#outsight

You never surrender to your lover. You both agree to be obliterated by love until you become higher functioning creatures, born of the world, of the egg. A surreal shift in perception in which infinity in a grain of sand is apparent to you everywhere you look. Insight and outsight. Janus vision. You dig?

OUTSIGHT, Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada mural in Laon, France

Interrupting the status quo is something we associate with Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada. From “culture jamming,” where he employed marketing strategies to call attention to the detrimental social impact of targeted advertising or the “Identity Series,” where he utilized random locals in massive charcoal drawings, he is using art as resistance. The same is true of his current “Outsight” project in Laon,…

3D Camera Will Support Autonomy in Self Driving Cars

A company has been at work developing a novel 3D camera that will help autonomous cars better identify ice and other potential roadside hazards, therefore making self-driving cars safer. Outsight has recently revealed their new self driving car camera, the 3D Semantic Camera. The camera uses

מצלמה תלת מימדית תתמוך באוטונומיה ברכבים

חברה פיתחה מצלמה תלת מימדית חדשה, המאפשרת לרכבים אוטונומיים לזהות קרח וסכנות אחרות על כביש, כך שהמצלמה מסייעת להגביר את רמת הבטיחות ברכבים אוטונומיים. החברה Outsight הציגה לאחרונה את מצלמת הרכב החדשה שלה, ה-3D Semantic Camera. המצלמה משתמשת בלייזרים אינפרה אדומים, שמסוגלים לסרוק מאות מטרים קדימה

That giant retail bookstore many of us used to frequent?

The one that folded back in 2011?

Here are the five reasons Time Business Insider says Borders doesn’t exist in the strip malls of America anymore.

It was too late to the web

It was too late to e-books

It opened too many stores

It had too much debt

It was over-invested in music sales (in CD form, when everything was going digital).

Makes complete business sense.

But I’m going to conjecture a deeper leadership issue.

There was a failure of an essential leadership practice.

Lack of vision because of a failure to practice outsight.

What is on your current horizon?

If you can’t see it, then you should begin looking outside of yourself for answers. Don’t continue driving into the fog.  That’s a fool's errand, ending in disaster.

If you don’t have clear vision, stop now and get it.

Here’s the scary part.

You also need to make sure the vision you have is not a mirage. Some short-sighted executive at Borders probably gave a report about all of the potential CDs they’d be able to sell in 2020.

They would have been better off investing in vinyl. 

I am not a competitor.

In fact, I am aggressively not a competitor. When in a room of competitors, I let them contend while I play another game. If it comes down to winning and losing, I will let you win. Because I don’t care about winning. Not like that.

And I particularly don’t care about winning when the person next to me cares about winning. Turns out, it’s my own passive-aggressive way of dealing with irritation.

Which makes me an irritant. It goes both ways.

Irritants and frustrations come in many forms. But let’s be honest. The “form” is usually that of a person.

So we either ignore the person or we fight them. Call them out. Tell them they’re annoying. Swear at them under our breath out loud in a room of people.

This is not good outsight.

Imagine the person who is your life’s greatest irritation. The frustrating one who is always angry. Or always happy. The person who constantly complains. Or who never complains but who subversively undermines.

The person who constantly wants to compete with you. Or the person who refuses to compete with you.

What does this person have to teach you?

This is a radically different approach than what I’ve taken in the past. I’ve made the error on both sides: ignore and swear at. Neither of which exudes empathy and learning.

The practice of outsight is the practice of empathy. It’s learning from others.

And empathy is a practice. Just as irritation is a practice. Competition is a practice.

Outsight is a practice.

One of the greatest privileges I’ve had in my single, wild life is the privilege to live and interact cross-culturally. The lessons learned about self, life, and the world far exceeds any of the minor (well, sometimes major) inconveniences of living in a foreign place.

This is how I learned one of my most devastating lessons of self-awareness.

I walked into my office one day and two of the local staff members were having a conversation. I understood enough language to strategically eavesdrop. They were discussing the foreign (i.e., American) staff which particularly caught my attention.

Realizing I was in the room, one staff member (who remains one of my best friends) turned to me and asked this questions:

"Why do Americans think we are not capable of doing anything for ourselves?"

Whoa.

As I let the words translate into English and sink into my soul, I realized this was one the most significant questions I’d been asked in my eight years living cross-culturally. I still think about that question a lot.

Westerners tend to dominate and control their aid and service, to the point of belittlement and even dehumanization. And, because of good intentions, we never know it.

Outsight is essential. Insight would never allow most to see what my friend felt. We’re just not that self-aware.

The outsight I received that day changed my life.

You don’t have to live in another country to practice this. Globalization is - well - a global phenomenon. Seek outsight from a culture that is not your own. And you likely won’t have to look any further than your own neighborhood. Ask honest questions of people who don’t share your ethnicity, religion, nationality, or values.

Not only will this give you an unprecedented understanding of the world around you, but you might also make friends with folks who are not like you.

The age of change has passed. We now live in an age of disruption. It’s the one constant - and it doesn’t matter your business.

Books and publishing is an easy industry to track disruption. It wasn’t all that long ago when every mall in the country had a Walden Bookstore or a Borders. Many of those same malls may have had other bookstores, as well.

Now finding a bookstore anywhere can be difficult. Especially one with the soothingly familiar names of the large chains - with huge selections and regular sales.

They could no longer compete.

Most bookstores were not able to figure out new ways of thinking about their business models and marketing. They lacked any real outsight and most of the major chain bookstores faded in the west, as the bright sun of Amazon rose in the East.

The Rise of the Indies

But a few did figure it out. I frequent a local bookstore who has partnered with a local bakery. Books are full price and there is a limited selection that is quite intentional. They curate local authors, cookbooks, children’s and YA books. The feature books that their staff likes. They encourage reading. They don’t try to do everything. But they do a few things. And they do those few things well.

Sure, no bookstore can compete with Amazon’s inventory. Which means they can’t compete with Amazon’s price. But, selection and price are not always the most valuable commodities in this brave new world we find ourselves.

Connection is rare.

And increasingly valuable.

Amazon has no capacity to compete with the experience I had yesterday with a coffee and a ginger cookie and having a conversation with an employee about the astounding artwork I found in a beautifully bound children’s fairy tale.

I’ll pay for that experience. And based on how many people were in this store on a Tuesday afternoon, I’m not alone.

Someone practiced outsight. Outsight is required in a world defined by change. Every business - every non-profit - is susceptible to disruption. In fact, the current disruptors are susceptible to disruption.

Good leaders are looking to the horizon. They are asking questions about what’s coming. The storms that are brewing. They are connecting the disparate dots and listening to diverse perspectives. Ear to the ground. Trying new things, new models, new marketing. Asking great questions.

Practice outsight where ever you are. Outsight can’t happen in a vacuum (insight can) or even a boardroom. When you begin thinking outside of what you know - you become the one bringing new ideas to the table. The new disruptor.