The optic nerve dominates.
It’s piped directly into our brains and uses a lot of processing power to help us discern the world through vision.
As a result, it’s louder than our other senses and often outshouts the rest of our brain. That’s why it’s easy to be fooled by a magician.
This focus on sight means that we often are at a loss on how to deal with things that are invisible.
It works in our favor with the placebo effect. We can see that we just swallowed a pill, or wore a brace, or bought an expensive bottle of wine. That input helps us heal or enjoy the moment, even if the organic invisible things behind the scenes don’t quite match what we saw.
And it works against us when it’s time for our community to process things that are invisible over time (like evolution or systems change) or invisible in the moment (like viruses and greenhouse gasses).
When there’s a conflict between what we know and what we see, we often default to the wrong one.
October 9, 2022
The closer we look at what other people believe and do, the more clear it is that our view of the world doesn’t precisely match theirs.
It never has, but now it’s magnified. The things we thought were a given, aren’t. No one believes what I believe, not exactly.
How is it possible, we wonder, that people like us don’t believe what we believe or do what we do? Not just people we don’t know, but the people we do know.
And how do we dig in to overcome magnified divisions to find shared objectives, to fight for justice and dignity and what’s right at the same time we connect with people we might be inclined to push away…
Simply asking the question helps us find a way forward. Realizing that people don’t know what we know, don’t believe what we believe. And most of all, that they have a noise in their head, just as we do.
October 8, 2022
You might want to make something that a lot of people want a little…
Or you could make something that a few people want a lot.
It’s usually neither.
It’s rarely (very rarely) both.
If you work hard and make intentional choices, though, you might end up with one or the other.
October 7, 2022
The phone in your pocket cost $600, but that was two years ago, so now, it seems to be free and fully paid for.
The upgrade has a slightly better camera and a slightly faster processor.
Here’s the question: “If you could have chosen between the phone you have now and the phone you want now two years ago, would you have paid $700 more for the newer one?”
Most people would not.
So why do we upgrade? Software, phones, cars, houses…
It’s because we’re not making that simple choice. Instead, we’re embracing the wisdom of the choice we made years ago at the same time we’re focusing on the glaring defects that status and affiliation relentlessly point out.
They’re not trying to sell you a phone any longer. Or a house. They’re spending all their time selling you an upgrade.
October 6, 2022
If, every time there’s a dish in the sink, you load and run the dishwasher and scrub the entire kitchen, you’re never going to get anything else done.
On the other hand, if you wait until the sink is overflowing and the kitchen is filthy before you work on it, you’re going to spend a lot of time living with a dirty kitchen.
Somewhere in between the two extremes is a productive steady state.
The same goes for your relationship with a customer, your staffing decisions and just about everything else we do all day. Setting the triggers for action is best done in advance, and maintained regularly. Waiting for a crisis is expensive and risky.
October 5, 2022
What do the dishwashers eat for lunch?
What’s the user experience of accounts payable for that big tech company?
How does the head of sales treat the receptionist?
If it’s good enough for your customers, it should be good enough for your team, your vendors and your friends. And vice versa.
The key is this: In many organizations, customers have a choice and customers have a voice. Treating everyone as if they have that sort of power makes it far more likely you’re earning trust and respect, not cutting corners.
October 4, 2022
This common question no longer means anything.
Every TV show is on. All the time.
Our record collection streams every record ever recorded.
And our readers can find and display just about any book we can name.
We haven’t thought about the impacts of this abundance nearly as much as it deserves. Live matters less, scarcity is not really a factor, and ubiquity of access can easily lead to boredom, lack of status and a search for real-time connection.
Success used to be based on gatekeepers and access to access. What are the new rules?
October 3, 2022
One way to serve the community is to see it as a market and solve one of its problems.
When people choose to buy something, it’s ostensibly because the thing you sell is worth more to them than it costs. And so value is created.
And when you make a profit selling something and pay taxes, those taxes go to create services for the community.
Those are two reasons culture has evolved to enable capitalism.
When this system gets out of whack, two things happen–first, some businesses use their market power to extract more value than they create. And second, they use their lobbying power to pay no taxes.
The market hasn’t failed, but the system used to address market and community needs sometimes does.
October 2, 2022
Some people say, “we’re not changing it, because this is the way it’s done.”
And some people say, “the way it’s done isn’t good enough, let’s make it better.”
In a given situation, you might encounter one or the other type of response. In fact, each of us might adopt one posture or the other.
It’s not “who”, it’s “what do they believe.”
It’s worth thinking about the beliefs of the person you’re talking to before you try to suggest making things better. And it will help you understand the feedback someone else is giving you about your work as well.
October 1, 2022
Nerds, geeks, early adopters: they do things because they’re fresh and new and might not work. They’re novel.
Most people, though, hesitate in the face of novelty. Because novelty is risky. Shoes with goldfish in the heels. The latest techno-ska-punk track. The new kind of phone…
The reason we haven’t taken systemic action is that it’s scary, not because it isn’t novel enough.
If you want more people to take more action, make it safe, don’t make it interesting.
[PS In a month, it’s Halloween. Please don’t buy cheap chocolate.]
September 30, 2022
