Good morning friends,
The upcoming weekend is going to be a whirlwind of Vegan Society AGM and meetings spliced by a speaking opportunity at the UK's FairTrade conference. So as I prepare to head to the UK, I'm delighted to share these 5 social tips, treats, talking points and tit-bits, all of which I've come across or rediscovered over the past 2 weeks. Please enjoy!
1. 1 Vegan vs 20 Meat Eaters - I enjoyed this debate greatly, appreciating not only the argumentation but also the manner with which Dr Jack Symes approached the wildly differing (and oftentimes hilarious) lines of attack from his carnivorous opposition. Grab yourself a plant-based treat and tuck in!
2. Eat beef or ask ChatGPT 64 million questions: how bad really is AI for the environment? - Like any conscientious citizen, I am concerned about the environmental impacts of AI. But is it really that bad? New research (conducted by me and AI 🤖) has found that taking 1 transatlantic flight has the same overall environmental footprint as making 4.1 million prompts. Eating beef has the same water footprint as making 64 million prompts. The take-away? Don't beat yourself up for using AI... at least from an environmental perspective - there are far more important lifestyle changes you can make!
3. Rent a Human - Talking of AI... this elicited something akin to a barf when I received an email with this new software. Rent a Human elicited a whole host of sociological questions for me. While marketplaces of humans available to carry out task-based work is not new, this particular evolution is much more fascinatingly horrifying. The platform's 'rentable humans' gestures towards a flip in the paradigm, where AI is no longer what we humans delegate to, but the agent and Chief of Staff that delegates to another humans.
4. DoneThat, GetViktor, Claude Cowork - I've been experimenting with 3 leading AI tools over the past fortnight. I'll give DoneThat 4 stars for now: it tracks how and on what you're working, makes sense of it, suggests tips for being more productive, and conducts automatic time-tracking. As someone who spends their day working across 4-5 different projects, it's really quite enlightening to see how my time is actually spent! What about GetViktor and Claude Cowork? Both agentic AI that I've been experimenting with to build autonomous workflows. GetViktor sits in Slack and does... practically anything you ask it. In fact, so can Claude Cowork, but Viktor has a bit more personality. They can write you a blog post, publish it to LinkedIn, upload it to your website all in one click (for instance); or scan your email inbox, work out what emails need follow-ups, draft you the replies in your voice and save them to your drafts folder (or send them directly if you wanted). If you're a charity, why not let them scan your website, scan the web, send a list of 3 new grants every morning, pre-draft the proposal and prepare a nice friendly email? You simply review and click send. The options are pretty endless within the realms of your desktop. GetViktor gets 3 stars (it's nice, but I stopped after the free trial as it's just too pricy). Claude Cowork is far more affordable and does pretty much the same thing. 4.5 stars?
5. Weighted Factor Models: I confess, I hadn't come across this until recently, but have fallen in love. This framework (which takes a bit to get your head round and build on excel) brings more objective clarity to key decision-making. By listing all your options, creating a set of evaluation criteria, giving these a weighting, then assessing your options by these weighted criteria and calculating an overall score, you really see beyond your preconceived ideas and presumption. I built a template you can access and copy here. If you want to see a live draft I did for the Gaza Food Project, click here.
📣 Opportunities from me and my network
💚 Donate to support community-led kitchens in Gaza via the Gaza Food Project. .
💻 Looking for a website hosting? Visit Circular Design, our non-profit web agency.
🥦 Become a Vegan Society Member for free if you’re under 26!
📖 Order your copy of Remnants of War, Migration, Love by Taha Salim.
⭐️ Know someone critically-minded? I’d love to nominate them for Aspen Rising Leaders.
That’s it for this fortnight! As ever, please let me know your thoughts and feedback – and send anything you’d like me to include in upcoming editions this way.
