Thousands of people mirror our cats’ trading strategy
- You did what?
She takes a deep breath while ignoring incoming requests.
- It was just an experiment. I hooked up a trading account with cat cameras and a fancy model I worked on some months ago.
- You were streaming our cats?
- Well, technically, it was not a stream, as camera input only fed the algorithm. I trained a model initiating transactional sequences based on our cats’ behaviour.
Her face stretches with utter disbelief.
- Think of it as assigning different asset classes to different toys, markets to rooms, and activities to types of trade sequences. Randomised by cat-on-cat interactions.
- And?
- Well, I got the training data I needed and forgot about this.
She picks a cat rubbing against her legs, kisses its head and starts stroking its fluffy, grey fur.
- Thousands of people mirror our cats’ trading strategy. I’m ignoring multiple contact requests from everyone who wants to interview the genius behind the top-performing account.
The cat purrs enthusiastically.
- What am I going to tell them? My strategy? Lick yourself, place Mr Fish on the scratcher, puke fluff and go hard on the litter box twice…
- Let me get a drink. How much?
- A hundred.
- No, no, I mean, how much did they make?
- I’m not sure about the exact gains, but more than you would imagine.
- Jesus, so if it was set up for a baby, it could build a trust fund just by shitting and sucking tits.
- This is super random, but technically, it’s just a chain of visual automations… Hmm, remember that finance guy your boss was dating?
Another cat jumps on the counter and tilts its head, looking at the fridge.
- See? They’re already worried you’re going to undersell their IP.
Hello Practical Futurists,
Welcome to your weekly practice, where we use futures thinking and product sci-fi to improve your strategic imagination and get your leadership future-ready.
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Start here to make the most of your time if this is your first
rodeoedition.
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Weekly Self-Reflection Prompts
Let's make the products and services mentioned in this week’s story even more relatable by first grounding them in your personal life.
For extra inspiration, you can use this evergreen brought to you by the titan of industrialisation.
I'm looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done.
Henry Ford
Personal life reflection prompts
Would you let your child, pet or robot vacuum trade stocks in an automated way?
If you could start today, what 3 visAutomations would you use your home cameras for (e.g. restocking the fridge, ordering landscaping, picking a playlist based on your shirt selection)?
Describe a prank you could play on your kids, spouse or housemates.
Well done.
Now, let’s switch to the context of your industry, organisation, or product you are working with.
Professional life reflection prompts
Think of 4 ways visAutomations could further improve your organisation's best-performing offering.
Name 2 upsell, and 2 cross-sell strategies that could revive revenue on dated or underperforming products with a visAutomated service layer.
If you had an opportunity to launch a single visAutomation this year, what would it improve, and how would you measure it?
Name one way you would improve performance tracking across your organisation with visAutomations.
If you think of an industry leader who could lead a consultancy implementing enterprise visAutomations, who would it be?
And that’s all we have today.
If your answers are not under NDA, put them in the comments. This helps us understand what resonates with you so we can explore it further.
Don't forget to explore previous editions if you want even more inspiration.
Have a great week, and see you in the next one.
Pawel Halicki
PS. If you’re enjoying Practical Futures, will you take 5 seconds to forward this edition to inspire a fellow leader?
It helps us to grow the community and may one day empower more strategic thinkers to lead in the age of AI.