Our business-needs-first society, enshittification, and more

Feeling weary? Join the club. In this Digest of personally curated finds, I explore the 'great exhaustion', the downside of our digital world (hello, enshittification!), ways to find balance and a few fascinating trends (arctic vacations, anyone?). As an added bonus, this week I have not one but two insightful podcast episodes on leadership communication and the transformative power of yoga.

Here’s a hobby you probably didn’t think could be turned into a profession: Janel Hawkins is a professional sand sculptor who started Sand Castle University, offering private sand castle classes. Via Dense Discovery

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​Taylor Swift gave away millions in bonuses, which made me cry a little. I cried some more when I saw the reaction from these med students as they found out their college tuition would be free, courtesy of the exceptional Dr Ruth Gottesman, a former professor at Albert Einstein School of Medicine in the Bronx, who donated one billion dollars to make medical school free. Watch here.

If you’ve not heard of the slimming wonderdrug Ozempic, where have you been? Also apparently the research was wrong, or so says the Atlantic. Fascinating. Read here.

Coolcations or how arctic vacations are trending. 

In brief

​TikTok is the new search engine, according to TikTok, on Youtube. Then again, TikTok may soon be banned in the US. 

Big tech is bracing for the changes in their products and experiences, as imposed by the recent European laws and regulations. It’s good to be here. Read about it on the NYT.

Things are complicated out there. If you're feeling the need to connect to your spirituality, consider turning to prayer. Turns out, there’s an app for that.

I recently received a podcast pitch which read so strangely that I could not help but investigate further. It turns out that I was being outreached by an AI service, and let me tell you, it was unimpressive as hell. Whoever was trying to get my attention got it for the wrong reason, and this does not bode well for the future of content.

On this note, have you used ChatGPT yet and thought to yourself ‘Huh, that’s rubbish, I can do better?’ 

If so, it may be that the problem is not the AI but the quality of your thinking and prompts, as Jeremy Utley explains.​

The return of the robot travel agent or how AI is the new planner for your honeymoon or any other upcoming adventure. To try. 

That weary feeling

I just let out a great big sigh. Oops. I didn’t even mean to do that, and I keep on doing it. I explain these bodily expressions of weariness by admitting that we are, humanity as a whole, more exhausted than ever. 

It’s not just me saying it, we have entered the era of ‘the great exhaustion’ as I found out in Time Magazine. If you wonder why, we have built a business-needs-first society, and it is starting to show. This sends shivers down my spine, because of how true this statement feels. Read here.

Enshittification

Is a word that appeared in front of my eyes twice in the same week, which I subsequently learned had received the ‘word of the year 2023’ by the American Dialect Society. What does it mean? Well, it was coined to capture how digital platforms go from unicorn happy places to, well, what they are now. Here’s what I found out, thanks to the FT:

“The term enshittification became popular in 2023 after it was used in a blog post by author Cory Doctorow, who used it to describe how digital platforms can become worse and worse. ‘Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification,’ Doctorow wrote on his Pluralistic blog.” 

On that note, BlueSky CEO said she won’t enshittify the platform with ads. Personally, I'm not feeling BlueSky, I tried though. If you feel like convincing me otherwise, please go ahead.

Two fresh podcast episodes

Amplifying HER power:

I recently had the honour of speaking to Zubaida Bai, president and CEO of the Grameen Foundation. 

Zubaida is a distinguished social entrepreneur and women's health advocate with over 18 years of experience in the social impact space. As the founder of ayzh, a pioneering social enterprise based in India, Zubaida has dedicated herself to designing vital healthcare products that enhance the well-being of women and girls throughout their reproductive journeys. 

In our conversation, she told me all about her life’s pioneering work to ensure women across the globe have access to culturally appropriate social, health and financial resources, on how to build bridges with empathic communication and how at the Grameen Foundation, she is working to dismantle gender barriers, and amplifying the power of women and girls. 

A powerful conversation with an inspirational leader. Happy listening! ​

Joan Hyman talks dharma, voice and the School of Yoga

It’s no secret that I’m a dedicated yoga practitioner, so I was thrilled to talk with the wonderful Joan Hyman on my podcast Out of the Clouds. After decades of experience travelling the world and leading retreats, training, and workshops, Joan founded the Schoolof.yoga, a professional teacher training program that she first developed online and is now running courses in the US and internationally. 

Joan dives in to tell me about her early career as a dancer, her introduction to yoga and how a passion for it took hold of her. Then we explore the importance of finding our voice as a teacher, and why she values the role of lineages and traditions in yoga. We explored the transformative power of integrating healing modalities like trauma-informed practices, emphasising their importance in supporting students' mental and emotional well-being. 

Joan's collaboration with renowned teachers Lisa Walford, Annie Carpenter and other yoga luminaries in the School of Yoga comprehensive teacher training program reflects their commitment to offering a well-rounded education for aspiring instructors. A very inspiring and in-depth interview with a talented teacher. Enjoy!​

Until next time!