What data can't do; Outgrowing software; Quiet giants

💡Think

I heard a great saying this week whislt doing my course on decision making,

”The worst time to look for information is when you need it”, which resonated with me because my own personal ‘mantra’ is to always be two steps ahead.

If we’re constantly chasing our own knowledge tail, then we don’t allocate time to fully understand and grasp the things we’re researching. In other words, if you’re Googling the answers to your decisions as you’re facing them, there’s a low chance you’ll truly comprehend the solution and need to Google it again the next time.

Setting aside time to anticipate challenges or decisions we’ll need to face (blue-sky thinking, I know) will mean that when we do face these situations, we are prepared and aren’t rushing around for answers.

📷 Look

Northampton, England – From my Instagram

📖 Read

❶ What data can’t do

This article is filled with so much gold, particularly for those of us that work in tech and try to layer numbers or algorithms on top of everything. A particularly provocative quote being, “we tend to get what we measure, so we should measure what we want.” It runs through how numbers are great, but can become very dangerous when they are used to do what you want rather than to help you understand.

Read this article

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❷ Outgrowing software

Many industries have benefitted from software for disruption – music, books, and now TV – but when the software becomes a given, they need to look at the industry’s established norms to take things the next level. Think about how Netflix now does TV series. The disruption has already happened, and the previously high-flying industries are left picking up the software pieces and working out what to do next.

Read this article

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❸ Quiet giants, not unicorn companies

It’s pure madness that we describe our businesses as unicorns and strive to be “unicorn designers” or whatever your job is, despite…unicorns not being real. This article stares this in the eye and says hey why can’t we build more modest, smaller businesses that still make a great impact and make money?

Read this article

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Bonus round

• Ever run a design sprint? Me neither. If you have, here are “28 goofups” that I’m sure you’re familiar with. (reader submitted)

  luis. @disco_lu

  Developer: The Figma file just changed, did you update this after we signed it off? Designer:

  

🎧 Listen

AirBnb’s CEO on surviving the past year

I linked to the previous episode with Brian Chesky maybe…a year ago? I’m not sure. Either way, he speaks very candidly in this episode about how hard the past 12 months have been for the business and its employees – they let an entire third of the staff go, but built tools and processes to help their find new jobs, a rarity.

Listen to this podcast (47 minutes)

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🙏 Thanks

Have a great week,
Luis Ouriach
@disco_lu