Good day out, that!
Yesterday was an absolute rip snorter of a day.
300 researchers and marketers joined us in London to listen to 11 ace speakers and a superb client panel, all on the subject of 'Everything Has Changed, Nothing Has Changed’.
Part conference, part industry group therapy. We dug into the likes of AI, attention, uncertainty, and various other conundrums that the industry is currently chewing on.
Highlights to follow once my brain has stopped doing the conga.
The raccoon test
When someone endorses a conspiracy theory in a survey, do they really believe it or are they just pulling our leg?
Researchers at Macquarie University invented a fake conspiracy theory about a secret army of raccoons (love it) and asked about it alongside six pre-existing ones. The rationale being anyone backing the raccoon army was likely up to some tomfoolery.
“The mean number of pre-existing conspiracy theories endorsed (out of six) was 4.08 among participants who endorsed the raccoon army conspiracy theory and 0.50 among participants who did not endorse it [...] Our results suggest that surveys can produce inflated estimates of the prevalence of belief in conspiracy theories [...] researchers need to get out of the habit of assuming that when participants endorse claims in surveys then they sincerely believe them.”
Eureka squared
Amazingly, despite working completely independently, Newton (in England) and Leibniz (in Germany) both developed the principles of calculus at the same time.
Even more amazingly, this isn’t actually that amazing. The theory of evolution, the thermometer, the jet engine, photography and the electric motor were all simultaneously invented. Why? Because the problem was finally framed in the right way:
“The figures we remember as geniuses are usually the ones who were standing closest when a well-framed question came due. The figures we forget are the ones who did the framing; people like Malthus, who don’t solve the problem but state it clearly enough that someone else does [...] As Demis Hassabis, cofounder of Google DeepMind and a 2024 Nobel laureate, put it: “It’s harder to come up with a really good conjecture than it is to solve it.” Perhaps every brilliant idea is just that: an ordinary answer to an extraordinary question.”
The great unspeaking
We're talking less. Around 338 fewer words a day, in fact. Researchers at Missouri-Kansas City and Arizona clocked a 28% drop in spoken words between 2005 and 2019, with the under 25s setting the pace:
“The study couldn’t pinpoint why the spoken word was in decline, but noted that its timeframe – 2005 to 2019 – coincided with the rise of texting, email and social media, so some lost conversations may now take place digitally [...] While all age groups were affected, participants aged 25 or younger showed a markedly steeper decline in speech, perhaps related to their greater use of technology.”
“I'm like a butler with a bell in my head”
Psychologist Guy Winch had some smart tips for teaching your brain to clock off, including the rather lovely ideas of announcing lunch to yourself out loud and arriving to your holiday already in suncream mode:
“The biggest advice I have to people is get to your vacation rested. Everyone likes to work up until the last hour to get ahead [...] it took me three to four days to relax enough to be in vacation mode [...] Now, I relaxed a couple of days before. I try to end work early, really have restful evenings, pack ahead of time [...] When I started doing it, the first day of vacation, I felt rested. I'm like, Oh, my God. I feel on vacation, and it's day one.”
And finally…
Did you know hulu.com used to be Hung and Lucy’s digital photo album? And midjourney.com used to house Shannon’s blog on the midjourney of life. Hats doffed to Annie Rauwerda for her list of popular URLs and what they once were.
As a former English Language student, this analysis of 200,000 similes makes me as clappy as a ham.
Speaking of… The most common fields of study, from 1970 to now.
Bon weekend,
Fran