The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

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The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone     “You are born alone. You die alone. The value of the space in between is trust and love,” artist Louise Bourgeois wrote in her diary at the end of a long and illustrious life as she contemplated how solitude enriches creative work. It’s a lovely sentiment, but as empowering as it may be to those willing to embrace solitude, it can be tremendously lonesome-making to those for whom loneliness has contracted the space of trust and love into a suffocating penitentiary. For if in solitude, as Wendell Berry memorably wrote, “one’s inner voices become audible [and] one responds more clearly to other lives,” in loneliness one’s inner scream becomes deafening, deadening, severing any thread of connection to other lives. How to break free of that prison and reinhabit the space of trust and love is what Olivia Laing explores in The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone (public library) — an extraordinary more-than-memoir; a sort of memoir-plus-plus, partway between Helen MacDonald’s H Is for Hawk and the diary of Virginia Woolf; a lyrical account of wading through a period of self-expatriation, both physical and psychological, in which Laing paints an intimate portrait of loneliness as “a populated place: a city in itself.” Continued here

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How to Fix the Most Soul-Crushing Meetings - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)     Too many standing meetings are a waste of time. Better meeting techniques, such as distributing agendas, won’t fix a meeting that shouldn’t be happening at all. When it’s not clear who owns a meeting, why people are convening, and how a group’s work contributes to the company’s strategy, more-drastic measures are needed. First, make sure each meeting has a clearly articulated mandate with defined decision rights. Second, design a synchronized meeting cadence. It may seem obvious, but a meeting’s frequency and allotted time must be commensurate with its charter and decision rights. Finally, figure out the right composition. Too often leaders let hierarchy define who comes to a meeting. Instead, only those who have something specific to contribute should be included.Meetings are notoriously one of organizational life’s most insufferable realities. U.S. companies spend more than $37 billion dollars a year on them. Employees in American companies spend more than one-third of their time in them. And 71% of senior managers view them as unproductive. In one global consumer products company that I work with, my firm’s organizational assessment revealed an unusually intense degree of frustration over how much time was consumed by meetings, leaving “only evenings to do our day jobs,” according to one interviewee. In a meticulous inventory, we calculated the hours spent in meetings by directors and above across the enterprise (a population of about 500). They collectively spent more than 57,000 hours per year in recurring meetings. That’s the equivalent of six and a half years! Continued here

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Strategically Engaging With Innovation Ecosystems     Competitive pressure to innovate is driving companies to seek new ideas well beyond their own walls. But sponsoring the occasional hackathon or having one-off, uncoordinated interactions with a startup accelerator won’t contribute much to boosting an organization’s innovation capabilities. Many companies are missing an opportunity that’s close to home by overlooking or failing to effectively tap innovation ecosystems in their regions.These ecosystems occur where innovation and entrepreneurship activity are highly concentrated. As we define them, ecosystems are places that engage five stakeholder types — research institutions, entrepreneurs, corporations, investors, and governments — linked by a strong social fabric of mutual interest, complementary needs and resources, and trust. (See “Complementary Stakeholders in Innovation Ecosystems.”) Continued here

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Don't Waste Your Time on Networking Events - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)     Large business networking events are traditional, and the question often is not whether you should attend, but how to make the most of such events when you do attend. Theoretically, they’re one of the best ways to grow your business. The problem is that you’re probably not getting the consistent results you’d like because your success is directly tied to your ability to interact with people looking for the exact same things as you are. Networking can be defined as any activity that increases the value of your network or the value you contribute to it. The best way to do this is to avoid traditional networking events almost entirely. Some alternative strategies are: host your own get-togethers, giving you more control; double date – invite a client to an event, and ask them to bring someone they think you should meet, while you do the same; and reconnect with dormant ties, such as former classmates and any contacts from a previous career.Large, traditional business networking events are a time-honored institution. They have been a staple of aspiring and successful professionals for so long that most networking advice focuses not on whether you should attend, but on how to make the most of these events when you do attend. In theory, they’re one of the best ways to grow your business. Continued here

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J     Jürgen Klopp is a football manager. That means there is a limit to how much he can teach corporate bosses about how to do their jobs. Managers in firms tend not to be parent substitutes to their charges, envelop people in bear hugs after a successful meeting or use the gegenpressing technique against rivals. But Mr Klopp has drawn back the veil on a crucial ingredient of success in almost every walk of life: energy. Continued here

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AI Investors Are Wooing Startups With Massive Computing Clusters - Forbes (No paywall)     Last year, entrepreneur-turned-investor Nat Friedman found himself unwittingly becoming a full-time computer chip broker for upstart AI companies. “There were weeks where I spent most of my time finding GPUs for people,” he told Forbes, referencing the graphics processing units which power AI data analysis. “Asking founders what they needed help with, that was problem number one.”Friedman, the former CEO of Microsoft’s developer platform GitHub, and frequent investing partner Daniel Gross, who sold his first startup to Apple, were calling in so many favors to chip providers that by midyear, they decided they would be better off hiring and team of engineers and spending nine figures upfront to build their own supercomputer. They now run the Andromeda Cluster, their name for several computing stockpiles totaling more than 4,000 GPUs, which they make available for use by companies in their portfolio for a fee below market price. Since its announcement last June, other tech investors have followed suit with offerings to support companies. Index Ventures announced a program last fall to give startups free access to a cluster run by Oracle. Microsoft has set aside several thousand chips for use by startups in its venture arm M12, the startup accelerator Y Combinator and a handful of other early stage funds. Conviction Partners also manages a smaller cluster, founder Sarah Guo told Forbes. Continued here

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Make Yourself Immune to Secondhand Stress - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)     Over the past decade, we have learned how our brains are hardwired for emotional contagion. Emotions spread via a wireless network of mirror neurons, which are tiny parts of the brain that allow us to empathize with others and understand what they’re feeling. When you see someone yawn, mirror neurons can activate, making you yawn, in turn. Your brain picks up the fatigue response of someone sitting on the other side of the room. But it’s not just smiles and yawns that spread. We can pick up negativity, stress, and uncertainty like secondhand smoke. Researchers Howard Friedman and Ronald Riggio from the University of California, Riverside found that if someone in your visual field is anxious and highly expressive — either verbally or non-verbally — there’s a high likelihood you’ll experience those emotions as well, negatively impacting your brain’s performance. Continued here

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How to Give and Receive Compliments at Work - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)     Whether you’re a manager or a team member, giving and receiving compliments plays a major part in forming workplace relationships. Yet research shows that many people feel anxiety over the idea of exchanging compliments, worrying about coming off as a kiss-up or having their compliment misinterpreted. To be better at giving compliments, it’s also important to become better at receiving them. These scenarios and suggestions can help anyone practice the art of giving and receiving compliments.Whether you are a manager or an individual contributor, giving and receiving compliments plays a critical role in building and maintaining relationships at work. When done well, a compliment is one of the most powerful ways to let someone know that we value and appreciate them. Yet, these seemingly positive interactions can be surprisingly tricky to navigate for both giver and receiver alike. Some of my earliest research, published as “What to Do When Praise Makes You Uncomfortable,” revealed that although the number one thing people associate with being recognized is feeling valued (88%), nearly 70% of people associated embarrassment or discomfort with the process of both giving and receiving. Continued here

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Find the Coaching in Criticism - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)     Reprint: R1401K Feedback is crucial—but almost everyone, from new hires to C-suite executives, struggles with receiving it. The authors, who have spent 20 years working with managers on difficult conversations, outline six steps that can help you turn feedback into an important, and unthreatening, tool. Know your tendencies. Look for patterns in how you respond. (Do you defend yourself? Do you lash out?) Once you understand your standard operating procedure, you can make better choices about where to go from there. Separate the “what” from the “who.” Your feelings about the messenger might be short-circuiting your ability to learn from the message. Sort toward coaching. Work to hear feedback as well-meant advice, not as an indictment. Unpack the feedback. Resist snap judgments; explore where suggestions are coming from and where they’re going. Request and direct feedback. Don’t wait for a formal review; ask for bite-size pieces of coaching. Experiment. Try following a piece of advice and seeing what happens. Criticism is never easy to take—but learning to pull value from it is essential to your development and success. Continued here

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Rio de Janeiro is betting on Carnival for 'cooler' parties - and a better Brazil     Rita de Cassia Oliveira takes a brief pause to reorganise a display of colourful earrings, before returning to serve a group of tourists. They're picking out shiny shorts and sparkly bikini tops for this year's Carnival street parties. During this period, Oliveira swaps her usual swimwear merchandise for Carnival outfits, and expects February's income to double compared to other months."It's the best time of year for those who work on the streets," she says as she arranges pots of glitter at her outdoor stall on a busy Copacabana street corner. Continued here

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Dakota Johnson and her refreshingly honest Madame Web interviews: Why people love stars going 'off script'     A new Spider-Man-adjacent superhero blockbuster, Madame Web, is swinging its way to a cinema near you this week, so its star, Dakota Johnson, has been telling journalists everywhere how fantastic it is. Well, sort of.More like this: – Is this the end of the road for superhero films? – Hollywood's most extreme actors – Why Martin Scorsese fears for the future of cinema Continued here

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The reinvention of a loaded US symbol     For Beyoncé fans, Sunday's Super Bowl was a joyous affair. Appearing in an advert for a mobile phone company, the singer teased new music, before dropping two new singles – Texas Hold 'Em and 16 Carriages – and the release date for her second album in the Renaissance trilogy later that night. Both the singles and their cover art – which show the star decked in two different black cowboy hats – confirmed suspicions that the Houston-born artist would adopt a country theme for her newest release, due on 29 March.More like this:- Why Beyoncé is reclaiming country music- How hip hop rose to the tops of fashion- How one great sweater can last a lifetime Continued here

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Another Middle East war would be disastrous for Britain - here's how it can avoid mission creep     Since the beginning of the year the Royal navy and Air Force have joined the US military in launching a series of strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. The strikes have been in retaliation for Houthi attacks on shipping – both merchant and naval – in the Red Sea in recent months. UK government minister Huw Merriman claimed recently that these airstrikes are not just a “one off”. But while the UK and US have demonstrated their resolve in unitedly countering Houthi belligerence and disruption to global trade by blocking up the Red Sea, Merriman’s statement underlines the risk of being inadvertently drawn into a protracted conflict. Continued here

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'Tarry awhile': how the Black spiritual tradition of waiting expectantly could enrich your approach to Lent     Every year, hundreds of millions of Catholic and Protestant Christians around the world celebrate the season of Lent. For the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, observers devote themselves to fasting, prayer and acts of generous giving. Lots of people, who might not be observant, also take this time to give something up. In 2023, Country Living ran a list of 32 ideas for what you might want to curtail, from “commenting on social media”, “road rage” and “ignoring your health” to “speeding”, “snacking” and “single-use plastic”. Continued here

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Labour scaling back its      The UK Labour party has announced its intention to reduce its £28 billion green investment pledge to less than £15 billion if elected this year. The political fallout has been been largely focused on the party’s fiscal credibility and leader of the opposition Keir Starmer’s seeming proclivity for U-turns. A crucial question so far overlooked is what impact the cut would have on public health. The initial pledge included a key home-insulation plan to upgrade 72% – 19m homes – of the UK’s housing stock. Continued here

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The real threat to gender-diverse children is the politicization of care issues like puberty blockers and detransition     Under the pretext of protecting children, Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, has said he is opposed to the use of puberty blockers for gender-diverse children.“I think that we should protect children and their ability to make adult decisions when they’re adults,” Poilievre said. Continued here

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Four ways AI could help us respond to climate change - despite how much energy it uses     Advanced AI systems are coming under increasing critcism for how much energy they use. But it’s important to remember that AI could also contribute in various ways to our response to climate change. Climate change can be broken down into several smaller problems that must be addressed as part of an overarching strategy for adapting to and mitigating it. These include identifying sources of emissions, enhancing the production and use of renewable energy and predicting calamities like floods and fires. Continued here

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Donkeys are unsung heroes in Ethiopia's humanitarian crisis - and they could do even more with better support     Conflict and drought in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia has triggered a humanitarian crisis. The Ethiopian government says 16 million people across the country are facing food shortages, with almost half of those suffering emergency or severe levels of food insecurity. In response to the crisis, the UK has announced £100 million in overseas development aid for essential healthcare services. More than 3 million Ethiopians, including vulnerable women and children, will receive lifesaving help through the programme. Continued here

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Oil and gas lobbyists have deep pockets and access to politicians, but an EU ban could be in the pipeline     A public interest ban on big oil and gas companies engaging with and influencing politicians could be in the pipeline as the European Parliament is hosting a hearing on fossil fuel lobbying on February 14.Something similar is already in place for the tobacco industry in order to safeguard public health. The European Parliament is set to examine what lessons can be learned to protect the environment from the harms associated with continued use of fossil fuels. Continued here

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The New York Times' AI copyright lawsuit shows that forgiveness might not be better than permission     The New York Times’ (NYT) legal proceedings against OpenAI and Microsoft has opened a new frontier in the ongoing legal challenges brought on by the use of copyrighted data to “train”, or improve generative AI. There are already a variety of lawsuits against AI companies, including one brought by Getty Images against StabilityAI, which makes the Stable Diffusion online text-to-image generator. Authors George R.R. Martin and John Grisham have also brought legal cases against ChatGPT owner OpenAI over copyright claims. But the NYT case is not “more of the same” because it throws interesting new arguments into the mix. Continued here

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Artificial intelligence needs to be trained on culturally diverse datasets to avoid bias     Large language models (LLMs) are deep learning artificial intelligence programs, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The capabilities of LLMs have developed into quite a wide range, from writing fluent essays, through coding to creative writing. Millions of people worldwide use LLMs, and it would not be an exaggeration to say these technologies are transforming work, education and society.LLMs are trained by reading massive amounts of texts and learning to recognize and mimic patterns in the data. This allows them to generate coherent and human-like text on virtually any topic. Continued here

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Axing the Auckland fuel tax reveals the lack of a real transport plan for NZ's biggest city     The government’s recent announcement that it would bring forward legislation to end the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax (ARFT) in June – four years early – is the third time in 30 years a National-led government has repealed such a tax.Pulling the plug seems less about the cost of living or misuse of tax revenue than simply sweeping clear the previous administration’s legislation. Transport policies, plans and projects have fallen at an astonishing speed since the coalition government was formed. Continued here