THE DISTRACTION #1

The Distraction

Welcome to the first edition of?The Distraction.?

The Distraction,?I hope, will be an interesting but fairly eclectic collection of just some of what I have encountered, thought about, read, explored and generally informed, educated and entertained me over the last few days, here in the community, interacting with others and just generally heading off down rabbit-holes of discovery.

Typically, I explore financial services, social impact, ESG, marketing, branding, contributions to Octo, business and apps and software so I suspect that is where most of the distractions will originate.?I am a firm believer that curiosity may just be the key to the door of an eternally interesting life.

What are my aims aims for this irregular journal??

Well, the same as for myself I hope. To explore interesting ideas, concepts, tools, apps, guest thoughts and more.?

I spend a lot of time down said rabbit holes, and it is my experience that members here on Octo are down them too.?Exploring self, business, human behaviours, marketing, branding, creativity and thinking of how things might be done better. Much more than just 'the day job' it is a realisation that reading, exploring and curiosity is what makes us human. The power of stories, of shared experiences and of interaction and mutual learning is fundamental to our growth as individuals and all together as a species. Genuinely, I think this is part of what draws us together on Octo, a desire to engage, learn with and from each other and push ever forwards.

Getting rather lofty in my ambitions here but I hope you find what I drop in here interesting, shareable, useful, comment-provoking but above all, a reasonable use of your time.

Please let me know what you think, I am rather flying blind here in this, the first and somewhat prototype, edition of?The Distraction, I would genuinely love to hear from you.

Useful Apps & Sites

Basmo

Reading tracker

An iPhone app that gives we bookworms a way to set reading goals, track progress, journal our experience and build collections for organising our book shelves.

Mymind

Organise your thoughts

mymind is for busy people. For those who move too fast to be bothered with folders, labels and systems. For thinkers and doers who could use an extension of their mind. Highly visual, it claims to file what is found interesting in the way that the mind stores it. With, in effect, mental hashtags.

Tally

Form up

Create forms for all purposes in seconds. Without knowing how to code,?and for free!?

Pixelfed

A fresh take on photo sharing.?

Think Instagram but without the tedious influencers.

Five thoughts, recommendations and pithy comments by? Neil Bage , Co-founder, Shaping Wealth .

1. A question worth asking?

When people share an opinion, an idea, or a viewpoint with me that they believe to be true but I'm struggling to understand their viewpoint, I use a?Dr. Joy E. Lere, Psy.D. ?question: "What information do they have that I don't."?This helps me see, or at least begin to explore, their perspective and understand better their rationale and thinking.

2. A book or newsletter worth reading?

Why We Sleep ?by?Matthew Walker . It's the best book I've ever read that addresses a fundamental aspect of modern living and the detriment to our wellbeing: sleep!

3. A podcast worth listening to?

Huberman Lab ?by?Dr Andrew Huberman . Each episode discusses what it means to be human from a neuroscientist's perspective.

4. An activity worth doing?

Drinking more water! We tend to not drink the right amount of water, and the mind and body benefits of doing so are well documented.

5. Who inspires you personally or professionally?

Any good, honest person trying their best to help other humans flourish and thrive.

Next book from the pile

I doubt I shall ever quite manage to reclaim my life completely from my work but ever the optimist. The Good Enough Job?came on a recommend so will give it a go.

Creative ideas

Ideas are a messy business. There are dead ends, wrong turns, and all manner of false starts. To help us get our heads around them, WeTransfer publish the WeTransfer Ideas Report —an annual roundup of insights from all over the globe about the unpredictable nature of creativity.

Notable numbers

Developing and emerging countries will need?$2 trillion per year ?by 2030 to cope with climate breakdown, a UN-backed report warns.

The International Energy Agency estimates that the demand for minerals used in batteries will soar by 2040, including by up to 1,900% for nickel, 2,100% for cobalt, and?4,200% for lithium .

London has reduced city centre traffic by a whopping?33% since the introduction of a congestion charge , a ￡15 fee that applies to vehicles entering the inner city area. 80% of the revenues raised are used for public transport investments.?

The global population with access to safely managed drinking water services has grown from 3.8 billion in 2000 to?5.8 billion people ?in 2020.

How numbers affect the way we think

An interesting overview of what current research tells us about the psychological impact of different colours. “Put simply, they found that red was always the third colour term to evolve in the almost 100 languages they studied, after white and black. The longer a word for a colour was in use, the greater the number of associations, meanings and nuances it can acquire. In this way, the colour itself gains more impact.”

(Click on the title above to read the full article on the BBC Future website).

Social thinking

I attended the excellent@ Worthstone Impact Academy event last week and, as it was meant to, it really got me thinking about impact, ESG, social covenants and such.?Somehow on the train home I came across this fabulous way that the La Chalmeta Housing Co-operative and the City of Barcelona?are setting about helping with social housing with shipping?containers. Not a new idea but just look at how fantastic these one, two and three bedroom apartments are, set around courtyards and with a terrace.?

Bravo or probably even Bravoes!?

Random Thoughts

#1?Ran into a practice leader the other day at an Owen James event where I was doing some facilitating. Knew her well and asked if her practice had won an award that I knew they had been shortlisted for. No, came the reply, "We weren't the shiny new thing firm this year."?

Wow, I don't know if it was just a poor choice of words, deep hubris or even jealousy. Such a casual disrespect to the process, the judges, entrants,?winners and past winners. Why even enter if so little regard for the hard work put in by those who enter in good faith and those who take the time to assess and judge the entries?

I was taught young?that an unwillingness to take personal responsibility for shortcomings in the face of the success of others whilst blaming those around me was being a bad sport.

#2?I genuinely think it is fantastic that so many events are now initiated by and for practitioners. The maturity, focus and variety of what is on offer from Humans Under Management, Impact Investment Academy, NextGen, IFW, Octo and others is just great to see. Somehow, or to me at least, they seem to build upon what is already there from the longer standing events from the professional bodies and publishers.?A variety but very focused set of topics very relevant to the delegates. Learning and sharing best practice and in particular being able to attend and meet each other again in person after the lockdowns is a real treat.?

However, I saw a conversation amongst some planners this week on twitter who were collectively very unhappy that some events still didn't livestream as they couldn't attend due to childcare, neuro-diversity issues, distance and that such events weren't inclusive enough. Definitely something for event organisers to think about and in my personal joy at being back at in-person events reasons I hadn't considered.?Our Progressive Planning Event did livestream as do many others but maybe this really should become the norm although when I discussed this with a friend responsible for events with a financial publisher, he said that no-shows at their events were noticeably more evident when livestreaming was on offer.?

Scroll-stopping content

The Marketing Dictionary?describes scroll stopping content thus;?

Scroll-stopping content?consists of enticing phrases, images, video and other visual elements that cause viewers on Instagram, Twitter, and similar media feeds to stop scrolling and engage with an item within that feed. Scroll-stopping content is not intended to redirect users to another location and therefore is distinct from click-baiting content.

So this is my happy accident.?

I try to post regularly on LinkedIn, some personal thoughts but also links to activity on Octo and beyond that I think followers might be interested in. I also like to share content from others for the same reason.?The posts do reasonably well with the occasional views breakout.?The picture above however is a real outlier. I meant to post it on Facebook and Instagram where I like to drop visuals of what I am up to (and this is often around eating). Stuck it up on LinkedIn through inattention, twitter chatting at the?same time with? Phil Bray??The Financial Services Marketing Guy?? ?and impending guzzling so ended up putting it on the wrong social media channel but it very quickly drew thousands of views beating out what I would describe as far worthier, and intentional, posts last week.??

Just goes to show, that even on a professional network, engaging imagery really does draw a crowd. Lessons for us all as we generate content for our client audiences and try to grab attention in an increasingly noisy world. Or maybe we just all love a bacon and egg sarnie.

Whilst on marketing and content matters, we are lucky to have?Phil contributing his thoughts for websites and beyond in an?ongoing series. Always useful, check them out if you feel like a knowledge or website refresh are on your client communication horizons.??

The Art of Negativity:?“Productive possibilities for negative states of being”

“In the contemporary milieu, the idea of being negative is either regarded as a destructive mentality or else defeatist fatalism. But, at least in passing shades, negative emotions can hold great power. There resides in negativity the seed of critical thought and a beneficial duty to engage with one’s internal feelings. The work of negation, indeed the very act, is a process which remains productive in a sense – a deconstruction rather than a wholly violent act of destruction. The act of being negative is a process of ‘working through’ – a struggle.”?

I found that headline and intro on Medium and they immediately drew me in (the power of scroll-stopping headlines).?

We can all suffer from negativity, downbeat periods, self-doubt and imposter syndrome. It is just not always possible to be constantly upbeat. I found this is to be a great article, which explores why it is acceptable to be negative and to recognise the uses that this mindset can bring. To be fair it is a bit deep and very philosophical but no harm in having to slow down and read it through with a real concentration on the subject matter.

I will finish with a bit of what you may have missed or not yet got to on Octo, do check out our latest poll, it's on?Consumer Duty and we would love you to grab ten seconds to vote. Go on, go on, go on!

Whilst I am asking you to do things, please go and check out all the latest content in the?Progressive Planning Group there is masses of great stuff in there. For and by practitioners for sure and it is the follow up to our ProgPlan22 Event which so many of you came and contributed to.

Session of the week definitely goes to? Richard C. Bishop MA who obviously put a lot of thought into his?Consumer Duty Session and kindly had myself and Alan Smith along to ask questions and generally getting under his feet. Lots of discussion both here on Octo and more widely on twitter based on Richard's presentation. Heartily recommended viewing.?

Also of note are the?Equity Release Topic, the?Investment Trust Hot Topic superbly hosted by? Annabel Brodie-Smith of the The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) and the latest article,?Explaining Wellbeing by? Chris Budd . None are to be missed I humbly suggest.?

Remember, much of this content on Octo is available as?CPD.

Thanks for reading, as I said, feel free to?give me feedback, useful? Not? Anything at all that was helpful? Agree or disagree? Something to add?

Genuinely, I hope it was a worthy distraction.

Lee