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[1]Interconnected
A blog by Matt Webb
• [2]About
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Unoffice Hours
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a.k.a. genmon
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Building the AI clock
• [15]Check out Poem/1
Singing the gospel of collective efficacy
20.01, Friday 30 Jan 2026 [16]Link to this post
If I got to determine the school curriculum, I would be optimising for
collective efficacy.
So I live in a gentrified but still mixed neighbourhood in London (we’re the
newbies at just under a decade) and we have an active WhatsApp group.
Recently there was a cold snap and a road nearby iced over – it was in the
shade and cyclists kept on wiping out on it. For some reason the council didn’t
come and salt it.
Somebody went out and created a sign on a weighted chair so it didn’t blow
away. And this is a small thing but I LOVE that I live somewhere there is a
shared belief that (a) our neighbourhood is worth spending effort on, and (b)
you can just do things.
Similarly we all love when the swifts visit (beautiful birds), so somebody
started a group to get swift nest boxes made and installed collectively, then
applied for subsidy funding, then got everyone to chip in such that people who
couldn’t afford it could have their boxes paid for, and now suddenly we’re all
writing to MPs and following the legislation to include swift nesting sites in
new build houses. Etc.
It’s called collective efficacy, the belief that you can make a difference by
acting together.
(People who have heard of Greta Thunberg tend to [17]have a stronger sense of
collective efficacy (2021).)
It’s so heartening.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You can just do things
That phrase was a Twitter thing for a while, and I haven’t done the archaeology
on the phrase but there’s this blog post by Milan Cvitkovic from 2020: [18]
Things you’re allowed to do.
e.g.
• `Say I don’t know'
• `Tape over annoying LED lights'
• `Buy goods/services from your friends'
I read down the list saying to myself, yeah duh of course, to almost every
single one, then hit certain ones and was like – oh yeah, I can just do that.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I think collective efficacy is maybe 50% taking off the blinkers and giving
yourself (as a group) permission to do things.
But it’s also 50% belief that it’s worth acting at all.
And that belief is founded part in care, and part in faith that what you are
doing can actually make a difference.
For instance:
A lot of my belief in the power of government comes from the fact that, back in
the day, London’s tech scene was not all that. So in 2009 I worked with
Georgina Voss to figure out the gap, then in 2010 bizarrely got invited on a
trade mission to India with the Prime Minister and got the opportunity to make
the case about east London to them, and based on that No. 10 launched Tech City
(which we had named on the plane), and that acted as a catalyst on the work
that everyone was already doing to get the cluster going, and then we were off
to the races. WIRED magazine wrote it up in 2019: [19]The story of London’s
tech scene, as told by those who built it (paywall-busting link).
So I had that experience and now I believe that, if I can find the right ask,
there’s always the possibility to make things better.
That’s a rare experience. I’m very lucky.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ALTHOUGH.
Should we believe in luck?
Psychologist Richard Wiseman, [20]The Luck Factor (2003, PDF):
I gave both [self-identified] lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and
asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside.
On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the
photographs whereas the lucky people took just seconds. Why? Because the
second page of the newspaper contained the message “Stop counting - There
are 43 photographs in this newspaper.”
`Lucky people generate their own good fortune via four basic principles.'
They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky
decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling
prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that
transforms bad luck into good.
I insist that people are not lucky nor unlucky. Maybe some amount of luck is
habit?
You can just be lucky?
(Well, not absolutely, privilege is big, but maybe let’s recalibrate luck from
believing it is entirely random, that’s what I’m saying.)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
When I was a kid I used to play these unforgivingly impossible video games –
that’s what home video games were like then. No open world play, multiple ways
to win, or adaptive difficulty. Just pixel-precise platform jumps and timing.
Yet you always knew that there was a way onto the next screen, however long it
took.
It taught a kind of stubborn optimism.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Or, in another context, `No fate but what we make.'
Same same.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
All of which makes me ask:
Could we invent free-to-plan mobile games which train luckiness?
Are there games for classrooms that would cement a faith in collective efficacy
in kids?
Or maybe it’s proof by demonstration.
I’m going into my kid’s school in a couple of weeks to show the class photos of
what it looks like inside factories. The stuff around us was made by people
like us; it’s not divine in origin; factories are just rooms.
I have faith that - somehow - at some point down the line - this act will help.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it by email or on social
media. [21]Here’s the link. Thanks, —Matt.
Most recent posts
• Singing the gospel of collective efficacy 30 Jan 2026 (This post)
• [22]Do today’s work today 23 Jan 2026
• [23]The natural home for AI agents is your Reminders app 15 Jan 2026
• [24]Real like ghosts or real like celebrities? 9 Jan 2026
• [25]My top posts in 2025 3 Jan 2026
• [26]More scraps from my notes file 26 Dec 2025
• [27]Filtered for conspiracy theories 19 Dec 2025
• [28]My new fave thing to go to is algoraves 11 Dec 2025
• [29]My mental model of the AI race 5 Dec 2025
• [30]Context plumbing 29 Nov 2025
• [31]Spinning up a new thing: Inanimate 19 Nov 2025
• [32]3 books with Samuel Arbesman 14 Nov 2025
Continue reading: [33]All in 2025
streak New posts for 305 consecutive weeks (see: [34]blogging tips)
New? Start here: [35]Best of 2025 (also [36]2024, [37]2023, [38]2022, [39]2021,
[40]2020)
Or explore the archives: [41]On this day
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Archive
• [42]2026 5 posts
• [43]2025 61 posts
• [44]2024 60 posts
• [45]2023 68 posts
• [46]2022 96 posts
• [47]2021 128 posts
• [48]2020 118 posts
• [49]2019 23 posts
• [50]2018 47 posts
• [51]2017 22 posts
• [52]2016 48 posts
• [53]2015 88 posts
• [54]2014 30 posts
• [55]2013 6 posts
• [56]2012 27 posts
• [57]2011 76 posts
• [58]2010 2 posts
• [59]2009 2 posts
• [60]2008 59 posts
• [61]2007 20 posts
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[62][ ] Search
Since February 2000. Copyright © 2026 Matt Webb.
p.s. here’s [70]my blogroll and the [71]colophon.
References:
[1] https://interconnected.org/home/
[2] https://interconnected.org/
[3] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/30/efficacy#archive
[4] https://www.actsnotfacts.com/
[5] https://buttondown.com/genmon
[6] https://interconnected.org/home/feed
[7] https://aboutfeeds.com/
[8] https://calendly.com/mwie/30min
[9] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/24/unoffice_hours
[10] https://bsky.app/profile/genmon.org
[11] https://x.com/genmon
[12] https://www.instagram.com/genmon/
[13] https://mastodon.social/@genmon
[14] https://www.linkedin.com/in/genmon/
[15] https://poem.town/
[16] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/30/efficacy
[17] https://interconnected.org/home/2021/04/08/efficacy
[18] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/
[19] https://archive.ph/GJrTT
[20] http://richardwiseman.com/resources/The_Luck_Factor.pdf
[21] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/30/efficacy
[22] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/23/umpa
[23] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/15/reminders
[24] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/09/real
[25] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/03/top-posts
[26] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/26/scraps
[27] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/19/filtered
[28] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/11/live
[29] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/05/training
[30] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/28/plumbing
[31] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/19/inanimate
[32] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/14/arbesman
[33] https://interconnected.org/home/2025
[34] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/10/streak
[35] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/03/top-posts
[36] https://interconnected.org/home/2024/12/30/top-posts
[37] https://interconnected.org/home/2023/12/22/top-posts
[38] https://interconnected.org/home/2022/12/21/top_posts
[39] https://interconnected.org/home/2021/12/23/top_posts
[40] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/12/17/top_posts
[41] https://interconnected.org/home/on-this-day
[42] https://interconnected.org/home/2026
[43] https://interconnected.org/home/2025
[44] https://interconnected.org/home/2024
[45] https://interconnected.org/home/2023
[46] https://interconnected.org/home/2022
[47] https://interconnected.org/home/2021
[48] https://interconnected.org/home/2020
[49] https://interconnected.org/home/2019
[50] https://interconnected.org/home/2018
[51] https://interconnected.org/home/2017
[52] https://interconnected.org/home/2016
[53] https://interconnected.org/home/2015
[54] https://interconnected.org/home/2014
[55] https://interconnected.org/home/2013
[56] https://interconnected.org/home/2012
[57] https://interconnected.org/home/2011
[58] https://interconnected.org/home/2010
[59] https://interconnected.org/home/2009
[60] https://interconnected.org/home/2008
[61] https://interconnected.org/home/2007
[70] https://interconnected.org/home/blogroll
[71] https://interconnected.org/home/2024/10/28/colophon