The Good Thing #1

Hello new readers! (You're all new, this is issue #1 🤣) You're receiving The Good Thing because you said you'd be happy to receive a monthly(ish) email of interesting things. (You may have signed up for 'A Practical Futurist' - and this is that, too.)

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Big Thing

Twenty five years ago this week, Random House published The Playful World: How Technology is Transforming our Imagination. Through the lens of three toys - Lego's Mindstorms, the Furby, and Sony's Playstation 2 (released on the same day as my book) - I explored the frontiers of materials, artificial intelligence and simulation. Toys make those frontiers accessible to the average reader.

From Sherry Turkle's research work with Furbys, I knew that children playing with these toys were learning how the world they would grow up into would operate.

Did my predictions play out? That was the topic of September's column in The Register.

Wonderful Things

Three stories you might have missed that are really quite amazing...

Stem Cells reverse signs of aging in monkeys.

Brazilian researchers reveal drug capable of reversing spinal cord injuries.

Shingles vaccine - protects against heart attacks and strokes, too!

New Things

After a three-year hiatus, my podcast This Week in Startups Australia is back! Listen to the latest episodes here.

My podcast The Next Billion Seconds asks whether AI stands for 'always imperfect'. Listen here.

And my latest column for The Register imagines AI not as a 'bicycle of the mind', but more of a flying car. We're all going to need pilot lessons...

Recent Things

Videos of my keynote 'Thriving in a Time of Exponential Change' at the 2025 Canterbury Tech Summit.

"Both-And Businesses", a short keynote for the ACU co-lab business incubator about how the pandemic re-wrote everything we thought we knew about business.

An appearance on Mamamia's podcast The Quickly, where I addressed the 'internet is dead' conspiracy theory. (It's not. Well, probably not...)

Upcoming Things

SxSW Sydney was amazing and exhausting and a wonderful opportunity to record three great podcasts - with L'Oreal Groupe ANZ CEO Alex Davison, author Abby Bloom and futurist Dr. Catherine Ball. They'll be coming out on The Next Billion Seconds from the 5th of November. Keep an eye out.

If you're coming along to ADAPT's CFO Edge event in Sydney on the 11th of November, I'll be there as one of their experts - come find me and say hi!

If you're a member of the Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand, you'll be seeing me keynote on the 19th of November!

I'll be giving a short, sharp and (hopefully) funny keynote "Nobody Knows Anything (about business)" at Web Directions Next on Friday 21 November. Tickets here.

And I'm really looking forward to delivering the opening keynote at Garden States, on the 28th of November. It's a very cool conference - check it out.

Another Thing

My consultancy Wisely AI recently announced a partnership with the most excellent Kiwi firm SUPAHUMAN.ai. In three years helping organisations use AI safely and wisely I haven't met anyone else with as smart and humble an approach as that of Dave Howden and his crew at SUPAHUMAN. Want to learn more? Dave and I are doing a Zoom webinar on Tuesday the 18th of November, from 12pm - 1pm AEDT. The focus will be on education, but you can come with any of your tough questions on how your organisation can make the most out of AI - and we'll do our best to answer them. Register here.

Free Thing

If you haven't got the 2nd edition of my book Getting Started with AI Chatbots, you can grab it here.

And please, feel free to share The Good Thing. We all need more good things in our lives...

Next Thing

Coming in about a month - with another free book!

Fun Thing

May your life be filled with good things!

Mark