2023-10-28 Links

Daily Reads:

Persistence and luck – Laura Stewart is the grand-daughter of Geoff Stewart, founder of North Flinders Mines. The thrust of this article is how success in businesses is rarely linear (not a surprise for anyone paying attention), that businesses are made up of people (hah, tell that to some execs!), and the benefits of holding high conviction investments through difficult times can be substantial, especially over a multi decade period.

What does it mean when ‘part of a rainbow is missing‘? A beautiful explainer about the wonders of spectroscopy.

A David Bowie story from Neil Gaiman

Churchill’s Never Give In speech from 82 years ago on the 29th October 1941. The link is from Bob Ewing’s post on Churchill’s pile driver idea: “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever.  Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again.  Then hit it a third time—a tremendous whack.”

An American Teacher – I have no idea who wrote this
HERO OF THE WEEK: AN AMERICAN TEACHER 
Every Friday afternoon Chase’s teacher asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student whom they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her.
And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, Chase’s teacher takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her and studies them. She looks for patterns.
Who is not getting requested by anyone else?
Who doesn’t even know who to request?
Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated?
Who had a million friends last week and none this week?
Chase’s teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or “exceptional citizens.” Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down — right away — who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying.
As a teacher, parent, and lover of all children — I think that this is the most brilliant Love Ninja strategy I have ever encountered. It’s like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things and into the hearts of students. It is like mining for gold — the gold being those little ones who need a little help, who need adults to step in and teach them how to make friends, how to ask others to play, how to join a group, or how to share their gifts with others. And it’s a bully deterrent because every teacher knows that bullying usually happens outside of her eyeshot — and that often kids being bullied are too intimidated to share. But as she said — the truth comes out on those safe, private, little sheets of paper.
As Chase’s teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea, I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using this system?” I said.
Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine.
Good Lord. This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that all violence begins with disconnection.  All outward violence begins as inner loneliness. She watched that tragedy knowing that children who aren’t being noticed will eventually resort to being noticed by any means necessary.
And so she decided to start fighting violence early and often, and with the world within her reach. What Chase’s teacher is doing when she sits in her empty classroom studying those lists written with shaky 11 year old hands — is saving lives.
And what this mathematician has learned while using this system is something she really already knew: that everything — even love, even belonging – has a pattern to it. And she finds those patterns through those lists — she breaks the codes of disconnection. And then she gets lonely kids the help they need. It’s math to her. It’s math.
Chase’s teacher retires this year — after decades of saving lives. What a way to spend a life: looking for patterns of love and loneliness. Stepping in, every single day — and altering the trajectory of our world.

QOTD:

“Churchill mobilised the English language and sent it into battle.”
– Edward R. Murrow

Music:

Bob Fulghum has this poem, which to me counts as music for today, with Paganini’s guitar compositions in the background:

YOU ARE READING THIS POEM
You are reading this poem
because you are looking
for something.
Like walking up a dry creek bed
in September looking
for something.
Looking for what the flash floods
of August have
washed down:
Smooth stones, polished sticks,
feathers, bones, seeds
You are walking up the dry bed
of this poem looking for something like that.
To keep, to have, to hold onto.
Stop. Turn back.
Come again when it storms.
Wait here while the flash flood tears through.
Stand in the water as deep as you dare.
Stay until you know what water is.
Keep that.

2023-10-27 Links

Daily Reads:

A day in Pompei – a full length animation of what happened in 24 hours when Mount Vesuvius emptied its bowels.

Ben Werdmuller: Journaling in private with my friends Not everything has to be about building a brand or a following. It can just be about reflecting, or sharing something with your friends. Private spaces allow us to be weird, unvarnished, and vulnerable in a way that’s harder for most people if they think the world could be watching.

Ness Labs: The Science of Brainstorming Particularly enjoyed the language around creativity types (combinatorial, exploratory and transformational) and the examples in each.

Ethan Molick: The best available human standard for AI argues that in many cases the AI is competing with no-one available to do the task. AI is also better than most humans at brainstorming.

QOTD:

Simple acts of generosity, of spirit as well as wealth, have a more lasting impact on us than any amount of marginal consumption. It is to be found in simple acts of noticing what is around us, and our deep relationship to it as our unconscious forces insight to the surface of our conscious in the hope that we might pay attention.
– Richard Merrick

Music:

John Mayer & Ed Sheeran Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

2023-10-26 Links

Daily Reads:

QOTD:

“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils”

  • Hector Berlioz

Music:

A few hours of practice with band today, and I heard this for the first time. Slowdive – when the sun hits. Can’t say I’m a fan yet, but it was interest to learn and play it on the fly.

2023-10-25 Links

Daily Reads:

  • “Name three things your work must always do, and three things it must never do.” I love this idea so much. Also the idea that I can change my mind, but I need to know why. – from Rob Walker’s blog post.

A goldmine of ideas and links from JP Castlin. Plenty of reading material there.

Memorial benches around the world. I find these aplenty on my walks – why not add to them? And the site is from Terence Eden (& Elizabeth Eden) who’s blog I follow.

Shoutout to people whose kindness isn’t a strategy but a way of life.

Roger Martin: Tackling Mysteries

Seth Godin: Late Stage Technocrats

Ben Werdmuller has a great example of using his blog to attract the people he wants to work with. I also loved this post about maps not being the territory in a novel way: I like my GPS. I use it pretty much every time I drive. But it’s not going to make the final decision about which way I go. I appreciate using AI software agents as a way to check my work or recommend changes. I like it when software tells me I’ve made a spelling mistake or added an errant comma. I do not, under any circumstances, want them running our lives.

QOTD:

“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.’ – James Baldwin

Music:

Talking Heads – Live in Rome 1980

2023-10-24 Links

Daily Reads:

A race on the hour. Every hour. 24 hours a day. For 4 days. Humans continually push the limits of what is possible. Big’s Backyard Ultra marathon

Om Malik: Spinning memories of the late Bishan Singh Bedi

Beautiful Data Visualisations from 1 dataset inspires how to think about sharing information.

Jascha Sohl-Dickstein: Too much efficiency makes everything worse

QOTD:

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.
– Emily Kimbrough

Music:

Nat King Cole: LOVE. I heard a young girl, no more than 13, sing this at the CC Choral Festival today.

2023-10-23 Links

Daily Reads:

I chose to spend the day reading Michael Bungay-Stanier’s "How to Work With Almost Anyone" at the library this morning. I’ve made some hasty notes to get the 5 questions to help have what MBS calls the Keystone Conversations. The quote of the day is from MBS, a quote that resonated really strongly.

Mid-way through listening to Matt Mochary on the Grit podcast, on my walk home from the library. The question that the Joubin asked Matt about dinner conversations took a vulnerable turn, with Matt sharing the story of his grandfather. Got me thinking about my own ‘dinner’ conversations that have had significant impact on the way I see the world.

QOTD:

Some people have bought out the best in me, while some have managed (temporarily, thank goodness) to crush my spirit, soul, resolve, and confidence. I’ve also done those things to others.
– Michael Bungay-Stanier

Music:

Haven’t heard Gretchen Peters Guadalupe in a while.

2023-10-22 Links

Daily Reads:

  • Seth Godin: Emotional labour and its consequences. As usual, this is a strongly resonant observation. Emotional labor has become a competitive advantage. Our commitment to showing up as a human, even (especially) when we don’t feel like it is precisely how we create value. And it’s this human work that helps us feel seen and valued as well.

  • Tests built for humans are used to evaluate LLMs. MIT Tech Review argues they are flawed.

QOTD:

Don’t be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.
– Arthur Miller

Music:

Paganini: Complete Guitar Music is playing as I figure out the typos in this post rather unsuccessfully.

2023-10-21 Links

Daily Reads:

QOTD:

"I have the privilege of no longer having to burn myself out to pay the bills.And I’m learning that with this privilege comes the responsibility to no longer overwork when I have the choice not to.Because we’re all interconnected. And each time I work through lunch or trade sleep for productivity or reply to an email outside of work hours, I’m normalising these things. Each time I overwork, I’m contributing to societal expectations that other women do the same.We don’t all have freedom from having to work inhumanely long hours just to get by.But if we do, let’s use our freedom to try to create a society that truly honours the needs of our minds, bodies and souls.Let’s normalise generous, nourishing lunch breaks.Let’s normalise getting enough sleep.Let’s normalise ignoring our emails out of hours.Let’s normalise unfinished to-do lists.Let’s normalise average.Let’s normalise unproductive.Let’s normalise imperfect.Let’s normalise naps.Let’s normalise play.Let’s normalise rest.🌷"
– Tracy Durnell

I agree. I’m on this boat now, too.

Music:

The White Horse Guitar Club – Wide River to Cross

2023-10-19 Links

I created an opportunity for some wonderful friends to meet, talk, and enjoy a meal together in the company of each other, despite the challenges of life. I am richer for it, and I hope they all have similar sentiments.

Daily Reads:

I probably should have known this, but I’m glad I found out now about the right way to pour beer into a glass

Nathan Baugh’s list of 77 character archetypes will come in handy in my speechwriting. Likewise with Stephanie Green’s reminder that starting with the bottomlineis a better storytelling approach in the business world.

David Cain’s write up on ways to make your mind a little more quieter resonate strongly.

QOTD:

“A king fortifies himself with a castle, a gentleman with a desk.”
– Kristin Hannah

Music:

Chet Atkins and friends (1987) goes on for an hour, and is soul-filing.