The world did not end in 1983, good tagging, and charging for time
On September 26th, we celebrated Petrov day, in memory of Stanislav Petrov who did absolutely nothing at just the right time. In this edition, we also learn how to automate tag quality judgments, and discuss pricing strategies for consulting.
I hope your week is going well!
New articles
Happy Petrov Day 2024
Full article (0–1 minute read): Happy Petrov Day 2024
Tagnostic: Determine Tag Quality
Managing tags is really hard. If only there was a way to automatically measure the quality of tag assignments … oh wait, now there is! Introducing Tagnostic, a simple tool to do a big job. Based on correlations between actual tag assignments and embeddings, we can quantitatively measure tag quality. The tool also has a few conveniences for e.g. evaluating tag renames.
Full article (5–15 minute read): Tagnostic: Determine Tag Quality
Flashcard of the week
I have spent a couple of months off work to figure out where I want to go in my career. One of the paths open to me was going into independent consulting. I decided to not make that leap at this point, in part because I got an offer for employment that was too good to turn down.
But in trying to figure out what independent consulting is like, I talked to a lot of people and read about it. One of the things I learned from The Independent Consulting Manual was the distinction between hourly billing and value-based pricing.
What is an economic drawback of hourly billing?
This may not come as a surprise, but it was something I hadn't considered before.
You are limited to charging, at best, as much as you have time available.
The reason I made this into a flashcard is it illustrates so many things at once. But perhaps most importantly it highlights how weird the capitalist employer–employee relationship is, from both sides of the deal: the employer gets no guarantees of anything, and the employee may easily earn far less than the value they provide.
Perhaps the more natural way to do business is to promise results and charge for those results. Or not? What do I know. But I found it thought-provoking, at least.
(The Independent Consulting Manual also proposes that the appropriate amount to charge for a result is that which makes the deal a 10× return-on-investment affair for the purchaser. Useful rule of thumb to keep in mind also in other parts of life!)