Becoming an expert; AI autumn; Toxic positivity
💡Think
Hey everyone,
I took a week off last week because I was at a UX conference in Dublin 👋🏻
At the conference, I ran a two hour (😅) workshop, and discovered the same things that I have done any other time I've ran them – everyone is there needing reassurance, a thumbs up, and a general "you're doing okay!"
It's strange, but it's becoming increasingly common that people aren't totally sure whether they are doing a good job, have no idea whether their industry peers have figured it all out, and need answers.
This is why I'm generally not a fan of conferences, because they provide stages for "thought leaders" doing a circuit rather than people providing concrete answers for those that need them.
I'd love it for conferences to switch to seminar-heavy agendas in the next few years, to provide safer spaces for Q&A, and ultimately give answers.
Have a splendid week 🚀
📷 Look
📖 Read
❶ Becoming an expert
Firstly, it's totally fine to not want to be an expert; I wouldn't consider myself one. There's a tendency amongst skilled people to go the route of "draw the outline of the owl, now draw the rest of the owl" when giving advice, or the "10 thousand hours rule", but this article contests that idea. It gives out practical steps to try and breakdown your route to brilliance. I promise it's not as sugar-coated as I've made it sound.
❷ Are we in an AI summer or AI winter?
I had never heard of this terminology, so I learned something from the title alone. It all comes down to how much investment there is in AI, which kind of makes sense when you think about it. Perhaps reassuringly (?), we're more likely in an AI autumn, meaning stabilisation. Additionally, the predictions from the '60s that we will be dominated by intelligence have yet to get anywhere near reality.
❸ There's no need to be positive all the time
Last year during a company offsite I said that our biggest risk to culture was "toxic positivity". It's easy, particularly when remote, to skim over problems and pretend everything is fine in order to push forward and achieve. What this ends up with though is a situation where it's hard to admit things aren't okay. This article is definitely on the lighter, more self-help side of things I'd normally share, but I thought you'd all appreciate it. They mostly discuss the balance between positivity (toxic) and hope, how it's a shared concern, and what to do about it.
🎧 Listen/watch
Patagonia, or why there's no such thing as a good billionaire
I've never come across this person's YouTube channel before, but saw this video and really enjoyed it. They mostly take the Patagonia chief to town discussing how their decision to give the company away to charity really wasn't that simple and that it's – as usual – a way to dodge taxes. The creator is a comedian too, so it's a lot funnier than taxes normally are 😂
Watch/listen to this video (20 mins)