Hallucinated software, hardware, whatever, will be full of small lies and made up details, but so are current MVPs, so are current data models, so is everything new and provisional that people produce. People make stuff up all the time to fill in what they don't know and don't have time to find out, so they can move forward. (Mass Hallucination by Mike Kuniavsky)
…we forget the role that luck plays in decisions and outcomes. Someone might have had a terrible decision-making process and gotten lucky. Someone else might have done everything right but had rotten luck. Focusing on outcomes over process is known as the outcome bias, one of the many cognitive biases that lead to decision disasters. (Don't Follow Your Gut by Nir Eyal)
The truly helpless society is not one threatened by revolution but one incapable of it. (Political Order in Changing Societies by Samuel P. Huntington)
History isn't a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. Whenever we choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others. (Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari)
…by its very nature, a method is just a tool to make the practices of experts accessible to novices. But novices can't just mimic what the experts do. Experts make very complex cognitive leaps, based on lots of experience and a complete mastery of their trade. Novices can't, so just showing a novice how an expert works isn't very helpful. It may actually send the wrong message, suggesting shortcuts where there are none and discouraging them from developing their own expertise. (Deep Change by Kees Dorst)
The Enemies of Evidence-Based Approach
The mythical evidence-based approach— We hear about it all the time from executives and managers. We read about it all the time in reports, briefs and talks. We merely don't see it actually happening very often. The enemy of evidence-based approach is making…
The real test of your character is not how you deal with adversity— although that will teach you much. The real test is how you deal with power. The only cure for power is humility and the admission that your power comes from luck. The small person believes they are superior; the superior person knows they are lucky. (Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly)
Thoughts on Community Engagement Design
Community engagement is not easy. It’s hard to get people to show up, harder to keep them stay involved. It’s hard to build authentic relationship, harder to build reciprocal one. It’s hard to facilitate two-way communication, harder to facilitate inclusive…
Manager, Leader and Organization Redux
Manager is the organization’s worker. Leader is the workers’ organization. Organization is the mobilization of bias. Manager and leader are very different roles. Manager is "the organization’s worker"—they implement the organization's agenda. Leader is "the…
Sometimes it happens And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then You are not friends, And friendship has passed. And whole days are lost and among them A fountain empties itself. And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then You are not loved, And love is past. And whole days are lost and among them A fountain empties itself into the grass. And sometimes you want to speak to her and then You do not want to speak, Then the opportunity has passed Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish. And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then There is somewhere to go, Then you have bypassed. And the years flare up and are gone, Quicker than a minute. So you have nothing. You wonder if these things matter and then As soon as you begin to wonder if these things matter They cease to matter, And caring is past. And a fountain empties itself into the grass. Ruan Dattou
And you want this in your life too, by the late Brian Patten:
Humility At Work
Humility is like good posture—everyone can instantly spot when someone else is slouching, but you can walk around hunched over all day without noticing. We become connoisseurs of others' arrogance while our own ego quietly inflates in the background, like a slow leak in reverse.…
When we use process and structure to fix cultural problems what we often get is more lying and cheating. Little lies become bigger lies. And the behavior becomes normalized. (The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek)
The days of my youth, as I look back on them, seem to fly away from me in a flurry of pale repetitive scraps like those morning snow storms of used tissue paper that a train passenger sees whirling in the wake of the observation car. (Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov)
Under the delusion of user-power, both use-situations and users themselves are designed to align with the designated distribution of power and agency set by the stakeholders in power, such as clients, institutions, or funding agencies. (The Corruption of Co-Design by Otto von Busch and Karl Palmas)
We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.... (The Tempest by William Shakespeare)
Most managers, to be sure, are good people; and it seems unlikely that a couple of years of pseudovocational training will spoil them. But it is foolish to imagine that they will behave well merely because they are told in business schools that they should regard themselves as professionals. (The Management Myth by Matthew Stewart)
Technical progress tends to be more tangible than design progress: it's very difficult to design the right solution, and fairly easy to technically execute many solutions. (101 Things I Learned® in Product Design School)
Refraining from asking for justification beyond managerial edict, tradition or fashion, is a key aspect of functional stupidity. It also results in the reproduction of problematic conditions and a shortage of what is sometimes referred to as 'voice' in the organization (Morrison, 2011). (A Stupidity-Based Theory of Organizations)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Importantly, design thinking is primarily a North American phenomenon, and not the universally applicable, culturally neutral practice it is assumed to be by its prominent practitioners. (Design by D.J. Huppatz)
On Professional Integrity and the Duty to Dissent
The true expert is not the one who knows everything, but the one who refuses to pretend they know nothing when everything is at stake.
The soft sciences are hard. The factors that shape human behavior are largely amorphous and likely infinite. This makes it very difficult to frame questions about people in scientific terms, identify reliable variables and controls for a study, and draw clear conclusions from the data. (101 Things | Learned® in Psychology School by Tim Bono)
Systemic design applies sensemaking skills such as visual storytelling and visual analysis, drawing out wisdom through dialogue, and knowledge translation through diagramming. (Design Journeys Through Complex Systems by Peter Jones and Kristel Van Ael)
In China, philosophy has been every educated person's concern. In the old days, if a man were educated at all, the first education he received was in philosophy. (A Short History of Chinese Philosophy by Yu-lan Fung and Derk Bodde)
Are You a Wraiter?
wraiter /ˈrʌɪtə/n. One who depends more on AI than on their own writing skills in order to write. Writer who barely writes by themselves due to excessive use of AI.
When leaders take steps to protect their own interests, particularly when those steps are taken at the expense of others, they send a message to everyone else that it is okay to do the same. (Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek)
The American welfare state is politically vulnerable because it does not rest on a sense of national community adequate to its purpose. The nationalizing project that unfolded from the Progressive era to the New Deal to the Great Society succeeded only in part. It managed to create a strong national government but failed to cultivate a shared national identity. (Democracy's Discontent by Michael J. Sandel)
Introducing OurFiresideChat.ca
My friend Val and I had been thinking about doing something outside our work for quite some time. At work we helped clients on their change and transformation journey and we also created event series to raise awareness and build knowledge around digital skills,…
