Gli ambienti di pensiero integrato

Just a quick note of gratitude. Antonio Dini has generously translated my article “Obsidian, Roam, and the rise of Integrated Thinking Environments—what they are, what they do, and what’s next” into Italian. Exciting!

Thanks, Antonio. I hope Italian readers find the concept useful.

# Intuition is confident abductive-inferential thinking

In a recent episode of Hello Monday, Jessi Hempel interviews Dr. Natalie Nixon on creativity and her new book, The Creativity Leap. Natalie’s PhD in Design Management—plus her work in fashion, design, and business—led her to a catchy and compelling description of creative work. We accomplish creative work, she says, “by toggling between wonder and rigour.”

In the podcast conversation, Jessi and Natalie talk about intuition—and I was struck by something. “We don’t talk about intuition,” Natalie notes at about 6 minutes in. “We don’t talk about intuition in business school, in law school, or in medical school.” And yet, she says, “I observed that really successful leaders—especially really successful startup leaders—in their origin stories, there’s always this moment where ‘Something told me not to do the deal. Something told me to work with her over him.’ […] Every successful leader really reckons with incorporating acting on their intuition to make decisions.” Jessi agrees, noting that intuition comes up often in her interviews with leaders on Hello Monday as leaders cite it as the reason for their success.

The thing is, just because we don’t name intuition doesn’t mean we aren’t talking about it. That’s because intuition is really just confident, logical thinking.

Charles Sanders Peirce was a philosopher. He investigated how we inquire into and discover new knowledge.¹ Before Peirce, we generally recognized the logical processes of deduction and induction. Deductive thinking helps us identify what must be true about a situation in order to explain it. When we deduce something, we look at the general rules and principles we know of and draw specific conclusions from that evidence. Inductive thinking involves drawing general conclusions from specific, limited evidence.

Peirce argued that effective reasoning follows a pattern: we determine the specific consequences of an idea (deduction), and then we judge whether the available evidence fits that idea and its consequences (induction). But how do we develop ideas?²

Abduction is the name of the logical process Peirce described for developing ideas. To think abductively means to generate and choose ideas that fit the situation at hand. A good idea should be verifiable—we should be able to use evidence to judge its fit—and should help us resolve the situation at hand. Peirce also had criteria to help choose the best ideas to test. He suggested that we should strive to conserve resources (e.g., those that most are most efficiently verifiable and usable in the situation), identify the most valuable ideas (specifically the “uberty” of an idea, or how likely it is that a possible idea might bring about an innovation), and the most relevant ideas (e.g., those that may apply beyond our current focus, too).³

Abduction is clearly an important step in any innovative process—but it is no more important than testing and using the ideas you generate. What, then, if you don’t have enough evidence to truly test and prove your ideas?

The process Peirce described—abduction, deduction, induction—is the ideal. However, we do not always have time and energy to follow the process diligently. Instead, we quickly make creative judgements based on a few observed qualities. This requires two related processes.⁴ The first Peirce called “abductory induction,” and it combines the first and last step of the inquiry process. We observe the qualities of the situation, and we generate possible ideas to resolve it based on those observations. The second process is known as “inference to the best explanation” (IBE).⁵ IBE is exactly what it sounds like. Given a number of possible ways of resolving a problem, choose the best one. (Peirce’s criteria, noted above, apply here.)

So what does all this have to do with intuition?

Intuition is the confident application of these shorthand logical approaches to creative problem solving. As Jessi and Natalie noted, we aren’t often explicitly taught about strengthening our intuition. Yet, everything we learn supports its development. The more we have to draw on in order to pull into the processes described above, the better our intuitive decisions will be.

I say that intuition is the confident application of these processes because they only work when we follow through. In reality, we use abductory induction and IBE all the time. When we engage in creative problem solving, we’re not only using information from the evidence in front of us. We’re drawing on our lived experience and our knowledge base. Even if we don’t directly recall or reference that background information, it is drawn into the creativity of abduction and it defines the general rules and principles we use in deduction. It provides us with the heuristics we use when engaging in IBE. But if we don’t have a bias towards action and instead operate with e.g., perfectionism, we fail to actually execute on these ideas. Thus, we need to have confidence in our abductory induction and IBE processes.

All this is simply a gentle challenge of the idea that we don’t talk about intuition. I think that all knowledge management practices and forms of education are actually fundamentally about strengthening our intuition.

That said, Natalie’s work is fascinating. I recommend the episode of Hello Monday and plan on picking up her book!

The report concludes that the campaigns represent “a clear danger to democracy” and could allow powerful organizations to target their opponents. “The extensive targeting of American nonprofits exercising their first amendment rights is exceptionally troubling,” Citizen Lab’s report says.

We didn’t want this part of cyberpunk sci-fi…

# Why are we exceeding the Earth’s carrying capacity?

This is a quickly-sketched model created from a breakout group conversation during the MUN School of Graduate Studies’ “Earth’s Carrying Capacity” dialogue.

Download the model

According to designer/strategist Roger Martin, a strategy is an imagined possibility with which we ask the question “What has to be true for this possibility to become real?”

In this episode IDEO U’s Creative Confidence podcast, Roger talks about how that approach helped unlock Bianca Andreescu’s success at the Grand Slam singles championship in 2019.

One of the fascinating things about this approach is that it acknowledges the need for system-wide changes. By asking “What has to be true?”, a strategist must consider all of the conditions of a system that should shift to make the imagined possibility a reality. Of course, most approaches to strategy do require some appreciation of the state of the strategic environment (e.g., the five forces model). None, however, emphasize the need to guarantee these systemic conditions quite as explicitly as asking “What must be true?”

This changed with the emergence of “Patient 31.”

Reuters’ coverage of the “Korean clusters” provided the world with a vivid glimpse of the volatility of COVID-19. One person showed poor judgement, and in turn caused cascading catastrophe in her communities.

Events like the COVID-19 pandemic are thankfully rare. Moments like these—when a lot happens all at once, and the experience is shared by a collective—shape future history like nothing else. We are learning a lot from this. Not only are epidemiologists now a famous profession, but we’re all learning exactly what it takes to provide good healthcare, what good governance looks like, how public health is community health, and more.

Patient 31 holds a simple lesson for systemics: the fragility of apparently solid social systems. South Korea seemed to do everything right. Yet, due to the volatile nature of this particular socio-health system, a single “free radical” caused immense damage.

Similar volatility is evident—but more subtle—in other social systems. Consider how memes spread. Our massive communities may seem immovable at times, but it’s clear that the wrong (or right) phenomena can spread rapidly and deeply.

Stay safe.

# Divide & conquer

I have often hesitated to draft up an idea because I’m not sure the folks reading this site want to hear it. I (aim to) publish about a few disparate subjects, really:

• Systemics, design, and social change
• Data modelling and data for social change
• Productivity and personal knowledge management
• Scripting and (personal) automation
• Leadership, innovation, and changemaking

Obviously, this is too many topics for any one blog. If you’re reading this, you probably came here for just one of the topics above, and you might be interested in another one or two. And listen, I like you, and I want any visit of yours to be a valuable one. That’s why I’ve launched a sibling blog.

I could cluster the topics above a number of ways. Here’s what I think makes the most sense: This blog, Fulcra, will focus on finding leverage for complex change, including:

• Systemics, design, and social change
• Data modelling and data for social change
• Leadership, innovation, and changemaking

The newest one, Axle, will focus on how we change ourselves, including:

• Personal development
• Design and technology for augmented cognition
• Productivity and personal knowledge management
• Scripting and (personal) automation

Moving forward, this site (Fulcra) will be a platform for writing on complex systems change. I aim to study, share, and write about how the world changes—and how we can get better at changing it.

Axle is a new site I will use to share my thoughts on how we change ourselves. After all, the better we get, the better we better get. The easy thing to write about (and what you’ll probably see the most often there) are the apps and tools I use and the designs I apply in my life and work. I also plan to share functional resources (such as scripts) as well as ask questions and debate about making progress in life and work.

This was a weird decision. After all, I barely publish here, so running two different sites seems like a terrible idea. I hope, however, that having more focused platforms for these different topics will help me publish more impulsively. Feel free to follow both, or none!

# A turn of events

Welcome to Axle.

I probably don’t need two blogs, but I have found myself hesitating to publish a variety of ideas on Fulcra because I wasn’t sure that those who read that blog for the systems/design thinking or social change focus would care about my thoughts on productivity, practice, and personal development.

So that’s what this place is for.

While my writing on Fulcra will (continue to) explore how the world changes, Axle is about how we change. In particular, I’m interested in “augmenting cognition”: how information systems and systemic design can help us think, do, and be better. I’ll also be writing about the different techniques and tools I use in my own work, as well as publishing resources that you might find useful.

What’s in the name? Well, while Fulcra emphasizes the search for leverage points in complex systems change, Axle is centred on the core of that change. That’s us—the people driving it. We try our best to amplify the forces of the world in order to shift something that matters to us. We roll with our changing worlds—and we are also in constant motion (and transformation) ourselves.

Welcome!

Herein, then, lies the tyranny of classification: The borders we draw for ourselves create a prison of thought and collaboration, inhibiting movement, connectivity, and learning.

Dominic Hofstetter outlines the many benefits of categorization, too. We have to have both specialization and generalization—categories and loose files. The key is developing processes, protocols, and ways of working that elevate the benefits of both.

# README.txt: Introducing Into the Dataverse, the article series

There is a significant gap in research about Canadian data collection activities on a granular scale. This lack of knowledge regarding data collection practices within Canada hinders the ability of policymakers, civil society organizations, and the private sector to respond appropriately to the challenges and harness unrealized benefits.

So true. This looks like an interesting series from the great team at Brookfield.

“The ISA is the business model, not education,” says Kim Crayton, a business strategist and founder of CauseAScene , an organization that’s seeking to disrupt the status quo in tech. “You cannot tell me that education is your business model when you have not registered as an institution.” For months, Crayton has been speaking about the problems with coding bootcamps on her podcast, where she’s argued that they target vulnerable communities. “You’re put in these spaces and putting in 110 percent and it’s still not working and you’re told to ‘trust the process,’” she says.

Great reporting on this at The Verge.

Kim Crayton makes an excellent point. The promise of many of these neo-credentials is for students to leapfrog the things everyone fears about the conventional education system. No one is more vulnerable to taking on loads of student debt than those who need it most. Those students are also going to suffer the most if their university or college fails to equip them for a career. Lambda solves both of these problems, making it extremely attractive to poor students.

Sadly, there’s always a catch.

Ben Thompson, in discussion with John Gruber:

It was mindblowing. It was absolutely incredible. The way that you could just do stuff that wasn’t really possible [on a computer]. Again, it was technically possible on a computer, but the user interface and experience was just transformative on the iPad. It was absolutely incredible.

And Jobs knew it. It’s one of my all-time favourites Jobs moments. It’s like fifteen seconds after the demo, and it’s just like… he’s used this. He was involved in the creation of it. They had run through the demo. He knew it. And even then, he was just astonished. He’s just like ‘I can’t believe [this]…’

[…]

It was, to my mind, the culmination of his life’s work. He comes on there, and he’s like, ‘Isn’t it incredible? Now anyone can make music.’

I almost want to transcribe this whole episode. John Gruber and Ben Thompson discuss the potential of the iPad—and its failure to reach it.

Ben uses the term “transformative” deliberately above. They discuss how, before the iPad, no computing experience could adapt to become wholly new tools and environments for whatever the user wanted to do. But the iPad can become a piano or a canvas or a television. In this sense, they argue that the iPad has (or had) the potential for disruptive innovation (RIP Clay Christensen)—but it’s not supposed to be a Mac.

These two think the iPad’s lost the chance to fulfill that potential, mostly because Apple has missed the opportunity to build a vibrant developer ecosystem due to App Store policies. I hope that isn’t the case, though I think we have to look beyond the iPad to fully appreciate what might happen next. The introduction of tablets and transformative computing experiences continues to echo throughout a variety of industries. Graphic designers and illustrators have a new suite of tools to directly interact with their creations in the iPad Pro and the Surface. Similarly, tablet or hybrid devices have transformed schools—schoolchildren now have a “homework” device for all kinds of assignments. It’s true that we still need developers to imagine ever-more revolutionary applications for these devices, but there’s no denying that disruption is taking root.

Either way, the episode is well worth a listen. Enjoy from 15:50 to ~31:22 and 1:26:59 to the end of the show if you want to focus on the iPad discussion.

My bank, fitness and workout apps, and food delivery services I haven’t used in months—those were some of the 30+ apps interacting with Facebook data. Ostensibly this data is used to personalize ads.

As of today, our Off-Facebook Activity tool is available to people on Facebook around the world. Other businesses send us information about your activity on their sites and we use that information to show you ads that are relevant to you. Now you can see a summary of that information and clear it from your account if you want to.

Off-Facebook Activity marks a new level of transparency and control. We’ve been working on this for a while because we had to rebuild some of our systems to make this possible.

Now, thankfully, you can review these connections yourself and clear any history manually. Check out Facebook’s Off-Facebook Activity controls, and happy Data Privacy Day.

If the product is free, you are the product:

An antivirus program used by hundreds of millions of people around the world is selling highly sensitive web browsing data to many of the world’s biggest companies.

The Twttr prototype app gave me another feedback form today. It’s been my habit to complain, at every opportunity, about the trends page you have to engage with whenever you go to the Search tab. I feel a little bad for the designers and developers, because the beta is really all about how conversations on Twitter look and feel. Still, this feedback form was no different. Here’s what I wrote in the “Dislike” section:

I wish I could control the trends page.

It is the absolute worst part of my Twitter experience. It just feels… unhealthy. Like going through a grocery store magazine aisle. Sure, some of the headings are instructive or inspiring, but many are gross, irrelevant, or completely malignant gossip.

The experience is also invasive. Because trends are forced upon you when you intend on searching for something specific, and because they’re algorithmically-tunes to be as attention grabbing as possible, it’s easy to be distracted and forget why you even entered the search pane. I never explicitly consent to learning about celebrity gossip or US politics when I use Twitter. If I tap on some of those topics, it’s not because I want to. It’s because it’s malicious click bait. In turn, it’s corrupt to design an experience that drags the user through it repeatedly.

Sure, this content is viral. But shouldn’t we be inoculating against viruses, not encouraging them to spread?

A surprising headline, but the restriction is very specific:

the new export ban is extremely narrow. It applies only to software that uses neural networks (a key component in machine learning) to discover “points of interest” in geospatial imagery; things like houses or vehicles. The ruling, posted by the Bureau of Industry and Security, notes that the restriction only applies to software with a graphical user interface — a feature that makes programs easier for non- technical users to operate.

Still, this is probably a marker of change to come. It’s a little odd to think of software as something that can be “exported”, however. Surely this isn’t a ban on shipping discs across a border. Software is downloaded. So, is this a kind of firewall?

Bohn and his co-founders are confident that, if done right, a proper system for wireless power transmission could shift not just how we think about keeping devices charged and powered on at all times, but also the types of devices we end up putting in our homes and what those devices get used for.

I’d say. If this works, it’ll remove a technical limitation that is pretty built-in to our mental models of how our gadgets work.

Guru is envisioning a world where you can keep all manner of battery-powered gadgets, big and small, all over your home or in every corner of an office, store, or warehouse without having to worry about where they draw power from or how long it lasts on a charge.

Eliminating the “where will I plug it in?” assumption might unlock opportunities across all ways of living and working.

Segwayʼs newest self-balancing vehicle wonʼt require you to stand up. Dubbed the S- Pod, the new egg- shaped two-wheeler from Segway-Ninebot is meant to let people sit while they effortlessly cruise around campuses, theme parks, airports, and maybe even cities.

Hmm. At least with self-balancing, this won’t happen.

Today, we’re excited to formally launch the final version of OPSI’s AI primer: Hello, World: Artificial Intelligence and its Use in the Public Sector

Another interesting output from the OPSI. It seems usefully pragmatic:

The AI primer is broken up into four chapters that seek to achieve three key aims: (1) Background and technical explainer; (2) overview of the public sector landscape; (3) implications and guidance for governments.

The most audacious commitment from Microsoft is its push to take carbon out of the atmosphere. The company is putting its faith in nascent technology, and it’s injecting a significant investment into a still controversial climate solution. Proponents of carbon capture, like Friedmann, say that the technology is mature enough to accomplish Microsoft’s aims. It’s just way too expensive right now. Microsoft’s backing — and its $1 billion infusion of cash — could ultimately make the tech cheaper and more appealing to other companies looking for new ways to go green.

Fantastic news. Carbon capture is a key opportunity for decelerating climate change. Hopefully more companies follow suit.

“The grass is always greener on the other side.” The popular idiom discourages whoever’s listening from seeking out alternatives, suggesting that other options always look better from wherever we’re currently standing. But it has a funny problem: nobody ever explains why the grass is greener on the other side.

That’s because it isn’t. The truth is that your side is just yellower/trampled on/eaten… and that’s because you’re on it.

Moving to a different place will be fine at first. Then you’ll use it, too, and eventually it’ll look the same as where you started.

(In this metaphor, you’re a goat. 🐐)

In workflow design, in addition to the novelty of “shiny new object,” new and alternative tools are great simply because they don’t have the cruft you’ve built up in the old tool. That cruft might be noisy notes, a lifetime of guilt-inducing task management, or even just bad habits and behaviours. The problem isn’t the tool. It isn’t you, either. It’s you and the tool.

So, after switching, the problems seem to go away… only to re-emerge (possibly in a new form) later because the issues are generated by your usage, not by the tool.

The solution is to fall in love with the problem, not the (shiny, potential) solutions.

1. Determine what your issues actually are, and try to figure out why they’re happening.
2. Then, abstractly identify how you might be able to mitigate the problems.
   • Don’t say “I’ll use Bunch,” say “If I standardize certain work spaces on my computer, I can develop muscle memory for using those workspaces, reducing distraction and allowing me to spend less cognitive energy on finding everything I need to get engaged.”
3. Last, identify some tests or success conditions that will tell you whether the solution is actually working. This’ll help minimize irrational perspectives on how well the honeymoon stage is going.

Only after taking those three steps should you choose a tool. Find something that can implement the abstract principles you’ve articulated, and be sure to follow-through on the tests.

In doing this, you’re actually creating and implementing a rough design theory. You’re using design science to make your work as easy and engaging as it can be! High-five for that.

According to designer/strategist Roger Martin, a strategy is an imagined possibility with which we ask the question “What has to be true for this possibility to become real?”

In this episode IDEO U’s Creative Confidence podcast, Roger talks about how that approach helped unlock Bianca Andreescu’s success at the Grand Slam singles championship in 2019.

One of the fascinating things about this approach is that it acknowledges the need for system-wide changes. By asking “What has to be true?”, a strategist must consider all of the conditions of a system that should shift to make the imagined possibility a reality. Of course, most approaches to strategy do require some appreciation of the state of the strategic environment (e.g., the five forces model). None, however, emphasize the need to guarantee these systemic conditions quite as explicitly as asking “What must be true?”

And so the Swedish gender equality initiative team began to explore whet her snow clearing was sexist. Sure enough, they found the routine of clearing snow typically benefited men over women. In the winter, snow was cleared first on main roads leading into the city, benefiting commuters—who were mostly men. Foot- and cycle-paths were cleared last—not so good for pedestrians and cyclists, who were very often women traveling with children in pushchairs.

There was a cost to all this: 79% of pedestrian injuries occurred in winter, of which 69% were women. The estimated cost of these falls was SKr36m per winter, about USD$3.7m / £3m / €3.4m / Indian ₹279m. By clearing paths first, accidents decreased by half and saved the local government money.

Great action-based response to a stupid remark (“At least snow-clearing was something those ‘gender people’ can keep their noses out of,” someone had said, prompting this investigation).

# Why are we exceeding the Earth’s carrying capacity?

This is a quickly-sketched model created from a breakout group conversation during the MUN School of Graduate Studies’ “Earth’s Carrying Capacity” dialogue.

Download the model

This changed with the emergence of “Patient 31.”

Reuters’ coverage of the “Korean clusters” provided the world with a vivid glimpse of the volatility of COVID-19. One person showed poor judgement, and in turn caused cascading catastrophe in her communities.

Events like the COVID-19 pandemic are thankfully rare. Moments like these—when a lot happens all at once, and the experience is shared by a collective—shape future history like nothing else. We are learning a lot from this. Not only are epidemiologists now a famous profession, but we’re all learning exactly what it takes to provide good healthcare, what good governance looks like, how public health is community health, and more.

Patient 31 holds a simple lesson for systemics: the fragility of apparently solid social systems. South Korea seemed to do everything right. Yet, due to the volatile nature of this particular socio-health system, a single “free radical” caused immense damage.

Similar volatility is evident—but more subtle—in other social systems. Consider how memes spread. Our massive communities may seem immovable at times, but it’s clear that the wrong (or right) phenomena can spread rapidly and deeply.

Stay safe.

The Twttr prototype app gave me another feedback form today. It’s been my habit to complain, at every opportunity, about the trends page you have to engage with whenever you go to the Search tab. I feel a little bad for the designers and developers, because the beta is really all about how conversations on Twitter look and feel. Still, this feedback form was no different. Here’s what I wrote in the “Dislike” section:

I wish I could control the trends page.

It is the absolute worst part of my Twitter experience. It just feels… unhealthy. Like going through a grocery store magazine aisle. Sure, some of the headings are instructive or inspiring, but many are gross, irrelevant, or completely malignant gossip.

The experience is also invasive. Because trends are forced upon you when you intend on searching for something specific, and because they’re algorithmically-tunes to be as attention grabbing as possible, it’s easy to be distracted and forget why you even entered the search pane. I never explicitly consent to learning about celebrity gossip or US politics when I use Twitter. If I tap on some of those topics, it’s not because I want to. It’s because it’s malicious click bait. In turn, it’s corrupt to design an experience that drags the user through it repeatedly.

Sure, this content is viral. But shouldn’t we be inoculating against viruses, not encouraging them to spread?

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…

Carl Sagan, as quoted by @Andromeda321 in this interesting Reddit thread on the regretful trends of the 2010s.

The thread discusses the growth of anti-intellectualism and conspiracy theories. I’m reminded of this timeless Medium post about how hating Ross in Friends became a meme in and of itself, reinforcing the persecution of science in the ’90s. From David Hopkins:

I want to discuss a popular TV show my wife and I have been binge-watching on Netflix. It’s the story of a family man, a man of science, a genius who fell in with the wrong crowd. He slowly descends into madness and desperation, led by his own egotism. With one mishap after another, he becomes a monster. I’m talking, of course, about Friends and its tragic hero, Ross Geller.

[…]

If you remember the 1990s and early 2000s, and you lived near a television set, then you remember Friends. Friends was the Thursday night primetime, “must-see-TV” event that featured the most likable ensemble ever assembled by a casting agent: all young, all middle class, all white, all straight, all attractive (but approachable), all morally and politically bland, and all equipped with easily digestible personas. Joey is the goofball. Chandler is the sarcastic one. Monica is obsessive-compulsive. Phoebe is the hippie. Rachel, hell, I don’t know, Rachel likes to shop. Then there was Ross. Ross was the intellectual and the romantic.

Eventually, the Friends audience — roughly 52.5 million people — turned on Ross. But the characters of the show were pitted against him from the beginning (consider episode 1, when Joey says of Ross: “This guy says hello, I wanna kill myself.”) In fact, any time Ross would say anything — about his interests, his studies, his ideas — whenever he was mid-sentence, one of his “friends” was sure to groan and say how boring Ross was, how stupid it is to be smart, and that nobody cares. Cue the laughter of the live studio audience. This gag went on, pretty much every episode, for 10 seasons. Can you blame Ross for going crazy?

People in the Reddit thread point out that these seemingly recent trends have been taking root for a long time. While this is true, it’s also true that (just like seemingly everything else) these phenomena have been moving much faster and growing much larger in recent years. Which leads to a curious tangent: how do accelerated scales of change play on our biases? Does the interaction between these biases and our accelerated experiences change our perception of the world?

Chinaʼs 2017 decision to turn away Americaʼs trash has left the recycling industry reeling as it figures out what to do with all the packaging online shoppers leave behind.

Recycling is a funny thing. For me, it’s almost a guilt-free act. “Sure, I’m using all of these boxes, but they’re recycled, so who cares?” But increasingly recycling and the trash bin seem like equivalent destinations. It’s even imaginable that recycling is worse, because recycled objects might travel farther before being dumped into a landfill anyway.

“Itʼs very difficult for American material recovery facilities to satisfy that standard because Americans put plastic bags and chewing gum and bowling balls and dirty diapers and everything else you can imagine into the recycling containers,” Biderman says. The strict rules also apply to plastic and other recyclables, but cardboard and mixed paper have seen the sharpest drops in prices.

I’m tempted to blame people: “It’s too bad we can’t be more considerate. Have you ever looked in the recycling bins in public receptacles?” Et cetera. But really, we should be designing systems that make this easy—or incentivize good behaviours somehow. Either way, the current situation is insufficient:

There has also been a noticeable shift in the source of the cardboard, says Coupland: itʼs coming from peoplesʼ homes instead of brick-and-mortar businesses. Thatʼs bad news, since retailers are less likely to generate cardboard thatʼs too filthy to be recycled. Consumersʼ cardboard boxes are often mixed with other, dirty recyclables like ketchup bottles or soda cans that spill their contents over the cardboard. On average, about 25 to 30 percent of the materials picked up by a recycling truck are too contaminated to go anywhere but a landfill or incinerator, Coupland says.

Anyone, anywhere can propose an idea. YouTube creators will help spread the word, and the best proposals could be put into motion with the help of businesses, policymakers, and and celebrities supporting the initiative.

The initiative will culminate in a summit in Bergen, Norway next October to share the solutions that came out of the effort. Countdown will work with a panel of experts and scientists to vet proposals, and the strongest will be turned into TED talks. The talks will be filmed at the summit in Norway, in front of “a hand-picked audience capable of turning those ideas into action,” according to a press release.

An interesting partnership, and yet another example of “crowdsolving”: trying to find solutions to wicked problems via the mobilizing power of the Internet.

I certainly expect to see some concepts from Drawdown on stage.

# Systems Practice, Abridged

For serious system mapping work, spending [significant] time studying, thinking about, and mapping your system helps ensure you are addressing root causes rather than instituting quick fixes. In the long term, the time and resources you invest in Systems Practice will pay dividends.

But what if youʼre not quite sold on the Systems Practice methodology yet? What if you havenʼt encountered systems thinking before and just want to dip your toes in? Or what if youʼre an expert or an educator with only a few hours to introduce Systems Practice to a fresh new group of systems thinkers?

I have been in the latter situation, and it’s a challenge. In my experience, people who are wholly new to systems thinking can take a lot of time to acclimate to the mindset. But! If, as a teacher, you can’t illustrate the benefits quickly, it’s easy to disengage.

So, I’m glad this exists. This is a wonderful new resource from Kumu’s Alex Vipond that helps walk you through systems and Kumu’s tools at the same time.

“The grass is always greener on the other side.” The popular idiom discourages whoever’s listening from seeking out alternatives, suggesting that other options always look better from wherever we’re currently standing. But it has a funny problem: nobody ever explains why the grass is greener on the other side.

That’s because it isn’t. The truth is that your side is just yellower/trampled on/eaten… and that’s because you’re on it.

Moving to a different place will be fine at first. Then you’ll use it, too, and eventually it’ll look the same as where you started.

(In this metaphor, you’re a goat. 🐐)

In workflow design, in addition to the novelty of “shiny new object,” new and alternative tools are great simply because they don’t have the cruft you’ve built up in the old tool. That cruft might be noisy notes, a lifetime of guilt-inducing task management, or even just bad habits and behaviours. The problem isn’t the tool. It isn’t you, either. It’s you and the tool.

So, after switching, the problems seem to go away… only to re-emerge (possibly in a new form) later because the issues are generated by your usage, not by the tool.

The solution is to fall in love with the problem, not the (shiny, potential) solutions.

1. Determine what your issues actually are, and try to figure out why they’re happening.
2. Then, abstractly identify how you might be able to mitigate the problems.
   • Don’t say “I’ll use Bunch,” say “If I standardize certain work spaces on my computer, I can develop muscle memory for using those workspaces, reducing distraction and allowing me to spend less cognitive energy on finding everything I need to get engaged.”
3. Last, identify some tests or success conditions that will tell you whether the solution is actually working. This’ll help minimize irrational perspectives on how well the honeymoon stage is going.

Only after taking those three steps should you choose a tool. Find something that can implement the abstract principles you’ve articulated, and be sure to follow-through on the tests.

In doing this, you’re actually creating and implementing a rough design theory. You’re using design science to make your work as easy and engaging as it can be! High-five for that.

# Beautiful is Good and Good is Reputable: Multiple-Attribute Charity Website Evaluation and Initial Perceptions of Reputation Under the Halo Effect

The halo effect is essentially how positive—but irrelevant—traits influence our perception of what the thing with the halo actually says or does. These authors explored how charities manifest the halo effect on their websites, and find evidence for four varieties of halo effect.

this study employs charity websites as a multi-attribute donation channel consisting of three attributes of information content quality (mission information, financial information, and donation information) and four attributes of system quality (navigability, download speed, visual aesthetics, and security). Based on the proposed framework, this study proposes four types of halos that are relevant to charity website evaluation —collective halo (attribute-to-attribute), aesthetics halo (attribute-to- dimension), reciprocal-quality halo (dimension-to-dimension), and quality halo (dimension-to-dimension)

# “Level Up”: Leveraging Skill and Engagement to Maximize Player Gameplay

We find that high-, medium-, and low-engagement-state gamers respond differently to motivations, such as feelings of effectance and need for challenge. In the second stage, we use the results from the first stage to develop a matching algorithm that learns (infers) the gamer’s current engagement state “on the fly” and exploits that learning to match the gamer to a round to maximize game-play. Our algorithm increases gamer game-play volume and frequency by 4%–8% conservatively, leading to economically significant revenue gains for the company.

As ever with this kind of mechanism, are we sure we want this to exist..? The potential is no doubt powerful. Imagine interactive TV shows that modulate what they’re presenting based on readings of the viewer… Hrm.

My article “Leverage for Systemic Change” was recently published in the inaugural edition of Contexts, from the Systemic Design Association.

The article ultimately proposes a few key directions for a research agenda on leverage in systemic design (see the table below).

Table 1. A research agenda for leverage theory in systemic design

Research area	Research questions	Existing research	Possible studies	Possible contributions
Dimensions of leverage	- Is Meadows’s (1997) typology complete? - What other features of the “physics” of systemic change might matter?	- System characteristics (Abson et al., 2017) - Conditions for systemic change Kania, Kramer, & Senge, 2018) - Other types of phenomena (e.g., bottlenecks, signals; Murphy & Jones, 2020) - Relative leverage: chaining leverage points (Fischer & Riechers, 2019) - Relative leverage: the context of the changemaker (Klein & Wolf, 1998) - Recursive leverage	- A systematic literature review (Okoli & Schabram, 2010) of leverage points, especially using forward citations (Haddaway et al., 2022) from (Meadows, 1997)	- Understanding the nature of leverage and other mechanisms of change potential in systemic change
Methods for leverage	- What methodologies are best to identify and select leverage points? - What kinds of evidence will help validate leverage? - How might systemic designers design theories of change (Gregor & Jones, 2007) for leverage theories? - How might systemic designers limit indeterminism (Lukyanenko & Parsons, 2020) in leverage theories?	- Meadows’s (1997) typology’s order of effectiveness - Leverage analysis [Murphy & Jones, 2020] - Assessing potential for change (Birney, 2021)	- Surveying practitioners in systemic design on how they identify, assess, and address leverage points to identify common habits and best practices	- How to identify phenomena useful for leverage - How to evaluate and compare possible leverage points in the analysis phase - How to evaluate the effectiveness of chosen leverage points with evidence gathered from implementations
Strategy with leverage	- How is leverage best used in developing strategic plans for systemic change? - How are leverage-based strategies best presented and communicated? - How are leverage-based strategies best evaluated and measured?	- Systemic strategy (Murphy & Jones, 2021) - The epistemic benefits of a leverage points perspective (Fischer & Riechers, 2019) - Identifying conditions for systemic change (Kania et al., 2018) - Relative leverage: chaining leverage points (Fischer & Riechers, 2019) - Relative leverage: the context of the changemaker (Klein & Wolf, 1998)	- “Systemic change labs” tracing and comparing the impact of interventions using different kinds of leverage	- How to use leverage to develop better strategies for systemic change - How to account for relative context in the design of high-leverage strategies
Execution on leverage	- What are the best ways to target different kinds of leverage for systemic change? (E.g., how might we help actors in a system track all of the relevant paradigms?)	- Fruitful friction as a tactic for transcending paradigms (Buckenmayer et al., 2021) - Systemic change happens via multiple dimensions of change (Mulder et al., 2022) - Design Journeys offers several chapters on taking action after identifying leverage points (Jones & Ael, 2022)	- “Systemic change labs” tracing and comparing the impact of interventions using different kinds of leverage	- How to design innovations for each type of leverage

Some other key takeaways:

• The concept of “leverage points” dominates modern discussions of leverage, but as Meadows (1997) herself proposed, that is just one paradigm we can use to view the best ways to produce systemic change.
• There are good and bad kinds of leverage points! See figure 1.
• A few promising insights about leverage have been proposed recently, such as the notion of “chains” of leverage points (Fischer & Riechers, 2019) and the idea of assessing potential for change (Birney, 2021).

This Templater script gives the current Obsidian note a proper YAML title, date, and lastmod field. This facilitates integration with Quartz/Hugo.

It requires MetaEdit (as well as Templater, obviously).

Update file titles and dates with this Templater script

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<%* let file = tp.file.find_tfile(tp.file.title) const {update} = app.plugins.plugins["metaedit"].api const {getPropertyValue} = app.plugins.plugins["metaedit"].api const {position, ...rest} = tp.frontmatter; let content = tp.file.content; let newFileContent = content.split("\n"); let isYamlEmpty = Object.keys(tp.frontmatter).length === 0 && !content.match(/^-{3}\s*\n*\r*-{3}/); /* reset selection to the top of the document to make sure the action doesn't clear any text */ let editor = this.app.workspace.activeLeaf.view.editor; if (editor.getSelection === "") { // no text is selected } else { editor.setCursor(editor.getCursor()); } async function updateCurrentFile(someContent, someFile) { someContent = someContent.join("\n"); await app.vault.modify(someFile, someContent); } let propNameForLastModified = "lastmod"; let fileLastModifiedDate = "\"" + tp.file.last_modified_date("YYYY-MM-DD\THH:mm:ss") +"\""; if (isYamlEmpty) { // No YAML yet newFileContent.unshift("---"); newFileContent.unshift(`${propNameForLastModified}: ${fileLastModifiedDate}`); newFileContent.unshift("---"); await updateCurrentFile(newFileContent, file); } else if (rest.lastmod === undefined) { // YAML exists but no date field newFileContent.splice(1,0, `${propNameForLastModified}: ${fileLastModifiedDate}`); await updateCurrentFile(newFileContent, file); } else { // YAML exists and a date property exists await update(propNameForLastModified, fileLastModifiedDate, file); } /* Now we can assume YAML exists, so let's add the rest of the metadata */ let propNameForDate = "date"; let fileCreatedDate = "\"" + tp.file.creation_date("YYYY-MM-DD\THH:mm:ss") + "\""; if (rest.date === undefined) { // YAML exists but no date field newFileContent.splice(1,0, `${propNameForDate}: ${fileCreatedDate}`); await updateCurrentFile(newFileContent, file); } else { // YAML exists and a date property exists await update(propNameForDate, fileCreatedDate, file); } let propNameForTitle = "title"; let fileTitle = "\"" + tp.file.title + "\""; if (rest.title === undefined) { // YAML exists but no title property exists newFileContent.splice(1,0, `${propNameForTitle}: ${fileTitle}`); await updateCurrentFile(newFileContent, file); } else { // YAML exists and a title property exists await update(propNameForTitle, fileTitle, file); } new Notice (tp.file.title + "'s title is now " + fileTitle + ". Last modified date metadata updated to " + fileLastModifiedDate + ".", 2000); _%>

Want a quick, hands-free, one-step method to capture reminders and tasks into Obsidian? Take advantage of Reminders, Shortcuts, and Shortcuts’s automations feature.

This Shortcut will extract all reminders currently incomplete in a given list and append them to your daily note.

Here’s a screenshot of the full Shortcut

Download it and set it up (i.e., answer all of the configuration questions). Then, create Shortcuts automations (via the Automations tab in Shortcuts) that run on whatever triggers you want (e.g., “Whenever the Obsidian app is opened” and “9am”). Add a “Run Shortcut” action to that automation, then select the shortcut you’ve just configured.

🎉! Whenever the shortcut is triggered, the reminders in the designated list will be added to your daily note.

You can now say e.g., “Hey Siri, add ‘Pick up milk’ to my Obsidian list,” and that item will (eventually) be added to your daily note.