Off to Gel 2008!

Heading to the NYC tomorrow to attend Good Experience Live 2008. Check this space for notes, pics and videos.

How to run a Skunk Works (and other wisdom from sci fi novels)

I just got done reading Bruce Sterling's post-9/11 cyber espionage thriller, The Zenith Angle.

In one key scene, while struggling with a decision to join a cyber espionage skunk works for the US government, the protagonist seeks advice from his grandfather, a former top jet designer who had worked at the infamous Lockheed Skunk Works.

Grandpa says (pgs 65-67, this is good, emphases mine):

... [H]ow to run a Skunk Works. These are the simple things. They're the principles. ... [L]isten ... It's more important to listen to your own people than it is to tell 'em what to do. Decide ... Make your management decisions whenever they're needed. You can figure out later whether they were right or wrong. ... [B]elieve ... Don't ever try to build a project that you can't believe in. Because otherwise, when they cut your funding - and they will cut it - you won't be able to tell 'em with a straight face why they should go straight to hell.

... You've got to be quick, you've got to be quiet, and you've got to be on time. ... these are the rules. ... [Q]uick ... means small. Small teams, the best people, very restricted. Ten or twenty percent of the people that normal outfits would use. No long reports, ever. Never read a long report, and if a guy writes you one, fire him. No long meetings. You want to keep 'em all working close together, no distractions, focused on the project all the time. Everybody stays hands-on with the tools, everybody stays close to the aircraft. Stick with the machine, never back off. That's how you get results quick. ... [Q]uiet ... means no talking. You don't brag about what you're doing. ... You just do it, and you never demand any credit. If nobody ever knows who you are, then nobody knows what you did. ... [O]n time ... You got to do it when there are stars in their eyes about it! Before they get all bureaucratic, and start counting every nickel and dime! Timing is the hardest part ... you gotta know when good enough will do. You gotta know when to quit. ... Because of the Grease Machine ... A Skunk Works is finished, once the Grease Machine takes over. Once the money beats the engineering, that's the end of it, son. Once the money beats the engineering, it's all just chrome and tail fins ...

Instructive, no?

One more thing. Another money quote, attributed in the novel to Robert A. Heinlein:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write a sonnet, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Funny thing is I had seen the same quote on kottke.org right before I got to that section in the book.

Mariah Carey shows nerd love with "Touch My Body" video

Nerds worldwide rejoice as Mariah's latest release rocks the iMac, WiFi, YouTube (YoooouTube...), slot car racing, frisbee, laser tag, and a unicorn, oh my!

My first post of 2008. Happy 2008. May the nerdery continue.

Urban Dictionary search for your iPhone

Slapped together an Urban Dictionary search bookmarklet today. I know there was one floating around on the interwebs but it didn't work on my iPhone.

This one does.

You can use it as a bookmark on your browser (just drag the link into your browser bar, then click it when you need it). If you drag it into Safari, you can sync it up to your iPhone.

Now, you get crunk with your funky junk and badunkadunk.

Hello, Apple colleagues.

Hi, Apple peeps.

You've probably come here because of my profile in today's newletter.

Just wanted to welcome you to my intermittently-updated blog and thank Steve S for writing the profile.

Take a look around and you can make fun of me at work next week.

Have a great weekend!

Wabi-Sabi

While reviewing a design today, I was reminded of the concept of wabi-sabi.

I'd read about it a few years ago at Signal vs Noise:

The simplicity of wabi-sabi is best described as the state of grace arrived at by a sober, modest, heartfelt intelligence…Usually this implies a limited palette of materials. It also means keeping conspicuous features to a minimum. But it doesn’t mean removing the invisible connective tissue that somehow binds the elements into a meaningful whole. It also doesn’t mean in any way diminishing something’s “interestingness”, the quality that compels us to look at that something over, and over, and over again.

A quick check at Wikipedia brought this lovely quote by Richard R. Powell:

It (wabi-sabi) nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.

(And yes, it makes me think of wasabi.)

How to get off direct marketers' lists

I got these off the Direct Marketing Association (DMA)'s Consumer Assistance site and a Privacy Policy mailing from my bank. I've done all of the steps described below. I'll follow with an update in a few months.

How to stop direct marketing mailings (for five years)

1. Go to Mail Preference Service.
2. Fill in the online form. (You can also print out the form and mail it in with a $1 check but why bother?)
3. Charge $1 to your credit card. It's a verification thing.
4. That's it. But don't celebrate too soon. You'll only be off the list for five years.*

How to stop credit card mailings (for five years)

1. Call 1-888-567-8688 (1-888-5-OPTOUT).
2. Follow the instructions. You can choose to remove your name from the call list for five years or permanently. Choose wisely.
   
3. Based on your phone number, they'll ask you to confirm your address and name (which they automatically know). You'll also be asked to enter your Social Security Number and date of birth.
4. If you want, you can do the same for other people in your household. You'll just have to do the entire process again.
5. Snail mail will be sent to you within five days, which you'll have to sign and send back.
   
6. Rejoice, in a limited fashion.*

How to stop telemarketer calls (for five years or permanently)

1. Go to the National Do Not Call Registry.
2. Click the "Register Now"button and enter your phone number(s) and an email address. You'll need the email address to confirm your registration.
3. Check for an email from the National Do Not Call Registry. Click the link in the email.
   
4. You're done. Again, don't celebrate too much. You're only off the list for five years.*

* Remember, you're only off the lists of those scrupulous marketers (oxymoron alert!) who actually use these registries.

Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System

21-pg paper (PDF) published in 1999 by the late Donella Meadows, former director of the Sustainability Institute. (via kottke)

Applies to countries, cities, corporations, etc.

Places to intervene in a system
(in increasing order of effectiveness, i.e., read it like a top 10 chart; the good stuff is at the bottom)

• Constants, parameters, numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards)
• Sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows
• Structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures)
• Lengths of delays, relative to the rate of system change
• Strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against
• The gain around driving positive feedback loops
• Structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to what kinds of information)
• Rules of the system (incentives, punishments, constraints)
• Power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure
• Goals of the system
• The mindset or paradigm out of which the system - it's goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters - arises
• The power to transcend paradigms

And, most strikingly, her closing words of wisdom: "The higher the leverage point, the more the system will resist changing it - that's why societies tend to rub out truly enlightened beings. ... Magical leverage points are not easily accessible, even if we know where they are ... You have to work at it, whether that means rigorously analyzing a system or rigorously casting off your own paradigms and throwing yourself into the humility of Not Knowing. In the end, it seems that power has less to do with pushing leverage points than it does with strategically, profoundly, madly letting go."

The details, as always, are in the reading. Go read the paper.

File under: systems thinking, hacking the system, change management