Your uniqueness is a strategy
The case for special snowflakes + great news from 2023
People say you have to travel to see the world. Sometimes I think that if you just stay in one place and keep your eyes open, you’re going to see just about all that you can handle. — Paul Auster
Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone!
On this last Sunday of 2023, I wanted to share some hearty things that have stuck to my ribs + what’s coming up:
what I learned at an IDEO event that I can’t stop thinking about
mood-boosting, legit good news from 2023
a peek at my upcoming Wednesday essay: “This is why you feel like an impostor (and how to fix it next year)”
💡 Idea of the Week: “unique affordances”
I’ve been chewing on this phrase like a cow on cud.
Recently, I sat in on a live episode recording of IDEO’s Creative Confidence podcast about how design can help solve climate challenges.
One of the speakers told the story of IDEO working with Ford Motor Company to brand and sell the electric version of the F-150 pickup truck.
Problem: The F-150 is considered by many to be a cornerstone of Americana, the most classic pick-up truck. There is so much history and culture to contend with. How do you get people to change their minds? Here’s what he had to say:
The key to consumer adoption of an electric F-150? Sell it as a better version of the F-150, not the “responsible choice” F-150.
How do you start proving that it’s better? Look at what’s called “unique affordances” of an electric truck. Basically, what are its unique value propositions?
Your car is now an energy source.
No internal combustion —> tailgate can be a work bench
Power goes down in your home? —> plug into the truck
Without the combustion engine —> that area can be storage (i.e. recognize also what's not there, space that is freed up)
This is all somewhat related to a phrase you might have heard: “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.” But meant in earnest!
I can’t help but try to map this idea onto my arena: human potential. “Unique affordances” translated into personal development terms might sound like:
Get to know yourself, embrace your little weirds (to quote Jenny Slate), and make them known.
I — like you, probably — am also tired of the phrase “personal branding”. But if you have an idea, product, or service you want to contribute to the world, it matters.
It’s very 2016-election-year to scoff at being a “special snowflake”. Nature is all about special snowflakes! Each of us literally has our own unique DNA and fingerprints. You are a vessel for an inimitable collection of experiences, characteristics, stories, preferences. No one else filters the world the way you do.
I would not have guessed a brand strategy story about the electric Ford F-150 would lead me to a fresh way to talk about unfair advantage. Cool!
What comes up for you around “unique affordances”? Where might you apply it?
📖 Read of the Week: 2023 is worth celebrating
God, I’m craving some good news, aren’t you? Here’s the thing: there was a ton of it in 2023. That delights me. But for many reasons (e.g. the news business, dopamine, etc.), we didn’t hear much of it. That subdues me.
I savored this article. These are just a few highlights (the whole article is illustrated and worth a skim) that gave me the warm fuzzies or the happy-chills:
Progress in the fight against cancer
Pfizer announced it would offer all patented cancer drugs at cost to 1.2 billion people in low-income countries.
Malaria vaccines started arriving in Africa
A malaria vaccine is the holy grail of global health. We've been trying to create one for over 70 years, and now we are about to unleash not one but two of them against a disease that infects 247 million people and kills half a million children every year.
The greatest year ever for clean energy
Thanks to the staggering uptake of wind and solar, energy researchers had to tear up all their old forecasts, including the International Energy Agency (IEA), which announced in October that global fossil fuel use may peak this year, two years earlier than predicted just 12 months ago.
China's carbon emissions are likely to start falling next year
The reason for this epochal shift? The country's unprecedented buildout of 300 GW of solar and wind in 2023, almost double its 2022 total. It's the largest ever single year deployment of energy in our species' history. “There’s nothing you can benchmark this against."
Global poverty reduction is back on track
After the setbacks of the pandemic, the World Bank said that a majority of low and middle income countries will see poverty decline in 2023, and more than half will reach a lower poverty rate than in 2019.
Crime plummeted in the United States
Initial data suggests that murder rates for 2023 are down by almost 13%, one of the largest ever annual declines, and every major category of crime except auto theft has declined too, with violent crime falling to one of the lowest rates in more than 50 years and property crime falling to its lowest level since the 1960s.
Some good news for LGBTQ rights
Perhaps the biggest news of the year however, was December's announcement by Pope Francis that priests are allowed to bless unmarried and same-sex couples, described as “the most concrete pastoral shift on the stance toward gay couples in the Catholic Church’s 2,000 year history.”
The United States pulled off an economic miracle
In 2022 economists predicted with 100% certainty that the US was going to enter a recession within a year. It didn't happen. GDP growth is now the fastest of all advanced economies, 14 million jobs have been created under the current administration, unemployment is at its lowest since WW2, and new business formation rates are at record highs. Inflation is almost back down to pre-pandemic levels, wages are above pre-pandemic levels (accounting for inflation), and more than a third of the rise in economic inequality between 1979 and 2019 has been reversed. Average wealth has climbed by over $50,000 per household since 2020, and doubled for Americans aged 18-34, home ownership for GenZ is higher than it was for Millennials and GenX at this point in their lives, and the annual deficit is trillions of dollars lower than it was in 2020.
The greatest conservation victory of all time
In March this year, 193 countries reached a landmark deal to protect the world's oceans, in what Greenpeace called "the greatest conservation victory of all time."
One of the largest ever declines in deforestation
In 2023 deforestation across the nine Amazonian countries was 55.8% lower than last year, in a major turnaround for a region that's vital to curbing climate change.
Endangered species that are recovering
African lion / African elephant / American alligator / American bison / Asiatic lion / Atlantic puffin / Azores bullfinch / Bald eagle / Bali myna / Black rhino / Black-footed ferret / Black-veined moth / Blue whale / Bornean orangutan / Chinese sturgeon / Darwin’s flycatcher / East Pacific green sea turtle / Eastern barred bandicoot / Eurasian brown bear / Eurasian beaver / Eurasian wolf / Fender’s blue butterfly / Galapagos giant tortoise / Golden eagle / Golden lion tamarin / Greater bilby / Hargila stork / Humpback whale / Iberian lynx / Jaguar / Kaempfer’s woodpecker / Kipunji monkey / Large heath butterfly / Mexican wolf / Monarch butterfly / Mountain gorilla / Olive ridley sea turtle / Peregrine falcon / Polynesian tree snail / Red squirrel / Saiga antelope / Saimaa ringed seal / Sea otter / Siamese crocodile / Snow leopard / Sooty albatross / Southern right whale / Stocky galaxias fish / Takahē / Three-banded armadillo / Tibetan antelope / Tibetan red deer / Tibetan white-lipped deer / Tiger / White rhino / Wood stork / Whooper swans / Yunnan golden hair monkey / Zebra shark
Hope you feel as heartened as I do after reading these! What’s the best news you heard in 2023? Nothing is too big nor small.
📝 Upcoming Wednesday Essay: This is why you feel like an impostor (and how to fix it next year)
Me and you and everyone you know (to quote Miranda July) has a relationship with impostor syndrome.
I feel conflicted about this because it’s:
definitely not a real syndrome, and believing in fake nonsense does real damage
fascinating that the phrase has taken off and resonated with so many people. Why?
…more soon!
See you next year ha ha ha ha,
Kat