Learning

Slippery Slope Decisions

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Some decisions in life seem normal, inconsequential and risk free. And some of those decisions can set in action chains of consequences with life changing impacts. These are slippery slope decisions.

Gambling. Growing up in Australia gambling has become normalised. Online gambling has taken over and is a regular part of life. Particular for young males.

People playing cards on the floor

In Singapore though, online gambling is illegal and while gambling is popular it’s only allowed through official government channels.

The unfortunate reality is that for many people gambling is highly addictive. Early wins build up adrenalin and a feeling of invincibility. The following losses sting and there’s a need to win it back. Despite how illogical that statement is it’s impossible for some people to ignore. They borrow money, lying to friends and family about what the money is for. They lose again.

Those losses lead to borrowing from money lenders. It doesn’t really matter if they are licensed or unlicensed. The debt grows. It’s impossible to pay back. You’re now facing bankruptcy or broken legs.

And if you are in Singapore you might be de-ported from the country. With no money. With all the investments you’ve made to come here lost. With your chance to earn money lost. Bad decision after bad decision. It’s a slippery slope.

Engagement rings with a rainbow in the background

Marriage. It’s obviously a big decision for most men to propose. It was nerve wracking for me in a way that my wife still doesn’t understand.

And I don’t think we realise just how big it is when things go wrong.

The years that you invested in the relationship. Buying a house. Having children.

When all that goes south with a divorce it unravels and then goes backwards. If its acrimonious then lawyers win big. The hatred between the couple starts to tear each other apart. Children are impacted and the failed relationship echoes through their life and their decisions.

In so many countries laws have changed to make divorce more favourable to women. A man might lose his job and have to continue paying the amount calculated previously. He gets into debt. Debt becomes stifling. It’s a slippery slope.

The Next Decision. I’ve been enjoying this book Start With No by Jim Camp. It came as a recommendation from Chris Voss of Never Split the Difference fame. One of the ideas is that a negotiation never finishes. It’s just a set of endless decisions. And therefore it’s okay if we make bad ones. The real crime is following a bad decision with another one.

You always have time to course correct. To make a slightly better decision. To change your mind. Don’t reach the bottom of the slippery slope.

Social, Technology

Why I Quit Pikmin Bloom After 10 Days

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Pikmin Bloom is Google and Nintendo’s latest Pokémon style game. It was hard to miss in early November 2021 as there was a wave of advertisements on every channel. After seeing some early news I thought it was worth seeing what all the hype was about.

Game Overview

The mechanics are fairly simple. You collect cute little characters call Pikmin. The higher your level the more you can have and the broader the types.

To gain new Pikmin you are sending your existing Pikmin out on missions to collect eggs or being gifrted eggs as you level up. To hatch an eggs you need to walk. (Getting Pokémon vibes here right?)

Pikmin also fall in love with you over time as you send them on missions to collect eggs, nectar or to destroy mushrooms. Once they reach four hearts they can level up and add some bling… Like a macaroon.

Walking is a little bit of a community affair as you can plant seedlings on your walk. Those flowers are gained by feeding the Pikmin nectar which is a very Pokémon like mechanic of throwing it to them. The community aspect comes in as your can see the flowers that everyone else has planted. There are larger flowers located at points of interest along the way and if enough people plant flowers near the points of interest they will bloom.

The other community aspect is destroying mushrooms – if you see a mushroom is being destroyed by someone else then you can jump in to help. Up to five people can join to destroy a mushroom and the faster it is destroyed the higher the stars you can get – so there’s benefits to working as a team.

Most of the game is based around walking. You level up mostly by walking. You have planters to unlock Pikmin and they are operated by walking. Higher level Pikmin require more steps. The more you walk the more seedlings you can plant. And the good thing is that most of the activity can happen in the background – you don’t even need to have the app open for it to be operating.

So it all seems pretty harmless right? What about this could make me want to quit Pikmin Bloom after only 10 days?

Here’s my main three reasons:

I Already Like Walking

And the game takes away from it. I might be a bit unique here in that I intriscinly like walking an exercise. The app started tying my exercise to its goals which is concerning for me.

For people who don’t love walking and need an external push the game is probably excellent.

Even for me I found myself walking additional steps in the first week to achieve some of the goals or grow a new Pikmin.

The Game Is Distracting

Sometimes I walk to have a clear head. Other times I’m doing something productive like learning Mandarin.

The game takes away from both as you constantly want to check what’s going on. While I mentioned that the game works just fine in the background the reality is that you are checking for missions, you have enough nectar, if a how many more steps to grow a new Pikmin, and feeding your Pikmin.

And it’s the feeding of Pikmin that’s really mindless. The mechanism is just as draining as trying to catch a Pokémon except without the skill.

The Community Features Aren’t Community

Privacy is important and I don’t know how to balance this but I wish the app helped me interact with my neighbours and the community. Instead we’re all just walking around together alone.

Maybe later versions would evolve that. To get over my first two negative aspects I needed something stronger and it’s nowhere close.

Life Sciences, Technology

2022 Predictions and Results

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At the start of 2022 I shared three 2022 predictions with my customers (and the predictions from Veeva’s commercial leaders) on some interesting trends I thought we’d see. These are quite niche to the pharma marketing world. Let’s see how they panned out:

1. Consent Based Marketing is going to make a big comeback. And it’s not just a one time gathering of consent. Confirming consent regularly and using it as a way to ensure you are adding value is going to drive greater trust and higher engagement.

  • So far I’m seeing this driven more by governments than companies. Opt in for data collection as a default is becoming more prevalent and something that companies and data providers are looking to do upfront.
  • There’s still an opportunity to improve the feeling of consent and buy in from customers and I’d love to see pharma customers do more here.

2. The Home Office Is A Competitive Advantage. It’s been nice to assume the home office is a temporary change. It’s not. For many people it’s more productive and a better place for modern work – particularly virtual calls. Companies are under investing in employees’ home offices and missing a competitive advantage. Invest in camera, lights, sound and space productivity. And then make sure that mini production spaces are available in your office too.

  • It was disappointing seeing how companies implemented their home office policies.
  • Many companies gave home office allowances and left it up to employees to optimize without providing much guidance or education.
  • Some company cultures opted for a preference for camera off communication – a missed opportunity as I see it.
  • Companies are still reconfiguring offices for the new ways of working. Most are still under investing.

3. Artificial Intelligence in 2022 is Augmented Intelligence. The best way to think about AI in 2022 is how it can be used to augment your employees to make them more successful. Help them learn, gain insights, analyse, and deliver better. The foundation is still going to be data and Veeva products are still best in class when it comes to integrating your data into one place.

  • The cost of enterprise artificial intelligence is still limiting progress.
  • This is coupled with a focus on big data where limited data is available and machine learning as the primary tool for “AI”.
  • Lack of imagination outside of machine learning cases is also holding back progress with decision support systems, semantic graphs and so many other technologies that fall under artificial intelligence.
  • Some companies are making significant investments in people and capabilities and it will be interesting to see if these can cut through legacy culture.

Look out for my 2023 predictions coming soon!