My wife and I have been “running interference” for the last few weeks. It will be familiar to parents and grandparents at this time of year. School holidays are still scheduled for the nineteenth century, and the need for children to help on the farm in the run-up to harvest. It doesn’t sit easily with modern work practices, whether at the office or working from home. It has become a lucrative market opportunity, with costs of summer camps and other options running at around £2000 per child (and often far more) for the six weeks of the holidays. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that “running interference” for harassed parents has become an essential grandparenting skill.
We have left notions of planting, growing, harvesting and the importance of fallow periods for recovery far behind us. We have come to regard time as a commodity, and any time that we are not filling it with activity as somehow wasteful and inefficient. The price we pay for farming out our children during their formative years has always struck me as a form of cultural glyphosate almost as toxic as state school curriculum design that measures shallow ideas of performance as more important than the formation of character and independence (Public Schools have rather more options for the well-harvested). I find myself with a profound sense of sadness on one hand and deep anger on the other. We are strangling the conversations that could be taking place, not just with our children, but with others in our community, in these fallow spaces, if we had the opportunity.
For the New Artisan, “fallow” is an essential element of strategy. There is much to be learned, as in so many areas, from our farmers. A field is left fallow when soil, climate, and economics align to make rest more valuable than cropping. Traditionally used to restore fertility, fallowing now manages soil structure, moisture, weeds, and pests, especially in dry regions. It may also reflect low crop prices or conservation policies. Increasingly, farmers use “green fallow” with cover crops or wildflowers, balancing recovery with biodiversity. The decision is always strategic, part of a wider rotation and land management plan. In the current economy, we are a crop. The soil is the culture and community we are part of, and we must pay attention to it.
Sadness and anger will not cut it. We need something altogether more regenerative. Our current workplace culture will not change at a rate that will restore the exhausted, nor grow healthier next generations, whilst our economies remain in thrall to those few whom it disproportionately benefits. If we want to change things, we cannot fight it, but we can use its energy to find ways over, under, around and through the constraints it represents.
“As for the utilisation of heavy arms taken from the enemy, nothing is to be scorned.”
Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Guerrilla Warfare
AI is the current heavy weaponry. Current terminology suggests we have two forms of relationship with it. Cory Doctorow writes
“A centaur is someone whose work is supercharged by automation… A reverse‑centaur is someone who is harnessed to the machine…”
There is a centaur in all of us. It may be carefully corralled at work, but it’s there, and we can exercise it quietly until we are ready to set it free. We have a choice to make as to our relationship with AI.
For the reverse centaur demanded of us at work, we can learn from T.E Lawrence, he of Arabia, in “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, when he noted that, concerning the Hejaz Railway, that “Our ideal was to keep his railway just working, but only just, with the maximum of loss and discomfort.”. It’s not pretty, but it is a survival strategy.
For the Centaur in us, however, it is a different story. My friend Stephen Done is a fan of Mark Rashid, and this quote resonates:
“We needed people who would give the horse the benefit of the doubt in most situations and who would think through a problem with a horse instead of just reacting to it. We wanted people who could think on their feet but who had soft hands and good hearts.”
― Mark Rashid, Horses Never Lie: The Heart of Passive Leadership
As for horses, so for centaurs in their relationship with AI. I have been trying to “tame” AI for a few months now. I have done the courses on prompt engineering and the rest, and found my way around Chat GPT and Claude, and the interesting ability to develop projects and artefacts. And then, as in many cases, Seth Godin, shone a light:
A collection of carefully designed prompts, triggered by a QR code, that enables, in effect, a coaching conversation with a wide range of different people. I received mine yesterday, and I think what he has done is perhaps the tip of an iceberg. On the one hand, it is innovative, engaging and stimulating. On the other hand, the sources are all mainstream authors. It feels more like going to a speaker event than a conversation.
It opens a door. Every one of you reading this could do the same - a curation of the work of those who inspire you, with you as the hub. Not mainstream, but unique and vital to those who engage with you. Somewhere between a book and a 1:1.
One of the biggest constraints most of us face is time. Getting an hour of “fallow time” with others for most of those I talk to and work with is an issue. Seth’s idea, though, offers a glimpse of possibility. Small moments of fallow time that enable ideas to grow and emerge, ready to be planted out when the opportunity arises. The potential for real 1:1 and this form of virtual 1:1 to work in concert is an exciting idea.
I will be working on it and will write about what I find. In the meantime, for those on the Wednesday “Outside the Walls” group, I look forward to talking about this later today.
For those who are not part of the group but would like to see what it’s about, message me. (for the sake of clarity - there is no charge - all we ask is for you to pay with generous attention for the benefit of others)