A neon wall mural at VooDoo Donuts here in Austin. So, so good.
Day Two of SXSW Interactive was HOT! Literally. Austin gifted the SXSW crowd with its first spring-going-summer day of the year with a clear, sunny 87-degree day. After a solid winter and the past two weeks (or so) of winter-going-spring conditions, I think Texans were ready for some sun, but just not all at once! (NB – For those unfamiliar with Texas weather, the state doesn’t really have spring. There are pockets of winter with cool spring-ish days from January through about March, a week and a half of what others would call spring weather, then early summer, and then blazing summer from June through August). The warmer weather created a great atmosphere, empowering the SXSW community to take downtown Austin by storm and inspiring some excellent sessions that centered around the theme of getting back to basics.
Honor Humanity
Honoring the humanity of others was the first thread I heard throughout today’s sessions. As some have noted (and you may have noticed as well), current political and social movements in the U.S. (and beyond) have unleashed an intentional assault on one of the core values of classical, modern liberalism that is baked into the founding vision for the United States and also a fundamental premise of Christian faith: the sanctity of humanity. The Declaration of Independence declares, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Enlightenment-based assumption in this phrase (however misleadingly applied in its own time) is that God’s human creatures, by the very nature of their being, are valuable. On account of their fundamental value, they have “inalienable Rights,” just a few of which are “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” America’s founding vision, of course, resonates strongly with the biblical vision of God’s unique creation and special commissioning of humanity. With the current tone of conversations about immigration and refugees, the “pay to play” nature of the political system, and the economic marginalization and political isolation of the middle class and (especially) the poor (just to name a few), it is clear to many that we need to get back to the basics of honoring the humanity of each and every person, in the U.S. and around the globe.
Author Rohit Bhargava and his team have curated a list of 15 “non-obvious” cultural trends that impact the future each year since 2012. For 2018, four of the seven themes the author presented resonate with this call to honor humanity.
-
Manipulated Outrage occurs when someone intentionally sets off a triggered response with the result that their content tears across social media. Media outlets and marketers have leveraged this strategy with acumen in the recent past, as clearly evidenced by everybody’s Facebook wall. To counter this ultimately dehumanizing trend, individuals, businesses and media outlets should recognize and work to heal the triggered posture of so many people that is rooted in an authentic and pervasive anger and sense of fear.
The second trend, Ungendered, speaks to the contemporary human reality that individuals no longer wish to be forced into binary gender identities and roles. In the course of human history – especially the past century – “male” and “female” have been leveraged to either pit men against women, or to enforce a set of particular values upon an individual. In response, an increasing number of people want to be honored – and treated equally – and not on the basis of values tied to particular gender definitions.
Human Mode is a theme that serves as a call to innovators to honor the humanity of its users in the design thinking that goes into their products and services. Technologies and services should honor and not violate our humanity. Finally Bhargava presented the theme of
Loveable Unperfection as a call for transparency to all institutions. In our quest for systematic perfection, we have disconnected from the human reality (evidenced regularly) that we fail miserably. Being transparent – and even shining the light – on our imperfections, our foibles, honors the common humanity that pervades all organizations, no matter how things may appear on the surface.
U.S. Congressman and senatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke talked about his grassroots approach to campaigning and fundraising that runs counter to the structure that drives (read: corrupts, and I’m serious about that) the Republican and Democratic parties in the U.S. As opposed to paying dues and spending half of his day appointed to “call time,” Beto has gone back to basics, canvassing communities across Texas and listening to people in open forum town hall sessions. In his ongoing tour of Texas, Beto has visited communities that have not seen a congressperson in decades. Cutting against the grain of large, mass media-driven campaigns, Beto is honoring the humanity of Texans by showing up, listening, taking good notes, and embodying representative governance. Frankly, we need more people like Beto in higher levels of governance.
This high touch approach to honoring humanity also echoed through conversations with CNN’s international correspondent Christiane Anampour and the Atlantic’s national correspondent (and Black Panther screenwriter) Ta-Nehisi Coates. Each doubled down on the basic journalistic values of getting face-to-face with the people being covered and doing the hard work of research throughout the process. Anampour has been the boots on the ground for CNN for the 35 years in the midst of armed conflict and humanitarian tragedy. The quality of her reporting here and in her upcoming CNN series on women, love and sex honors humanity through direct engagement in the lives of real people. During the conversation with Coates, he evidenced his journalistic integrity through his unwillingness to play the part of “public intellectual” by opining deductively about issues that he had not had the time to examine carefully. This approach to inquiry, reporting and writing honors humanity by paying careful attention to genuine, human reality and telling their stories without leaping into commentary or editorial.
Finally, a surprising moment of honoring humanity came out of a Westworld cast session (that featured a surprise visit from Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla…and originally PayPal). During the conversation, Thandie Newton spoke about the challenge and growth she experiences portraying Maeve Millay, which naturally morphed into a discussion of her relief work work in Africa with women for whom dehumanization is a daily occurrence. As she told stories of women she has met, she transported the SXSW crowd from fiction to fact, from the horrors of a hypothetical AI future to the terrible daily reality of actual people. The moment served to snap us all back, again, to the basics of the need to honor the humanity of everyone.
Given the many dehumanizing trends apparent in our current climate both here in the U.S. and around the globe (I’m specifically thinking here of human rights violations), it is time to get back to basics, beginning with honoring the humanity of others – all others. This is not a philosophical baby that we want to throw out with the bathwater of Modernity in the course of our current cultural deconstructions.
Value Values
I’ve been hearing for the past few years that when it comes to Millennials and the iGen social values matter. Research in many fields now clearly demonstrates that anyone who wants to engage these two generations must directly embody their social values to the extent that they get behind causes they support. Because Millennials and iGen can smell disingenuousness a mile a way, it will not work to simply have the appearance of supporting LBGTQ rights, for instance, or environmental sustainability. If your product, service, platform or cause is not demonstrably advocating for these causes, they will move along. However, if companies value the values of these groups, they will not only be customers, but dedicated brand advocates and maybe even partners. This cultural reality moves commerce beyond merely transactional relationships to a mutual investment that functions more like a community, which is completely different than prior generations’ ideas of simply running a company.
Live Intelligently
Finally, in a session with author Daniel Pink, he encouraged the SXSW crowd to get back to the basics of evidence-based research when it comes to how we think about the question of when relative to our lives. When should x, y or z activity occur in the course of my day or in the course of my life? Pink asserts (rightly) that we put tons of time and energy into answering the questions of who, what, where and how in our lives and our organizations, but spend very little time processing through when the timing is optimum for the responses to all of these other questions. The science of chronobiology in concert with other research reveals that people tend to peak in the first part of the day, experience a productivity trough mid-day and then rebound later in the day. So, we should orient our work tasks and meetings to this very human cycle as opposed to believing (wrongly) that a human has the ability to operate at an optimum level of productivity all day long. Pink suggests we also live intelligently by examining the science behind taking constructive breaks during the work day. Breaks taken for 15-25 minutes, actively, outside, detached from work, and with another person generate creativity and productivity. Simply “working through” has the appearance of effectiveness and achievement, but evidence-based studies unanimously stand against working this way. And don’t even get Pink started about overnight shift work. Let’s just say it is inhumane – even for night owls – and shouldn’t exist. Pink also demonstrated the research behind the power of endings. People are narrative creatures, cycling through episodes in the course of their lives comprised of beginnings, middles and endings. When people perceive that an end is coming, it has been consistently observed that they have an energy surge. This is the reason why people run their first marathons at 29, 39, and 49. In the course of our individual lives or in the lives of organizations, if we put a spotlight on endings, we will see an upsurge in activity, productivity and achievement, simply because the time is being narratively framed as an ending.
In sum, Day Two spoke into the troubling climate in which we find ourselves with a call back to the basics, knowing there we will find both familiar and new grounding that will establish substantial ways forward.