August Flowers
A new essay and five other wonderful things from this week
Hello friends,
I hope you all have had a fantastic week!
The previous Prolix newsletter was only a few days ago, but I wanted to get back into our regular schedule of Friday posts. I promised better consistency and I intend to keep my word!
For this week, take a peek at this essay I put together for the Peter Drucker Society’s writing competition on the subject of organizational resilience, bouncing back from failure, and how leaders can navigate the future. I was surprised and very honored to find out that it earned first place in the manager/entrepreneur category. As a result, it looks like I will be going to Vienna at the end of the year. If anyone has good recommendations for spots in Austria, please let me know!
The essay’s title, Prescience in the Modern World: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Wear a Helmet, contains allusions to two of my favorite works — one by Jacques Ellul and one by Stanley Kubrick. Ellul’s book Presence in the Modern World is a classic in media ecology and modern spirituality, while Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a timeless satire on the nuclear standoff of the Cold War. I think Kubrick does a good job of demonstrating the insane influence that technique exerted during that time period. I tried my best to weave a similar anti-technique attitude into the essay, which is partially why I am surprised the judges liked it. For a little more explanation on what technique even is, feel free to read my earlier post about it here.
Things That Deserve Their Flowers
Since my long-form writing was already completed for this week, I thought I’d take the opportunity to mention a few things I’ve recently stumbled across that deserve their flowers. My partner, author of
, normally calls these “shareables.” Her Substack is the premiere shareable, since I think it’s ridiculously fun and I sincerely look forward to it every week. I am biased — but that doesn’t mean I am wrong. I encourage you to go and check it out for yourself. (Please note: she may be taking a small hiatus to focus on her first semester at Columbia University)
Below are the other shareables. Be sure to click on the headers to be taken to the source!
1. The New York Times Transforms The S Train
I have a close working relationship with the MTA, so my investment in transit dynamics has hit an abnormally high level. Combine that with my innate interest in advertising and you can see why this effort from the NYT was a home run for me. It isn’t easy or cheap to make an immersive marketing experience like this; but for a brand that is so New York-centric it feels like the right thing to have splurged on. While posters and digital ads inside trains are common, this is the first time I have seen a company do something this big to earn attention from riders. It’s a bit of a flex, but I dig it anyways. Truly creative!
2. Decision Pigeons
We’ve all had a hard time choosing between two options. You know — cake or no cake? Sleep in or workout? Jordan or Lebron? Destroy or show mercy?
Lucky for you, it’s 2023, and you can outsource decisions like these to pigeons who permanently abide in your phone. I enjoyed this app a little too much this week and I hope you can also.
3. Handwritten Letters from the Founder of Computer Science
Edsgerd Djikstra isn’t a name I had come across before but I have certainly benefited from his life and legacy. After all, he was one of the founding fathers of computer science. This week I discovered that his most influential years were the decades he worked a one-day work week, sending handwritten letters to his colleagues. The simplicity and creativity he used to describe ultra-technical challenges is inspiring, along with how intimately his genius is displayed in his own hand. It’s a bit eclectic and I don’t understand 95% of it, but there a lot of things to glean from in that little 5%. You can read more about him and his manuscripts here.
4. Kid Influencers Are About To Get Paid
The article explains it best:
Illinois passed a law on Friday requiring child influencers to be paid. Starting next July, parents who post videos of their children under 16 years old must set aside earnings generated from these posts in a trust fund for the child that they can access once they’re 18. The amount the child earns depends on how long they are featured in the video. For the law to apply, a child must be in at least 30% of monetized videos over the course of one 30-day period within the past 12 months. However, the child doesn’t actually have to appear in the video for the law to apply; for instance, a parent telling a story about their kid counts.
This is a serious development in social media land and I have some thoughts that I might develop for a later newsletter. Be on the lookout!
5. This Quote From My Current Book
The eye for possible advantages is the mortal enemy of all friendships.
— Theodore Adorno, Minima Moralia
Let’s be companions without agendas this week.
With kindness,
Bradley Andrews