Pausing the Infinite scroll

One good thing about the enforced lockdown is that it has given us time to pause. Pause to think about why we are rushing around, pause to think about what is important, pause to organise and to create. So much of the content that I see on social media platforms is not interesting or simply attention-grabbing. Encouraging an infinite scroll where users never seem to be able to step off. I touched on this in my post ‘Tempting technology‘ and how social media uses gambling techniques to entice users into their content.

So why not stop the infinite scroll of mindlessly wasting time on the social networks be still, be creative and get out there and collaborate!

Be still

I am really enjoying the experience of writing a blog. Choosing a subject and researching it and presenting it in a way that is meaningful for me is really meditative.

I started to do a blog last year and think about if I had a blank sheet of paper what would I like to know more about. I have really enjoyed the challenge to pause and think about what content I want to create. Thinking of issues such as:

• What are the trends in technology? AI, IoT, Robotics and machine learning.
• The intersection of geopolitics and the internet.
• How social media businesses are using data to know us better than we know ourselves.
• The dynamics of ethics and technology in regards to artificial intelligence.
• Alongside the traditional project delivery and efficient ways of working.

I see each of these subjects as being interconnected and we need to understand superficially these subjects to make sense of the world around us.

Be creative

Creativity is not just art in the sense of beauty and visual pleasure or writing in the sense of beautiful poetry. Creativity is about designing something new out of nothing, bringing order out of chaos, taking the fundamental building blocks and applying intelligent design.

I think the unappreciated artists are the programmers and coders who create amazing technology by taking simple code and mixing it together in an intelligent way to create an elegant solution. This is often invisible to the user until an error occurs and then it become a problem!

My challenge to you is be creative in your field. Don’t just be doing the monotonous day to day routines but look at how you can be creative and create something new each day. It is really energising and liberating to see your ideas come to life.

Be collaborative

I love working in teams even when things aren’t going well. The dynamics of working together with other people who think differently and working towards a common purpose gives a tremendous sense of achievement.

Go in with the attitude to seek to understand than to be understood and build bridges where possible.

The whole issue of constraints in terms of not being able to go out has created a rich environment of collaboration. Individuals and companies are learning that they can be efficient working from home even with the added childcare responsibilities.

I really like initiatives like HitRecord which is all about creating things together. Someone comes up with a drum beat, someone else provides the images and videography and together it is produced into something creative and unique. Its has been made into a series of YouTube originals called created together #withme.