civil discourse on that disagreement - who knew?

2. ‘Values’ emerge as a theme within the article, which includes this quote

But values per se are universal, at least among mammals.

I disagree. (I also disagreed with the exclusion of mathematics from the staircase - so I am guessing we will continue to agree to disagree!)

I disagree because value - like beauty - is in the eye of the beholder and values are culturally driven, there are no absolutes (discuss).

Now, with all that said …..

I am certainly not the first to suggest that maybe it is time to retire the term ‘Soft Skills’ from the corporate lexicon. Then again, there are plenty of misleading phrases we use in everyday language, for example, what percentage of time do you use your phone to … well … phone?

‘Company’, ‘Officer’ and ‘Soft Skills’ are just some of the terms used in everyday business that started in the military. There are many more.

The military definition of ‘Soft Skills’

“Any skill that does not employ the use of machinery.”

Looking forward to reading your thoughts.

It seems to me that the question propagates the idea that the 'Future of Work' will continue on some kind of continuum that has been on this trajectory for a few hundred years.

Even the Craiyon images (admittedly, it’s a smaller data set than Dall-E 2) suggest that 'it' is one or more 'knowledge workers' with one or more computing device(s) working in teams.

Is that it? Really?

Welcome to ‘Short Sharp Shock’ - an image-centric People First companion that explores the ‘Status Futurus'.

Each issue explores our ‘current and future world’;

• highlights something that isn’t quite right.

• helps us think about it in a different way.

An image is worth a thousand words - so it will be a quick read!

I hope you like it.

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