Weeknotes: 2022, Week 6

Thoughts

This week I listened to an interesting Planet Money podcast on Remote vs. Office - I enjoyed the discussion around “Superstar cities” historically attracting talent and causing brain drain for those “left behind” parts of the world (like the one I grew up, work and reside in).

Apart from this podcast, I’ve heard multiple tales of people returning home from the major cities and staying, due to the firm establishment of remote work as part of culture now. The controversial Kirstie Alsopp article last week featured one such story, and even one of the hosts of the podcast has returned home and had no plans to go back to the office in New York. To be fair though, the places in question were Newcastle and San Francisco. It could well be a different case for someone coming back to Hartlepool!

This week I met an acquaintance for lunch - they’re one those few people that I know who are incredibly principled, and indirectly make me feel guilty for being so passive. We were discussing buying a home and they were struggling to look beyond the village they grew up in: Like most places on the North-East coast, its economic deprivation and continued downward slide are opposed by the beautiful coastline and pervasive down-to-earth attitudes. And to paraphrase him - if everyone moves away, where does that leave it?

Sidenote: I Would love to see someone smarter and more well-read than me discuss this return to home in the lens of Sloterdijk’s spherology.

Achievements

We successfully got through our ISO audits at work. Even 9 years after my dissertation, the assessment criteria still seem at odds with the main goal - documentation is encouraged to be legible to auditors/outsiders than to be in a format that encourages behaviours that improve quality and rigour. Rant over.

I finished reading Sprint. Now I’ll be constantly looking for opportunities to run a design sprint. There were a lot of lessons in there about how to prioritise/make decisions fast that apply to more than just design sprints.

What I’ve learned this week

I’m currently trying to upskill on the commercial side of things. I’m starting a new role in April in a product team, and I’m feeling the pressure. I wish I’d done Business Studies at school.

I did learn about the existence of Charlie Munger. You only ever really hear about Warren Buffett don’t you?

Targets for next week

Become a commercial mastermind.