#11 Learning and some fun

One with a lot of long reads

"The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people."

"The Last Lecture" (video or book ) is filled with wisdom around living a meaningful life. Prof. Randy Pausch shows us how he achieved his childhood dreams. I’ve watched this video so many times and yet it never ceases to inspire me. Do watch, if you have not seen it.

I was lucky this week to get some really amazing recommendations across all genres. Sharing some of the best ones here. Let’s dive in right away.

1.

Interface design is an art & science. A good design drives usability & error-free operations. A bad one can cause disasters. Complex systems have many inputs & outputs. Guess what some designers use to design such interfaces - Lego blocks. That’s the beauty of problem-solving using basics. 

By the way, some of these learnings do apply to the dashboards & reports that we use in analytics. The better the design, the more effective they can be. It’s good to invest some time in thinking about the gory details to the last bit before starting to code one.

2.

“The Eleven Laws Of Showrunning” aims at the creative folks (specifically the scriptwriters). But its ideas are universal and worth borrowing in every management situation. It’s a long read but will be worth your time if you're leading a team or a project. You're going to enjoy it even more if you’ve some interest in the behind-the-scenes of the business of cinema & TV.

Here’re the 11 lessons for those who are in ‘tl;dr’ mode.

1. It's all about you stop making it all about you 

2. Know your show and tell everyone what it is

3. Always describe a path to success 

4. Make decisions early and often

5. Do not demand a final product at the idea stage

6. Write and rewrite quickly

7. Track multiple targets efficiently by delegating responsibility

8. Resist the siren call of the "sexy glamorous jobs"

9. Expect your staff to perform at varying levels of competence

10. Deliver good and bad news early and often

11. Share credit for success to a fault 

3.

The world of long-reads is a fascinating one. These are in-depth stories with just the right amount of drama. A good fodder to satiate your hunger to know something new. These two sources have not disappointed me anytime I have checked them:

1. https://restofworld.org/ News & stories on technology & business. From the rest of the world.

2. https://fiftytwo.in/ Ideas and stories on culture, history, politics and more. Focused on India.

While you browse for something interesting there, here’re a couple of recommendations from some other sources:

1. "The Elvis Impersonator, the Karate Instructor, a Fridge Full of Severed Heads, and the Plot 2 Kill the President" - the title should be good enough to tell you what to expect.

2. Last week, Entrackr broke a story about "Ghost orders from Meesho". If that is not interesting enough, "The Truth Behind the Amazon Mystery Seeds" will surely do the trick.

3. And if you’re a fan of stories from world war or aviation, this one will give you the right amount of goosebumps - "This Plane Accidentally Flew Around the World"

4.

Some random goodness from the internet:

1. Web: ThanAverage is an interesting way to find how we value and compare ourselves to others. Some of the results are bound to surprise you. We’re not so different from the Average Joe after all.

2. Instagram: Kevin Perry is a stop motion animator with some mind-boggling fun videos. 

3. Reddit - I’ve still not figured out how to use Reddit. It’s filled with gems like .gifs that teach and ExplainLikeI’mFive. I’ve to become better at it. 

That's all, folks!