A year of dormancy and how MOC's can help in a team environment
The Weekly Review: Vol VIII Issue 8
Hello friends,
It's been a busy couple of weeks as our family took a short (inter-provincial) trip to help my wife's parents move. We had great spring weather and since the move took less time than we had expected, we got in a lot of hiking in and around Terrace, BC. Nestled against the Coastal mountains, it's a beautiful spot and was a much needed change in routine.
Anyway, we're touching on a lot of different ideas this issue. Onward!
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Lessons from Matthew 18
If you're like me, it was hard to miss the reaction to recent changes happening at Basecamp. It was trending on Twitter, even up here in Canada. I won't say any more on the topic other than to say that while I can understand people wishing companies would not politicize their platform, telling people to not talk about the most important issues of life at work is wrong. And tone deaf in the current climate.
But in all the commentary on their actions, I was a little taken aback by the comments from someone I know to be a Christian. This person has helped me think through events over the past year in ways I had not considered (which helped me come to more well rounded opinion). But the comments this time struck me as wrong, and I chose to react.
My initial instinct was to simply reply to the public tweet that got me thinking. But on reflection, I thought of what Christ tells us about confronting a brother or sister in Matthew 18:15
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
Instead, I sent him a direct message and we had a good interaction about the topic and related broader topics. The same may have been true if I had acted on my first instinct, but maybe it would have gone badly.
At any rate, I share all that to simply say that this approach seems like a good one in all areas of life. Maybe all the parts of social media and the online life that is so toxic would be far more tolerable and enjoyable if we all chose to confront people privately before dragging things to public forums.
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Items of note
How political should I let my team be?
Related to the topic of Basecamp's recent changes (along with Coinbase back in late 2020), Claire Lew shared a few ideas on how to approach this subject. She has a few good suggestions, but her closing statement sums it up well:
As leadership professor Gianpiero Petriglieri eloquently posed, “How political should I let my team be?” might be the wrong question altogether.
Rather, we should ask: “How well will I enable civil political discourse in my own team?”
Sovereign Writers and Substack
I've taken in a few posts involving the complaints about Substack. As usual, Ben Thompson does a better job that most folks in covering the topic (although he focuses more on the financial model, whilst most of the recent criticism is centered on content).
Still, that doesn’t change the fact there is a real unfair deal in publishing, and it has nothing to do with Substack. Go back to Yglesias: while I don’t know what he was paid by Vox (it turns out that Substack, thanks to their leaderboards, is actually far more transparent about writers’ income than nearly anywhere else), I’m guessing it was a lot less than the $380,000 he is on pace for, much less the $775,000 he would earn had he forgone an advance. It was Vox, in other words, that was taking advantage of Yglesias.
That quote may not make sense if you haven't read anything about the service of late. However, if you're interested at all in writing, publishing, and earning income doing both, Thompson is a good person to listen to.
What I loved the most about the post is his use of the term "sovereign writer."
… but the entire point of the sovereign writer is that they own their audience
Not in the sense of control, but rather that the sovereign writer is in control of their connection to the audience, and they're not beholden to any intermediary. Which is just the way it should be.
We need to talk about your Q3 roadmap
Lara Hogan hits this topic on the head.
Your coworkers are burned out, scared, and angry. It’s adding up, and I’m not sure if you see what’s coming.
It’s likely that a bunch of your teammates are eyeing a time when they can take extended time off in Q3. Maybe they’ve already requested vacation time for later this summer. In America, where Biden’s set the “goal of getting the nation closer to normal by July 4th,” many folks are planning trips to see family, or just take a real vacation for the first time in a long time.
But I’m also talking to more and more folks who are considering quitting without anything lined up. (There’s enormous privilege in this act; tech workers can often save up enough cash to give themselves a break.)
In talking with a lot of people this year who work in recruiting or operations roles, one thing was made clear to me: companies are seeing their hiring pipelines dry up.
There isn't one clear obvious cause of this (although companies that used to rely on being remote to make them unique are definitely feeling the effects of COVID), but it was repeated enough times to me that there are clearly multiple high-level factors coming into play.
Lara hits on a big one. The impact of COVID-19 on mental health has not yet been fully realized.
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Quote of the week
It seems to me that the reason that so many of us feel like we’re languishing is that we are trying to flourish in terrible conditions. It is spring outside — or the “unlocking” season — but it is still “Winter in America,” and, as any gardener knows, if you try to wake a plant out of dormancy too soon, it will wither, and maybe die.
I'm not languishing, I'm dormant, Austin Kleon.
A nice way to encourage a better mindset for how so many of us are feeling after this past year of pandemic-shaped routines.
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Using MOCs helps in a team environment
Ever since I first read GTD by David Allen, I've struggled with two aspects of task and knowledge management:
- Your reference information required to complete a project is (usually) separated from your tasks
- Your personal knowledge repository is disconnected from the tools you use to collaborate with others (see the P in PKM)
I touched on the first item way back when I first picked Things 3 as the best task management tool for Apple users. But with my focus on PKM, and tools like Obsidian and Roam, I've been experiencing the second issue more keenly.
What I've found to help is what Nick Milo termed Maps Of Content. In the sense of a Zettelkasten, you can consider these notes as indexes: they're notes that give you a high level of other notes on related themes or topics.
And in terms of working with a team, these MOCs can include pointers to materials outside of your PKM library.
A quarterly focus
At Wildbit, we work in quarters. Each quarter starts with a week of planning, from which we break into different teams with a specific focus for the next 3 months (approximately). But as a supporting team (a team topology term we use for disciplines like marketing and CS that are involved with most products/projects), a week after planning that included multiple quarterly project plans, my head is usually spinning.
That's where my quarterly MOC comes into play.
I started using this towards the end of 2020 and heading into 2021 planning. My note points to the projects where I'm the driver (we use the DACI method for projects), but also the projects where I'm a contributor. It also includes my goals for the quarter, plus any retro's from the previous quarter.
But the important part is that points to all my relevant documentation both within my Obsidian vault and without. I use this regularly each week, but especially so during my weekly review. It's been a great addition and beats trying to keep 5–10 browser tabs open.
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Currently
Drinking: Carreta (a Session IPA with Sabro) from Andina Brewing. I've tried quite a few of the various hops focused IPAs this past year. These tend to ficus on the specific hops used and can come across as very juicy (a trend for the hazy IPA category).
I like those drinks, but sometimes I find them too juicy. Almost like drinking a fermented cup of OJ. However, this specific brew hits the spot just so. It's juicy, but not too mjuch so and the flavor is 💯
Wearing: I wasn't sure I'd ever get a second pair of shoes from On, but I recently decided to give them another try. This time I went with the Cloudflow and I've been happy so far. They seem to have improved the two big issues I had with my first pair. The grip feels better and the tip of each shoe isn't quite so hard (which used to result in scratched and bruised ankles).
Watching: We recently viewed Tolkien and it was one I'd recommend. I've been far more familiar with the life of C.S. Lewis than Tolkien, but I was glad to get more of a picture of his life.
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That's it for this issue. May you enjoy some sun wherever you happen to be — see you in two weeks 👋