The Acquaintance Zone

I used to be a more serious writer but over the past three years I've been increasingly distracted by Drop Your Drink. However, I'll attempt to adopt a different tone for this piece. My recent alumni experience at the Brightest Young Minds (BYM) Summit has inspired me to write this piece and tackle why so few initiatives are started after the BYM Summit. Although this article centres around the BYM Summit and my thoughts from there, it's for everyone who wants to have a go at solving wicked problems.

What's the problem? 

People get selected to attend the BYM Summit because they already do so much stuff. The expectation is that bringing together all of these minds would create tons of great start-ups and projects but this rarely happens. There about 1500 bright young minds doing things. Why is it so difficult for us to work together to do more things?

I think two reasons apply. The first is related to a perception of time. Christiaan Pretorius, an alumni from 2014, accurately summed up part of this problem when he mentioned that we are busy because of all the stuff that we're already doing. When you get back to your regular life you just don't have time to add on extra projects. 

Time is a factor, but I don't think it's the main reason why so few projects are started after the Summit. I think our lack of personal connection is our main problem. At the Summit, we're too busy finding out who's who in the zoo because it's a networking fest. After the Summit, we stay in contact through Facebook status updates of our achievements. You connect with so few people that it's rare to want to know who they are and not what they do. Personally, if I don't know who you are then I won't ask for your help when I'm starting a project; I'll just look for someone in my existing friendship network. I won't have a brainstorming session with you over a few drinks because our conversation would be made up of ideas and awkward silences. The Acquaintance Zone sucks because social networking theory dictates that the more friends (not acquaintances) you have, the greater your innovation capability. It's a beautiful and positively linear curve.

A possible solution?

If we understand that friends trying to solve wicked problems together would equal a beautiful problem solving team then that's what we should aim for. It would be like the Avengers but 1500 times better if we all organised ourselves.

Here's what I propose:

• Monthly meetups that are both socials and brain blast sessions
• Each meetup would have a predetermined theme e.g. Captain Planet for Climate Resilience
• You will have homework, generation 10 - 15 ideas on how you would solve the problem underneath the theme
• The format of the meetup is games, drinks, group brainstorming, the selection of one of those ideas and maybe some dancing (if you're lucky)
• The selected idea will be turned into a business pitch presentation in the two weeks following the meetup 

Why should you join the team?

I'm setting up avenues for the completed business pitch presentations. The ideas will either go for further development or seed funding. You still win even if these ideas are rubbish. You get to practice skills I've observed that young people lack (including myself) like rapid prototyping (that's why we have the two-week time limit), revenue model creation and pitching.    

You think, "Oh wow! This sounds great! But dang ... I just don't have the time."
You do have the time.
Think, at the BYM Summit you were put into groups with strangers and given 24 hours to generate a feasible business proposal. Imagine what you could do with two weeks and a group that you call your friends?

Think yearly, that's 12 FUNdable ideas which can create 12 potential start-up businesses. That effect is just in Pretoria where I'm going to try pilot this idea. I don't know what you're going to do in your city. How many pockets of friends could we have around the country?

I read this quote on Twitter the other day. Crawford College Pretoria quoted Francis of Assisi with: "Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." We're going to do this exactly. We're going to be friends, solve problems together and then we'll start doing the impossible.

What's next?

If you're in for this and wondering what happens next then I'll be: thinking of a name for this thing; looking at ways to extend our pitches beyond those two weeks; designing a Google Form for you to enter your details; creating a Doodle to schedule a date for our first event; and, setting up a Facebook Event. Contact me if you're interested, I will need your email addresses. Remember to invite your friends. I want anyone who wants to meet some great people and wrangle with wicked problems. 

My name is Yetunde Dada; as friends and future friends you can just call me Yetu.
You can reach me via: 

• Email: ye2nde@gmail.com
• Twitter: @yetudada

Your Dystopian Future - Bunker Theory

I think too much and have a functional imagination that has been choking on dystopian literature for the past four years. I came across a few books that focused on futures (in America, because all bad stuff happens in America) that had communities warring over resources. I believe in angry people, starvation, water shortages and gang mentalities as reasons why it’s a good idea to invest in a bunker. Humans are the common denominator in two scenarios that create the perfect conditions for you to wish you had a bunker.

The first scenario is climate change. We dump pollution into our rivers, chop down our earth lungs (the Amazon Rainforest and The Congo River Basin) for fun and pump carbon dioxide and methane into the air like it’s going out of fashion. We’re having the biggest party now but we're on the trajectory to experiencing the worst hangover possible. Can you imagine a future where droughts and severe storms are regular weather events? I would imagine that it’s rather difficult to grow food when there is no water or there is too much water. When food and drinking water shortages arrive you'll become the star of your own series of Survivor. It’s just that the other contestants might not play nicely if they have guns.

The second scenario involved an extended nationwide blackout. In one book, countries grouped together to detonate electromagnetic pulses that destroyed America’s major power stations. I occasionally had nightmares about this story but I allowed myself to believe that I'd never have to experience something like this in South Africa. We're so unlike America. Our earthquakes knock over chairs, our tornados can only carry sand and we have a different approach to foreign policy. We do have Eskom though. We also have worries that a single infrastructure failure at an Eskom power station could cause a nationwide blackout. We don't know how long it would take to fix a situation like that but if the blackout lasted for weeks then we could have a few problems. Imagine your life without electricity (obviously), cellular and internet connections (unless our service providers can power themselves using love), running water (our pumps won’t work) and fresh food (major farmers will not be able to irrigate their farms without electricity or running water).

Things will be okay for a while because everyone will expect power to return like it usually does. If the power doesn't come back you'll begin to experience panic over the lack of drinking water and food because someone will have already ransacked your local Spar. At this point you better be prepared to fight or flee because others will take whatever resources you have left by force.

The main characters of stories like these have survived because of three principles: preparedness, speed and location. Preparedness saw the characters learning how to fight, owning an arsenal of weapons and cramming survival skills. They also stored tinned food and learned how to grow food in different conditions. Speed was indicated by them high-tailing it out of major cities. They filled up their vehicles and didn't stop driving until they were far away from populated locations. They chose to settle in areas that were undesirable for human settlement because if they didn't want to live there then it was likely that others wouldn’t venture there.

I look at all of this and realised that two plans could be made from those principles. If the disaster hits your country, surrounding countries are fine and flights, ships or buses are still operational then I would vote with getting out of the country very quickly. If the problem is widespread like Mother Nature bitching all over the place then you better hope there is bunker waiting for you in a swamp, on top of a mountain or in a desert. 

It’s all so morbid, yeah?