Through the lens: Seeing the people behind data

A positive corona-test isolated me and my family during the Christmas break. The digital company of Paul, John, George and Ringo got us through it, and while watching 9 hours of “The Fab Four” at work, I reflected upon the nature of creative work processes. I might be the very last person to understand the genius work of The Beatles. Admitted! But when I look into the new year ahead of me, full of exciting professional collaborations, within and beyond the much talented IS IT A BIRD-team, a source of inspiration will be The Beatles. Here’s why:

For well over 1.5 years we have lived in a low-touch economy. This global deprivation of opportunities for intimacy might just trigger a new kind of luxury: human bonding. Companies that master how to design for intimate customer experiences are likely winners of tomorrow. We offer four principles.

Youth is wasted on the young. While many of us can appreciate the sentiment behind this adage, the irony nonetheless paints aging as an inferior and undesirable alternative. These kinds of ageist ideologies have been circulating for a long time, but aging is not the disappointing fate it was once considered to be.

Just 500 years ago, we humans believed that Earth was at the centre of the universe. Before the dawn of modern astrology, the common belief was that our planet was stable and fixed in position as astrologers observed that the Sun and moon appeared to revolve around them once a day. But in 1543, Polish astrologer Copernicus showed that this wasn’t the case. As it turned out, humans were not the centre of the universe – the sun was.

Whilst technology has expanded our lives in so many ways, most of us today share a collective addiction to our devices. In spite of our best efforts to reduce our dependency by deleting apps and putting our phones on 'do not disturb' mode, all too often we find ourselves back on our newsfeeds mindlessly refreshing to see what we missed.

Conflicting demands and tensions are the norm in our home and work lives. As students, the more we learn, the less we realise we know. In business, we spend money to make money. And in our personal relationships, sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind.

Ten Meter Tower - a short film from Swedish artists Maximilien van Aertryck and Axel Danielson captures a series of people facing difficult decision of jumping off a ten-meter swimming board into a pool. As the people face the high dive and decide whether to take the leap of faith – or not – a portrait of human doubt emerges.

Climate change is the defining crisis of our time, with the changes happening labelled both as an ecological catastrophe and international crisis. In the past few years, we’ve seen mounting awareness for the severity of the crisis from policy makers, media outlets and corporations across the globe. In 2018, Greta Thunberg’s #FridaysForFutures initiative inspired an international movement resulting in global strike which gathered more than one million strikers protesting in 125 countries. And in 2020, David Attenborough’s documentary film, 'A Life on Our Planet’ served as a ‘witness statement’ through which he shared his explicit concern for the changes afoot – as well as hopes for the future.

With little to look forward to, fewer social interactions and no travel plans in the new future, you easily get stuck in the rut. We feel with all of you – but there are ways to ease the feeling of isolation! 4 birds to share their tips and tactics to get a new perspective during lockdown – whether you are looking for fiction or facts, outlook or escapes.

Creativity thrives within limitations, no doubt. And the year 2020 has provided plenty of limitations for IS IT A BIRD to be creative when designing and conducting human centred research at a distance.

An article featuring a picture of several men in suits has triggered a shit storm in Denmark over the past couple of weeks. The picture is not startling in itself, but the article was still too much for many (including myself), as the picture was accompanied by the headline: ”Lots of dynamism and change in the top boards in 2021”. The article dealt with replacements in the Danish boards. It does not look so dynamic seen from the outside, as the variety seen in the candidates is at an astonishingly low level. Wisely, the editor-in-chief has subsequently been out and apologised. However, we are still left with a few crucial questions: how could it happen that this headline was chosen? And why are we so hopelessly behind in the composition of our boards?

In 1989 Stephen Covey published the book ’7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ which up until today has sold more than 25 mio. copies. In the book Covey suggests how one can become more efficient at home as well as professionally by following 7 rules. Efficiency, however, seems like an unnuanced goal to strive for in the time we live in. With the future we are looking into we suggest that creativity will be a key, if not the most importance competency. We therefore present an ”up-to-date Covey”: ’7 Habits of Highly Creative People’.