“But the truth is that kids are more like artificial neural networks — they’re at a subtly different point in mind-space, they’re good and bad at different things than adults are good and bad at.” The Psmiths.
It’s time to talk about America’s disorder problem. One of the things that stood out most to me when moving back to the US from Switzerland was the amount of disorder that we tolerated as a society. This tolerance for disorder might not be entirely bad — America is nothing without its weirdos — but I’m not sure we realize the degree to which it is a choice.
Inventing on principle. Fantastic and through provoking talk about what motivates innovation. It has me wondering what principles I can commit to in this way.
How I failed. The CEO of O’Reilly Media talks candidly about the biggest lessons he’s learned along the way. Rare to get this much candor in one of these.
I’m really coming to appreciate the value of scaffolding in product development.
What do I mean by scaffolding? The structure that allows you to build the product effectively.
Some examples:
A group of early customers willing to give fast, high quality feedback
Sample inputs and outputs that allow you to verify quality
Analytics or telemetry that give you an early indication of success or failure
You set up scaffolding to help you build. It doesn’t need to be pretty, but it needs to be fast, cheap, and effective. At the end of the project, you take it down. Or maybe you incorporate it into the structure of the product, improving it to make it fit for purpose.
Sometimes the scaffolding feels like a distraction. I’m going to build a whole separate structure just to help me build? Only if you want to build it well.
The best projects I’ve worked on outline the scaffolding early. These are the support structures we’ll need to do good work fast.