Welcome to this 9th issue of our newsletter “Weak Signals and other Trends”. Each week, I sift through hundreds of sources of inspiration to track where we’re heading. We discuss those trends and signals every Saturday at 9am EST on Clubhouse.
This is what I noticed this week, thank you for reading and sharing this newsletter to those who look at the future.
Competitive Intelligence
We are focusing this week on a series of tools that competitive intelligence teams are using:
Hexowatch , a powerful site surveillance tool to monitor any website for visual, content, source code, technology, availability, or price changes. Ricochet helps you complement the information you have about prospective B2B prospects. A reverse image search. Findings has been discontinued, it used to allow you to combine all your research in one place. Cars Have Your Location. This Spy Firm Wants to Sell It to the U.S. Military. Brave acquires search engine to offer the first private alternative to Google Search. The UK is secretly testing a controversial web snooping tool. The 450 pages report by The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. GCHQ releases ‘most difficult puzzle ever‘ in honour of Alan Turing .
Blindspots
Looking at the familiar with “alien eyes” allows you to unlock new opportunities and avoid missing emerging risks
Does your social media presence create a news’ blindspot? How to Run a Business in 2020. Amazon Live is becoming a destination for big product launches. The World’s First Programmable Organism. America’s Top Farmland Owner. The World’s Most Searched Consumer Brands. Billions in secretive derivatives ($). Whistleblower: Ubiquiti Breach “Catastrophic”. Morningstar unleashes robots to write fund research. 100 billions for chips.
Our future
AI Can Now Debate with Humans and Sometimes Convince Them, Too. Hybrid hospices: Could hotel, home and office soon be one space? Customer advisory boards. America’s long-ailing manufacturers are fired up. This noggin-reading gadget plays songs based on your brain waves. Chilean city installs cabins in park as offices for small businesses. Evidence of brand new physics at Cern. This AI Uses Your Brain Activity to Create Fake Faces It Knows You’ll Find Attractive. How the rise of ‘digital nomad’ visas will drive the global battle for talent. The rise of cyborg art dealers.
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 an hypothesis, expand our thinking, and challenge assumptions. How will you interpret those in your industry or field of expertise?
Sotheby’s Rakes in $176 Million in a Global, Five-Hour Franken-Sale. We are all that boat now. The Dark Web Is Teeming With Vaccine Listings Right Now. Coded Bias is the ‘Inconvenient Truth for Algorithms.’ and it’s coming to Netflix on Apr 15. Unfolding the math of origami. A new fashion trend: tops you can get vaccinated in. Shake Shack trials cutlery and straws made by microbes out of greenhouse gases. How you signal you’re single. Ex-Gap CEO Art Peck launches $200M SPAC, Cayman island located. Burger Restaurant Poses Food As Office Supplies So You Can Expense Your Lunch. Lil Nas X’s ‘Satan Shoe’ — made with one drop of human blood — sold out in under a minute. Stanford Scientists Reverse Engineer Moderna Vaccine, Post Code on Github. When bicycles and fryers meet ( in French)
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:
Governance in 2021 and beyond: I am finalizing a training curriculum for the large institutional shareholder for their nominee directors, and reviewed what will be on board’s agendas in 2021-2025: Solarwind creates a new cybersecurity-specific committee in the boardroom. The state of Enterprise Risk Management in Canada. Principles for Board Governance of Cyber Risk by the World Economic Forum.
Social media awakens: I am updating our course “Social Media for Competitive Intelligence” and have tracked this week many new announcement and new functionalities: Dickie Bush unveils hidden Twitter functionalities. LinkedIn adds “a Creator Mode. Slack is getting new audio features. LinkedIn confirms it’s working on a Clubhouse rival, too. So is Discord.
Hodgepodge discovery
Articles for the curious mind which likes to cross over to new fields:
The Royal Charter Gale and the world’s first National Forecasting Service. The largest collection of passion economy resources . The Strange Reason You’ll Always Weigh Less in Canada Than Anywhere Else. Microsoft PowerPoint can now coach you – and help you practice presentations almost anywhere — no humans required. What happens to our cognition in the darkest depths of winter? Listen to Wikipedia. Mapping World Literature with Mapbox.
I like new words. I read this week about fandoms.
Feeling good
Is that ship still stuck?Welsh rabbits serve up prehistoric finds on tiny Skokholm Island. The infinite drum machine. Addicted to clickclickclick. Build poemas from the NYT timeline. Where is that boat?
