We are seekers of a future that is exponentially different than today or the past. I encourage having a point of view (POV) like this thanks to Christopher Lochead and the Category Pirates in “Snow Leopard:”
- It is tomorrow.
- The world is not the same way it was yesterday.
- We reject the premise that all we can do is create what already exists today in a better, cheaper, or faster version tomorrow of the status quo.
- We look to the future for a world we envision, not what exists yesterday and build that today.
Exponential Different
Picasso didn’t just think all he could do was play by the rules someone else wrote, or execute the rules a bit differently, or in his own style using Van Gogh’s Impressionism. He created a new world called Cubism. It wasn’t Impressionism but better. It was exponentially different.
Netflix wasn’t Blockbuster just better. AirBnB wasn’t hotels just better. They were a whole different future than what was yesterday. They didn’t start with what exists and aim to disrupt, change,or transform what is to a better version so today is still rooted in the past.
The world will tell you play by the rules, stay in the lines, don’t upset the apple cart. Just manage, grow, and improve the way it is now. Make things better in small, safe increments. That’s what most people do.
They go to work, they want to be good people, go home to their families, have a good career. They get paid to manage the way it is and make improvements over time because they are stewards of the way it is. Most people are stewards of the status quo. THIS IS IMPORTANT. The people who keep planes in the sky work on the incremental better. So do heart surgeons.
We have a different POV. So did Picasso. Netflix, and AirBnB. Some people don’t get paid to work on incremental better. They get paid to work on exponential different. People who work on the exponential different break the status quo and create a whole new thing.
THE ERA OF AI IS THE TIME TO BREAK THE PAST
We think now is the greatest time in history to do that. It is bigger than the build out of the internet in the 1990s. Chat GPT ANSWER technology is the beginning of understanding a future of exponential different.
The thought team called Category Pirates taught us this. They taught us to be Snow Leopards. “Regular leopards with gold cut and black spots spend their lives competing against each other. They look the same. They act the same. They move in groups. They seek acceptance. The Snow Leopard does none of these things. In fact, it is rare to see two snow leopards together. Ever. They stand alone.”
Katie and I often stand alone. We have a POV that sees an exponential different future world for humans whose bodies and brains are not the typical way humans have made the world for those who are not different. We cannot accept a world like yesterday that is only the way it is because it has always been this stewardship of the status quo. We seek a world that is exponentially different for parents of choldren with disabilities so they iwll not have to worry what will happen their sons and daughters when they are gone.
When you introduce a new point of view to the world 90% of the time you will be criticised, rejected, and resisted. That is our fuel. We are seekers of the future that is exponentially different than today or the past for our neurodivergent son.