Big Day Ahead
When the new iphone launched earlier this month they tried to make a pretty big deal out of it, but it all felt so…small. Not nano small, sure, but certainly nothing grand. The product was only a modest improvement on a concept no one really cares about. This is perhaps entirely appropriate for our age, small thinking seems to rule the roost.
Wait, you scream, there are big ideas out there! Sure, but is getting in a driverless car that drives like your grandma the kind of big thinking we really need? Or AI that does your internet searches for you? Wow, thanks.
You know who had epic, visionary dreams? Railroad barons. They convinced thousands of Swedes to move to Nowheresville Minnesota so there would be a town there to refuel their trains. They built epic and mighty Rocky Mountain hotels – modern Valhallas – so their customers would have a destination. These big ideas gave people things – great beautiful dreams – that got them excited about the future.
Big thinking has rocked the world in many forms: skyscrapers, thick novels that took weeks to devour, epic movies that played on huge screens in Panavision. But then it all started to shift. "I am big,” Norma Desmond says in Sunset Boulevard, “it's the pictures that got small.” Today, we destroy our eyesight squinting at the videos playing in the palm of our hand. Everything is less dramatic, all nuance and detail is lost. Nothing and no one breaks through. The “star-making machinery” that created Marilyn Monroe, Robert Redford and Brad Pitt is fundamentally broken; most Americans can’t name five actors under the age of thirty. Meanwhile, homes are all painted beige. The auto-tuned songs on the radio have lost their bridges, they simply coast along, without any variation or tension.
So that “big thinking” in AV and AI’s? What dreams are they inspiring? What Nordic farmer is answering the call by getting onto a steamer heading to the new land?
I recently heard an investor say he was “looking for ideas that would put a dent in the universe.” Does the universe really need a dent in it? To me, the universe looks pretty good without a dent in it. But there are inspiring people bringing fun, invigorating, ideas to the world everyday. Liquid Death, Ben & Jerry’s, Christopher Nolan. Each has pulled off big, artful, imaginative ideas that did impact the world in positive ways. They delivered dreams. So yes, do not be discouraged, it can still be done, today. It’s just not going to be Sam Altman or Waymo who make it happen.
So - today - make it happen. Challenge your agency, challenge your team, challenge yourself. Don’t just dream big but dream in a way that gives the world something better, something wonderful. It doesn’t have to be something a VC guy gets excited about. Maybe it’s just a fantastic meal, a grand party, a good joke, a story, a script, whatever it is, turn it up and see how big and positive it can be. Don’t worry, you can be small and careful again tomorrow. Today, embrace audacity and see where it takes you. Maybe it will just be a quick trip, or, who knows, maybe you’ll wake up in your very own Valhalla.