Roll on Summer....
The mercury is rising and yet again the school term seems to have gone in a flash
Dear Friends,
In this week’s edition:
How to handle your staffs’ side-hustles
Are we seeing the rise of platonic parenting?
The 1950s aren’t over for the ultra-wealthy
In a break from normal service I’m not bringing you an essay this week for the simple reason that I’ve been too busy traveling. Over the course of a couple of weeks I spoke at events, dinners and conferences in Paris, Hamburg, Zurich, Istanbul, and Paris again.
Luckily, the furthest I’ll be travelling in the next four months is to the English countryside for a writing retreat and family holiday (can I do both?!) to make serious progress on my upcoming book. If you do feel in need of a Filby fix, you can find me in the Financial Times speaking about on young leadership, and in the Mirror on why we should put e-sports on the national curriculum. I also appear on the Apella Advisors podcast, discussing how communications agencies need to consider different generations.
Below is the striking venue for my talk at the New Work Future conference in Hamburg.
Welcome to the new subscribers to this newsletter, what a privilege to grace your inbox. I don’t take it for granted. Stick around and you’ll find all my latest insights, essays and research into how generational evolution is changing the way we think, work and live.
It’s All Relative: New Bonus Episode
I sit down with writer, campaigner and educator Jeffrey Boakye to discuss the intersection of race and education. Race is inescapable when it comes to our education system; 86% of teachers are white even though 1 in 4 primary school pupils are from an ethnic minority and 1 million school children speak a language other than English as a first language. Jeffrey talks personally about the challenges of being a black teacher in a white system. Crucially, Jeffrey addresses what needs to be discussed and explored not only in our schools and in our businesses but across society at large. This is a MUST listen episode for anyone interested in diversity, teaching and history. Jeffrey goes deep on how we can all talk about racial differences in a way that is constructive and reflective rather than built on fear and a misreading of our past. You can buy Jeffrey Boakye’s book here.
The Reading Room:
One salary no longer makes sense, especially in this economic climate. So Side Hustles are inevitable, but how should employees frame them and how should employers deal with it? And what happens when influencers go back to their day jobs?
The ultimate commute? New York rents are so high that this intern actually commutes to the city by plane, and saves money.
Rise of platonic parenting. Why more people are embracing co-parenting arrangements over traditional relationships.
Is there an app for that? To fight gender inequalities, the Spanish government is launching an app so people can log the time they spend on household chores. The Minister of Equality Irene Montero has created the "Household Equality" app to address the issue of gender imbalance in domestic chores in the country. The app allows users to record household tasks, with the hope that it would promote transparency and accountability within the household. That this is a state initiative speaks volumes about Spanish men…..I am also somewhat sceptical about its potential success.
Ultra-wealthy heterosexual couples are living like the 1950s never ended, according to research of 30 years of data. Researches found that 53% of super rich heterosexual couples had arrangements in which the woman was not gainfully employed, compared with 27% of rich couples, 20% of upper-middle-class couples and 26% of less affluent couples.
Dr Filby’s Prescription:
LISTENING: Buying Time Is ageing a disease we can cure? This podcast explores the use of gene therapy to reverse ageing.
WATCHING: Euan Blair reflecting on - and rejecting - his father’s famous commitment to Education, Education, Education and the value of undergraduate degrees.
READING: New York Times’ Bestseller, The Nineties.
VISITING: ‘tis the summer party season, where are all my invites?!?
And finally,
Via economic historians Michael Huberman and Chris Minns, this chart shows that average working hours declined dramatically for workers in early-industrialized economies over the last 150 years (Germans are the biggest winners). What have we done with all that spare time?
Thanks for reading,
Eliza