It's been a "supply chain" kinda week.
Has your life been impacted by a disrupted supply chain? Let's normalize that!
Hello from blustery Toronto! 👋🌧
Fall has descended and the two week window where I can wear my leather jacket has passed - again.
Here’s the second edition of Subject to Change, where I share with you a collection of interesting bits and bobs that have been on my mind the past week.
Lately my life has been consumed by an interesting project that involved making graphics for a university course on supply chain networks. (Apparently the concept of networked supply chains is relatively new.) What I liked was the approach of the course, which asks students to investigate and improve upon supply chain networks using the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals as goalposts for innovation. What a wonderful lens to use as a focus for innovation. Because, let's face it, not all innovations are good for us.
This summer we were impacted by a peculiar shortage of home appliances, which offered me some insight in to the world of supply chains. Wanting to update a 10-year old dishwasher, I learned that some models would take over 2 months to arrive! Other less-desirable models were available within a week, however, I am quite picky with appliances so I opted to wait two months instead.
At the end of the day, I wouldn’t say I was greatly inconvenienced. I think it’s good sometimes to have to wait for something.
(Yes, I’m a “delayed gratification” kinda person.)
🧠 Thought: Supply chain disruptions as signal to change
On the topic of supply chains, I heard on the radio the other day that a paint company in the Netherlands is running out of essential ingredients to make certain tints of blue. What if those ingredients never recovered? What if we had to live in a world where those colours couldn't be made anymore? I think we'd adapt to it and choose similar colours, or cycle the unavailable colours out of the branding of things. I don't think the world would come to an end though.
✍️ Essay: 1% mastery
I have a fascination with mastery. There is something so pure about learning a skill which brings out the growing human in us all. I set out to write what it means to reach 1% mastery, and made some fun graphics for it as well.
💡 From elsewhere: “Remote vs. Distributed”
The pandemic ushered in an era of work-from-home (WFH) for many. As non-essential offices and workplaces were shut down worldwide, companies previously resistant to the idea were forced to make the transition. IT supply chains were strained for the first couple of months as we all were making the switch.
However, switching to remote work takes more than a couple of IT heavy lifts. While most companies that did the switch over the past 1.5 years are doing "remote work", there's another category of companies who are remote-first, meaning that they never ever had an office to begin with. These companies are set up for "distributed work", and function quite differently from those just doing "remote work".
Paolo Belcastro, a fellow Write of Passage alum, is living the "distributed work" life at Automattic (the company behind wordpress.com), and wrote a piece outlining the difference between the two.
⚓️ Quote from book I'm reading
Currently reading: A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
This week's quote, in contrast with the long quote from last week, is short and sweet:
The land which is best for agriculture happens to be best for building too. But it is limited--and once destroyed, it cannot be regained for centuries.
The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is full of examples where A+ farmland was paved over to make way for single family homes. As supply chains become more unreliable, making 🍊oranges from Spain, 🥬lettuce from California, and 🧄garlic from China less viable, we will find ourselves wishing we hadn't squandered this precious resource so easily.
That’s it! 🎉 You've reached the end of Newsletter #2.
Thanks for reading and until next week,
🌬Stay safe and stay curious.
So true about supply chain issues! The pandemic has put a spotlight on this weak link. We really need to step back and think and grow locally as much as possible. Greenhouses, vertical farms in abandoned office buildings, rooftop gardens, etc. can and should be encouraged in all cities. This will help reduce our carbon footprint as well.