Rebooting our working systems around tech
How the post-pandemic hybrid work mode and the WGA strike are illustrating it's time for a reboot | Vol. 23
Hello Friends - Believe it or not, we are at the midpoint of the year. Remember how slow time felt when you were young? Sometimes I long for those days. That said, it’s never a good idea to live in the past or the future. All we can do is be here now.
The Preface
As the media/tech/academic/business worlds continue to obsess about AI and Chat GPT, as debates continue on the state of hybrid working/office attendance, and as I observe the behavior of humans glued to their smartphones for many hours against a backdrop of research that continues to surface how young people are in crisis with anxiety, depression, self-mutilation, and other negative health things since the onset of 1) smartphones and 2) social media….I have thoughts…
All that being said, this dispatch is not about Chat GPT but it is about how technology continues to swarm around us influencing behaviors, our brains, and the process of how we engage with ourselves, how we make things in a capitalistic society, and how all of that makes us feel about the world around us.
The Inspiration for this dispatch: Acknowledging the real AI is the supercomputer in our brains
The human mind is not, like ChatGPT and its ilk, a lumbering statistical engine for pattern matching, gorging on hundreds of terabytes of data and extrapolating the most likely conversational response or most probable answer to a scientific question. On the contrary, the human mind is a surprisingly efficient and even elegant system that operates with small amounts of information; it seeks not to infer brute correlations among data points but to create explanations.
Aside from capturing the essence of my own vibes regarding the AI hype cycle, I realized, we never talk about the awesomeness of our brains. We never really honor how they are the original supercomputers. This quote prompted a deep-dive of research to uncover why our brains are forces of nature. The findings have been eye-opening.
Post-Pandemic Office Vibes Writer’s Strike, and the things in between
I started writing this piece over a month ago. And as I began to explore it, the focus started to expand. That’s why this dispatch has become a multi-part series.
Part I will focus on the evidence surfacing on tech affecting culture in the form of the hybrid working/office attendance debate and the WGA writer’s strike. Both are revealing how an over-reliance on technology is causing issues with humans. Yet, from two different vantage points.
Part II will be a deeper dive into frustrations with work, the negative ramifications of our screen addictions, and defining what technology really is.
Part III will be insights from the most cutting-edge brain research on what makes us thrive. Both individually and holistically. Revealing how we might attain the superpowers of our own humanity.
Part IV will be about leadership and storytelling. In light of everything we’re discovering about tech/social media/smartphone addictions and the places/spaces we’re most optimal, what new adventures should we be going on that excite humanity instead of spiral us down a doom spiral? What new stories should we be telling? We have amazing potential if we want to start writing new drafts of the story.
The filters I use to address the primary challenges within creative & work culture
I am mostly interested in helping humans thrive in order to unlock that magic that creates innovative products and companies. And holistic health. I’m a big fan of Pixar, a big fan Coach Prime, a big fan of Steve Jobs, and other winning leaders and organizations.
As someone who got his B.A in Communications at the University of Arizona and someone who has been able to lead small ambitious teams throughout my career I am wanting to see businesses, leaders, communities, and people get into the next era. To awaken from the slumber of this technological intoxication. This doom spiral that ping-pongs across news media in our phones. To acknowledge our brains are wonderful machines that make magical things.
I am also interested in seeing individuals thrive. Each of us can use a greater awareness of what technology is and isn’t there for. A running theme in previous dispatches of MF/TS is to encourage readers to go for a walk, to do nothing so their brain can rest, or embrace and prioritize laughter. All of that is because I hope to remind you of the importance of caring for ourselves and the people around us in intentional ways.
The thing is, we can’t ignore what communication technology is doing to many in our society at large. For example, we are all seeing the negative side effects happening to young people. Democracy throughout the world has been dismantled or is under attack. We also can’t underestimate the effects of an abundance of information & communication systems coming at us daily.
Carl Newports captures this perfectly of how tech is now taking up a lot of our time in the workplace while diminishing time spent on the act of working/thinking:
My theory is that technology made things just easy enough so we can put more on people’s plates, and we didn’t factor in how much that would pull [people] out of their time. Then the communication revolution, which kicked off 10 years after that, had the issue of all the context shifting, which meant that miraculous advances in computing and mobile-computing technology never moved the needle on nonindustrial productivity.
We are all biological beings and can all play a role in redefining the status quo for something better. That better can be good for the individual. For groups. For business. And for the journey of life. If we can dream it. We can be it.
The state of hybrid working and the wisdom of our elders
We proved we could keep the corporate hustle going during the pandemic but at a costs…
For the white-collar jobs that focus on information, technology, legalities, designing, ideas, and such the pandemic proved that yes, the show can go on thanks to communication technologies. And in some ways, people got even “more productive.” And that’s pretty awesome. You don’t have to be in the office and you still can crush the game? The finance team LOVES that one.
Galloway & Dowd bring up good points on mentorship & growth deteriorating
Professor Scott Galloway repeatedly points out how the WFH moment post-pandemic is doing an injustice to young people when it comes to chances for promotion and mentorship from experienced leaders. New York Times’s Maureen Dowd recent Op-Ed, Requiem for Newsroom opined on the nostalgia of a hustling and bustling newsroom of yesteryear. Acknowledging that times are way different.
But now I’m looking for proof of life on an eerie ghost ship. Once in a while, I hear reporters wheedling or hectoring some reluctant source on the phone, but even that is muted because many younger reporters prefer to text or email sources.
Dowd also questions the effect hybrid working will have on young workers in their careers:
I’m mystified when I hear that so many of our 20-something news assistants prefer to work from home. At that age, I would have had a hard time finding mentors or friends or boyfriends if I hadn’t been in the newsroom, and I never could have latched onto so many breaking stories if I hadn’t raised my hand and said, “I’ll go.”
Midway through 2023 it’s apparent no one has the blueprint
We are all still unclear of what the post-pandemic modus operandi regarding ways of working in teams and organizations should be. The above observations from Josh Krisch & John Long are 100% accurate and reflect:
The business-as-usual attitude is not working and we need to re-think it all.
Workers are being asked to come into the office to perform the same routines they can do from home so why come into an office at all is a legitimate question for many.
People also hate the commute, begging the question what else should companies be doing outside of “perks” to make the office experience more alluring? I don’t think it’s free pizza anymore.
I tend to agree with Galloway and Dowd's concerns on matters of mentorship and how young people have historically grown within organizations. This piece from The Hustle, office occupancy in Downtowns in America is ranging between 20% - 70% occupancy on any given week. With the average landing at most 57% occupancy per week. I don’t think 50% attendance means people are hanging out casually, it means they’re coming in and leaving as fast as they can. How much are we really connecting if we are not creating spaces for informal connections?
If what’s core to your business productivity is coordination with other humans at speed to outdo your competition then the work-from-home situation is challenging for an organization to fully prosper. We as humans are social animals and while doing the work through screens in your PJs is appealing, it is also impossible to build sincere and deep human connections, camaraderie, and culture.
And this issue is striking deep within the realms of the WGA strike in Hollywood.
How the Writer’s Strike illustrates how we have over-indexed on technology and under-indexed on humans superpowers
The Writer’s Strike is in the news because it’s pausing the creation of new shows and movies in one of America’s most celebrated, beloved, culture-shifting industries of all time. By the estimates of various research firms, the television industry ($65B per rev a year), streaming services ($31B), and the film industry ($11.4B) are a $107 billion year industry.
There’s an argument to be made that the dollar amount doesn’t completely capture the cultural impact the “entertainment” industry has at large within our domestic and international worlds. As mentioned in a recent article about movie theaters John Fithian said, “Movie theaters are the marketplace of free ideas.” And that’s a powerful acknowledgment for a Democratic society that needs free speech and ideas in order to keep the conversation of the commons alive.
Mini-Writing Rooms are symbolic of how the business as usual and the new ways of working born out of the pandemic are leading to bad vibes for writing teams and the products themsleves
Michael Schulman’s piece in the New Yorker is a great overview of the key issues with the Writer’s Strike. While it’s talking about the WGA and Hollywood it sheds light on the larger themes for workers we are seeing in the Post-Pandemic era. It illustrates how technology and a push for efficiencies of labor are now dictating the process to make products versus humans.
One point of contention in the W.G.A. negotiations has been “mini rooms”—condensed writers’ rooms that often take place before a show is green-lighted. Mini rooms give studios proof of concept while saving money, but they force writers to spread paltrier fees over longer gaps, working for shows that may or may not get made. “What you start to realize is that there is no advancing forward, because you’re constantly in these rooms where you’re being paid at a minimum,” the writer Janine Nabers told me. “If your contract ends, and that show’s not going to be made for another year, all of your work could just be erased.”
From Caroline Famke’s Atlantic piece on the quality of “television and streaming” programming and the strike:
As the industry prioritizes sheer volume of output, it’s no surprise that TV writers are reporting untenable working conditions. The newer phenomenon of “mini rooms,” which enlists a small group of writers to outline entire seasons before ultimately putting the burden of editing on a single showrunner, has led to cut corners and creative exhaustion. The unprecedented pace of demand for new series forces writers to churn out screenplays without the time to thoughtfully refine them. Further, not bringing writers on set for the filming of their episodes robs them of the knowledge of how their words become three-dimensional worlds—which is invaluable experience for honing scripts. Under these circumstances, the disappointing number of shows with loose plot ends feels practically inevitable.
A few key takeaways.
One, these mini rooms sound like a disaster.
Two, they were born out of a need from the pandemic to keep the show going but as the world has come back online in 2023, it’s remained part of the process. No bueno.
Three, one can argue, as Caroline does, these “mini-rooms” happening virtually mixed with the burden to get shows made on a shoestring timeline is deteriorating the IP products in themselves. A tension that’s always been there in Hollywood but there is room to make the debate that the shows (and the movies) are now sloppier than ever.
How many times have you watched a new show only to realize that an entire season has passed but barely anything has happened? How many times have you checked an episode’s duration and wondered why it’s doubled since the show started? How many times have you forgotten the details of a show hardly a week after you binged it? I have spent a decade watching as much television as possible for a living—including as chief TV critic at Variety from 2018 to 2022—and I’m here to say: It’s not just you.
Mentorship and growth a real problems for young writers
Another dot to connect is the lack of mentorship and opportunity happening for young writers. Alex O’Keefe, a young writer who worked on a hit show F/X / Hulu show (The Bear, one of the only original hits to have been released in recent memory) had this to say:
And they were consistently given shit sandwich after shit sandwich.” He recalled one of the executive producers apologizing to him. “She said, ‘I’m so sorry this is your first writers’-room experience, because it’s not usually like this. It shouldn’t be like this.’ I don’t even know the alternative. I thought we would be treated more like collaborators on a product. It’s like an assembly line now.”
Let’s get real, the entertainment conglomerates and platforms are under a lot of financial pressure. The model has changed and margins continue to be squeezed which is why writers are finding themselves in this position. The trials and tribulations of being a publically traded company with huge overhead while trying to outrace quarterly earnings is often a losing proposition. Especially when your business model is contingent on creating IP that needs huge returns every. single. quarter.
That being said, it doesn’t sound like entertainment companies are establishing environments to help creative visionaries thrive or environments to ensure the next generation of creatives can continue to drive entertainment “wow” in the spirit of hitting big margins with the IP they create. In short, the entertainment conglomerates are setting up workers to fail.
Part I Conclusions
At the heart of both of the grievances within the WGA working conditions and the tensions with hybrid working/returning to the office is the over-reliance on technology communications.
The dissent of hybrid working / getting people back to the office is workers asking themselves if I am using all this tech to get the job done then why does it matter if I’m there in person?
The dissent within the WGA strike (among other things) is the entertainment companies saying if you can do this work from home then why do I need to give you collaborative environments to do it in person? Also, why do I need to pay for the junior writer to be on set during production any more?
Matters of mentorship and collaboration are contingent on direct feedback. Direct feedback is often a little bit hard to hear and take. A bit uncomfortable. A recent study showed that when teachers implicitly tell students to seek out discomfort and awkwardness it led to better writing, curiosity, and an understanding of different points of view. In addition to that, studies show that direct and honest feedback is better than softball feedback. And that kind of feedback doesn’t go well through a screen. I don’t need research to tell you that fact.
Let’s be honest about that truth when it comes to getting more out of people. Can we move through the work via digital communications? Absolutely. Does using these tools 24/7 take away from our full collective potential? Absolutely. Two things can be true at once not matter what click-bait headlines tell you.
As I mentioned, I’m mostly interested in talking about places and spaces that create supreme excellence in terms of output. Steve Jobs was notorious for keeping it real 24/7. Same with Jeff Bezos. If done objectively and clearly, it’s not toxic. It’s what people need to hear and do to attain the unbelievable. And they did it peer-to-peer. In-person. IRL.
All of that being said everything in life is about balance. I don’t really see much out there talking about the right kind of balance. The right kind of intentionality around using technology and harnessing the power of our brains. The right kind of energy around the work when we’re together versus when we’re in our homes.
If the business focus is on optimizing the process to get the very best outputs to turn a profit then shouldn’t we be talking about what gets the best out of groups and individuals in terms of brain health? In terms of getting excellence? In terms of energy? In terms of space & time?
Stay tuned for more on that in the next Dispatch on rebooting our systems.
Sources
Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts and Jeffrey Watumull. “Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT.” New York Times, 8 March 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opinion/noam-chomsky-chatgpt-ai.html
“SURPRISING WORKING FROM HOME PRODUCTIVITY STATISTICS (2023)” Apollo Technical Solutions https://www.apollotechnical.com/working-from-home-productivity-statistics/#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20those%20who%20work,hours%2C%20and%20get%20more%20done. Accessed 30 May 2023
Scott Galloway. “Work From Office.” No Mercy/No Malice, 12 August 2022, https://www.profgalloway.com/work-from-office/
Maureen Dowd. “Requiem for the Newsroom.” New York Times, 29 April 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html
Alex Mayyasi. “The developers who see dollar signs in abandoned downtowns.” The Hustle, 21 April 2023, https://thehustle.co/the-developers-who-see-dollar-signs-in-abandoned-downtowns/
Nicole Sperling. “‘Movie Theaters Are the Marketplace of Free Ideas’” New York Times, 19 May 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/business/media/corner-office-john-fithian.html
Michael Schulman. “Why are TV Writers so Miserable?” The New Yorker, 29 April 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/notes-on-hollywood/why-are-tv-writers-so-miserable
Caroline Framke. “TV Isn’t About to Get Worse. It Already Is.” The Atlantic, 17 May 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2023/05/hollywood-writers-strike-streaming-tv-quality/674082/
Scott Galloway. “Struck.” No Mercy/No Malice, 19 May 2023, https://www.profgalloway.com/struck/
Harris Collingwood. “The Earnings Game: Everyone Plays, Nobody Wins.” Harvard Business Review, June 2001, https://hbr.org/2001/06/the-earnings-game-everyone-plays-nobody-wins
Michelle Goldberg. “Don’t Let Politics Cloud Your View of What’s Going On With Teens and Depression” New York Times, 24 February 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/24/opinion/social-media-and-teen-depression.html
David Marchese. “The Digital Workplace Is Designed to Bring You Down” New York Times, 22 January 2023 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/23/magazine/cal-newport-interview.html
Maria Popova. “Paula Scher on Combinatorial Creativity” 19 November 2010 https://www.themarginalian.org/2010/11/19/paula-scher-on-combinatorial-creativity/
Mollick, Ethan [@emollick]. “The science of difficult conversations: we tend to be bad at balancing honesty with being nice, often focusing on picking the “right” words (or say nothing at all). This paper suggests being truthful & direct, while helping provide resources to learn or cope with the information.” Twitter, 26 November 2021,
https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1464420697250357250
Mollick, Ethan [@emollick]. “Great paper for teaching & learning. Tell students: “Your goal is to feel awkward and uncomfortable. Giving an explicit goal of aiming to feel uncomfortable in order to grow makes folks persist in classes, write better, seek out more info & learn more from political opponents.” Twitter, 5 June 2023,