What You’ll Be Doing in 20 Years Doesn’t Exist Yet

From Medium.

Imagine telling your parents in 1960 or 1970 that you were going to design video games for a living. Or telling them in the 1980s that you were going to design websites. Or telling them in the 90s that you were going to get paid to create software applications for mobile telephones. Or in the early 2000s that you would be paid to “tweet” 140 character messages.

Chances are, whatever you’ll be doing in 20 years doesn’t yet exist, or at least not in any way you can imagine or describe. Not long ago the idea of work that didn’t require manual labor, or living in a big city, or going to an office was unthinkable. Today it’s ubiquitous.

Innovation keeps moving. That means picking that one clear career destination and forming a perfect path to it is probably unrealistic for an increasing number of people. It’s more important to start with a broad swath of things you’re interested in, get as much knowledge and experience as you can in many areas, and begin to add to the list of things you know you really don’t want to do. Eliminate the bad options. Anything else is fair game.

Do this and develop and refine general, transferable skills like critical thinking, communication, emotional intelligence, and a reputation for hard work, and you will be able to see and seize opportunities. Better yet, you’ll be able to create new ones.

You’ve got to think like an entrepreneur, whether you ever plan to start a business or not.

Ask around. How many people imagined 20 years ago they’d be doing what they do now? Neither will you.

The world can be your oyster. Be ready.

Focus on What You Don’t Want

From the Praxis blog.

It’s really stressful for most young (and old!) people to feel the need to pick the career or job and plot a path to it.  How are you supposed to know yourself so well in the present, and know so much about what’s out there, let alone predict what your future self will want in a future world with unknown possibilities?

Relax.  With rare exception, it’s probably a bad idea to try to pick the one specific thing and try to get there.  You might be better making a list of general categories of activity and creativity that you enjoy, are good at, and/or you see as valuable to get you to some other end (wealth, free time, etc.)  Even that can be daunting.  Here’s an easier approach: focus on what you don’t like and know you want to avoid.

Make a list of all the things you simply can’t stand, are bad at, or see little value in.  Anything not on that list is fair game for experimentation.  Go out and get broad experience with the explicit goal of discovering more stuff you don’t like and adding it to the list.  As that list grows, the arena of what’s fair game narrows.  Any step within that range is a step in the right direction, and each step helps clarify and reduce the possible next steps.  You’ll probably never have it so narrowed that there is only one good next step, and that’s a good thing.

You don’t know what might happen as you and the world change, but the sooner you can figure out where you’re not in the zone, the faster you can start mining in places likely to have a mother lode.

Consider the Costs (and Benefits) of Entrepreneurial Failure

From the Praxis blog, reposted here since I’m on the theme of failure lately.

photo-624x370Most new ventures fail.  In fact, depending on how you define failure and what data you look at, entrepreneurial failure rates can be as high as 95%.  That sounds terrifying.  The costs of failure should not be overlooked when considering an entrepreneurial path.  But neither should the benefits.

Data about startups end with the word failure.  But what actually happens to the people who launch them?  Is their life over?  Do they come out worse than they went in?

When I was 19 my brother and I started our first business.  We installed telephone and computer cables back before wi-fi made it mostly unnecessary.  The business lasted less than a year.  We had a few good jobs installing and terminating fiber optic cables (a service we sold, even though we’d never done it before.  We learned.  It’s not as exciting as it sounds), but many of our “jobs” consisted of me doing landscaping for relatives.  I like to think I made their yards beautiful, but it was mostly charity on their part.

Novius failed.  But I didn’t fail, and neither did my brother.  I made a decent living for those nine months, I learned more than I’d ever learned, especially about people and businesses and how they operate (try cold-call selling people on data cable installation).  Our few customers got a good service at a good price and were happy.  A few relatives got some flower boxes.  I learned how to have confidence in myself and my ability, even if the business I ran wasn’t going well – that was the hardest and probably most valuable lesson.  We came out ahead.  Not really financially, but in terms of being closer to where we wanted to be in life.

There are ventures that could wipe you out.  There are ventures that could destroy your reputation, or your credit, or your relationships.  But those are rare.  Especially today when technology has made startup costs so low (Novius emails were @sbcglobal, because even ten years ago it was not so cheap to have your own email domain).  Various crowdfunding and investment tools let you wait until you know you’ll reach a certain level of capital, or customers, before any real resources are at stake.  The costs of entrepreneurial failure are falling.

The psychological costs remain high.  You have to be able to see your venture as an exploration, not as an indication of your worth as a person.  You have to simultaneously be so passionate about your idea that you can’t stop working on it, but so open about what might happen that failure won’t kill you.

If you make a go of it and fail, it is possible to reap amazing rewards in the process.  The analogies are endless.  95% of first attempts to ride a bike probably fail.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ever ride a bike, or that you should wait until first-try success rates get higher.

If you are only interested in launching something that has a very high chance of success, it’s probably not a good idea to pursue it.  Failure will ruin you.  If, on the other hand, you are so excited about an idea, product, service, or vision that you feel you must give it a go even if it fails, just to discover for yourself whether it’s doable, then it’s probably not a bad idea to try it.  Ask yourself, “If I knew this idea was going to fail, but I didn’t know how or why, would I feel better having tried it to learn those things than never having tried at all?”  If the answer is yes, try it.

There’s a point at which repeated failures can begin to accumulate costs.  If you’re the person who always has a great new idea you can’t stop talking about, then two months later you never speak a word of it but focus on the latest idea, it will diminish your credibility fast.  The costs don’t come so much from failing, but from how you go about trying to succeed, how many other people’s assets you risk, who you blame and how you respond to failure.

Be real with yourself about the costs of entrepreneurial failure.  But be real about the benefits too.  How many people who make up the failure statistics are doing great stuff and living wonderful lives right now, in part because of the failure they created?  Sometimes the best way to the next level is to fail up.

There’s no rush.  Take time to immerse yourself in a lot of experiences, gain a lot of knowledge and self-knowledge, and poke your toe in the waters of the world a bit.  If you get bit by the entrepreneurial bug at some point, be realistic but don’t fear the failure.  It might be the best route to your goals.

Ask Isaac: Is Failure Good or Bad?

Today I take a question from Facebook follower Andrew Stover about failure.  I’ve written before about failure not being so scary, about willingness to fail being a great test, about failure to achieve your own goals as good when those goals change over time, and even about the benefits of entrepreneurial failure.  There are books and adages flying around lately about failing forward.  Yet entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, whose ideas I greatly respect, says all this talk about failure is a misguided “Silicon Valley bromide”.  Are these opinions in conflict?

I don’t think so, and I try to explain why in the podcast.  Failure’s not good.  But the fear of it is worse.

Thanks for the question Andrew!  If you have questions of your own, contact me anytime.  As always, episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

Playing with Legos is More Valuable than Learning Algebra

Playing with Legos is More Valuable Than Learning Algebra

I was homeschooled.  My mom really wanted to have a highly structured and rigorous curriculum for us.  She didn’t.  She tried – lord knows the number of books she purchased at annual curriculum fairs – and we’d go through phases with a little more structure than others.  But ultimately, she was raising three stubborn kids while also caring for a disabled husband (and just about anyone else we ever met who needed help…my mom is a wonderful woman who has a terrible time saying ‘no’).

The result is that my siblings and I didn’t do much consistent, structured learning.  Today we might be called borderline “unschoolers”, but at the time nobody had heard the word.  The most structure we had was in the daily and weekly chores we did to help keep up the house and yard and the fact that all three of us had paying jobs from age 10 or so on.  (One of the benefits of not being in school all day is that you can work and earn money, though laws make this harder and harder.)

So what did we do?  I would estimate that between the ages of 4 and 13, roughly half of my time any given day was spent playing with Legos.  My mom used to feel guilty about this.  Frankly, so did I.  I was always a little worried that “real school kids” would be far ahead of me in their knowledge and skill and it might embarrass me some day.  But that day never came.  Real school kids suffered all day while I played Legos, and by the time I went to school (one year in high school, and then college, neither of which were worth the cost) they were no better for it.

My mom would sometime assign us math work through a textbook (Saxon Math. Even the name is ominous), which we would complete and grade on our own.  I remember sitting at my desk and moving through “Algebra 1/2” as fast as I could, not caring or comprehending it.  I’d grade it with the answer guide and fix errors, but mostly I was staring out the window at the excessively fat Squirrels of Milwood, who I’m pretty sure were running some kind of animal cartel.  The fattest of them was an albino squirrel who was probably immortal.  I called him The Godsquirrel.  Where was I…oh yes, working on math problems…

That was pretty much how it would go.  I’d get it out of the way (or not) and get back to my Legos.  Only later have I come to realize how much more valuable playing with Legos was than the little math I did, or really any of the formal instruction I had.  I remember nearly every Lego creation in detail and with great pride.  In fact, give me some Legos today I can still whip up a mean spaceship or watercraft if I do say so myself.

There are a few reasons I think playing with Legos was much more valuable to me than pretending to learn from textbooks.

Confidence

Confidence cannot be given.  It must be earned.  No cat poster telling you that you can do anything will really give you the self-esteem needed to pursue your goals with grit and determination.  Confidence comes by overcoming challenges and solving problems.  Especially problems that are meaningful to you.  Building entire cities with plastic blocks is time-consuming and can be very challenging.  When you’re done you get so much more than a gold star or a pat on the head or a lifeless word on a page that says, “Correct”.  You get to see and touch and play with a tangible creation.  Until you decide to destroy it, you have proof of your work and the challenges you overcame.  (It’s doubly challenging when you have to dig through the Lego bin piece by piece so as not to be too loud and awaken your mom, who is probably on the phone helping someone downstairs, to the realization that you’re playing instead of working.)

Value Creation

In school you’re rewarded for finding the right answers to questions you don’t care about.  Neither does anyone else except (maybe) your teacher.  In the market place where you’ll spend most of your life working and interacting, no one cares about whether you’re right on some arbitrary scale.  They care about value creation.  Playing with Legos imparts this lesson.  No kid gives two hoots about the method you use for finding and snapping together pieces.  What matters is the beauty, originality, and functionality of the end result.  Did you make something awesome?  Everything else is negotiable and can be experimented with, but the ultimate test is whether you created something valuable to yourself and others.  Not in theory, but in the real world.  That’s a kind of “show your work” I can get behind.

Solve for X

Algebra is about figuring out puzzles when you don’t have all the pieces.  But most kids don’t really know this and don’t really care.  I didn’t.  But I did love solving complex problems without having all the pieces…as long as those pieces were small bits of colored plastic.  None of us had enough Legos to build exactly what we envisioned in all the right colors and shapes.  Especially back then when there were few custom pieces or crazy shapes. (*Shakes cane at kids these days*)  You want to make a light saber?  You’ve got to break some other pieces in half and improvise.  Lego building is nothing but a series of complex design problems with a constant absence of the right pieces.  I loved solving for X, as long as it was the X-Wing spacecraft.

Freedom

New sets come with instructions.  Maybe you follow them once, maybe not at all.  But eventually you’ll rip apart the prescribed design and create something new.  There are no arbitrary rules, but it doesn’t mean there are no rules.  Like the real world, some things are non-negotiable.  The pieces have definite physical dimensions.  You can break or color (or melt!) them sometimes, but only to a limited extent.  You learn to work with the very few natural rules, but that with those you can create anything you want.  A building that turns into an airplane that drops a bomb that’s really a submarine?  No problem.  The only limiting factors are your resources (of which you can acquire more if you save up your paper route money) and your imagination and skill.  Learning to achieve goals when no one has assigned goals to you or methods for reaching them is the hardest thing for a schooled mind.  It’s also the most valuable.

Change

Lego builds are not permanent.  Siblings, friends, and mostly your own boredom drive you to tear down and recreate constantly.  It’s an open-ended system.  There is no once for all plateau or achievement.  There is no Lego graduation.  It’s a dynamic, non-linear world of possibility.  Whatever you have built can and probably will be changed into something better.  You’re never done.  That mindset is powerful, and a strong shield against dangerous status quo bias and constructivist notions of the individual and society.

This is all playful (all the best things are) and anecdotal.  If you want some deeper stuff about why playing with Legos or any other self-chosen activity is superior to textbooks and schools and teacher guided learning, check out the excellent work of Dr. Peter Gray.

Oh, and thanks mom.  You never had it in you to be an authoritarian task-master, and that’s opened up the world to me.

————

*Update: Some readers seem to have a difficult time getting the general point because of the specific title.  The point of this post isn’t that always and everywhere for everyone Lego play is more valuable than algebra.  The point is that kids doing and learning things of their own choosing in their own way on their own time is more valuable than making them do stuff.  Most kids will prefer Legos to math.  Let them play Legos.  Some may prefer math to Legos.  Let them do math.

*Update 2: I just confirmed from a current Milwood resident that the Godsquirrel still exists. I knew he was immortal!  The source understandably wishes to remain anonymous. Squirrel mafias are nuts, and you never know what they might do.

*Update 3: Yes, I know. Technically they are called LEGO, and the plural of LEGO is LEGO. All caps. No “s”. I chose to write it as “Legos” because that’s what I played with darnit! As kids we said, “Let’s play (with) Legos”. And we did. I wrote this about my experience, and it would’ve seemed weird to me if you told me I was playing with LEGO. Sorry grammar and branding purists, this is my story…it’s all I have…can you let me have it?! (I mostly skipped English lessons in favor of the little plastic blocks as well. Blame LEGO.)

*If you like the topic, check out this post on why education should look more like bike riding, and browse through some of the other posts on education here.

*YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

Why Mario Maker is better than a marketing major

How my son learned to read when we stopped trying to teach him

The Arrogance of Meddling with Foreign Affairs

Scene 1

Civilian A: “Hey, your neighbors seem really dysfunctional. I hear them yelling, sometimes the kids leave late at night, there might be some pretty bad dynamics over there.”

Civilian B: “Yeah, but what do I know? It’s a complex relationship and I have a hard time believing I’d help by butting in. There are a few generations of dysfunction involved, and I wouldn’t know where to begin. I don’t feel right just going and knocking on the door and trying to insert myself into the conversation. Sadly, I probably can’t help them as an outsider.”

Scene 2

Civilian A: “Hey, that country on the other side of the world, the name of which I can’t remember or pronounce, seems pretty messed up. I have no idea if it is or not, since I can’t speak the language and I’ve never been there or seen any firsthand accounts, but it just kinda seems like one of those messed up places. Maybe you should go over and, you know, make it better with some guns and stuff?”

Military Person B: “Yeah, I’m pretty confident I get the dynamics of a few million people with really diverse culture, history, language, and religion, as well as decades of interlacing political institutions. I’ve never studied it, but I do know how to yell and point guns. I’m sure if I fly over unannounced, kick in a few doors, and bring several thousand menacing-looking friends who are full of adrenaline and have no idea about conflict resolution techniques we can sort things out in no time. I’m a natural helper, and I think they’ll appreciate me coming to help them sort things out.”

Episode 16: Journalist Robby Soave on Click-bait, Controversy, and Good Copy

Reason.com staff editor and award-winning journalist Robby Soave joins me to talk about how he got into journalism, what it’s like to write for maximum clicks while keeping content genuine, how to crank out several articles per day, how to stay optimistic when reporting on scandal, and what TV shows to watch.  Robby writes primarily on education related issues, both K-12 and higher ed.

This and all episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

Liberal Collectivism, Conservative Collectivism, and the Libertarian Answer

Liberalism and conservatism are simply two sides of a collectivist coin, minted with the dual airs of superiority and inferiority. To the extent that either are coherent political ideologies, they cohere around groupings, aggregation, and stereotypes. The only difference is how they respond to the various collectives into which they carve up society.

Collectivism inevitably leads to “less than” and “greater than” judgements and comparisons between groups. If I’m in group X, groups Y and Z are either less than or greater than my own.  

Liberals respond to those in groups they perceive as less than with pity. Conservatives respond with fear.

Liberals place the poor and those of different genders or races or religions or lifestyles on a kind of pedestal, because they pity them. Liberals fear in the open give and take of culture that individuals in these groups would suffer. It is not enough to defend the rights of outcasts, they must be lionized, praised, rewarded, and supported just for being a part of their collective.

Conservatives place similar groups on trial and consider them a threat to their way of life and culture. Guilty until proven innocent, they are dangerous, possibly terrorists, or radicals, or lowlifes who should be shunned, shamed, caged, or even killed. Conservatives fear in the open give and take of culture that these groups would overtake their own and push them into exclusion or extinction. It is not enough to disagree with the habits or disassociate with outcasts, they must be demonized, put down, and punished just for being a part of their collective.

Liberals respond to those in groups they see as greater than with envy, conservatives with idolatry.

Liberals place the rich and those in majority races or religions or with common lifestyles on trial and consider them a threat that may stifle all culture progress and diversity. Guilty until proven innocent, they are powerful, privileged, corrupt, and ready to smash everyone else. Liberals fear that individuals in these groups would persecute anyone different and must be called out, shamed, shunned, dispossessed, exiled, caged or even killed.

Conservatives place the rich and those in majority (or “traditional”) races or religions or with common lifestyles on pedestals and consider them the last defense against dangerous shifts in culture. Conservatives fear that individuals in these groups would be destroyed by the angry outcast mob, and must be praised, looked up to, protected, given power and a mandate to do whatever it takes to survive the winds of change.

Both outlooks are demeaning, condescending and small minded. Both feed the lowest human impulses. Both are anti-humanitarian. The fundamental fault is the same: the suffocation of the individual in a sea of collective biases.

The classical liberal, or libertarian tradition has an elegant and humanitarian solution to this ugly state of affairs. It offers a truly unique perspective that avoids the simplistic pity, fear, envy, and idolatry of both modern liberalism and conservatism. Individualism.

Individualism is not the belief that groups or communities are useless. It has nothing to do with dog-eat-dog, or relentless competition. It certainly doesn’t involved zero-sum games. Individualism is simply the belief that the fundamental, acting unit of any human society is the individual human.

Only individuals can act. Only individuals can dream. Only individuals can be morally or practically responsible (or irresponsible). In matters of broad institutions or systems like laws or civic norms, all individuals are equals.

Individualism does not pretend that everyone has the same biological makeup or cultural background. Quite the opposite. Only individualism allows each person’s unique characteristics, challenges, and advantages to be taken for what they are.

Individualism does not condescend to anyone and assume they are helpless unless propped up with false praise or support simply because of some characteristic they happen share with other individuals. Nor does it assume they are bad or threatening and must be held down for the same reason.

Individualism does away with the “less than”/”greater than” group distinction entirely. People may pursue what they wish. They ought to be afforded the respect and dignity of enjoying the rewards of their actions as well as bearing the responsibility. This does not rule out charity or kindness or sympathy. The individualist is just as caring as the next person, but in response to individual need or concern, not assumptions based on group identity. Nor does the individualist take a rosy view of humanity or rule out caution or the possibility that people can do bad things. The individualist is just as realistic as the next person, but in response to individual situation and behavior, not incidental commonalities with collectives.

Only through the lens of individualism can genuine community emerge. Community based on voluntary association or disassociation, always accountable to the costs and benefits of both, and borne by those who practice them. One of the marks of a human growing from a child into a healthy adult is when they despise being treated as more praiseworthy or needy or dangerous or stupid than other adults. When we collectivise we infantilize everyone.

Don’t get caught up in heated arguments about whether the “less thans” and “greater thans” should be praised and propped up or criticized and brought down. Both outlooks are rooted in collectivism, both are uncivilized and uninformed, and both are very dangerous and have led to untold suffering and bloodshed when wielded by political powers. Libertarianism allows a simple change in perspective that lets us rise above both.

Ayn Rand famously said, “The smallest minority on earth is the individual.” Once we realize that we each belong first and foremost to a category of one, we are left no option but to judge an individual according to his or her actions and the outcomes they produce.

The Inability to Make Choices

For most of us, the first 25 years or so of life involve almost no important choices.  Rather, all the important choices (and many unimportant ones) are made by someone else on our behalf.  When you sleep and eat and study and what you learn and how and when you’re done and why are all prescribed for you.  Sometimes you get to pick one school from another, or a few classes instead of others almost identical, but for the most part, how you spend your time and energy and when and on what is laid out for you.  Your job is to ride the conveyor belt.

The problem is we all want meaningful lives.  Meaning must be created, and creativity requires choices.  Especially choices about what not to do, what to avoid, what to ignore, what to exclude.  These are the toughest choices for most people to make.  It terrifies many people.

After a few work trips where my son was unhappy with the book or trinket I brought back for him, I decided to ask him ahead of time what he wanted me to get.  He was a bit irritated and said he didn’t care, I should just pick.  He’s a bit of a natural pessimist and doesn’t mind feather-ruffling and cynicism.  I pressed and he insisted I just pick.  I did, and again he complained about it.  I asked why he didn’t just tell me ahead of time and he admitted that he didn’t want to choose something only to regret it, because if it was his choice he’d forgo his right to complain about it.

I think that approach is more common than we might assume.  If you’ve ever tried writing consistently you discover pretty quickly that the most difficult decisions are about what to leave out.  Take this post for instance.  There is so much more to be said on this topic, and so much more I believe than I can reasonably include in a single post.  I’ve got to exclude stuff.  Yet I know that every caveat or footnote I leave out allows room for readers to say I missed something or got it wrong.  When you create you’ve got to pick what’s most important and leave aside many other valuable things.  It’s vulnerable.  What if people blame you for leaving them out?  They will.  But if you attempt to include everything you’ll never create anything.

It’s amazing the number of people who have agreed with my reasons for why you should blog every day.  They agree it would make them better at achieving their goals.  I challenge them to try it for 30 days.  Almost no one does.  I’m not trying to shame anyone or claim superiority (I ignored the same challenge and tried and failed at it a few times before I really got going).  The reason it’s so hard is because every day sitting in front of that blank blog-editor you are faced with choices.  What to write about?  More accurately, what not to write about?  What if I write this and it’s misunderstood?  But to make it understood would be way too involved.  I’m overwhelmed.  I don’t have anything to say after all.  Maybe after I’m an expert.

The thing is, the more expertise you gain the harder it is to make these choices.  For every additional bit of knowledge you have it’s that much more you’ve got to leave out when you create.  There will never be a time when you’re ready or when it’s easy.  Just start.  The only way to overcome choice paralysis is to make choices.  Start with small easy ones to train yourself in the fine art of creativity by exclusion.

Most of us have a lot of bad habits and mindsets we need to unlearn in order to create meaningful lives.  First among them is the ability to make choices.  The best part is no one is paying attention as much as you think, so you don’t need to take the prospect of imperfection so seriously.  Just try it.  Anything that’s not wrong is right.

Why Pool Attendants Are Better Than Bureaucrats

Originally published in the Freeman, and there is also a mini podcast version below.

“We’re not checking IDs today,” the pool attendant told me.

We have a nice pool for the neighborhood, maintained with HOA dues. The homeowners association has tried different methods of monitoring who comes in to keep nonresidents from filling up the pool and squeezing out dues-paying members. A few times last summer, this was a problem. This year, a new company was hired to issue IDs and ensure that only residents use the pool. But not today.

Today the water was a bit cold and the pool wasn’t busy. The attendant realized this and didn’t hassle swimmers and sunbathers with an ID check. When he uttered those words it hit me in a flash just how profound it was. The ease with which he used common sense to bend the rules was a beautiful moment. Maybe you think I’m being dramatic, but let me offer a contrast.

A few years, ago I was in the security line at the airport with my wife. She removed her plastic baggy of size-approved liquids and gels and placed it in the container. The TSA agent picked it up and grunted, “Uh-uh.” Bewildered, I asked what the problem was. She said my wife needed to remove an item from the bag. I objected that every item was within the approved size and the bag was a recommended part of the procedure. The agent said that, according to regulations, the items are supposed to fit “comfortably” in the bag. They were pushing against the sides, ever so slightly stretching the plastic. We had to remove one. I asked her which individual item was a threat to security. She told us it didn’t matter which item was removed. The absurdity of the situation was beyond parody. There is no conceivable world in which a too-snug plastic bag of harmless toiletries could pose any possible threat to security. But it was the rule. Every bureaucrat knows rules must be followed without question.

If you’ve ever gotten a speeding ticket, as I have, for going 10 over at 3:00 a.m. on a five-lane road with no traffic, or for running a red light in a sleepy town with no cars for miles, you’ve felt the same. It’s clear that the reason for the rule — to keep drivers and pedestrians safe — is no possible explanation for its enforcement in these situations. Indeed, enforcement itself makes roads less safe due to police vehicles sticking out into the road and blocking other potential drivers. Meter maids handing out tickets for 2 minutes over in a lot surrounded by empty spaces is just as crazy. Parking meters and tickets are there to ensure spaces are available in high-demand times. What’s the point of ticketing when ample parking is available? Carding geriatrics for buying alcohol and so very many other examples of this silliness abound.

I posted a complaint to Facebook after the TSA incident. One of the commenters said, “Sure, following the letter of arbitrary laws in bad contexts is a pain, but would you rather have those agents doing whatever they want and using their own discretion on the spot?” The question becomes more poignant when you consider not just the bureaucrats armed with bad attitudes like those at the DMV but the ones armed with guns on the police force. Rule following is paramount in a bureaucracy because the alternative is also frightening.

It’s easy in the public sphere to get caught up in such debates. Is it more practical and just for government agents to use discretion in the moment when applying regulations, or for across-the-board universal application? It seems vexing: a problem without a solution. Whatever side of the debate you take feels uncomfortable. The letter of the law is oppressive and in some cases downright crazy, certainly counterproductive with respect to the law’s intended purpose; but discretion is a scary proposition as well, as many cases of selectively enforced law attest.

Outside of government, however, this is a nonproblem. When something is moved from the private, voluntary sphere to the public, coercive sphere, debates and division arise where none previously existed. The real problem is not rule following or flexibility; it’s monopoly. The absence of competition in the government sphere and all the attendant incentive problems create this unnecessary quandary.

It’s not that the police officers and TSA agents are worse people than my pool attendant; it’s that they face worse incentives. There is no metric for them to determine customer satisfaction or the value of their actions, because there is no profit-and-loss signal and no fear of losing our business. We are legally obliged to pay for and receive their service (or disservice.)

The pool attendant can be flexible with the rules when applying them strictly would annoy customers. He can become stringent when things get busy and residents complain about freeloaders. His company knows that at any time, they could lose the contract, and the only reason they are hired is to make residents happy and solve a problem. It’s the outcome that matters, and all procedures, policies, and rules are measured against that. This leaves ample room for experimentation and adaptation, with immediate feedback and accountability.

The public sector has no such flexibility because it faces no competition. The political sphere can make social and economic problems that have already been solved with incredible nuance seem unsolvable. It offers only yes-or-no, either/or, once-and-for-all-and-everywhere solutions, applied and enforced by people with almost limitless job security. It is a blunt tool, and incredibly unresponsive. It is unconcerned with outcomes and measures effectiveness only by inputs, intentions, and actions — not results.

Whether the letter of the law or individual discretion is preferable is the wrong question. Both are to be feared with state monopolized services. Neither is to be feared in competition because the choice is no longer binary but an ongoing dance of pluralistic discovery.

We’re not checking IDs today. Those five simple words reveal the beauty, complexity, and humanity of the voluntary market order.

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I recorded an audio version of this first, live on-the-spot at the pool using my iPhone.  I’m experimenting with some mini podcast episodes like this.

Episode 15: Imagination As Hard Work

It’s easy to assume that imagination is an indulgence, or a distraction from important and more difficult work.  I think this view has it all wrong.  Imagining is not easy if done well.  We have to relentlessly fight for our capacity to do it, and keep the steady forces of dullness and routine from crowding it out.  We can’t get lazy if we want to generate change and progress.  We’ve got to learn to imagine as a discipline.

This and all episodes are also available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

Want to Make Better Decisions? Get Some Skin in the Game

If you follow sports you’ll notice something.  Vegas is better than the experts at predicting outcomes.  You could chalk this up to the wisdom of crowds, but this can’t be the only explanation, because in surveys and polls the crowd doesn’t do very well compared to Vegas either.

The reason Vegas is better on average than individual experts or surveyed masses is because people choose better when they have skin in the game.  It’s one of the reasons democracy is a bad way to determine the policies people want and grocery stores don’t survey their customers to decide how to stock their shelves.  When it’s free, people take different and dumber risks.

This is why my colleague and co-author Zak Slayback wrote recently that you should burn your backup plan.  It’s why some people get neck tattoos.  It’s why Bruce Wayne had to climb without the rope.

Even worse than having no skin in the game is having the opposite.  A cushion large enough to not only catch you if you try and fall, but one that can sustain you even if you don’t try at all.  Economists call this the moral hazard in the world of financial regulation.  When third parties insure against risk, people and institutions make worse decisions.  Think high risk home loans underwritten by banks who knew that taxpayers would be forced to bail them out if it went south.  It applies on the personal level too.  While it’s easy to call inheritors of wealth financially privileged, I think it’s often harder to discover and live a fulfilling life if you’ve got a huge trust fund.  If you don’t have to win, it’s hard to get the motivation to try.

All these examples might be too easy to agree with me on.  Let’s push a little farther.  I think college funds cause the same problem.  When parents put tens of thousands into an account that can only be used for college, young people will fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy and favor going to college much more than they would without that restricted money.  Once they do, they’ll take it less seriously.  As long as parents are satisfied with grades and activities, it doesn’t really matter.  The degree is perceived as free.  The opportunity cost is overlooked.  The diploma at the end is supposed to guarantee a job and an income, and these are supposed to pave the way to find fulfillment.  Plus, if you pick a major that is supposed to give you lots of career options, you get lulled into thinking you have infinite fallback plans.  Sure, you sat in classrooms or goofed around for the first 22 years of your life, but it’s all good. You’ve got that free degree so no matter what you do, you’re set.

Parents see college as an insurance plan against all problems.  They tend not to care much if you’re happy there or finding your groove or learning how the world works, as long as you get a degree.  Tell them you’re bored and restless and opting out to go start a business or pursue a career as an artist and risk giving them a coronary.  They feel more comfortable with you half-assing it through a moral hazard backed mediocrity.

Forget all that.  It’s your life.  Whatever you do, have skin in the game.  If you don’t or can’t in reality, imagine and live as if you did (a poor substitute, but better than nothing).  Find out the actual cost of your education.  Tally up how much of what kind of work it would take to pay for it yourself.  If it was all on you, would you pay and do it?  If not, why are you doing it now?  (Try the same with things like health care if you want a good shock and some insight into why the health care system is so screwed up.)  What are you willing to give up to get the things you want?  If what you think you’ll gain is less than what you’re willing to part with, why do it?

Are you willing to fail?  Are you so passionate about what you’re trying to do that you’ve got to try it out even if it doesn’t work?  What if the degree fails to bring you anything you want.  Will it have been worth it?  If not, why do it?  “Well, I’ve only got another two years, so I might as well have it under my belt.”  Really?  Compared to what?

If you are like most people and you don’t have any single passion or pursuit to throw yourself behind, no worries.  Go the opposite route.  Try a bunch of stuff and build a list of things you know you don’t love doing and want to avoid.  Avoid them.  Don’t do them because they’re low-risk or paid for by someone else.  That’s like the person who spends money they don’t have on clothes they don’t need because they were on sale.  A $100 pair of useless jeans marked down to $50 is not a savings, it’s a waste of $50.  Keep eliminating things that don’t bring you value and everything else is fair game.

I’m not saying it’s never a good idea to take something that someone is offering to pay for.  The point is to not overvalue the “free” part and undervalue the unseen costs.  Not only are there often strings and expectations and the cost of forgone opportunities, often valuable things offered for free aren’t even enjoyable or meaningful to you.  Don’t do them just because other people would call you crazy not to.  And don’t forget one of the biggest dangers of something someone else is paying for, which is the way it reduces your incentive to take it seriously and get the most out of it.

Look at the actions and activities in your life.  Do you have skin in the game?  The bigger and more important they are, the more you want to have skin in the game.  It’ll make you better and more likely to succeed in every way.

This is not an admonition to simply take more and bigger risks, or to alter your risk tolerance.  It’s an admonition to dig down deep and get to know yourself.  Discover your real risk tolerance.  Be honest about what you find, whether it’s more or less than you wish it was.  Make decisions for you, based on your unique assessment of the trade-offs involved.  Don’t suffer through things because, relative to everyone else’s opinion, they are low risk or a good deal or a safe backup plan.  Get some skin in the game.  The games you want to play.  On your terms.

Episode 14: Harris Kenny on 3D Printing and a World Without Intellectual Property

Harris Kenny is the Marketing Manager for Aleph Objects, maker of the amazing and hugely popular consumer 3D printer the Lulzbot.  We discuss the present and future of 3D printing and it’s various applications and implications.

We also talk about one of the most unique things about Aleph, the fact that they are an IP-free company.  Everything from their marketing material to the plans for their products are Creative Commons and without any patents, trademarks, or copyrights.  They openly share all plans and products on the web and welcome customers who copy the designs and build their own.  They’ve managed to create value and remain profitable by fostering an opensource community, rather than keeping their stuff under lock and key.  We discuss how it works and whether this model can be applied in other businesses and industries.

Find this and all episodes on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

How to Use Email

From the Praxis blog.  Amusing note: when originally published, this post probably got more anger and disagreement than any I’ve written.

I don’t care how old-school it may seem to younger people, email remains the dominant form of communication in the business world.  It is absolutely essential that you understand and do it well.  Most young people don’t realize how often they shoot themselves in the foot with poor email use.

Here are ten tips to make you better…

1. Don’t have a ridiculous email address.

Any email address that ends in .edu (unless you’re a professor) or sbcglobal.net, or really almost anything other than Gmail is prone to make you look unprofessional.  Email addresses that use cutesy phrases or words that have nothing to do with your name are annoying.  Yourname@gmail.com or @your own personal or company domain (only if that’s a company you want to be associated with longish term) are best, or the simplest variations thereof.

2. Check it often.

I don’t care how available you are on Twitter, Facebook, or whatever other social platform.  Email is used for business, so check it regularly.  Early in your career, when you need other people more than they need you, it should be checked multiple times a day.  No excuse suffices, not even the common, “My computer crashed”.  Get a new one.  Use a phone.

3. Respond ASAP.

There is no such thing as too quick of a reply to an email.  Again, when you’re at the point in your career when you need people more than they need you it is especially important to respond quickly.  If you’re truly swamped or travelling to a remote jungle with no cell signal or WiFi, email back immediately letting people know when you’ll respond in detail.  Silence is deadly and signals you’re not trustworthy or reliable to get stuff done. Some may disagree, but I think within 24 hours is the target, certainly no more than 48.

4. Don’t use other methods unless you have to.

Never reach out to someone via Facebook message, Tweet, LinkedIn, or other platforms unless you want them to treat it as not that important.  It may be fine for social communiques with your friends, but for business, email people.  The exception is if you have no email address for them.  In this case, it’s fair game but always offer your email address and give them the option to switch the conversation over to email.

5. Don’t call about anything that can be handled over email.

One of the most annoying things in the world for busy business-people is the unnecessary phone call.  If you have a simple question, or a list of ideas, or anything that can be handled via email, use email.  Emails may reveal the need for a phone call to discuss further, but then you can exchange preferred numbers and schedule something.  There are few things worse than an unexpected call from an unrecognized number about something email could have handled.  One of the things that’s worse, however, is getting a text or an email that says, “Hey, can you call me?” only to get on the phone and realize it is a simple question that could have been included in the email.

The only exception to this rule is for people who obviously prefer phone or another method.  Always assume email, but if you email someone two or three times, and each time they respond by calling, texting, or Skyping, try that method first the next time around.  But again, email should be the first and default.

6. Know when to CC.

When someone effects an email introduction between you and another party, CC them in your initial response.  They need to know the loop was closed and the connection made.  They risked social capital on you, so put them at ease that you did your part.  The exception is if they explicitly say something like, “You can take it from here, no need to loop me in.”  In this case, they probably mean they don’t want to be CC’d on a long chain of back and forth with you and your new contact, BUT, they should definitely be informed that you did in fact follow up.  BCC or a separate email to them saying thanks and the connection has been made is in order.

7. Don’t make more than one ask.

Don’t email someone to introduce yourself or your idea for the first time and then ask if they’d be interested in speaking at your event, forwarding an attachment to their friends, talking on the phone, doing a guest blog post, and being part of a brainstorm session all in one email.  They’ll be irritated and are less likely to do any of them.  Boil it down to one ask. If communication is well established, multi-purpose emails may be acceptable, but use with caution.

8. Get to the point.

Easy on the paragraphs, bullet points, attachments, and verbiage.  Avoid special formatting.

9. Follow the lead.

If your correspondent is using shorthand, no salutation, colloquialisms, GIFs, lols or other informal techniques, it’s probably OK for you to do the same.  Never start out this way though, even if writing from a mobile device.  Assume the need for proper punctuation, capitalization, full sentences and good grammar unless it becomes an established norm with your interlocutor.

10. Don’t ask people to email a different address unless absolutely necessary.

This means it’s important to use the email address you want to people to send to when you put contact info on profiles, resumes, business cards and applications.  It will drive people mad to respond to an applicant via the email address listed and get, “Sorry it took me so long to respond, I never check this account.”  This also means you should strive to have only one or two email addresses, and probably ensure they all flow into a single box so nothing is missed.