Archives for 2010

Four-Hour Workweek or Executricks?

April 12, 2010 By

My latest post on the trailmeme blog, Four-Hour Workweek or Executricks? should be of interest to ribbonfarm readers.

There are two major views of the brave new world of work that is being created by social media tools. The first is the free agent dream of quitting the cubicle, striking out on your own, and settling into a comfortable, undemanding and lucrative niche by 40. Tim Ferriss’  4-Hour Work Week is the how-to bible of this gang. This is the gang that believes in overt lifestyle design, mini-retirements, a public “personal brand” and the like. The lesser-known dream is an under-the-radar version best described in Stanley Bing’s Executricks. This looks very similar, but actually sounds more deliciously subversive: using the exact same tools to “retire at work,” develop an under-the-radar personal brand, and achieve covert lifestyle design…Which view is smarter? Which view do you subscribe to? Let me frame the decision for you; it is subtler than you think.

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I am planning to move my more tech-based/topical/practical “future of work” writing to the Trailmeme blog, leaving the more conceptual stuff here. Kind of a relief, since I like talking about the relationship between technology and work/life styles at a practical level, but have felt, of late, that that stuff doesn’t quite fit with the more philosophical ribbonfarm mode. So if you like that kind of stuff, you may want to subscribe to the trailmeme blog as well.

Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein

April 8, 2010 By

In the last few months, I read two books about the history of finance: Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein and The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson (there is a very watchable DVD version, as well).  My first thought, when I decided to read up on finance and money, was to dive into the deep end with one of the subprime mortgage crisis books. But I found that there were so many, each claiming to know the reason for the  meltdown, that I decided to table that effort. I decided to start, instead, with a couple of broader-perspective historical books. These choices, I have to admit, were a matter of laziness and convenience rather than careful and deliberate selection. Still they did the trick. Though they were somewhat random starting points, both books are pretty good, and they got me thinking about money in productive and stimulating ways. Let’s tackle the first one,  Against the Gods.

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An Elephant, Some Batteries and Julianne Moore

April 1, 2010 By

Some weeks, my brain is so fried that I can’t think, let alone write. This is one of those weeks. So I thought I’d share a few pencil drawings I made several years ago. Let’s start with an elephant:

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Amy Lin and the Ancient Eye

March 23, 2010 By

Last weekend, I went to see Amy Lin’s new show, Kinetics, at the Addison-Ripley gallery in DC (the show runs till April 24;  go). Since I last wrote about her, she has started exploring patterns that go beyond her trademark dots. Swirls, lines and other patterns are starting to appear. Amy’s art  represents the death of both art and science as simple-minded categories, and the rediscovery of a much older way of seeing the world, which I’ll call the Ancient Eye. Yes, she nominally functions in the social skin of a modern “artist,” and is also a chemical engineer by day, but really, her art represents a way of seeing the world that is more basic than either “artistic” or “scientific” ways of seeing.  Take this piece from the Kinetics collection for instance, my favorite, titled Cellular.

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The Turpentine Effect

March 18, 2010 By

Picasso once noted that “when art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.” When you practice a craft you become skilled and knowledgeable in two areas: the stuff the craft produces, and the processes used to create it. And the second kind of expertise accumulates much faster. I call this the turpentine effect. Under normal circumstances, the turpentine effect only has minor consequences. At best, you become a more thoughtful practitioner of your craft, and at worst, you procrastinate a little, shopping for turpentine rather than painting. But there are trades where tool-making and tool-use involve exactly the same skills, which has interesting consequences. Programming, teaching, writing and mechanical engineering are all such trades.

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Ribbonfarm Facebook page, Twitter Feed, Posterous

March 16, 2010 By

Some long overdue social media housekeeping matters. Ribbonfarm now has a facebook page, dedicated Twitter feed and (this last is a rerun news item) a pretty active “Ribbonfarm Hopper” blog on Posterous containing raw material that eventually percolates into my original pieces here. Hook into any or all of these channels. Some details for those who are interested and/or want to know why connecting might be worthwhile.

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Linchpin by Seth Godin, and 8 Other Short Book Reviews

March 13, 2010 By

There are two kinds of books that I find valuable, but don’t review. Books about which I have too little to say and books about which I have too much to say. One reason I don’t review them is that with with the first kind of book, I often extract value and dump the book halfway. With the second kind, I read each book so closely and carefully, and over such a long period of time, that by the time I am done, it is too entangled with my own thinking to write about objectively. Still, I thought it would be interesting to attempt a round-up of recent reading in these two categories. These won’t be getting full-length reviews.

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An Infrastructure Pilgrimage

March 7, 2010 By

In Omaha, I was asked this question multiple times: “Err… why do you want to go to North Platte?” Each time, my wife explained, with a hint of embarrassment, that we were going to see Bailey Yard. “He saw this thing on the Discovery Channel about the world’s largest train yard…” A kindly, somewhat pitying look inevitably followed, “Oh, are you into model trains or something?” I’ve learned to accept reactions like this. Women, and certain sorts of infidel men, just don’t get the infrastructure religion. “No,” I explained patiently several times, “I just like to look at such things.” I was in Nebraska as a trailing spouse on my wife’s business trip, and as an infrastructure pilgrim. When boys grow into men, the infrastructure instinct, which first manifests itself as childhood car-plane-train play, turns into a fully-formed religion. A deeply animistic religion that has its priests, mystics and flocks of spiritually mute, but faithful believers. And for adherents of this faith, the five-hour drive from Omaha to North Platte is a spiritual journey. Mine, rather appropriately, began with a grand cathedral, a grain elevator.

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The Expedient, Desirable Product

March 1, 2010 By

This is a guest post by Dorian Taylor, with whom I’ve been having a thought-provoking Twitter conversation about design. Here is an interesting pecha-kucha talk by Dorian that kinda explains where he’s coming from.

When I first en­coun­tered the phrase min­imum vi­able prod­uct, I thought to my­self here is a term that is ripe for mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion by droves of hy­per­prag­matic un­der­grad-​aged startup founder­s with a cheque from Paul Gra­ham and more en­er­gy than sense. Ad­mit­tedly it’s an ap­pealing con­cept even if you don’t fall into that cat­e­gory, but it’s in my na­ture to take things apart and play with them.

My un­der­standing of the goal of the min­imum vi­able prod­uct is to ar­rive at something you can sell in as short a pe­riod as pos­si­ble. Its pur­pose is to get an­swer­s to em­pir­ical ques­tion­s that can only come from cus­tomer­s and users, while at the same time get­ting paid. Awe­some idea. Just a cou­ple of ques­tion­s: [Read more…]

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor

February 17, 2010 By

What did you want to grow up to be, when you were a kid? Where did you actually end up? For a few weeks now, I have been idly wondering about the atavistic psychology behind career choices. Whenever I develop an odd intellectual itch like this, something odder usually comes along to scratch it. In this case, it was a strange rhyme that emerged in Britain sometime between 1475 and 1695, which has turned into one of the most robust memes in the English language:

tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor
richman, poorman, beggarman, thief

Everybody from John LeCarre to the Yardbirds seems to have been influenced by this rhyme. For the past week, it has been stuck in my head; an annoying tune that was my only clue to an undefined mystery about the nature of work that I hadn’t yet framed. So I went a-detecting with this clue in hand, and ended up discovering what might be the most fundamental way to view the world of work.

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