Sometimes, a bicyclist will really pedal hard on the downhill. It’s good for the ego. It’s also crazy dangerous, since braking and steering become much more difficult, and high speed gives you less time to react.
And sometimes cars rev their way up the hill, with the drivers imagining that since there’s gravity to overcome, might as well go even faster.
The disciplined, resilient approach is to go your own speed, regardless of the incline.
Building a bridge is far more difficult than maintaining one.
While it’s tempting to imagine that we’re always racing forward, it’s far more likely we’ll benefit from traveling over this bridge again one day soon.
Years ago, I worked with the supermarket tabloid to make an ironic, shouty, somewhat funny book that has turned out to match much of the discourse we find surrounding us.
When we flew down to Florida to meet their team, I was amazed to discover that this nationwide newspaper, read by millions, was created by three people in a storage closet. They had a single filing cabinet with stock photos, and every day they went to work and invented stories about Bat Boys, UFOs and weird illnesses.
You weren’t supposed to believe this stuff, but of course, some people did.
They believed it because the medium (a newspaper) was associated with something reputable (a real newspaper).
Of course, the media has changed.
And yes, people are still making stuff up.
The number of people reading a post or following an account is not a useful indicator of whether or not the ideas within are made up or not.
Brad Feld has been contributing to and leading the tech community for more than thirty years. His books have always been inspiring and useful, but his new book takes it to a higher level.
Adam Becker has written two books that I recently devoured. The first is philosophy, history and political drama, all woven together to explain, perhaps for the first time most people will truly understand, how quantum mechanics works (and doesn’t). It’s thrilling and highly recommended.
That led me to his new book, an articulate and well-reasoned takedown of the absurdity of Mars missions, transhumanism and a sterile AI future.
Which leads to this recent video. We’re likely on the cusp of a cultural doom spiral caused by realistic fake AI videos. I’m not sure that the clarity and urgency of this message will be sufficient, because video is such a powerful (and trusted) medium and people are hesitant to give up the trust they have in it. “I saw it with my own eyes,” means less every day.
People bought snake oil even after they understood that snake oil doesn’t work.
Recoding America by Jen Pahlka is important, timely and worth the read. It explores systems we rarely notice but are often frustrated by. She’s been working tirelessly to bring agile and user-focused design to community services like government, and the book is powerful and persuasive.
Validation is a quick read, and it highlights a simple truth about almost everyone: it helps to be seen. We get the chance to do this–not to manipulate people, but to open a connection so we can accompany them on their journey forward.
My friend Dannagal Young has written a profound book about persuasion, systems and media. It helps us see how propaganda and misinformation are easy to spread.
It’s easier than ever to fall into an inbox mindset. There are things to do, and we do them.
Inbox zero is the unattainable goal that fills our days.
But it avoids the real question, which is: which inbox are we emptying?
There’s the inbox of urgent texts. Or the inbox of slightly less urgent emails. Or the inbox filled with spam, perhaps hundreds of thousands of emails that aren’t really an inbox.
But what about the inbox of our financial planning? Or the inbox of the people we care about, who might appreciate a hug or a wave?
There’s the inbox of the chronic degeneration of our house or our community or our climate, the one that will respond really well to attention now, not nearly as well later.
And there’s the inbox of peace of mind, the healing and regeneration that happens when we set the other inboxes aside for a bit.
Systems fail, humans are unpredictable, interfaces aren’t perfect…
The customer service professional demonstrates their strategic insight when they plan for eventual failure instead of denying it’s possible.
The first step, of course, is to design things with resilience and care so they don’t break.
Then what?
One option is to save the day at all costs. This is a large reason that healthcare in rich countries is so expensive. Doctors and healthcare workers work hard so they never have to say, “I’m sorry, we can’t help, you’re going to die.” As a result, the response of the system is to expend every possible resource in the shortest period of time, at the last minute.
The second option is to triage. In this scenario, an organization quickly escalates an unexpected failure to a trained person or team that has the tools, authority and expertise to do something about it. It won’t always work, but it might help 80% of the time. This is what happens when the manager intercedes and changes a policy on the spot.
The third option is to simply accept the breakage, and perhaps, to torture the user by not acknowledging that you already decided to do this. This is what happens if you try to fix a glitch at AT&T or get actual customer service from a big tech company. They don’t have customer service professionals standing by, instead, they have cut costs and given their front-line team very little training, support or authority.
Each choice has costs and benefits, and the useful approach is to enumerate them.
All costs: It’s morally satisfying, professionally thrilling and incredibly expensive.
Triage: It’s economically efficient and requires you trust your team and that you acknowledge, with grace, when it’s simply not going to work.
Acceptance: It’s the most stable internally, and the most costly to your customers and their experience. It is cheaper in the short run and more expensive over time. And one way to minimize the carnage is to be clear to customers that this is what you’ve chosen to do.
In the theatre, the play is written before casting begins. This gives the playwright freedom and responsibility, and it puts the text first.
Writing for a sitcom is different. The 50th episode of Seinfeld was a lot easier to write because the cast and the tropes were already set. Easier, but also more difficult to find a breakthrough.
In our organizations and communities, we’re often asked for a strategic plan, which is a sort of script. The question that might be worth asking is: How many new characters are we planning to cast?
Where do we go on vacation? How should our company put AI to work? What’s the best way to increase donations?
If the strategy is required to use every asset and individual we already have, our freedom to innovate is limited. Perhaps we should be clear about who’s doing the casting before we begin writing the script.
June 1, 2025
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