Projects left undone
What’s the attainable, practical and generous thing you haven’t done yet?
What will it take for it to become a priority?
Paying attention to attention
There are people and organizations that are working overtime to redirect and manipulate your attention.
The question is: Are they more aware and careful in how you spend your attention than you are?
The act of focusing on what we focus on pays enormous dividends.
Hallucinations and human work
“AI is brilliant and it can do everything.”
“AI hallucinates sometimes and it can’t be trusted.”
“AI is a trick, a clever way to induce people to believe it’s human-like, but it’s not.”
It turns out that AI hallucinates all the time. Sometimes, these hallucinations are useful, worth interpreting as helpful contributions, and sometimes, not so much.
In some senses, then, AI isn’t that smart.
But neither are we.
At work, we spend very little time accurately synthesizing new information and creating breakthroughs. We mostly do tasks, simple inputs and outputs, based on little understanding of the overall system in which we live.
AI is good at line by line coding, because that’s an iterative process that piles up useful hallucinations into a working whole.
AI is less good at conceptual system architecture problems. And most programmers are less good at this as well. Often dramatically less good.
AI is good at multiple choice questions and banal copywriting. So are most people.
In less than 24 months, we’ve seen LLM apps become better and better at things we never thought they’d be able to do. Human work, it seems, is in retreat.
In fact, it’s not a retreat. It’s a chance to advance. The same way the steam shovel put a focus on the hard work of architecture, project planning and smart choices about what to build (instead of the hard brute force work of shoveling), AI is doing the same for indoor work.
It doesn’t really matter that AI doesn’t “know” what it’s doing. Most of the time, we don’t either.
Human work is any work an AI can’t do (yet.)
Just the right length
Pop songs are 200 seconds long because the mechanical properties of 78 and 45 rpm records can deliver one song with decent fidelity of that length. They can’t handle ten minutes, and one minute is too short to charge for.
The number of books carried by a local bookstore was the right amount to balance paying the rent and satisfying most customers. And the number of books published reflected the fact that the only way to get a new book in was for the store to take one out.
Movies are long enough to justify buying a ticket, but not so long that the theater can’t have multiple showings.
Books are around 350 pages because pamphlets are too hard to sell and books that are too long are hard to bind and manipulate.
Sitcoms are half an hour long because two sitcoms an hour maximizes the possible audience more than extending one to double the length might.
The newspaper is the length it often is because the editors are balancing the time each subscriber can spend with it against the publisher’s desire to sell the most profitable number of ads. “All the news that fits.”
When technology changes the media, when distribution and consumption shift, the definition of just the right length shifts as well. Podcasts changed the length of interviews, Linkedin changed the length of a resume and YouTube changed the length of funny videos… the cycle continues.
Paddling upstream
We notice the current most when we’re headed against it. It’s easy to take our advantage for granted when we’re headed the other way and it’s helping us.
Related: When I’m on my bike, I generally hope that drivers will cut me some slack–a lesson that’s easy to forget when I’m the one who’s driving.
Worthless noise isn’t information
Data becomes information when at least one of two related things are true:
- We learn something for next time
- We make different decisions or take new actions
If you’re not getting one of these things, then the data is simply noise. A distraction that wastes our time and confuses us.
Breaking news is up to the recipient.
The 1:1 method
The reason that most memos, speeches and edicts fall flat is simple: we get stuck on the idea that we’re talking to a crowd.
When we’re speaking or writing, the crowd is just an illusion. What’s actually happening is that there is one person over there, another over there, repeated again and again until it’s easier to imagine it’s a mass audience.
The alternative method is simple: find one person, exactly one, and write to them, allowing the others to listen in.
Embrace the tone of voice, body posture, breathing style and punctuation you’d use on just one person. You and me, here and now.
If it’s not going to work for one person, why do think it will work on a crowd?
User interaction design drives outcomes
AI models primarily use a text or speech interface.
Type what you want and it types back. Say what you want it talks back.
This is fancy, a breakthrough, a little showy. And if the user brings the right skills, it’s an extraordinary way to interact.
But the AI UX people (the few that are paying attention, not simply racing to keep up with the engineers) are missing an opportunity.
People prefer multiple choice to essay exams. Go to a restaurant without a menu and people get stressed. They either order something simple or are filled with regret about what could have been.
When the AI prompts us (instead of us prompting the AI), faster progress is possible. When the AI suggests four or five appropriate paths, we’re more likely to consider more options. Building that sort of UX in from the start makes it more likely we’ll expect it.
When all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail. When we design a menu, especially one that changes with context, we get a chance to challenge the user to create variety, possibility and progress.
PS if you’re not using the latest AI models, you’re falling behind. I’m seeing very senior people who are ignoring what’s happening, and the gap is widening. It’s probably worth some time to play with Claude and others.
1,000 fans (which sort?)
Not all customers are fans. And not all fans are the sort of customers you can thrive with.
Cadres of supporters often migrate into one of two camps…
The generous stans (a more positive riff from a twenty-year-old Eminem track), are there for the work and the change being made, all the time. It’s a form of support, but more than that, identity. Tribes with leaders, making a difference supporting each other and spreading the word. (These are the ‘true’ fans.)
And the cranky fans, who know that they have found a place where they will be heard, and who use that opportunity to split hairs and find something to be disappointed with. They are cranky because they care, but they’re also cranky because it gives them power.
They’ll happily pirate the software, argue about a launch strategy, demand comp tickets to the event and reserve their conversations for other insiders, instead of spreading the word. They point out that the galvanic isolation in the new breakthrough product could have been even more sophisticated, or that the unreleased album is much better than this one… One of the most common complaints is that the hypothetical perfect imagined by a fan is so much better than the actually productive and powerful good created for them. “I’m your best customer” is what they might say, when they’re not at all.
Their status comes from their insider knowledge and longevity combined with an air of aloof superiority. (These fans are sometimes called employees, voters or critics).
One reason for the split is that some creators and small businesses respond to early fan response by doing things to the audience (cashing out) as opposed to working to do things with and for them (leading). It puts some fans on the defensive, even if this particular creator has made the difficult decision to stick with the mission.
When Kevin Kelly coined the term 1,000 True Fans fifteen years ago, he was describing more than fandom. He was articulating how the long tail could become a generative, resilient force for creators to create, and for fans to benefit. Without a mass market driving production, we could move toward a world of delightful niches, where small companies could thrive serving (relatively) small audiences.
This is the unheralded force behind important non-profits, tech companies, and creators of all kinds. Not mattering a little to the masses, but mattering a lot to a focused group, one that supports the work and spreads the word.
Choose your fans, choose your future.
I’m regularly amazed and delighted at how thoughtful and connected the readers of my work are. I learn from you every day, and I’m thrilled at the leadership my readers bring to their communities. I couldn’t ask for a more engaged, thoughtful and generous audience.
At the same time, I see small businesses and creators that I care about struggling, simply because their fans are not only taking them for granted, they’re becoming entitled and insular as well. When fans commit to a movement and help it grow, they benefit. Not every group is going to become a movement, but if we don’t bring others along, we’re not going to make a change happen. Movements move.
The problem with taking something we care about for granted is that we don’t get to do it for long.
Clarke’s Law (part 2)
All sufficiently advanced technology is now widespread.
Batman used to have gadgets that gave him an advantage over his adversaries.
And Henry Ford had machines that allowed him to produce items far cheaper than the competition.
Now, almost all technology magic is widely available and cheap. Technology has been the engine of cultural and economic change, and it’s no longer concentrated in the hands of a few.
A fast car isn’t rare, good drivers are.