Synchronized parking

September 14, 2011September 14, 2011 ~ Sasha ~ 3 Comments

Walking down West 15^th street at 8:50am the other day, I watched a big NYC street sweeping truck rumble down one side of the street. That side of the street was clear of cars because of New York’s alternate-side parking regulations: it’s illegal to park on the north side of 15^th street from 8:30 to 10:00am on Mondays and Thursdays.

So far, nothing remarkable going on here.

Then, within seconds of the street sweeper passing by, three cars, as if on cue from some invisible maestro, swung simultaneously to the other side of the street, with the grace and unison of synchronized swimmers. I’d never seen cars do ballet before.

The sign said no parking until 10am, but at 8:51, they’d moved to the other side of the street. Were they all ready to wait another 69 minutes, or do they know that once the street sweeper passes by, they’re not getting a ticket?

The exact point is that I don’t know the answer here but they do. Why? Because they’re the real insiders, who care the most (about that parking spot), who know how the rules are played, who understand all the constraints and limitations and where rules can be bent.

There are a lot of rules that are in place for good reasons (we need clean streets), lots of norms that tell us what we can and cannot do that are a great guide for our actions. And there are those that aren’t.

Figuring out which is which takes time.

This is why there are no shortcuts, why mastery takes 10,000 hours, why people who seem to bend the world to their will soon discover, once they’ve done it once, that they can do it again and again.

(It’s also why caring the most matters. Whether those folks in the three cars waited there for 5 minutes or 69 minutes, they got those parking spots for free for the next three days.)

* * * * *

For those who liked yesterday’s post about Kevin Kelly, his essay from the book is available on Kevin’s blog.

We can’t argue about pinball any more

July 28, 2011July 27, 2011 ~ Sasha ~ 5 Comments

It was my first summer internship at my first real job. One day at lunch I had a mock-heated discussion with a colleague about whether pinball was a game of skill or luck. I argued for “skill” and as evidence offered up the fact that pinball tournaments exist in the world, which wouldn’t make sense for a game that’s pure luck.

My colleague didn’t believe me. He claimed that there was no such thing as a pinball tournament.

And so a bet was struck: I needed to prove, irrefutably and by the end of the workday, that pinball tournaments existed.

This involved rushing back to my desk, finding a Yellow Pages, searching for pinball dealers in the Washington, DC area, and, from there, cobbling together a list of contacts until someone would send me a faxed entry form for an upcoming pinball tournament.

Of course this story is quaint today because we can no longer argue for more than a few seconds about this sort of thing. If this were happening today, the argument would be resolved between sandwich bites by typing “pinball tournaments” into someone’s smartphone.

Less romantic, more efficient.

The fact is that nothing factual is out of reach these days. While it wasn’t out of reach 20 years ago when I made this bet, the friction has been reduced to zero. So if you want to know the difference between a Roth IRA and a regular IRA; if you want to know what “suited connectors” are in Texas Hold ‘Em and when to play them; if you want to learn how to knit or sharpen a knife or which mortgage is right for you or even what this whole debt ceiling debate is really about….well all of these answers are literally a click away.

So our ignorance about any topic is, in the most literal sense, willful in a way it never was before. This is great news for people willing to make two (just two!) decisions:

To be the kind of person who seeks answers, even when it’s scary
To choose where to deepen your knowledge and to act on that decision by spending your time accordingly

That’s it.

No more pinball arguments, but so much more freedom for those willing to take that first step.

The work of blogging

August 9, 2010August 8, 2010 ~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

The days I’m not ready to write, the days I don’t feel like I have something to say, the days that I have to burn the midnight oil, the days I have to scramble….those are the days I’m doing the work.

What is the work, exactly? Many things, but partly it is earning the right to have the days when lightening strikes, the days full of great leaps forward, the days it comes easy.

This is how it is with everything: we do the hard work in between the peaks, we toil along, even when it isn’t pretty. And when we get to the top, the view sure is beautiful, all the more so when you can share it with people that matter (all of you)

So thank you for helping me do the work. I’m positive I wouldn’t do it without you.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Be a Sawgot (SWGTD)

September 2, 2009September 1, 2009 ~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

Are you a “sawgot,” Someone Who Gets Things Done?

If you’re not now, what would it take?

With an ever-shifting economy, and all of the challenges in the job market, I can think of few skills more universal than being a sawgot. Because when it’s crunch time and something absolutely needs to happen, the people in charge look at each other and say, “OK, we need our ace right now. The game’s on the line.” And you want to be that ace.

Being a sawgot is about a mindset and an outlook: having the humility not to ask “why am I doing something that’s not in my job description?” and the wisdom to know that moment you’ve become the kind of person who reliably makes problems go away, you’ve become indispensable.

This is particularly valuable early in your career, when you’re looking to stand out. If you work in the kind of organization that creates opportunities and moves quickly, the sawgot’s ability to move a project forward, on time and without (visibly) breaking a sweat is the kind of thing that gets you noticed (and if it doesn’t get you noticed, go work somewhere where it does).

Speed, accuracy, an ability to ask the right questions to get enough clarity to do what is being asked of you…these are the starting point. There is also a trove of really basic skills that you just need to have – and which there’s no excuse not to have mastered by now. You:

Create clean, attractive, simple slides in Powerpoint: few words, great images, tell a story (this implies some facility with Photoshop).
Generally “do stuff” with ease in Excel (this includes formulas and pivot tables and some data analysis and text-to-columns and Lookups).
Write clearly, concisely, quickly, and at the right level of detail
Manage projects against deadlines, and get things done early
Never let things fall through the cracks
Know how to create content for the web (including poking into the code here and there if you need to) – and are comfortable creating and sharing multimedia quickly and easily
Reliably create narratives from a set of inchoate inputs / sources
Know just a little bit more than your boss about what’s new and useful in the world, including but not limited to the online world

The skills allow you to dance at the party, but the sawgot’s ATTITUDE gets you in the door. You don’t want to jump into so many things that you cannot do your day job, but if, right now, you’re not working on one or two things that you’d describe as, “this is outside of the scope of what I do, but it really matters that our team/group/organization/company gets this right,” then it’s time to put up your hand and say, “how can I help?” or “why haven’t you asked me to help?”

: : : : : : : : : : :