- Feb 2021
-
tomcritchlow.com tomcritchlow.com
-
This idea of contrary consultant - playing the fool archetype - is helpful because it reminds me that… there is no choice. Indie consultants are often not just outsiders but perpetual outsiders. There’s a value in being contrary - but there’s no way out for perpetual outsiders. We’re often weirdos and oddballs who can’t help but question and poke the status quo… So creating a sense of purpose, identity and acting that “resolves” this tension is deeply important.
You say there is no choice to be a Jester, but I would ask if there’s other successful role responses to the information that we’re perpetual outsiders? What do you think those might be?
-
- Jan 2021
-
tomcritchlow.com tomcritchlow.com
-
Navigating Power & Status
One theme that I recognized in this post but I'm not sure was explicitly articulated - the consultant is conceptualized here as someone who is attempting to be instrumentally rational (effectively affect change in the environment to match their goals) but is only able to do affect change through other people. The reason why it’s important to understand the org chart, social status, localized power, and power potholes is because as a consultant your power is exercised through other people.
-
-
tomcritchlow.com tomcritchlow.com
-
As a consultant this is especially hard to avoid. Your default mode of operating is the liminal space between industries, businesses and markets. A few times a year I’m forced to learn something new from scratch. This forces us to work in spaces where we’re often the least knowledgeable about a specific business (even if we are experts in the industry… And sometimes we’re experts at a discipline but neither knowledgeable about the business or the industry).
This article may be of interest, as it drills in on this tension.
How Consultants Project Expertise and Learn at the Same Time https://hbr.org/2018/07/how-consultants-project-expertise-and-learn-at-the-same-time
-
Missed context - Because you’re not a full-time employee (even if you’re working 5 days a week) you may not be included on all-hands emails, announcements and so on and so you always have to work hard to gain the full context of a client. Tightly scripting a performance doesn’t leave room for new contexts to emerge during the performance. Instead there should always be room for new context to emerge and get integrated into the performance in real-time.
Is this making a similar argument to VGR in "Don't build a hill to die on" about not planting a flag given incomplete context as to all the information the executive has? I'm interpreting this as making sure, with any suggestion I offer, that I'm prepared to respond to their feedback that I'm off base and adjust on the spot.
-
Missed feedback - It’s not uncommon as a consultant to be the most proficient powerpoint user in the org (or at least your portion of the org). This has benefits but it also has the unintended consequence of making everything you touch look “finished”. And finished work gets very different feedback from people than raw materials and thinking. So sometimes it’s important to un-design and un-polish your work, to invite people onto the stage to co-create the performance - this way you ensure that you get the appropriate feedback.
This is a really interesting point. Providing “finished” and “polished” [[deliverable]]s all of the time means people will take it as some final thing where they either agree and implement or don’t. Tightening the [[feedback loop]]s and allowing for [[iteration]] allows me to learn more and involve them in the process.
I remember one of my worst client engagements was early in my experience. I didn't share my work often until it felt fully fleshed out, which meant that I went months in before realizing at the point of a final presentation that I realized that I had my core assumptions about what they wanted all wrong. They didn't pay me the second half. That was an expensive lesson in my role as a consultant and the value of feedback on shorter cycles!
-
- Dec 2020
-
tomcritchlow.com tomcritchlow.com
-
Weak ties can still make strong intros - not because they care about you but because they gain social capital by making a strong intro.
Can you define what you mean by social capital?
-
Blogging, conversely, isn’t designed for building an audience in quite the same way - but is a better tool for reaching new and different audiences each time you publish. When blogging, you can feel more free to roam across subjects, themes and ideas while Substack’s form suggests a tighter and more consistent frame.
This relates to the idea of community porousness. What's the likelihood that an outsider is brought in? A slack group has very little porousness, whereas Twitter has high porousness.
An interesting example of this is with Roam's product community. It has a cozyweb home in a Slack group where people can help each other out without thinking of their public image as much, and on Twitter where their discussions double in purpose as evangelism.
-
Unless I have a strong tie with Jenna I’m highly unlikely to risk my social capital and invest time and energy in re-sharing the request.
Wouldn't this make strong ties into the ones who bridge communities? You post a request in your own cozyweb space, and the strong ties post it into their cozyweb space?
Or is the argument that people won't reshare it but they'll recommend individuals, and those recommended individuals are your weak ties?
Or is the argument that people in your cozyweb spaces are generally going to be weak ties themselves who want to look good for you and for the other people in the space by making recommendations?
-
- Sep 2020
-
artofgig.substack.com artofgig.substack.com
-
In the fourth wave, which is just over two years old, the indie world is transitioning from individual business nerdery and personal brands/networks to more of a science, and creating a landscape dominated by shared networks rather than individual indie consultants. The Yak Collective is one such network that I’ve helped instigate, one with a focus on pragmatism and delivery, and devoted to consulting as something of an empirical science you can study and get better at through trial and error. There are others with different shared values. For example, I just read this NYT article about an emerging network/subculture of indie consultants devoted to spiritual counseling. I hate every element of this particular example, but the point is, the fourth wave is made up of varied subcultures of indies with shared values.
Some come to mind for my own area of work. There's a subculture (very very early) of behavioral science practitioners I'm a part of, as well as gamification designers who actually play video games. I wonder how these subcultures develop?
-
-
nirandfar.com nirandfar.com
-
After more than 15 years of doing research with people being asked to make these health changes, I firmly believe they need to want to do them if anything is going to stick. We can try to persuade people, or show them how these behaviors support other goals they have, but coercing them will not work in any sustained way. And I don’t think it makes someone a bad person if they prefer not to pursue these sorts of goals passed down from on high, even if they would contribute to objective improvements in some areas of their lives. The existing behaviors are clearly serving some purpose.
It’s easier to facilitate and enable people to do something they already wanted to do than it is to convince people to do something they don’t want to do. It’s trite but easy to forget.
-
- Aug 2020
-
www.the100.ci www.the100.ci
-
Scientists want to answer research questions–I think it’s fair to start from that premise rather than from a more cynical one (“scientists want to further their career”).[1]I’m including myself in any criticism voiced in this blog post. If you get the impression that my TOE steps on yours, please simply assume that I’m just talking about myself here. jQuery("#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1").tooltip({ tip: "#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1", tipClass: "footnote_tooltip", effect: "fade", fadeOutSpeed: 100, predelay: 400, position: "top right", relative: true, offset: [10, 10] }); To do so, they need to choose the right means, and this will be influenced by their knowledge, material constraints, and whatever the rest of the field does. The last point is crucial, and it does not contradict the notion that researchers genuinely want to answer questions, since learning from each other is a good idea under many circumstances: developing new practices is hard, and so researchers will be more likely to use practices they were taught in grad school or picked up from their peers.
People keep using the research practices that they learned in school, and they stop learning. This is why it's important to be an [[autodidact]].
-
- Mar 2020
-
-
If a note is broad (i.e. contains more than one concept), it makes finding any concept contained in that note harder (since you have to sort through concepts). (This is “solvable” by storing an additional copy of just that one concept somewhere else, but if you do that, why not store just the concept to begin with and refer to it from within the broad note to avoid duplication and extra note maintenance?)
I haven’t thought about reducing [[note maintenance]] yet. I largely just use the [[develop]] tag for that. Interesting.
-
-
fortelabs.com fortelabs.com
-
The best of the best use organizational systems as a means to a very worthy end: to create rapid, self-reinforcing learning and feedback loops aimed in the direction of their goals.
This is what tags is doing for me. Andy Matuschak has thoughts about this too (feedback loops and such) and I know he's not a huge fan of tags, but I can't ditch the thought that it really comes down to how you use them. I think it just depends on your usage, and I generally ask the question: “why not both?” Why is it always one or the other vs. one when it’s useful and the other when it’s useful? What are the situations where I would want one or the other?
-
The real potential of a digital organizational system is to be a tool for capturing and systematically reminding you of past ideas, inspirations, insights, and connections
Tags help me resurface things as I’m writing, especially if I use them to pull up linked references and related thoughts as I'm writing and then add to them/link to other things whenever they resurface in my review.
-
Ask yourself this: when you have an idea, any idea, what do you do with it? Do you obsessively write every single one down, but never look at them again? Or do you let it pass, thinking “Well it probably wasn’t that good of an idea anyway”? Both these extremes represent people with low creative self-esteem — they don’t put much stock in their own ideas
I like this idea that there is low creative self-esteem in someone who doesn’t search through and revive their notes. Part of why this article really isn't resonating with me is because apps I used with the file/folder/search approach didn't encourage me to actually review my past notes, whereas with Roam I can't imagine not looking through past notes when I'm working on projects.
-
But everything’s changed. Notes are stored locally so there is no lag, search is blazing fast, and the search bar provides recommendations and suggestions that are far more accurate and helpful than tags
I would like less lag time in adjusting and reformulating my searches as I go. The lag time at this point has more to do with how slow Roam is to render things than how slow the process could be, since the sidebar should allow you to pull up many things, explore new threads of thought, and change your question as you go. Thing is, text search with filtration is still powerful as a tag based search if you’re looking at purely functionally, but tagging also gears you towards asking, “when do I want this to resurface?” So you end up coming to more relevant stuff than simply what is written in the base text. This means you're more likely to resurface notes when you take a tagging approach because it gears you to behave differently towards your notes.
That being said, I don't see this as one or the other. Sometimes I think it's better to just search for a note with text. Only problem is that primarily works for searches where you can clearly formulate your question/goal, you know what you're looking for, and you know where to find it. That essentially turns search into something that requires memory, whereas tag based searches allow for exploratory browsing.
-
I theorize that the mentality behind using tags to create hyper-specific targeted searches (“.conversations I had with *girlfriend about ^butternut_squash while wearing #shorts”) comes from the mainframe age, when “running a search” required, basically, writing a custom program that took hours or days to run.
Definitely is some power usage to properly utilize this. That being said, this might also come down to a mindset. I set it up for exploratory browsing and filtering, which is a different goal than pulling up an exact phrase and has a different approach. What I mean by this is that I want my notes to take me to an answer or help me come up with an answer when I only have a fuzzy formulation of my question or goal. That being said, the ability to do hyper specific searches comes about as a result of that browsing orientation.
There’s also a middle ground that’s not super specific, but still helpful. I have tags for meeting notes, the people involved, and dates, so I can filter my searches by any of those things with queries and even just simple linked references filters. Not neurotic specific like Tiago is saying here, but still helpful for finding stuff when I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for. "Oh, I know it was something this person said and it was in the last month or so"
-
So which behaviors are desired and undesired when it comes to organization? In any organizational system, the constant temptation is to overorganize, i.e. to create too many categories, too many subdivisions that are too specific. As the number of tags grows arithmetically, their complexity grows geometrically, for multiple reasons, both technological and cognitive (see memory fatigue above). This phenomenon is all the more problematic with unlimited digital information that never runs into physical constraints.
This could be true, it’s a good point. I come back to Conor’s framework of reduce, filter, and map though. If the user is doing behaviors along the way that reduce the amount of information they’ll see when they look in the future, filter to specify what you want, and then map it out to new contexts, then this bug becomes a feature. Progressive summarization helps in that process, and filter specific tags also helps, as well as straight up deleting things or applying an archive tag that you can always filter out.
This problem also gets reduced when you have aliases and hierarchy abilities along with the tags, because then you’re able to better express what you mean in fewer words/tags. Problem is that Roam doesn't have aliases yet to let the user reduce clutter in their pages and with the different ways that users express the same thing. Tags with bidirectional and unidirectional aliases allow us to express meaning, rather than remember specific words.
-
By associating information to be memorized with specific locations, they harness the brain’s vast location-dependent memory. Think about it: memorizing a phone number without constant review is a challenge, yet you can probably identify the locations of hundreds of objects in your house.
I think he might be referencing Barbara Tversky’s work? Mentioned in Mind in Motion. I think some sense of spatial orientation helps, but I really don’t see how that excludes tags and makes folders better. If anything, constantly drawing connections between things constantly helps you to spatially organize them closer or further away from each other.
We also think in terms of language. Roam essentially lets us write a language for ourselves for communicating with our notes, expressing meaning, and getting a response. The way we use tags as we're writing and later as we're reviewing is crucial.
Also, Bear’s approach to letting you have tags with hierarchy seems to be a happy medium.
-
and second because sometimes there are very different ways of formulating the same thing (graphic design, UX design, interaction design…)
Bidirectional and unidirectional aliases that díctate relationships for linked references and autocomplete reduces this problem. What do I mean by this?
Bidirectional: {[[pct]]=[[perceptual control theory]]} means that those are the same thing. If I write perceptual control theory, that's the same thing. This is bidirectional aliasing.
Unidirectional: {[[pct]]>[[behavioral science theories]]} would mean that every time I write pct, it recognizes that I'm referring to behavioral science theories and I'll see that when I'm looking through linked references to behavioral science theories, or when I type in behavioral science theories it will show pct and all other pages where that relationship has been outlined. The same is not true in reverse because it's unidirectional. Essentially, it's a hierarchical alias.
Aliases like this allow you to express meaning, so you can actually write things in multiple ways to mean the same thing. The current markdown aliases that are supported are essentially temporary unidirectional aliases.
The goal here is to let tags essentially be the language that I use to communicate with my notes. Permanent bidirectional and unidirectional aliases are unfortunately not yet supported by Roam, but this gets at the general point to me that the problem isn't with tags but with how you use them and how they functionally work.
-
Parent” tags that create dropdown menus are no solution — that just leaves you squinting at a tiny list of options to choose from. See above.
Disagree. If anything I just think about that approach as inline search. I'm not sure if I see the problem, this approach is actually quite helpful.
-
Your brain is great at recognition, pretty terrible at recall. It outperforms the fastest supercomputers on the former, and is outdone by a 1980’s solar calculator on the latter.
This could be more nuanced. If you’re using tags repeatedly and making aliases, then that means you are actively recalling info in a consistent way and you have explicitly outlined the different ways that you refer to that concept. That’s pattern recognition and memory fuel. I kind of consider Roam to be a tool for enhancing pattern recognition.
-
But I’ve memorized my tags!” you say. First of all, you’re relying on one of the few things your brain is worse than machines at — remembering stuff. Second, any change in your current projects, collaborators, priorities, interests, etc. breaks this system. This is the opposite of antifragile. It’s superfragile
Page autocomplete helps, intelligent approaches to making index pages as you go also helps, and aliases (bidirectional and unidirectional) would all help. Also letting me search things better in line, as well as showing me what unlinked references I could turn into linked references beside a block would be helpful so I don't miss things.
-
And note that this is in no way optional: without notebooks, the tags are the only form of structure, and even a single note without a single category of tags has the potential to fall through the cracks.
This is a feature, not a bug. With backlinks and unlinked references this problem goes away, especially if you can do aliases for tags. That being said, some of my workflows require tagging everything within a subset, and some tags can just be layered on continuously as the note resurfaces.
Plus, this is a problem with any note taking system people use that is too rigid.
-
Ok, right there, you’ve invested a ton of energy into making multiple non-trivial decisions about something you haven’t even decided is important or worth keeping. This is the whole reason your workflow is a funnel with a wide top and narrow bottom — to make sure you are investing time and energy only in things that deserve it.
Note taking system should not have too much process while you’re writing or else it gets cumbersome. Needs to be worth the cost benefit. I fully agree with this. Effort needs to lead to worthwhile value.
-
When I look at successful people, I notice again and again that it is this — the ability to systematically capture and review and deploy their ideas, further strengthening their creative self-esteem, leading them to value and generate more ideas, and so on in a virtuous loop — that really sets them apart. Not the original quantity or quality of ideas, not their brilliance from birth, not luck.
Agreed that this is the goal. I want that in my notes.
-
We’ve reached the point where search is so good, effectively the whole document is made up of tags, and the cognitive load of meticulously tagging every note becomes truly unforgivable.
Again, functionally that’s how it works, but tags also let you/encourage you to input information that’s not in the base text but is related.
-
Thus the most problematic behavior is implicitly encouraged and enabled. Grrrrrrr. It could be a misspelling. It could be a slip of the finger. It could be a different capitalization, punctuation, or tense, whatever. No warning or indication is given, and a divergent tag is created, for you to hopefully notice and fix later, hopefully before you rely on it.
Aliases and hierarchy! Would also be helpful if the app suggested aliases to you based on frequent usages together or similar letter combinations.
-
The “limitation” of notes residing “only” in a single location is in fact a strength!
This kills the ability to browse for information. Still works for straight search of “I know what I’m looking for and where to find it”
-
As good as your brain is at recognizing patterns, it is terrible at storing and recalling multiple patterns precisely, since the patterns of neuronal activation interfere with each other. Yet this is exactly what you’re doing with tags. What a terrifically unnecessary expenditure of mental resources
See my comment about pattern recognition above. The functionality of tagging can be set up so you have frequent/spaced repetition. Also sort of a feature, not a bug. If something doesn’t get consistently reinforced, then it should sink away. You just need to balance search strategies. Don’t always go in with one predefined query with filters. Let yourself follow train of thoughts, and if it resurfaced, then tag it up more then or build on it. If not, it probably wasn’t too valuable anyway.
You can also program your attention so some tags never go away by making index pages. I’d say this all just depends on your behavior with notes more than anything, I don’t think about it so much as tags vs. folders.
However, I would totally say that you need to behave a certain way with your notes or it does become unnecessary expenditure. If you aren’t searching your notes and conversing with them, you won’t see the benefits.
-
Any system with an upfront access cost this high is just asking to break. This alone, in my opinion, makes tags not worth using
I’m sold that too high of an upfront cost is problematic. So it’s just about coming up with workflows and having functionality that allows the user to spend less time in the present for their future self, because while the cost can be high, the value is immense.
-
-
www.thebehavioralscientist.com www.thebehavioralscientist.com
-
Let me give you a quick example: priming.
And [[priming]] isn't currently supported in the literature.
-
- Feb 2020
-
en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
-
it determines which aspects of the environment an individual will deal with, and what gets passed through to that individual’s conscious awareness. The attentional awareness system is the reason one can safely drive or walk to work without noticing most of the buildings or cars one passes by.
How does attention work? What we pay attention to is probably important as a mechanism of personality. Goal relevance, surprising expectation, both play into that. Threatening information.
-