The man on the Leith omnibus

I was sitting at the back of the bus the other say contemplating two things: whether Margaret Thatcher was right when she said anyone on a bus over the age of 25 is a failure, and whether each of these socially distanced failures in front of me was right to be plugged into their devices.

Airpods, iPhones, kids with iPads, couples scrolling through separate Instagram feeds. Dogs checking their Tinder. (Well, not yet.)

We’ve all become a cybernetic collective.

That is, the hybrid of humans and machines. It’s not just people anymore that companies employ. It’s people + Zoom.

Sales of blue light blocking glasses are soaring apparently, standing desks are all the rage. Our bodies changing form slowly but surely. We’re embracing our cyborg roles with gusto.

The pandemic has accelerated change at a pace none of us imagined, so even if we wanted to keep to fountain pens and abacuses, that choice is kind of out of our hands.

But for Millennials, this is their universe and this is what they expect.

And as we start to see the great shift of wealth from baby boomers to their kids, we have to get the messaging right to fit this – not just in the way we say it, but what we say.

We know that financial planning isn’t about mortgage chatbots or robo investing. No app is ever going to reassure someone in a market dip (or market high) or give them confidence when they feel lost with their finances.

The trouble is, we have to get that across to the man on the Leith omnibus, while they’re plugged into their devices, using one giant thumb and wondering who Maggie Thatcher is, tweeting from the grave...

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