Calling
Thinking about things that might not change, human connection is probably one of them.
Especially when you’re trying to sell something in the beginning when you have no reputation and name brand, direct human connection is really great.
I’ve heard from multiple people like a diamond merchant and a freight broker that cold calling was the only thing they could do to start their businesses many years ago. And so they just did it. If you’re actually providing something of value, then you need some way to spread awareness of what you’re doing. Of course in today’s world, it can be a lot easier since you can go viral or put up internet ads and things, but if you’re selling to non-internet businesses in more niche areas, then things like ads or social media aren’t necessarily going to reach them with enough effect until you’re bigger. Selling to consumers is also different. So trying to reach initial business customers by talking to them in person, at conferences, etc. is often what you need to do to show the value in what you’re providing. In 100 years, people will probably still be doing cold calling when they’re starting B2B businesses targeting offline markets. You’re going to pay way more attention to someone talking to you on the phone than a random email that you get.
Motivational advice from a freight broker I cold called:
When I was starting out my business many years ago, it was just me, and I had to cold call companies every single day to get their business. I would say I have a bunch of trucks ready to ship stuff for them, but I would get hung up on, cursed at, and told that I’m wasting my time. It was so hard.
But you just gotta keep doing it. You’ll find the few people who are interested in what you got. So keep hanging in there and keep up the spirits. It can work out.
And today that guy has done well for himself with his business now having lots of employees and customers.
Designing cities
Was listening to a podcast with one of the founders of Sidewalk Labs (a very cool company that researches/implements different ways to improve cities). And he was talking about one problem I’ve been wondering about for a while - how to make cities more malleable. Currently, if you build roads and buildings, it’s going to be a very expensive and long process to change that layout and move all of that physical material later if you want to change the city.
What the Sidewalk Labs guy said was that one reason buildings are so heavy is because (in the US), they need to withstand winds so high that they happen once in 100 years. But there’s an alternative way to design for this constraint which is that if you just put a dome over a city, then you can make all the buildings inside super light! Thus allowing you to replace and change buildings and other physical infrastructure a lot more easily.
It’s currently very expensive to make such a giant dome, but it seems like something to look into.
I didn’t agree with his framing though that the purpose of making buildings so lightweight is so that we can replace them every 2-3 years with newer versions just like we do with phones to get upgrades. That doesn’t seem like a great idea to me since you should only be changing your buildings if there’s a good reason to. Not just because you can add a slightly better window like Apple adds a slightly better camera to their phones every year.
The main reason I would like more modular/changeable cities is that if someone creates a better mode of transportation, for example, that is incompatible with the current roads in a city, then if the city’s physical components are moveable enough, then we could update the cities to be better. Recently, bicycles are becoming more popular and scooters have been popular as well, but their growth is hindered by a lack of safe, dedicated bicycle / micro-mobility lanes in current US cities. And the process to modify existing roads is long.
A nice explanation of art-
Why Art is Beautiful
Entropy offers a good explanation for why art and beauty are so aesthetically pleasing. Artists create a form of order and symmetry that, odds are, the universe would never generate on its own. It is so rare in the grand scheme of possibilities. The number of beautiful combinations is far less than the number of total combinations.
Beauty is rare and unlikely in a universe of disorder.
You are art.