Medium Short: Review Time With My Imaginary Boss
A performance appraisal on my last year’s work
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Welcome to the latest Medium Short. In this one I break the weekly pattern to look back on the year’s highlights and numbers. As ever, all my articles are freely available through this link.
A little over a year ago I started the full time adventure of having no idea where my next meal will come from while dreaming of Industrial Healing. I don’t have a boss but today I will pretend I do. In this week’s accountability Short, Imaginary Boss and I look back over the past year.
C’mon now. Say why you’re doing this now. It’s not random.
Right, right. I do so now because I’ve wrapped up the chapter of Creating Matereality and am about to embark on The Next Thing. The highlights of what’s come before will prime me for what’s ahead.
Right. So how’s it been going? What stands out most for you when you look back on the last year or so?
Matereality, prototyped…
In January 2022, I hatched an idea to put “reality” into mainstream ESG materiality, which led to Matereality. The idea is to use a company’s own public communications to illustrate how they are (or aren’t…) contributing to an economy in service of life.
I sketched out a methodology (explained in this video Intro to Matereality in conversation with Dr. Geoff Kendall), and then proceeded to apply it to the first company as a prototype: Google. I released the Google Matereality Assessment on April Fool’s Day 2022 as a little wink of mischief between me and the cosmos, kicking off what was set to be four — but became five — assessments.
I chose Google (and the subsequent four companies I assessed: TDBank, Danone, JBS, and Glencore) because I’ve never worked with them in any commercial context yet they are big and influential in their sectors. I then released the TDBank Matereality Assessment on Canada Day (July 1) 2022, in another little mischievous moment.
