This is my microblog. It consists of random ideas, tips, and musings from my everyday life.

Some of these "seedling" posts may grow into larger blog posts.

One aspect of hiring/interviewing I've been thinking about:

I have a hunch that hiring processes tend to focus more on a candidate's depth of knowledge in a select number of areas than the total questionably relevant breadth of knowledge they possess.

This makes sense because it's a form of measurability bias - it's hard to assess skills and experience that don't seem relevant to the immediate role being hired for, but that seemingly irrelevant blend of expertise could be the thing that enables that candidate to have outsized impact relative to other candidates. You can think of a candidate's breadth of knowledge can be an loose proxy for level of creativity and capacity to innovate. It's easier to produce good ideas when you have a lot of other ideas (from both similar and dissimilar domains) to take inspiration from.

This doesn't apply to all roles, of course, but I do think it's something worth thinking about.

One paradoxical aspect of innovation - to increase your creativity or output, it's a good idea to decrease your creative bounds.

For example:

1. Timeboxing - Limiting the time you have to execute a task, helping reduce the effect of Parkinson's Law (the tendency for work to expand to the time allotted for its completion)
2. Sizeboxing - Limiting the physical size in which you can produce work e.g. limiting your essays to the screenshot of a phone, writing individual notes on 4x6 index cards, record a song with only two instruments, paint on canvas no more than 4x4 inches.
3. Scopeboxing - Limiting the scope of ideas you're allowed to produce e.g. "If I was the only one working on this project, what kinds of risks would I focus on mitigating?"

Marketing protip: When communicating your idea or solution, make sure to touch upon how it is different from anything existing your users might have heard of.

I've come across numerous ideas, products, approaches, or other innovations that thoroughly explain what they are are how they work, but don't explicitly tell the users what it adds the existing solution space.

Why is this important?

• It streamlines knowledge transfer - some of your potential users/supporters already have a good conceptual model of solutions similar to yours. Explaining how your idea relates to these makes it that much easier for them to understand what you bring to the table, leveraging the cognitive scaffolding they've already built.
• It makes a positive impression - communicating in this way signals that you already have a good understanding existing solutions. As a potential user, this gives me greater confidence that what you offer is actually better than the competition

Following the last Green Drinks Philly meetup, an attendee reached out to me, asking for my thoughts on the most impactful climate-focused organizations to contribute to here in the Philly area.

While I don't claim to be an expert in climate giving, I wanted to share my thoughts, in case it might benefit anyone else grappling with similar questions:

1️⃣ If you're thinking about the impact of your donations, kudos!!!!!! 👏👏👏 You're already on a great path towards having more impact.

2️⃣ My default answer to "where should I give locally?" is to turn it around and ask: "is there a particular reason you want to give locally?"

The most cost-effective interventions within a given cause (e.g. climate, global health, education, etc) are often orders of magnitude more cost-effective than the average. Thus, by limiting your scope, you may ultimately be limiting your impact. It's valuable to consider the underlying reason you want to donate to a local organization, given the amount of good your money could do elsewhere. This is not to say that you're wrong for deciding to give locally (there are perfectly valid reasons for doing so!). What matters most is that your decision is made thoughtfully and intentionally.

3️⃣ If you're interested in giving beyond your immediate area, there are two charities I would recommend checking out:

• Founders Pledge Climate Change Fund - Founder's Pledge advises entrepreneurs on high-impact giving. Donating to their climate change fund puts your money into a pool that is strategically allocated by philanthropic experts. The drawback of charity funds is that it can feel like your money is being thrown into a black box that someone else ultimately decides what to do with. If you'd rather have 100% control over where your donations go, you might turn to a charity evaluator like…

• Giving Green - Giving Green is a charity dedicated to helping individuals and businesses make more effective climate-giving decisions. They specialize in finding evidence-based, cost-effective, and high-leverage organizations that maximize the impact of your climate donations. See their recommended non-profits here: https://www.givinggreen.earth/top-climate-change-nonprofit-donations-recommendations

4️⃣ When it comes to local organizations, it's probably best to do your own research (and publish your findings for the rest of us!) For starters, you might consider researching organizations like the Clean Air Council, PennFuture, Penn Environment, or Clean Water Action.

For finding additional charities, you might also consider browsing the City of Philadelphia Office of Sustainability's publications or the Penn Center for High Impact Philanthropy's webpage on identifying and researching nonprofits to support.

What did I miss? I'd love to hear your thoughts below.

Heard an interesting idea on the Thoughtworks Technology Podcast: Set an expiration date for messages in your team's Slack workspace - this creates an incentive to add important info to a wiki or decision log. https://share.snipd.com/snip/9b03d4ff-c75c-458b-8946-e3274b6b678b

Agree or disagree?

I've noticed a large spectrum of reactions to OpenAI's Sora announcement, ranging from complete awe to existential dread. However you're processing the news, please know that it's entirely normal to feel a range of emotions in response to such significant technological developments. Emotions are complex, and it's important to give yourself the time to feel them without judgment and seek out others who might be able to provide mutual support. With this in mind, I wanted to share the following resources, which might provide solace and new perspective during this time:

1. ActiveHope.Training: https://activehope.training/
2. "Another Way to Be Okay" by Gretta Duleba: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SKweL8jwknqjACozj/another-way-to-be-okay

#TIL Goodreads has a 'New Releases' page where you can discover the latest books by authors you follow on your Goodreads shelves. You can also opt to receive email notifications when new books are published.

Goodreads New Releases page

Tonight, I thoroughly enjoyed a live screening of "It's Basic", a documentary exploring the promise of unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) to help alleviate poverty, hosted by the Center for Guaranteed Income Research (CGIR) at the Penn School of Social Policy & Practice, followed by an expert panel.

Some key nuggest of insight:

• There are two primary aspects of a successful 'pilot to policy' transition: (1) consensus on the evidence ("is this intervention effective?") and (2) consensus in society ("does this intervention have public support?")
• UCTs are not a new idea - in 1967, Martin Luther King Jr advocated for guaranteed income for all Americans, declaring "the dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands.”
• Americans are often resistant to the concept of UCTs, as it challenges the deep-rooted foundation of the 'American Dream' - the belief that relative success is attainable through hard work alone. Giving people cash without conditions implicitly acknowledges that poverty often cannot be escaped without external assistance.
• Existing social programs in the US can be extremely demoralizing to take advantage of - as one UCT recipient described it, these programs continually require recipients to prove they are "worthy of breadcrumbs."
• Formerly incarcerated individuals are perhaps the most deserving of UCTs due to their high risk of facing homelessness. Yet, these programs receive the greatest skepticism from policymakers and the public.

Afterward, I spoke with one of the lead researchers at the CGIR about what aspects of poverty UCTs are ill-suited to address. Paraphrasing, they made clear that UCTs are not a panacea. They view UCTs as a complement to existing social programs.

Building on this perspective, I think taking a complex systems view of poverty is useful for understanding the role of UCTs. There is a seemingly infinite combination of challenges that individuals facing poverty contend with. Although social programs and policies can address some of these challenges, these relatively rigid approaches are unable to address many of the nuanced and multifaceted elements of poverty. Thus, UCTs offer a flexible solution, enabling recipients to address poverty in a way that is tailored to their unique needs and circumstances. This approach aligns closely with the core principles of human-centered design - emphasizing empathy, respecting user autonomy, and involving individuals directly in crafting solutions to their problems.

Check out the documentary here

#TIL about Democracy Technologies, a magazine of the Innovation Politics Institute.

They offer:

1. An impressive database of tools to support participatory decision-making, including Polis, Decidim, and Loomio
2. Introductory articles on concepts relating to digital democracy
3. News, case studies, guides, and other resources related to innovations in democratic technology ...and more!

While many of these technologies are designed primarily for use by government & municipal entities, I'd argue they offer substantial value to any companies or non-profits looking to increase their decision-making effectiveness and capacity to innovate. With the ability to gather, aggregate, and make sense of qualitative feedback in a fraction of the time and cost of running traditional surveys, organizations willing to explore the potential of these cutting-edge tools stand to foster a culture of collaborative innovation, boost employee engagement, and stay resilient to disruption in an increasingly complex world.