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Category: Writing

Daily Journal – Monday, 12/11/23

Published by Josh on December 11, 2023

So, I had a wild idea about trying something new.

Ages ago in Internet years, I was quoted in Jeff Jarvis’s Public Parts, after replying to a question of his on Twitter, about living in public in an age where public was no longer a physical manifestation but a psychosocial one as well.

“Being public led to my mantra of honesty. I am who I am all the time because, being public, lies have thin shadows.”

Me, in Public Parts, Jeff Jarvis

Now, in the twelve1Fuck me, 12 years… years since that book was published, I’ve come to learn some things about myself. For instance, I’m more openly honest than the midpoint in part because I’m on the spectrum, which I’ve learned is a behavior more likely to occur in those of us somewhere on that plane.

I’m also a lot more suspicious of the weight of lies anymore, and whether they have the same consequence they used to for the liar. Recent examples seem to put that social construct to some rather public tests, and the ability to lie without consequence nor shame has been cultivated into an aesthetic.

All that aside, I’ve realized of late that I’ve been hiding in a way. Finding ways of shutting myself away from the world, even as I try to be seen from specific angles, in the right lights. And so, I decided I should try to break out of this self-constructed cave a bit, by living more in the open.

And hey, I’ve still got a blog, so I’m gonna blog.

The goal is to make this a daily activity, but will it be daily? I mean, we’ll see? I don’t like to make guarantees, I’ve lost too many hats over walls2Oh, I also learned I have ADHD too. Which, I mean, duh? But I had no fucking clue and learning that about myself, and that it’s genetic, answered SO MANY QUESTIONS about myself and the last few decades. But I’m gonna take a whack at it, and I’m gonna set a recurring Calendar event for it, so we’ll see how it goes.

Some bits I’m gonna talk about daily are, a general ramble, some notes on informational and entertainment things I consumed and thought were notable, and my progress on the various projects I’m working on (at varying levels of vagary.)

Thanks for reading, even if it’s just my Mom3Hi Mom!, and reach on out if you want to know more about anything, or even if you just want to chat. I’m on BlueSky, Twitter (for now), LinkedIn, and elsewhere.

What I read

I read a stupid amount on a daily basis, but mostly online. I’m one of those stubborn people that still uses an RSS reader (Vienna! It’s fuckin’ great!) and am subscribed to something like 45-50 feeds? They’re not all daily updaters (Neil Gaiman, I miss your blog posts buddy), but enough are that I take in a LOT on a daily basis. So, that’s where a lot of my inbound reading material comes from. Highlights include Defector, Ars Technica, Scalzi’s Whatever, Kottke.org, and acoup.blog

I also subscribe to several newsletters, some daily (like NextDraft, Money Stuff, and the NYTimes stuff), some weekly (big ups to Ingrid Burrington’s Perfect Sentences [I read her everywhere I can, she’s the best], Scope of Work, Orbital Observations, among many others), and some just sort of when they publish (like Deb Chachra’s, which had a lot of the noodling that turned into her new book).

Like I said, I read a LOT. So, here’s where I’ll try to toss some highlights from things I took in today.

From Ars, it turns out ChatGPT might have Seasonal Affective Disorder? The black box nature of AI training models continues to confound easy reasoning, but that it could pick up on a seasonal slowdown inherent to human communication and activity is sociologically astounding to me. Also, this prompt (via Twitter), which attempts to counteract it by providing psychological safety and the comforting assurance of a friend, makes me think about how we backed our way into magic via sufficiently advanced technology.

Speaking of Deb Chachra’s new book, I massaged the spine of it earlier today and started in. It’s about the sometimes hidden, mostly just unobserved layer of infrastructure that supports the complex web of modern life. As a guy with not one but two Submarine Cable Maps on his walls, I anticipate it scratching an itch.

What I watched

I’m a pretty big fan of football, at both the college and professional level, so tonight it’s going to be the weird Monday doubleheader in Miami and New York. Earlier I caught up on Rick and Morty, which after jettisoning a troublesome founder, seemed to miss no beats in finding new voices (figuratively and literally) and telling great stories. Really looking forward to the finale next week.

What I heard

A separate daily habit I’ve built and (mostly) sustained is 30 minutes of walking per day. This is nearly always on a treadmill in my basement, because I live in a place that does Winter right, because I like a consistent pace without stopping for signs or lights or whatever else, and because I can knock it out whenever I like, looking as rough as I like. On these, I nearly always listen to a podcast of some sort (and often simultaneously do the recent Times sudoku puzzles) (the ADHD is STRONG). Today it was the first 30 minutes of Dan Carlin’s Twilight of the Aesir, working my way back through it on my way to his recently released Part II.

I also started in on the new album from the Cotton Modules, The Greatest Remaining Hits because goddamn if I don’t enjoy a high-concept album.

Projects in progress

Being a stereotype of ADHD, I’ve got a lot of irons in a lot of fires. I’m gonna note any progress here mostly as a shame eater for my lack of forward motion on things, but also because it can act as a sort of Teddy Bear Problem Solving source, in that talking about where I’m at forces me to think about it from other angles.4And if you need your own teddy bear to aid in your problem solving, there’s no better source than Teif’s Teddy Bears, run by the greatest crafter I’ve ever known!

Currently, I’m working on a webapp that redirects inbound links through an invisible level of human-checking and then to a collective landing site, which outwardly connects to an API endpoint to bring in customer links. Yes, I know that’s incredibly vague. Mostly that’s on purpose, because I’ve still got no idea if the idea has legs or if I can pull it off. Partially it’s because of the vague concern that the select set of people that might know what that implies might expect something from me. Mostly it’s because I’ve got a low level of self-confidence about the whole thing.

Still though, made a bunch of forward progress on it today.

I’m also working on the first draft of a novel, the same for a screenplay, some noodling around on a weird concept album idea, and planning out a bunch of woodworking projects for when my garage is warm enough that I can’t cut off any digits without feeling it.

Anyhow, that’s a stupidly long first day’s post, that mostly does a lot of the table setting for future, more briefly constructed issuances.

If you read any of the above, thanks! If not, well, I guess I’d have no way of knowing? Regardless, it felt nice to live in public a little more, and to step a few feet out from my cave and into the digital light. Seeya tomorrow.

Notes:

  • 1
    Fuck me, 12 years…
  • 2
    Oh, I also learned I have ADHD too. Which, I mean, duh? But I had no fucking clue and learning that about myself, and that it’s genetic, answered SO MANY QUESTIONS about myself and the last few decades
  • 3
    Hi Mom!
  • 4
    And if you need your own teddy bear to aid in your problem solving, there’s no better source than Teif’s Teddy Bears, run by the greatest crafter I’ve ever known!

Manager, Manage Thyself: Quality 1x1s

Published by Josh on November 28, 2023
Don’t be that guy.

Managing is a relationship business. You’re building and strengthening relationships between peers, representatives from other departments, leadership, and most importantly, your people. And while growing these relationships is a constant effort, one of the pillars of doing so comes during the 1×1 meeting.

Meeting with one’s manager can elicit a range of emotions in any employee, at any level of performance or stage of their career. By including deliberate structure and content to a 1×1, you can alleviate much of the emotional dread that can come from meeting with one’s manager, as well as calm any of your own nerves around running regular employee meetings.

First, let’s cover some notes on structure:

  • It’s called a One on One for a reason: it should be you and your employee. Not you and a handful of employees, or you and a few managers with the employee. Outside some occasional managerial observations of your own work, or some agreed-upon1And I do mean agreed-upon. You shouldn’t surprise your employee with some other person at their 1×1 as they arrive. Gain agreement and approval with them about guests at the meeting beforehand, not as it starts or as they join. They should be able to say No, or you’re not seeking their approval, only their notification. observations by peers or trainees to demonstrate via example, the meeting should be you and your employee without distractions or uninvited guests.
  • Schedule ahead of time. This shouldn’t be done on a whim between other things, or in 20 free minutes you found in a day. Schedule the meeting at least a few days in advance. A week is better. Both you and your employee should have more than enough time to prepare for the meeting and be ready to best utilize that time to both your benefit.
  • Set aside enough time. I find an hour is the sweet spot, where you’ll have enough time to cover all of the topics you want to go through as well as provide ample time for your employee to cover any topics they may have, as well as having some general conversation sprinkled in there. You might finish early, you may (hopefully rarely) go long, but around an hour as a target gives the right sort of expectation for how much to invest in the meeting and how many topics to go over.

With general structure sorted, let’s talk content. Here’s generally how I try to organize my 1x1s:

  • First, start with a greeting. It may be a month2Hopefully not, but things happen! Ideally, you’ve got a check-in or two sprinkled throughout the month to touch base on goals or other topics, but at a minimum, you should have this time with each other to reconnect. since you last talked individually with each other. Be polite, say hello! A little smalltalk to grease the skids into a conversation is usually helpful, if only to remind each other you’re talking to people and not job titles or roles.
  • As part of this initial greeting, take the time to see if there’s anything pressing that your employee needs. Often, once you get into the weeds of a planned conversation, their needs can get lost in that shuffle or forgotten while other topics take the fore. I find it’s helpful to ask up front if there’s anything the employee might need or whether there are any open issues they have that you need to weigh in on or close the loop on. Get those needs at least queued if not addressed and resolved, to ensure they don’t hang over the rest of the conversation.
  • Review the previous month’s goal3Hopefully just the one! and discuss whether it was fully achieved, partially achieved, or might need to be readdressed. Did they successfully complete the actions required? Did the implementation of that goal have an effect on the outcome we were hoping to influence? If not, what new goal might we want to look at to affect that outcome?
  • Review the current status and performance. How are they performing on their Key Performance Indicators? Are there specific callouts to make? Great calls or surveys to highlight? Opportunities implied in the data? Take a look alongside the advisor and discuss what you see from your vantage point. You’re the expert, be sure to provide the benefit of your expertise to not only point at a number but discuss the actions that led to that outcome and how it might further be influenced.
  • Ideally, listen to a call/review a chat/read an email or two. Depending on how your employee is supporting, there are opportunities to review examples of their work alongside them, asking probing questions about the choices made, highlighting strong aspects of the interaction, and discussing opportunities. I tend to recommend having a call or two queued up ahead of time that you’re ready to discuss, to ensure you’ve curated your thoughts about the performance, but there’s something to be said for the serendipity of reviewing a random interaction as well!
  • Set a new goal for the new month. I’m not going to rehash all of my thoughts on what makes a good goal, but be certain you’re picking the right goal for the individual, instead of setting a bulk goal that doesn’t reflect that individual’s opportunities for growth.
  • Demonstrate the goal. Have a discussion about how to implement the goal and have the employee demonstrate the goal with you during the meeting, to best ensure they understand what is expected of them before they leave the meeting. I also like to have the employee repeat the goal back to me, to confirm they clearly understand the expectation placed on them before concluding.
  • Finally, close strong, Set an expectation for the rest of month and any upcoming events, meetings, or other notes that you’ll want to confirm. Remind the employee of any last take aways, and if possible, set the next meeting date and time, so that you both agree on the next time you’ll get together.

By developing and following a considered and inclusive structure to your regular 1×1 meetings, you can take a lot of the unintentional worry and uncertainty out of individual employee meetings and reinforce a pattern of continual growth and development. And in so doing, develop a beneficial relationship between you and your employee that flourishes far beyond the structure of a 1×1.

Notes:

  • 1
    And I do mean agreed-upon. You shouldn’t surprise your employee with some other person at their 1×1 as they arrive. Gain agreement and approval with them about guests at the meeting beforehand, not as it starts or as they join. They should be able to say No, or you’re not seeking their approval, only their notification.
  • 2
    Hopefully not, but things happen! Ideally, you’ve got a check-in or two sprinkled throughout the month to touch base on goals or other topics, but at a minimum, you should have this time with each other to reconnect.
  • 3

Sports Make Bad Fans

Published by Josh on October 16, 2023

Let me preface this rant by making one thing clear: I love sports. I have cultivated favorite teams, who I follow passionately, in all of the American sports and several international ones as well. I’ve set alarms for ungodly hours to catch World Cup matches. I’ve sat in rain, snow, and sleet to see terrible football. I am a fan.

However, I fervently believe that sports have had a terrible, poisonous effect on the mindsets of those who watch them, in one specific way: They glorify zero-sum outcomes.

Many fields in life are collaborative, supportive, multiplicative. More hands make lighter work, and the benefits of ambition and initiative can be generalized to a whole. When one succeeds, it brings success for a whole team, company, organization, and often to wider humanity.

Sports, however, have a strict limitation of outcomes. In an NFL regular season, 272 games will be played. There will be 136 winners, 136 losers. There is no way by which two teams can combine to become a larger, successful organization. There can be no collaboration. No generative effect of compounding success that brings more success to all. The outcomes will always square to zero. 136 wins, 136 losses.1Yes, I’m aware of the possibility of ties. These only further prove my point. Listen to any American talk about ties in sports and you will feel the full fervence of our obsession with winning and the hatred of there not being a winner.

Worse, by design in American sports, every organization save one will end their season with a loss. Whether it is losing out on a postseason tournament or losing in that tournament, sports emphasizes the glory to one winner, and the futility for every other organization who did not reach that pinnacle. The penultimate is merely the first loser, seen as a failure and punished for that failing, even in having seen only one victory fewer than their final opponent.

Sports bleed metaphor into common vernacular, and this continual focus on winners taking all and leaving nothing for second leads to pernicious beliefs in the fans and casual observers of sport. It leads us to sacrificing more than is warranted (“Leave it all on the field”), undervaluing accomplishment and the educational value of failing in having striven, and the growth that comes from having done so, (“I hate losing more than I love winning” and “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.”), and the winning-focused mindset allowing for taking risks that would otherwise be unacceptable (“Swing for the fences” and “No guts no glory”).

Worse, this focus on one winner allows for a veneration of those we see as having won. We celebrate billionaires, when to possess billions of idle dollars in resources while millions struggle to live, let alone with even having the barest definition of “enough” should be ridiculed and reviled. Instead, we create a belief in many that, if given the right circumstances and opportunities, we too could be the ones who win. Who get the trophy, the glory, the fame. We’re willing to sacrifice equality and equity in favor of allowing a small number to win, while the rest of us continue to lose.

I do believe there is much to value from sport, in fostering individual growth, in building teams, in creating collective mindsets and sacrifice for a greater whole. I caution, however, that the popularized, artificial environments we create, where there can only be one winner, can be deleterious when applied outside these constraints. We can all win, and in doing so, we can all take some, rather than one taking all.

Notes:

  • 1
    Yes, I’m aware of the possibility of ties. These only further prove my point. Listen to any American talk about ties in sports and you will feel the full fervence of our obsession with winning and the hatred of there not being a winner.