Article Dump #24
Welcome to the 24th issue of my (nearly) weekly article dumps. I don’t have a theme or an update this week, so it’s kept pretty short. I hope you find the following articles interesting though! Leave me a comment if you have any opinions on these
Articles
- The 7 Values That Drive IDEO: In this article, the CEO of IDEO Tim Brown talks about the various values that his organization embraces to have a creative culture. Some of the ideas in the slides seem really high level or like generic fluff, but try thinking about what they would mean in your organization. It’s one thing to glance at IDEO’s list and say “Yeah, yeah… That’s nice…” but when you actually think about how that fits in with your organization, you might actually realize you don’t embody those values. Do you learn from failure? Does your organization promote an ask for forgiveness not permission approach? Would this make sense in your organization? Just some food for thought, but I thought a lot of these values were interesting to think about and how embracing them might change the organization I work in.
- The 15 Most Annoying Coworkers of All Time: Ilya Pozin put together a pretty funny article on different types of coworkers you’ll encounter in your career. I got worried that I might be #13 on the list… The office comedian who isn’t actually funny. Apparently this post got a lot of flack in the comments on LinkedIn. I guess people were expecting a really serious article on how to deal with these different types of problems in the workplace. I didn’t really have expectations when I read it, aside from not wanting to find myself on the list. Maybe the main take away point here is… don’t annoy your colleagues!
- Companies Frustrate Innovative Employees: Gijs van Wulfen takes a different perspective on innovation. So many people now are writing about embracing failure (so far as you learn from it). I’m actually a big believer in that approach–take controlled risks and learn from things that don’t go as expected. Gijs’ perspective is a little bit different: forget embracing failure; boost the innovation effectiveness rate! Gijs goes through a workflow for trying to improve innovation at various steps in the process. Pretty interesting!
- Your Boss is Happier Than You (But Shouldn’t Be): Jeff Haden tells us something we probably all (let’s say in the majority of circumstances) know: your boss is happier than you. Big surprise right? They get to make decisions, have fewer bosses than you, and they make more money. Sounds like a good reason to be happier, no? But if your boss is happier than you, those probably aren’t the exact reasons. Your superiors are likely happier than you because of autonomy. They get a bit more freedom to do accomplish goals in their own way. Jeff has a big list of reasons why your boss is probably happier… and none of them are about money.
- When is it a Good Idea to write Bad Code?: Rejoice in the first programming article for this week! Tech debt. Ever heard of it? If not, it’s not likely that you’ve never encountered it in your programming career. I’d wager at least one of the last handful of big features you implemented in your code base either had to deal with some tech debt or perhaps even introduced some tech debt. Brad Carleton has put together a big list of different types of tech debt and what they mean in your project. I highly suggest you read it if your a programmer. There’s a lot of things to be aware of with tech debt but it’s important to remember that tech debt isn’t always the worst thing that could happen. Sometimes it’s okay to sacrifice a sub-par design now in order to get some software out the door. Your users might try it out and decide they don’t like the functionality anyway, and you’d end up re-writing it again!
- “Happiness” vs “Meaningfulness” — The Surprising Difference: Alex Banayan‘s article discusses the difference between happiness and meaningfulness. It appears as though often happiness and meaningfulness are not necessarily aligned. For example, it might be easy to chase a life of happiness that lacks meaning, or dedicate your life to something meaningful but not be very happy while doing it. The real question is, is it possible to achieve a balance where you’re leading a fulfilling life that keeps you happy? Alex talks briefly about five different categories and how each can sway to something more meaningful or something that provides more happiness. Are you living a happy and fulfilling life? Do you have to balance these five categories carefully?
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