Beyond (Data) Contracts: A Response to Benn Stancil

September 23, 2022 § Leave a comment

This essay by Benn Stancil provoked me so deeply my intended “comment” evolved into a full-fledged blog post:

Fine, let’s talk about data contracts

Benn’s “rant” feels profound on so many levels, especially if I can assume he’s captured the zeitgeist of our industry as accurately as he usually does.

My first observation is that he seem to (wisely!) invert Postel’s Law for data: be strict in what you accept, and generous in what you emit. The profound truth here is that we cannot control other people. We can only honestly and gracefully fail, if we are not getting what we need to succeed.

We can only honestly and gracefully fail, if we are not getting what we need to succeed.

I can’t help but wonder how much of the energy around “data contracts” is the desire to avoid facing exactly that reality.

Next, the corollary to this is something I literally wrote last night in an internal planning document: “transparency is more important than compliance”. The context is that don’t want employees worried about “appearing” to reach nominal goals. I want them to be ruthlessly honest with us about the true risks to delivering genuine impact.

“Transparency is more important than Compliance”

Third, the profound implications of this is that we must shift power from centralized hierarchies to decentralized networks. We have to stop chasing Xanadu — the mythical demo of reliable hyperlinks — and embrace the chaotic generativity of the World Wide Web. That is the only kind of system that ever truly scales.

Shift power from centralized hierarchies to decentralized networks

Finally, Benn is right that it is foolish to replace a technical problem with a human problem. But I fear you can never avoid the human problem, only squish it somewhere else. The challenge is finding the “right” human problem to solve, so the rest of the system can support that as efficiently as possible.

Finding the “right” human problem to solve, so the rest of the system can support that as efficiently as possible.

I think Benn is calling for pipelines to “fail quickly” when it is better for consumers to get explicitly old data versus implicitly wrong data. But that implies non-fatal errors must be communicated transparently yet efficiently throughout the stack.

This is literally impossible (née Masnick), but I believe it is THE human problem that must be addressed — even if we can never solve it! Once we embrace that ugly truth, we can devote all of our effort to doing the best we can technically, while giving each other grace to recognize our human limits.

That’s a contract I’m willing to sign up for. How about you?

Being Human: A Curriculum

September 21, 2021 § Leave a comment

Reframing spirituality as the culturally-neutral, teachable practice of becoming more human, as expressed in:

  • 3 Capabilities
  • 4 Attributes per Capability
    1. Prerequisite
    2. Task
    3. Technique
    4. Mindset
  • 12 Learning Outcomes

Inspired by the Minerva Baccalaureate, especially their focus on Content over Context.

« Read the rest of this entry »

Three Steps to Startup Success (in 15 syllables)

August 17, 2018 § Leave a comment

  1. Own a big problem.
  2. Make measurable progress.
  3. Together.

 

References

« Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday School 2.0: Shark Tank for Spiritual Growth

July 29, 2018 § Leave a comment

The purpose of Sunday School 2.0 is to create an adaptive architecture of participation where everyone can experience what it feels like to be children of God, including:

  1. The Security of unconditional love
  2. Service to those outside
  3. The Struggle to create something worthwhile

« Read the rest of this entry »

Whole-I-Ness: A New Job to Be Done for Christianity

June 17, 2018 § 3 Comments

In many ways, Western Christianity is now a solution in search of a problem.  We are a victim of our own success, having effectively worked ourselves out of a job by eliminating the “pain points” of Judaism, paganism and animism while diffusing most of our benefits into the culture. Like a technology-centric startup, we now find ourselves in the awkward situation of trying to define (or worse, create) problems that need our solution.

The alternative is to go back to the customer discovery phase. Who is our customer?  What are their most important jobs to be done?  What is the “impossible” thing that, if it could be done, would change everything for them?

What is it that the world most needs? Especially from us?

« Read the rest of this entry »

Where Am I?

You are currently browsing entries tagged with jobs-to-be-done at iHack, therefore iBlog.