Alf Rehn

Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷

"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit […] and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit."

Not often I get to say this, but: OK, I'm off to Greenland!

GiscardPunk - late 70's and 1980's technosolutionist France (synthwave edit)

Still into steampunk or afrofuturism? You're so behind the curve it's not even funny anymore. All the cool kids are into GiscardPunk now.

youtu.be/KKhnDzRgsW8

Sometimes you just write for the joy of it – this was one! I’ve written on pop culture and management before but this piece might be my wildest yet: leadership and management as part of pro wrestling. Includes playacted anilingus, because of course it does.

🌀 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Inside the Tony Blair Institute - New Statesman Who really benefits from the former PM’s tech evangelism?

Fascinating read on the Tony Blair Institute and the cozy relationship it seems to have with Oracle. Might be extra interesting for Finns, as this is where the former PM went to work.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Mars Petcare and People magazine redefine masculinity with new Sexiest Cat Dad category Temptations partners with People to spotlight Cat Dads, tapping into shifting values around caregiving, emotional intelligence and masculinity.

Well, masculinity needs to develop with the times…

(But why is there no Grumpiest Cat Dad-category? Both our cats would vote for me in that category...)

www.trendwatching.com/innovations/...

#12 – The 5-Minute Innovator: The Double Diamond This is part of a series, "The 5-Minute Innovator", which describes concepts and theories in the field of innovation without jargon and in no more than 1200 words, which you can read in five minutes without being a speed-reader.

On my Substack – Creative Class Contrarian – I continue with the more educational, and often snarky, explanations and analyses of common innovation terms, models, and tropes.

alfrehn.substack.com/p/12-the-5-m...

RIP Robert Redford.

#11 – The New New Newsletter - by Alf Rehn “Mathematics—this may surprise you or shock you some—is never deductive in its creation.

New format for my Substack, yet the snark remains. Now with curious curation and a very angry essay.

alfrehn.substack.com/p/11-the-new...

Kiistelty lista Ruotsin kulttuurin merkkiteoksista julkaistiin – ”Suomessa tällaista ei tehtäisi”, sanoo professori | Kulttuuricocktail | Yle Ruotsissa koottiin hallituksen esityksestä lista sadasta tärkeimmästä kulttuuri-ilmiöstä. Kohuttu projekti kertoo suomalaisprofessorin mukaan poliittisen kentän muutoksesta.

Kommentoin (vähän) Ruotsin ja Tanskan "kulttuurikaanoneja" ja näiden roolia. Ainakin sain hieman suitsuttaa Carl Barksia!

yle.fi/a/74-20181987

KFC Jelly Beans Turn Fried Chicken and Gravy Into ‘Sweet’ Treats | Yardbarker Like Bruce Wayne putting on his Caped Crusader suit when he sees the Bat-Signal, like Rohan answering the Beacons of Gondor, I have been summoned. I too will rise to the challenge.

Finally! Jellybeans that taste like gravy, sweet corn, and gravy, for when KFC doesn't give you diabetes quite quickly enough! Thanks, #innovation!

www.yardbarker.com/lifestyle/ar...

My Job as a Parent Is to Make My Kids’ Lives a Little Harder | The Walrus Obstacle parenting is about cultivating focus and endurance, two skills lost in the ChatGPT era

Charming piece on "obstacle parenting", which I suspect will go megaviral. Expect a book deal, parents misinterpreting this in awful ways, and a backlash.

thewalrus.ca/my-job-as-a-...

Hanna Kuusela, Leena Niemistö and Alf Rehn selected to the Uniarts Helsinki Board | Uniarts Helsinki The University Collegium has appointed three new members from outside the Uniarts Helsinki community for a four-year term from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2029. The newly selected members are Hanna…

Happy and proud (with a side-order of humbled) to have been selected to serve on the board of directors of University of the Arts Helsinki, home to the Academy of Fine Arts, the world-renowned Sibelius Academy and the Theatre Academy.

www.uniarts.fi/en/articles/...

Stop AI-Shaming Our Precious, Kindly Em Dashes—Please - The Ringer Human writers have always used the em dash. In fact, it’s the most human punctuation mark there is.

A powerful, and needed, defense of the em-dash in writing, as well as an exposé of how people think it's a special sign of AI writing are uncultured buffoons.

www.theringer.com/2025/08/20/p...

Elon Musk Is So Unpopular, He May Be Hurting the Entire EV Industry Liberals are losing interest in all EVs, thanks to Musk.

Imaging being so unpleasant a person that you manage to turn people against an entire industry. It's almost impressive.

gizmodo.com/elon-musk-is...

Is Banksy a woman, and patriarchy just refuses to see it? I'm not sure I buy the argument completely, but there are some pretty solid points made here.

RIP Ozzy.

Observing ChatGPT Agent trying and failing to navigate Microsoft's ridiculous UI and security clusterfuck, and it honestly looks exactly like what I imagine the future's going to be – clumsy IT-systems frustrating other clumsy IT-systems.

So, it seems I'm going to go see Bob Dylan in October. That's nice! Did want to see the man before it get late, too late.

#10 – The 5-Minute Innovator: Social Innovation This is part of a series, "The 5-Minute Innovator", which describes concepts and theories in the field of innovation without jargon and in no more than 1200 words, which you can read in five minutes without being a speed-reader.

Innovation never sleeps, nor does it take any holidays. Here's the latest issue of my #innovation Substack. This time it's social innovation, in five (5!) minutes (or less).

alfrehn.substack.com/p/10-the-5-m...

Just saw Superman with the young son. Sheer. Cinema. Joy. Run, don’t walk, to see this!

Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The dissonance is real | Well actually | The Guardian If everything feels broken but strangely normal, the Soviet-era concept of hypernormalization can help

Hypernomalization. Learn the term, learn about it, learn to use it. It will be one of the defining terms of this era. Hypernormalization.

www.theguardian.com/wellness/ng-...

#9 – Has Innovation Gone Out of Fashion? - by Alf Rehn TL;DR: Innovation hasn’t died – but it has lost the plot.

Out now, and so am I. Out of here, that is! Time for some R&R.

alfrehn.substack.com/p/9-has-inno...

#8 – The 5-Minute Innovator: Open Innovation - by Alf Rehn This is part of a series, "The 5-Minute Innovator", which describes concepts and theories in the field of innovation without jargon and in no more than 1200 words, which you can read in five minutes without being a speed-reader.

Just shared the latest issue of my Substack.
alfrehn.substack.com/p/8-the-5-mi...

Off to an ephemera-conference on algorithmic organizing at CBS. Such is my rock'n'roll lifestyle.

On the road again. Tomorrow I will be speaking at the NATO StratCom-conference in Riga, about thinking the impossible and the chaos magic necessary to see ten years into the future. As a warm-up I’m mainlining Grant Morrisson-penned comics.

RIP Sly

Is Jordan Peterson Just Making It Up as He Goes? | The Walrus The culture war’s favourite prophet can’t finish a straight thought

Interesting take on Jordan Peterson, arguing that he, in the end, is just a sloppier version of the caricatured postmodernism he decries.

"Peterson is someone who believes “a woman is a woman” but will also insist that dragons are every bit as valid as lions."

thewalrus.ca/is-jordan-pe...

Let's remember that it's Pride Month, and keep it civil. Two aging queens are having a messy breakup, so what? Unlove is unlove.