Tom Kerwin

It isn't possible to be scolded, or even distracted, into happiness. The more fully you accept and love your child no matter what their experience is and how they feel about it, the more capacity for happiness they will have. This goes for you as well as for your children.

Observations of Leadership (Part Two) | Hazel Weakly Hey again! Welcome back to part two of me reflecting on the past few quarters and writing down my answers to John Cutler and Tom Kerwin’s questions on how...

A few years ago, I read an article from @johncutle.fish and @tomdkerwin.bsky.social on how leaders navigate uncertainty and ambiguity. It inspired me to write my answers down to a new section of questions every few years.

This is part two! It's been fun to look back and see my thinking mature

Thanks to @erikahall.bsky.social @amyhoy.bsky.social @camerontw.bsky.social @dougrabow.bsky.social @tomdkerwin.bsky.social @edzitron.com @goodspeed.bsky.social @acuity.design @allenholub.bsky.social for the writing that made it into this milestone issue of the Picnic!

Your metrics are an avoidance strategy Being able to quantify outcomes doesn't make them meaningful. Moving past artificial metrics requires building shared intention with colleagues.

VCs fund companies who get on the latest hype train. But when the product doesn't solve any real problems, showing "progress" is impossible!

So a lot of people are going to come back to the office this week and set goals based on what activity is easiest to measure, rather than what is important.

Also I enjoy the game of trying to guess who’s piece you’re going to link to before I click the link.

Today, I guessed @hiredthought.bsky.social right away :)

Another banger

Lies, damn lies and metrics

One company lost 30 points of NPS in a single day.

Not because customers were unhappy. Not because the product changed. Not because anything in the real world was different.

So what actually happened? And why did they cover it up?

reach.crownandreach.com/posts/lies-d...

Putting an idea out there that just occurred to me while chatting about 'The Thick of It' with @tomdkerwin.bsky.social - I think the UK needs a 'Silicon Valley' type satire.

A British startup trying to be ambitious, but hampered by insecurities and class differences.

You’re in for a treat!

Loving the gang you’ve gathered together in that piece.

WEIRD. It doesn’t do the skewhiff thing for me

I will pay for that crime against our topographic forebears

Thank you for sharing despite the eyeball assault

Sucks being in the timeline where Randall and Waternoose got away with it

YES!

Love it!

Oh hi!!!

What a cutie

Thanks for the shout out!

I feel the horror vibrating from that quoted post!

Woohoo!

Personalization feels like it should easy ‘cos humans are good at messy context.

So why is AI p13n so crap?

AI struggles because human tastes aren’t neat. We cluster weirdly, and small differences matter a lot at the edges.

Popular stuff is easy to recommend.

Matching your weird is impossible.

Realised that just mirrors the way you looked at differentiation from company and consumer viewpoints.

Overall, your point makes sense and seems robust compared with the common wishful thinking about differentiation

Love the time series graphs and clarification

One question I was left with: distinctiveness. Surely I could create a 100% distinctive product almost instantly. What grows over time - isn’t that more recognition in the consumer base?

I might be misunderstanding a technical term.

Queued!

The Hawk Tuah arc feels quintessentially 2024

I loved it. A decadent treat for the eardrums.

Can we dare to hope for some more soon??

SO GOOD

Ooooooh!

On not going to Auschwitz It is thirty years since I didn’t go to Auschwitz. The memory of not going has never left me. In 1985, I was living in Kraków, just 40 miles on the slow stopping train from Oświęcim. I could …

I wrote this on this day ten years ago. It has become a necessary ritual to share it again each year and to remember for those who no longer can.

glad I have finally collected all circumstances in a big box. There were loads of the buggers

Tall Tales, Tue 28th Jan: All star cast featuring @garethmedwards.bsky.social @johnfinnemore.bsky.social @alxfrnkln.bsky.social @rosalieminnitt.bsky.social Susannah Pearse, North London Tavern, 8pm, £5

Lovely to see you there, email us: www.listenandoften.com/talltales

Complexity is not your enemy, bud

Needless complicatedness is. And there’s no complicatedness quite as sad and ruinous as that which attempts to wring the soul out of messy, generative, ambiguous, human complexity.