Simon Waller (00:01.24)
Hello and welcome back to the future with friends. Today I’m being joined by a very old and very dear friend of mine, Colin Ellis, Col. We were just talking in the preamble to this and he was just like, thank God this is not a culture podcast. We’re just kind of fun. No, I don’t think it’s, I didn’t take it that you love that you had your job. In fact, I know you love your job and you were deeply invested in culture for organizations. I took it as being the problem of culture podcasts.

Colin Ellis (00:15.887)
my god, that makes me sound terrible. Like I hate my job and love my job, but I’ve done a lot of those conversations.

Simon Waller (00:32.718)
And you can’t even know someone who’s got one.

Colin Ellis (00:35.959)
If that’s one takeaway from this podcast, yeah, cook your podcasts, need to improve, yeah.

Simon Waller (00:43.074)
We did a little test recording just beforehand and, and Col was sounding really intelligent as he talked about, you know, the war in the Middle East. And it was like, well, it’s kind of almost a pity that we wasted that 90 seconds.

Colin Ellis (00:56.175)
I love it. He sounded really intelligent, but just for 90 seconds.

Simon Waller (00:58.473)
Yeah, yeah. Well, to be fair, you’ve always sounded very intelligent to me. I think we’ve known each other now for close to a decade. And I don’t know your memory of when we met, but we were at a like a professional development program together. And you and another friend of ours, Jason Fox, were competing to be who was the most dapper gentleman in the room.

Colin Ellis (01:07.535)
Mm-hmm.

Simon Waller (01:25.58)
Like you both have a propensity for kind of, you know, suits and pocket chiefs and things like that. You, I still would, I would hate to hazard, hazard who won that, except I caught up with Jace recently and he’s kind of now kind of like he’d gone to kind of linen shirts and a little bit more Bohemian in his look. So yeah, I know. No, and I was expecting you to turn up in a pair of three-piece pajamas.

Colin Ellis (01:45.487)
What?

That’s not the Jason I remember.

Simon Waller (01:54.508)
Because you are in the UK and it’s like 8 o’clock in the morning for you there. It’s quite early still. But as you mentioned, this is kind of this is future Col. This is dressed down version of Col. Retired almost.

Colin Ellis (02:04.313)
Right, yeah. Whoa, I’m never doing that. Yeah, I just didn’t think it was appropriate to appear on a podcast and appear in silk pajamas, a silk robe, you know, and have my valet bring me a silver tray with tea on it, you know. Just wasn’t appropriate for this podcast.

Simon Waller (02:08.895)
No.

Simon Waller (02:18.271)
Yeah. Fair enough. That’s again, another type of podcast again. Probably not the culture one either, but yes, we’re here though on the Future with Friends, which is basically an excuse for me to catch up with very smart friends of mine and talk about the future of something interesting. And so we chatted. I know we hadn’t spoken for a bit because obviously you moved back to the UK. Was it middle of last year or so? Was that about right?

Colin Ellis (02:43.887)
Yeah so I launched a book in mid-24, spent three months in the UK and that point my wife and I had been discussing moving back but at that point we basically came back home, we packed up and we moved back so that was the end of 2024. So we’ve been here for 14-15 months.

Simon Waller (02:58.73)
Yeah, so it’s a bit over a year now. Yeah. Um, and, uh, but yeah, we used to, like, I mean, obviously we, we both lived around Melbourne before that. We used to hang out at whiskey bars and do cool things. And we’ve always had this really interesting intersection of interest. And probably one of those has always been around things like music and vinyl. And, uh, so when I spoke to you, I was like, Hey, Cole, do you want to come on the podcast?

And I asked you if you could talk about the future of absolutely anything. It was probably a little bit unsurprising when you said the future of analog.

Colin Ellis (03:35.283)
Mmm. Yeah, it was it was so me that to talk about the future being the actual past. So yeah.

Simon Waller (03:36.468)
You

Simon Waller (03:42.759)
Yeah. Well, you know that. we actually did an episode with Myke, with Mykel Dixon called the future of the past, which was an interesting take on things like indigenous wisdom. And obviously we’re to get to your scenario a bit. And this is a very different thing. In some ways it’s a more recent past. some ways it’s almost like a nostalgic version of the past when we talk about analog. When you, you know, when I gave you this cart blanche to talk about the future of absolutely anything.

Colin Ellis (03:48.11)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (04:11.685)
Why this? Like, what was it about this topic that you felt so compelled to explore?

Colin Ellis (04:18.881)
So there’s couple of reasons. Firstly, driven by my own son. So my own son, he’s, he’s, or our son, he’s 20 in May. And he, last year he gave up his smartphone for a dumb phone. He now buys DVDs. refu, Pointblank refuses to get any kind of streaming service. He’s buying CDs.

Now that we’re back in the UK and now we’ve unboxed everything that got shipped over, I’ve got my vinyl out again. So, you know, I really enjoy reading the paper whilst listening to records at the weekend, Simon. And so there’s been a slight shift, a slight movement. And in my head, I thought, what would happen if this movement gained momentum? I just want to make the point, our daughter’s 19 and she has not made the analog movement.

And so, but I just thought it’d be really interesting to explore. Well, what would happen if this gained some legs? So yeah, that’s why I chose it.

Simon Waller (05:22.719)
yeah, so there’s some interesting things you just said there. I, I got into the habit of buying a vinyl for my, my girls, probably about four or four years ago, five years ago. And for me, it was about something about like some music is so special. You need to own it. Like you need to almost stake a bit of your identity on it, which doesn’t really happen with streaming services as we all own everything. So.

what does it that actually really matters. But even what you just said there about that, know, reading the paper and this in Divine or one of my great memories of growing up, I used to go to friend, my friend Ben Deverill’s house and Ben’s dad was an absolute audiophile. Like he used to make his own valve amplifiers and he was an engineer by trade. And the thing about going to Ben’s place is if you ever slept over there on a weekend,

Colin Ellis (06:12.654)
Wow.

Simon Waller (06:21.175)
In the morning, on a Saturday or a Sunday, there was kind of this hour block in the morning, which was his dad’s time. And when was his dad’s time, he would put something like Pink Floyd on, like, the turntable. And he had this one chair, which was right in the center, like, the perfectly positioned between the speakers. And he would have his coffee and he would have his paper. And

like for that time while the record is playing is like, just do not disturb. Like there was nothing that the house could burn down. And he would be like, do I really like have to? It’s very inconvenient. Anyway, so I’ve kind of did the same like for us on Saturday mornings, music is like choosing the record to play. Feels like part of the ritual of our kind of Saturdays and our Sundays as well, which I really love. there’s something in that which really resonates with me. So.

We’re going jump into the scenario in a second. And I find, yeah, go. Yeah.

Colin Ellis (07:21.683)
Can I just add one thing just to that very quickly, Simon? And you kind of mentioned how we met and there was a close-knit group of us, you, me, Michael, and listening to Michael talk, then could listen to Michael talk all day, Jason. I remember, so Henry Ford in the 20s created this thing called the Vagabonds and it was him, Edison, Firestone, Burroughs.

And what they used to do was to, they used to, yeah, they used to go away on these camping trips and talk about the future and talk about the past. And I felt that that was very much what we tried to do, albeit completely unwittingly at the time. And so when I kind of reflect on how we met, when I reflect on some of the conversations that we had a group, and in a way I’d love us to,

Simon Waller (07:50.924)
I like this parallel by the way,

Colin Ellis (08:18.487)
I would have loved us to have done one of those trips. It was very much about, and Jason was a good one for talking about this too, is how do we leverage the past to think about the future, but without letting go of the past? And that’s not to say we stay rooted in the past, but we have this sense of where we came from, origin story, all of these kinds of things. that when you talk about kind of Zeppelin and all these kinds of, for my daughter, was the Smiths, that was my group in the UK.

I wanted my kids just like you wanted your kids to have a real appreciation for where we’ve come from, but as a mechanism for squeezing as much as we can out of the future. Sorry, I just wanted to make that point.

Simon Waller (08:59.81)
Yeah, no, no, no. I think that’s a really, that’s a really interesting, I think a very good insight. I think that we definitely live in a world where we are obsessed with novelty and we’re very quick to dismiss the past for the future. And I think that in that quickness, you know, we often, we often risk losing things as well. So taking the time to be a little bit more considered about

what is it that we actually let go of and what is worth retaining is, I think is part of like those conversations that we’ve had, but also in some ways, you know, maybe that’s part of like, you know, the, what sits behind the scenario in a way. So, so tell me beforehand, with the scenario, you know, as part of the kind of the creation of it, one of the conversations that comes up about, how far in the future are we going here?

Colin Ellis (09:44.367)
Hmm.

Simon Waller (09:56.961)
Because the further we go into the future, the greater the possibility, the great difference we can have. This actually starts in the very near future, but where does it get to? What’s the significance of the timeframes around this for you?

Colin Ellis (10:09.209)
Well, I wanted, because what we’ve seen in the last probably 15 to 20 years is this acceleration of social change where, you know, and I talk about it within my work is you only need one thing to happen over here. you know, things like Time’s Up, Black Lives Matter, these kinds of things, which ironically were driven by technology, which is thing that I’m talking about, is that, you know, they happen very, very quickly because we build social movements quickly. So my scenario starts kind of…

in 2024 and gets to 2035 because I feel that, you know, as a world, you know, we take to change much quicker than we maybe did in the past because we were throttled in the past by our own history and the fact that the pace of change was so slow, but actually the pace of change has been so fast. You know, I felt that this could all be possible within 10 years.

Simon Waller (11:05.759)
Yeah, and this is something that we’ll definitely get into as part of the discussion after you’ve read it. Because that was as after probably really challenged me around this is I started to go, OK, like if Cole was right, like if this was to occur, like how does this transpire? I think this is all going to make much more sense if people have heard the scenario first. So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to throw the microphone to you. I know you’ve actually got your own one there.

Colin Ellis (11:27.129)
Yes.

Simon Waller (11:33.47)
But I’m going to let you to read your scenario from the beginning to the end. And then we’re going to jump into a bit more of a conversation around all the content within it. So over to you, Col. Please read us your scenario about the future of analog.

Colin Ellis (11:49.773)
In 2024, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology strapped 256 channel EEG sensors to students and asked them to either write or type. The results were stark. When students wrote by hand, the whole brain lit up visual reasons, regions, sensory processing areas, the motor cortex. When they typed a much smaller, far less connected network activated.

The lead researcher Audrey van der Meer put it simply, the most surprising thing was that the whole brain was active when they were writing by hand, whilst much smaller areas were active when they were typewriting. The inference was clear, analogue good, reliant on technology bad. Three things then converged in 2024-25. The Norwegian research came out the same month that South Korea published its devastating teen mental health data.

linking smartphones to unprecedented depression rates. Then Stanford University released a study showing average adult attention spans had collapsed to 47 seconds. Suddenly, parents, teachers and workers all had scientific validation for what they’d been feeling. Sales of the book Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff skyrocketed as people strive to learn more about the practices of technology companies. But research alone doesn’t create movements.

The real catalyst was the 2027 seatbelt moments when a leaked TikTok internal document revealed that algorithm deliberately targeted children’s insecurities to increase engagement time. was technology’s tobacco moment and movements were spawned around the world. Fandamere’s brain scans became the movement’s visual symbol. The dead zones when typing versus the alive brain when writing by hand.

The image went viral, ironically on the very platforms it condemned, and suddenly everyone recognized what they’d lost. Social media bans for teenagers, which until then had been limited to a few countries, became widespread across the world because of the mental health issues they generated. Improvements promised by tech giants through AI failed to materialize, and we started to recognise the impact that smartphones had had on our attention and focus. People everywhere

Colin Ellis (14:10.081)
started to rediscover what it means to be analogue. They lost their sense of immediacy where every notification demanded their instant attention. Some people really struggled with this and digital disassociation became a new field of psychiatric support. Of course the shift wasn’t seamless and for many it was extremely difficult. Parents of disabled children lost vital communication tools and GPS tracking for wandering kids.

Long distance families struggled, grandparents couldn’t see grandchildren’s faces on video calls, migrant workers couldn’t send money home as easily. Travelling became harder without translation apps and instant bookings. Some people lost jobs entirely. The entire influence economy collapsed alone. This was also celebrated, as did food delivery drivers. Also, the public photographic record of people’s lives was lost, as was a description of their eating habits.

Realizing that this wasn’t a small social movement, the tech giants launched the Digital Dignity campaign in 2030, funded by Apple, Google and Meta, to try and draw confidence and users back. They highlighted every crime where a victim couldn’t call for help, every lost child who may have been tracked. And of course, they spent millions lobbying government hard, warning of economic catastrophe. Sony did indeed pivot back to the Walklands,

The 2031 model became a real cult item, but streaming services like Spotify fought viciously, pushing hybrid devices that were smartphones in all but name. For music artists, it split down the middle. Musicians thrived as live music became currency again and ticket prices soared, but visual artists and photographers who’d built careers on Instagram faced ruin. By 2033, some were lobbying for professional exemptions to the smartphone rejection,

arguing that livelihoods depended on it. The movements largely rejected this as the thin end of the wedge. By 2035, sales of magazines, paperback books, DVDs and vinyl had a huge resurgence, as did MP3 players. Fewer and fewer people were recording concerts on their tiny phones, choosing to be present in the moment instead. And the pubs of England, which for years had faced serious decline,

Colin Ellis (16:30.883)
became community hubs once more as people met face to face to talk about their work, relationships and the future. My own life, once dominated by incessant emails, social media notifications and peer pressure to be always on, became immeasurably better. It was difficult to begin with. As an early adopter, the trend was one that I monitored for about six months before going all in. I replaced my smartphone with a dumb phone and bought a street map.

I’d still miss the ease of Google Maps. I became more aware of my surroundings. Instead of listening to a podcast on my run, I heard the sound of birds instead. I carried a slim wallet with me instead of my phone. That felt easy to do. I started to notice how many more people were talking to each other rather than staring at their phones. The parks now are full of curious children. Road deaths have been reduced as distractions did too. And being caught on a smartphone is now seen as the most uncool thing to do.

So where are we now? Well, the smartphone enabled harassment culture died with the devices. People seem more globally aware even without constant news feeds. Mental health is discussed openly and neurodivergence now understood better. But there’s also residual behaviour. People still occasionally check their dumb phones for text, though it’s considered mildly rude. Some pubs have phone parking by the door, little wooden boxes where you can deposit your Nokia new for 2030.

The jukebox is back but it’s digital inside, just control manually. And there’s a new social skill. People have re-learned how to sit in comfortable silence. In 1995, silence meant something was wrong. In 2035, it just means you’re thinking. It doesn’t feel like the 1990s all over again as a new dreid is suggested in 2032. Instead, it feels like we’ve been reawakened, like in that movie, Cocoon. Alive and aware of the beauty around us for so long we’d ignored.

The desperate tech companies PR machines have been peddling the same messages for five years now about how not having technology in our hands is a bad thing. Yet for me and the people around me, it feels that analog is here to stay.

Simon Waller (18:45.8)
Awesome. By the way, I could listen to you read the back of a Weebix packet. Like, it is like… I don’t know what to say.

Colin Ellis (18:51.769)
Thank you. Someone said to me at a conference one time and she was like, I just want to say I love the fact that you read your audio books. I was listening to the other day and I just drifted off. I’m like, yeah, that’s not a good thing.

Simon Waller (19:08.148)
It’s like, and if you like the voice, it means it was probably the content.

Colin Ellis (19:14.457)
Yeah.

Exactly.

Simon Waller (19:18.644)
yes. So beautifully delivered by the way. And, gosh, there is so much to talk about in this. but before we get into the deep dive, I’m curious, like for, yeah, I kind of throw these challenges out to people. Hey, come in, write a scenario about the future. And this is for many, the first time they’ve ever been asked to do something like this. I think you mentioned that, you know, just before we jumped on the podcast record, it’s like, I’ve never done anything like this before.

Tell me what the experience was like. What did, how did you go about it? What were the, what were the frictions that you found in this process?

Colin Ellis (19:55.535)
Well, you you very kindly sent over some instructions, which I read diligently because I literally had never done anything like this before. I’m used to writing about the presence, what the present, what we see in front of us, what’s immediate right now. And so I found it fascinating. And you know, you made some suggestions about how I could use AI, but I didn’t want to do that. I was like, no, I want to write this about what I actually took a walk out. went past there. I went past a pub that was closed and not far away from here. And there’s, you know,

That’s a real issue in the UK right now. And I tried to imagine, you know, kind of what it would take for this scenario to, to, to eventuate. So I loved the process. I think I put it in an email that, my gosh, I could totally write a book on this. And so I loved the process, but then towards the end, I found myself getting a little bit stuck. So I did use AI to fill in a couple of the gaps for me.

in terms of, you know, can you come up with an idea that would add weight to why this movement would happen? But I love the process and you know, and I tried to get it down to one page when I found I could have written about, you know, I could probably written about 10,000 words. I haven’t ruled it out yet.

Simon Waller (21:06.896)
Yeah, yes. And I think one thing I find, like you’ve written, I kind of lost track of how many books, but it’s probably half a dozen books or so. that about right? Right. I think you’re someone who takes your writing seriously. And I think when, you know, when you talk about the use of things like AI and other types of tools, the first reaction is we’re very skeptical because we’re very protective of our own voice.

Colin Ellis (21:18.297)
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, seven books, yeah.

Simon Waller (21:36.952)
And so it’s almost like, I’m going to ask you for some ideas, but I actually don’t believe you’re going to come up with anything good. And you’re like, and it’s like, okay, there’s one little thing I could potentially build on, but don’t take that as a compliment. You know, it’s like, you so I get it. Like I think, yeah.

Colin Ellis (21:42.275)
Yeah.

Colin Ellis (21:50.799)
But with AI, I ask it, I’m very, very deliberate in my prompts, very, very deliberate, and it’ll come up with something, I’m like, yeah, that’s good, but it’s not quite what I’m looking for. I’ll take its idea, completely rework it, and go, that was what I was looking for, but actually it’s still its idea. But I’m not gonna give it any credit whatsoever.

Simon Waller (22:08.429)
Yeah. Well, this is a, this has come up maybe once before on the podcast. There’s a, there’s a researcher that I follow. And he talks through about like, you know, there’s this anomaly, I suppose, within our human’s ability to assess ideas, right? So we’re all very good at generating ideas and we’re all very good at being critical of other people’s ideas, but we’re terrible at being critical of our own ideas. Like, and part of it is that

a self preservation piece about we need to be, be like, has to be a level of congruence in our understanding of the world that we can almost like live with ourselves. But in some ways I find that sometimes AI serves that purpose. It’s like, well, if I give the idea to you, then you give it back to me. I’m very comfortable being critical of you or taking your idea of being critical and cherry picking pieces out of it. So I think that’s not a bad technique to go through, but I think one of the things I find super interesting in this and I, I know when you first said the first version of this through.

Colin Ellis (22:56.217)
Yeah, yeah.

Simon Waller (23:08.27)
There was almost like this, um, this place that you wanted to get to. And the question for me was, but how do we get there? Like almost like back casting. How would we, what, what events would have to transpire for us to end up in this future that you describe one where there is a very wholesale acceptance of analog technologies and, uh, almost like a, and it’s very, it has to be a very voluntary thing in this scenario to me.

Colin Ellis (23:16.409)
Mm-hmm.

Simon Waller (23:38.085)
why would we voluntarily do this to ourselves? And this is probably the big question I, I, I, I struggle with throughout reading this. I was like, it has to be almost seismic. Like, and this is what I want really talk to you about is what would the change be? Like you gave some examples, there’s some really compelling research.

Colin Ellis (23:59.309)
Hmm.

Simon Waller (24:05.555)
about the impacts of digital technologies on ourselves and on our thinking. We know there’s a loneliness epidemic that’s partly driven by social media driven isolation, right? All these things are true. We know them to be true and yet somehow, I mean, it hasn’t been seismic in its impact, if you know what I mean.

Colin Ellis (24:30.467)
Yeah, you know, for me, it’s that case of it only takes one seed to make a forest, right? And I think what in my mind, what needed to happen was this exposure of the way social media companies are pretty much stealing our attention.

One of the things that I really thought of when I was writing this is I had a conversation with a business leader I think it was last year Simon and we were talking about this concept of different generations and it’s like you know I’m finding I’m really hard and I you know the point that I made was every generation tries to correct the mistakes of the past and

You know, this particular business leader said, my, my teen is always on their phone. I’m like, well, yeah, because you gave them a phone really young. You’re the role model for using the phone. And if everybody does that, then this is what happens. You know, it’s kind of, we get this effect where it spreads.

But what if the opposite was true? What if we didn’t give phones to our teenagers? What if we all agree that that was what we were going to do? And so what would that one catalyst be? And the catalyst would be is a deliberate strategy from a mega company to

really affect our children’s attention, focus, mental health. And you know, the social media, you know, as I was writing it, the social media ban, the UK is considering it social media ban for teens, which started of course in Australia. And, you know, you start to see these things gathering momentum. And I thought, but what if we could get to parents and say,

Colin Ellis (26:09.773)
These companies are deliberately targeting your children and you’re the problem for giving your child the phone. yeah, so that’s, I think, you when I was writing it, was, what was that spark moment? And it was hard to make that weighty enough, Simon, if I’m, if I’m being brutally honest, I was, you know, yes, one research into TikTok, which I think was my scenario, but yeah, no, I agree. Yeah.

Simon Waller (26:32.135)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (26:37.863)
Yeah. this is, so this is, and this is part of what I found with this, right? Like I love the future you describe. Like we have these shared interests around analog and in real life and community and belonging. And these are things that we enact in our lives by choice. And we also probably get sucked into some of the other stuff, but we would probably like to think that we’re a little bit more aware than the average in terms of this. And you describe an outcome.

that I find personally appealing. And so then I kind of go like, yeah, right, Cole. So how do we make this happen? almost like, yeah, like how could this really translate? Let’s do this, right? But there’s a couple of things that came up for me. I read an article recently and it was a professor of AI at Oxford University. he wrote, he did an annual lecture to the World Society.

Colin Ellis (27:16.739)
Yeah, let’s start this!

Simon Waller (27:37.603)
And there was an accompanying article in the Guardian, which I’ll share in the show notes. But he talks about that, you know, the outcome of AI isn’t guaranteed yet. It still may face what he describes as its Hindenburg moment. And obviously, you know, the Hindenburg was the, at the time was considered the peak of air travel. Like he was the most luxurious form of air travel you could possibly have. It was traveling between

regularly transatlantic voyages. And it was seen as being the future of how we would get around, right? And then, you know, one fiery ball of mistake and no one will touch a zeppelin again. So there’s this kind of like what he was explaining was it may, and this is probably not dissimilar to you talking about the seed in the forest, but because there may just be one thing that is so significant in its impact that people just go, well, I don’t want that.

And that potentially would have a knock on impact for, you know, for other types of digital technologies, you know, like the social technologies and stuff that we grew up with. And I started going, okay, like, and you, kind of allude to these symptoms that tick tock example and the seatbelt, like you described this, was it the seatbelt? Yeah. What do you mean by the seatbelt thing? Well, is there something in your mind particularly or

Colin Ellis (28:52.729)
Yes, yeah. Seatbelt moment, yeah, yeah.

Colin Ellis (28:59.363)
Yeah well it was Ford who first realised that road deaths could be dramatically reduced if everybody wore a seatbelt and it completely changed the way that we thought about road safety it was just like

my gosh, yeah, if we have a little piece of fabric that keeps the driver in the seat, it will fundamentally change the way that we think about safety. And it’s the same with cigarettes. As soon as the research was published, categorically showing that cigarettes caused lung cancer.

all of a sudden people stopped smoking. Well, not everybody, but you know, a huge part of the population. wasn’t the health and wellbeing. It’s crazy that it was all the health and wellbeing. Yeah.

Simon Waller (29:43.769)
Well, but this is where I go, like, I don’t think, you know, that’s that that research came out before I was a teenager. I spent some of my late teens and early 20s smoking, you know, like they, are not necessarily fast to respond to something just because we know it’s not good for us. In fact, what I took away from the tobacco thing was like, well, the real way that we stop people smoking is we tax the hell out of it. We make it so expensive. We basically go and look.

Colin Ellis (30:02.126)
Right.

Simon Waller (30:10.831)
There is a social cost associated with this decision that you’re making. There is a burden on our health system as a result of your choices. It’s only fair that you now contribute back to that through a tobacco tax.

Colin Ellis (30:23.471)
also we’re better at educating our children. Sorry to jump in. We’re also better at educating. My parents, they were at the generator. My dad smoked for 40 years. he, only at the end did he understand. And he would say things like, cigarettes are bad for you. Cigarettes are bad for you. Because I did the same thing, they’re bad for you. Whereas now we’re educating our children. Earlier ago, here’s a list of the things that will kill you.

you know so it’s a different message so yes there’s the tax but also we’re better at educating our children because we talk to them like adults from a much younger age now than used to happen when we were younger.

Simon Waller (30:49.923)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (30:55.586)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (31:03.049)
I so I go into this and where I can’t share a couple of things that came up for me is like, what would be the catalysts? And one has actually come up while we’re talking. But the first was, what if it’s actually the opposite? What if AI is actually really good? What if there is actually mass unemployment as a result of AI? And that’s actually the thing where people who have been displaced by technology both can’t afford but also have this like almost like a mistrust.

of it. There’s a there’s a future of hyperlocalism potentially, where something because we’re operating in hyperlocal type of situations, more like in the classic villages and small town type of mentality. I don’t need emails so readily, because the people I need to communicate with are around me. I’m not being booked to go fly off to Las Vegas to do a conference. Right? I kind of work within my local community, but also even things like

the sharing of vinyl and music like we did in our teens, it’s almost like, what if this is actually not something that is a choice as a necessity? Now I know that you frame this up very much as being a choice, but I almost wonder like, what would create the necessity? Because I find that some of the choices feel like really hard choices. Like I think about the parent going, I not want to track my kid gosh safety? Or even more powerful to me was the example you used about the grandparents wanting to call with their kids.

I can’t imagine any grandparent volunteering going like, look, to be honest, don’t actually, maybe they just got terrible grandkids, but most of them will be like,

Colin Ellis (32:41.807)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Simon Waller (32:42.635)
Could happen. Yeah. Can you tell me what you think? again, like does that resonate with you at all? Push back against me.

Colin Ellis (32:45.155)
Yeah, I mean…

Colin Ellis (32:49.997)
yeah, totally. And actually, I went slightly the other way with the AI thing. I took it out eventually because, you know, too many words were, because AI had failed, it caused economic collapse and global recession. As a result of the tech companies promising, basically I demonised the technology companies throughout this, throughout this scenario. But I did think about the alternate universe where,

AI was so good that it did put people out of jobs. And then there was this movement to sort of say, right, well, we need to reject everything that they’re doing in order to kind of claim back what was ours. It was so difficult. was like that Robert Frost poem, know, two roads diverge in the wood and I took the one less traveled by. It’s like, well, what is the more likely scenario here? And both are littered with really, really difficult choices. think the biggest challenge of all of this is

is the addiction that we have to smartphones right now is how do we unwind that and that’s the most difficult element of the scenario you know I you know I even look at my own brother who you know dad’s not well at the minute he’s on his phone all the time and I’m like what are you looking at I’m looking at this and chat GPT this and blah blah blah blah and I’m like dude put it put it down you know and but that’s where we are you know and I’m not saying that’s bad it just

Simon Waller (33:57.161)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (34:13.79)
Yeah.

Colin Ellis (34:17.817)
That’s where we are. So yeah, that’s the big challenge is what’s the one thing that has to happen that really unwinds this, yeah.

Simon Waller (34:27.23)
So, and so I should reiterate, like with this work, the objective isn’t to, um, to describe the future. It’s a describe a future and to use that, yeah, to describe, to use that future as the basis of inquiry about, yeah, are we okay with the journey that we’re on or the pathway on and what would we change? What do we like and not like about the outcomes we get to? What are the unintended trade-offs and stuff that we might face? So I think the only kind of.

Colin Ellis (34:36.706)
A future,

Simon Waller (34:56.914)
The only thing that for me in my work where I found to be true is like, if we describe a future that is so far out the realms of possibility, we kind of lose people in that where they kind of go, yeah, no, it doesn’t always feel real to me. As long as we can sit on that side of like, how is this possible? And that’s what I found so intriguing because I love the outcome. it’s like, tell me, show me the possibility of this. Now, I’ll share the other thing that triggered for me when you talked about this before.

Cause I actually see another way we get to this future that is also incredibly powerful. You mentioned that your son has gone down the path of the dumb phone and buying the DVDs. My daughter is not dissimilar. She hasn’t got the dumb phone. She started collecting CDs. She goes, I can’t really afford to collect vinyl, but I can collect CDs. She found out that my mother-in-law used have a video shop and still has a stash of DVDs under her house somewhere. And they’re like…

Colin Ellis (35:45.987)
Amazing.

Simon Waller (35:53.488)
Where do we, like, how do we get them off? I wonder whether or not ultimately we may respond to our children. Like they may actually say to us, Hey, to be honest, dad, don’t really want to do the Skype call. Can we just, we just catch up for coffee. Right. Or can you just come and visit us please? You know, like they, they may put an ask on us that is driven by

Colin Ellis (36:13.551)
Mm-hmm.

Simon Waller (36:23.44)
their own beliefs in terms of the power of in-person, the power of analog. And that I think as parents, we’d be like, okay, if that’s what you want, like we just do it

Colin Ellis (36:34.895)
Yeah, let’s do it. Yeah. Yeah, I think the curiosity piece is the big one for me. You know, I mentioned my son, you know, one of the things that he said, he was just like, I wish I’d wish I’d been this age in the 1990s. You know, and I wrote, I’ve got a blog, I think I’m publishing a blog tomorrow called Anna Moyer.

And Anna Moyer is a really interesting word, but it’s about nostalgia for a time and place that one has never actually experienced. And we see a lot of this with Gen Z in the way that the, it’s like cultural appropriation. They want to watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. They want to listen to Led Zeppelin and the Smiths and all of these kinds of things. And I think certainly for my own children where they have that curiosity, I’m opening the door. I’m talking about all, you know.

being in my early 20s growing up in Liverpool where every single band that was popular played because the Beatles were from there so you had to play them. So I saw so many incredible bands and you know that curiosity about what it would be to go to a live experience, what it would be to go to a live gig and not be seeing it through this kind of rectangular version. You know there’s a joke, I can’t remember which comedian.

said it is, but you know, so many parents are missing out on their kids’ events because they’re just staring at a video of them videoing it. And so I think, yeah, that there is this curiosity that the kids might have where they’re just like, tell me, show me, take me, that actually reawakens it within us as well.

Simon Waller (38:11.683)
Yeah. So I just, just in the last week, we watched the breakfast club with and I just literally took my daughter to basketball earlier and the first song that she put on her playlist was boys don’t cry by the cure. And I’m like, man, I am, I am nailing parenting.

Colin Ellis (38:17.423)
course.

Colin Ellis (38:28.303)
Ugh.

You are nailing it mate. If nothing else, she has got the best taste.

Simon Waller (38:37.332)
Yeah. So this, this is a, I really quite like this, this kind of this, tangent to go down. And the other thing, this came up for me when you were talking about this and describe what was that word again, the nostalgia for things that haven’t, I’ve never experienced.

Colin Ellis (38:52.527)
Anemoia. Anemoia. Yeah.

Simon Waller (38:53.996)
and a moir. I think that we have been told or we were told that life just gets better. Like we grew up in the era where, you know, in the nineties, I’m not saying that this, I mean, we may turn out that was the peak of civilization. We don’t know that to be true or not true just yet, but we would look back on our parents’ generation. We can see how, you know, in terms of a lot of the signs around, you know, improvements in the human condition.

know, longevity, education standards, equality, all seem to have got better. And although it’s, you know, like the past to the future is never a straight line, we could see over time how things could get better. I think we were told that it would get better again. Like, and now I think there’s a lot people going like, is it like, it or or did did we kind of something break somewhere around, you know,

the year 2000 around the millennium and somewhere around there, we actually started to go, hang on, whether it be through the power of big tech, pollution, climate change, we suddenly fear ourselves have actually almost been in a decline, right? So maybe this is also part of this, maybe that, you know, we no longer, or there’s a generation, like a kid’s generation that no longer buy into that story.

that it just gets better. So I actually know that buying a house has got harder, right? My wages are stagnating, like all these things. And maybe that’s also part of them going, okay, well, maybe we do need to go back a bit. Maybe we do actually have to take, retrace our steps a little bit and find out where that thing was, where we broke it.

Colin Ellis (40:37.689)
Yeah, think, you know, especially for Generation X, Millennials were the first to say, I’ve done a lot of research, obviously from a work perspective on the different generations in the workplace. And what that led me, you know, to really find was Millennials were the first ones to go, hang on a minute, the dream that you sold me about having my own place, two up, two down, little garden.

Yeah, that’s not achievable for me. And actually what I’m seeing is a bigger wealth distribution gap. And of course, because we’re living longer, unlocking that wealth. So traditionally, you know, when parents pass on, they will pass the property, the wealth associated with that to their children. Obviously that’s taking longer and longer. So it is a bit of a lie. And by the time you get to Generation Z, they’re like, I want what you had.

Simon Waller (41:29.086)
Mmm.

Colin Ellis (41:29.273)
That you talk about. want the play. You bought your first house in your early 20s, your mid 20s. I want that and I want to be able to go on holiday and I want to have disposable income. But I can’t because the gap between the wage that I earn and the cost to get on the first run with the property ladder is so huge that it’s just impossible. So I’m going to stay with you.

Now, of course, the knock on effect then for Generation X parents and then soon for millennial parents is we bear the cost of not only the childcare, young adult care, but also the aged care of our ageing parents in terms of money and in terms of time. And so it’s almost, you know, for Generation Z and then Generation A, they’re almost having to redefine what it means. It is that Robert Frost poem and they are taking the path.

less traveled by because for the best part of a hundred years post industrial revolution life got better and better and of course you had the world wars where everything dipped but then post world war two Simon everything improved the cost of everything improved for that generation and it’s only post global financial crisis where actually that wealth distribution gap just got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and the you know the quality of life really isn’t

The same for Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z, soon to be Generation A. So there is a redefinition probably that’s required.

Simon Waller (43:00.914)
You also reckon there’s something, I know this is maybe just sitting just around the edge or just outside the edge of this scenario, but I remember, I feel like what I saw as I grew up, were some of the failings or the early failings of the consumer-driven individualistic culture that kind of dominates the Western sphere. You know that we saw, I saw parents who

were successful, had disposable income and a nice house. And at the same time, there wasn’t necessarily a sense of life satisfaction that you would expect that came with it. But in some ways, often, we build an identity around consumption that leads to more consumption or something like that. And we see, my last guest on the podcast, Kath, is like,

She remembers living in a commune when she was in like her late teens, early twenties. She’s now gone back to living in a commune again. Now this one’s a much nicer commune where there’s like she had barbecue areas and it’s in a city area, right? But that sense of community is like, we just need to be around each other. We need that sense of social connection. There’s a little bit you talk about in this about the reinvigoration of the pub as a social, like a place in kind of community.

But I wonder like in this story of analog, is there also a story, do you touch on in any way your own thinking around this kind of individualism and the consumerist stuff or was that kind of just outside of the sphere?

Colin Ellis (44:43.535)
It’s just outside of it, but I considered it because one of the things that we’ve done over the last kind of 10, 15 years as we raise our children is we’ve raised them to be more individualistic. We’re more asset obsessed than we’ve ever been before. Our parents wanted the house, the kitchen in the UK, the conservatory in Australia, the pool. But now for what we’re raising our kids to be way more individualistic is you need to get what you

you need, know, what’s important for you and I’m not saying that’s completely wrong but it’s driven a particular way of thinking and so you know we saw it in work where all of a sudden Millennials got into work and as parents were like you know find a company that you know shares the values that you have, find a job that really lights you up. When I was growing up it was get a job and if you get a job you’re really lucky to have a job and so I really thought about how would that play into this scenario.

And again, it all comes back to upbringing, it all comes back to messaging and really thinking about the stories that we share with our own children and the expectations that they have. know, millennials, you know, a great example of that is they got into the workplace and realised that what their parents had told them was a bit of a lie. And most companies, you know, especially their cultures are just a bit rubbish. They’re really rubbish and they’re designed to make the people at the top more powerful.

richer and the people at the bottom do more, fall longer. And so this is where we had the creation of the gig economy and then there was the, you know, kind of complete media story rage about, it’s the gig, it’s all about the gig economy and then, then, and then we realised that actually there’s, there’s a saturation point for that. And so, you know, it all comes back to messaging about what’s important for you as an individual.

but also what you can gain in terms of quality of life from the community around Simon. And of course COVID, the pandemic, I chose not to mention pandemic mainly because it’s still triggering, but I chose not to mention it because of course what that did is it drove us to really think about us as ourselves rather than the community at whole. And it really changed the culture and not just in education, not just in kind of social service, but also things like education as well.

Colin Ellis (47:09.103)
So this is why I felt I could have written 10,000, 15,000 words on this.

Simon Waller (47:14.881)
Yeah. And I think there’s an interesting, which you just kind of touched on as well. There’s this kind of relationship between individualism and this perception of the need to be independent because I’m such an individual and success is I’m so self-sufficient. I don’t even need to ask for help. And again, that is what if I don’t ever ask, like I’ve always believed, I mean, there’s really strong belief that some of the best relationships or friendships will ever create will create in our kind of late teens and early twenties.

Colin Ellis (47:20.107)
Excuse me.

Simon Waller (47:44.553)
because we all need help and we’ve all got time to give. So when a friend goes, I need to move house. I don’t suppose you could possibly give us a hand, but like, I had nothing to do on Saturday. Of course I’ll give you a hand. And they’re like, my God, Col, you have saved my life. And you’re just like, pay me with some beer. I’m okay. Right. But we play this game out over and over again. They need help. You need help. You offer they offer. And we get to this point four or five years later and go like, man, you’re like the best friend.

Colin Ellis (48:03.213)
Yeah, yeah.

Simon Waller (48:13.34)
I am so indebted to you for the rest of my life. And you’re sitting there going like, no, no, no, I’m indebted to you, right? There’s this asymmetry between the ask and the give. Now we get to this later point in our life where we feel that we have to be so independent. it’s like, actually this friend of mine, Ben, who a couple of years ago for his birthday, he was like, look, all I want for my birthday is I just want some people to come around and give me a hand to do some gardening at my house. And I was like, I’ll be there.

No problem at all. And like he invited maybe a dozen people, maybe six people turned up for this gardening event. And we worked our asses off for the morning. Just like, whatever you need, dude, he’s got this big block, like it’s a 3000 square meter block and it was overrun. But at like, it got to one o’clock and he’s like, right, tools down. I was like, dude, there’s still way more to do. He goes, no, no, no, we’re done. Lunch is served. He put on the most incredible lunch. Like the lunch would have cost more than hiring the gardeners. Right?

Colin Ellis (49:09.091)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (49:10.674)
It was like seafood and oysters and wine. It’s like, no, no, no. Now we just hang out and have fun. Right. It was really though, about trying to create this opportunity for us to give and like help and receive that I feel is really missing in, in, it’s always like society is very transactional. I think in this one thing I definitely see in this future is what we take, we are forcing people to be more in person the way they interact and socialise.

Colin Ellis (49:21.924)
Hmm.

Colin Ellis (49:30.18)
Mm-hmm.

Simon Waller (49:39.529)
We’re not going to be doing this. Obviously, you we were doing the podcast recording, but there’d be no podcast. But we would do, we would be doing this as a conversation in front of a small group of people around a campfire. Right. That’s the closest we’d get to a podcast. And if you weren’t one of the 20 people around that campfire that night, like you could only ever hear about it.

Colin Ellis (49:50.991)
That’s right.

Colin Ellis (50:01.007)
Right, yeah, I did a speech for a football organization in Switzerland last year, Simon, and I said, and we recorded it in a studio. And I said, are we recording it and then sending it to people? And they were like, no, we’ve taken the decision that if you don’t watch the live recording, you miss out. And I thought, wow, five years ago, we would never have done that. It was one thing.

for everybody, but it was a case of, well, if you miss it, you miss out. And so I think you see these little pockets every now and again. I think, you know, people thought conferences were dead. If you remember immediately post-COVID, people are never gonna wanna come back together. I spoke at a conference last year where it was like 7,500 people. It was huge, it was absolutely huge. And I said to one person, what’s the thing you enjoyed most? And they were like,

being around this many people. But I’m not saying we want to do that all of the time.

Simon Waller (51:03.336)
You were just fishing for a compliment, you were hoping that I was going to go, well you Col, you were the best thing.

Colin Ellis (51:07.115)
Yeah, you were the best. We hope you speak at every conference and that they pay you more every year. Yeah, no one ever says that. But you know, I…

Simon Waller (51:13.256)
You

Yeah, I feel so one thing I’ve had a really strong belief about with the conferencing just as a while you’re on that. Like one of the things I noticed post pandemic, if we just to mention just briefly has is that the first thing that happened was we wanted much more smaller and intimate events that pre pandemic. A thousand people in a room was kind of derigat. Like, in fact, if you weren’t going to sell a thousand tickets, you probably couldn’t put this thing on. I’ve seen a lot more events now that are more like 50 to a hundred people. And again, that’s almost like

I did one last week for HP, were in Melbourne for the Grand Prix. What they put on for 50 people was insane. They had like, you know, mock ups of the tech setup in pit lane. And you know, what it would be like if you’re at the track and like they did all of this for 50 people because they just wanted 50 people to feel really special. And I think there’s something about that in this concept as well. It’s like, yeah, but

We’ve been, we’ve almost got used to the idea that we can have everything and therefore nothing actually matters. Like we divide our attention across so many little things that we can’t actually anywhere be clear. What was the thing that actually defined us to matter to us was suddenly, you know, like me buying records, my girls, it’s like, yeah, but you can only have one record for your birthday. So now I have to slave over making sure I get exactly

Colin Ellis (52:38.499)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (52:42.49)
the right one, because this is now like there’s almost like identity attached to this thing. And I think how like I really that just lights me up, by the way, the idea that we are forced to choose. I know that sounds like the ultimate like anti-consumer sentiment, but it’s kind of true, isn’t it?

Colin Ellis (52:47.939)
Yeah.

Colin Ellis (53:00.707)
Yeah, well, it is. spoke to an event organizer time and I said, you know, how does it feel to be putting on these events? anyway, long story short, said, we have to really focus on the value that we offer more than we ever did before. And I’m like, well, yeah, that’s a good thing, right? But, know, to speak to your point is they were just used to putting stuff on rather than really thinking what’s the value to the person that we’re delivering this to.

And it’s the same when it comes to I need to save for this one thing. What’s the value that I’m going to get from this thing? Instead of having access to everything all of the time, you know, and for me, YouTube music, Netflix, Amazon Prime, I’ve Sky Sport here can watch all of the sports. What if I had to pick just one?

you know, what if, what if I just said, right, it’s just one thing, I would really look for what’s going to give me the greatest value, what’s going to make me feel good about me. And I just love that idea because it kind of takes me back to a time, of course, when I was growing up. But, but, you know, there was a lot that was rubbish when I was growing up, you know, definitely wasn’t safe like it is now. It was a lot of social unrest. But I think.

You know, really working hard for something and making the choice about what’s the value it gives me. That’s something that I would love to see return. Definitely.

Simon Waller (54:28.298)
Yeah. And this is, look, I mean, again, if you look at this kind of scenario in its entirety, I think the very first comment I wrote after reading the whole thing was how much of this is nostalgia, right? And how much of this is, is, is like a genuine, like exploration of a future. Right. And I think there’s a real, I suppose the risk, you know, to be alleged white guys on a podcast.

Colin Ellis (54:40.43)
Mmm.

Simon Waller (54:56.321)
Yo, shouting at clouds going, wish we could, you know, it’s like, that’s like, yeah, right. And yet, so I think what, like, you know, as you were saying earlier, although we can, we can, we can look back or we can, we can take some of this back. Right. And there’s value in doing so. There has to be almost like a very discerning conversation around, what wouldn’t you take back? What would you keep?

Colin Ellis (54:59.225)
Who love vinyl, yeah.

Simon Waller (55:25.899)
from the present, you know, what would you willingly get rid of? And again, I gave you, I think that list you gave around tracking the kids. How do you feel about that one? You know, the grandparents been able to communicate with the, like, assuming that this is driven by choice, it’s like, where do we actually see genuine value in some of the technology tools we now have access to?

And then Google Maps was another really interesting one. It’s like, guys, so many people, like if you told them actually, no, we’re going back to what they call over here, like the map books, the Melway it’s called in Melbourne. It’s like, if you’re going back to the Melway, I think there’ll be people like, there’s no way, like that bit I’m not compromising on. It’s like, okay, cool. So we can have the navigator in our car. That is okay. But it will not be on your phone. can’t leave with it. All right.

Colin Ellis (55:56.461)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Colin Ellis (56:07.757)
A to Z is here, yeah.

Colin Ellis (56:23.154)
Right, yeah, and you you asked the question, how much of it is nostalgia? Probably 50-50, I would say. And the reason it’s 50-50 is, you know, I still talk about the fact that the 90s was the last great decade. I still talk about this, you know, particularly when I’m with my friends who also share that same. You know, I spent three days at a music festival where literally no one was on a phone. It was all about beer and music. I’m like, oh, it’s like the good old days.

Simon Waller (56:23.573)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (56:37.342)
You

Colin Ellis (56:51.363)
looked around, was all people that looked like me. But also, you know, I read that book sales, if you remember when the Kindle first came out, everyone’s like, that’s the death of book sales, that’s it, know, physical book, you know, physical book sales still account for 60 to 70 % of all book sales, particularly here in the UK. The rise of DVDs, the rise of vinyl. So I think there is this.

I think people are looking for a balance and I think we’ll start to see some rejection of smartphones and just the invasive nature of them. You know, I could envisage a time where navigation tools are built into cars, where TVs, you know, I remember the first smart TV, I had a little camera on the top and you could do video calls from the TV. So some of those kinds of tools, but it wasn’t…

everything in your pocket all the time. Like the camera is a great one. I love having a camera in my Not that I’m, you know, I’ve really rejected social media over the last probably 18 months. And it was as a result of reading Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff, which I highly recommend. But I do love having the camera. You know, my daughter is in the military. recently passed out.

Yes, I could have had a big bulky thing around my neck, but it was just that easy having the camera in my pocket. It’s just a point and shoot, you know.

Simon Waller (58:20.474)
Yeah. So I think this is, and this is probably, you know, when we kind of do this type of work, like this scenario type of work, we often like we before we do it, we often have very shorthand views of the future. And those shorthand views tend to be like all or nothing. It’s like what you described with the books is like, the Kindle came out. Well, books are dead. Like we can’t invasion a future where we have some books and some digital books, like all ebooks.

Colin Ellis (58:42.82)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (58:48.326)
We kind of like our shorthand, our quick response is the trajectory is towards more eBooks. This doesn’t end until all books are gone. And then we find out that’s actually not true. There’s much more nuance in it. People keep these things for different reasons. I think one of the things I, when I do this work with clients, when we talk about trends, one of the things we talk about, like, is there sometimes not even clear directionality? We don’t know if the future is more of this or less of this. But even if there is directionality, we can only imagine more or a lot more.

there is still a space for us to explore between more and a lot more about what those different worlds look like. And so although I think this is what I really take it from this scenario is first of all, what is that big driver of change that would create this type of cultural shift or accelerate this culture shift? Cause I agree with you. think there are signs it’s already happening, but for it to be embodied on a collective scale and an intergenerational scale, I think there has to be a catalyst for it to happen.

And I think that catalyst has to be bigger than just a couple of research reports. has to be like, has to be like the Hindenburg moment, or it has to be the something that is like, wow, wow. Okay. Like, now this is not going the right way. Right. The second thing I take out of this is I love how you pushing thinking, like pushing our thinking around. Like what would we be really just so happy to embrace again? And so many of the things are very idealistic around.

Colin Ellis (59:46.681)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (01:00:16.056)
Yeah, we’d be back at the pub. Obviously we wouldn’t be all drinking alcoholic drinks anymore because our younger generation not into that, but there’ll be a full selection of kombucha on tap and all the rest of it. But we would be back there socialising real life with people. but there’s other ones where it’s also asking us to explore these bigger questions is so you run your business on email. I run my business on email and we have a website and we kind of rely on how will people contact us? Are we doing that by a letter or do like, like they’re the things that we’re going to have to really

dig into, but I love that the scenario sets us up to do so.

Colin Ellis (01:00:51.751)
And we’re still using email. We still have our laptops, our PCs. It’s just the everything device in the pocket that we’ve lost. But yeah, they are definitely the trade-offs that we would need to consider, that we would need to make. And like I said, I very much came from the takes one seed to make a forest. But I do agree that social movements are usually built on

one big moment or one really courageous curious individual that starts us thinking completely differently about about the way that we the way that we do things yeah

Simon Waller (01:01:37.1)
Yeah, I think we will undoubtedly learn a lot from the younger generations in this. You know, like I think if we’re willing to forego like this kind of intergenerational belief that we’re somehow meant to be the teachers and they’re the students and accept that they can also be the teachers. I definitely see parts of that. I think my girls still struggle sometimes with

Colin Ellis (01:01:56.238)
Right.

Simon Waller (01:02:04.62)
certain aspects of social, but there’s an awareness that they have about them in terms of some of it’s like already choosing to push back, like pushing back early. And I don’t remember necessarily us doing that when like, I was very happy to embrace CDs. I was like, well, this is great. Like mini discs, there we are, mini disc players. was like, I could take all this music with me to the UK when I traveled. Yeah. So,

This has been super interesting. I know that I’m going to continue to ruminate on this for a while. And I’ll be like, yes, how do we make this happen, Cole? How do we?

Colin Ellis (01:02:38.351)
Yeah! How do we start this social movement so that in 2035 it all started with a podcast?

Simon Waller (01:02:42.474)
Well, let’s change that though. what, yeah, like if we wanted all the listeners to be on board with our social movement, what would we ask them to do? What would be like, is there like a simple, like what would be a simple shift that people would make or could make that sets them off on this journey with us?

Colin Ellis (01:03:08.697)
You know, it starts with really cherishing your focus, your attention, and really seeing that time away from something that just sucks the life out of us is time well spent. You know, I’ve gone back to reading magazines and papers, and I feel it’s reduced my anxiety.

in terms of this need to always be on. It’s reconnected me. You know, the point that I made about going out walking and running and listening to the birds, so I now do that. I don’t listen to music or podcasts. I listen to the birds when I run in the morning, which I think is fabulous. And it’s to find ways to cherish all that’s good that isn’t driven.

by a piece of machinery in our pocket. And if you can do that for half a day at a weekend, you know, I spend a week, at least a week a year where I take a, you know, a digital break and it’s the, I look forward to it every year, every year. So yeah, I suppose it’s to do that.

Simon Waller (01:04:15.957)
Funny, I’ve done, yeah, I think that’s some of the stuff is super simple. As I said, I’ve probably made the same shift. I used to always listen to music when I ran. And now it’s like, oh no, just be at one with your thoughts or be at one with the nature. One of the things that I’ve also found recently, I think everybody knows the advice, don’t sleep in, like don’t sleep with your phone in the same room, And I’ve been fairly like, like rigid about that. My phone charger is in my office.

Colin Ellis (01:04:38.115)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Simon Waller (01:04:45.64)
That’s where my phone goes. It doesn’t go into the bedroom. But the thing I’ve noticed recently is I find myself now not getting it until the last moment possible. So I’ll wake up. I’ll make breakfast with the girls. I’ll have a shower. There’ll be a point though somewhere around 8.36 or 7. And I’m suddenly going, OK, now I’ve got to pick it up. Like I’ve got to check what the first thing I’ve got to do today. And I’m using it my calendar and things like that.

Colin Ellis (01:04:46.063)
Mm-hmm.

Simon Waller (01:05:14.407)
But I almost like enjoying the first couple of hours of the day without having it on me. And again, all these things, they just feel really subtle and small shifts. But I think in doing so, it reminds you of what it’s like to not have that constant, it’s almost like an energy attached to it, isn’t it?

Colin Ellis (01:05:41.551)
It is and it’s an energy drain or it can be an energy drain. So I do the same as you. I mean, it’s the last thing that I do. And often I find I get, you know, if I’m not delivering, I’ll get to lunchtime and I’ll realise the phone is still in the office.

but I’m on the laptop working. I use app timers on my phone to really change my habits. try and so I get the digital report every day and you know, it’s got it for me, it’s gotta be less than two hours and you know, the bulk of the time is spent using something that adds value to my life or adds value to the work that I do, which is things like listening to a podcast. But I just wanna quickly jump back, because I liked what you said about seeing the

know, generations educate us. Two of my favorite newsletters are written by, one’s written by a millennial, one’s written by Gen Z.

because it educates me on the world that’s happening now, not the world that I’m attached to. I think we’re still, particularly Generation X, we’re still tied to generational roles. I’m the parent, I teach you, and gender roles. And I think that’s changing now. And I think we have to allow that to happen. We have to sit in the discomfort of it, allow it to happen, and really start to observe and listen. And that then will…

give us these curiosity pathways for us to find different ways to enjoy the rest of the life that we have ahead of us.

Simon Waller (01:07:09.104)
We are almost out of time, which is it feels like this has our has gone super quick Yeah Before we go I’ve always found civic like I have such smart and interesting friends to invite on to this podcast and yet many are like you and they say I’ve never really done something like this before and For me, these are these are really

Colin Ellis (01:07:17.504)
shit.

Simon Waller (01:07:39.919)
powerful ways of opening up our minds to a conversation or ideas that we may not otherwise pursue. You know, like the whole Daniel Kahneman thing, the thinking fast and slow is by default, we use our fast brain, we just play out the patterns of the past. And this is very much about, no, no, step back. Let’s think bigger and deeper about this topic than perhaps either of us have thought about it before. Having gone through that process, is there anything that

has shifted for you or that you will take away as a result of either the research you did or the conversation we’ve had.

Colin Ellis (01:08:18.595)
first thing Simon and this I really really enjoyed this is disassociating myself from the current and I know that sounds like escapism like let’s just ignore everything that’s going on in the world because most of it is really really bad but by disassociating myself from the current it allowed me to really see

how I could craft a different future for myself, which sounds like the most obvious statement because every motivational speaker in the world, everywhere says, you can be different tomorrow if you just did one thing differently. But often what we do is we focus on what we do currently, not what the…

future vision looks like and so I really really really enjoyed that so instead of starting from the current and saying what can I change now very much what can the future me do see look like all of these kinds of things so I really enjoyed that as as part of the process and then second secondary

which obviously links to my work around culture, is really understanding social dynamics. So a lot of my own research, a lot of my work fed into the scenario, but really thinking about those social dynamics and what creates movement. You know, I read a statistic a couple of years ago where it only takes 15 % of a people, whatever size that is, who are determined to create change, to actually create change.

It only takes 15 % of a people and that’s what then spawns that change. you know, it really got me thinking about social change, the catalyst for social change. And so I really enjoyed that part of it too, because anthropology, once you start digging into kind of anthropology and human history and all these kinds, there’s about a million rabbit holes you can go down. So I went down a few to write the scenario.

Simon Waller (01:10:15.436)
Yeah, that’s just two things that I pick up. there is something, and again, I’m not sure who shared this with me. It was many years ago when we talking about futures work. There is a point in the future, somewhere about three to five years away, where we stop seeing the future as just a continuation of the present and we see it as something else. And as soon as we cross that threshold into something else, we allow ourselves to not see it as being ours, but we get to take a third person perspective on it.

And we get to be in some ways more critical and more, more, more deep. Like we don’t take it. We don’t see, think when you talk about, you can be different tomorrow, there’s a sense of blame in that or self preservation. That’s like, which means there’s something wrong with you now, Colin. Right. Whereas when it’s three to five years, it’s no longer you. It’s just this thing. So I think that’s one thing I heard. I think you alluded to this idea of what the content of backcasting let’s imagine.

Colin Ellis (01:11:02.383)
Right, right, yeah.

Simon Waller (01:11:14.728)
what we would like, let’s then work backwards from that point and say, what would actually have to take place for us to go from where we are now to that point? But rather than move forward from now, we actually go backwards from that point and go, this would have to occur before that, this would have to occur. And again, it’s a very powerful technique of being able to kind of go, yeah, how would you shape a social movement like this? So I’m really glad that that’s like what you took out of it.

Again, I think for me, what I’m to take out of this is that this shift is happening. It’s probably, if I go, you know, that idea of like, we have more of this or less of this? Is it directional? It’s like, no, I think it’s definitely more or more, right? It’s definitely going to be something that we are going to embrace. It feels like a growing backlash grants, like big tech. There is a growing frustration, you know, like

Most people aren’t actually active on social networks anymore, but they haven’t actually worked out that the thing they need to replace it with is in real life connection. So in some ways, I probably leave this conversation with a real sense of hope. That’s like, yeah. And keep buying my kids vinyl, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So they don’t know this and they probably won’t. sorry. You go.

Colin Ellis (01:12:17.625)
Mm-hmm.

Colin Ellis (01:12:27.087)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It’s a great investment. Yeah, I think. No, I was going to say that the last thing that I’d say, again, picking up on this way, these conversations always go, I think we already we already know what’s harming us. We already know what, you know, kind of would give us greater value in our lives and help us live more fulfilling lives. And then we’re often told.

speakers like us, the gap is between knowing and acting. And actually the gap is envisaging the future and you know really shooting for that. And that doesn’t mean that we reject everything like I play out in the scenario. It means that we embrace the things that add value and we focus only on the value that they can add. But there’s space for everything within that Simon if that makes sense.

Simon Waller (01:13:23.985)
Yeah. Hey, mate, this has been such a joy talking to you. I’m glad that we, you know, like are still in the present where this type of technology is acceptable and we could do this. No, I mean, the alternative would also be great if we were around the campfire with 20 other friends having this conversation. But I fear that it wouldn’t have happened quite so quickly if that was the requirement. And yeah. Hey, thank you so much for sharing.

Colin Ellis (01:13:33.305)
Yeah, me too.

Colin Ellis (01:13:44.291)
Yeah, I agree here.

Simon Waller (01:13:53.037)
or putting the energy into this and sharing your insights. And as a friend, it’s just an absolute joy to spend time with you.

Colin Ellis (01:14:00.493)
You too, my friend. Honestly, this has been so, so much fun to do. And then I get to speak to you at the end of it. It’s been fabulous. Thank you for having me on.

Simon Waller (01:14:09.287)
All right, well, that’s the end of this episode. Thanks again to Col for being with us. And we’ll be back with another episode of The Future with Friends very, very soon. Till then.