diff --git a/Company Knowledge Management.md b/Company Knowledge Management.md index e667834..d160289 100644 --- a/Company Knowledge Management.md +++ b/Company Knowledge Management.md @@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ There are some basic principles and [[values]] that will make maintaining and ev - Avoid duplicating knowledge. For each question there is one and only one answer. - Link everything together. - The documentation should have back links and block references to incentivize small chunks of atomic ideas. -- When doing presentations, don't present slides, present the content of the [[Company Handbooks |company handbook]]. +- When doing presentations, don't present slides, present the content of the [[Company Handbooks|company handbook]]. - Information should be easy to add (input) as well as easy to search and find (output) resulting in quick knowledge transfer between different employees. - [[Writing]] something in the wrong place is the same as not writing it. - Reduce the number of alternatives where information might be stored. GitLab uses [[git]], Basecamp uses Basecamp, ... diff --git a/Data/Dashboards.md b/Data/Dashboards.md index 116aea2..57f630d 100644 --- a/Data/Dashboards.md +++ b/Data/Dashboards.md @@ -12,10 +12,10 @@ - Purpose and explanation of the data being shown. - Caveats and assumptions. - Extra Context: - - Why this dashboard exists. - - Who it's for. - - When it was built, and if and when it's set to expire . - - What features it's tracking via links to team repositories, project briefs, screenshots, or video walk-throughs. + - Why this dashboard exists. + - Who it's for. + - When it was built, and if and when it's set to expire . + - What features it's tracking via links to team repositories, project briefs, screenshots, or video walk-throughs. - Take-aways. - Metadata (owner, related OKRs, TTL, …). - Make them so its easy to go one layer down (X went down in Y location, or for Z new users, etc). @@ -43,8 +43,8 @@ The value is that now discussions are happening about the data. - [They can serve endless needs, but in doing so, rarely do they serve _particular_ needs perfectly](https://win.hyperquery.ai/p/analysis-or-dashboard). - Dashboards shouldn't be single-use - Ask this: - - Can this new dashboard request be added into an existing one? - - What are you going to do differently by looking at the Dashboard? Focus on that [[Metrics|metric]] and add it to the main Dashboard + - Can this new dashboard request be added into an existing one? + - What are you going to do differently by looking at the Dashboard? Focus on that [[Metrics|metric]] and add it to the main Dashboard - Beware of the death by 1,000 filters: After a dashboard had gone live, you'll be flooded with requests for new views, filters, fields, pages, everything - Dashboards are decision-making infrastructure, and infrastructure needs to be maintained. Be explicit about which Dashboards are disposable and add a TTL to them. - The numbers and charts on a dashboard very rarely have any direct personal meaning to the people using it. There's tons of other work to do, and unless that dashboard is directly tied to your performance or compensation, there are probably more important things to look at. People are more likely to check stock prices when they actually own (and thus benefit from) the stock. diff --git a/Data/Data Culture.md b/Data/Data Culture.md index fd8173d..88c745e 100644 --- a/Data/Data Culture.md +++ b/Data/Data Culture.md @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ # Data Culture - The data team needs to be focus on delivering insights and supporting decisions. The outcome of the data team are *decisions* and a *shared context across the organization* that makes coordination easier. - - Your goal as a data professional is to facilitate [[Making Decisions |decision making]]. + - Your goal as a data professional is to facilitate [[Making Decisions|decision making]]. - Learning to drive decisions quickly, a bias to action, is a critical competency for an analyst. Every skill you learn – [[communication]], [[writing]], [[experimentation]], [[Metrics|metric design]] – supports this. - If analysis is not actionable, it does not really matter. Analysis must drive to action. [Clear results won't spur action themselves](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/eric-weber-060397b7_data-analytics-machinelearning-activity-6675746028144205824-CQxW/). The organization needs to be ready to pivot when something isn't working. - [Data's impact is tough to measure — it doesn't always translate to value](https://dfrieds.com/articles/data-science-reality-vs-expectations.html). @@ -9,8 +9,8 @@ - Data is fundamentally a collaborative design process rather than a tool, an analysis, or even a product. [Data works best when the entire feedback loop from ideation to production is an iterative process](https://pedram.substack.com/p/data-can-learn-from-design). - [To get buy in, explain how the business could benefit from better data](https://youtu.be/Mlz1VwxZuDs) (e.g: more and better insights). Start small and show value. - Run *[Purpose Meetings](https://www.avo.app/blog/tracking-the-right-product-metrics)* or [Business Metrics Review](https://youtu.be/nlMn572Dabc). - - Purpose Meetings are 30 min meetings in which stakeholders, engineers and data align on the goal of a release and what is the best way to evaluate the impact and understand its success. Align on the goal, commit on metrics and design the data. - - Business Metrics Review is a 30 to 60 minutes meeting to chat and explore key metrics and teach how to think with data. + - Purpose Meetings are 30 min meetings in which stakeholders, engineers and data align on the goal of a release and what is the best way to evaluate the impact and understand its success. Align on the goal, commit on metrics and design the data. + - Business Metrics Review is a 30 to 60 minutes meeting to chat and explore key metrics and teach how to think with data. - Value of clear goals and expectations. Validate what you think your job is with your manager and stakeholders, repeatedly. - [While the output of your team is what you want to maximize, you'll need some indicators that will help guide you day-to-day](https://data-columns.hightouch.io/your-first-60-days-as-a-first-data-hire-weeks-3-4/). Decide what's important to you (test coverage, documentation missing, queries run, models created, ...), and generate some internal reports for yourself. - [Data teams should be a part of the business conversations from the beginning](https://cultivating-algos.stitchfix.com/). Get the data team involved early, have open discussions with them about the existing work, and how to prioritize new work against the existing backlog. Don’t accept new work without addressing the existing bottlenecks, and don’t accept new work without requirements. **Organizational [[politics]] matter way more than any data methods or technical knowledge**. @@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ - The modern data team needs to have *real organizational power*—it needs to be able to say "no” and mean it. If your data team does not truly have the power to say no to stakeholders, it will get sent on all kinds of wild goose chases, be unproductive, experience employee churn, etc. - Data should report to the CEO. Ideally at least with some weekly metrics split into (a) notable trends, (b) watching close, and (c) business as usual. - If data is the most precious asset in a company, does it make sense to have only one team responsible for it? - - [People talk about data as the new oil but for most companies it’s a lot closer uranium](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27781286). Hard to find people who can to handle or process it correctly, nontrivial security/liabilities if PII is involved, expensive to store and a generally underwhelming return on effort relative to the anticipated utility. + - [People talk about data as the new oil but for most companies it’s a lot closer uranium](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27781286). Hard to find people who can to handle or process it correctly, nontrivial security/liabilities if PII is involved, expensive to store and a generally underwhelming return on effort relative to the anticipated utility. - [The pain in data teams come from needing to influence PMs/peers with having little control of them. Data teams need to become really great internal marketers/persuaders](https://anchor.fm/census/episodes/The-evolution-of-the-data-industry--data-jobs-w-Avo-CEO-and-Co-founder-Stefania-Olafsdottir-e16hu1l). That said, it shouldn't be the data team job to convince the organization to be data driven. That's not an effective way of spending resources. - People problems are orders of magnitude more difficult to solve than data problems. - **Integrate data where the decision is made**. E.g: Google showing restaurant scores when you're looking something for dinner. @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ - You won't have the best allocation of resources in a reactive team. Data teams need extra [[slack]]. [Balance user requests with actual needs](https://scientistemily.substack.com/p/product-management-skills-for-data). - How can we measure the data team impact? - Making a [[Writing a Roadmap|roadmap]] can help you telling if you are hitting milestone deadlines or letting them slip. - - Embedded data team members need to help other teams build their roadmap too. + - Embedded data team members need to help other teams build their roadmap too. - Also, having a changelog ([do releases!](https://betterprogramming.pub/great-data-platforms-use-conventional-commits-51fc22a7417c)) will help show the team impact on the data product across time. - [Push for a *centralization of the reporting structure*, but keeping the *work management decentralized*](https://erikbern.com/2021/07/07/the-data-team-a-short-story.html). - Unify resources (datasets, entities, definitions, metrics). Have one source of truth for each one and make that clear to everyone. That source of truth needs heavy curation. Poor curation leads to confusion, distrust and…. lots of wasted effort. @@ -84,9 +84,9 @@ - [Data ownership is a hard problem](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chad-sanderson_heres-why-data-ownership-is-an-incredibly-activity-6904107936533114880-gw8n/). Data is fundamentally generated by services (or front-end instrumentation) which is managed by engineers. CDC and other pipelines are built by data engineers. The delineation of ownership responsibilities is very rarely established, with each group wanting to push 'ownership' onto someone else so they can do the jobs they were hired for. - [Becoming a data-driven organization is a journey, which unfolds over time and requires critical thinking, human judgement, and experimentation](https://hbr.org/2022/02/why-becoming-a-data-driven-organization-is-so-hard). Fail fast, learn faster. - [Path to create a data-driven organization](https://twitter.com/_abhisivasailam/status/1520274838450888704): - - 1. Get a well-placed leader with influence to message, model, and demand data-driven execution. - - 2. Hire/fire based on data aptitude and usage. - - 3. Create mechanisms that force analytical conversations. Sometimes there is no way around spending an afternoon breaking down metrics by different segments until you find The Thing. + - 1. Get a well-placed leader with influence to message, model, and demand data-driven execution. + - 2. Hire/fire based on data aptitude and usage. + - 3. Create mechanisms that force analytical conversations. Sometimes there is no way around spending an afternoon breaking down metrics by different segments until you find The Thing. - [Start small. Don't try to wrangle data for the entire company until you have the tools and process down for one team](https://data-columns.hightouch.io/your-first-60-days-as-a-first-data-hire-weeks-3-4/). - Difficulty to work with data scales exponentially with size. - [Rule of thumb; your first customer as a data person should be growth](https://twitter.com/josh_wills/status/1577699871335010304). diff --git a/Dogs.md b/Dogs.md index b018882..a4088c9 100644 --- a/Dogs.md +++ b/Dogs.md @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ - If you find your dog isn't listening perfectly to an old cue, one strategy for dealing with that is to change the cue and work on reinforcing the new cue more carefully. To transfer a cue, give your _new_ cue then immediately follow it with the old cue and reward when the dog performs the behavior. - You can speed up a trick training it with toys. Also, you can add tricks in between "drop it" and "get it" to reinforce them. - Once the behavior is established, start to reinforce intermittently. -- For clicker training the main loop is: click, pause, feed. Always feed after clicking! You can charge the clicker while playing [[Dogs#Training Games |training games]]. +- For clicker training the main loop is: click, pause, feed. Always feed after clicking! You can charge the clicker while playing [[Dogs#Training Games|training games]]. - Develop gradual exposures to new things. Break the challenge into small steps and reward for each step to build confidence. E.g: [reactivity](https://youtu.be/QQ3i6FRyoFs). ### Training Games diff --git a/Double Crux.md b/Double Crux.md index 5e3be39..2be8de2 100644 --- a/Double Crux.md +++ b/Double Crux.md @@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ [Double crux](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/exa5kmvopeRyfJgCy/double-crux-a-strategy-for-resolving-disagreement) is great framework were both parties abstract their arguments by one level and find a falsifiable fact that, if proven true, would cause them to change their beliefs. -- Focus on narrowing the scope of the [[Resolving Disagreement |discussion]]. Find common ground. +- Focus on narrowing the scope of the [[Resolving Disagreement|discussion]]. Find common ground. - Define terms to avoid getting lost in semantic confusions that miss the real point. - Ask "What would need to be true for you to change your mind?". - Find specific test cases. diff --git a/Feedback Loops.md b/Feedback Loops.md index cc22ab5..fdfc4ef 100644 --- a/Feedback Loops.md +++ b/Feedback Loops.md @@ -4,12 +4,12 @@ - There are two types of feedback loops: positive and negative. - Positive feedback amplifies system output, resulting in growth or decline. - Negative feedback dampers output, stabilizes the system around an equilibrium point. -- **[[Network Effects |Things are connected]]**. Changing one variable in a [[Systems|system]] will affect other variables in that system and other systems. This is important because it means that designers must not only consider particular elements of a design, but also their relation to the design as a whole and to the greater environment. +- **[[Network Effects|Things are connected]]**. Changing one variable in a [[Systems|system]] will affect other variables in that system and other systems. This is important because it means that designers must not only consider particular elements of a design, but also their relation to the design as a whole and to the greater environment. - All complex [[systems]] are subject to positive and negative feedback loops whereby A causes B, which in turn influences A (and C), and so on – with higher-order effects frequently resulting from continual movement of the loop. - Feedback loops vary in their accuracy. - Accurate feedback means that it **reliably** and **clearly** tells you when you do something right. If you get the quadratic formula wrong, you can check the right formula and know what was wrong. - Inaccurate feedback loop means that the results of the evaluation phase are “**noisy**” and contain significant variance, so the next cycle will need to take that into account. E.g: playing bowls without a coach. - - Learning under conditions of noisy data starts with world construction. Imagine a possible future, and repeat this to generate hundreds of possible future worlds. The main skills and resources required are creativity, [[slack]], and [equanimity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equanimity). Creativity leads to a higher rate of idea generation and [[slack]] gives us more time to generate ideas. Equanimity is important because it allows us to persevere in the absence of tangible feedback. + - Learning under conditions of noisy data starts with world construction. Imagine a possible future, and repeat this to generate hundreds of possible future worlds. The main skills and resources required are creativity, [[slack]], and [equanimity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equanimity). Creativity leads to a higher rate of idea generation and [[slack]] gives us more time to generate ideas. Equanimity is important because it allows us to persevere in the absence of tangible feedback. - [The shorter and more accurate the feedback loop, the easier it is to learn](https://brianlui.dog/2020/05/10/beware-of-tight-feedback-loops/). The **tighter** your feedback loop, the better your work. - Fast and accurate loops might get you on a local maximum or might not work when the underlying system is noisy. diff --git a/Ideas.md b/Ideas.md index 980e7da..6c6a240 100644 --- a/Ideas.md +++ b/Ideas.md @@ -84,10 +84,10 @@ Instead of building the tool, we can start with a standard protocol and let othe ### Social Network Improvements -- [[Federated Networks |Federate and open source current networks]] to improve communities. +- [[Federated Networks|Federate and open source current networks]] to improve communities. - [The protocol should evolve differently for each community](https://youtu.be/P-2P3MSZrBM?t=5953). Communities will mix and match protocols (rules, monetization, rewarding, actions, [[governance]], ...) to make the protocol fit their network. - We need a social network that does not cause divisiveness and negativity that is currently the natural by-product of optimizing for greater engagement. -- How can the network [[Incentives|incentivize]] healthy conversations and encourage nuanced [[Resolving Disagreement |discussions]]? +- How can the network [[Incentives|incentivize]] healthy conversations and encourage nuanced [[Resolving Disagreement|discussions]]? ### Web3 Recommendation Engine diff --git a/Learning.md b/Learning.md index f29ca12..6229fbf 100644 --- a/Learning.md +++ b/Learning.md @@ -32,11 +32,11 @@ - Have an Analogy about it. - Visualize it in a Diagram. - Gather Examples. Examples are an amazing way to learn things! - - Examples are an excellent way to resolve lossy information transfer - they’re a completely different channel of communication than normal. If nothing else, they serve as an error check. - - Examples are a great way to transfer tacit knowledge, without necessarily making it legible - this is what it means to build intuition. + - Examples are an excellent way to resolve lossy information transfer - they’re a completely different channel of communication than normal. If nothing else, they serve as an error check. + - Examples are a great way to transfer tacit knowledge, without necessarily making it legible - this is what it means to build intuition. - Come with a Plain-English description of the concept. - Then, dive into the Technical side. -- When discovering a pattern, try to abstract it as much as you can instead of applying it only to a certain area. Once you made this abstraction you will have a new [[Mental Models |mental model]]. +- When discovering a pattern, try to abstract it as much as you can instead of applying it only to a certain area. Once you made this abstraction you will have a new [[Mental Models|mental model]]. - Learning to program shapes the mind the same way learning a new language does. Each new word, concept or expression helps you model the world. - Use [[Spaced Repetition]] and get some [[Sleep]]. - [Test your knowledge easily and often and iterate](https://youtu.be/Y_B6VADhY84?list=WL). It's the number of iterations, not the number of hours, that drives learning. Shorten the [[Feedback Loops]]. You don't need to know everything to start. Start and you'll learn things along the way (Just In Time /JIT learning). diff --git a/Meditation.md b/Meditation.md index 16ca39c..65000c0 100644 --- a/Meditation.md +++ b/Meditation.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ # Meditation -- Meditation is a simple practice available to all, which can reduce stress, increase calmness and clarity and promote [[Mental Health |happiness]]. Learning how to meditate is straightforward, and the benefits can come quickly. Even just a few minutes a day can make a big difference revealing and refactoring various [mental motions](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WYmmC3W6ZNhEgAmWG/a-mechanistic-model-of-meditation#Uses_for_moments_of_introspective_awareness_). +- Meditation is a simple practice available to all, which can reduce stress, increase calmness and clarity and promote [[Mental Health|happiness]]. Learning how to meditate is straightforward, and the benefits can come quickly. Even just a few minutes a day can make a big difference revealing and refactoring various [mental motions](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WYmmC3W6ZNhEgAmWG/a-mechanistic-model-of-meditation#Uses_for_moments_of_introspective_awareness_). - If you have more introspective awareness of the exact processes that are happening in your mind, you can make more implicit assumptions conscious, causing your brain's built-in contradiction detector to notice when they contradict your later learning. Also, getting more feedback about what exactly is happening in your mind allows you to notice more wasted motion in general. - The goal of meditation is not to quit having thoughts, but to observe them, watch them without reacting and rationalizing them. This helps rewire the way your brain works similar to cognitive behavioral therapy. Typically, people who work towards this, have less anxiety and depression because they don't react to every thought they have, which gives them a greater control of their emotions. - In [[Programming]] terms, it defragments the hard drive and repairs errors in the OS. diff --git a/Mental Health.md b/Mental Health.md index e673ef8..63e3634 100644 --- a/Mental Health.md +++ b/Mental Health.md @@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ There are many reasons folks feel [helplessly blankness](https://www.lesswrong.c If you’d like to reduce your learned blankness, try to [notice areas you care about, that you have been treating as blank defaults](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/puhPJimawPuNZ5wAR/learned-blankness#Notice_your_learned_blankness). Then, seed some thoughts in that area: set a timer, and write as many questions as you can about that topic before it beeps. -Aversions are [[Problem Solving |decomposable problems]]. Break it down into +Aversions are [[Problem Solving|decomposable problems]]. Break it down into smaller pieces so that you can think about them separately one at a time and diff --git a/Mindfulness.md b/Mindfulness.md index 71eefd8..789dcd4 100644 --- a/Mindfulness.md +++ b/Mindfulness.md @@ -6,8 +6,8 @@ - One task at a time. [[Focus|No distractions]]. - **KISS**. What would less/simple look like? - When [[Communication|communicating]], do it in a clear and concise way. - - Sometimes, even if your intention is good, signal might turn into noise and won't be interpreted the way you expect. - - When [[Problem Solving |facing a problem]], prefer a lean approach with a simple solution and built upon it. Re-framing problems will make easy to give simpler solutions. How would it look like if it was simple? + - Sometimes, even if your intention is good, signal might turn into noise and won't be interpreted the way you expect. + - When [[Problem Solving|facing a problem]], prefer a lean approach with a simple solution and built upon it. Re-framing problems will make easy to give simpler solutions. How would it look like if it was simple? - Remove friction. Focus on essentials. Complexity itself has costs. It makes life harder to manage, reduces our degrees of freedom, and so forth. Often people do not factor those costs into their decisions as they incrementally and inattentively complexify their lives. A person with the virtue of simplicity asks, of any decision they make, "does this make my life more complex, and if so is that worth it?" - Live smarter, not harder. Don't complain about stuff you can easily fix, [[Automation|automate]], or delegate. Money can buy [[time]]. - Keep Calm. Own and deal with your emotions. [[Stoicism|Focus on what you can control]]. Try to plan the possible outcomes and don't rush. @@ -19,11 +19,11 @@ - Don't punish people for trying. You teach them to not try things or not to try them with you. - Most of the harm we do as humans is not due to cruelty, but rather to indifference. - Prefer delayed gratification, making short term sacrifices to get long term benefits. -- Don't be a [whatever person](https://medium.com/@courtneyseiter/the-tribe-of-whatever-or-how-i-learned-to-make-a-decision-8ab0a76f1f0c#.vj7olnmm5). Don't be afraid to [[Making Decisions |make decisions]] and actively take them! All decision making — even if small ones — can be a good practice for the bigger ones you'll face. +- Don't be a [whatever person](https://medium.com/@courtneyseiter/the-tribe-of-whatever-or-how-i-learned-to-make-a-decision-8ab0a76f1f0c#.vj7olnmm5). Don't be afraid to [[Making Decisions|make decisions]] and actively take them! All decision making — even if small ones — can be a good practice for the bigger ones you'll face. - Be the friend who makes a decisive call when everyone else is waffling about what to eat. - Don't judge. Reality is neutral. To a tree, there's no concept of right or wrong or good or bad. You're born, you have a whole set of sensory experiences... and then you die. How you choose to interpret that is up to you. And you do have that choice. Why are you taking something so seriously? - One person morally disgusting behavior is another person perfectly normal lifestyle. Most of the time you can't decide what is wrong or good because you have very limited experiences. -- Be aware of your internal state. Making this more visible makes a better [[Feedback Loops |feedback loop]]. Ask yourself, as many times as possible every day "Am I conscious now?". Our internal state shapes how we experience the external state. +- Be aware of your internal state. Making this more visible makes a better [[Feedback Loops|feedback loop]]. Ask yourself, as many times as possible every day "Am I conscious now?". Our internal state shapes how we experience the external state. - Humans are messy and life is messy. Yet we try to fit everything into [human made buckets](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/), losing most of the nuance in the process. - [The discrete categories we apply to continuous concepts—from the colors we see and the sounds we hear, to the academic subjects we define and the races we project onto people—are both arbitrary and deeply consequential.](https://benn.substack.com/p/gerrymandering) - The categories we create, though necessary to keep us from being overwhelmed by this infinite spectrum, affect what we can actually see. **The artificial boundaries we define eventually come to define us.** diff --git a/News.md b/News.md index 59cff7c..fbc87f1 100644 --- a/News.md +++ b/News.md @@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ - Portraying [a society where everyone hates each other](https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb) is the most dangerous virus of all, because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nothing spreads faster than anger. Especially anger in the specific format, ["Just look at how awful the people we hate are"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc). - There is a hierarchy of "*interestingness*" that applies to the great information currents and media outlets that shape society as a whole. It's better to raise up [controversial topics than high impact one like charity](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/). - - [[Social Media Issues |Social and news media usually works against fixing the issues]] which most of us agree should be fixed. Instead they focus only on perpetuating the things which keep us all discussing, forever. + - [[Social Media Issues|Social and news media usually works against fixing the issues]] which most of us agree should be fixed. Instead they focus only on perpetuating the things which keep us all discussing, forever. - [The amygdala (emotional core of the mind) is built to make us react to "threatening" information that doesn't fit into our worldview the same way we react to a predator. That's called the "Backfire Effect"](https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe). Remember that [[Thinking|your worldview is not perfect]]! - If our perceptions of reality are increasingly informed by media with other-than-truth motivations, we'll increasingly lose our handle on the truth. [We will be living in a state of split consciousness](https://sandhoefner.com/2019/01/27/on-disbelieving-atrocities/), being immune to thousands of deaths and concerned about the latest changes in your favorite team. - How many of the articles you read in the past 12 months actually led you to take useful actions? diff --git a/Organizations.md b/Organizations.md index 3cdbd22..d31505c 100644 --- a/Organizations.md +++ b/Organizations.md @@ -14,8 +14,8 @@ - The purpose for which the company exists. - The way people within a company do things—how they communicate, how they create, how they decide—is that company's operating system. - All organizations have their own way of doing things ([[Culture]]) and their own particular views of how the world should work (vision). - - **Vision** is the change in the world you want to see. - - **Mission** defines the approach that you will execute to make your vision a reality. The **strategy** further refines the mission into concrete steps. + - **Vision** is the change in the world you want to see. + - **Mission** defines the approach that you will execute to make your vision a reality. The **strategy** further refines the mission into concrete steps. - There are two core processes that take place within any company: making decisions and doing work. - Align [[incentives]]. Make the right thing to do the easiest thing to do. - The layout of the organization impacts how many hops the information has to do. @@ -34,11 +34,11 @@ - Decision making should be pushed down the hierarchy to the practitioner. - An organization exhibits risk aversion comparable to the most risk averse decision maker in the decision chain. - Every business has an equation that describes how it generates revenue. Write it down and decompose it to better understand the relationships. [Don't try to optimize that number or it'll be gamed](https://www.fast.ai/2019/09/24/metrics/). Solve Problems, not [[metrics]]. When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Not everything that counts can be measured, and not everything that can be measured counts. [The more important a metric is in social decision making, the more likely it is to be manipulated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law). -- [[Data Culture |Data]] can be valuable in helping you understand the world, test hypotheses, and move beyond gut instincts or hunches. [[Metrics]] can be useful when they are in their proper context and place. +- [[Data Culture|Data]] can be valuable in helping you understand the world, test hypotheses, and move beyond gut instincts or hunches. [[Metrics]] can be useful when they are in their proper context and place. - Use data to identify friction points, and constantly experiment with changes to make things easier for you and your customers. - How does the [data-informed product loop look](https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-852-the-data-informed-product)? 1. Have a strategy. Most product strategies are too high level. They say everything and nothing at the same time. - 2. Translate that into models. Don't go from insanely high-level business goals and metrics ([[Dashboards]]), straight to features on a [[Writing a Roadmap |roadmap]]. [Models help us fill that gap](https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-2553-persistent-models-vs-point). + 2. Translate that into models. Don't go from insanely high-level business goals and metrics ([[Dashboards]]), straight to features on a [[Writing a Roadmap|roadmap]]. [Models help us fill that gap](https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-2553-persistent-models-vs-point). 3. Add minimally viable measurement. 4. Identify leverage points. 5. Explore options. diff --git a/Pareto Principle.md b/Pareto Principle.md index 98fe3b8..781584a 100644 --- a/Pareto Principle.md +++ b/Pareto Principle.md @@ -6,6 +6,6 @@ The **Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule states that eighty percent of the resul **There is usually a clever hack**. The world is not fair. Effort is not distributed as it should be. And this isn't because people are dumb, or not trying. This is the default state of the world. There's lots of [[slack]] all around us. Allocating your effort efficiently is hard. And this is the default state of the world for you. -[We spend most of our lives stuck in bad local optima](https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/mini-blog-post-22-the-8020-rule). We have a set of default actions, standards ways of doing things and solving problems we come across. And these are way better than nothing, but [[Systems#Inadequate Equilibria |nowhere near optimal]]. +[We spend most of our lives stuck in bad local optima](https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/mini-blog-post-22-the-8020-rule). We have a set of default actions, standards ways of doing things and solving problems we come across. And these are way better than nothing, but [[Systems#Inadequate Equilibria|nowhere near optimal]]. To get out of a local optima, you need to develop the skill of noticing when you're in one, being creative to find a better way ([[Experimentation]]), and implementing that to move to a better one. diff --git a/Planning.md b/Planning.md index 0e50141..325330d 100644 --- a/Planning.md +++ b/Planning.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ The goal of planning is to get to a unified and realistic plan for what the syst To help with planning, you should have these things: - Longterm Vision Statement. Where are you going. -- [[Writing a Roadmap |Roadmap]]. A unified view of what the team is working towards shipping. +- [[Writing a Roadmap|Roadmap]]. A unified view of what the team is working towards shipping. - List of options. No matter what the final plan is, [[Teamwork#^473cb4|document it]] and you'll have a log of all the plans to reflect back on. diff --git a/Politics.md b/Politics.md index cae275f..1876147 100644 --- a/Politics.md +++ b/Politics.md @@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ - To debate politics as in any other field, first gather information and then decide. [Think like a scientist](https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/thinking-ladder.html). - Think of it as a [[Systems|complex system]]. Everything is related and has unexpected consequences. Don't miss-attribute systemic failures to scapegoats. - - The world is really complex, so we can't effectively model it. Therefore we should not just use the simple model where there is only one approach to [[Problem Solving |solving problems]]. + - The world is really complex, so we can't effectively model it. Therefore we should not just use the simple model where there is only one approach to [[Problem Solving|solving problems]]. - If everyone hates the current system, who perpetuates it? Probably [[Incentives]]. - [It's easier to blame people than systems](https://youtu.be/aPhrTOg1RUk). - Politics is affected by the population psyche. During rough times, we lose some ability to think clearly as a group. @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ - Groups that form around a goal can work better or worse, depending on how well the goal can be verified by the group. If you're forming a group based on [what percentage of your income are you willing to devote to altruism](https://www.effectivealtruism.org/), that's a really easy thing to monitor. - [Meritocracy isn't an "-ocracy" like democracy or autocracy, where people in wigs sit down to frame a constitution and decide how things should work. It's a dubious abstraction over the fact that people prefer to have jobs done well rather than poorly, and use their financial and social clout to make this happen](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-cult-of-smart). - [There's an imbalance between doing things and preventing things](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ezra-klein-on-vetocracy). If a leader does something, and it's bad, then journalists will be on the scene to interview the victims of their failure, protesters can march against their abuses of power, etc. If a leader doesn't do something, and it would have been good, this is invisible except in rare cases. As the media becomes better at covering things, people become more outraged by abuses, we should expect the number of new policies that have large impact to go down. - - [[Problem Solving#^ec616e |When you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more]]. + - [[Problem Solving|When you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more]]. - [Processes that create durable change need to be bulldozery toward the status quo but protecting that change requires a vetocracy](https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/19/bullveto.html). There's some optimal rate at which such [[processes]] should happen; too much and there's chaos, not enough and there's stagnation. - Your perception of reality has probably been at least a little manipulated. Your opponents are behaving the way they are based on a perception of reality that's different from your own. - What does this look/feel like to the people I don't know? @@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ - You are not an individual self in the first place, you're an ecosystem of parts. It’s teamwork all the way down! - The costs of regulations are regressive: [much more easily absorbed by big companies than startups](https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/08/a-something-sort-of-like-left-libertarianism-ist-manifesto/). The problem with banning and regulating things is that it’s a blunt instrument. - _Could laws be self corrected?_ When a law is approved, If X is not archived in Y time, withdraw law. Many of the problems people worry about probably won't exist in 10 years. There are likely new problems you could never have guessed would come up. [When writing a policy, include a few internal facing failure signals and a few external facing failure signals that make clear the policy isn't working anymore](https://bellmar.medium.com/the-death-of-process-cdb0151a41fe) and might be better to revisit. -- Sometimes the more important thing is not [[Making Decisions |better mechanisms for the final decision-making step]], but better mechanisms for [discussing and coordinating](https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1433396553591320578) what to propose (explore the space) in the first place. +- Sometimes the more important thing is not [[Making Decisions|better mechanisms for the final decision-making step]], but better mechanisms for [discussing and coordinating](https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1433396553591320578) what to propose (explore the space) in the first place. - We should be exploring alternatives ways of doing things. Right now we have mostly one type of political system, one type of voting system and one method of science funding for example. - [Communities die primarily by refusing to defend themselves](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-kept-gardens-die-by-pacifism). Censorship and moderation might be required for a great community to continue existing. - Being good at politics doesn't mean being good at taking decisions that help your voters. [High-functioning sociopaths climb the ladder, so now the world's run mostly by sociopaths](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/). diff --git a/Programming.md b/Programming.md index f93f22a..77d9135 100644 --- a/Programming.md +++ b/Programming.md @@ -25,8 +25,8 @@ A programmer should know [lots](http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/inde - Writing program code is a good way of debugging your thinking. - Apply small improvements at each iteration. Running the program will make it more resilient and robust as more errors get fixed. - Premature optimization is the root of all evil. Abstraction is a form of optimization and shouldn't be done before the space has been properly explored to know what abstractions should be built. Standardization is a form of optimization and shouldn't be proposed until there's a body of evidence to support what's being standardized. - - [Increased efficiency can sometimes, counterintuitively, lead to worse outcomes](https://sohl-dickstein.github.io/2022/11/06/strong-Goodhart.html). - - You should be able to "punch through" your abstraction layer and get to the code behind it in cases you need that. + - [Increased efficiency can sometimes, counterintuitively, lead to worse outcomes](https://sohl-dickstein.github.io/2022/11/06/strong-Goodhart.html). + - You should be able to "punch through" your abstraction layer and get to the code behind it in cases you need that. - Sometimes you have to stop sharpening the saw, and just start cutting. - Software which is broken because there is no incentive to ship good software is going to stay broken until the incentives change. - **Choose portability over efficiency**. @@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ A programmer should know [lots](http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/inde - Doing 100% of anything is difficult. [Don't focus on perfection](https://youtu.be/pYIho556BS8). - Focusing in the 80% is far more efficient and cost-effective. "Better" is the enemy of "good". - Handle the 80% and let the 20% fend for themselves. - - [[Pareto Principle |80% of the impact comes from 20% of the work]]. + - [[Pareto Principle|80% of the impact comes from 20% of the work]]. - [Software is never finished, only abandoned](https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/02/20/requirements-volatility-is-the-core-problem-of-software-engineering/). - **Treat all the data as an [append only event log](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ-MdKj3BjU)**. - Use a central log where consumers can subscribe to the relevant events. @@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ A programmer should know [lots](http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/inde - Make the trade-offs explicit when making judgments and decisions. With almost every decision you make, you're either deliberately or accidentally trading off one thing for another thing. - Discuss [trade-offs](https://twitter.com/kelseyhightower/status/774076482637312001), which you prefer, and reach a resolution. - [Every system eventually sucks](https://www.simplethread.com/20-things-ive-learned-in-my-20-years-as-a-software-engineer/). Assume everything has bugs. -- **Keep the [[Feedback Loops |iteration loop]] short**. +- **Keep the [[Feedback Loops|iteration loop]] short**. - Invest in tools to [[Automation|automate]] and improve the development cycle (CI, CD). Decreasing build times a few seconds actually saves a lot of time over time. Deploy often to make the loop end to end. If you need to do something manually more than twice, then write a tool for the third time. - **Avoid implicit rules**. - Implicit rules should always be made explicit and shared with others or automated. Ideally, all processes should be written as code, stored, and versioned. Minimize the cognitive load imposed on your users. diff --git a/Resolving Disagreement.md b/Resolving Disagreement.md index e1a73f0..e4040fc 100644 --- a/Resolving Disagreement.md +++ b/Resolving Disagreement.md @@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ ![[Quotes#^448662]] -We should be arguing in a constructive fashion: treating arguments as an opportunity to [[Learning|expand knowledge]], finding points of disagreement, and collaborating towards a common truth. A few assumptions are required to have a successfully disagreement: +We should be arguing in a constructive fashion: treating arguments as an opportunity to [[Learning|expand knowledge]], finding points of disagreement, and [[Coordination|collaborating]] towards a common truth. A few assumptions are required to have a successfully disagreement: - Epistemic humility. "It's possible that I might be the one who's wrong here". - Arguments are not soldiers. Most people go into debate with a war-like mentality, they feel they must fly the flag for all points that their side supports, regardless of how much they actually agree with them. diff --git a/Systems.md b/Systems.md index a8e0049..5b1a464 100644 --- a/Systems.md +++ b/Systems.md @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ A system is anything with multiple parts that depend on each other. In other wor - [[Modularity]]. - Responsiveness. - Know what the system is doing and make the [[Feedback Loops]] fast. -- [[Decentralized Protocols |Decentralized]]. +- [[Decentralized Protocols|Decentralized]]. - Permissionless. ## Changing Systems @@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ Interaction between system actors causes **externalities**: the consequences of Most large social systems are pursuing objectives other than the ones they proclaim, and the ones they pursue are wrong. E.g: [The educational system is not dedicated to produce learning by students, but teaching by teachers—and teaching is a major obstruction to learning.](https://thesystemsthinker.com/a-lifetime-of-systems-thinking/) -A [[Mental Models |mental model]] of a system is the reduction of how it works. The model cuts through the noise to highlight the system's core components and how they work together. +A [[Mental Models|mental model]] of a system is the reduction of how it works. The model cuts through the noise to highlight the system's core components and how they work together. Remember, sometimes not doing something is better than doing it ([Primum non nocere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere)). E.g: controlling small fires instead of letting them burn the top layer of the forest. Spending 1 week repairing trains because there was an accident makes people use the car more, turning into more deaths than leaving the train rails as they were. diff --git a/The Four Laws of Behavior Change.md b/The Four Laws of Behavior Change.md index 9cd9c6d..61c0f3d 100644 --- a/The Four Laws of Behavior Change.md +++ b/The Four Laws of Behavior Change.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ # The Four Laws of Behavior Change -- Any [[Habits|habit]] can be broken down into a [[Feedback Loops |feedback loop]] that involves four steps: cue, craving, response, and reward. +- Any [[Habits|habit]] can be broken down into a [[Feedback Loops|feedback loop]] that involves four steps: cue, craving, response, and reward. - The ultimate purpose of [[Habits]] is to solve the problems of life with as little energy and effort as possible. Once our [[Habits]] become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing. ## Building Habits