Hobbyist Academia #31
I’ve been experimenting with using this introduction space for more original writing, before I dive into my latest media recommendations. If you’re curious about digital sociology or design, you can read more in past editions here and here.
“Business” is a broad topic, so I’d like to specify how I look at it (and why I’m qualified to talk about it) for the purposes of this newsletter. Business in the world of Hobbyist Academia includes how we approach co-creating the future of work, applying the mindsets of different company functions as lenses, and philosophies of leadership and revenue.
I've worked in marketing, sales, product, and operations functions at early stage startups, growth stage companies, and established enterprises. I learned the most about the fundamentals of business from the early stage adventures, and I learned about structure and scale as the organizations I worked at grew larger. Business is full of levers and continuums, experiments and tradeoffs.
I’ve talked to customers from each of these perspectives, codified processes and playbooks at each of these stages, and worked with a diverse group of leaders along the way.
Through the House of Beautiful Business and the Beautiful Work Lives group, I've researched and contributed to dialogue about the future of work on an international platform. I refer back to our research about the ingredients of a beautiful work life as I navigate my own career, and gain clarity and inspiration from exercises like The ZigZag Project and communities like Generalist World.
How a company defines success determines what its priorities are on the way there- and how you define your own success determines what your priorities are in terms of business and work.
How does work integrate into your life? What do you need from work? How much space does it occupy? Who or what determines or decides that? What types of problems do you enjoy solving?
Engage and Interact
The House of Beautiful Business has introduced a new membership offering- reminiscent of the Virtual Residency program I was part of for a number of years, but with an added layer of incentivizing additional community-led programming. The membership fee also applies toward discounts on the annual festival, other events, and products.
Read
On the topic of the future of work and being a generalist, founder and strategist Dave Mence shared an excellent original piece about his experience finding community as someone with a spiky, squiggly, unique career path.
Big Think is a digital publication for lifelong learners who want to read about big ideas from big thinkers. It has a business bent to it, including a B2B Learning and Development use case alongside its reader-facing platform, and it overlaps with Hobbyist Academia topics quite a bit.
I shared the Museum of Ideas earlier this summer, and want to highlight two specific, recent pieces that I found intriguing: In the Mind of Artist Laurie Victor Kay and an interview with Monika Jiang that’s part of The Moon Capsule Gallery Interviews.
Casper ter Kuile and the Sacred Design Lab recently released a report about global spiritual innovation. In a decreasingly religious world, how do we satisfy the basic need for community that still persists? I read it through a digital sociology lens: in an increasingly digital world, how does technology impact accessibility to community, human connection, and even our ability to explore the answers to those questions on a global scale?
This article explores Mexican designer Federico Stefanovich’s work, specifically his new lighting collection and the connections he draws between design, objects, and relationships.
Anne Helen Petersen’s Culture Study newsletter is one of my favorites for feeling like I’m doing the reading for a college class on media theory. This year’s five part content series around Bama Rush doesn’t disappoint. (For the uninitiated, Bama Rush is the social media-sphere name given to the now annually trending sorority rush process at the University of Alabama.) Start with Part One for the fascinating basics, dive into secret societies in Part Two, segregation in Greek Life in Part Three, fraternity hazing in Part Four, and the ultimately maybe not so deep meaning of it all in Part Five.
The Culture Study lens is a broader one than my usual scope, but I find the digital sociology piece of this to be the most interesting. To what degree is social media just the next generation’s way of reproducing social hierarchies, and to what degree is it changing and shaping who has access to these systems and how much those of us outside of it know?
Save This for Later
Just one new book for the To Read list:
The Portfolio Life: How to Future-Proof Your Career, Avoid Burnout, and Build a Life Bigger Than Your Business Card by Christina Wallace
For more media recommendations at the intersection of digital sociology, design, business, and personal development, check out The Collection on my website.
[I will receive a small commission should you purchase a book using the Bookshop links included in the newsletter. Bookshop is an Amazon-alternative online bookseller that supports independent bookstores in your local community.]