“We are all product managers now, pleading with obtuse underlings to go back and try again and to get it right this time.” eod.com
work
“Percentage of U.S. employees who say they regularly feign working while at their desks : 58” harpers.org
“[The Great Stay] is driven by fear. [Workers] are staying not because they love their role but because they’ve looked at the alternatives and concluded that the risk of leaving exceeds the pain of staying. thedrum.com
Personal Business. “The type of business that both sustains and is sustained by a community.” (are.na)
Listen: Flow State: Okonski. A nice listen to go gently into your weekend.
“There’s nothing at all wrong with honing in, developing your craft, making variations of things you’re good at, and getting better each time. Nothing small about it. Nothing unfulfilling about it.”
“There seems to be a certain essence in us that we must allow to guide us through life. If we defy this compass, we can end up in places we don’t belong. But if we trust it, follow it, we might do something as grand as fulfilling our purpose.”
Read: Work dailies
“I wish I spent more time moving atoms and less time moving symbols. It is far more rewarding to make things with atoms than symbols. Atomic creations are the things to be most proud of. The symbols on the screens should help us move and produce more, rather than sit and consume more symbols.”
Remote work companies save $10K per employee and employees are 5-10% more productive. /via Chris Glass
“When you accept that the future’s security may not come only in the form of a steady ascent up a pay scale, something shifts. You may not quit your job, but you reorient your time and professional priorities around independent people and relationships, not prestigious companies or brands. You may adjust your lifestyle, outgoings, consumption patterns, and sources of meaning so that they aren’t so reliable on a certain compensation package. You see the value of expanding your abilities and skills beyond merely looking employable online.”
Listen: Welcome to the Jam: The looney story of the decades-old ‘Space Jam’ website. A conversation with the team that built the site, also serves as a look at what making websites used to be like way back in the day.
Future Community Jobs shares interesting open roles in nonprofit communications, content, journalism, fundraising and more.
Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds.
wapo.st/3UXOJDe (gift link)
More of this is being good at sales than anyone wants to admit.
Erika Hall on the job of a designer (linkedin.com)
People do demos of something they’ve built, or give a lightning talk on whatever topic they like. The demo/talk just has be less than 7 minutes long. There’s no minimum time limit. People can talk for 1 minute, 3 minutes, or take the whole 7. The time limit also lowers the barrier to entry and makes it less intimidating for people to sign up and speak.
Yeah, 7 minutes feels about right!
MY COMMENTS ARE IN THE GOOGLE DOC LINKED IN THE DROPBOX I SENT IN THE SLACK
Too real.
Some things for week 16 of 2024.
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Anyone else enjoy looking at the tracking details of a package. Watching an item wend it’s way through a system of warehouses, trucks / trains, and multiple states. Maybe I’m the only shipping infrastructure nerd out here.
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“And yet, making observations is a good starting point for giving feedback. The trouble arises when we assume that those observations are both the start and the end, that we’re walking along a very short track.” From What you see by Mandy Brown. Can I say how much I appreciate everything changes? Lot’s of thoughtful writing!
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The website for the restaurant, Madeline’s is just so great. I was thinking the receipt concept would break down with deeper navigation, but nope!
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Lake Superior should really be considered an inland sea that is “wild, masterful, and dreaded.”
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Ok, I want this van.
We Need More Calm Companies: “The path to success isn’t to “grind harder” but to build products that people want that you can sell with healthy profit margins.”
Taliban Militants Fed Up With Office Culture, Ready to Quiet Quit: “Now, the men find themselves shackled with the bureaucracy of running a country as they work civilian jobs and security positions, spend too much time in traffic and on Twitter, and yearn for the tranquility of village life.” Not an Onion article.
Recommended dosage of work: “to get the mental wellbeing benefits of paid work, the most “effective dose” is only around one day a week – as anything more makes little difference.” Not an Onion article.
the Dolphins hired McDaniel, and in came a philosophy that’s unusual in this business — albeit less and less in the rest of society. Miami’s rise comes amid a cultural reexamination of leadership, people management and parenting, a growing belief that successful, confident people should be neither brutalized nor micromanaged. That it’s possible to be good at your job and be happy.
From Mike McDaniel Needs a Reboot (gift link). Even if you’re not into football, it’s really interesting to see how a non-traditional coach is succeeding in the NFL.
Kinder To Do Lists. I like this idea of using a different phrasing for your to do lists. Example: “When checking off an item that begins with “You promised to email Maria…” I feel as though I’m being a person who follows up on her promises. When checking off “Email Maria,” I feel as though I’ve just won another round of whack-a-mole.”
Effectively, the time costs of doing things over a weekend have diminished considerably for those who don’t have to commute.
For my flavor of UX and Design, I’ve found my most important work is communication. My role is to discover, gather, and analyze the many varied contributions and specifications from all of these contributors and generate output in a language that everyone understands. I also need my outputs to forward the conversation, and expand the audience, at each step.
Dozens of companies (in the UK) took part in the world’s largest trial of the four-day workweek — and a majority of supervisors and employees liked it so much they’ve decided to keep the arrangement. In fact, 15 percent of the employees who participated said “no amount of money” would convince them to go back to working five days a week.
From 4-day workweek trial so successful 91% firms to continue, trial shows ← gift article link
Unordered, incomplete list of things I want from a job by Lynn Fisher.