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.
forgetting is a filter
#I’m increasingly convinced that a much more relaxed approach to knowledge consumption – one that involves putting way less pressure on yourself to retain what you read, listen to, or watch – isn’t only more enjoyable, but better for your creative output, too. The first reason for this is that forgetting is a filter.
Oliver Burkeman from his newsletter The Imperfectionist: How to forget what you read
An introduction to object-oriented UX and how to do it This is how my brain works.
What is the job of a contact tracer?
#I was reading my state’s Covid-19 recovery plan and was curious about the contact tracing part. Specifically, the job of contact tracing, so I looked up the job posting:
Are you a self-motivated, people person looking to make meaningful contributions through work that impacts the nation? NORC is hiring interviewers to serve as Contact Tracers for the Maryland COVID Link initiative. These Contact Tracers will play a key role in the state’s effort to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. This opportunity will allow interviewers to contribute to the fight against the disease while working from home as part of the Contact Tracing Call Team.
I’ve always been interested in how “things” (organizations, tools, industries, processes) work. I suppose that is why I dig my job so much. Curiosity aside, this “thing” may save our collective asses in the coming months.
An interesting nugget from Advice from Ten Years of Leading Remote Teams:
U.S. Digital Response is looking for volunteers to help State and Local governments with technical support for their COVID-19 response. Types of skills sought include: UX research/design, content strategy, front-end engineering and more.