Category: Success (Page 7 of 12)

One of the things I was told when I was a child was that if someone picks on you, they are afraid of you or jealous. Years later, it was to make them look bigger or more important, they themselves are struggling or even they want to be part of the “in crowd” by picking on someone they may are ones not picked on. I had to take this all-in stride and move forward. I was told when you get older these kids would grow out of this behavior.  

Fast forward and I am working at a bank in the 90s and what I saw was most of the same thing. In fact, I found myself almost surrounded by it. It was much different than childhood, instead it was done without the person around. People would put others down or complain about them. I did not recognize it back then, but now I see it. It was behavior that was no better than high school behavior.  

What is worse though the behaviors are commonplace and played out either in news media or social media. Instead of understanding what is going on, people are very quick to immediately find some way to put anyone or even any group down in hopes of making them appear ‘right.’ This is like the bully putting someone down to make himself feel more important or be part of the crowd. Most people do not recognize it that way, but if it is the ‘group’ we belong to we believe it, if it pointed toward us, we often respond with anger.  

Originally this was limited to a few elite media being one sided. The use of the excuse that the show was entertainment not news was the excuse. But with the growth of social media, it started to carry to individuals. One thing I noticed is that the first mover advantage combined with confirmation bias turns the initial statement into widespread belief. I have yet to see anyone not only apologize and retract this first reaction, but for the truth to be agreed upon. No one is immune to this, even me. I can guarantee there are multiple instances where if you look back on something you heard was true, wanted to be true and still believe it but it is false.  

First, I do not have a solution for this, but this week I was thinking about this in something that should not have a side. The weight loss drug semagultide has seem to be a miracle drug. For those on it there have been minimal side effects but helping them lose weight. First no I am not taking it, nor do I have an investment in it. What I saw this week was an article about the potential impact on food purchases and the companies who sell food.  One snack company went as far as to say that they were not going to stand still and go after it. The CEO says he will do whatever it takes so people continue to eat the unhealthy snacks they sell. I take this as he is going to create an information campaign to drive opinions of people that these weight loss drugs are not good for you. 

If a snack company is willing to do this then what is to say anything we hear from any company, any news agency etc. is not rooted in the same desire to change people’s minds. I did state I do not have a solution but now I need to read everything with the notion of who wrote it, and what is the goal behind writing it. I wrote recently that I need not judge myself on my initial thought, but my second thought is I now need to apply this to information that comes out. I should not believe the first report ‘reason’ (the base fact is ok but the reason not) and wait a few days to see if the reason or why something happened. I also need to look at who is repeating the initial information to see if they are smart enough to dig and get answers. My initial reaction can be what it is, but I need to start to think and make sure my second thought is based on quality information not a bully trying to make themselves feel more important. 

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them.

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.   AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information.Images without notes are created using and AI tool that allows me to reuse them. 

I struggle to be successful in everything I do, and I want to dig deep into the why so I can understand how to keep my team, family and friends motivated. Whether it is cutting my lawn, work, being a parent, losing weight or even writing this blog there are times were getting motivated to be perfect. Previously I have written that perfection is the enemy of good, and yes, I need to remind myself, but it is more than that. Sometimes during the journey, I get demotivated and not only do not do my best, but often not even good.  

Currently I am on several journeys including one to drop weight again. After having several mental challenges which pushed me to eat more, and then several health challenges that prevented me from working out and eating more, I found myself in a shape I did not like. I had to almost demand myself to build a strict diet and even further keep myself to it.  

One of the things I started doing was weigh myself every day and keep it going good and bad. Yes, I forgot a few days (tired etc.) but that does not bother me. In the beginning of any diet, you lose weight fast. If you look at all ‘pop’ diets they push to have do a lot in the first two weeks to get the motivation going. Realistically the best way is slow and steady versus giant drops. I set my goal and started tracking. The days I lost I got this dopamine hit, but there were days that I know I hit my calorie differential that I was either flat or even up and I gained weight. I had to fight through those days to keep at it. In fact, those days where I was sure I would be down and gained were hard days. 

I did give myself short term goal and once hit that pushed that goal further. The goals I set were very intrinsic. I chose not to set up extrinsic rewards and it has taken me a while to figure out why. You can google what they type of rewards are, but the thought of not going for extrinsic rewards as I felt if I did that it has being continuously diminished, and they no longer work. By using intrinsic reward, I value that success at such a higher level than buying myself a gift for hitting the goal.  

So why are extrinsic rewards so diminished? If every time you hit a goal, you are rewarding yourself i find a few things happen. First the reward must grow, if it’s not better than what you just gave yourself why would I push, I already got a reward. It is not possible to continuously escalate rewards possibility. Also not hitting the goal in the period can feel like I am punishing myself. This can demotivate me quickly. I get lazy as I can pick easy goals and get them as a reward myself thus reducing the value of the reward even more. Guess what, studies show the same thing. 

Take for example participation rewards. If these are given often at some point the people participating are there for that extrinsic reward. There is no longer the journey is important but this notion of the reward at the end. If the reward disappears, participation will also. This is not to say all participation rewards should go away, but the notion of how and when to give them should be well thought out. Allowing someone to find intrinsic rewards encourages longer term participation.  

One other example of extrinsic rewards gone wrong, at a previous company (and many others) I was working one thing that was done at key milestones we got a gift. A Lucite that had the release and date info on it. The first time it was done people thought it was cool. But it got to a point it became a participation reward as that other groups were demotivated who did not get one. Not all projects have key milestones etc. This spiraled into what was more of a competition to see who had more Lucites on their desk. Thank God that there was a market downturn and cost cutting and one thing that went away was to remove this.  

Yes, I know extrinsic rewards can be important also. For me, the extrinsic rewards are ones that are not self-given. For weight loss it is others noticing (without prompting) it is fitting into an outfit that did not fit both are non-self-created extrinsic goals. A Lucite for an achievement that was exceptionally large also can be well received. In fact, the drive for something that takes a lot of effort, well beyond a day-to-day job, is what should be recognized. The downside again is making sure that people all understand it is something that really is beyond as it can demotivate others who also put in extra effort.  

What else demotivates me? Instant rewards that require little or no effort. Take for example scrolling through TikTok, Instagram or other short social media. These quick cool things give my brain a dopamine hit (reward.) If I do not give myself a break from these, what happens is that again my brain struggles with other rewards. Yes, there are wonderful things on social media like food prep meals, new workouts, cool science fact etc. that are wonderful. Just like other rewards though they diminish, the next one must be so much better, and it relates to other goals I am trying, like weight loss and work.  

Ok this sounds too much to take in to hit some goals. Yes, it is, it is why I struggle. I do have too many goals, yet I need them. I need to set goals at work and personal goals. I need to ensure I have my own intrinsic rewards to hit them and let others who pick the extrinsic rewards do what they think works. I need to look at those extrinsic rewards as just external to me. If you are wondering where I am on my weight loss journey, in two and 1/2 months I am down 23 pounds which is a little off my target but still good. I am on my second goal after hitting my first one and looking forward to hitting a reach goal at some point. I have not rewarded myself yet for any weight loss, and I’m not sure I will. At work there are few stretch goals I wanted but have not gotten them and need to push myself as there is only one quarter left to hit them.  

As for you, I ask you to look at what motivates you and figure out if the extrinsic rewards have lost value and what rewards you need to reach the goals you set for yourself. 

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them.

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.   AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information.Images without notes are created using and AI tool that allows me to reuse them. 

Pre-Covid, the role I was in had some flexibility. For starters, when I first took on this new role, I was told I could work remotely as many days as I wanted to remote. This was due to adding 30 minutes more to my commute and the fact I had a team in Shanghai, India, and the US. I quickly realized the flexibility was more idealistic than realistic. While other people in the office rarely showed up, I found it hard to be more productive than with my team if I was fully remote. The business team I supported were in my old building and my team as stated were mostly remote with a few in my building. 

Being in the office I was able to walk the floor, talk to the team informally and really get insight into things that were going on. I was also building rapport with people on other teams (that were willing to go into the office) and get understanding of how things ticked. One challenge was the team in Shanghai, which I changed the way they worked from them having calls when they got home to me having calls late at night during their morning. That whole reform could be another store. But burning the candle like that was not easy so I did take some time to work at home to get sleep. 

Bring on the Pandemic and I no longer had a team in Shanghai but now my team is in NY, India and Montreal. Everyone was forced remote. There were a few stops and starts and at some point, coming to the office was ‘optional’ but encouraged. My thought always was it should really be a team-by-team thing, as well as the need for the time in the office to be productive. Going into the office and spending 8 hours on a zoom call does not add to productivity. There were pluses to being back as well as some negatives. 

As the pandemic started to be further in our rear-view mirror there was more pressure from some companies to be in the office. The One company demanded five days, another if you don’t make your 3 days a week for 6 consecutive weeks is automated termination. Hence the start of the Return to Office Ultimatums. 

Now for those who don’t know what the Ultimatum games is, it is a psychological experiment in which there are two participants. The first is given a sum of money, say $100.00, and he is to split it with another person known as the responder. The first person is to split the $100.00 between him and the responder. The responder knows that the other person was given the $100.00 and when he is offered his share of the money can accept or reject the offer. They do not get to negotiate, and if they reject the offer the first person can keep the whole $100.00. Now when this experiment is done with people who are known to you (social groups etc.) the split is usually around 50:50. If the experiment is done with a stranger, the split is often less. 

Now people are often given ultimatums from people they know, take example things like a partner asking you that if you are not engaged by a specific time that they will break up with you, or a parent demanding grades on children or if you do this, I will never talk to you again. It is amazing how many of these we get in our lives once we take the time to reflect. Some worked out well, others were empty.  

The Return of Office Ultimatum spans the gamut of threats of firing, HR conversations, used in reviews etc. Companies can pick what they hope will achieve their goals. I am not an expert on what tactic works best. My previous statement still holds it is team-by-team, possibly a employee-by-employee and in some cases a company-by-company scenario. 

What I see as reactions from employees in my company and others is how they react to the ultimatum. In this case the expectation is that the company is part of your social group that is in effect giving you an ultimatum. As the experiments showed people in our social group, we would expect a fair 50:50 split. But most companies are leaning towards 100:0, 80:20 splits. Which the employees see as ‘unfair.’ Thus, we see a lot of pushbacks, anger etc. But unlike some of the ultimatums, this one comes with the loss of your job. Something that unless you can replace your income is easy. The notion that someone in your social circle is doing something so unfair is painful but it is the company you work for really your social circle. Please note, there are many jobs who had to be in person through the whole pandemic and they never got this choice or ultimatum. 

There are those who chose to find another job, some lucky people who get exceptions or others who just walk out. What I read in the news and through conversations is that employees just abide by the ultimatum, well in spirit. As a person who manages people my thoughts turn to what I can do so that people are not just following in spirit but finding how to make that time more positive. Unfortunately, I do not have the magic answer as I am still trying to figure it out.  

Companies, managers, and employees should understand why there is anger, resentment, and challenge to the ultimatum. There is a saying about expectations if you have low expectations, you can be happier. This was not the case. Understanding the ultimatum game has at least let me figure out at least one key reason for the backlash. Now what to do with that understanding? 

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them.

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.   AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information.Images without notes are created using and AI tool that allows me to reuse them. 

For the longest time managers have always told me to make sure I use my vacation time. In fact, many of the times I knew it was more company line than what they meant. With the amount of work that we had to get done, the hours needed to put in taking vacations often were not something the manager wanted us to take. Over the years finding the right job and manager vacations were something that were taken, but often with the words to ‘recharge’ or ‘prevent burn out.’ 

Now let us think about that. Taking a vacation to do those things means that your job is so overwhelming or stressful, that the only escape is to leave and go away. More importantly, going on vacation is somehow magically repairing the damage that has been done at work. Wow, that better be some magical vacation, it better be the vacation of your dreams, no delays, no issues etc. On the day of your return somehow all the problems are gone, and you can hit peak performance at work. 

Somehow that just sounds stupid writing is it and I am sure it sounds worse reading it. I am going to make a simple statement, there is no such thing as work life balance, there is just life. Any thinking otherwise is the same as believing the magical vacation will bring you back. Your work is as much a part of your life as so is your home life, where you volunteer, the friends you see and the places you go.  

There are a lucky few who love what they do so much they do not work for a day in their life. For others we work to provide for our families, try to have a better life or even just pay the bills. Now instead of dreading that and trying to find balance if we inject that it is life, what differences can happen?  

First, we can build good relationships at work. When I was learning how to manage bands (yes, I took classes in that) there was this notion you needed to network. One thing I learned well working at Loria Music was building relationships. When I started at a large bank I used these skills, and in my current job there is a running joke ‘Larry knows a guy…” What the network has turned it to is not a business set of contacts but good relationships. What I originally thought was necessary to get ahead in life was more becoming part of my life. 

Next, we can change how we think about stress. For years I though stress was a killer and a problem. This is how I thought about work stress, as in trying to be an athlete, stress, or pressure as it is called was used as a motivator. And to win one needs to handle the pressure and use it as a positive instead of a negative. Stress should be a motivator at work, it should bring out the best in you. There are studies that show, yes stress is just that. If you learn stress is positive, you will start treating it that way.  

Finally understand how to deal with failure. My previous post I talked about succeeding at everything means you are not taking any risks. But there is something even more important (and needs its own post) that failure is not treated the right way. Failure in some cases is not an option (aka a surgeon) but sometimes they do. Failure needs to be treated in a straightforward way of how we prevent it from happening again or reduce the possibility of it happening. If we find the wisdom in failure, instead of coming home from work saying you had a difficult day you come home with the thought more of I learned something and need to work on applying it.  

To get back to my original point, a vacation should be just that a getaway to enjoy yourself. It should not be something to recharge. There needs to be something that you do (it is not your company/bosses’ role) to recognize your life and to make the most of it. It is not easy, unlearning the bad history of work will take effort and time but the reward at the end is wonderful. I was asked this past week why I stayed at the company so long, it was easy to answer. Leaving for other places means leaving the community I built, the ability to use the challenges at work to get better and know how to improve myself from mistakes. Now the stressful thought is where should I go? 

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them.

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.   AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information.Images without notes are created using and AI tool that allows me to reuse them. 

Over the past few weeks there have been articles about regulating AI (well Large Language Models but honestly only the tech people care.). There are also a few articles about people asking to have their information removed, other lawsuits from authors saying their information were used in training, would they ask for their data to be removed. Now not going to get into is permitted use, but more about how the AI is human like in one thing. 

Humans have something that is causing lots of issues, not just now but appears to be for the longest time. Unlearning is a struggle. When people learn something and for years that learning is reinforced it gets embedded in their brains. When there is a change, or even challenge to that knowledge there is an instinct to push back against it. The point when someone is told they are wrong it feels like they are being punched.  

Now Large Language models cannot feel pain, but they do have an issue. When ingesting information (web page, document etc.) they are converting the text into ‘tokens’ and giving those tokens a numeric representation. Those numbers get linked together. Reversing that information out to find that exact point of some text and removing it is well impossible. So LLMs struggle to do the same thing that humans have, unlearning.  

So, one option when it comes to LLMs is to train it from scratch all over again. This could be costly. For humans there is an art of unlearning, and it is a skill that we should work on. Just like learning it is something that we need to practice getting good at it. Now, LLMs the unlearning of things is a bit more difficult. There are a few studies, here, here and here. I am not going to deep dive into them, as I will leave that to the reader to deep dive. 

It really is amazing that LLM and the GPTs that are built on top of them can produce sentences, paragraphs, and code. What is surprising is that both struggle to unlearn. And though there are now studies and ways for humans to unlearn, the only apparent way for an LLM to unlearn is to start from nothing. To reach GAI do machines need to be able to unlearn? Have we stumbled on an update to the Turing test? Or is it possible that our brains are not powerful to understand our own brains? 

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them.

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.   AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information.Images without notes are created using and AI tool that allows me to reuse them. 

As a youngster (in the 1970s/80s) like may others we wanted attention, we wanted people to notice us. Yeah there are the few introverts who did not feel that way. We wanted feedback, and avoiding certain stigmas. Aka we would rather be seen as rebellious than dumb. Kids bragged about how successful their parents were. For four years I attended a private school, and that was even more competitive for status. As an adult some people grew out of this competition, sadly others did not.

Fast forward to the present, and now its not just kids but it appears that there is a larger push for the notion of getting attention. Wait, you are writing your blog isn’t that an act of attempting of getting attention. I debate this with myself, but if I really wanted attention I would turn these into video shorts, TikToks etc. I would post the blog on other social media sights. But, often I do find myself almost jumping on a hot topic.

I started writing more personally and posted it well to feel I expressed myself. I do not have a way to like, not push for it. I like feedback from my friends who happen to read it, and have changed things, gotten topics from them, but its not my driver.

But there was a time that on Facebook and Twitter I did fall into the trap. The ADHD of getting ‘likes’ on a post or interaction were dopamine hits that were wonderful. The engagement grew if the idea pushed out got a reaction. What Facebook learned is what other media had known is that fear and anger got engagement. The difference is this notion of getting attention could scale, and anyone could garner attention. In fact, a business started up giving ranking of people who had more followers/engagements. Most users of social media didn’t care. Those looking for the high for the likes drove something interesting.

When writing these posts, I find myself doing the opposite. I am paying attention to myself, listening to my brain, my body and introspecting on my thoughts. My distractions seem to fall to the wayside, no Adderall needed. No I don’t use drugs for my ADHD yet, but don’t need them when writing. In fact, its one of the few times I do not use an pomodoro timer I find myself with focus. I find some clarity in writing, a drift away in where I can just type.

So I am paying attention, can focus and happy, why can’t I figure out how to do the same in other situations? If happiness comes from this notion of being able to pay attention versus trying to get attention why don’t I figure out how to bottle it. Well that is why I am writing this post, it is something I figured out as I sat to write this. In fact the title in my notes what the secret to happiness, but I did not know what that secret was.

So how do we change from wanting attention to paying attention? If you know that secret let me know. Is the answer less social media? Is the answer no social media? I have found groups on a few of the social media sites so helpful (ADHD, Tesla, Technology, Workout) not sure could not use them. I wrote about having a friendly dictator that makes them tick, and most input is not looking for attention, but often looking for answers and others helping out.

Is the secret enjoying an experience and not craving the attention that comes from that experience? I was at a concert last week, snapped maybe 2 pictures but enjoyed one of the best shows. I take pictures daily on my commute and don’t post all of them. Not because some are not up to superb quality but I don’t need feedback from social media that way. I take the pictures for myself, share with relatively few people. I take hundreds of pictures of my dog and have a group chat with my kids where we sent hem.

Of all the examples I list above are situations where I am paying attention. Learning from groups on social media sites, enjoying the sunrise/sunset on my commute, writing this blog etc. are all examples of me not looking to be the center of attention but to pay attention. Now if I could only learn from what does make me happy, and figure out how to now pay attention better in other situations. I cannot guarantee I will but just writing this has let me find something if you asked me yesterday I didn’t understand about happiness.

his opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.   AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information.Images without notes are created using and AI tool that allows me to reuse them. 

Two years ago, I pampered myself and bought a Tesla Model 3. It was the first time in 12 years I got myself a car. I had bought 2 cars for the kids and 2 for my wife in that span. But mine was on last legs, so i got rid of it. I did not get Full Self Driving but it comes with Autopilot. This is like a super cruise control, and it does what cruise control does, as well as keeps the car in the lane, around curves etc.  

The first time I used it I was like wow; this does a really excellent job. Now there are some quirks, you need to keep your hands on the wheel, and sometimes (like on-ramps etc.) it struggles. But in stop and go traffic and on 440 on Staten Island it is the most wonderful thing. It takes the stress out of rush hour driving for sure. But then I started using it anytime I was driving on roads, it was easy. I started to think, though I am losing my driving skills.  

Then my mind started thinking about other things automated and will are those skills gone and or reduced. I mentioned that I work in technology and of course when you build applications part of the goal is to automate some manual tasks. The knowledge workers who did those tasks in spreadsheets or on paper now do not have to. When those workers leave and new people replace them there is a lack of knowledge of the original process, and if the system goes down, they might not be able to do it manually.  

For any task that somehow gets automated do we lose those skills and knowledge. For example, how many people know how to change their oil? How many people could navigate with a physical map? Develop and Print Photos from a film camera? Set the clock on a VCR? What is your best friend’s phone number? Can you calculate with a slide rule? Find a book in the library using the card catalog? These are all skills that I did years ago that well are no longer needed and no longer used. 

I have not ice skated in a year nor picked up a tennis racquet in longer. I played both sports a lot, to the point my muscle memory took over. I do know if I start (and try to get back on the ice) that it will kick in after a little while of rust. As the years go by the more rust there is, sitting at the piano things do not come as easy as it did when I play often. And things that I have not done for 10 or so years are going to struggle. The piano, skating and tennis may come back when my brain kicks in, but some mental things may not. 

Why do I mention this? Just like calculators have killed math, spreadsheet have killed the ledger I am wondering what the latest ‘AI’ (I put it in quotes cause its truly not AI) tools will kill off. What if people stopped writing meeting notes (expecting a tool to listen in and give notes) and it is missing some key point though it did not sound like one. What if all developers trained themselves on programming languages via a GPT? Would we lose developer creativity? Would everyone learn the same way, and it may not be the best way to code? What are the skills that the latest round of technology is going to replace and is it an improvement? 

This is not to scare anyone from using these tools. For coding I find it incredibly helpful to write test cases, remind me of an obscure library I used once every 4-5 years, and even ask to refactor to see alternatives to what I wrote. I do not use it yet for this blog, as it thinks with the crowd of wisdom (a blog post in draft) thus what it writes is average. I would rather point back to my previous assessment of the next digital divide but adding now a caveat. We need to keep our skills in certain areas, or we risk not being able to know if output of the AI is not missing something.  

In previous writings I have mentioned the classic statement perfection is the enemy of good. Is the output from any of these tools good enough? If you do not know the answer or have used these tools so often for tasks you lose the skill to even know, we have found a problem. If you are using it for knowledge for something you never did, it is different than if you know it for something that you used to do, and now leverage it. Let us assume everything you are asking is the latter. The more you use it (aka people writing using AI for the full writing when normally they used to write themselves) do they lose the skill of writing? If they are not reading it, correcting it, or rewriting it then the skills will deteriorate.  

I am and awful drawer, photoshoper (is that a word) or Microsoft Paint editor. I do love taking photos (those who know me see my pictures from the ferry) but I am not a good editor. Thus, asking a tool to edit or create an image for me I will use. But a skillset I know I need to use and want to continue to learn the tools can only be an assistant. In fact, as I am writing this, I am watching a class in Artificial Intelligence with Python to continue to build my knowledge. I know if I lose the skills, I could be unemployed.  

What skills will I lose? That is not the right question, the question should be what skill I should make sure I keep and work on so that I do not lose it. Which means even if complex calculations at work people should understand how to do manually, I need to sit at the piano more often, I need to work at friendship/relationships, I need to work at being a father, I need to work at communication, I need to work at my health and much more. I will use the tools at my disposal but ensure when I use them, I understand in which case I am doing so. And I challenge you to look at what skills you lost, what skills you need and make the right choices. As the subtitle of the blog states, it is getting better every day.  And probably being a good driver is one of them also.

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.   AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information.Images without notes are created using and AI tool that allows me to reuse them. 

A long time ago in my career I was at a different company that I was at now and linux was becoming the buzz. I had a boss tell me, with Linux we can pick a vendor for support, training, version, etc. vs. a single company. It was all about choice. And there became my introduction to open source. 

Being who I am, I overthink everything. When I heard the stories about open source is better for security because more people have eyes on it, that anyone can improve it, that it’s not limited to one company. The thoughts came up like anyone can put something bad in, and who is going to make sure the system goes awry? But what I was not thinking about then and see now is about leadership, and some of the best open-source projects have leadership. 

This should be part of my Team series, so I hope you all read that (see the top menu) but I did not think of it until a conversation with a good friend. What I learned from leadership comes down to a few key things, Empowerment, Flexibility, Communication, Recognition, Stealing and Drive to become what I sometimes call the friendly dictator. 

Empowerment: Open source is driven fully by this; no developer is given a ‘task’ to do (in theory). A developer can decide if there is a need, find an ask, pick it up, and start coding. If they produce the best solution (hopefully) their code will make a release. Kanban process of Agile tried to do the same, that is allows developers to pick the ‘next thing’ on the list themselves. Even Scrum wants developers to pick up tasks and not be assigned tasks. Now of course in companies break this a lot but done correctly you have freedom inside the box. As a manager by delegating authority and trusting the team to deliver you have empowered them. 

Flexibility: This is not being able to touch my toes without my knees bending, it is more about altering your ideas, schedule and even outcome. In open-source projects the leadership needs to often adjust on the fly but also allow ideas of features and functionality that they were not thinking or planning. Leadership does not always know what is right and understanding that, and with the power the team has needs your ability to be flexible is key. 

Communication: If you think about an open-source project, there are people all over the world (possibly) working for different companies, in school or not even working somehow must work towards a common goal. Try getting one other department in a large company to work with another, it is almost impossible. How are they able to do this? They have found ways to communicate. It is often documented and information on how to do things, where to put them etc. These open-source leaders set out how to communicate and the team would follow. I talk about how I lay out my expectations for the year to the team, as well as the pillar of communications, and this is from these leaders. 

Recognition: I did already state this in my Teams series but one of the best things you can do for someone on your team is ensure they are recognized, not just by you but by people outside your team for their work/effort. Open-source projects do this well, in fact early on there was this notion of credibility, where people were known for their input on Open-Source projects. Leaders should never take credit for individuals’ effort, and even more important team recognition is also key.  

Stealing: If you read my early on posts or worked for me/with me you have heard me say ‘Beg, Borrow, Steal then Build.’ But Steal is what open-source leaders are more looking to do. They steal ideas and features from commercial projects and other open-source projects. I know, when a company like Google or others is driving it they do produce original things, but many open-source projects are just versions of commercial software that already exists.  

Drive: How many times have you looked at an open-source project and the last update date was years ago? Or after a few years it slows down and dies? A post from the creator who says something like ‘I graduated school’ or ‘got a job’ so I am going to spend less time on this. For open-source projects to survive they need someone to drive it. None exists without the key person who keeps it going, even if it is just him during times when their projects are not as popular.  

These attributes (and a few others) create this friendly dictator. Why do I use such an awful term? There needs to be single buck stops here. Although the leaders can be flexible, to deliver the next version, to fix bugs, to stay competitive with commercial and other open-source software there needs to be this Top person. The most successful employ these key leadership skills and do it in this ‘friendly’ way that others are willing to get on board. The Open-Source leader makes people feel empowered, heard, recognized and the freedom to step in to help.  

Over the past few months, I saw this play out in a different area, in groups and communities. The most successful ones that I leverage (across a multitude of platforms) have these leaders who drive it. Some platforms call these moderators or admins. In groups that I am a part of you can see when the leadership works and does not. I of course get smart and either leave or ignore those groups. In groups that I retain the amount of knowledge I pick up is fantastic. I talk often about my Tesla groups, but other groups like finance, programming, writing, NJ Devils, pizza, wings, etc. all the best ones have leaders who have the same attributes.  

Just like Open-Source Software, what you will find is that these groups are driven by a few and used by many. That posts and info are not Top down from a leader, but the community learns the communication rules and standards. The admins will delete posts that are not welcome, remove users who are not following the rules and drive the conversation. I am surprised I did not recognize the link between groups and open-source projects sooner. It does boil down to the single point of great leadership. 

On a last point and going back to thinking about Bruce Lee and Jeet Kune Do, is to learn as much as you can from a variety of resources and take the best out of it. I try to keep my mind open as I see things around me and wonder what I can learn from it. I never thought I would be looking to learn leadership lessons from Open-Source software, but alas it was sitting there waiting for me to digest it. 

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain, I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback, I mostly wont post any of them

This Blog is a labor of love, and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.   AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information.Images without notes are created using and AI tool that allows me to reuse them.