People do wonderful things with technology. They build digital communities, teach themselves new skills and raise money for causes. People also do terrible things with technology. They build atomic bombs, control botnets and cyber bully. Technology isn’t automatically good or…
My last 5 text messages went to people in 4 different states. My friends and family are spread out across the country. I grew up in one place and went to college in another. My first job was in a different city…
Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living”. This was the defense he offered for teaching kids about philosophy (a crime punishable by death). He was still executed. The American psyche has a pervasive belief that we should examine life…
The best return on time I’ve found is reflecting on myself. Key areas of reflection: habits, motivation, productivity, strengths and weaknesses. I’ve written about experimenting with my diet, caffeine intake and how I think. There is an advice mill, amplified by the internet, of generic advice.…
I am currently learning about conversational UX’s. A few months ago, I built a Slackbot named Alan (RIP) in Python to do reporting at Dinner Lab. He was a worse UX than a dashboard so I got rid of him. Earlier this…
Life and business are filled with open ended questions. There is a natural tendency to treat problems as discrete. On close examination, there will be patterns connecting decisions and outcomes. A working theory starts as a way to discover those patterns. A thesis eventually…
South Park is one of TV’s longest running scripted, primetime shows. It has won Emmys, sparked controversy, earned lots of money and given me some of my best laughs. The fact it has survived so long is remarkable. Fans might suspect…
Jargon can be very helpful. At its best, jargon is shorthand for a complex idea. It allows humans to communicate about new topics, niche topics and sophisticated topics. That is jargon at its best though. Jargon is helpful when both…
Doing is carrying out a series of tasks. Thinking is reflecting on what tasks should be carried out. It includes questions like: Why are you doing these tasks? Is there a better way to do them? Should you redefine these tasks? When I…
In order to get good at anything, one must accept being bad at it for a while. Being bad at things, but still doing them to learn and improve is an essential skill. It is skill that I now try…
