March 21, 2024

s18e03: A Re-introduction; Streaking Still Considered Harmful; Pulling the Cord and Then What?; Tiny Bits

0.0 Context Setting

It’s Thursday, 21 March 2024 in Portland, Oregon and a grey day outside. We had a long weekend of sunny, warm, cloudless weather and completely overdid it on barbecues.

0.1 Events: Hallway Track, and Pulling the Cord

Hallway Track, my online version of the great small conversations you have in the hallway after a great conference session, is on hiatus while I figure out the programming for the next block of tracks.

Pulling the Cord had its trial run yesterday. More on that below.

I have a little tweaking to do before I schedule the next one; I’ll about it here and on LinkedIn when registration opens up.

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1.0 Some Things That Caught My Attention

1.1 A Re-introduction to Things That Caught My Attention

It has caught my attention that I’ve had quite a few subscribers since the last time I explained exactly what’s going on here.

So:

Hello! You’re one of nearly 3,000 people subscribed to Things That Caught My Attention by me, Dan Hon, a person who is now in his 40s and has been on the internet for a long time.

This newsletter is a place where I think out loud. It’s usually about technology, but not always. “Technology” means lots of things these days because, well, technology touches everything. It normally means “computers and networks”, which for a while expanded to “phones”, but now is more accurately “anything with an IP address”.

Because I write about technology, I also write about what it’s like to use as a person, which changes over time. I’m open about mental health, about being an immigrant in America raising a young family,

The nearly 3,000 subscribers here don’t all work in technology. Some of them don’t have anything to do with tech at all, other than have to use it. They’re artists, writers, musicians, workers in government, non-profits, parents, grandparents, union organizers, lawyers, journalists, and academics. All sorts, really. Of the ones who do work in tech, they’re designers, developers, architects, product directors and engineering directors, funders, researchers. Again, all sorts.

All they have in common is that they’re still here to read whatever it is I have to say, which, frankly, is pretty puzzling. But, I’ve paid for a lot of therapy to become at least accepting of that idea, some of the time.

Here’s what you’re going to get:

• News about the events I run as part of Very Little Gravitas, my consultancy.
• A barely-edited, stream-of-consciousness run of words in which I think about things. I am not kidding when I say I’m thinking out loud. Some people really like this because they realize they have a problem they would love me to think about. I like that too, because they’ll pay me for it.
• That stream-of-consciousness writing? I mostly stick the landing. If you’re a writer, then I’m a pantser¹.
• Quite a lot of words, in bursts. I type fast. Most people binge-read.
• Footnotes, mostly, instead of in-line links, as an idiosyncrasy to focus on the stream, not the references.

I organize the newsletter into seasons like a tv show², which is to say groups of “episodes”. The length of a season is entirely down to vibes.

The best essays from the first 50 episodes are collected in an ebook, optimistically titled “Things That Caught My Attention, Volume 1.” Free subscribers get a 20% discount; you get a free copy if you’re a paid supporter.

Lastly, Things That Caught My Attention is completely free. It’s too complicated to figure out what to charge for, and besides, I’m doing this to write out loud, not to make money. That said, if you like it and find it useful, please consider becoming a paid supporter

1.2 Streaking Still Considered Harmful

The kids accidentally (i.e. not on purpose) started using Duolingo and, well, I’ve talked before about how I think streaks -- as usually implemented -- are harmful.

To recap: streaks -- counting unbroken repetition in order to start a habit -- are great! But they’re also strict. And depending on personality, they can also be shitty for mental health. After a while, they can be less about habit, and more about punishment and pressure.

In many cases, what would be more sustainable would be more time spent practicing or doing the thing.

The thing is, things happen. I don’t know, you get on a plane and you can’t stand up and oops! You broke your Rings. There are a whole bunch of reasons why you might not be able to do something for one day, and one way to think about this is the reasons why line up with the thinking that everyone benefits from accessible products and services; you don’t even need to get into the “a stunningly high proportion of people will experience some sort of disability at some point in their life”, of which a usual (exclusionary?) example is “you are caring for a baby and suddenly have to do things with one arm”. Not physically disabled, in the way that people might instinctively think -- although this is changing -- just, what, less capable.

Anyway, I was talking about streaks. One of the kids was super mad about breaking his streak for a Reason that has to do with us doing a parenting, which also means setting boundaries and being consistent about them. And ooooh were they super mad.

Now, you could be conflict-avoidant about this, which is to say that Duolingo is Bad because it has a streak mechanic and you Want To Avoid Situations In Which Your Kid Is Mad, but that’s also... not great? Because you also want your kid to understand that Emotions Come And Go and that streak isn’t that big a deal in the first place. But Duolingo kind of treats it like one in the way it presents the streak. Sure, you might have a rest day or whatever, but also consider the context in which the entire mechanic is presented.

In my experience with long-term mental health, I had to learn that there will be relapses. What matters is being able to do the things and start the habits again that help manage you back into remission. It’s not the streak, it’s getting back into the habit. Habits can break for any reason. If you’re involved in making software where the pressure is to Make Number Go Up And To The Right, please consider what compassion looks like. If you’re able to.

1.3 Pulling the Cord and Then What?

I ran a test Pulling the Cord session yesterday. It was a refined version of the talk I’ve been giving for years now to executives in government to persuade them to do giant technology projects differently.

It was a test because it wasn’t just giving the presentation so people can see what I present and how. That would’ve been boring and... not good? What I needed to do was for each section -- and slide? -- outline what my goal was and then explain why I did what I did to achieve that goal. This is the whole “you really know what you’re doing when you can explain it to someone else” thing. It was hard! Mainly because I haven’t had to do it much, at least not until the last couple of years, when I also started coaching teams.

I ended up thinking about it as a sort of commentary track, which made it a lot more fun than the usual “dreading doing a presentation and working on it up until the last minute (which I did anyway), being full of anxiety, and then riding a bunch of endorphins while giving it, then collapsing”.

It helped that I’d done a bunch of Hallway Track events over the last six months. I’ve practiced! It was also a reminder that what feels easy and obvious to me isn’t necessarily easy and obvious to others. And if it’s something I’m good at, such that people want to pay me money to do, then it’s even more likely that what I’m doing isn’t easy and obvious. Again, this isn’t to say that it isn’t hard. It is hard, just qualitatively differently hard. It’s not like doing admin, for example.

Now I have to think about a bunch of stuff for the next version. Who’s it for? The answer “lots of people” might be true, but that doesn’t help get it in front of people. It also doesn’t help with explaining the problems it solves for those specific people. Which means going back to what I have right now and tweak it. Which is hard! And I have to think about the difference between time and value. I know it’s incredibly valuable to some people, on the order of “well, this set us down the road to not wasting millions of dollars”. This part isn’t easy, and will take time. But I’m excited, and want to do more, and there’s every chance I’ll yolo it into scheduling the next one.

1.4 Tiny Bits That Caught My Attention

• In “Blame Excel for Things” news is Williams Racing, which ran a 20,000 item sort-of-ERP system (really) in Excel³, for... being a Formula 1 racing team?
• Valve has a new set of Family Sharing and Parental Controls⁴ features which I’m itching to try out because Nobody Gets Family Sharing and Parental Controls Right.
• LinkedIn plans to add gaming to its platform⁵, which manages to hit some sort of bingo mentioning “wordle”, “viral success”, “ranking” “deepen relationships”, “[spark] conversation”. This is a) funny, and b) terrifying, and c) more proof that my jokes about LinkedIn integrating with the Xbox ecosystem continues to only be a matter of time, which is also cheating because along a long-enough time horizon you can totally win.

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Okay, that’s it for today. A long one, mainly because of the re-introduction.

I love getting notes and replies, even when they’re just “Hi!”. Or even “Hi”. No exclamation mark required; no judgment if you reflexively include them in business communication, either.

How are you doing?

Best,

Dan

P.S. if you get something out of this newsletter and feel like dashing out an endorsement, that’d be cool too. Everyone likes endorsements.

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