Issue 1: Relax. Welcome to the post-perspective era.

Hello! Let me welcome you with warm virtual arms to the first Six Things Impossible newsletter. One of the jolly perks of being a LinkedIn Top Voice 2020 is that I get to use this fancy newsletter function, and I promise not to abuse it. Much. 

Every couple of weeks you’ll get a bundle of thoughts, sociology, futurology and weirdness. Six things, every newsletter. 

I’m writing this as lockdown draws to a close, and I daydream of spin classes and Christmas shopping and drinking alcohol in public (with a substantial meal). Like most of us, my emotions have been a rollercoaster this year. But Christmas is juuuuuuuuust around the corner, so let’s all have a hug, get our hair cut, and chill the hell out. 

Naturally, the theme for this first newsletter is our brains. And these six things will crank your brain up, good and proper. 

1. Welcome to the post-perspective era. 

In the last few weeks I’ve watched this excellent talk from Ruby Wax approximately seventeen times. It’s about mental health in the modern day. 

There’s two reasons I can’t stop watching it. 

First, I’m currently training and coaching twenty women to finesse their public speaking voices and be themselves more, through a course called Practice Makes UnPerfect. Ruby Wax is an inspiring example of a woman who refuses to ‘conform’ to traditional archaic definitions of perfect. THE ENERGY! THE LOLS! THE INSIGHTS! 

Second, when you watch the video, suddenly everything about… this *gestures around to you, me and the whole world* becomes clear. 

Wax talks of the constant modern pressures on our wellbeing, and the endless cortisol (the stress hormone) produced as a result of delayed trains, angry emails, weight gain, social fights, and so on. We’ve got stress juice pumping through us, from morning to night, and not enough ways to get rid of it. Some stress is self-inflicted; some is the result of an increasingly demanding, unhappy society. 

Too much cortisol means too much glucose in our blood, which means too much excess energy, which means… getting ourselves all whipped up into a frenzy. Daily.  

Our brains weren’t made for the 21st century. 

Our brains definitely weren’t made for 2020. 

Over the weekend I noticed a news story (and a few posts on LinkedIn) about a tweet from British Airways that made people angry. British Airways - sponsors of the English rugby team - wished England good luck in a match against Wales. Now, a bit of friendly banter and ribbing in response, I would understand. "Ouch!" “Damn you, BA!” “You picked the wrong team!” “We’ll show you!” etc etc. It’s a competitive game, after all.

But outrage commenced. People were furious. The cortisol was overflowing. How could BA show such spiteful favouritism towards the English? Is Wales not part of Britain anymore?! Some people said they’d never fly with BA again. THIS WAS DISGUSTING. HOW COULD THEY. MAKE THIS RIGHT. SAY SORRY. BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT. It reminded me of this very excellent scene from the Simpsons. 

Eventually British Airways apologised. Of course they did! Because that’s what we have to do, nowadays. I watched the scene unfold, concerned. Not for rugby fans, but for all of us. I care very much that people who live in Great Britain feel like they belong. I believe that policy makers should listen to and include everybody. I believe that cultures should be respected. A tweet about rugby? From an official sponsor? The reaction felt… disproportionate. 

I’ve also been watching average actor and former normal person-turned-troll Laurence Fox try to whip people up into a frenzy about masks. He believes “compliance is violence”; that we must resist the demands of covid experts and run mask-less through the streets and down the aisles of Marks & Spencer. 

There have been almost 60,000 deaths in the UK as a result of Covid-19. If this was a war, a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, we’d be mourning as a nation every day. I have friends who’ve lost family members this year. So his response feels… inappropriate. 

But then I realised: these behaviours are typical of the post-perspective era we live in. 

In this post-perspective era, all perspective about the size of issues is lost. The small things become huge, the big things are too big for us to process and in reality, nothing really matters. We overreact more. In a post-perspective era we are unable to contain anger, yet doing nothing about it has never been easier. A furore about British Airways wishing England luck - the cries of oppression - feels tone deaf, in a year when many people have lost their lives. 

So, what are the characteristics of a post-perspective era? I’ve identified four, so far, but I’ll be thinking about this a lot in the coming weeks. 

Social punchbags: of course this cultural evolution has been fuelled by social media; that doesn’t need to be over-explained! But this means that social media is the primary outlet for our anger and frustration. People want to feel be, respected, vindicated and their feelings validated. And they’ll turn to people they think either deserve or can handle their wrath, and who they think will listen, like celebrities, businesses or strangers to whom they have no social ties. 

Trending attention: our attention for a cause or issue lasts only as long as it lasts in the minds of those in our social circle (real and virtual). The feelings last for as long as our ‘chimp’ brain (the irrational part of our brain) needs to process and play with them. The media tend to exacerbate post-perspective situations, by reporting on them.

Oppression envy: a post-perspective era leans on recent years in which significant progress has been made in anti-racist and feminist movements, as well as great strides from the LGTQ+ community in nurturing a more positive, tolerant world. This has resulted in some pockets of privileged society staging a backlash. In some cases subtle, in others heavy-handed. Especially from white, straight, middle class men, who see the change as unfair. Laurence Fox is a great example, because: “to the privileged, equality feels like oppression”.

Mental overwhelm: being outraged ten times a day is exhausting. This means the need for light relief in our lives is even more pronounced. Light relief and laughter is now a drug; our responses to ‘wholesome’ content also can therefore be disproportionate, because we need it so much. When we get that relief, we cling to it, feed off it, and share it.

What does this all mean?

Well, to put it bluntly, we have to deal with it. But we also need to learn new behaviours and responses in these post-perspective times. Lack of perspective amongst citizens has huge implication for business marketing and PR teams, when very little of your message is controllable. 

In an ideal world, most brands would just keep quiet until next year, when we can begin again with odes to optimism, but for now I’d recommend setting up a ‘social focus group’ in your organisation. A broad and diverse team of individuals who can vet new, important communications before they’re released from a myriad of cultural lenses. Individuals who are able to read the room. In addition, my advice is: don’t pander to the mob. Unless you’re involved in hate crimes, racist acts, abuse or murder, unless you’re funding the baddies, unless you’re not paying your taxes, do not rush to apologise. 

2. Need an idea? Try getting weird.

This year has been a weird one for brainstorming. Or whatever you want to call it… ideation, co-creation, ponder-pooling… 

This year I’ve started using decent platforms like Mural and Spatial. I've embraced silent brainstorming, too (i.e. “shut up and let’s write our ideas down). 

But there’s a reason why people are best at coming up with ideas solo or in pairs… it’s because we’re most creative when we’re allowed to be the weirdest version of ourselves. That unfiltered, imaginative and batshit brain we were born with, that dulls over time in our quest to conform. 

In a remote world, when you run an ideas session, you need to create a space where everybody can be as weird as possible. That doesn't mean putting knickers on your head and talking backwards, it means exercises and techniques that make you comfortable going in new directions. Personally, I'm a fan of asking people to adopt an eccentric persona (i.e. Lady Gaga) and then ask what they would do, creatively. And asking people for their worst idea. (Which can often be better than good ideas!)

A creative session needs to unleash your eccentricities. And if you’re a talented planner you’ll then be able to rein in that weirdness to create something that works in media. 

Olga Khazan, a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World, says: "Being considered weird in your culture can enhance an element of creativity called 'integrative complexity.' People who are strong in integrative complexity tend to handle uncertainty well and excel at reconciling conflicting information. They’re often able to see problems from multiple perspectives.”

Read all about it in this excellent article. 

I’m currently working on a Weird Seance series of creative sessions, designed to get your team to the best bloody ideas across advertising, product and innovation. So watch this space or get in touch to make me finish them faster. 

3. 2021: The year of… Autofill? 

Hear me out. Autofill is underrated. In forms. On LinkedIn. In Gmail. Companies are learning a shit tonne about how we think and speak and then using it to make our lives easier. That it’s so subtle is why we don’t think about it much.

But Google is making constant sneaky progress in this space; they’ve been testing ‘enhanced voice typing’ and getting feedback from users on how useful their autofill is.

While the aim of this is obviously to take over our lives and brains, I'd love to think about the creative potential of autofill next year. Spotify have cornered the ‘use your own data to entertain you’ space… but autofill as entertainment! In a multi-platform ad campaign! Could be super smart. And if you fancy having a play with predictive creativity, give this a bash https://app.inferkit.com/demo (preview below).

4. In the future, let’s never speak. 

On the subject of tech controlling our brains, I was researching for a presentation on futurism last week and discovered this article about the year 2050. According to a guy called Marko Krajnovic, by 2050 humans will ditch speech and communicate using nothing but their thoughts.

He reckons we’ll have created a 'collective AI consciousness' - a bit like the cloud - that taps into human brains and can reveal what anyone is thinking. Called HIBA (which stands for Hybrid Intelligence Biometric Avatar) the consciousness will take on the personas of its users and exchange information between them.

Pros:

• Sometimes I can’t be bothered to speak, i.e. on every single Zoom meeting I’m a part of.
• Good for catching criminal masterminds.
• Amazing for teaching empathy in schools and business.

Cons:

• No one else should EVER be allowed near the contents of my brain. 

I know people always say this, but I’d actually love to hear what you think. (And not read what you think through a HIBA.)

5. The Imposter Virus (it’s not you, it’s them) 

I have beef. Beef with the pop psychology manipulation of the Imposter Syndrome narrative that's so popular in business these days. Why? Because it describes feelings of nervousness and anxiety as irrational, and places the onus on the individual to ‘fix themselves’ rather than examining the causes of those feelings... which in my opinion, is insecure colleagues and bad managers. People say "my imposter syndrome" when they should be talking about the feelings of inadequacy that were given to them. None of us is born feeling like a fraud.

My spin? It’s a virus. A virus passed from insecure people to unwilling recipients. Read my piece on The Imposter Virus (and why hurt people hurt people) here. 

6. HOW NOT TO… hate your brain 

I’ve recently started a series of HOW NOT TO videos for shots magazine. 

For my latest edition, I spoke to the funny, inspiring Amelia Eve Warden: one of those really annoying and brilliant over-achievers who campaigns tirelessly for society to have more productive conversations around mental health.

Amelia is what she calls ‘brain employed’, which means she’s created a company, a team and a way of working that works for her mind, rather than chaining herself to a desk from 9am to 5pm. 

Amelia hosts a show called Mental Health Mondays, and is dedicated to helping people deal with issues like depression, anxiety and loneliness. Oh, and she hates the ‘head clutch’ imagery that’s so often in mental health advertising. What a little snippet and catch the full interview here.

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That's enough for issue 1, OK? Drop me a line on LinkedIn if you've got thoughts, or visit my website www.amycharlottekean.co.uk to see what I've been up to... including setting up my own e-commerce store! *Chants* MERCH MERCH MERCH MERCH.