It’s difficult to take on something new: starting a new career, trying a new pastime, meeting new people. The uncertainties put us in a state of unease. That’s why many don’t try new things.

It’s a different psychology when we restart something we used to do. We know a bit about it, yet here we are again. So, it’s been 18 months since my fifth long-distance triathlon; I’m now restarting the long journey back into endurance running events. Restarting from zero is like having never done it, except I’ve experienced it all before. Trying it again for the first time.

#100wordsaday

Business documents should be used. That means read: documents that sit unread on a shelf are not something to be proud of.

It’s very easy to start writing a document without thinking thoroughly enough about the who, the what, or the why. For example, the level of detail needed changes markedly with a sophisticated audience for the “who” versus writing for a novice audience.

The document lifecycle should also be part of the planning: who will use it, what for, and why. And: who approves it, what happens after that, and, know who will care if it doesn’t get written.

#100wordsaday

Are you competent? Take a moment to think about the answer to that.

The answer, of course, should be “that depends”.

But if you said yes, well that’s an impressive ego. If you said no, give yourself a little more credit. 

Competence has context. It applies at a moment in time, or it applies about a certain thing. 

When contemplating if you’re competent, consider not only the topic and level of detail being considered, but also:

• what have you produced (your outputs), 

• who have you told (your interactions with others), and,

• what examples are there to prove it (your stories).

#100wordsaday

Unfortunately, putting time aside to read during the workday seems to not be considered ‘productive’ work in many workplaces. And by “reading”, here I’m meaning deep long-form reading, not Twitter posts, or 100-word observations. 

Reading a book or magazine article at your office desk (when we had that) seemed like some skiving off.  Yet we can skim emails and reply to a few in the same timeframe and that’s seen as productivity.

But reading is crucial for knowledge.  To know something takes more than just being exposed to it.  To understand it means including reading long-form content in different contexts.

#100wordsaday

It’ll be difficult for me to stick to just 100 words about committees. I’m on several, and I chair a few as well. I’ve been on committees for technical standards (hello Standards Australia) for almost twenty years, as well as several with Engineers Australia.

I get an enormous amount of satisfaction from them. They are my ‘giving back’ to society, and to industry. The people are all so interesting, and the opportunity to learn is enormous. It’s not easy work; but it’s worth it. Reaching consensus on issues is the ongoing challenge. You can’t help but improve your communication skills.

#100wordsaday

Mathematics, according to Wikipedia, has no generally accepted definition. I found that to be a bit surprising, since we could all probably agree that we know it when we see it. It’s about quantity, structure, space, and change, and it’s about numbers and letters, and LaPlace Transforms.

Math problems practically always have one answer, a ‘correct’ answer. On the other hand, engineering or technical problems, as well as art and politics, have many answers and possible interpretations. There’s nuance involved, and judgement required. But math doesn’t care what your opinion is or what you think about it. It just is.

#100wordsaday

30-day challenges are a recognised way to develop understanding, habits, or patterns. Doing something once does not mean we are skilled, or experienced, at it. During the repetitive attempts, we expose uncertainty, and we must work through the hard bits. Any sports or music expert has had times of wondering if all the repeating is worth it.

Part of the journey to expertise is working on skills and getting experience. Improving skills means a lot of repetition. It means repeated exposure, to better recognise patterns and systems. Repetition is how we develop skills, and those skills contribute to developing expertise.

#100wordsaday

Putting aside unsolicited advice, of which there seems to be plenty of, sometimes we do actually seek out some advice.

There are two paths by which we decide where to get advice from, and whether it’s trustworthy: we need to know the advisor’s motives, and we need to know their competence.

It makes sense: if the motives and competence are good or positive, then we are more confident the advice will be. The opposite is true too.

What might be surprising is that the motives are related to values: how similar the advisee thinks the advisor’s are to their own.

The world is a tricky and complicated place.  Humans have been trying to overcome the laws of nature for all of our existence, but physics and math sometimes just seem to thwart our efforts. 

Fundamental to science and engineering thinking – and more importantly, the doing – is the analysis portion.

To analyse something is to apply a detailed examination of the elements or structure.  It also requires the asking of how and why, and coming to conclusions around the thinking about the thing being analysed.

The efforts to analyse should not be lost into the black box that is our computers.

#100wordsaday

Quite a bit of work in today’s world is untested. It’s not thoroughly checked for ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. There’s no established way to test creative processes or how the innovative ‘spark’ of an idea came to be.

The idea of ‘drift into failure’, by Dekker in 2011, captures safety complexity where small everyday decisions eventually produce breakdowns on a massive scale.

This happens with technical knowledge work, if it’s not tested. When we successfully complete tasks, without feedback where it might not have been done right, we miss out on the learning and growing that goes with being wrong sometimes.

#100wordsaday

The act of measuring something brings attention to its contexts, facts, data, or details.  Measuring facilitates a mode of comparison. To compare things (or people), we need to have some sort of measurement. 

The old axiom applies: you can’t improve that which you don’t measure.  Or: what gets measured gets managed.

In knowledge work, there’s a real need to measure knowledge, skills, and abilities.  More so now, while we’re not working side by side anymore. Productivity, or the value, of knowledge, is not measured the same way as producing widgets.  Deep and complex knowledge is valuable, but hard to measure.

A service provider recently advised its customers (like me) about how important its customers were, and that they were introducing a customer charter to look after us better.  They were helpful enough to define ‘who’ were their customers (any person who has direct contact or a commercial relationship). 

Then the provider assured readers that contact may be through multiple communication channels including telephone, website, face to face or in writing.  All good so far.

The problem became apparent when the customer service employees, even with the touted charter, then did not have the knowledge needed to answer this customer’s question.

No one expects 100 words of philosophy on a Wednesday afternoon, but here we are.

Techne and episteme are types of knowledge.  So are ‘a posteriori’ and ‘a priori’.

Techne is craft or applied practise: knowledge gained by making or doing – and by extension, through experience and skills. 

Episteme is (factual) knowledge by understanding, or by reasoning.  Experience is not a prerequisite.

In a similar approach, “a priori” knowledge is independent of experience , whereas “a posteriori” is knowledge through experience or observation.  These match with episteme (knowledge: “green is a colour”) and techne (experiential knowledge: “grass is green”).

There is annual angst around here this time of year.  The southern states go on daylight savings time, jumping ahead one hour.  Queensland does not. 

Yet while I’m in Brisbane, if I called someone in Melbourne as the sun rose, they’d say yep, it’s rising here right now too.  And yet our clocks say 5am here, 6am there.

But it’s all a construct.  Clock-time is made up so that humans meet deadlines.

In summer, I put my clock ahead too.  Everyone else in Brisbane thinks I get up at 5am, but my clock says it’s six.  The sun doesn’t care.

The unconscious part of our mind influences our decisions and actions, usually without us even knowing it.  We use cognitive shortcuts to make decisions easier.  The majority of discussions around blind spots are around people issues like trust, ability, diversity.

There are blind spots in using our knowledge, as well.  We skip over information we think we know.  We assume the report we’re supposed to review is full and complete.  We start a new role or assignment with pre-formed ideas about what we need to know. Blind spots cause a narrow vision on topics that may deserve a wider view.

There’s a big difference between “value” in the singular, as in the value of gold, and “values” in the plural: family values, or integrity.  This idea about “value” vs “values” is credited to David Graeber. 

“Value” is economic, and relates to what we pay, and what we get paid for.  “Values” appear when that’s not the case.  Housework and childcare are obvious unpaid work – which relate to family or home values.  Volunteering is unpaid but demonstrates community values. 

Commodities have economic value because they can be compared with others, whereas values are valuable because they cannot be compared and priced. 

In the STEM or knowledge work areas, it might be true to say every job is related to one or more of ‘making’, ‘moving’ or ‘maintaining’ something. And that something is usually something tangible. I suppose in some maths or science careers, this simple model may be a stretch.

I like that I work on making, moving, or maintaining tangible things like linear and energy infrastructure. I like that tangible STEM knowledge work requires exactly that: knowledge. Working with knowledge is satisfying. The act of using that knowledge to make, move or maintain our society is satisfying and also uplifting.

I was reading a CV recently, and something I read caused me to dig out one of mine from about 15 years ago. 

Yep, there it was in mine too.  One of my claimed tasks (accomplishments?) was:  “Prepare project documents”. 

Reading it now in my CV, and in this other one, made me wonder what that actually means.  It’s odd that we don’t claim to “write” documents.  No, we “prepare” them.

It almost makes it arm’s length from the writing.  It’s a step removed: I’ve prepared it, but it’s not clear if I’ve actually put the words together (written it). 

The concept of responsibility is – or should be - taught to us at a young age.  Decision-making brings responsibility, even if it’s as simple as when I was a schoolkid getting to choose what shoes to wear to school that day (in Canada where there aren’t uniforms).  With that responsibility is the consequence of that decision.  Like choosing summer shoes when winter is coming.  There are consequences!

Any decision on an action should invoke a sense of responsibility, and with it, consequences.  Sometimes the consequences are minor, sometimes maybe more widespread.  Where there is responsibility, there is commitment. And consequences. 

“Because I said I would” is an established social movement where people can declare publicly things they promise to do, or behaviour they promise to change. Mostly it addresses personal change or personal goals. It’s an uplifting undertaking that has plenty of merit. Much good has come from it, and many lives have improved immensely.

In the business sense, this state of mind should prevail too. Taking responsibility for a task or a program or a deliverable must have the associated intention to fulfil that commitment. The task or deliverable is achieved simply – and importantly – ‘because I said I would’.