Can AI end recruitment bias, the self’s narrative arc, intermittent news fasting, whole body mental health + more

June 15th 2023 Edition

Jun 15, 2023

Dear friend,

Last week, I regretted not living in the USA, a rare occurrence, may I add. I wasn’t jealous of the eerie Blade Runner-style orange skies over New York and the rest of the East Coast, but rather wishing I could use this new app that lets you rent private swimming pools by the hour. Also works for pickleball (which I’m yet to try to play), tennis and yards. Smart people! With the temperatures rising, pool sharing sounds just the ticket, please make this happen in Europe ASAP.

Meanwhile, geeky that I am, I’m trialling a new email service called Superhuman, which apparently is the fastest email experience ever. Several peers tell me it’s their new absolute favourite thing. I’ll report back on that next week.

I’ll be away next week but will report back in a few days. In the meantime, thank you as always for reading me, I really appreciate it.

Have a good one,

Much love,

LOOKING AROUND

Quote

‘When we buy things, we buy stories.
Stories are information, content, fan fiction, myths and sagas.
Stories also transform how we see and value things, and how this changes our economy and society:
Who is the hero? Whose story is it? Who gets to tell it?’
Ana Andjelic in her Substack newsletter, the Sociology of Business.

LOOKING OUT

CAN AI END THE BIAS IN RECRUITMENT, WOMEN’S MIDLIFE STRESS AND OBAMA’S NEW NETFLIX SHOW

An AI-powered option has landed to help the fashion industry with its recruitment issues. Dweet promises to remove bias from the process, as well as cut the fees (to 15% with options to discount for multiple hires) and on top of that, promises hires within three to eight days (vs the 30 to 90 days hire time, which I can tell you is a bane for managers and HR alike). While the platform aims to present fresh candidates through AI algorithms, will the brands and HR be as open-minded as the machine? And that’s without considering which datasets have been entered into the algorithm. Currently, Dweet is splitting the work between tech and human (70/30, the human servicing the needs of client and talent), hoping to augment the platform’s automation in the future. With their algorithm discounting gender, social presence, and physical appearance to focus on skills only, I am left feeling both hopeful and sceptical. We certainly need a more diverse workforce, everywhere. Read more about it here.

Across the pond, Netflix has just released a new show with Barack Obama. Called ‘Working: What we do all day.’ The slick trailer tells me how work is one of the forces that connects us. I may give it a go. However, I need to remind myself that while there are global trends when it comes to work, Europe is a significantly different place than the US. Read about it here.

Meanwhile, in the UK, Lorraine Candy, ex-EIC of Elle UK and the Sunday Times Style magazine, talks about her new book What’s Wrong With Me?: 101 Things Midlife Women Need to Know. She shares how perimenopause unravelled her in her forties, how her window of tolerance was greatly reduced, finding herself completely overwhelmed with stress that was previously manageable. This is a particularly relevant topic for me because several close friends have developed severe anxiety recently, and M Powder founder (a menopause supplement) Rebekah Brown talked to me about it eloquently in our podcast interview last year. We all need to know about this because everyone has a woman in midlife in their life: whether you are her or they are your friend, your family member, your boss, or your peer. Read about it here.

RH’S MISSION LEADS TO IMPACTFUL BRAND POSITIONING

Have you ever heard of RH, formerly known as Restoration Hardware? I remember coming across it when I was looking for small furnishings for my NYC apartment, a decade ago. I found a couple of nice bits, which were substantial enough to have made it back to Switzerland with me. The brand, however, left me unimpressed.

But the company’s new mission, and trajectory, have me rather mesmerised. RH has embraced a vision that merges architectural history and hospitality, and it is about to open its first ‘destination’ in the UK. And what a destination! Aynho Park, the Grade I-listed 73-acre estate in Oxfordshire, was the setting for a couple of epic birthday and wedding parties that I was lucky to attend.

As Wallpaper explains, RH’s new lease of life comes thanks to their retail visionary CEO, Gary Friedman, and his strategy of ‘showcasing design within an unexpected architectural framework, positioning RH as a place- and tastemaker for the modern age.’

RH could have stayed a furniture supplier for upmarket Americans, but it’s now setting its sights internationally with ‘galleries’ opening in London, Paris, Milan, Madrid and more.

As Friedman said in his speech on opening night: 'Our strategy is quite simple, and that is we do what we love, with people that we love, for people that love what we do. What we believe in deeply, is that by chasing our hopes and dreams, we hopefully inspire others to chase theirs, and by fighting fearlessly for what we believe in, we hopefully encourage others to do the same.'

Discover more here (worth a look for the fabulous pictures of the glorious Aynho Park).

STORYTELLING, FROM BRAND TO SELF

I’m a huge fan of Ana Andjelic’s work, and her latest publication on Substack, ‘The origin story’ left me in no doubt that I needed to share it with you.

Her case is clear: everything we own, every brand, from your toothpaste to our sneakers, to our choice of car or paper, is telling a story, about the brand itself and about who we are.

To ease us into the topic, Andjelic chose the ESPRIT tote bag, known as an heirloom and was (in the 1980s, when it was launched) a status symbol. It wasn’t big in my little slice of countryside, but I get it. Over here, it was Bensimon sneakers and preppy brands, whose names I’m desperately trying to remember… oh the 80s are a long time ago.

We buy stories with each purchase, whether consciously or not, and, in turn, we shape culture and society with the choices we make. Read more here.

DOES THE SELF NEED A NARRATIVE ARC?

Do you ever ask yourself the question: who am I? I remember having to write a short essay on it last year, the third part of a written test to get credits after my 50h yoga training with legendary teacher Annie Carpenter. So I loved nothing more than to turn the tables on her when I interviewed her on my podcast Out of the Clouds and asked her: who is Annie? She really did deliver the goods when she answered me, as she does ask herself the question often. She is really worth a listen.

The New York Times leans into this concept, or question, with a Big Ideas series, called Who Do You Think You Are? and the answers come from academics, musicians and artists, and I invite you to read their take on what this means, to even question who we are. The latest I read was by Simon Critchley, a philosophy professor and author, and in his essay, he goes beyond the original question to go: is the self a story?

Before sharing:

‘We are the stories we tell about ourselves — and the better the story, the better the self that tells it.’

I will revisit this theme later in the month, so consider this, if you want, as a form of homework! Read about it here.

LOOKING IN

WHOLE BODY MENTAL HEALTH

I am halfway through the unedited version of an episode of On Being podcast, where host Krista Tippett engages in a conversation with British psychologist Kimberley Wilson. Her field of practice is called whole-body mental health, an emerging speciality that examines the relationship between body functions and mental states. Having started to follow her on LinkedIn, I devoured the few articles she has posted, and I can’t wait to put my hands on her books, Unprocessed: How the food we eat is fueling our mental health crisis, and Future-Proof Your Brain. She also has a few podcasts under her belt, as well as regular TV appearances in the UK.

Listen here.

WHATSAPP GROUP CHATS ANXIETY AND INTERMITTENT NEWS FASTING

Archive. That’s the first thing I do when someone adds me to a large WhatsApp group because, you may know this about me already, I hate to be disturbed by my notifications. I was very much a ‘door closed’ manager, and this is reflected on my phone. I do my best work when undisturbed (the cats and dog are proving to be distractions more than disturbances), so I close the digital door to keep my sanity and only open it when I deem it appropriate.

While the new features coming to WhatsApp, like group chat and communities (including upcoming one-way broadcasts ‘a la newsletter’), are certainly practical, they are nonetheless a source of anxiety whether or not you dare turn your phone (or notifications) off for a period of time. If that stresses you out and you feel you can’t ever keep up, you’re not alone. And it’s normal! The Independent explores the topic and shares tactics to help deal with group message pressure.