This is a quick note…These are things that come to my mind as I’m out and about, walking, riding my scooter or simply journaling and they are things that I’d like to expand on in future, or that I’d love to chat with people with about.

Today’s quick ideas include some thoughts around personal branding,

Idea #1: Personal Branding = You as a Commodity

This was an interesting thought I hadn’t heard expressed in this way before. The only purpose of personal branding is really to distill all of the complex aspects that make up you as a human and neatly package them up so another person can quickly understand them and then decide if they have a use for you or not.

And we are just so much more than that.

Idea #2: Tech aims to solve human problems by removing the human component

Also something I hadn’t considered before, but that’s what it is. Oh we have a problem with assistant Stephanie struggling to work, is there a tech we can use so we can get rid of assistant Stephanie that is cheaper and doesn’t need so much attention.

While the real source of the problem probably isn’t assistant Stephanie in the first place, she was actually just the symptom, but that didn’t occur to anyone in the “problem-solving” or “symptom-removal” process.

Idea #3: What “the internet” used to be, is not what it is now.

There was realistically a time where the internet was pretty good and pretty useful. And now the internet has just boiled down to a handful of companies all trying to get us addicted to their product and telling us how to live life. And unfortunately most people aren’t realising this is what is happening.

Idea #4: Being constantly connected is what drives us insane

The reason why many of us are completely burnt out by our “remote work” isn’t the work. It’s the overhead as Cal Newport calls it that comes WITH the work, it’s the messages, the emails and the meetings. If we cut those back to what would have been normal pre-slack, then we wouldn’t be going crazy.

Idea #5: Whenever a tech company says “progress is inevitable” pay careful attention

I also hadn’t realised that this is quite a common thing for tech companies to do. Blame their latest decision on “that’s just what it is, that’s just where things are going”.

I could draw parallels to times in history no one wants to be reminded of where this was also quite a commonly used strategy.