On this week’s episode we talk about:
– Book: “The One-Page Marketing Plan” by Allan Dib
Podcasts, videos, and iPad art
On this week’s episode we talk about:
– Book: “The One-Page Marketing Plan” by Allan Dib
Steve aspired to create utilitarian things that also brought joy; it was his way of making the world a better place. That was part of why Pixar made him so proud—because he felt the world was better for the films we made. He used to say regularly that as brilliant as Apple products were, eventually they all ended up in landfills. Pixar movies, on the other hand, would live forever.
This is one of my all time favorite things to bring up starting with, “Oh have you ever heard what Steve Jobs said about iPhones and like Toy Story…?” Then I proceed to further botch the story.
Anyway, lately I’ve been entering another “I’m going to try reading more fiction” phase. Or I guess not just reading, but also getting a little bit back into TV (catching up on Black Mirror) and watching a movie here and there. I’ve even been playing the Switch more frequently. (Overcooked with my girlfriend, Hollow Knight alone.)
Sometimes I’ll double up with Hollow Knight (on mute) and an audiobook or podcast. Which is something I used to do earlier this year when I was grinding through Dark Souls III. And I really mean the grinding-through parts. I didn’t want to miss the ambience and all that when the game is progressing. But when I was just set on fighting the same Lothric Knights over and over for a couple hours, it was time to throw an audiobook on.
Oh yeah, the point of this is that fiction is good for you. Stories are a big part of being human and all that.
I get wary of how often I see advice along the lines of “stop watching TV”, “stop playing video games”, “stop reading fiction”. Wary that (1) it’s becoming more and more common but really that kind of sentiment has always been around so it’s really that I’m wary that (2) I’m reading too much of the same kinds of non-fiction.
My plan to get out of this echo chamber is to get absorbed into other stories. I think it’s working. Don’t skip out on experiencing some of the best storytelling going on today so that you can write your 5th blog post this week. Keep it at 4 posts. Close the laptop and get lost in a story.
Here’s a summary of the exercise.
The four things in the grid:
I consume a decent amount of content and it creates a few problems (at least in my head, but that’s not the best place to have them):
Okay, so I’m trying to make this a daily or at least most-days routine to fill out. Here’s how I think it’ll help:
I’ll try to do five of these and will see how it goes. The idea was that I’d then be able to take some of these points and expand on them. Today, writing about the system itself took up that time. But I’ll write three example expansions here.
(Look, I was going to not use emoji and then started looking into custom CSS for different bullet point icons and blah blah blah and anyway I’m just going to use an emoji in this post.)
???? Fit in or fit out
“Return of the King” is about the season where LeBron returned to the Cavs and the following season where they won a championship. This was a reminder of just how much everything was under a microscope that first year back. Any interaction or non-interaction was analyzed and discussed and frame-by-framed by the media.
???? Use tools
Again, this is from “Running Down a Dream”. I really like the idea of summarizing things as tools. So much that I tried to create this sheet as a tool for summarizing things that I’m reading.
???? Too many books
I buy too many books. So much that I tried to create this sheet as a tool for seeing just how many books I’m trying to read at once. I’m past the point where it’s a good thing to where I’m just bouncing from one book to another and always thinking that there might be something better to read.
Until next time!
(We’ve been recording but those might stay in the vault for a little bit longer. One of them was an in-person episode with Wally which needs a little more signposting and massaging.)
This week’s episode has some things about “The Creative Curve” by Allen Gannett.
Check out the full notes for “Visual Intelligence” by Amy E. Herman
Tool: Prioritization questions
You’re looking at a murder scene. What do you focus on?
Okay it’s a still image from a murder scene in a movie you’re watching for your intro cinematography class. Now what do you focus on?
Okay you’re actually in the room of a murder scene. Except it’s an escape room. Now you’re trying to find some wacky puzzle elements.
In “Visual Intelligence”, Amy E. Herman writes about a three-question prioritization system:
Different prioritization systems will work better for different people. The one I’ve found to be the most helpful to the widest range of people I teach is the three-prong approach outlined in the CIA training manual The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis by Richard J. Heuer. To help organize data and find the most important elements of any situation, you ask three questions: What do I know? What don’t I know? If I could get more information, what do I need to know?
Let’s run those scenarios through these questions.
An actual murder scene
A murder scene in a movie
A murder scene in an escape room
I’ll try using these questions to improve in prioritization and decision making. If you like those “spot the difference” puzzles in magazines and you also like preventing international tragedies (or just want to come up with better ideas at work), you’ll love “Visual Intelligence”.
Check out the full notes for “The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly” by Matt McCarthy
What’s the last hard decision you made?
Could someone have died?
Reading through Matt McCarthy’s “The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly” reminded me just how unimportant a lot of the things I do day to day are.
Choosing a video thumbnail and writing a description doesn’t seem that important.
On one hand, it can be discouraging thinking you aren’t impacting people much compared to a doctor saving lives. On the other hand, it can be freeing knowing that you don’t need to make literal life and death decisions night in and night out.
This book made me think of how there are a lot of similarities between jobs in seemingly completely unrelated fields. McCarthy describes presentations about patients that you have to give.
“Your presentations are weak,” he said. “Pick it up.” A wave of relief. “I’ve sensed that.” “Here’s the key,” he said, glancing at his pager. “You’ve only got a few minutes before we lose interest. Every word has to count.”
That’s something to keep in mind whether you’re presenting about a patient to other doctors, you’re a designer pitching a solution to the rest of your team, or giving a talk at a conference. You have a limited amount of time. Your audience has an even more limited amount of interest. Make it count.
“Your presentation has to be problem-based,” he went on. “Why is the person in the unit and what are the barriers to leaving?”
I’m browsing my highlights from this book in a spreadsheet right now. Without context of knowing what book these came from, some of these could just be from books about copywriting that I read too many of. (And don’t apply enough of.)
It’s classic storytelling. If you’re writing a sales letter, you present the problem someone reading might have. You explain the details of that problem and then explain the benefits.
If you’re presenting a patient’s story, you explain who the person (beginning), you explain the problem that’s landed them in the hospital (middle hook), and hopefully you work toward a solution (ending payoff).
But, of course, not everything in a job connects to other jobs. What’s your fluid? During a medical internship, you eventually find out.
A day earlier, I’d spent hours lancing every one of his abscesses with a small scalpel and even more time scooping up the pus with gauze. In college, even in medical school, the sight and smell of those abscesses would’ve made me nauseated, but not anymore. I had been told that every doctor eventually discovers which bodily fluid he or she finds most disturbing, and this realization helps guide the choice of a subspecialty. I didn’t mind blood, spit, piss, or pus. I did mind diarrhea, which meant I wasn’t destined to become a gastroenterologist.
There were moments while reading when I thought, “Wow it’d be great to have this kind of direct impact on people.” Then there were moments where I thought, “Wow it’s great I get to stay at this desk.”
Throughout the book, McCarthy talks about his humanity. In particular, hoping that he doesn’t lose it. He never wants to be someone that’s able to just move on to the next thing after seeing something insane happen in the hospital.
The page-turning moments in the book often involve descriptions of medical procedures, but captured from his perspective. You get a sense of his confusion and apprehension and then see it turn as he gains his composure and the studying and drilling kicks in.
I’ve worked in software and seen how the most effective people are the best communicators. You need rep after rep to build the soft skills. This book often reminded me that communication is probably the biggest career multiplier in other fields as well.
In product design, the goal is often to take something technically complicated and explain it to a lay audience. You choose just how simple to make it. The same happens in medicine.
Medicine is complicated and it is a skill to simplify things in a way that doesn’t oversimplify, to accurately convey in plainspoken language what is actually happening inside another person’s body. I made a conscious effort to do it, so it was irritating to see others doctors use medical jargon with families. Just talk like a normal person, I wanted to say. Pretend you’re not a doctor. But for some, that simply wasn’t possible.
I bought “The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly” after seeing it in a BookBub email. Last year I decided I’d be deliberate about choosing to read outside of my usual interests. I did that for a few months but strayed back to the usual self-development and business books.
It was a great reminder of why I wanted to read outside of my comfort zone in the first place. It’s made me more appreciative of what doctors do day to day. There’s too much to know, too many difficult decisions to get them right every time, and many different ways to simplify things:
The truth is that complex decisions are often made using simple mnemonics. Linguistic shorthand wasn’t encouraged at Harvard—information needed to be mastered before it could be abbreviated—but Ashley had just simplified a series of baffling medical school lectures on dialysis into a mouthful of vowels.
Go check it out if you’ve ever wanted some sense of what it might be like going through a medical internship. Or if you just enjoy stories where the student slowly becomes the teacher. You’ll probably find a lot of interesting connections between something you do and something a doctor does.
For a few moments you get a glimpse at how it really is just another job. Then a few pages later you’ll read a description of cracked ribs and a heart exposed to open air and realize that it really isn’t just another job at all.