Month: October 2024

I called an optometry store nearby the other day after hours.

Like other stories, they asked me to leave a voicemail.

Like other such asks from stores, I ignored it.

A few seconds later, I got an automated text from the store asking about my call. I texted them about the item I was looking for. A few minutes later, someone responded they had it in stock.

It is a simple addition to their process – a text in addition to the voicemail to follow up on customer interest.

And yet, that simple exchange guaranteed they kept a customer they might have lost. It is one of the better examples I’ve seen of maintaining a water-tight funnel.

Well played.

Whenever we work on driving change within an organization, we will run into situations where things feels stuck or broken. Everyone was bought in to the promise of the change – but now we’re stuck and unable to make progress.

Every experienced operator knows that is normal. There is generally no shortage of possible ideas – the challenge is finding the one that actually works despite all the constraints.

And the more consequential the decision, the more the constraints (and the number of people who remind you of the constraints).

The key, in these situations, is to get the core group of stakeholders together with one goal – to agree on why things are broken / why we’re stuck.

No expectation on getting to a solution. Let’s just align on the problem we’re solving.

That ends up being the most important thing we can do to get unstuck.

“What best distinguishes our species is an ability that scientists are just beginning to appreciate: We contemplate the future. Our singular foresight created civilization and sustains society. A more apt name for our species would be Homo prospectus, because we thrive by considering our prospects. The power of prospection is what makes us wise. Looking into the future, consciously and unconsciously, is a central function of our large brain.”  | Martin Seligman

A beautiful distillation of what it is to be human.

To be is to ponder about the future.

A recent paper shared the results of a 5 year observation study of 12,000 individuals with Obesity taking GLP-1 drugs (e.g., Ozempic, Wegovy) by a collection of Chinese researchers.

There’s an impressive looking graph in the paper that shows a significant reduction in adverse outcomes (stroke, cardiovascular issues, etc.).

A commentor on the thread, Hank Green, summarized the punchline beautifully.

That’s a ~90% improvement in mortality.

There’s a lot we need to fix in our society with regards to diet and movement. There’s far too much ultra-processed food going around and far too less exercise.

But such changes take time. Obesity needs urgent attention. And while we’re still early in understanding the long-term impact, a 90% reduction in the odds of death should make us all sit up and take notice.

This global population growth chart, from Steven Johnson’s post, blew my mind. It illustrates what happens when growth goes from linear to exponential.

In Steven Johnson’s words – “That’s the 6,000 year history of human population growth. You might notice, if you really squint your eyes, that something interesting appears to happen about 150 years ago. After millennia of slow and steady growth, human population growth went exponential. And that’s not the result of people having more babies—the human birth rate was declining rapidly during much of that period. That’s the impact of people not dying. And while that is on one level incredibly good news, it is also in a very real sense one of the two most important drivers of climate change. If we had transferred to a fossil-fuel-based economy but kept our population at 1850 levels, we would have no climate change issues whatsoever—there simply wouldn’t be enough carbon-emitting lifestyles to make a measurable difference in the atmosphere.

The key idea here is that no change this momentous is entirely positive in its downstream effects. Trying to anticipate those effects, and mitigate the negative ones, is going to take all of our powers of prospection.” 

It also illustrates why I’m particularly interested in the technology adoption curves of solar energy and other renewable energy sources. In cases where the externalities (or second order impacts) are positive, great things happen when growth goes from linear to exponential.

Feedback often shows up like a lump of coal in a clean room – unwelcome and annoying. Heres what we need to do to help us get to actionable feedback –

(1) Acknowledging that all feedback is between 1% and 99% true. It is our responsibility to figure out what we want to do with it.

(2) There’s no point reacting to any emotion around it.

(3) If it comes from someone in a position of authority, best to take them seriously instead of literally.

(4) When we get ideas suggested to us, we need to do the work to understand the problem the ideas are intended to solve. Then we can find the right solution to those problems.

These steps unearth the diamond within the coal.

When making a case for change, many try to get their audience excited. So, they end up “pitching.”

But going all out on pitching doesn’t work because excitement alone doesn’t spur action.

We first have to get the listeners concerned about the problem. Then excitement should follow when they understand how our solution solves the problem.

The pitch works best when there is alignment on the problem.

“You can tell the size of a person by the size of their problems.”

A good friend reminded me of this a few days ago.

I added to my daily morning note to self.

I can’t be reminded enough of it.

When we travel, we often go on road trips and rent a car. A small tip I found useful was to look for the arrow next to the fuel indicator when I’m about to pull up to a gas/petrol station.

The direction of the arrow tells you which side the gas tank is on.

A nice example of a useful Ux/user experience standard.

Sam: “I wonder if we’ll ever be put into songs or tales.”

Frodo: “What?”

Sam: “I wonder if people will ever say, ‘Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring.’ And they’ll say ‘Yes, that’s one of my favorite stories. Frodo was really courageous, wasn’t he, Dad?’ ‘Yes, my boy, the most famousest of hobbits. And that’s saying a lot.’“

Frodo: “You’ve left out one of the chief characters – Samwise the Brave. I want to hear more about Sam.”

Frodo: “Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam.”

Sam: “Now Mr. Frodo, you shouldn’t make fun; I was being serious.”

Frodo: “So was I.”

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“Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam” is one of those memorable poignant lines from the second Lord of the Rings movie. It is poignant because it is a representation of the real hero’s journey.

We love the story of the lone inventor and the fearless leader. In reality, however, they walk in the footsteps of giants before them… and are supported by incredible teams who chose impact over fame.

Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam.