The Power of One

I vividly remember my father working at a large drawing board. I've mentioned this before.

He was a draughtsman. That was a big deal for me. I was in awe.

I watched him imagine, write, draw, measure, scale, design, conceive, and ship the blueprint for an aero engine right there using rulers, drafting pens, and enormous sheets of paper.

That was over half a century ago.

There are still draughtsmen. The tools are different, and their power is off the scale, making me think more about the topic of agency. One person, any of us using our brains, can build something that used to take a company.

Wondering more, thinking faster, strategising better, designing, coding, storifying, packaging, and launching more easily, it's all within our reach if we’ve got the mindset, curiosity, nerve, and reason to care.

It also means we take responsibility for the outcomes. That's a major positive and carries a strong charge of excitement, known as freedom. Working with others, with complementary competencies, to move better and faster to something we can be utterly proud of.

This scale of individual agency could be where we’re headed, whether anyone likes it or not. That's a sign of hope.

It could also mark another positive departure. Those leveraging their lack of skill, lazily applying powerful tools with no regard for value or impact, will be far easier to spot and hopefully embarrassed into improvement.

So, imagine millions of small, more equipped and competent agencies of one. Doing anything that matters and creates benefit. Anything that drives us.

This is what happens when the moment in time and the tools finally match what one capable person could always do.