In South Africa, we don’t carve pumpkins in October. We don’t roast turkeys in November. Halloween and Thanksgiving are not on our very long list of holidays. But we’ve adopted Black Friday and Cyber Monday with the zeal of people with money to burn. Which most of us aren’t.
Perhaps Black Friday is our unofficial Thanksgiving. Buyers give thanks for the discounts on TVs, furniture, home decor, cat food and everything in between.
The art of rebranding
The Philadelphia police coined the term "Black Friday". They used it to describe the traffic jams, shoplifting and general chaos of the day after Thanksgiving. It wasn’t a good day for them.
Retailers rebranded it. Black Friday became the day when stores went from red (losses) to black (profits). They forgot to mention that your bank balance goes from black to red..
Retailers noticed that people did more online shopping at work, where they had faster internet access. And thus Cyber Monday was born.
Now we have weeks of non-stop promotions. All designed to separate you from your money.
It’s good to give thanks
Science says gratitude makes us happier. Retailers say that big TV will make us happier. Who do you believe?
I think it would be better for us to have a day of giving thanks, than a day of non-stop spending. So today I want you to have a reason to be grateful. (Apart from the big TV on special.)
Give thanks for developers
Dr Werner Vogels, CTO and VP of Amazon.com, recently shared his tech predictions for the future.
You’ve heard how developers will become obsolete in the era of AI. But Vogel says this is wrong.
“Time and time again we have seen that lowering the barrier for entry doesn’t eliminate the need for human expertise; it amplifies it. Generative AI lets us generate code in seconds, but if you put garbage in, you get convincing garbage out.”
Tools change, but the fundamentals endure. Creativity, curiosity, and systems thinking will continue to define great developers.
According to Vogel, this is not the end of the developer. This is the dawn of the renaissance developer.
Give thanks for your skills
Black Friday will tempt you with gadgets on sale. But know that your skills are not on sale. But know that your skills are not on sale. Be grateful for them, because they are becoming more valuable, not less.
If you want to spend money, spend it where it really matters. And that’s not a bigger TV.
I’d love to hear your comments.