Quant data and HumanInt
We are focusing this week on a series of tools and techniques that investors and hedge funds teams are using:
Expert Networks: A Billion Dollar Opportunity. Sometimes messy, sometimes over-aggregated, alt data is still taking over. A fascinating quant exchange for those researching sources. +55,000 Economic & Financial Datasets covering 120 countries and 10 exchanges. 22,752 datasets and 777,203,436 series. The Yale databases. The Quandl Alternative Data Catalog. Web scrapping ( or just use a Chrome extension). YipitData is a data aggregator that sources web data, [anonymized] consumer receipts, and survey data. 1010data aggregates credit card data from third-party providers, For commodity intelligence, we like Shipmag. Landmark search. Email receipts data.
Blindspots
Looking at the familiar with “alien eyes” allows you to unlock new opportunities and avoid missing emerging risks
Local mesh was always a fantasy as a competitor to cellular. News influencers. Tempting… These beautiful Italian towns will pay you to work remotely. TikTok launching jobs service for Gen Z. Vaccine deserts: Some countries have no COVID-19 jabs at all. An electric vehicle (EV) uses 6x as many mineral resources as a fossil fuel car. A Single Biopsy From This Cow Can Make Millions of Handbags. Here’s how climate change could cause insects to destroy our crops.
We have scheduled the dates for our “Strategic Blindspots” course which will take place in an hybrid format in the fall.
Our future
Like Sweatpants, Squishy Furniture Is In (our offices will become homy..). Robots will make doubling China’s GDP by 2035 look easy. Tesla updating software of a fleet in parking lot looks like the aliens are coming. Stopping black patterns. Future of (fast)food: With Gay Burger, the pop-up model got an influencer twist . After a year of Zoom meetings, we’ll need to rebuild trust through eye contact. Is Mars ours?
Weak signals
Weak signals are indicators of a change, a trend or an emerging risk that might become significant for the future. They allow us to run hypothesis, expand our thinking, and challenge assumptions. How will you interpret those in your industry or field of expertise?
Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? An Investigation. This app lets you buy whatever food your favorite restaurant has leftover at the end of the day. This theater unveils the plot by snail mail.How the pandemic made fonts friendlier. Introducing the “ Emoji Subcommittee for the Unicode Consortium”. Millions: the platform helping combat athletes monetize their audiences. Retail spaces reinvention: Selfridges to Offer Wedding Ceremonies at Luxury London Store. Tokyo Is Getting An Esports Gym.
I like new words. This week, Bladderwrack, which is part of the “food grade beauty products” meta trend.
On our radar
In this section, I will share some of the content I come across as I work on specific mandates for our clients. This is what I worked on this week:
Our past session on Clubhouse focused on some of the latest ideas in design for the future of work. We spoke about colors, scents and shapes: Blue is an Elusive Color. One Artist Just Invented a New Shade. Sense: The book that uses sensory science to make you happier. An amplifier of thoughts. MIT’s color-changing paint could make your iPhone look different every day.
I taught this week in Switzerland for IMD a course with 5 simulations of situations/dilemnas corporate directors can face in this digital era. Here are some of the most challenging ones: Volkswagen admits its name change was an April Fools’ Day prank. A ‘Worst Nightmare’ Cyberattack: The Untold Story Of The SolarWinds Hack. What boards can learn from Hootsuite’s ICE snafu as whistle-blowers turn to social media. Burger King gets grilled for ‘women belong in the kitchen’ tweet.
Our speaking engagements can be found here.
Hodgepodge discovery
Articles for the curious mind as you like to cross over to new fields:
Return on invested cat. The Lack of Small Talk Is Breaking Our Brains. I always loved the history of fonts. A fascinating investigation of how a 19 year-old could create 7.7M fake comments (pdf). How Gravity Is a Double Copy of Other Forces. One of the World’s Oldest Science Experiments Comes Up From the Dirt. How Filippo Brunelleschi, Untrained in Architecture or Engineering, Built the World’s Largest Dome at the Dawn of the Renaissance.
You have asked me to suggest newsletters that inspire me, so I will suggest one each week: a few signals spotted this week come from Patrick Tanguay’s Sentiers 🙏
Feeling Good
Five decades of Met Publications on art history, available to read, download or search. A bucket list. Mindgame: the red faced cube. A virtual ocean. Lights at sea. Just a cloud. Form and function: some of the most beautifully crafted surf boards in the world.
