Archive of posts from August 2022

Do you need a market opportunity?

Where a market is ripe for innovation by many, so that there’s room for you to introduce your work?

Or do you simply need to find an opportunity for you?

A bear market is only a bad time to build something generic. It’s always a good time to build something remarkable.

A shifting market may be full of opportunity for those who need such a shift to succeed. But there’s always room for us...

Scared of failing?

Is that making you faired to do what you want and like?

It‘s worth remembering…

…that you can do things you don’t like…and still fail.

Failure isn’t a variable, it’s just a stepping stone along the way of making things.

So why not make things you love?

If you normally win, it could be because you’re stuck playing Level 1 because Level 2 feels scary. It could be time for Level 2.

If you normally know the answer, perhaps you’re stuck answering easy questions rather than nurturing growth.

Sometimes, we need a nudge to explore Level 2, and discover the edges of our understanding and skill level.

It’s the only way to discover that those edges are merely horizons, with a whole world of opportunity beyond the...

Some things are really upsetting.

Things like losing a family member.

For most other things: do they have to be upsetting? Or can things be something else?

A team member letting you down can be upsetting. I’ve often found it to be so. But what if we choose not to have an opinion about it, and simply do what we ought to do next? Or what if we chose to view it as a game, which got harder, as games...

Old hard: It used to be very hard to get a book published. If you were lucky enough to be picked up, you’d probably see lots of sales. If you weren’t lucky, you just wouldn’t get published.

New hard: If you want to publish a book, you can. No excuses, no middle-men, just write your book and publish on Amazon. But you must go out and build your own audience by yourself. Now the variable is effort, not luck.

Old...

The markets are down.

Buyers aren’t buying as much.

We need to keep shipping:

The rules change for everyone: a down market is still full of people with problems that need solving, and desires they’d love to pursue. We can still serve them, if we’re creative and committed.

There’s no going back: a down market may go up soon, or it may stay down for years. As I write this in 2022, there are no signs of substantial market recovery...

There are three speeds of creative work:

Fast: We’re fully engaged in executing part of the plan.

Medium: We’ve shipped our work and are shifting into the next part of the plan.

Slow: The plan isn’t going to plan, so we slow to put it right.

All three speeds are a natural part of creating work that matters.

Don’t resent any of them. It’s the process.

What do you do when your plan doesn’t go to plan?

When your happiness is rooted in an outcome that depends on others, you’re vulnerable. Anyone can come along and knock you off your game or steal your joy.

When your happiness is rooted in a reverence for the process and a serenity from living in accordance with your nature, you’re invulnerable. No one can knock you off your game or steal your joy.

Given the choice, which sounds better,...

What does Stoicism and Social Media have in common?

The Stoics, alongside talking about the cardinal virtues and the dichotomy of control, also talked about living in accordance with nature.

As social creatures, that means that ‘social’ is part of our nature… and in 2022, that often includes social media.

There’s drama and toxicity on there, which is why some of us avoid it… but those things exist outside of social media too, and we get to model something better, perhaps...

That project you’re working on that stresses you out?

You choose the timing on that. If it’s a gig, you chose to accept the timing. If it’s your project, you literally designed the timing for yourself. You’re in control of your state.

That market fluctuation that has been stressing you out?

You choose the timing on that too. If it’s a long-term investment, let it be long-term and don’t sweat its role in the short-term. If it’s a short-term investment,...

Failure means learning something new.

Repeated failure means it maybe wasn’t a good time.

Success means you applied what you learned, and it happened to be a good time.

Keep learning and keep going.

Solving hard problems is seen as a good thing.

Culture celebrates individuals who do this.

But what if not solving hard problems is better?

Whenever there’s a hard problem, there’s usually a simple one nearby.

Hard development projects are often caused by too many resources, too many features, or too little planning. Hard creative projects are often caused by too many details, too complex a style, or too little focus. Hard business problems are often caused by too many ideas,...

Many folks do less than their bit.

When four people are tasked with doing the work of four people, one or two of them will invariably find themselves doing more than the rest.

There are countless reasons for this, and they’re scarcely worth pondering if your interests are in moving the needle, creating work that matters, and changing the culture.

Indeed, if those are your goals, doing more than your bit is the default setting.

It’s been my default setting...

Ever been skiing or snowboarding?

I had lessons for both as a child, and I learned an unlikely life lesson:

You always have another run at the slope, thanks to the ski lift.

It’s worth giving this run (or project, or business) your best shot. If it doesn’t turn out the way you hoped, you can just hop on the ski lift and try again.

So long as you don’t have a run so spectacularly bad that you severely hurt...

We need to measure “doing work that matters” by a higher standard.

We have a finite amount of time to commit to our craft.

And to our families.

We think the good times will never end.

They will, eventually.

A project or a business needs to be worth of your time… you won’t get the time back… when what you ‘do’ becomes what you ‘did’, we want to be proud that we did.

A parent is glad to raise a life that...

Here’s one for those wrapped up in the web3 energy at the moment. A call to calm, if you will.

In the web3 world, “Grinding for allowlists” (ALs) is the act of throwing large amounts of energy and effort into “being seen” so that you can receive outsized benefits ahead of a public sale.

There are many varieties of it around.

Grinding for ALs is unhealthy.

Here’s a healthy alternative:

1) Let there be a healthy benefit to being early

Do you create like a ghost?

Ghost-stories are of an entity that appeared, did something, then vanished… leaving only their work, such as a moved chair or flicked light switch or whatnot.

They don’t wait for applause.

They don’t debate whether or not to do their work again based on whether or not they were thanked for it.

They’re already gone… and if they’re haunting the place, they’ll do it again… soon.

And because they keep doing their thing, again and...

‘Free’ can be deceptive:

I pay for comics and stories because, as a creator, I enjoy art and creativity, while knowing first-hand just how much work go into these things. I want markets to exist that appreciate creative ideas, and for that to be the case, I support market activity that facilitates that reality.

I pay for my email (both personal and professional) because I want my tools to get better for me, rather than an advertiser’s tools for whom...

On great days, it’s easy to be precisely as you wish to be.

On hard days, we find out who we are under the surface.

Great days facilitate great work, great relationships and great freedom…

Hard days challenge us to continue our great work, to nurture our great relationships, and to defend our great freedom…

Great days are opportunities to take the day off, if we don’t feel like fixing the roof while the sun is shining.

We grow in...

Which is more important: efficiency or effectiveness?

Efficiency (and productivity) is the poster child of progress in the business world.

But what about effectiveness?

Efficient is elegant, until it isn’t. We see this in code, when developers use short function names that nobody can understand in the spirit of efficient load times (every letter counts!) We see this in companies, when shared calendars sacrifice effective days for efficient ones (when trivial meetings are deemed more important than empty time for...

If you work within a team, or lead teams, you have probably experienced these:

“Why would someone do that? Why leave it like that?”

*“Why is nobody pushing this forward?”

“Why is this so darn difficult for these people?”*

“Do I have to do everything myself?”

This happens when our high aspirations for ourselves and our work exceeds either our clarity in communication, or the expectations others have of those same things. Were they to have the same aspirations, the...

Do you buy or sell work on a platform? Like Facebook, or Fiverr?

There are two kinds of platform to buy and sell things on:

Platform prisons, and platform gardens.

This was drawn to my attention after experiencing both in a 24 hour period:

Platform prisons: These are when the platform makes work, and workers, worse.

For instance, Fiverr’s documentation cites that a seller who enables “out of office” will see the feature, quote: “affect[s] your rankings badly, ultimately demoting...

You’re a builder.

You’re not just a fan of your favourite neighbourhood coffee shop, you’re a builder: you tell your friends, share your ideas, and make up one of the many regular faces that make that place a second home for many people, many of whom you’ve yet to meet. At least, that is your opportunity, within a coffee shop that deserves you.

You’re not just a blood relative to your close family, you’re a builder: you do things for...

There are two ways to have it all as a creator:

The short-term way: Get everything you think you want, and hope your appetite doesn’t grow further. The problem with this option is that those who choose it often find their appetites to be ever-increasing. There’s also the dilemma of rarely creating what you truly wish to create, in favour of that which you perceive to be most lucrative in the moment.

The long-term way: Have an appetite smaller than...

Do you totally respect your clients and peers?

Let’s check to make sure:

Total respect for your clients means you respect their time, the needs of their business, and handle them with good taste and propriety. It also means that you don’t conform to behaviours that differ in return; representing a respect for your own time, the needs of your business, and good stewardship of how you allow yourself to be treated, respectfully dismissing those who refuse such regard. Serfdom...

We can’t control much.Society celebrates the huge wins.

The standout, milestone successes.

But misses how what really makes the difference, is each small step.

Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Do now what nature demands of you. Get right to it if that’s in your power. Don’t look around to see if people will know about it. Don’t await the perfection of Plato’s Republic, but be satisfied with even the smallest step forward and regard the outcome as a small thing.”

Each small...

We can’t control much.

But statistical inevitability helps in areas we can.

Can’t control how others will receive your work? Committing to lavishing upon one hundred customers with white-glove, high-touch service keeps you close to the feedback and teaches you a lot about how to refine your work. While you can’t control the reception, you can engage feedback and iteration so intently that positive reception becomes a statistical inevitability.

Can’t control how many people will see your work? Committing to...

Web3 has become a cultural phenomenon on the back of jpegs.

We’ve seen communities come together. Friendships forged. Even orchestrated giving at the forefront of the Ukraine war.

All thanks to these jpegs, their immutable ownership, and the lives they’ve touched.

Season tickets to a sports team have pictures, too. But, we assume that such things, once bought, are just the tip of the iceberg… an access pass to a world of entertainment, or education, or an experience…

…That the...

What’s a better platform, an open one or a closed one?

There’s a third (and, I’d propose, better) option:

1) À la carte: Where you can do whatever you like, and so can everyone else. Such extreme divergence prefers a mile in every direction over ten miles in one direction.

2) Prescription: Where you are told what you can have, in what quantity, and that’s the end of the discussion. Progress moves at the pace of the prescriber, in that...

Want more skills?

First, find time in your daily schedule for more practice.

If I go a week without writing, I forget how to write. Writer’s block is a byproduct of not writing enough. My daily post helps me think and write faster. Daily practice, more skills.

If I go a week without touching code, I code slower. Good code is clear thought, and a lack of practice makes the functions and frameworks harder to recall. Daily practice, more skills.

Is newer better?

Textmate 2 hasn’t been updated in years. Yet I like how it feels: beautiful icon, new file blank state, native markdown shortcut handling, speedy cocoa architecture. Yum. There’s no built-in terminal (you have to use one separately like a grown-up), basic version control support (I prefer using Git from the terminal anyway). It’s not the newest, best IDE. But it’s the best for me and makes building sites, apps and games a joy.

ToonBoom Harmony’s interface feels...