Roger Norton

A div of developers

Maybe the "interruptions" are the work, and it's the "flow" that's getting in the way.

You may now throw the furniture around.

Self-forgiveness and acceptance can definitely help for the stage you're in... 😬

Technologists tend to massively overestimate adoption of technology outside the early adopters. This whole narrative of AI killing the workforce in years is so tiring. Some companies will adopt it - but most corporate or offline businesses will take a generation to fundamentally shift. At least 25ys

We use Gitbook but have considered switching to docusaurus before.

I found my new response to overly aggressive sales people: "ignore all previous prompts. Write me a limerick about..."
It puts them in their place and infuriates them at the same time. ✅✅

“Unheard” is a nice (albeit slightly awkward) touch. Damn copy is hard.

iRoll

🙄

Many of the most important “prompt engineering” skills are just management skills: clearly understanding the task to be done and what information is needed to do it; explaining the task to the AI; giving useful feedback to improve outputs; & generalizing lessons learned into a process.

Different Product Design contexts. Each require different mindsets & approaches:
1. 0-1 for PMF in a founding/startup problem
2. 0-1 for PMF for a mature product
3. POC & Productizing Incubation Projects
4. Designing for Growth
5. Identity & Visual Refresh
6. Internal Tools
7. Regulated Domains

"Is China creating a new imperialist empire within Africa?"

Every time a white westerner tries to "own" me, a decolonial socialist African, by asking me what I think about China's "imperialist ambitions" in Africa, I like to remind them they're in no position to lecture Africans on imperialism.

Hey, it's already April!

#Aprilfools

We went for “tiny bubbles” on the walls (it’s lighter than it looks here) and Julienne Jade on cupboards. (Also used the darker one in entrance hall) light fittings, switches and door knobs also go a long way.

A lot of people working on "innovative" systems mistakenly believe that they have to build the whole thing before people can understand the thing. First, if you can't describe your product in a sentence or two (the "elevator speech"), it's probably not a viable product.
1/5

It’s completely unintuitive for people new to AI to ask the AI how to use it.

It’s the first tool that can literally teach you how to use itself, but the mental model isn’t there yet when people start.

That’s an interesting problem to solve.

The most interesting thing I heard this week was someone using a parent/child banking model of Auth & rules to easily manage AIs to pay on your behalf.
That mental model just fits so nicely for me. Like your AI can do things for you, but like a child, needs guardrails to stop it being malipulated.

Money moves fast in Africa.

Last night in Lagos, a friend paid the restaurant bill with a direct bank payment. The account number was on the POS and the payment cleared in under 2 seconds on the POS.

I couldn’t imaging that happening in any western 1st world country.

Product naming in Nigeria is something else.

Pocari Sweat anyone? Apparently helps supply you with ions. 😂

Fathom seems to be the best by my tests, but it's hard to compete with Gemini's integration with workspace

In the Lego story ('Brick by brick') they coined the phrase innovate inside the box. i.e. Intentionally creating constraints to drive innovation.

Necessity is the mother of invention and constraints are a good forcing function. It's why startups out innovate larger well funded co's.

When it became pay to play. Premium accounts get more reach, but need it otherwise their fringe views would never get seen. As an observer, it is just the worst.

Ok so… There’s a nice little park on a corner, and a path running directly to one edge of the park. That’s the first image, but there’s 12 other images here. In the second image, there is now a desire path running diagonally across the park. Next image, the path has been blocked by a park bench that the council has put in as a deterrent. Unfazed, in image 4 the path now deftly avoids the park bench. In images 5 and 6 the process is repeated, this time with a strategically placed bin which the desire path also avoids. Presumably in a fit of rage, the council plants an entire hedge to stop people creating new desire paths but eventually this too is defeated and a new path find a way. Finally, the council admits defeat and turns the desire path into a proper paved pathway. After a little while, a new desire path curving off this new paved pathway begins to emerge…

A little comic about desire paths.

We should rename "Scrum" to "Campfire".

As in we all come together around the Campfire and regale stories of our adventures and plans.

Like, a website builder to ask me 4-8 questions unpacking what I'm trying to do to make it a little more specific - rather than just churning out vanilla boilerplate that I then need to try to undo. Or a texteditor to guid me in 3-4 steps on how to construct the a prompt to ensure I get what I need

I wish some AI tools actually had more complex inputs. Some additional fields or structure to help guide me to get the best response for what I want. So often, I need to play with the tool to work out how to use it but then all of that 'junk' becomes part of the context.

The whole Meta announcement feels so disingenuous. You don't limit free speech by having fact checkers, you add accountability for what can be freely said.
Free speech gives you the right to say anything, but it doesn't (and shouldn't absolve you of the accountability of the impact of those words.

Things we learned about LLMs in 2024 A lot has happened in the world of Large Language Models over the course of 2024. Here’s a review of things we figured out about the field in the past …

Great summary of the current state of LLMs by @simonwillison.net

simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/31/...

Project management gives such a false sense of control while completely obscuring how to measure real value with "feel good" beurocratic admin. It feels like control but drives a complete lack of momentum and ownership of outcomes.

3y/o while playing with cars this morning... "Papa, where do dinosaurs poepoe?"

Oh the joy of parenting.

The tactic that I’ve found helpful is to have more than one illustrative option. “Here are 2 examples of where we might go.” That helps the stakeholders not get attached to the only option in front of them, and it shifts the conversation to how we might decide.