Pocket Change: Collective effervescence & stubborn optimism
Pocket Change is a monthly series of notes on disruption, authored by 18 Coffees co-founder Caleb Gardner. Be the first to read Pocket Change — subscribe to the email newsletter here.
Conference season is picking back up, and I’ve just spent a few weeks with business executives, startup founders, and social impact leaders at two back-to-back conferences: TWIN Impact and Social Innovation Summit. The energy at both was palpable, as attendees remembered the serendipity produced by being inspired by other people’s work in person.
There was a through line of transformation and transcendence from the speakers and panels, a stubborn optimism in spite of the global headwinds we face. We may be staring down a recession, rising inflation, climate change, and other seemingly intractable problems, but the people I heard from were confident in our ability to innovate our way toward a brighter future.
Two forcing functions seem to be driving people’s confidence: ESG’s ability to be both a call to action and an accountability driver for corporate social good; and Web3’s potential for creating value at new frontiers of the internet. (At one dinner I attended, a Web3 enthusiast said it would single-handedly save the oceans.)
I generally maintain a healthy skepticism about our ability to innovate out of our problems. There have been too many ways we’ve charged ahead as a society on a big idea, only to deal with the unintended consequences later. But despite myself, I got caught up in the energy of the rooms I was in. Being surrounded by people who want to fix the world’s problems is a nice antidote to constantly reading about all the ways it is currently broken.
“Collective effervescence” is the sociological idea that occasionally humans come together to share the same thoughts, emotions, or actions, briefly escaping individual experience to do something transcendent together – think of a religious service, or a concert. Maybe that’s what we do when we spend time together sharing new ideas. And maybe that’s what we need to occasionally get out of our own cynical heads.
I know it’s what I needed. More stubborn optimism, please.
Keeping an eye on:
CORPORATE HOUSING – What’s old is new again, as companies compete for talent by building affordable housing.
LOCATION TRACKERS – As the Supreme Court decision nears that could overturn Roe v. Wade, Democrats are urging Google to stop collecting data that could be used to track those seeking abortions.
TELEPORTING DATA – In maybe the most consequential but underreported story, scientists recently made a leap forward in ‘quantum teleportation’ – which could one day underpin a computer network infinitely more powerful than what we have today.
CONTENT VETOES – In what could be a harbinger of things to come, India is considering an appeals panel with the ability to overturn content moderation decisions by the major social media platforms.
CHILLING EFFECTS – The Depp-Heard verdict was … not great. Advocates fear it will prevent other women from coming forward with abuse claims.
ROBOT HOUSEKEEPERS – Will the future be filled with robots capable of helping with mundane household chores? That’s what Dyson is counting on. (Let it be known this is one future I fully support.)
