Dan Cullum

I recently watched the original Star Wars movie, A New Hope.

I remember seeing it as a kid—I think in 1997 when it had its 20th anniversary screening at the cinema—but a lot of the storylines went over my head.

In my recent rewatching, I couldn’t believe the film is 45 years old. The characters, story, and adventure still feel fresh and relevant.

It got me thinking about how the best stories transcend generations; how they tap into emotions and conflicts that have always been part of the human experience.

Although we get lost in these stories, it’s more that we can see parts of ourselves in them that keep us coming back to them over and over again.

After more than 2 years of dodging COVID, I’ve tested positive.

Give the UK has always been a COVID hotspot, I’ve done well to have avoided it for this long.

My symptoms are like a bad cold / mild flu. I’m feeling poorly, but I’ve experienced worse. Here’s hoping this is as bad as it gets.

I’m remembering what it was like at the beginning of the pandemic. There were so many unknowns and scary statistics being thrown around. I’m glad that I can focus on recovering with the confidence that being vaccinated removes almost all serious COVID-related health risks.

This post follows on from yesterday’s musing on luck.

Whenever we have a moment of “success”, we should ask ourselves: what percentage of the outcome was due to luck?

The hard part is not inflating our contribution, because there’s always luck involved.

The probability of repeated success increases when we’re able to determine what was lucky, and what was a direct cause of our actions.

It helps us do more of what worked, less of what didn’t, and the perspective to be humble when luck goes our way, and resilient when it doesn’t.

I develop even more respect for someone when they acknowledge the role luck played in their success.

Which also means I have less respect for someone when they attribute their success to their actions alone—forgetting the role their team, their family, and luck likely had in their good fortune.

Life is more random and unpredictable than we want to believe. It takes maturity to acknowledge that fact when the wind is at our backs.

I recently subscribed to the Economist. I enjoy getting my “paper” each Saturday, as I find the writing accessible, straight-shooting, and insightful.

One characteristic I like, which is different to other papers, is the authors are anonymous.

I like the reasons that I found for this decision. It “allow many writers to speak with a collective voice,” and a deep “belief that what is written is more important than who writes it,” and their overarching mission—which has remained constant since 1843—to take part “in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”

I can get behind that.

Everyone talks about FOMO, but JOMO is better.

Letting go of possible alternatives is what brings meaning to our choices.

If we had the time, patience, and energy to do everything, nothing would have meaning.

Embrace JOMO.

Aesthetic-Usability Effect is a “phenomenon in which people perceive more-aesthetic designs as easier to use than less-aesthetic designs—whether they are or not.”

When people like a design, they think it’ll be easier to use.

These positive feelings about a design have a second-order consequence too: people are more tolerant of design problems.

I remember opening up my first iPod. Its user interface was like nothing I’d ever used before. I couldn’t believe I could control the device using only the clickwheel. This sat in stark contrast to the MP3 players of the day with the myriad of buttons and switches.

As a Product Manager—a job where I support a team of engineers, designers, and researchers to develop and ship software—it’s easy to offload the design quality bar to, well, designers.

But sitting with the product, using it, trying to break it, asking questions about why a feature or interaction was included all help in testing the logic, thoughtfulness, and resilience of the design.

This is especially important when we’re building for an audience that’s either impatient or has short attention spans—such as users of consumer apps.

The collective standard for well designed products is only increasing. Keeping the Aesthetic-Usability Effect in mind may even influence us to to go against Reid Hoffman’s advice, “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

I’m not talking about money.

I’m talking about energy—specifically, the energy we allocate for work, and the limited amount we have each day.

We can spend it on day-to-day operations (e.g., emails, meetings).

Or we can invest it in getting better (e.g., learning new skills, improving our craft).

It’s easy to spend every drop of energy on daily tasks. The wheels may turn, but we may be stuck in the mud.

Increased traction and progress comes when we deliberately invest some of our energy in things that make us better in the long run.

Observe the people you admire.

Do they ask more questions than answers?

Or do they answer more than they ask?

What does the ratio tell you about them, their experience, their confidence, and their curiosity?

The Elements of Style by Strunk and White is one of the most famous, recommended, and useful books on writing.

William Zinsser, in his excellent book On Writing Well, says Strunk and White’s book should be an annual read for any aspiring writer.

I’ve been particularly enjoying the ‘Approaches to Style’ chapter—where there are simple suggestions to affect a better style, but no hard rules.

I’ve summarised 7 of my favourite below.

1. Write in a way that comes naturally. Write like how you speak.
2. Work from a suitable design. Great writers plan.
3. Write with nouns and verbs. Don’t use adjectives nor adverbs in writing — they’re OK in speech though.
4. Revise and re-write. No writer’s first draft is any good.
5. Avoid the use of qualifiers. Our writing will be much better if we exclude ‘rather’, ‘very’, ‘little’, and ‘pretty’ altogether.
6. Be clear. Any fool can make something complex.
7. Do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity. Avoid acronyms. Write things out in full.

The below tweet from the Orange Book stood out to me. It says much in few words.

Take care of your health when you are already healthy.

Start investing when you are already financially secure.

Find a better job when you already have a job.

Build meaningful relationships when you are already happy.

The best time to start is when you don’t need to do it.

Today I came across a stunning pairing of content related to Kobe Bryant—one of the all-time basketball greats who tragically passed away in a helicopter crash in 2020.

The first was Bryant’s poem to basketball—published after his retirement in 2015.

The second was the final 3 minutes of his last game—where he scored a mind blowing 60 points for the Lakers at 37 years old.

In the first, Bryant states his obsession with the game. In the second, we get to see that obsession in action. We get to witness the outcome of a life of dedicated practise.

Both are poetry.

We can either be on the front foot, the back foot, or be caught flat footed.

I love working with people who have a front footed attitude.

They bring energy, they make stuff happen quickly, and they always find way forward.

It’s not an innate trait. It’s a chosen behaviour.

Their momentum begets momentum, and they pull others along with them.

They set an example I strive to emulate.

The best people I’ve worked with have a striking trait in common.

When faced with a hard problem, they’re willing to sit with it for a long time, they’re willing to dig deep into the ambiguity, and they’re willing to pull at the loose threads until slowly the knot begins to unravel.

The most important word in the above paragraph is “willing”.

Innate talent isn’t a prerequisite to solving a hard problem. It’s a voluntary willingness to sit with, dig deep, and pull at the loose threads.

We can learn so much more when we have 1) a dictionary by our side, 2) a red pen, and 3) a resolve to circle and look up any word we don’t understand.