đ đ The big beautiful web
Passion economy: Monetising Individuality đ
The no-code era đ©đ»âđ»
According to TheFamily, Cloud City is a utopia that we can turn into a reality if we build it together! Let's start by defining our common values and aspirations. A concept of âcommunityâ is inclusive, anti-racist, and tolerant. I am one of these people that believe in cloud cities.
A smart city provides the infrastructure and tools urban managers can use to solve unanticipated problems rather than deploying one-off solutions for one-off problems. Smart city infrastructure lets well-governed communities make a partial transition from a bureaucratic to a technocratic model, using real-time data and evidence-based results to drive policy.
Right now, every dollar spent globally on buying food ends up costing society double that in health, environmental, and economic fallouts totaling over $11 trillion each year. These costs âare a direct result of the âlinearâ nature of modern food production, which extracts finite resources, is wasteful and polluting, and harms natural systems,â the authors note in the report, which was co-produced with Systemiq, an accelerator focused on environmental solutions.
Food waste is also a massive issue: The Ellen MacArthur Foundation report notes that the equivalent of six garbage trucks of food are wasted globally every second. In cities, less than 2% of that waste is reused as compost.
By 2050, 80% of food is expected to be consumed in cities, so it stands to reason that cities should begin to participate more in local food production. That, however, is a long way from the way things are right now. In order to a shift to a more local food system, cities need to focus on âreconnecting urban consumers with food production, in effect redesigning food value chains around urban consumption centers,â Stuchtey says.
Lockdowns across the globe led to millions of people suddenly working from home â and guess what? It turns out we can do many jobs just as well in the comfort of our own homes (and sweatpants) as in our offices.
Of course, for many people, this is not an option. Itâs a privilege to be able to work from home. That said, the myth that remote work isnât as practical as a 9-to-5 office job has been proven to be just that: a myth. Some are finding that working from home actually offers unique benefits.
âIâm a counseling psychologist, and I have been doing client work remotely. I think I will keep doing it remotely! Itâs quite convenient,â said Raphael Doval-Santos. âMy practice also gets to be more global, and my new clients are not just within my city anymore.â
Several respondents said they love no longer having to commute to work. It means no pollution, more sleep, and less stress.
âI actually like this now; itâs better this way,â said ****Hermee Sorneo, a 36-year-old customer service team leader for a data management company in the Philippines. âThereâs so much benefit in working from home, and I think the world should do this voluntarily, with or without pandemic, at least once every 10 years for at least three months.â
âWeâre getting requests for covered outdoor living areas that have all of the comforts of inside on the outside,â says Fernando Wong, whose latest landscaping projects include the Four Seasons Fort Lauderdale. âPeople want family spaces with everything from big-screen TVs to pizza ovens and billiard tables. They want their homes to look like and have the amenities of the resorts that they used to travel to for vacations.â
The humble freestanding grill will no longer cut it, says Byers, whose clients are requesting fully equipped outdoor kitchens with fridges, storage space, and custom-built grills. The challenge, she says, is making them look like they belong. âOftentimes, outdoor kitchens look like an awkward appendage in the landscape,â she says, adding that she favors the use of cabinetry and masonry to conceal appliances.
Christine Ten Eyck of Ten Eyck Landscape Architects says that while swimming pools are as popular as ever, itâs no longer a case of the bigger, the better. âSmaller swimming pools take up less green space of urban properties and give the illusion of swimming in a fountain-like water body surrounded by lush landscape versus a sea of paving.â She notes that outdoor showers are also high on peopleâs wish lists: âShowering or bathing surrounded by the intoxicating fragrance of plants in a completely private small garden gets the day started right.â
Functional Strength Training - ALTERNATIVE FITNESS - With gyms shut, as occurred in March 2020 and November 2020 in the UK (and now January 2021), many less conventional exercise types have gained traction e.g. calisthenics/bodyweight resistance training. This has been covered extensively, everything from cycling to open water swimming (Dryrobe was a trend we covered a few months back) to jump rope and resistance bands as well as the development of home gyms.
Google search trends for the past 30 days suggest that breathing exercises, meditation and relaxing music for calming down the nerves were in great demand. Not surprising, given that the world has been under lockdown for close to two months.
In the latest search trends report, five key search strings came to the fore. These included relaxation, meditation, breathing exercises, inner peace, and how to organize, the last one appears to be an outcome of the time that users seem to be having as they wait out the lockdown.
The search string around relaxation themes include users searching for "relaxing music" to a more complex "how to relax the mind from stress". The search results in India include videos related to inducing sleep, calm music and healing. They also threw up links around apps on both Playstore and App Store that claimed to induce sleep.
Breathing exercises was another major topic that users searched for and among the top results includes a one-minute breathing exercise that Google itself provides besides similar videos created by hospitals and medical bodies.
Another related search query involved meditation techniques which throw up strings such as "meditation techniques for anxiety", "ancient meditation techniques" and "hindu meditation techniques". The video results throw up results from various yoga institutes around the world and more specifically India.
The search query on inner peace also includes strings such as "how to calm down" which witnessed a spike over the past month. There were also specific searches around Covid-19 that included terms like "how to stay healthy and peaceful" and "coping with the Covid pandemic".
The 'how to organise' searches were specific to managing the home with netizens asking Google to show results on stacking up their clothes to keeping their bedrooms tidy or their study rooms clutter-free. A common search that recurred repeatedly was "how to organize apps on my phone".
A modern take on mysticism and magic will enter the mainstream in 2021 with alternative spirituality taking hold, as searches for âprotection crystalsâ saw a 100% increase in 2020. Personal care routines are increasingly being positioned as rituals, and brands can offer positive mindset concepts from the world of wellness. The pandemic has forced consumers to re-evaluate their safety and wellbeing, leading to a dramatic rise in self-care rituals.
For more, see New Ways with New-Age Beauty and 10 Nail Trends to Watch.
âWeâre witnessing a significant and exciting shift away from the traditional static plantings and unused lawns that have dominated American front yards and properties at large,â says Holly Kuljian of Pine House Edible Gardens. âWeâre seeing multigenerational family members using every square inch of the garden at all hours of the day. With clients taking Zoom meetings in the hammock or learning the joy of pruning their fruit trees, weâre called to look to the oft-forgotten front yard for additional outdoor space.â
Kuljian and her team are seeing increased demand for dynamic activations such as group seating for neighborhood gatherings, sports courts, kids play areas, and sculptural features, as well as vegetable beds, mini orchards, medicinal and tea plantings, and beehives.
âWith families of all ages at home so much more now, there is a renewed interest in kitchen and vegetable gardens,â RenĂ©e Byers says of the edible garden trend. âThe potager, where both flowers and kitchen herbs and vegetables can be combined, is making a big comeback. We locate kitchen gardens in sunny spots as close to the house as possible and integrate them into the landscape with paths and fencing, so they are integral parts of the composition.â
The pandemic has made it clear that virtualized experiences, like video meetings and Zoom yoga, are viable substitutes for the real thing, whether you embrace them or endure them. In 2021, expect more products to offer to digitize the way we work and stay healthy.
One example: Some tech companies are experimenting with recreating the office conference room with virtual reality.
Microsoftâs AltspaceVR, for example, lets you and your colleagues wear headsets to have meetings in hologram form. Facebookâs Oculus, the virtual reality division of the social network, said it was hastening its plan to bring virtual reality to offices. It plans to bundle its latest headset, the Oculus Quest 2, with business-ready software that helps companies train employees and collaborate, for about $800.
With gyms shut down, we are also increasingly turning to tech to keep an eye on our health.
Last year, Amazon introduced its first wearable for fitness tracking, which includes software that scans your body fat. Apple recently introduced Fitness+, a copycat of Peloton, the video service that offers instruction for at-home workouts. Ask said this trend would continue into other aspects of health, like self-care and mental health, with video apps that offer guided meditation or therapy.
Searches for âvirtual team buildingâ are up 1,540% over the last year.
A Forbes report found that 45% of corporate teams state that they feel âless connectedâ to their peers since COVID. Partly due to a lack of formal and informal team building activities.
Which is why more and more companies are seeking out team building activities (like cooking classes, trivia, and awards) that can be done virtually.
Many companies are also bringing employees together via organized, Zoom-based lunches (Human Resource Director magazine reports that digital food vouchers sales are up 3x this year).
Thriver, one of the companies leading the way in the virtual team building space, raised a $33M Series B in August.
Whatâs next:
Virtual team building is part of the virtual office tool meta trend. 83% of companies plan on offering remote work options post-COVID. Which is leading to a growing number of SaaS products that aim to simulate the office environment online. Other examples of this trend include InStation, DingTalk, and Bluescape.
The Jane Goodall Institute has partnered with Crate&kids (home furnishing brand Crate&Barrel's children's line) to create a line of home products that inspire interest in animals and the natural world. The collection includes a Serengeti quilt, chimp and toucan pillows, and â perhaps most likely to excite budding zoologists â a playhouse modeled after Dr. Goodall's research camp.
As kids spend more time indoors looking at screens, analog home products that intrinsically spark learning and creativity are increasingly important.
đĄ How can we engage with the world beyond our screens and teach younger generations without preaching?
Itâs not just interpersonal hierarchies that remote work might disrupt. Since the dawn of the industrial age, employment has been tied to physical location, with migration driven by job opportunities. When cities experience a boom they often become unaffordable, heightening economic divides. When small towns fail to provide opportunities, theyâre liable to decline.
âThereâs been a lot of research done on the ghost-towning of the world, as people feel like they have no choice but to move to major urban centers for the best-paying job,â Murph explains. âIt hurts on two levels; the place that raised them is losing their tax dollars, and the place that receives them, thereâs never really that connection of home. They may care about the place, but theyâre not invested in it.â
Amid the pandemic, weâre already seeing signs of this reverse-urbanization in places with a high cost of living like Silicon Valley. At the same time, smaller cities and towns have begun offering incentives to attract newly remote workers. Cheap, outdoorsy destinations like Coloradoâs Pagosa Springs and Salida have become unlikely boomtowns in these COVID-19 times.
THE MOST DANGEROUS WORDS IN BUSINESS ARE, âWEâVE ALWAYS DONE IT THIS WAY.ââ
âInstead of lobbying for corporations to come build a skyscraper to bring jobs and tax dollars, a much more sustainable approach is âLetâs build the most livable town we can, and people will bring their own jobs,'â Murph says. âAt the same time these major cities that are straining to handle the populations that they have, it will benefit them too if some of the people who donât really want to be there move to places that are more aligned with who they are, and the people who have been displaced from these cities can actually afford to live there.â
If even a small proportion of urban-based employees take their salaries to smaller destinations, it will effectively reduce the cost of living and traffic congestion in cities and bring much-needed tax revenue to smaller locations. Murph believes that as a result, remote work will benefit everyoneâeven those who donât have the option to work remotely themselves.
The office as we know it is over-and that's a good thing
One of the best ways to decompress when the world is in disarray, Wong says, is with soothing lighting both inside and out. âFor outdoor lighting, itâs crucial to have areas of darkness and light to highlight the spaces where you want to draw your eye,â he explains. âAlways try to aim lights so that you do not see the light source and try to shield the bulbs when possible. Pay attention to light bulb wattageâlower-watt bulbs provide enough illumination for outdoor use.â
âMoonlighting and downlighting in trees never goes out of style with its soft tracery and complies with dark sky ordinances,â says Ten Eyck. âWhite and silver blooming gardensâplants like Mexican plum, fragrant jasmine, gardenias, white camellias and roses, artemisias, and night-blooming cereusâhighlight easily at night with lighting.â
Chief among all the expertsâ predictions: Native plants will be essential.
âNative plantings in residential gardens attract urban wildlife such as birds and pollinators while providing year-round beauty,â Ten Eyck says. âWith the pandemic and climate change looming, interacting with and prioritizing native plants at home is becoming more important to people and the planet. Native plants use less water and provide habitat for urban wildlife, and they are resilient since they belong naturally to the region.â
Haiman adds that increasing awareness around sustainability is pushing home gardeners toward a âdo-no-harmâ philosophy. âDecision-makers in the garden will think twice before planting invasive and exotic plants that may escape cultivation.â
John Hart Asher, founder of Ecosystem Design Group (now part of Ten Eyck), favors the use of pocket prairies to attract local birds. âPart of our current predicament with the loss of biodiversity stems from how we have defined what a âgood-lookingâ yard consists of,â he says. âMany traditional designs have produced landscapes on life support that derive their beauty from an ascetic aesthetic. Pocket prairies allow us to revive our connection with nature.â
Itâs not just interiors that can swaddle us from the chaos of the worldâpeople want their gardens to do the same.
âFormal, manicured gardens are less relevant todayâpeople are more interested in creating enveloping comfort and serenity,â Byers says. âThey want a garden that looks like it has always been there. The right plants in the right place can create private and serene settings, but still be full of interest and color as one moves through them.â
She suggests evergreens such as boxwood or hollies contrasted with drifts of ornamental grasses and flowering shrubs, such as certain panicle hydrangeas, mostly in white. âThe grasses sway with the wind and catch the light, and by keeping the flowering color palette limited to white, with blooms that fade to pinks and burgundies as the season progresses, we can achieve a very soothing effect over many months.â
Kuljian says that clients are becoming more adventurous. âFor a more modern garden, weâve been enjoying black and dark burgundy foliage and flowers with accents of light dusty apricot and watery blue,â she says. âWeâre also using yellow much more, and it looks great with silver foliage and a charcoal gray backdrop. Always green, thoughâno matter what, being surrounded by verdant green is a timeless human desire.â
âWeâll see plants with happy colors in a post-pandemic world,â adds Haiman, who was recently made resident landscape designer at 30 Warren. âRegardless of the size of the garden, people are making choices to orchestrate the flowering throughout all four seasons.â
Many of us feel ambivalent about the new normal of working from home. While answering emails from bed in pajamas might be fun from time to time, itâs easy to feel isolated, less active, and less connected to the world around us without the routine of going into the office.
As countries have oscillated between tougher and looser restrictions in response to infection rates, many companies have adopted hybrid models, with employees coming into the office for a few days a week. Many workers will be pushing for a similarly flexible model to become a long-term policy from their bosses.
But donât expect all employers to give up without a fight.
Following the initial lockdown, weâve already seen stories of workers being summoned back to the workplace against their will, and Facebook has been accused of ârisking livesâ by bringing employees back to the office prematurely.
Workers whoâd rather have some flexibility certainly have a case to make, with research showing that remote work can increase productivity. However, rising unemployment in a post-pandemic economic slowdown could weaken workersâ negotiating hand, as we enter a âbuyersâ market,â particularly at a junior level.
More senior employees will likely have more say over the terms of their work, and it will be down to them to secure a more flexible approach for others.
This finding â which emerged from a Gartner survey of 5,000 employees on their organizationâs culture and their perceptions of recent culture change â will be news to naysayers of hybrid workforce models, who often complain that a lack of regular in-person contact dilutes an organizationâs culture.
Satisfaction with the culture is critical to key talent outcomes. Employees who report that culture has improved since starting to work remotely are:
Notably, senior leaders are even more likely (1.9 times more than individual contributors) to report that their organizationâs culture has improved since starting to work remotely.
No, Hybrid Workforce Models Won't Dilute Your Culture
Our experts predict what's in store for startups in 2021 | Sifted
Relaxation, meditation dominate Google's 30-day search trends
Cities need to start making their own food
đ° E07 I dreamt of the future
These Outdoor Design Trends Will Dominate in 2021
Pinterest Predicts Top 2021 Beauty Trends | Stylus
4 trends for indie hackers in 2021: virtual team building, content repurposing + 2 more
The Future of Work Isn't Remote. It's Flexible | Digital Trends