Are you ready for the Super Age? Bradley Schurman‘s recently launched book, The Super Age, draws on his experience with AARP and consulting with large corporates waking up to societal-wide implications of the demographic shift we’re living through. It’s an important book because it helps to reframe the conversation away from the negative associations of […]
Book notes: The Future of Capitalism
Have opinions on the Future of Capitalism? Join me on Monday Aug 23rd (Oz) and share your perspectives. We all know that capitalism is broken. What this book – The Future of Capitalism by Oxford professor Paul Collier – tells us is why, and how to fix it. It doesn’t just skewer the easy target […]
Brainstorming questions not answers
Sometimes the point of brainstorming should be to focus on surfacing interesting questions, not on finding answers. This piece in HBR lays out the thinking and it makes a lot of sense. First some context. I spend a lot of time brainstorming and 99% of the time I enjoy it. I still have cold flushes […]
Diaspo – a Peloton for the kitchen?
They say that if exercise was a pill, it’d be worth trillions of dollars. Its benefits on physical (and mental) health are remarkable. If there’s an equivalent killer app for loneliness, it may well be communal cooking lessons. In reality, the multi-faceted benefits stemming from Diaspo, a fast-moving UK startup that offers intergenerational virtual cooking […]
Book notes: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
We’re all under pressure to try harder, be better and live up to social expectations, bombarded by a blizzard of messages about perfection that make us feel bad. Former dating guru – turned surprisingly commentator – Mark Manson suggests in this eye-catchingly titled book that we should turn the tables. Rather than the Hollywood dream […]
What if Trump and Covid were a gift?
That Trump and Covid could be a gift sounds outlandish, callous even, to the millions of people who have suffered since 2016 at the hands of cruel policies and wilful incompetence. But I’d suggest that Trump and Covid have been trial runs; tests of our institutions that have found gaping holes. Our lesson is to […]
The Great British Serrata
British serrata sounds like it could be a dodgy cows milk soft cheese made in the outskirts of Coventry. Or, and perhaps more usefully for my argument, a term that describes the ‘closure’ of Britain that’s happened since 2012, borrowing the name from Venice’s dramatic tumble from global preeminence in the first half of the […]
Suggestions for structuring Australia’s new national COVID-19 coordination effort
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced today a new COVID-19 coordination commission, populated by senior business and political leaders, and this note suggests a way that might be helpful in structuring their work agenda. I’m glad to see this being delivered as a public-private, cross-party (?) initiative, rather than keeping this as a political cabal. […]
Three themes for the impact investor looking to change ageing
Impact investing is growing fast. According to the latest numbers by trade body GIIN, impact investments globally amount to around $500bn. However not much is focused on ageing. In a similar fashion to foundations in the US, where just 2% of funding is focused on older adults, very few impact investing categories include aging. The […]
Could revenue-based financing be what age-tech (and the world) needs?
Happily, there are now more people looking to invest in the age-tech space, though it’s still a surprisingly small list, including Link-age Ventures, Third Act Ventures and Generator Ventures in the US, and Mediterranean Towers, Mangrove Capital (sort of) and 4GenVentures (fundraising) in Europe. This is a welcome sign of capital being convinced this market […]