“You should be a magician,” she said.
“A magician?”
She rolled her eyes, laughed. “No, a politician. Although, is there much difference?”
“Yes,” I thought. “Magicians know they’re pretending.”
Author Archives: Jonathan
S14E11: The sun is out
I am unhappy about this fact. Summer is awful: a stark, staring presence that overhangs everything, that intrudes at my window and turns gentle shadow to sharp line.
It shortens my temper and ruins my focus. It is focussed by the places I love, turning a city of glass and steel into a maze of scorching, blazing beams. It turns what I love into something I can’t stand.
Anyway, the sun has got his hat on. Bastard.
Continue readingS14E10: Following the process
Ah, but to follow the process, young one, you must first find the process.
I’ve been in a lot of meetings this week. We’ve got a deadline coming up, which is helping to focus the mind. Actually, there are a lot of deadlines coming up. Oh no.
Continue readingS14E09: A ticking clock
This has been a pretty intense week. I’m going to try to extract the things I’ve learned from it, like juice from an orange.
Continue readingS14E08: Is your head above water?
I’m on leave for a week. I need it. This week has been intense; absurdly intense. The team will be alright for four days, and if they’re not, we’ll have to fix that. I’m reviewing this week in my head, and I think there’s been progress in places and in other places – just tactical fixes. Let’s see what we’ve got.
Continue readingS14E07: Is this the best we can do?
I attended the division-level competition of my public speaking club and I have some opinions. I’m going to let them stew and bubble for a while, while I voicenote my friends and then immediately demand they tell me how funny the voicenote was.
In the interim, then, how was my week?
Continue readingS14E06: You keep winning
I am never quite sure what to say when someone remarks that I keep winning. My instinct is to be either defensive or deferential. Perhaps this says things about me.
Anyway, I keep winning.
Continue readingS14E05: Competition
This week has been really intense, but I’ve reached the end feeling satisfied with what I’ve done. There is more to do. More to write. Just – more.
Today is a day for taking a breath and reflecting.
Continue readingRisk and the universal currency
I’ve been thinking about risk for the last five years. Everywhere I look, I see bad behaviours that get in the way of genuine risk management.
This is going to be somewhat out of left field for most followers, who enjoy whimsy and occasional software engineering. I apologise for that. Skip this one.
This theory comes from being in a large organisation that wants a consistent risk appetite but cannot possibly have one, and results in rigidity that stifles innovation and masks genuine issues. It’s also come from a background in engineering massive software systems for government, where we think about tolerances in terms of budgets, not as numbers devoid of context.
This is a reminder that money exists because barter systems are confusing and impossible to maintain.
In short, this is my unified theory of risk.
Continue readingS14E04: Who’s in charge here?
This week has been about governance. It has been so much about governance.
Governance in the corporate space is the endless quest to point at someone and say “You, you are accountable for this outcome; and you, you are responsible for this outcome.” And then you sneak away while they argue what those two words mean.
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Caffeinated Punctuation 