Matter
Volume 1 - Horizontality
Volume 1
/Horizontality
MATTER is a resource for those who seek to understand the forces shaping our industry and our society, those who strive to improve constantly, those filled with curiosity, and those who want to believe in something better.
Forget what's now. MATTER is what's next.
- Matter
- physical substance in general; that which occupies space
- an affair or situation under consideration; a topic
- be of importance; have significance
A Composition
As we pored over content for MATTER's debut issue, we spent a lot of time looking at trends for 2024. We looked at obvious ones (“more genAI!”), controversial ones (“the death of democracy!”), and those that were more mundane (“the merging of strategy and marketing!”). We worked with experts and pragmatic visionaries across the world to create experiential pieces that entice and engage, provoke as they educate, and embolden as they excite. Ultimately, we concluded that there was a common theme across every article— that of horizontality.
In a business context, horizontality can refer to a horizontal organization or to aspects of an organization that spread across the entirety of the company (think: IT and HR which tend to sit in striated layers above the organizational silos or verticals). Within MATTER, we have articles about the distribution of design philosophy, whether AI is coming for your job, and a perspective on the horizontal nature of Customer Journey Orchestration. Additionally, the contributors to this issue span the globe from the United States to New Zealand and Singapore.
We hope you enjoy the inaugural MATTER experience, and it causes you to look again at what you think you recognize and think that you know. You may not agree with everything here, but we would rather engage you than deliver nothing more than you expect. Instead, we want to change what you expect so that, together, we can create futures faster by design.
— The MATTER Editorial Board
Horizontality comes from the Ancient Greek word horízōn, meaning boundary. That's important to us because we are most interested in talking about what is coming, not what is here.
We think that's a problem with a lot of consultancies— too much what is and not enough what if. Here, in MATTER, we want to look beyond the horizon. So many dreams of the future failed to materialize (ahem, jetpacks) but we should never stop trying to build the future that we deserve.
Features
A.I. Won't Take Your Job - Someone Who Uses A.I. Will
Can those who fear being sidelined by artificial intelligence find any comfort in past Industrial Revolutions?
Invisible Design: Driving Deliberate Dilution
Can design– and designer– evolve to create a future where the work fades into invisibility?
The Enigma of Customer Journey Orchestration
If we don't fully understand the emotions and expectations driving the behaviors of our target audience, how can we engender loyalty?
SuperApps and Super Experiences
While ascendant in APAC, have SuperApps met their kryptonite in the West?
Customers Don't Care About Your Complexity
Whatever your organizational complexity, your customers aren't interested in excuses. They just want magic.
Mind the Gap or Jump Straight into It?
How are business gaps related to a oncoming global talent shortage?
Is Hyper-personalization a White Whale?
What if hyper-personalization isn’t the optimal evolution of personalization? An agent-driven future that exchanges explicit for inferred may be a superior adaptation.
Digital Trust Does Not Exist
In the new world order, will trust become the currency of choice for personal and professional success?