Use #Mindcandy as a strategic sensing engine to help leadership teams identify the signals they are missing. It fuels the strategic conversation about what is next. DM “SESSION” if you want to find out more.
The Sea Squirt problem
The sea squirt starts life swimming through the ocean, searching for somewhere to settle. Once it finds a suitable rock, it attaches itself permanently. Then it eats its own brain. It no longer needs the machinery required to navigate its environment.
Organisations can do something remarkably similar. When they are young, they watch customers, competitors, technology and culture closely. They experiment. They question assumptions. They listen to people at the edges because survival depends on understanding what is changing. Then they become successful. Processes harden. Exploration looks inefficient. Dissent becomes inconvenient. Customer research gets cut. Strategy becomes increasingly internal.
And slowly starts eating its own brain. The Sea Squirt Problem makes the case for treating your “perception apparatus” as infrastructure rather than overhead. That becomes even more important in an AI-accelerated world. When the environment is changing faster, your ability to sense weak signals, challenge assumptions, and update your worldview becomes strategic infrastructure. Protect it most fiercely precisely when success makes you think you no longer need it.
- https://mikefisher.substack.com/p/the-sea-squirt-problem
The future fitness move
Audit your organisational sensing infrastructure. Look at customer intelligence, external networks, experimentation, dissent, scenario work, and frontline feedback. Then identify where efficiency has gradually replaced curiosity.
The other prompts:
What Does the Future of Technology-Driven Farming Look Like
Today, farms can use GPS guidance, sensors, satellite imagery, connected machinery, automation, drones, artificial intelligence, and data platforms to monitor conditions and support everyday decisions
https://pctechmag.com/2026/10/what-does-the-future-of-technology-driven-farming-look-like/
Despite The Hype, Innovation Isn’t Getting Any Faster. Here’s Why:
Innovation isn’t an event, but a process of discovery, engineering and transformation—and it’s the last part that takes the longest.
https://digitaltonto.com/2026/despite-the-hype-innovation-isnt-getting-any-faster-heres-why/
Google DeepMind Gives AI-Designed Proteins a Watermark
Biosecurity is an obvious concern. But there’s another problem too: biological AI slop. AI-generated structures could pollute the databases scientists rely on to test theories or tweak protein functions. AI-designed proteins could soon carry a watermark..
https://singularityhub.com/2026/10/05/google-deepmind-gives-ai-designed-proteins-a-watermark/
Superpowers Race to Put Nuclear Reactors on the Moon
In late August, NASA asked contractors to prepare to build a nuclear reactor that could survive a space voyage and run without maintenance near the moon’s south pole. That may sound like science fiction, but the agency wants it ready to be launched by December 2030.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/04/world/asia/nuclear-reactors-moon.html
Controlling the brain with light earns a physiology Nobel
Optogenetics: using light to alter the behaviour of nerve cells marked by the activity of individual genes.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/10/controlling-the-brain-with-light-earns-a-physiology-nobel/
A New Crop of Solar Panels Is the U.S.’s Best Hope of Catching China
The new technology, known as tandem solar, involves adding second and third layers of material, like a layer cake, to allow panels to convert more of the sun’s radiance into electricity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/05/business/energy-environment/tandem-solar-panels-us-china.html
Super-sticky ‘living cement’ could turn Martian dirt into 3D-printed shelters, study finds
Engineered yeast and Martian soil could one day be 3D-printed into strong, low-energy shelters for future crews.
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/living-cement-builds-mars-shelters
