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The Newsletter | Edition 101
Progress Report is dedicated to providing inspiration for action. In our Off-White Papers, we provide practical guidance on how to respond to our rapidly-changing world. This newsletter explores those topics in real-time, with information and action steps on how to make progress now.

IN TODAY'S NEWSLETTER...
The digital world is not built for nuance: 140 characters, clickbait headlines, 30 sec TikToks, short attention spans. But our tendency toward black or white has led us to a dangerous place. Will nuance always be at odds with online content, conversation, and community? What can we all do to build nuance into our everyday interactions and strategic thinking?
  1. Reclaim your brainpower, from Chloe Sutter
  2. Take cues from pop icons, from Kelly Adachi
  3. Expand your palette, from Cara Lohman

500 SHADES OF GRAY

From Chloe Sutter

TL;DR

Black-and-white thinking is a means of protecting our brains from the overwhelm of digital media flooding our feeds each day — but ignoring the gray causes more harm than good.


WHY IT MATTERS

I’ve gotten more “STOP! You’ve been scrolling for TOO LONG!” TikTok notifications that I’d like to admit — and I’m not alone. As of 2022, global social media users were active for over two hours daily, scrolling through endless amounts of photo, video, and text content at breakneck speed. The effects are profound: Eric Schmidt, former CEO and Executive Chairman of Google/Alphabet, stated “I worry about the level of interrupt, the sort of overwhelming rapidity of information… is in fact affecting cognition. It is affecting deeper thinking.” While black-and-white thinking is a protective mechanism against this constant stream of information, ultimately, these binary filters cause more harm than good by increasing our misery, fueling our anxiety, and making us feel bad about ourselves.

ONE THING YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW

Grow comfortable in the gray.

GETTING STARTED

  • Do away with absolutes. Rid your vocabulary of absolute language: the “always” and the “nevers,” the “good” and the “bad,” the “best” and the “worst.”
  • Touch grass. Get offline, have real in-person conversations, create space to explore, and sit with the discomfort of the unknown and uncategorized — whether in your professional or personal life. “The 36 Questions That Lead to Love” are coming back, you know.
  • Prioritize listening. Practice active listening to tap into the verbal and non-verbal subtleties around you. People think about four times faster than other people talk, so it’s important to curb the desire to prepare your response while another person is talking.

BEYONCÉ, BARBIE, AND TAYLOR SWIFT: MASTERS OF NUANCE

From Kelly Adachi

TL;DR

This past summer was dubbed #BillionGirlSummer, with Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie leading a pop-culture surge that resulted in $8.5 billion of US growth and record-smashing ticket sales. While these cultural moments were undoubtedly massive money-making machines, their real power was based in nuanced storytelling.


WHY IT MATTERS

The success of these three cultural powerhouses is in part because they satiate our collective desire for nuanced narratives. Beyoncé, Taylor, and Barbie refuse to be defined as one thing. Taylor's tour is centered around celebrating her many eras — from country starlet, to pop icon, to folk singer, and back again. Barbie is simultaneously a summer blockbuster comedy, a marketing vehicle for Mattel, and an art house film, with a heroine that symbolizes both unrealistic beauty standards and feminism. Spoiler alert: She quite literally refuses to be put inside a box. On stage, Beyoncé riffs through the highs and lows of her 20-year emotional journey, including her rise to fame, experience as a mother, and rebirth as a dancefloor goddess. For folks starved of nuance, these cultural moments were safe spaces to revel in the complexity of being human — with idols they can relate to.

ONE THING YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW

Start within. Define and embrace your many eras.

TIPS

  • Create your personal timeline. The starting point can be anything of your choosing — from your birth, the beginning of your career, or the start of last summer. What do the “eras” of your life look like? What era are you in today?
  • Reframe the lows. Plot the highs and lows of your emotional journey. Could your latest low point fuel your next creative renaissance? Take a page out of Taylor’s book and shake it off.
  • Evolve and experiment. Don’t be afraid to venture into new hobbies, styles, and trends. They could be the centerpiece of your next era.

THE BINARY OF THE BIVALVE

From Cara Lohman

TL;DR

Diving into nuance and complexity is a lot like sampling oysters — it might be daunting and a bit uncomfortable, but if you keep an open mind, you might just find a pearl.


WHY IT MATTERS

This past weekend I met a professional oyster farmer who told me that when she tells people what her job is, they often exclaim “Oh, I HATE oysters.” This struck me, as oysters are one of those foods that people love to hate. In fact, they are one of the most hated foods in America (next to black licorice and anchovies!). But did you know that oysters are like fine wine? With over 150 varieties of oysters harvested in America alone, oysters contain nuanced flavors and unique textures. And yet, oysters are often dismissed as salty, slimy, and weird-looking.

Humans are instinctively wired towards self-preservation, avoiding danger and seeking out what’s familiar. This can make nuance threatening because it challenges our existing beliefs. But by embracing nuance, we can broaden our horizons, strengthen our understanding, and tell richer stories.

ONE THING YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW

Be willing to try the oysters!

TIPS

  • Invite a friend. On your next project, team up with someone with differing experiences, thinking styles, or perspectives than your own.
  • Add a little extra flavor. When building a narrative, we tend to rely on statistics and percentages to tell a concrete story, but they often lack the detail and richness that brings a story to life. Where can you strategically deploy nuance: adding quotes, anecdotes, and specific examples?
  • But don’t get lost in the sauce. Beware of nuance rabbit holes, which can make your thinking vague, complex, or drawn out. Ask yourself: Can I explain my perspective in the time it takes to ride an elevator? Does my thinking answer the original brief, or has it drifted too far? When in doubt, invite others to ruthlessly edit.

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