Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman's Blog About Surprise

No More "Mr. Notes Guy"

I am a journalist.

Not the type that Donald Trump’s White House seems to hate; perhaps it would be more precise to add a hyphen and say that I am a journal-ist, meaning that I love taking notes in a hardcover journal.

I’ve been doing this for years--since I was 16, in fact--the result of which is that a couple of shelves in my home library are lined with lined books documenting my thoughts, reflections and to-do lists. While these books are more practical in their year of use (yes, it usually boils down to a book a year), it’s kinda fun to look back and see what I was doing, to whom I was talking and what I was thinking at this exact time five years, or a decade, or even longer ago.

So it’s somewhat a paradox that I jotted down the thesis and supporting notes for this post in my 2017 journal...because while doing so at a recent conference in Toronto, I realized that I was practically the only one there actually doing so.

In a nutshell...

Nobody takes notes anymore.

Well, not by hand, anyway.  And not by thumb or fingers either, because the act of note-taking has not “gone digital” to the keyboard, tablet or phone screen.

No, note-taking has gone the route of the lens, as people have taken to collecting data by snapping pictures of it.  The selfie has begat the slidie. (See photo-taking photo above!)

This is not a brand new phenomenon, but it was really knocked home at the ResolveTO start-up conference I referenced earlier. Never mind the speakers or people on stage; PowerPoint slides were the event’s mega-stars, and conference-goers a gaggle of snap-crazy paparazzi.

I have no problem with this personally, nor as a conference attendee.  

But as a speaker, this changes everything.

Ironically, “slidies” put the onus back on the words themselves, quite the different tact to the “big image” or one-word backdrops that have been conference on-screen de rigeur over the past couple of years.  You want your point to get across? Then your words (or text-heavy words-and-image combos) have to be photo worthy, and more importantly, make sense later on when you're not around.  

This conference attendee behavior reminds me much of what I see at concerts these days, namely people obsessed with capturing the whole thing on their phones for later viewing, ignoring the “in the moment”-ness of being there live.

But it’s easier to adapt to emerging consumer behavior than to change it, so to stay relevant for my next speaking engagements, I guess it’s time to sex up the on-screen typography...or better still, revert to the slide that I myself used at ResolveTO:

20 is the new 50

It’s just one sentence, yet the different meanings it takes on when enunciated are extreme.

It all boils down to a tiny tinge of inflection; but when the inflection is shifted over just one word and spoken out loud, the context of the sentence changes cataclysmically.

Since I’m not speaking out loud here, I’ll let the elements of, CAPITALIZATION, italicization, boldness and even colour clarify all this for you. Here’s the sentence in its raw form:

You’re 20 years old...what do you know?

When I was of the age bracket, it was said this way, somewhat derisively (I guess you can speak it out loud for full effect):

You’re 20 years old...what do YOU know?

In other words...who the hell are you to have an opinion?  You’re still a pisher.  Shut up and learn something.  I have socks older than you.  Stop bothering me.

Indeed, these were all actually spouted verbatim at me, delivered with squinty eyes and an upturned nose...despite the fact that when I was 20, I was in a management and editorial position at a newspaper, while completing my business degree at McGill.  Little respect from “the man.”  We know everything, you know nothing...but uh, give it a few years, and you’ll be in our position.

So I gave it a few years.  Cut to 2017.   Now the sentence goes:

You’re 20 years old...what do you KNOW?

The eyes aren’t squinting anymore.  They are wide to the point of popping, in a near desperate search for some street relevance, some insight into social media worlds and magic technological kingdoms that “the man” has been shut out of.  You know everything, we know nothing...but please, please give us a taste, a few insights and uh, maybe I can extricate myself from the prone position.

Now that I’m running a tech biz called Play The Future, I see this attitude shift everywhere.  From conferences to conference rooms. A most phenomenal flipping of the funnel of wisdom. 20 is indeed the new 50 (especially at Play The Future, where one-third of our staff are 20 somethings).

To those who can accept this seismic swing of influence, there’s a lot of opportunity to make things great and make great things.  To those who can’t, welcome to irrelevance, obscurity and bitterness.

I guess I chose the wrong time to be 20.

But at least I’m smart enough to act accordingly now that I’m on the other side ;)

A (Somewhat) Surprising Valentine’s Day Prize

As surprises go, it wasn’t particularly effective.  It was telegraphed a day in advance via a text message that went in part:

Hey PTF crew--

I am in need of some time-sensitive information.

There is a prize coming your way if we can confirm an office/unit number and possibly a phone number for someone who will be there tomorrow afternoon to receive a delivery.

It was supposed to be a surprise, but this delivery service is thorough!

Okay, so the Pow! of the surprise was somewhat lacking, but the delight and joy it brought far made up for it.

As a company that gives out over 200 prizes a month, getting one was quite the role reversal.  But such is the reward, I suspect, when you treat your public like friends.

One of the credos we’ve always pushed at Play The Future--from Day One, and in every aspect of the business, from in-app questions to social media dealings--is “Talk to the People.”

“Talk” as in true listen-before-you speak conversation.  

And “People” as in those you are lucky enough to have play your game, buy into what you’re doing and spread the word on your behalf are actually human beings.  Someone’s mom or sister or uncle or brother or son or whatever.

What we’ve discovered by doing this, especially in an age of AI and rampant chatbots, is that a little soul, care and real-speak go a long way.

So cut to 11:45 a.m. at the Play The Future offices--we get the box above with the note that says:

“We predict you will be our valentines.  

Love, your top two Futurists,
Stephanie M and Kara S.”

We were floored for two reasons. Getting a gift from PTF players was one, but the fact that these women never knew each other before--and became friends by playing--Play The Future truly warmed our Valentine’s Day hearts.

It’s cause and effect, really.  We treat our players like friends and family.  We affectionately call them all “Futurists” instead of “customers” or “clients,” and some of our most ardent Futurists have graduated to the next level of closeness and familiarity, a “Team Tomorrow” that gets inside info and helps us make decisions.

So to Stephanie and Kara, thanks for making our day.  Your prediction accuracy score is way beyond 100% on this one.

And for the rest of those reading this, how are YOU treating the ones who decide YOUR future?

If they ain’t sending you a gift now and then...perhaps they’re sending you a message.

Forget You Read This (and Maybe You’ll Learn Something)

It’s fascinating to, well uh, learn that the concept of a “Learning Curve” was born way back in 1885 when it was introduced by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus.

That crunching noise you hear is the sound of us abruptly reaching the end of it 132 years later.

Ebbinghaus’s Learning Curve compared the increase in learning when measured over a span of time. Differences in said increase and the length of time accounted for variances in the shape of the curve; a somewhat obvious conclusion, if you ask me.

Point here is that no matter what shape the curve takes, “learning” is only half the goal these days, when there is more than ever to learn and more ways than ever to learn it (this is something I am currently experiencing first-hand as Play The Future enters the American market).  Despite the abundance of information, it seems harder than ever to actually learn something. Quel paradoxe!

The brain is a wondrous tool, but it’s capacity is somewhat limited.  

Unlike techno farms at Google and Amazon, we can’t just toss another rack of servers on our backs and plug ‘em into our heads. With learning curves getting steeper, and the noise driving them up getting louder, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to expand our cranial capacity and “learn” the new that’s necessary for us to advance

Which is why I like the concept of a “Forgetting Curve”...

...the “7-Up” to the learning curve’s cola (reference check for millennials: right here).

Frankly, a “Forgetting Curve” already exists (see Wikipedia), but it’s more medical in theory, hypothesizing the decline of memory retention over time. It may be insensitive on my part, but let’s just ignore that one.

The “Forgetting Curve” I am championing though is way more self managing and practical.  It would require--no, force--us to let go of old ways, preconceived notions, out-of-date processes and deeply-ingrained predispositions.

And while it’s almost impossible to un-think an idea (i.e. wipe it out of your organic memory), a more attainable feat is to ignore things, or at least close your eyes and turn your back on them before moving on in a new direction. This process may not eliminate learning curves, but at least it makes their gradients easier to climb.  

So (hahaha) remember this: a little forgetting will go a long way in learning something new, and set you on a new path...of straight and narrow.