One of our favorite film characters of all time is Max Fischer from Rushmore – the stubborn optimist and indefatigable former-of-clubs. (BTW, Tongal deep-cuts advisors suggest you enjoy the clip linked above – and especially Anderson’s uber-cool soundtrack choice: “Making Time” by The Creation. Something to believe in indeed!)
Besides having all the right records, we at Tongal also pride ourselves on being a little Max Fischer-y ourselves: that is, stubbornly optimistic in a mad-for-bad-news world. One energy source that keeps us thinking & acting like Max is our association with Singularity University, an outpost of informed optimism in that golden land of hope and dreams: Silicon Valley, CA.
Co-founded by king-of-the-futurists Ray Kurzweil and our intrepid, asteroid-mining pal Peter Diamandis, Singularity University may be the single most inspiring nexus for learning about the spectacular advances smart people are making…together…on the frontiers of human progress.
In fact, SU’s charter sounds like Max wrote it himself: “To educate, inspire, and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanities grand challenges.”
If you’re a hard-core Tongal-project historian, you may recall the recent challenge we hosted to do a promotional video for Peter’s latest book: “Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World.” If you went for extra credit and actually read the book, you know Tongal gets a mention as an Exponential Technology.To which we say: Right. On.
We like to think of Singularity University as the Educational arm for what Peter does with his XPRIZE group, who sponsors challenges all over the world to solve humanity’s biggest problems via exponential, global effort. No, we’re not trying to make you feel guilty about binge-watching “Weeds” last night in your underwear while Dr. D and the SU team were mining asteroids and building tricorders…
Instead, we thought your own optimism might be kicked into gear knowing that when you do stuff on Tongal – you’re already shaping the future: The future of work.
The Future of Work!
Last week, Singularity Hub ran an entire series on the future of work. The series included articles touching on the following:
It’s quite a smorgasbord of topics, and of super-smart folks talking about – and planning for – a positive future that we’re traveling toward at Ludicrous Speed.
The article about people choosing “journeys over jobs” caught our eye as this is a path many Tongal creatives are traveling. As co-founder James DeJulio observed in a recent interview for L.A. Biz “What’s interesting is that we see people really develop over time to the point where they go from being Joe Smith to Joe Smith Productions.” There’s the Tongal journey in a nutshell, and why we’re so stubbornly optimistic about the future of work and tools like Tongal giving people the ability to unlock their human potential, and not get trapped in Dilbert-cubicles.
Take a dip into these articles and by all means, sign up to get updates from The Singularity Hub on your Facebook feed. It’ll put a smile on both sides of your brain.
In our next blog-post we’ll talk a bit more about Singularity Hub’s interview with Neil Jacobstein, and use his discussion as a launch-point for why we think marketers everywhere (and especially marketing departments) should become a little more obsessed with the future…STAY TUNED!
