I’ve spent the last 20 years on a quest to better understand what drives individual and group behaviour - tracing human history, our evolving philosophies, the civilizations we’ve formed and the ramifications of our choices leading up to now.

As a generalist, I find it difficult to explain my expertise and it wasn’t until I came across Ella Saltmarshe’s TED talk did I realize that I wasn’t alone in my thinking.

As the saying goes, ‘the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know’. One hopes of course that the depth and breadth of that accumulated knowledge exceeds that of narrow-focused specialization.

As humans, we evolve not only to inherit wisdom for its own sake, but ideally to apply that wisdom as we progress forward into the unknown of our collective future. The best decisions are always informed ones.

A thought occurred to me while witnessing Philae make contact with the 67P comet. Economists, entrepreneurs, marketers, and cosmologists seem to share a similar philosophy; that of blending art and science to minimize risk in order to maximize success during exploration and discovery - the pioneer spirit.

It seems with all our success in agriculture and industrialization driven by personal security and self-preservation, we haven’t let go of our primal urge to risk everything in exchange for that euphoric experience only discovery can provide.

Sometimes birds of the same feather can do profoundly great things together.

- DP