Coronavirus

1. Hotel occupancy is 100% back to 2000-2020 avg 2. Manhattan subway ridership isn't even 40% back to 2019 levels. ... putting these stats in my Hot Take File under "travel bounced back to normal, but (especially urban, white-collar) work has changed for good"

The age of anti-ambition. Doing the bare minimum, retiring early and idling for pleasure is increasingly aspirational as a new generation opts out of productivity culture and an unhealthy obsession with success.

Gradually, then Suddenly retail edition The graph below is of US ecommerce penetration “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” — Vladimir Lenin

I’ve landed in Hong Kong after flying from Paris CDG, via London Heathrow. I now have to wait ~8 hours before I get my #COVID19 test results and thus have ample time to tweet about my experience.

1/OK, let's talk about the COLLEGE APOCALYPSE. Coronavirus, with a bit of help from Trump, is going to smash the U.S. university system. And it's going to smash the economic model that has sustained college towns.

The Great Reclamation: I am losing track of the number of cities that have moved suddenly and ambitiously to reclaim hundreds of kilometres of streets from the car monopoly and reallocate these public commons for people walking, cycling and using wheelchairs. 1/n

When behavior shifts radically, companies with “responsive instrumentation” (vertical integration, digital touch points, focus) can adjust real-time to deliver on brand promises. Adaptability → “Reassurance” → Accumulating Advantage. Ex: Lululemon’s “Reassurance Multiple”

The Vox Doctrine Media companies are profiting from a crisis they helped create. Vox/Recode dismissed the pandemic, scorned precautions, told you not to wear masks, even attacked philanthrophy! Now they're setting traffic records. Need citizen journalism, not corporate media.

For the last few years, we were all wondering what the next platform would be after mobile, that would enable new social networks to emerge. However, that catalyst won't be a new device—but instead, it will be widespread behavioral change. The conditions could never be better: