Community requires individuals to have the option of speaking up. If we’re in this together, we ought to be able to chime in.
But while every member of the community can speak out, the ones that are heard also have something useful to say. Being informed is a requirement to be heard.
Sometimes, our insight can come from firsthand experience, but it’s most likely that we’ve learned about the issue and the alternatives we face.
Education is at the heart of the conversation. Organized schooling, substantial peer engagement and intelligent media consumption give us a chance to earn our opinion.
Successful communities celebrate learning.
June 29, 2024
Ready means that time is up, spec is met and the user can engage.
Done might mean that you believe it’s perfect and cannot be improved.
We’ll settle for ready. In fact, meeting spec means we’re not settling. It’s just what you promised.
June 28, 2024
He had a hard time lying because his nose got longer every time he did.
Gas-powered leaf blowers would disappear if the smoke they belched out was black instead of invisible.
And few people would start smoking if the deposits on their lungs ended up on their face instead.
We’re not very good at paying attention to invisible or gradual outputs.
The trick is simple: If it’s important, make it visible. If it happens over time, create a signal that brings the future into the present.
Creating vivid measurements of essential variables that others overlook is a significant competitive advantage.
June 27, 2024
If we’re to publish, teach, invent, imagine or promote, we need the confidence to believe that we have something to offer. That we are, in some way, right.
But the enterprise of rational thought is based on theories, tests and improvements. We can never be certain, all we have is the best available explanation.
So the hard work is to speak up at the very same time you’re open (in fact, eager) to change your mind based on new data.
One without the other is worthless.
June 26, 2024
It’s a pretty simple calculation.
How much value per dollar does a freelancer produce for you? What’s the psychic reward for the time you put into your favorite hobby? That machine that takes time and money to set up and run… what does it create when it’s operating?
Not everything can or should be evaluated on a return on effort basis, but when we’re comparing two alternatives, it’s a fine place to start.
Instead, we often find ourselves focusing on how easy it is to avoid the issue and choose to focus our effort on more of what we did yesterday, or how painful it might be to walk away from a sunk cost or asset. We think about the effort around the effort, instead of the choices we can make each day about what might be worth our focus.
June 25, 2024
Is there a rainbow underneath your pot of gold?
Sometimes, we get it backwards.
June 24, 2024
The person you’re working with might not know what you know, might not see what you see.
It’s tempting to begin where we are.
But it’s more useful to begin where they are.
June 23, 2024
Disney theme parks created more than 20 billion dollars in revenue last year.
Coney Island, not so much.
Coney Island is dozens of small honky tonk vendors and attractions, an ecosystem, not a corporation.
Independent local stores got hammered by the more organized stores in the mall and then by the centrally controlled Wal-mart and other box stores. And then the big box stores got hammered in turn by Amazon, a rigidly controlled system that puts the little guys at its mercy.
RSS and blogs were a federation of independent voices. It didn’t take much for them to be co-opted by a few tech giants.
We’d like to believe that we prefer to walk down the picturesque street, visiting one merchant after another, buying directly from the creator or her gallery. We’d like to think that the centralized antiseptic option isn’t for us…
And yet, when the supermarche opens in rural France, it does very well.
It turns out that we respond well to large entities that pretend that they’re simply a conglomeration of independent voices and visions, but when masses of people are given a choice, they’re drawn to the big guy, not the real thing.
The long tail is real, but we’ve been trained to prefer it if the tail is contained within a centrally-controlled system run by a corporation.
June 22, 2024
When the telephone began to gain traction, the monopoly of the time, Western Union, decided to get even better at sending telegrams.
June 21, 2024
Near-future science fiction is a fine way to consider our now. Without the reality of today, we can think hard about the tomorrow we’re about to live in.
Summer reads are supposed to be a bit lighter.
Technological change is making our near future a bit harder to dance with, and yet, here are some books I strongly recommend–not because they gloss over our possible futures, but because they give us the scaffolding to look hard at it while we can still make an impact.
Foundry is a thriller about semiconductors. Fast-moving and classic Peper.
When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One is the very first novel I read about AI. I was 12 years old. Gerrold wrote this a lifetime ago, and yet it will make you think.
The Ministry for the Future is heartbreaking and life-changing. Every human should be offered a copy and encouraged to read it.
The Very Nice Box helps us think about workplace roles (with some marketing and design as a bonus).
The Last Policeman is fabulous metaphor and a great way to get clear about how you’d like to spend tomorrow.
All highly recommended.
June 20, 2024
