How Communities Start

June 23rd, 2018

You care about something—an interest, activity, cause, profession, person, place, product, or some part of who you are.

And you have a hunch: there are others who care about the same thing.

So you do something special for them. Maybe you host an event or write a story or make a product.

You help your people out. In doing so you also help them realize that they’re not alone.

Thanks to Yoko for Friday night feedback and storyboarding .

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Plant a Flag

June 21st, 2018

Last week, I spoke with a fellow Cal grad about how to kickstart a community she’s working on. We discussed strategies for getting the attention of the specific group of people she aims to serve.

Even with good intentions, it can be a challenge to gain the attention, trust, and time of people you want to help.

This conversation reminded me of a quote from this article by Christina Xu. Christina’s an ethnographer and budding gardener who works out of Orbital with me. She writes about “crafting a signal” for a community of interest:

Whether it’s an invitation to an event, a call to action, a piece of art, or a literal flare, the signal is how you get the attention of the people you are trying to gather… The best signals are the ones that find people who actually want to connect on their own terms.

— Christina Xu

Piggybacking off of Christina, I tell folks to “Plant a flag.”

To rally a group of people, start by doing something bold that not only signals your shared interest but also gathers these humans to further explore that interest with each other.

Create a rallying moment. For instance:

If you want to launch an ambassador program, bring superfans in and ask for their feedback to improve the latest product.
If you want to assemble volunteers for a cause, organize an activity where people can start chipping away at the problem.
If you want to start a local zoo fan club, invite folks to a teaser event where they can learn about zoo history.

Don’t take, give. Don’t chase, gather. Don’t lecture, enable.

Planting a flag doesn’t have to be big, expensive, or flashy. Planting a flag means giving people a defined moment to show up and meaningfully plug into what they care about.

P.S. Related—our most recent P&C project required me to produce multiple custom flags. If you need a flag vendor, check out New England Flag & Banner.

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Vigorous writing is concise.

June 20th, 2018

I’ve been writing more.

I’m writing a short book with my partners at People & Company, and I’m writing here regularly to reflect on what I’m learning. This quote on “omitting needless words” from “The Elements of Style” struck me today:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

Concise writing is a gift. As someone once said, “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”

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Trying Stuff That Shouldn’t Work

June 19th, 2018

This quote is by Alan Yang (producer and writer on Parks and Recreation, Master of None) during the “Fried Rice” episode of Ugly Delicious. He says:

I think there’s a point in time you start losing your edge. You learn too many rules. ‘You’re not supposed to do this kind of thing.’ And when you’re younger, you’re too dumb to know that stuff. You’re trying stuff that shouldn’t work. And that’s when new stuff gets invented. Right?

I’m going to try to eke the remaining years out of my lack of responsibility.

In my late-twenties, I focused on stuff that should work. Now, I want to try more stuff that shouldn’t work, but feels right.

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Efficiency = Preparation

June 18th, 2018

Bailey working. Me daydreaming about how to make our work more efficient.

I put some time into making my company‘s processes more efficient—creating templates and auditing our project tasks. I’ve been itching to do it. Until recently, I thought of optimizing our work as a pursuit to just get stuff done faster.

Like a kid eager to finish his homework so he can play video games, the goal of saving time was enough.

Then I listened to this lecture discussing the impact of variability on work processes. Higher variability leads to longer queue times, especially in systems with high utilization.

In other words, when our work varies, the work takes longer (e.g. highly customized tasks, different situations, diverse deliverables).

Imagine running a hospital. If patients come in with business-as-usual cases, they’re more quickly admitted, treated, and sent on their way. But if the cases are all over the place including never-before-seen ailments, the system is tested.

The lesson is:

With less stress, the system can handle variability.

— Hugh McManus

No matter how well you plan, the unexpected comes up at work. Unforeseen obstacles arise. Fires must be put out. We should streamline our efforts but often, getting the “variability” low can be hard or impossible.

Making processes more efficient frees up resources to deal with the hard stuff.

Results from a simulation showing how time goes up with variation, especially at high utilization. Source: Ses 3-2 Variability Simulation, MIT’s Intro to Lean Six Sigma Methods

It’s not about efficiency for efficiency’s sake. Efficiency is preparation. Efficiency gives people the time and brain space to handle what comes at them responsibly. That’s a goal worth rallying behind.

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