Tag Archive for: human ingenuity

woman blows bubbles
Dominique Jaurola

5 things you should know about Hunome

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We love feeding curiosity, whether it’s our own, or whether it’s yours. For those of you curious about Hunome (and if you’re not, you should be) here are 5 things that we believe in which make a difference to your experience.

1. Building understanding is free

Yes, that’s right. What you love about Hunome right now is, and always will be, free for our members. We believe that all of humanity should have the opportunity to contribute to our collective understanding of what it means to be human. 

2. No ads, please

At the same time, we don’t believe that the social media advertising model works to help forward collective understanding (you can read more about that here) which is why we’re ad-free. Your data is your data. We only use it to deliver benefits back to you, not to sell on for advertising purposes outside of Hunome. That way you rest assured that whatever you create and find on Hunome translates directly to value for yourself and other members. 

3. See ya, single-sign on! 

We’re building a quality community of humanity explorers, the people who are eager to make sense of the richness in the world. We promise humanity explorers a platform where they can build a comprehensive understanding of their areas of focus, and make a difference to our overall perception of how the world really works. 

As an initial step towards delivering the quality value promise to the community at Hunome, our registration process has a ‘Why Hunome?’ question to help build an environment where the insightfulness of our humanity explorers can shine!

Are you a humanity explorer? Take our quiz to find out. 

4. You reap what you sow

Hunome allows you to build your understanding in a way that is as unique as you are. Whether expert opinion, or just a feeling, you can be creative or incredibly structured to discover the value of your thinking, your way. 

A Spark is your starting point on Hunome. It can be a thought, an idea, an experience on a particular topic – anything that springs to mind. From there, you can connect and build understanding, add context, explore trains and systems of thoughts, and dive into insights. The journey is what you make of it, and like with most things in life, the more you put in, the more you get out. 

5. Open new doors to exploration

We don’t want to tell you how to think. You do that incredibly well on your own. Because of this, you won’t find ‘best fit’ results or ‘related’ content, because what you want is all, well, relative. What we do give you is the opportunity to make your own discoveries, by giving you many different starting points to explore. No rabbit holes of the same here. Finding your own path to understanding is so much more rewarding, anyway. 

So there you are, five things that we do a bit differently here at Hunome for good reason. We remove these pesky obstacles so that you can focus on building understanding to unlock the value in your thinking.

We hope you love it as much as we do. Sign up for Hunome today.

what is a humanity explorer?
Dominique Jaurola

What is a humanity explorer?

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We talk about humanity explorers a lot here at Hunome. In fact, we love them. Which is why we’ve designed our collective insights platform with them in mind. 

But what exactly do we mean by a humanity explorer? In this blog, we break down the DNA of humanity explorers.

1. Humanity explorers come from all walks of life

Whether they are professionally curious, or personally interested in everything about the world around them, humanity explorers take many forms. 

They could be designers, marketers, strategists – people whose job it is to understand how the world works or think about how it should work. Or they could simply be someone who is curious about why people think and act the way they do. Gartner estimates there are 1bn knowledge workers,  and up to 50% of developed world adults can be considered to be a ‘cultural creative’. 

They may already identify as a humanity explorer, or have no idea, but whatever their background, the thing that ties all together is a hunger to understand ‘why’ and ‘what next.

2. Humanity explorers are empathetic and insightful

A person who is a humanity explorer can be more empathetic to many kinds of life situations, and tends to have a broader world view. This natural curiosity and sense of collective results in an insightful outlook – perhaps a finger on real world frustrations and human goals, or a better view of potential and opportunities. They may be seen to have a creative streak in many ways, as insightfulness may present itself as creativity.

DNA of a Humanity Explorer
A look at the DNA of Humanity Explorers

3. Humanity explorers don’t see the world in black and white

We’ve already mentioned that a humanity explorer has a broad worldview. Their attitudes to society and the world around them is encompassing and open. Alongside this is their ability to see, and appreciate the nuance. They know that a black and white view of the world is simplistic and in some cases problematic. They may even go so far as to seek out the many shades of grey in between, building bridges across silos and digging into their area of interest to get the full picture. 

4. Humanity explorers are curious about the bigger picture

As empathetic people who are interested in nuance, humanity explorers tend to see themselves as a part of a whole. They accept that a better functioning system is the one that takes these varying sides into consideration, and will actively work towards finding this out. Their collective view makes them less self-centred and more human-aware.

5. Humanity explorers make better decisions

With that in mind, humanity explorers make decisions that tend to be more sustainable. By taking into account all viewpoints, the outcome of a decision isn’t weak in argument, or driven into a simplistic corner. It’s robust, insightful and brings together many different types of thinking for a better, long lasting result. For more on how to make better decisions, read our blog. 


Think you could be a humanity explorer? Take our quiz to find out or sign up for Hunome, the collective insights platform for humanity explorers.

Make better decisions
Dominique Jaurola

3 tips to make better decisions in every aspect of your life

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Make better decisions. It sounds simple but in practice, it’s not as easy you might think. 

As humans we make more or less 35,000 decisions a day. These decisions can vary from the small things; like what socks to wear; or whether to watch the news, to the bigger choices; will a gap year be detrimental to my career prospects; should we be making environmentally-friendly lifestyle changes; do I go for the big promotion? 

When considering the bigger decisions that we make, both personally and professionally, we know that the outcomes of these decisions have an impact on wellbeing. I loved Barry Schwartz’s great TedTalk about how more choice has made western societies more dissatisfied, rather than making us happier. 

The fundamentals of most strategies for decision-making include objective setting, investigation, establishing options, reacting and evaluating. Many of us already follow this pattern in some form or another, whether consciously or not, from a very young age. And for that reason, I don’t tell you how to make a decision – I want to share how you can make better decisions. Ones that consider all the variables, have maximum impact, and are sustainable in the long run. 

Tip 1. Take a moment to understand the whole issue

The decision you are making may be based on one area and it’s direct impact to you. Take the decision of whether you should go freelance, for example. Going freelance would give you more flexibility and potentially more money.

But like most things relating to us humans, there’s likely to be a series of interconnect points, or systems, that exist around that one topic. Is there a saturation of freelancers in the market? Will new tax rules make it harder to profit from being freelance? Is working by yourself better for your well-being than being in a team?

Understanding the whole system ensures that your ultimate decision is based on the whole issue, not just the pointy bit that is directed at you and your immediate needs.

When considering how human-centered design can help businesses build resilience against COVID-19 uncertainty, Mika Raulas talks about the importance of understanding the core problem. Whether you want to solve a problem or make better decisions, the same principle applies. Your end decision becomes more sustainable when you take into account the whole.

Tip 2. Consider the other perspectives

Who else is interested in this topic at the heart of this decision and why does it interest them? You’ll be seeing and interpreting the topic from one angle but taking the time to understand other points of view gives you a much fuller picture. 

Right now, you have a certain perspective but as you journey down the path that your decision leads you on, it’s pretty likely that your perspective will change and evolve. Someone else, may already be at that point, or have a completely different point of view that makes you consider the whole issue in a different way. Being aware of the different sides to the topic, and understanding why someone thinks that way can save you a lot of effort and surprises.

As an extension of that, take into account the needs of those whom your decision will impact. My blog about how understanding humanness helps you make better decisions goes into this, but essentially a better understanding helps you make better decisions that have the right impact on the people around. 

Tip 3: Be ready for change

We’ve all been there – you make a decision based on the information that you have to hand, but then a new factor emerges that shifts everything. My first two tips can help to prepare for issue-related shifts, but big surprises, whether from the macro-environment or somewhere else, will always, always exist. For example, you enroll in a university course to study philosophy, but your partner is offered a once in a lifetime opportunity in another country. 

And while you can’t plan for every eventuality, you can build a network that helps you understand and evolve your thinking quickly. Whether this is a team of trusted advisors, a repository of materials, or a platform that does all of the above, being prepared means that you can respond to the issues and make better decisions at pace.  

At Hunome, we’ve created a platform that helps our members make better decisions, by allowing them to understand themes holistically, the different perspectives involved and the people who have contributed to them, and real-time evolution of themes. See how Hunome can help you make better decisions by signing up for Hunome today.

Inverted perspective from a glass orb
Dominique Jaurola

Where does perspective come from? – how perspectives can fuel human ingenuity

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At Hunome, we’re in the business of perspectives. We connect them, analyze them, build on them. But where do these perspectives come from? The short answer is our members, but there’s so much more to it than that. 

Starting with human ingenuity

Human ingenuity is the way in which human minds influence how we think, work, play, but also construct relationships, interact with each other. Our ingenuity can cause problems, find solutions to problems, transform things and rationalize thought.

Human ingenuity has long been our competitive advantage but as the world we operate in becomes more complex and rapidly exceeds our intellectual grasp, political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon pinpoints the ‘ingenuity gap’. As we solve one problem, a new, more complex issue that has not been accounted for emerges. Just look at the societal impact of social media platforms, the polarization of society, the world’s response to Covid-19, to name just a few topical examples.

The issue isn’t the lack of ingenuity, rather than the growing need to broaden our understanding to keep up with the world around us. If we cast the net wider, we catch more fish. 

Forming perspectives

Humans apply complex thought processes to bring together ideas and see the relationships between diverse subjects. We form perspectives by connecting our own internal pool of our emotional response, context from our own experiences, feedback from our senses, with contributions from other humans, the environment around us, and so much more. 

Our perspectives are our points of view and they form our perceptions, our own truth or reality. Once formed, they fuel our ingenuity, enabling us to organize ourselves differently, communicating and making decisions in new ways.

We are constantly processing and understanding the world around us, and applying our learnings. But as if that wasn’t impressive enough as it is, we also have this remarkable ability to understand other peoples’ perspectives. 

Combining perspectives with human ingenuity

We put ourselves in other people’s shoes, taking on their motivations and drivers to understand their perspectives. Human ingenuity then allows us to learn from a situation and respond in a totally different way, by taking on another’s point of view. So much so, that humans actively seek out other perspectives daily in our personal and professional lives. This diversity of thought enriches our ability to collectively comprehend, solve problems, and make decisions. It expands our realm of understanding to encompass that which exists outside of ourselves. 

This is where Hunome comes in. Our platform is designed to help connect perspectives and make sense of any number of themes. Much like humans are able to do internally, perspectives can evolve and topics can be built upon as members collectively add their viewpoints. Analysis enables further insights that deepen our understanding. 

To see how Hunome harnesses perspectives to enhance human ingenuity, sign up for Hunome.

Woman considers notes left by other people
Dominique Jaurola

Why does humanness in decision-making matter?

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The concept of putting humans at the core of our decision-making process is nothing new. From Kellogg development of cereal with feedback from the patients in the late 19th Century, to the introduction of focus groups in the 1940s, we’ve always sought the views of the collective in order to make the right choice going forward. Even now, we scour the internet for other people’s experiences or knowledge so that we can figure out what is right for us. 

Decision-making 1.0 – market research

Humanness in decision making isn’t as simple as just asking a person however. It’s about understanding the quality of being human – what really makes us tick. 

The trouble with many of the qualitative research methods mentioned above is how they relate to actually making the right choices going forward. Many of these methods work in a very short and isolated manner. They often produce the wrong kind of input to longer-term thinking or to areas where things are changing rapidly, and almost never take into account the next new thing that will shift the game. In this world, different styles of inputs are necessary to make unbiased, future-oriented decisions. 

Human bias enables us to understand the world around us and protects us from the unknown. Bias is necessary in a lot of ways and we all exercise many types of bias in our day-to-day lives. The problem lies when you have too many perspectives that have stemmed from the same biases. What you end up with is a type of echo-chamber where actual innovative decisions are replaced with something that is much more one-sided. 

The next challenge we face is gathering and processing information. Granted, the internet has made collecting data much easier, however information is scattered and can lack context. This makes the task of gathering the data that is of actual relevance, then analyzing and extracting understanding a herculean effort. 

But why is this? 

Decision-making 2.0 – tech in decision-making

One reason is our reliance on similar, relevant and related, technology-found ideas of what something looks like. Another is that human ingenuity creates new directions for a whole field.

This means that searching for ‘related’ is not as easy as it sounds. For example, what some may call strategy, is known as business design in the agile and creative world. Those two worlds may never find each other, until the technologies make the connection. 

There’s no doubt that AI makes those connections easier. We’re increasingly using AI to help us make choices in our personal life (think Netflix recommendations – even so, not always the best suggestions). AI is even being used to streamline processes in the workplace for better business decision-making. 

However, while AI’s integration into work processes can result in more effective decision making, there’s no way that an algorithm can build upon information that doesn’t yet exist, reassess rules to take into account the exception, or understand the impact of an unexpected anomaly. That’s where our human ingenuity comes in. 

Decision-making 3.0 – humanness in decision-making

Humans create discontinuities. When we consider what might be, we do not rely on past data alone. When we consider what is in our essence as individuals or systems, our humanness, we utilise our human ingenuity. Sylvain Duranton makes a compelling argument for this in his TedTalk back in September 2019. 

The reality is that even in this modern age, understanding our shared humanness remains fundamental for better decision making, even with all the wonderful messiness that we bring into the process. At Hunome, we want to help the world make better choices. To see how we do this, sign up for Hunome and add your perspectives to the thought networks for multidimensional shared understanding.

human skills wanted - blog
Dominique Jaurola

Human skills wanted: pandemic reveals need for humanness in an age of technology

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You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Old habits die hard. A leopard never changes its spots. We’re pretty much set in our ways if we listen to the old adages, yet a recent report by the World Economic Forum revealed that 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025. 

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the adoption of smart technology in manufacturing and industrial sectors, has been held up as the biggest catalyst for change in recent years as companies adapt to new human/AI workforce structures. However, the Covid 19 pandemic, and it’s subsequent economic impact, not only is accelerating automation, but is also fast-tracking the need for new human skills. 

Skills set show the need for human ingenuity

According to the WEF’s  The Future of Jobs Report 2020, critical thinking and problem solving skills continue to take the top of the list of skills that will grow in prominence in the next five years. Yet 2020 has seen the emergence of new skills such as active learning, resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility. 

Given the rise in technology, it’s interesting that the skills that have emerged this year are distinctly human. 

It goes without saying that if Covid-19 has taught us anything, it’s resilience and flexibility. As a collective, the human race has found a way to adapt and continue in a way it has never done before. The effects of the pandemic have been an unmitigated stress for most people, a trauma for others. The ability to not only adjust our lives to accommodate this, but to also grow from the experience and emerge stronger with a new perspective, is something that a machine could never replicate. It’s awe-inspiring to reflect on and no wonder that these are the human skills that employers want in their employees’ toolkits. 

How to develop human skills

When we look at how we can develop these critical human skills in the coming years, the understanding and acceptance of different perspectives will be paramount. It’s easier to be flexible when you understand that different schools of thought can lead to the same result. Resilience comes more naturally when you take time to understand your place in the bigger picture.

At Hunome, we combine perspectives to create a holistic view on multidimensional themes. People have the ability to access multiple views and experiences so that they can adapt their perspectives – fast-tracking active learning. 

Active learning as a human skill is becoming more and more fundamental across a wide range of industries. Understanding the shift in context that a new piece of information provides, and assessing how this may help solve problems or make decisions, is something that humans have been doing in one form or another for millenia, and is also a methodology of machine learning. While AI is of course adept at processing information and creating desired outputs, the nuance that humans provide is unique and insightful and takes into consideration context that a machine cannot account for.  

Human skills with AI

Yet, machine active learning and human active learning do not need to be mutually exclusive. Augmenting human insights with AI can improve the quality of the active learning process for better decision-making. 

For example, a HR practitioner looking to implement an employee mental health support scheme might search for mental health and productivity on Hunome, and uncover a number of human perspectives on the topic that she can use to build her position. She can then explore the Insights to get further analysis around the subject to strengthen her position – resulting in a better informed initiative.

There’s no doubt that 2020 is the year of disruption, and that the impact this has had on the workforce, and the individuals among them, will require a new set of human skills as we emerge on the other side. And in a post-pandemic world, technology may continue to be the catalyst for change, but with human ingenuity leading technology use, we stand to come out stronger than ever before. Making sustainable, well received decisions, where our humanness is taken into consideration.

Humans pass each other while crossing the road
Dominique Jaurola

Protected: Understanding humanness – a brief history of Hunome

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