Rephrasing my talking points
On work
I did this once back in 2020 while running a venture of my own(moving and selling produce). It was termed morning musings. You could check out the thread. My favourite of the lot.
Being optimistic about your chances while pessimistic of outcomes is the default state of mind while running a small firm.
I tweeted them out whenever I was able to make the lesson learned fit inside a tweet.
I have been a fan of the breaking smart newsletter of the past where Venkatesh Rao used to share in bullet points about the topic. This one titled “Against Waldenponding” is a standout. It has gems like these;
4/ What the "unplug for self-care" crowd doesn't get is that you are part of a Giant Social Computer in the Cloud (GSCITC) computing the future. The level and latency at which you consume information and act on it determines your "job" in the social computer. Your shitposting and FOMO are functional
Do you need to take care of yourself? Of course. But, do you need to be plugged in? Without a doubt. As Venkatesh mentions in the post, its like weightlifting. You need to keep pushing yourself. But, I digress.
Coming back to the point as to why I wanted to rephrase my talking points is because I have been at work for over a year and have written significant number of posts about them in the past. Like about product management, operations and systems at work.
Distilling these down to talking points that are tweet length took some time but here we are and I decided to post a recent tweet storm over here. An aside, it was a better thread on Farcaster.
Talking points on Work
These are the point that I follow and preach. You can think of them as the tiny hills on which I am ready to die on.
On design
1) Start with a service blueprint. Conduct user research and collate evidence. Design for few, not for everyone.
2) Every design has a level of friction. How you bridge the gap for the user is what you get paid for.
3) Design keeping in mind that you will scrap everything if it doesn’t work.
On management
4) Out-train your team to be prolific. Doing something on your own may add speed but momentum comes when everyone contributes in the team.
5) If people fear you they will never respect you.
6) Trust by default but verify timely.
7) Don’t say they are your family because you are leaving a lot to interpretation.
On ideating
8) Think before you talk. Better, write instead of talking. It makes you focus on the idea instead of the person who is delivering it.
9) Deliberate conversations over serendipitous often end up with better outcomes.
10) Being rigorous in thinking can cover for shoddy execution.
On making decisions
11) Be more data driven. Define Input metrics first instead output. They are lagging indicators.
12) Dashboards are unintuitive. So, design maps to share context of the canvas with data embedded into it.
13) In business, supply, demand and capital are the 3 functioning levers. Everything else is cashflow management.
On product management
14) Focus on the outcomes and prioritise the inputs accordingly. Think long term but work in short stints.
15) Shape down the scope instead of increase the time of sprint. Shipping it in time than shipping all of it is better.
On personal brand
16) It is form of sharing and talking about the work you did and how you did. Defining your own narrative helps rather than being defined by the next person interviewing you.
17) Work is not everything in the end. Be serious but not obsessive about it. 18) Take many breaks!! People who might know me might find hypocritical bur I am working on this front.
On marketing
19) We all know that marketing is the cheapest form of distribution. So, marketing is about the problem, not the solution you are selling.
20) Demand Driven sales starts with good marketing. Pulling customer to your solution while pushing the problem to them is the sweet spot.
On scale
21) Scale is a function of envisioning. Not all people can visualise an idea at scale. The trick for thinking in scale is focusing on micro interactions that are easy to replicate.
22) This is a version of the famous quote by Paul Graham, "Do things that don't scale".
Closing remarks
This is a work in progress (WIP) kind of thing that had found its own leg to be published as a post. The other talking points on networking, jobs interviews and compensation are still in brewing out stage.
What are your talking points when it comes to work? Would love to know them. You can tweet to me or DM me.
Singing off till next time,
Vivek VS, talking his head off.