Three things we learnt this week

Mahalia Tanner | February 19, 2026February 19, 2026 | Brands

Each and every week the Square Holes team are deep in the bowels of a number of projects, working to mine all of the insights that we can to help grow businesses and support thriving cities.

These insights are used by businesses and organisations to innovate their offerings, move into new markets, track their impact and hone their products and output. Each week we will be sharing a broad insight that we have learnt for you to use in your own work.

Let us know what you find valuable!

Jason: Mind caves

I love how my head works. Mum used to call me an ideas guy. Now, 40 or so years later, I still retain that child-like imagination that is easy to get lost in. I generally struggle with adulting; it stresses me out, but we’ve done OK. Two great daughters, smashing it in all the right domains, and a successful business – how? Something will happen, and I’ll throw it around, looping and re-looping ideas (if no solution found, loop, repeat loop, keep looping) while sitting on the couch, walking the dog, fast-forwarding into the future, it’s still looping, reshaping the map, redrawing the Hedgehog, tweaking the flywheel, stretching the Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Add in my now often confusing friend ChatGPT, and it’s easy to get lost in the deep caves. Brains can be creative, restless, alive. But it’s also like a scene from The Goonies mixed with a choose-your-own-adventure book, keep turning the page, backtracking, reframing, getting temporarily angry at the plot. Sometimes, not actually moving forward. No treasure ever found because too much time is spent questioning the map. But without a map or intention, you get nowhere, lost in the deep, dark cave. The cave feels busy. Dramatic. Intense. Dark and scary. It can even smell. Often, the cave sucks. And yet nothing measurable has shifted when you’re lost. No revenue moved, no proposal sent, no system tightened, and no global juggernaut created. Just a mental adventure or fatigue. The gift is imagination. The trap is mistaking imagination for progress. Treasure only appears when the map stops changing, and the next step is taken. Someone (likely not AI) interjects and clarifies. Simplicity is the answer, but often you need to get lost in the caves for a long, long time… But be wary, don’t spend too much time cave diving.

Mahalia: Generation battle

It can be hard not being the hot young thing anymore. New generations bring new language, trends, technologies, and confusing pop culture references. It’s easy to build a us vs them divide that highlights the stark differences over the similarities. And while there are differences for sure, we also all had our own strange pop culture references that drove our parents mad, and “cool” slang that no one else could understand, and challenges that made us feel misunderstood. So while the media loves to play up the differences between us, it’s our job to try and honour the young person still inside and go easy on the next generations. Even if six-seven makes no sense…

Ewa: Idea evolution

This week I was reading about dolma — the simple idea of stuffing leaves and vegetables with meat and rice. It began in the 15th century in the Ottoman Empire and, over time, spread across the Mediterranean, the Caucasus and the Middle East. Today, it even shows up as the dolmades you can pick up from the deli at Coles or Woolworths.

What struck me wasn’t just the food itself, but the longevity of the idea. A simple concept – stuffed leaves – has survived for centuries and travelled across continents.

It made me wonder: would an idea like that last as long if it started in today’s fast-paced world?

We’re constantly flooded with new trends, opinions and innovations. Research suggests that as the volume of information increases, ideas tend to rise, peak and fade much faster than they used to. With so much competing for attention, we collectively move on more quickly.

But here’s the interesting part. There’s a new theory called “self-reinforcing cascades” which explains how ideas spread and evolve at the same time. As they move from person to person, they change. And that change can actually help them travel further. That’s exactly what happened with dolma. It didn’t spread unchanged. Each country, culture and religion adapted it — different fillings, different leaves/vegetables, different spices. The core idea stayed intact, but it evolved to suit local tastes.

Ideas don’t survive because they stay rigid. They survive because they adapt — while keeping their essence.

Think your business or organisation could do with some insights? Contact us here.

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Three things we learnt this week

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