Six Ideas That Made Us Think

1. How Do the Arts Survive COVID?

Theodore Gioia asks how the pandemic and the rise of Zoom “for all corners of world culture” might trigger a reconstruction of the arts. A new era of art “for the digital generation” might require “participation, viscera, ephemera, and an immersive sense of space.” It is unclear if he is happy about it:

For an Internet-addled public, whose sensory faculties are diluted by a lifetime of constant digital stimuli, there is a need for dynamic engagement that runs deeper than mere laziness. Steady exposure to screens gradually reorganizes neural pathways in the brain to create an intense, biological urge for interaction. More than anything else, writer Marc Prensky explains, “Digital Natives crave interactivity—an immediate response to their each and every action.” This Pavlovian need for interaction demands a larger redefinition of art’s relationship to its audience. Distraction is no longer the exception but the default condition of the mid-millennium mind.

2. The Economics of Costco’s Brand

Business newsletter Napkin Math has produced a funny and revealing exploration of how Costco manages its white label Kirkland brand. One of the keys is to have Kirkland competitors make Kirkland products:

How can they offer rock-bottom prices but still have some of the best products around? The answer is this: they get the best manufacturers in the world — who already have products on Costco shelves — to make Kirkland products. Yeah, you read that right. While customers might not know it, Kirkland products are often made by the same manufacturers who make the branded products that sit next to them on the shelves.

3. The Race for Car Batteries

Philippe Chain and Frederic Filloux have undertaken a multi-part investigation into the future of cars. This month, they look at electric vehicles, and they consider why battery supply is so critical: “In ten years,” they predict, “electric cars lasting hundreds of thousands of miles with nearly no maintenance will be the norm.” The article provides an excellent primer on what it takes to make electric car batteries:

The production of one kilowatt-hour of battery capacity requires about 60 kWh of raw power; a gigafactory with a capacity of 45 GWh will consume 2.7 Terawatt-hours per year. That’s the equivalent of a fourth of one single 1300MW nuclear reactor!

4. Parkinson’s Law Revisited

“Work expands to fill the time allotted.” This was “Parkinson’s Law,” published in The Economist in 1955. This month, editors of the magazine have concluded, correctly, that COVID-19 prompts revision:

Broadly speaking, workers are now divided into two factions. The first group, the slackers, has spent the lockdown working out the minimum level of effort they can get away with…The second group takes the opposite approach. Consumed by guilt, anxiety about their job security or ambition, they work even harder than before. Being at home, they find no clear demarcation between work time and leisure time.

5. Flying Nostalgia

Since you’re not flying, it’s a good time to read this excellent history of SABRE, the first and most significant computer-driven flight booking system developed by IBM and American Airlines. The blog Retool tells the history of “the technology that changed air travel”:

At the time, it was the largest real-time data processing system outside of the US government, and was the first major e-commerce system ever, processing many millions of dollars per day. This was all achieved before the Internet. 

SABRE changed the game for American Airlines. It cut the average processing time for a booking down from 90 minutes to a few seconds, giving American a huge competitive advantage. Other airlines had no choice but to do the same…Airline productivity soared.

Also nostalgic: This 1990 United ad seems as relevant as ever: https://www1.g100companies.com/e/82432/atch-v-mU2rpcAABbA-app-desktop/djhd61/605281404?h=ife2tNiU4GBickj1SWzdQx_rrJwHss81afULm6nbDIY 

6. Hot and Frothy

For the last few years, The Guardian has been on the warpath against Nespresso, Nestle’s at-home, capsule-driven espresso machine. The paper’s latest installment runs over 5,000 words, arguing that Nespresso is yesterday’s cuppa Joe:

A Nespresso machine on the kitchen counter used to prove your membership of a convenience-loving global consumer coffee elite. Increasingly it suggests that you are not a serious coffee person, and that your attitude to the future of the planet is suspiciously relaxed.

But over at NespressoGuide.com, a website for coffee pod fanatics, The Guardian’s attack doesn’t go down easily. They have respondedwith their own 1000-word heated rebuttal:

We are more and more convinced that often these articles are written by journalists that either don’t truly understand what Nespresso is or dislike the company, for whatever reason. Why do we believe this? Because all of them are myopic takes on Nespresso and in general the coffee pods system…Basically, the new “coffee experts” are mostly not making espressos at all. And that’s what Nespresso machines are made for.

Websites Worth Reading

Delancey Place: Eclectic daily items on history

BCG on Innovation: Annual BCG list of most innovative companies 

Munk Debates: Podcast debate on the future of cities 

Feeds We Follow

@TaylorRooks: Reporting from the NBA bubble 

@BookmarksReads: Rotten Tomatoes for books 

@COVID19Tracking: Graphs on prevalence