I am an avid reader and a writer at heart. Many of the books on my overstuffed shelves are about the writing life, the lives of writers, and the nuts and bolts of writing as well. These are a couple of examples of short pieces I have written.

Writing has been an integral skill in my UX work as well from microcopy to user manuals to team communications and everything in between.

I have always used em dashes…

LIFT AND RISE

In Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful book The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, the author illustrates and amplifies the ecosystem of reciprocity in the natural world and our place within it.

After unexpectedly being let go from a position I loved, leaving people who were dear to me, and a company I believed in—I have been reflecting, ideating, and thinking about the ways we may take this moment to breathe and consider our gifts.

I recently read The Serviceberry and the following paragraph so deeply resonated with where I find myself.

“I cherish the notion of the gift economy, that we might back away from the grinding market economy that reduces everything to a commodity and leaves most of us bereft of what we really want: relationship and purpose and beauty and meaning, which can never be commoditized. I want to be part of a system in which wealth means having enough to share, and where the gratification of meeting your family needs is not poisoned by destroying that possibility for someone else. I want to live in a society where the currency of exchange is gratitude and the infinitely renewable resource of kindness, which multiplies every time it is shared rather than depreciating with use.”

Many of us find ourselves in a place that is now unstructured; untethered from traditional daily work patterns, through no choice of our own. How can we carve bits and pieces of our new cadences to gift one another our time, attention, and talents. Find mutual growth and a more diverse community than we may have found ourselves in before the transition. Create intentional communities and generate social capital! How can we “rise by lifting others” as Robert G. Ingersoll would say.

If you are already immersed in a gifting ecosystem, please share in the comments below so we may all draw inspiration.

And for those who want to begin to give and receive, please consider your gifts and how they may benefit others and think about what may bring you joy, fulfillment, career growth, inspiration, and those sometimes elusive but essential sparks, as a recipient of someone else’s gifts.

How will you create your own gifting ecosystem in an exchange with one other person, a handful of folks, or multitudes?

What are the gifts you have to give and what might you like to receive?

There is so much we are juggling as we consider the very real logistical needs of our daily lives for us and our families and perhaps we can also find and carve this space for gifting as well!

Lift and rise!

———————

NUDGE

In my professional life I am a purpose-driven UX designer, currently in a transitional space. More time for reflection, connection, learning, growth, and focus in areas of specific interest; taking courses, having conversations, immersing in live talks and webinars, working with coaches, reading and writing. Endless and inspiring inputs!

One of these inputs which led to more inputs, was a recommendation to read Marty Cagan’s book Inspired. And this inspired me to watch a recording of Marty expertly and enthusiastically fielding questions during Career Coaching Pro’s TECHconneXt CONFERENCE. In this session, Marty recommends watching The Lost Interview with Steve Jobs from 1990*, describing it as “gold”. So I did.

There are many moments throughout the 1990 Steve Jobs interview where I paused, replayed, reflected on the fact that this was over 30 years ago, and considered all the still relevant takeaways.

One segment in particular struck me at about 59 minutes in, Bob Cringely asks Steve Jobs about his passion, what drove him, and this was his reply:

“I read an article when I was very young in Scientific American, and it measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. So for bears and chimpanzees and raccoons and birds and fish. How many kilocalories per kilometer did they spend to move? And humans were measured, too. And the condor won. It was the most efficient. And mankind, the crown of creation, came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list.

But somebody there had the brilliance to test a human riding a bicycle. Blew away the condor. All the way off the charts. And I remember, this really had an impact on me. I really remember this that humans are tool builders, and we build tools that can dramatically amplify our innate human abilities.

And to me..We actually ran an ad like this very early at Apple. The personal computer was the bicycle of the mind. And I believe that with every bone in my body that of all the inventions of humans, the computer is going to rank near, if not at, the top as history unfolds and we look back. And it is the most awesome tool that we have ever invented, and I feel incredibly lucky to be at exactly the right place in Silicon Valley, at exactly the right time, historically, where this invention has taken form.

And as you know, when you set a vector off in space, if you can change its direction a little bit at the beginning, it’s dramatic when it gets a few miles out in space. I feel we are still, really, at the beginning of that vector. And if we can nudge it in the right directions, it will be a much better thing as it progresses on. I think we’ve had a chance to do that a few times, and it brings all of us associated with it tremendous satisfaction.”

Even though AI has been around for decades, we are still in a formative place, especially in this period of insurgence. This is the time to nudge; make mindful modifications with thoughtful consideration of ethics, environmental impact, access and accessibility, equity and inclusivity, and privacy and safety; assess and vet, resolve biases, keep AI additive (human-in-the-loop), correct critical data errors, provide adaptive, empowering governance…

How can we impact the trajectory, “nudge it in the right directions” and influence the course of the vector? How will we implement and use it thoughtfully, judiciously, ethically, strategically, mindfully, …optionally?

May we all take action now and nudge the AI vector in the direction of collective advancement and greater good! 

Most sincere thanks to those who already are —

*“And for years, we thought the interview was lost forever because the master tape went missing while being shipped from London to the US in the 1990s. Then, just a few days ago, series director Paul Sen found a VHS copy of that interview in his garage.” 

YouTube, search: Steve Jobs - The Lost Interview (11 May 2012) [VO] [ST-FR] [Ultra HD 4K]