Hunome had a stellar presence at UBI Lab Network’s event on “Let’s talk about basic income.”
Hunome, with its Chief Hunomers: Dominique Jaurola (CEO) and Mika Raulas (CCO), attended yesterday’s UBI Lab Network’s event in Helsinki, to present how to build knowledge and make sense around the session’s theme “Let’s talk about basic income”.
Hunome, UBI Lab Finland, Systems Change Finland, and Citizen Network brought together people from many walks of life, including ministers, politicians, researchers, network leads and members, activists, and citizens to discuss about Universal Basic Income (UBI) and how it might help secure wellbeing and transform society.
We heard (and documented them on Hunome) great perspectives from the speakers and the participants in the event, including Maria Ohisalo – Minister of the Environment and Climate Change and former Minister of the Interior, Maria Guzenina – member of the Finnish parliament and forme Minister of Health and Social Services, Sirpa Pietikäinen – MEP, Finnish Member of the European Parliament, Laura Tulikorpi – teacher, coach and council members of a wellbeing services county, Simo Raittila – coordinator of Visio think tank, researcher and journalist, Ville Pellinen – Managing Director of the center for mental well-being and cultural events called Lapinlahden Lähde, and Dominique Jaurola – futurists and CEO of Hunome.
To keep the sensemaking and discussion alive and evolving, we invite you to join the UBI SparkMap on Hunome – register here 👉 https://hunome.com . On the ‘UBI in Finland’ map you can see the multiple, multidimensional and multidisciplinary perspectives on UBI, bring your thoughts and knowledge there, learn from others, and build shared understanding together with the atomic community. You find the many perspectives and ways forward in one place there.
Hunome is a social network to make sense of the world. It enables you to connect the dots, solo and with others, between the different perspectives of not just UBI in society but also many other themes. On the Hunome platform you can. build multidimensional understanding and actionable decisions. Join a community with a purpose. Become a part of the solution by making the world a more perceptive place.
We will be hosting subsequent workshops on the UBI theme, the next one coming up on April 24th 2023, so stay tuned and follow us on this social network, to see what is happening on Hunome, UBI Lab Finland, Systems Change Finland, and Citizen Network.
https://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/P1010866-scaled.jpg19242560Luis O'Cleiryhttps://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/hunome-logotype-cropped-300x58.pngLuis O'Cleiry2023-02-07 21:29:492023-02-09 22:23:03Hunome, at UBI Lab Network’s event on: “Let’s talk about basic income.”
I just watched an interview with Noam Chomsky. He gave an hour to a podcaster with less than 500 followers on YouTube (disclaimer: he more than doubled his follower count after featuring such a big name). I think we agree that follower count does not always equal content quality. Still, we continue to use and support the platforms which snowball accounts with many followers and leave the rest unseen and unheard. This is just one of many major problems with current social media. In this article, I will look at where content we are connected to on social media is sub optimal and how it’s affecting us.
Why does social media push sub optimal content?
We are connected to people and content which we chose to follow or which algorithms see us reacting to, whether that’s positively or negatively. That means we love it or we hate it. We never even see the stuff in the middle — the ideas which we may not know enough about to follow or comment on which could open our minds and act as a bridge to understanding other perspectives.
On social media, people bash each other for whatever they are doing, even when they agree almost fully
After seeming to critique popular social media platforms through his actions, Chomsky continued to do so through his words.
Unfortunately, a large part of social media is just engaged in small scale squabbles: did this guy say a word wrong or say it right, and driving people into closed bubbles where they hear nothing but reinforcing their own views and don’t begin to engage in these general issues. And by cutting off access you lose a lot.
The follower system allows people to build their own safe ‘fortresses’ of ideology where they are constantly delighted by confirmation bias and are never challenged to understand other perspectives. See my last article on the need for this. Meaningless judgement is then placed on content that doesn’t meet our standards of ‘perfect’, and our good ideas are primed to be picked apart. All the things that followers agree with are often overshadowed by these little details. This is just a waste of time, and it doesn’t accurately represent opinions.
For instance, consider a post by a prominent AI leader at Google. The discussion will most likely consist of other AI-minded people in business and data science considering how well new techniques or technology will achieve business goals: in short, how well they will make money. No one will stop to question underlying assumptions which this bubble already agrees on like what roles AI should play in business or if our capitalist reality is limiting AI’s potential for humanity.
Short Attention Spans
Social media also rewards content designed for short attention spans. Short texts cannot possibly argue their points, let alone change someone’s mind through proper reasoning. We are left with short, unsupported, and highly opinionated blanket statements. Content creators may feel content with their short statements, assuming that all their followers. This just means that whenever someone does manage to wander into the conversation from an outside perspective, they will be met with extreme lack of context, misinterpretation, and most likely anger. The alternative is content of very little value at all, like, “doesn’t my avocado on toast on the beach look good?”
Disagreement is not just strengthened by misinterpretation. This form of disagreement is utterly unproductive, since people are caught arguing their points against nobody.
One way squabbling shows itself is through whataboutism
Chomsky refers to the emergent term whataboutism as a sin. It is defined as “the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue.” It refers to when people point out other problems to draw the attention away from the issue at hand.
Whataboutism in practice
During the recent uproar against the overturning of Roe vs Wade in the US, I saw a few Instagram posts that said something like, “look, I think that is import and all, but what about all of the huge problems you are all ignoring?” This has been a repeating trend I’ve noticed for other major political events, truly belittling justified, honest, and productive thoughts from those affected.
We should not be discouraging good action, regardless of what other action is being neglected. There will always be neglected issues and more work to be done. The important thing is that something positive is being done. The alternative is not a social media that solves all world problems. Rather it is a social media where everyone is afraid to say what they think and zero progress is made.
He’s not criticizing disagreement
Chomsky is of course not saying that we should all just get along and ignore the problems we see. He is saying that social media is not doing a good job of facilitating productive discussion. There isn’t room to support ideas with reasoning, let alone to make any full argument. People only become more sure that they don’t agree with each other. I think you are starting to see the downhill spiral we find ourselves in.
And you wonder why we are so polarized?
In research paper Political Polarization During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Sebastian Jungkunz highlights some of the pressing results.
Affective polarization has increased substantially in the United States and countries of Europe over the last decades and the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic have the potential to drastically reinforce such polarization.
While many factors are working together to brew the polarization we find ourselves in, social media is one of the key culprits.
But the internet has so much potential
People don’t just put out bad content. Social media pushes bad content. And many people want to be popular on social media. You can’t necessarily shame them for that, either. The ones who stay true to themselves are often the hardest to find.
Not only does this really suck, but the internet has huge potential for connecting different perspectives and opening minds. While our pre-social media social circles did not suffer from the problems mentioned above, they were still of course limited to our physical communities, industries, nationalities, etc. The internet and globalism eradicated all of this.
Today we can speak instantly and directly with anyone in the world who would like to. Each one of us could have access to more diversity than anyone who lived before us! If we make a huge but very possible (and I think inevitable) shift, we could be the least polarized, most open-minded generations yet!
Hunome is fighting narrow thinking by letting everyone be heard
Hunome is a thought network and social network. At Hunome, we aim both to pop your suffocating bubbles and give you access to high quality thinking from everyone. Forget follower count. Forget short, blanket statements that lead to misinterpretation, closed bubbles, squabbling, and polarization. Say hello to following organic trains of thought the way. To multidimensional and multidisciplinary perspectives. To serendipity, to creativity, to innovation, to understanding.
“How?”
is the question I really really hope you’re asking right now! Just because someone on the internet tells you something that supports the narrative you subscribe to (the bubble you’re living in), does not mean you should blindly listen!
Anyway, I’m happy you asked! You seem like someone who will fit right in at Hunome (asking good questions is a fantastic place to start).
The first part of the answer is pretty simple. Within the thematic spaces you search and show interest in, our algorithms and inherent structure will prioritize connecting you with new ideas and those from people with different profiles from you.
Next, the unique structure of Hunome ensures that even if you land on a thought that may live within your bubble, you will quickly find your way out. Anyone, regardless of their follower count, credentials, or bubble of thought, can ‘spark on’ their thoughts from any idea that inspired them. Thusly, when viewing a thought by someone with many followers, you are almost always just 1 click away from exploring thoughts written by someone with zero followers. As you follow trains of thought from one idea to the next, you will quickly find yourself far outside of your bubble, exploring new content from new perspectives but from a context you understand. Authors will be encouraged to write for all audiences, assuming that the only context a reader has are the ideas directly preceding their own.
A Spark Map
Lastly, popping your bubbles will remain our north star, so we will continue to innovate in this field. We will be using advanced AI techniques to lean from what makes you creative, reach understanding and connect you with the Sparks that will reach you the most.
The best way to answer all your burning questions is to try it out!
I want to know what you think!
What questions do you still have for me?
What do you value in a source over follower count?
How can the platforms of the future support quality content over fame?
With the powers of social media bubbles, globalisation, and others I haven’t mentioned pushing against one another, are we aimed at a more or less polarized future?
Help me pop my bubble! What did I get wrong?
Works Cited
Jungkunz S (2021) Political Polarization During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Front. Polit. Sci. 3:622512. doi: 10.3389/fpos.2021.622512
https://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/1_gwrrethU5DoeYaDUqsag_A-e1679221638234.png13731439hunomerhttps://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/hunome-logotype-cropped-300x58.pnghunomer2022-11-04 12:08:302022-11-11 10:59:32Let All Voices be Heard (and Understood) by All
You’re not stupid. Your interests are complex and multifaceted. If there existed a simple answer or solution, you’d probably already know about it. For instance, there’s a reason why you are interested in optimizing learning rather than whether learning is valuable at all — we already agree that learning is positive, but the best way to do it is still open for discussion.
It shouldn’t then come as a surprise that, when identifying a reliable source on cutting edge topics, American neuroscientist Dr.Andrew Huberman simply looks for multidimensional understanding. He responds to the question of how to identify a credible source:
When you see people talk in absolutes about anything with very strong statements about anything, that’s somewhere where you might need to pause and reflect. So, does someone have [something] that they promise fixes everything? Similarly, do they demonize [something] as the cause of all chronic disease, and if we take care of this one particular issue, then everything is fixed? Does the answer seem overly simplistic in how to tackle it?
When assessing credibility amongst the seemingly unnavigable sea of fake news, he looks for multidimensional understanding over certifications.
Can’t Experts do the Heavy Lifting for Me?
You may now be wondering, do I really need to learn directly from many perspectives? Isn’t that what experts do for me when they present their overarching conclusions in common mediums like books or articles? In his greatest work The Denial of Death, American Anthropologist Ernest Becker reasons why even the works of geniuses like Freud should be taken as single perspectives to ponder amongst the rest.
The problem of man’s knowledge is not to oppose and to demolish opposing views but to include them in a larger theoretical structure…
Usually in order to turn out a piece of work, the author has to exaggerate the emphasis of it, to oppose it in a forcefully competitive way against other versions of truth, and he gets carried away with his own exaggeration, as his distinctive image is built on it. But each honest thinker who is an empiricist has to have some truth in his position, no matter how extremely he has formulated it.
Works are responses to ongoing historical context. They argue their points too strongly in order to balance the scales against other works. We must treat them as such and explore their fields of context before extracting truth.
It Increases Empathy
Becker further argued that acknowledging the limited but existing merit of individual perspectives connects us to the lives of others through shared mortality and human experience. This no doubt leads to empathy and a long road of love and kindness.
It Provides a More Objective View of our Beliefs
Host of podcast Philosophize This! Steven West understands yet another powerful conclusion from Becker’s work. The discovered shared mortality and human experience allows for a more objective view of our held beliefs.
Maybe that can help us recognize where the desire to dehumanise or silence another groups is actually coming from. And maybe if we can get there, maybe we can learn to differentiate which of these illusions we cling to are life affirming, which ones serve others, which ones are not in fact a direct threat to our existence, which of those promote the freedom, dignity, and hope of other people. And then on the other hand, which of these illusions are just about us being immoral? A desperate attempt to calm a scared monkey that doesn’t like the idea of not being the most important monkey in the world.
Understanding our beliefs for what they are and their worldly consequences sets the stage for their manipulation for a better world.
These two takeaways should not be taken lightly from Becker. He is known as a pessimist as his philosophy asserts that our greatest motivator is fear of death.
Conclusion
Learning from a range of perspectives offers more reliable information, holistic understanding, increased empathy, a more objective and pragmatic understanding of our beliefs, and a better world.
Where to Start
While experts don’t do a very good job fairly representing these perspectives, Hunome does.
Hunome is a platform for multidimensional understanding. It is a space where all perspectives can be heard regardless of the popularity of their authors. Your unique view point is in good company. Join us to learn from and contribute to holistic understanding.
Works Cited
Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. Free Press. 31 December 1973.
Ferriss, Tim. “#521: Dr.Andrew Huberman — A Neurobiologist on Optimising Sleep, Enhancing Performance, Reducing Anxiety, Increasing Testosterone, and Using the Body to Control the Mind” The Tim Ferriss Show, Dr.Andrew Huberman, 7 July 2021. Spotify
West, Steven. “Episode #163 … The Creation of Meaning — Escape From Evil” Philosophise This!, 2 March 2022. Spotify
https://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/multidimentionalunderstanding.jpeg10661600hunomerhttps://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/hunome-logotype-cropped-300x58.pnghunomer2022-05-02 10:31:322022-05-02 10:34:56The Need for Multidimensional Understanding
When considering your next career move, it’s easy to define yourself by your resume – you studied to be a math teacher, you are a math teacher, and you will continue to be. This is a comfortable place to remain, and that plays a huge role in why so many of us do. Nineteenth Century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard refers to this limiting state as being ‘lost in the finite’.
At some point, however, whether it’s driven by a curious thought, change in the job market or midlife crisis, you may realize once again that you are a free human being who could pursue anywhere from a slightly to drastically new career at any moment. If you take this thought even a little seriously, you could very quickly find yourself overwhelmed by the options available to you and the countless consequences of each, just as petrified as before. Kierkegaard refers to this state as being ‘lost in the infinite’. He calls the anxiety induced the ‘dizziness of freedom’, and I think we can agree that he lived in a significantly simpler time.
While both states lead to despair, Kierkegaard suggests that the acknowledgement of one’s own freedom can be productive for pursuing one’s life, goals, and, eventually, true self, “Anxiety becomes a serving spirit that against its will leads him where he wishes to go,” (Kierkegaard 1844).
Existentialist psychologist Rollo May comments further on Kierkegaard’s point, “creating involves destroying the status quo, destroying old patterns within oneself, progressively destroying what one has clung to from childhood on, and creating new and original forms and ways of living,” (May 1977).
If your passion is teaching math, and you can find a way to do it while leading a satisfying life, that’s fantastic. Still, the only way you could truly know is to be aware of your own freedom and consciously choose that path over the others available. So where should you go to better understand the future of work, especially when you don’t know what exactly you are looking for? There is nothing more overwhelming and unproductive than Google searching when you don’t know what there is to be learned or being bombarded by random, out-of-context, and incomplete tidbits of information on social media.
Enter Hunome. Hunome is a platform for generating collective, multidimensional insights. We aren’t hoping to eradicate an age-old philosophical dilemma. We have, however, taken part in enough interesting conversations to know that you and the unique individuals not-so-like-you have a lot of incredible ideas on pretty much every issue affecting us as humans. Those conversations have already been lost to the air, but it’s not too late for the next ones to happen in a place that will help so many more people benefit from them (even more so than before).
Hunome is the space which allows people of all backgrounds to organically think together. All thoughts on a theme can be found in a single place where they sit in the order in which they were originally thought. But you are free to navigate them as you please, see their ideas in a new light, and contribute your perspective.
We call these thoughts Sparks and where they live, SparkMaps.
Example of a part of a SparkMap. We built Hunome so that important insights about how human thoughts vary can be analysed. For instance, we can make more obvious for you the variety of perspectives, what seems to be emerging, where agreement and disagreement lie, and why. After all, Kierkegaard said that “life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” While we at Hunome believe that understanding can be reached at any moment, relfection reveals a valuable new perspective.
Hunome facilitates growth as you face your raw freedom and search for answers rather than simple solutions. Contact us or sign up today and take a step towards actualising your true self.
Works Cited
“A Short Note on Kierkegaard and Dizziness.” On-Dizziness, Anderwald + Grond, 15 Sept. 2018, https://www.on-dizziness.com/resources-overview/kierkegaard-and-dizziness.
Kierkegaard, Søren, 1813-1855. The Concept of Anxiety : a Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin. Princeton, N.J. :Princeton University Press, 1980.
May, R. (1977). The meaning of anxiety (Rev. ed.). W W Norton & Co.
https://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Image-from-iOS-scaled.jpg19202560hunomerhttps://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/hunome-logotype-cropped-300x58.pnghunomer2022-04-12 12:32:352022-04-14 13:24:44The New Platform for Finding Your True Self
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!
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.
https://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/alex-alvarez-63YVMrL2d6g-unsplash-scaled.jpg17072560Dominique Jaurolahttps://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/hunome-logotype-cropped-300x58.pngDominique Jaurola2021-07-19 12:14:412022-05-23 12:29:365 things you should know about Hunome
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.
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.
https://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/aaron-blanco-tejedor-yH18lOSaZVQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg17072560Dominique Jaurolahttps://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/hunome-logotype-cropped-300x58.pngDominique Jaurola2021-07-19 12:11:242022-05-23 12:32:49What is a humanity explorer?
Change can be unpredictable, but how you understand change and its impact doesn’t have to be.
Whether we proactively want to make changes to improve our personal lives, or change is being thrusted upon upon us in a professional context, change can have a huge impact on our well-being. Positive change can improve motivation, drive creativity and generally improve our sense of self, whereas negative change can have the opposite effect – increasing stress and anxiety.
On some level, all change requires a leap into the unknown, especially when you are not the instigator. But even if you are being proactive, a step away from the status quo can throw up a number of uncertainties and still be nerve-wracking. So how can you better understand change and its impact for better results and a smoother transition?
Making positive change, or mitigating the negative impact of change, requires an understanding of the full picture, or the system that the change is part of, and the various component parts that make up the whole.
Here are 4 steps to understand change and its impact.
Map out everything you know about where you are now: the status quo, the catalysts for change, the stakeholders involved, etc. For example, you may feel that a career change is on the horizon, but you’re unsure about what direction you want to go in. Do you want a new career because you want more financial stability, or perhaps a better work life balance to spend time with your children? By identifying all the parts that make up your current position, you build a working model to base further analysis on.
2. Identify the end goal
What is it that you want to achieve by making changes? And if the change hasn’t been instigated by you, what could be the best possible outcome? For example, this could be to better understand your customer behaviors. Identifying the end goal not only gives you something to work towards, it also gives you a better understanding of the current problem. What is it about your current system that prevents you from tracking customer behavior, for example?
At this point, you should also identify the variables that could have an impact on getting from your current position to the end goal. If you implement a new tech solution, will you have to retrain your employees? Does it integrate with your existing tech stack? With an idea of the variables, you can start building an understanding of the ‘moving parts’ of the change.
3. Design your path
How do you get from your current position to the end goal? Plan out the steps and the resources needed to get from your current position to the end goal. Do you need external help, for example? Now is the time to figure out where that may come from.
Consider how the variables identified impact the steps as you progress – chances are that once you start adjusting one variable, it’ll have a knock-on effect elsewhere. Make sure you’re aware of the possible consequences, especially on those whom the change affects.
One tip to making sure you’re on the right path is consulting with your stakeholders at this stage. Speaking to the people involved, allowing them to understand change and getting their feedback on your suggested path forward may allow you to consider it’s impact from another perspective.
You have your base line and where you want to go. You have all the steps in between. It’s now time to implement. As you progress with implementation, monitor the other components that you’ve already identified to see how they develop in line with the changes that you make.
You may find that it’s plain sailing, but as we all know, change is unpredictable and so keeping an eye out for unintended consequences means that you can react with speed and precision to mitigate any negative effects. Luckily, having mapped out the system that the change is part of, you can understand change in a way that enables you to assess its impact and adjust your approach for the best possible outcomes.
https://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/christina-wocintechchat-com-MTvPWhQKZK4-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg17092560Dominique Jaurolahttps://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/hunome-logotype-cropped-300x58.pngDominique Jaurola2021-05-21 10:58:272022-05-23 12:35:484 steps to understanding change and its impact
Last year, we saw many issues that divided the world. The US presidential race, the world-wide Black Lives Matters movement, masks, to name a few.
Of course, this extreme polarization itself isn’t the issue. There will always be people at either the ends of the spectrum of any debate. Social disparity lies with the lack of nuance. The ‘you’re either with us or against us’ attitude.
We find ourselves in a very black or white world without the many shades of grey that color any healthy debate. Complex issues are boiled down to simply ‘For’ or ‘Against’ and we find ourselves growing further away from those who have a different perspective.
But how have we got to this point, and how can we fix it?
Social media advertising breeds disparity
Mika Raulas talks about the social media advertising model in his blog. Social platforms package up data on users and sell super-targeted advertising to companies who want to reach their perfect customers.
But these algorithms aren’t designed with the individuals using the platforms in mind, rather those who want to target them.
There becomes very little space for diversity of thought when it appears as though your particular brand of thinking is the main stance on a subject.
Social disparity hinders problem-solving
Segmented perspectives are great for advertisers, but not so good for problem-solving.
When we consider wicked problems and the systems thinking needed to approach them, polarization makes it harder to come up with a solution. I talk about the future of humanity and how a holistic view helps us understand the full problem, but also how changes to one component affects other areas.
On the other hand, a narrower view removes our ability to address these types of problems. We become so focused on our own view without considering the big picture, and without exercising our curiosity or empathy.
For example, lack of fair access to education is a global issue, a wicked problem, and a symptom of social disparity. Improving access to education requires exploring every perspective to build a better understanding of the issue.
Diversity in perspectives challenges our own thinking and encourages us to view the world in a different way. It can even make us smarter. It’s here where creativity and innovation are born.
Disparity in gathering information
But even gathering different perspectives to further our thinking, can promote social disparity.
In today’s world, information is fragmented or held in siloes. You might watch a video, or read an article and browse the relevant Wikipedia page to understand an issue. But you may never get access to academic research on the topic or have sight of someone’s private musings.
Pulling together information to get a true picture of things takes time and money. Gaining understanding becomes about those who have the ability to do so, and those who have not. It also limits the scope of design, problem-solving and decision-making to be geared towards those who have, which widens the gulf further.
If we want to close the gap, we must stop wearing our differences as badges and start embracing our diverse points of views. Once people can be brought together around a theme, we can start building a better society, together.
https://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/timon-studler-ABGaVhJxwDQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg17072560Dominique Jaurolahttps://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/hunome-logotype-cropped-300x58.pngDominique Jaurola2021-04-29 10:51:062022-05-23 12:42:52Social disparity: Is the world growing further apart?
In a data-driven economy, we have many indicators of performance that help us navigate our way through the business landscape. However, the numbers only tell one story, and leading with humanity can help you build a more robust path forward.
Leading with data vs leading with humanity
As a leader it can be easy to fall into the habit of focusing on the numbers – productivity, efficiency and the bottom line. After all, data is a black and white indicator of what’s working for your business, and what isn’t – especially when times are hard.
The numbers are readily available too – everything from revenue to life time value to employee sentiment is available at a click of a button. The problem is that while these numbers help leaders make decisions about their business, they miss one crucial element – the human factor, and how a clear insight on what is important to people can help you make your company stand out.
Yes, great leadership is about solid business acumen and making the right decisions for your company. But leaders should also be actively trying to understand the humans involved, customers, employees, communities, to add dimension to the numbers and the impact of their data-driven decisions.
Human-aware leadership for better decisions
By understanding the people involved, leaders can get a better understanding of how your company fits into their lives. For example, sales data may show you that wardrobe sales are up, however understanding the human shows that buying good quality furniture from sustainable wood is at the top of your customers’ mind. One indicator may lead you to ramp up production from cheaper, less sustainable sources, and then leave you wondering why your sales have suddenly dropped off, whereas the other could open up a market that you hadn’t previously considered.
Leading with humanity also requires a degree of empathy. Understanding the problems of the people who you impact can help you to find solutions that are meaningful.
One story that really hits the nail on the head is that of Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, who made headlines by giving everyone in his company a minimum wage of $70,000. After hearing first hand from employees who were struggling financially (and were somewhat disgruntled), then crunching the numbers, he realised that he could make a difference in their lives.
The really amazing thing here is that not only did this increase employee satisfaction amongst more junior employees who got a pay increase, but more senior people were happy to take pay cuts to work for Gravity because it was putting its people first.
Leading with humanity and better motivation
Here’s the thing: leading with humanity leads to better motivation. We can see this in the case of Gravity Payments and their customers. Communities are motivated to engage more with brands that show their humanity, customers are motivated to do business with companies that show their human side, and will in some cases, be happy to pay a premium to do so.
Humanness is a powerful motivator for those who your company touches, but as a leader, how can you go about fostering understanding? My advice to you is this: fuel your curiosity.
Go out of your way to understand different perspectives on every aspect of your business.
Consider every perspective, no matter how insignificant it may seem – some of the brightest gems come from the most unexpected places.
Don’t rely on the numbers alone – find ways to discover that much needed depth.
Good leaders are the ones who can steer their ship in the right direction. Great leaders are the ones who take the time to learn from everyone who is coming along for the journey.
https://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/leon-6awfTPLGaCE-unsplash-scaled.jpg17072560Mika Raulashttps://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/hunome-logotype-cropped-300x58.pngMika Raulas2021-04-22 12:41:222022-05-23 12:47:58Why you should be leading with humanity
Today marks the launch of Hunome, a collective insights platform helping humanity make sense of itself.
Hunome is a new way to understand all things human. The platform connects and analyzes member perspectives to collectively build smart data around themes that relate to humans and humanity. Using human ingenuity and data analytics as a springboard to better understanding, Hunome facilitates complex problem-solving and better decision-making for both individuals and organizations, which evolves as more perspectives are added.
Dominique Jaurola, CEO and Founder of Hunome, said:
“There are many points in life when you need to ‘know’ about humans, whether you’re looking for inspiration, trying to solve a human-centered problem, or simply curious about why something is a certain way. To get a holistic view takes time and money to pull together information that is scattered or siloed across the internet – and often the incomplete picture leads to a simplistic understanding of our humanness. Hunome gives our community the minute detail and the big picture surrounding any theme.”
Members can journey through different perspectives on many themes, while making connections by adding their own points of view. They can then dig deeper into data-driven insights to get greater understanding on the theme and the people who have contributed to it.
“With Hunome, anyone can see change as it happens, follow a theme as it evolves and grow their understanding alongside it,” Dominique continues, “The world we live in needs solutions that are not meaningful to think about in isolation. Our dream is to create an understanding of who we humans are, why we are, what we would like to change. We want to give our humanness – past, present and future – a voice, and each member a position on the map of this understanding. Our launch today is the first step in our journey to making the world a more perceptive place.”
Hunome is a collective insights platform helping humanity make sense of itself. We’re revolutionizing our understanding of what it means to be human. Our platform combines connects and analyzes perspectives to collectively build smart data so that anyone can connect perspectives, evolve insights and create new understanding.
https://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/hugo-ruiz-e2pVrE1PYzs-unsplash-edited.jpg10801920hunomerhttps://about.hunome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/hunome-logotype-cropped-300x58.pnghunomer2021-04-01 14:48:352022-05-23 12:50:59Hunome: the new platform set to revolutionize our understanding of humanity
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