Brainstorming the End of the World
Okay, here’s the most “now” sentence I’ve ever written: A couple of days or weeks ago (what is time anymore anyways?), I got a Slack message that I was late for a Zoom conference.
My kids were screaming, my wife was annoyed, and I had just spilled tea on my lap…again. But, yes, I was hopping onto the call in just a second. I quickly changed my pants, checked that I didn’t have my daughter’s mac’n’cheese in my hair, and clicked “join.”
And, to be honest, I was annoyed.
I have two kids, a shrinking apartment, aging parents, approximately 25,000 unread Slack notifications, an Instacart shopper telling me that there’s not a bag of flour within 50 miles of my home, and no time for a brainstorm session with a few strangers.
And yet, there I was. In the Zoom grid.
But here’s the thing: the meeting started and immediately my mood changed. There were architects, experience designers, technologists, strategists, and we were all trying to figure out how to make sense of the world around us. What were the problems at the forefront of our clients’ minds? What were they afraid of? What did they need help with right now?
In other words: what was on fire and how could we put it out?
And then the conversation shifted. You can’t build a house while the foundation is on fire, and plenty of people were, and are, concentrated on the very real and immediate dangers in our current world. We couldn’t help but wonder what would happen afterwards.
Suddenly we were asking what were the problems that we weren’t thinking of yet? What challenges lay ahead, after this initial shock? What about the opportunities? Suddenly we were forming a holistic image of the emotional impact of this moment and how it would ripple outwards into everything that we do, or think, or create. Long into the future.
The result of that conversation has been the forming of a cohort that I feel privileged to be a part of. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing our most exciting ideas, findings, and case studies that will hopefully serve as a starting point for moving forward in this new age. And I truly can’t wait to share what we’re learning.
I started frustrated and overwhelmed, but now I’m inspired and I hope you will be, as well.
Just don’t spill any tea on your lap.
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