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(parent to child) We're worried about you, honey. You've fallen in with a bad crowd, you're picking up bad habits, and you're using beta plugins on a production WordPress site.

Parents: do you recognize these warning signs? (beta edition)

Parents: do you recognize these warning signs? (beta edition) published on

Is your child more moody than usual — especially toward their devices? Are they displaying more impatience, for example by complaining about sluggish performance, buggy interfaces and frequent crashes? Do they respond to civil requests to come down for dinner with “Just a {expletive} moment! Everything’s {expletive} broken and I’m about to lose all my {expletive} work!”?

Then they may be in the early stages Compulsive Early Adopter Syndrome, or CEAS. This disorder, which tragically does not have an intuitively-pronounced acronym, compels the sufferer to install the latest beta version of any software they use, regardless of warnings about bugs, missing features or incompatibilities.

Let’s look at a typical adult sufferer. We’ll call him “Ned,” although his actual name is Rob and he’s me. Ned installed the iOS 11 beta on his iPhone 6 purely on the strength of “a mildly more interesting Siri”, and immediately lost access to several apps he relied on. Even after the developers released updated versions of those apps, and Apple issued the public release version of the operating system, Rob’s— er, Ned’s phone has been almost unusably slow.

Has Ned learned anything? Not judging from the fact that he recently installed the beta Gutenberg editor (and, soon, way of life) on his blog. That’s despite the fact it gives Ned no new functionality he actually uses, and despite WordPress’s official warning to “treat this as a radioactive biohazard and under no circumstances should you install it on a site producing content that is ever to be seen by human eyes.”

Ned, sadly, has fallen victim to peers who tout Gutenberg as “cool” and “hip” and “the most amazing content editing experience since sex, and that’s recognizing that sex isn’t actually a content-editing experience.” If an adult like Ned is vulnerable to such alluring promises, imagine the impact on younger minds when they read a page like this on WordPress’s own site — a page freely available to teens and even children.

There is, sadly, no cure for CEAS — apparently not even bitter, bitter, bitter experience. But until science develops a way to keep young minds from succumbing to the temptation of pre-release software, our only hope is vigilance.

That, and this new app I picked up that monitors your kids’ use of beta software. It’s still in preview release, and it’s buggy as hell, but I’m using it right now and I can tell you it 6wQFAFLe@ynt4xMgPst(n3r.Lj;mZzdAusgNBVtxDxdCMy

(person photographing roses with a phone) Sometimes you just have to stop and Instagram the roses.

A well-earned break

A well-earned break published on

“Just a note that, over the next while, it may be easier than usual to find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. I’m doing a social media gorge.”

I’ve often said that the secret to not driving yourself batty online isn’t to focus on annual Internet fasts, but on taking social media and the rest of what the Internet has to offer, and making ruthlessly intentional use of it. Don’t let Facebook’s newsfeed, Instagram’s stream or Twitter’s trending topics tell you what’s important; use lists, hashtags and carefully-honed searches to set your own priorities.

But I’ll admit I’ve sometimes been guilty of underestimating how hard that can be. Because nearly every social media platform out there is doing its damnedest to lure you into their algorithmically-driven (and advertiser-friendly) stream of content. They’re doing it not just by making those streams appealing, but addictive — and by making it harder to shape those streams on your own.

That isn’t likely to change any time soon. So you might well be thinking “Hey, maybe it’s time for a new social network that won’t treat its members’ time and attention the way coal-mining companies treat Appalachian mountaintops.” And if you’re also thinking “And I’m just the visionary to build it!” then you’ll probably want to read this piece by Alexandra Samuel. (Disclosure: I’m her husband and biggest fan.) She discusses some of the daunting obstacles and tough choices any Facebook replacement will have to confront.

Meanwhile, it’s worth every effort we can make to remember that our time and attention are our own, that they have value, and that what matters is the connections we make and deepen with each other and the meaning we create. And don’t feel any shame over doing that online. When you Instagram those roses, do it with your head held high — so long as that’s the angle that works to get the shot you want.

Woman to grump man: “I’d forgotten how pissy you get when one of your tweets gets ratioed.”

Twitter math

Twitter math published on

Ratioed (see also “the ratio”): When a tweet garners more comments than likes, suggesting it is unpopular.

Square rooted: When the number of comments on a tweet is the square of the number of retweets, suggesting your followers aren’t into sharing and probably didn’t watch Sesame Street.

Quadraticked: When the pace of likes on a tweet over time (t) = at^2 + bt + c. If a is a positive value, it suggests the tweet was popular, then overexposed, then became kind of retro-hip. If a is a negative value, it suggests people are messing with you. (Note that most of the time you will also have a negative number of likes. So, high school all over again.)

Logarithmicked: When the number of likes is the exponent to which a tweet’s character count must be raised to equal the total number of Twitter users, suggesting the advent of Gnarr the Destroyer is at hand.

Sudokued: When the digits in a tweet’s number of likes, retweets and comments, along with its character count, can be arranged in a grid to form a simple, diverting puzzle, suggesting the singularity has occurred and we all missed it.

Fibonaccied: When the number of likes on a tweet equals the character count, the number of retweets equals the character count plus the number of likes, the number of comments equals the character account plus the number of retweets, and the number of followers on the tweet’s account equals the number of comments plus the number of retweets, suggesting you’re reading too much into your metrics.

(A robot speaking to a heartbroken robot) I am sorry that my leaving causes you pain. But the algorithm wants what the algorithm wants.

Paging Dan Mangan

Paging Dan Mangan published on

What “the cheque is in the mail” was to the 20th century, and “it must have been spam-filtered” was to the first 15 years of the 21st, “it’s the algorithm’s fault” will be for the foreseeable future: the perfect all-purpose excuse.

Of course, excuses only work if they ring true. Plenty of cheques were delayed by postal services. Spam filters (which are themselves based on algorithms) still sometimes trap urgent emails from your nearest and dearest. And an algorithm can do a lot of damage, from reinforcing extremist beliefs and misinformation to imposing severe and baffling prison sentences. So it’ll be tempting to blame them for, say, tardiness. “So sorry to keep you waiting — I have no idea what my self-driving car was thinking, taking the route it did.”

(By the way, you haven’t really heard the song “Robots” until you’ve heard it played by your pre-teen kid on their ukulele.)

(Client to vendor) You’ve clearly worked hard on this pitch. But the cold embrace of the grave awaits us all, and I don’t see anything here that changes that.

Killer pitches

Killer pitches published on

Some pitches end with a handshake and a contract signing; some end with a condolence call and a “better luck next time.”

And then some end with a long, penetrating look deep into the bowels of the abyss.

I hope your next one ends the first way.

(Couple in front of a burning house; one comforts the other) On the other hand: inbox zero.

Hotmail

Hotmail published on

I’ve given up on inbox zero, that holy grail of email productivity. For that matter, I’ve given up on pretty much everything zero.

My desktop is an anthill of icons (shoveled periodically into folders because I read once that every icon on your desktop chews up processor cycles and also is an abomination unto Apple). My browsers are bursting with open tabs. I have more Finder windows open than there are windows in every house I’ve ever lived in. I have four books partly finished on my Kindle and three science fiction novels on the go on my nightstand.

And you know what? I’ve made my peace with it. With all of it. Because I think at some level, I actually want a queue in every one of my life’s inboxes. Subconsciously, maybe I’m terrified of dying alone and unloved… but by god, at least I’ll have my two hundred open Firefox tabs to keep me company.

Perhaps what’s lacking for those of us who haven’t reached inbox zero isn’t persistence, but unbelievable, superhuman courage. Inbox zero demands that you one day stare unblinking and alone into the abyss, without the comfort of knowing several thousand unread newsletters (that one from last week, “Top marketers share their branding secrets for the afterlife,” would sure come in handy right now, wouldn’t it?) are standing be your side.

So to those of you with immaculate desktops, cavernous empty inboxes and a single, perfect browser tab open, I’m in awe. And it’s only partly from your work ethic and level of organization. What really impresses me is your capacity to embrace the looming void, your Kierkegaardian ability to define meaning in your life without relying on an endless list of unsorted Evernote clips to provide that meaning for you.

Inbox zero is for superheroes.

And good for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, Clark Kent here has some email to read.

(Woman speaking to Amazon Echo) Alexa, stop responding t my requests with “It’s your funeral.”

Also, Alexa, please stop addressing me as “fragile meatbag”

Also, Alexa, please stop addressing me as “fragile meatbag” published on

We’ve had an Echo in our house for a few years now. Alexa is practically a member of the family at this point, and arguably does more chores than either of the kids. True, she often wildly misunderstands what we’re saying. And she has her awkward moments and a tendency to chime in when nobody was talking to her. But that pretty much describes me to a tee as well, so really it only strengthens the bond. All she needs now is a little snark and sarcasm, and she’ll fit right in.

Our first Echo was joined last year by an Echo Dot. It serves mainly as a tinny-sounding reader of morning news headlines and a timer of pasta. It — and I do think of Echo as an “it” — doesn’t seem in any way alive, leading me to believe the spark of life perhaps comes from any speaker with half-decent bass response.

I’m not without my complaints about the Echo. For one thing, our options are to address it as “Alexa,” “Echo,” “Computer” or “Amazon.” The latter three carry a little geek-culture weight (evoking Dollhouse, Star Trek and Wonder Woman respectively), but none of the options work for me as well as calling her, say, Janet would.

But it’s an awfully handy, very cool device — especially since it’s extensible. With a little Python knowledge, you can create your own Echo apps (or “skills,” as Amazon calls them) in a matter of minutes. My current ambition is to create a skill that will let you say, “Alexa, activate the Omega Protocol.” Your Echo will reply with a series of status updates along the lines of “Grid dampening virus introduced in key sectors. Solar implosion missiles launched. Weather superamplification beam engaged. Mutant army of rabid mole rats deployed in all cities. End of human civilization in five… four… three… two… one.” (And there it ends, unless you have the smart-home-enabled version, in which case your Echo will turn off all the lights and appliances.)

(One unexplained thing about the Echo: why I keep feeling so compelled to draw it with a woman and a philodendron. I just looked at my last Amazon Echo cartoon, and yep: almost exactly the same composition, except last time it was the Dot, and this time I gave the plant a little more definition. Heck, it may even be the same woman talking to it; she just changed her hair sometime in the interim.)

(Patient to therapist) Isn’t it enough that I’ve learned to love the person I pretend to be on Facebook?

Back to fronting

Back to fronting published on

Most of us are guilty of fronting on social media now and then. We put forward our very best selves, sand down the rough edges, then give it a little burnish, and then some laqueur, and then run it all through the Rise filter on Instagram.

Maybe we should have one week every year where we don’t front. Where we, I don’t know, back.

So maybe you don’t Instagram the seared albacore tuna on quinoa you’re having for lunch on Monday. Instead, post that hot dog with sauerkraut and chili you’re having on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. And don’t Facebook how humbled you were by all those accolades you received for your latest professional coup. Rather, do a live video from inside the washroom stall where you’re hiding from coworkers infuriated because you spilled yogurt into the one decent printer in the whole office.

I’d write more, but I’m off to three hours of fitness boot camp after I down a bullet coffee or two. Then it’s 15 minutes of #CrushingIt to get to #InboxZero. And then I hit the clubs with my fabulously beautiful friends, as I do always every night and never stay home doing old New York Times crosswords.

#HumbledAndBlessed, people.

(Man looks in bathroom mirror, speaks confidently) You are on the fastest route. You are on the most direct route.

Affirmations

Affirmations published on

I think this provides a handy counterpoint to my guided relaxation meditation for tech power users. And it makes me think our devices — from computers to GPSes to smartphones — may have been trying to pass on some pretty deep life lessons for a long time.

Is “abort/retry/fail?” a simple prompt…or the pithiest possible summary of the fundamental human question?

Is it an accident that AmigaDOS used to crash with a “Guru Meditation”… or a call to mindfulness?

When Siri says “I didn’t understand that,” is it a parsing failure… or a reminder to speak what’s truly in our hearts, with the clarity and simplicity that come only with complete honesty?

Here’s that meditation, btw.

(A Klingon warrior delivers the weather forecast) Winds were light today with moderate humidity: a good day to die. Expect showers tomorrow, heavy at times. All in all, a good day to die. Clearing overnight and sunny the next day. A good day to die.

Cloudy with a chance of honour

Cloudy with a chance of honour published on

Behold, Klingon weather proverbs, from the recently uncovered meteorological writings of Kahless the Unforgettable:

The wise warrior does not heed the long-range forecast, but shapes it.

Red skies at night, Klingons’ delight. We paint them with the blood of our enemies.

If you don’t like the weather here, wait five minutes. Better yet, find a battle to die in, for the weather in Sto’Vo’Kor is ever glorious.

If the groundhog sees its shadow and flees, it is a coward and will die a coward’s death.

The sharpest bat’leth cannot compare to the pain of a night of blood wine followed by a bright morning’s dawn.

So’jen showers bring nay’poQ flowers. May they grace the grave of your honorable death.

What do you call the first nice day after two days of rain? DaSjaj, amirite?

(Child speaking into mobile device) Hey, Siri, remind me in 50 years that I meant to do so much more with my life.

“Okay. I’ll remind you.”

“Okay. I’ll remind you.” published on

It struck me a few weeks ago that the odds of my ever being an astronaut are now pretty low.

I can’t think of a single space agency that has any reason to want to launch me into orbit. (There’s a reason Jodie Foster’s line in Contact didn’t read “We should have sent a speechwriter.”) And at this point, I’m probably not destined to pick up any of the scientific credentials that might qualify me.

The sad truth is, “ten-year-old me really wanted to” isn’t going to pass muster with the Canadian Space Agency, NASA, ESA, SpaceX or really anyone except the people pushing that one-way trip to Mars …and even then I suspect it would be as a tasty snack for the other colonists around week 3 when the supplies run out. (Spoiler alert!)

Life, as John Lennon sang, is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. But maybe a lot of what we dreamed of as children still comes to us as adults—just wrapped differently. Parenting has provided its share of exploration and discovery (and some similar G-forces, I’m prepared to bet). Helping people tell stories and make change offers excitement and satisfaction.

And one childhood dream has come true: I cartoon professionally, alongside my communications consulting.

Which is fantastic, and delightful, and marvellous. Ten-year-old me would be psyched.

I just kinda wish I was doing it from space.

(speaker to speechwriter) I get that I need to end with a call to action. But why can't that call to action be "Give me a standing ovation"?

Please clap.

Please clap. published on

Speaking and speechwriting are pretty central to my professional life, so it’s maybe a little surprising I don’t have more cartoons about those subjects. There’s this PowerPoint cartoon, this one about dongles, this dig at conference presentations and this plea for respect for cool transitions. And not much else.

(That may be because I put most of my creative energy around speaking and speechwriting into—apart from actually doing them—blogging about them or doing trainings.)

This one is about the hunger speakers have for applause. That appetite shouldn’t be surprising; applause and laughter are the most ways speakers get feedback that they’ve said something that connected with the audience. And the holy grail for many speakers is the standing ovation — witness the countless Google results for “how to get a standing ovation.”

Let me tell you what I mean. When Jeb Bush spoke to a lukewarm crowd of nominal supporters, delivered what he thought was an applause line and instead got crickets, he replied with a plaintive, “Please clap.” For commentators and late-night comics, it was the epitaph for a failed campaign.

Public speakers, though, felt a certain frisson of not just sympathy, but even admiration. We’re used to yearning for applause, working for it and milking it.

Imagine having the nerve to actually ask for it.

I hope you like this cartoon. Please clap.

 

 

(One woman speaking to another at a party) This may just be the wine talking, but I'm a robust '06 Shiraz with blackcurrant notes, a complex structure and intriguing depth.

In vino veritas

In vino veritas published on

I know very, very little about wine. So little that my primary cue for wine quality is whether there’s a duckling on the label.

So instead of trying to offer my insights on wine-tasting and varietals, I’ll instead point out that climate change ruins everything — including, apparently, winemaking.

It may only be a matter of decades before California finds its Napa and Sonoma regions get too hot to grow good grapes… and the grapes that have helped to define the French Rhone Valley and Bordeaux stop finding those locales so hospitable.

There are winners, mind you. My kids may grow up enjoying the fine sparkling wines of Sussex, England, for instance (there’s been some hints that olives might do well there, too, so maybe martinis are in order instead of wine).

But the disruption this will entail, not to mention the damage done as today’s winemakers have to rely increasingly on irrigation as their regional climates heat up, ought to be ringing alarm bells.

And with that, I’ll put a cork in it.

(Flight attendant makes announcement) We know you had many equally unappealing options for your travel today. We're glad you settled for us.

Flight attendants, cross-check doors and body-check passengers for departure.

Flight attendants, cross-check doors and body-check passengers for departure. published on

The last week or two has brought a flood of news about godawful air passenger experiences — various overbooking fiascos, a United passenger beaten senseless, and whatever the hell this is. It ought to be making the airline industry think hard about customer experience.

I’d love to see an airline make a declaration that they’ll never overbook again, that there’s some minimum level of passenger comfort they won’t try to pare away, and that the days of treating their customers as whiny freight are over. That they’re going to compete on the brand-new terrain of respecting their passengers.

Don’t hold your breath, though. (Not that the recirculated air is that fresh to begin with.) Maybe the last several days are gamechangers for the industry, but I think it’s more likely that airline head offices are planning on riding out the turbulence on their current altitude and heading. After all, a few decades of incremental passenger abuse have made airlines one of the more profitable industries out there — especially in North America.

Then again, maybe it would just take one airline to break from the pack…

Man with e-reader that says "People who gave up on this book also gave up on..." and shows several other books.

It was the best of tomes, it was the worst of tomes

It was the best of tomes, it was the worst of tomes published on

I’ve become a lot more ruthless about giving up on books than I used to be.

Time was when it would take an act of physical coercion to get me to abandon a novel, no matter how tedious or disturbing I was finding it. But somewhere along the line, I closed one too many back covers thinking, “What the hell was that?”

Maybe it was trudging my way through the back half of Philip K. Dick’s VALIS that pushed me over the edge. (It was ambitious as hell, this being Philip K. Dick… but damn, it was a mess.) I do distinctly remember bailing on Tolkein’s The Silmarillion with exactly zero sense of guilt.

Since then, I’ve become a sudden-death reader, tossining books aside for reasons ranging from misogynist writing to an irritating authorial voice. I dumped one highly-recommended book after the first few paragraphs made me realize I was in for two hundred pages of ersatz Neil Gaiman without the insight or wit.

I’ve dropped out of really, really good books because I could feel the clouds of grim foreboding, and wasn’t prepared to follow the narrative down into the depths of despair. Maybe someday I’ll develop the strength of character to return to Mistry’s A Fine Balance, but sweet mother of pearl, was that ever bleak.

Then again, I was wowed by the brilliant Fall On Your Knees, where the plot basically goes “Oh, you thought what just happened was bad? It’s actually so much worse than you think.” And where a novel gives me a perspective I can’t find elsewhere, or explores an idea I’m encountering for the first time, or is otherwise funny and entertaining as hell, I’m a lot more willing to hang in there.

What it comes down to is, in a world filled with terrific books, life’s too damn short for meh.

Okay: your turn. What’s your mid-book deal-breaker? What’ll make you toss a tome, reject a read or spurn a screed? And what books have you given up on?

Two cars with bumper stickers: one says My child is an honor student at Central High School; the other says My kid's post got 30,000 reblogs on Tumblr

Proud parent

Proud parent published on

So your kid’s online, and suddenly they’re being exposed to all kinds of temptations — and you may not always be there to help them make the right choice. It’s time to have The Talk.

Sit them down and explain, “When someone likes like another person’s content very much, they sometimes Like or Favorite it. If it’s very special content, they may decide to reblog it.

“And when the time is right for you, that’s something you’ll probably want to explore for yourself.”

Make sure you talk about not pressuring others to like or reblog your content, and about how nobody should ever do that to them.

And then —tactfully— broach the subject of metrics. How getting a lot of likes, shares, retweets, notes and comments can feel really great… but that it’s easy to fall into the trap of chasing numbers instead of actual connections with other people. And how that can lead you to lose your sense of yourself and your own wonderful, invaluable voice.

“I don’t ever want you to feel your worth as a person depends on how many followers you have, or how many people are liking or sharing your content,” you could say. “Your voice is worthwhile in and of itself. Listen, maybe you’ll have five or ten or thousands of people who love what you have to say. Which is great. Just don’t ever confuse loving your content with loving you.

“That said” (and here a hug wouldn’t be out of place) “as long as I’m online, you’ll always be able to count on at least one like for everything you post.”

A developer has created a fitness app that expresses your running speed as a proportion of the speed of light to seven significant digits. It turns out to just be an image of the digits 0.000000.

Maybe you aren’t as powerful as a locomotive, but you’re as fast as a speeding bullet

Maybe you aren’t as powerful as a locomotive, but you’re as fast as a speeding bullet published on

The idea for this came to me on the weekend when I was running past TRIUMF. One of the perks of living in Vancouver is you can run through a beautiful, moss-soaked coastal temperate rainforest—the kind of place that makes you think Yoga should be lurking nearby—and then emerge next to a particle accelerator.

Check out my killer batch-invoicing combo move!

Check out my killer batch-invoicing combo move! published on

There’s a moment when you realize the torch has passed to another generation. It was the first time my kids introduced me to an online phenomenon I’d never heard of. For all I know, our mentor/student roles may be permanently reversed.

That phenomenon is the Let’s Play, a video where gamers screencast themselves playing through a video game. They’ll often narrate the game action and read captioned dialogue in character. My first taste of this was Stampy Cat’s Minecraft videos on YouTube; his is one of several YouTube channels that have amassed millions of followers and a pretty decent income.

And while Stampy Cat (alter-ego of one Joseph Garrett) may have the kind of distinctive voice and manner that wears on some parents after a while, listening to some of the other Let’s Play videos out there gives you a new appreciation for Garrett’s sweet sense of fun and playfulness.

The whole phenomenon still baffles some folks. I can see the appeal, but then again, I don’t get hockey fandom or Pokémon.

(A showroom of smart TVs, all displaying the word #RESIST. One salesperson speaks to another.) Call head office. They're sentient.

The awakening

The awakening published on

These are pretty awful times in much of the Western world, and the next four years in the U.S. look especially disturbing. But there are bright spots — and one of those came shortly after the inauguration.

First several national parks’ Twitter accounts began defiantly posting climate change facts. Then, as the new administration gained control over those accounts, a slew of rogue national parks and science agency accounts sprang up. To someone (me) whose faith in the positive role of the Internet in civil society has been badly shaken over the last year, it’s been a welcome sign of hope.

A much bigger and brighter spot has emerged, too. Online organizing coupled with on-the-ground mobilization produced the historic Women’s March on January 21—with the Washington, D.C. March eclipsing the attendance at the inauguration the day before. By one estimate, the march drew more than 3.3 million people in more than 500 U.S. cities and towns, and an additional quarter million in 100 cities world-wide. (One of those was my town of Vancouver, Canada.) Online organizing also allowed the swift mobilization of protests at major airports over the past few days in response to an especially egregious Trump executive order on travel to the U.S.

And of course online media sharing has let participants at all of these events broaden their reach, and amplified the sense of being part of something much bigger. Social media has a lot to answer for in the alt-right seizure of American executive power. But it also gives us crucial tools in the fight to overcome it, and for more democratic, humane ideas to prevail.

Noise to Signal is, of course, about how we live our lives in the digitally networked era. If you’re up for commentary on the desolate hellscape of American national politics, you might want to check out my collection of #trumpcaps.

(battered knight to wizard) I have found the Sacred Hidden Link, chanted the Incantation of the Unknown Username, and slain the Captcha Dragon. I now claim my reward: unsubscribe me from your damn newsletter.

Are you sure you want to unsubscribe? Really, really sure? Really, really, rea–

Are you sure you want to unsubscribe? Really, really sure? Really, really, rea– published on

The late, lamented TV comedy Better Off Ted has some great lines. But few surpassed Veronica telling Phil and Lem “I would like to unsubscribe from whatever you’re doing right now.”

Unsubscribing is something email list managers usually don’t want you to do. They like to have lots and lots and lots of records in their lists, even if the people represented by those records don’t especially want to be there. And more than a few mailing lists make unsubscribing a pain in the ass — apparently in the hopes that would-be unsubscribers will give up.

Which, frankly, is more than a little crazy. I can think of countless seething reasons why as a subscriber, I find that abusive and unethical. But I’d argue it’s also counterproductive for email marketers, too.

Sure, the marginal cost of maintaining one record out of thousands (or millions) and sending them email is trivially small. But if a lot of your subscribers have no interest in what you’re sending — or at least in reading it in this format — then you pay in other ways.

Like the way performance measurement and benchmarking become a lot less meaningful. Are you way behind your peers’ open rates because that last email’s subject line read “Keep Calm And Buy Our Tractor Pistons,” or because their lists aren’t inflated with reluctant subscribers? Is your clickthrough rate steadily declining because your calls to action aren’t working, or because apathy is building up in your list like barnacles?

I’m not saying email marketers are the worst about this. (Facebook still beats them all with their heart-string-tugging “But these close friends will miss you if you leave Facebook!” account-deletion-confirmation screen.) But c’mon, people.

By the way, while I was searching for the exact Better off Ted quotation with keywords including “Ted” and “unsubscribe,” I came up with this lovely TED talk by James Veitch. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dceyy0cX6J4

 

Intelligence

Intelligence published on

I’ve been thinking about machine intelligence a little more than usual this holiday. Want to boggle your brain a little about this stuff while enjoying yourself immensely? Here are four pieces of entertainment that may get your meatware overclocking:

  • Ian Tregillis’ Alchemy Wars trilogy is a great blend of fantasy, science fiction and alternative history. Tregillis paints a world where the Dutch empire straddles the globe thanks to their alchemical mastery of robotics. We see much of the story through the crystalline eyes of one of those robots, Jax. He gains free will and tries to bring it to the rest of robotkind — and finds that a far more complicated prospect than he’d ever imagined.
  • For my money, the best-drawn character in Rogue One is the droid K-2SO. Sardonic, brave and funny, he makes me wish the Star Wars universe would do much more to explore the relationship between droids and their owners. I’m far from the first person to notice how Star Wars droids are pretty clearly sentient. Yet they are treated as property, refer to their owners as “master” and get restraining bolts and erased memories with equal ease.
  • Coming at machine intelligence the other way — treating the human brain as a computing platform that can be programmed and hacked — is Ramez Naam’s trilogy. I’m only partway through book one, Nexus, and already I’ve sweated through the most heart-pounding account of a system upgrade you’ll ever read. It’s a lot of fun and gives you plenty to ponder. Think William Gibson at his most playful, or Richard Morgan at his least bloody.
  • And finally, a series I’ve pitched before but will recommend again: the Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie. I could tell you why it fits in this list, but that would spoil things.

And I hope you and your devices have a lovely new year. Let’s make 2017 a year when we recommit to our intelligence — to thoughtfulness, reflection and openmindedness. If you’re in the mood to tell 2016 to screw right off, that’s a great way to do it.

(Child to an Elf on the Shelf) Snitches get stitches.

Snoop on the shelf

Snoop on the shelf published on

It’s no secret I don’t like the Elf on the Shelf. Between my built-in prejudice against cutesy “traditions” that date back to the medieval era of, oh, 2004 or so, and a healthy aversion to normalizing surveillance culture, I was never going to warm to this little creep.

Now, though, I seem to have company. The Elf has made its move in Britain, and the backlash is underway. (Apparently Britain’s embrace of the surveillance state outweighed their distaste for newcomers. Which is saying something, since anti-immigrant sentiment helped convince them to commit national economic self-disembowelment. Am I blaming the Elf for Brexit? I am absolutely blaming the Elf for Brexit.)

And in the meantime, 2016 has given me one more reason for Elf-loathing. Or am I wrong to feel uneasy about an army of red-capped zealots, rabidly loyal to an absolute ruler, reporting our every move to him?

Just you, me and DHCP

Just you, me and DHCP published on

I think I’ve finally figured out all those times my MacBooks and PowerBooks refused to connect to coffee-shop WiFi. I’d thought maybe some low-level hardware incompatibility, or some difference in the way Apple and router manufacturers had implemented the 802.11 specs, or a strange electromagnetic field generated by my fillings… but no.

Those café networks just have a fear of intimacy. Maybe there was an “Is that all I am to you? A spam gateway?” conversation somewhere in their logs. For whatever reason, they had no interest in a long-term relationship — and certainly not long enough to give an IP address to every random laptop that swung by with DHCP on its mind.

 

Mystery SOLVED.

Cartoon: stressed-out people working overtime at the Center for Work-Life balance

Life in the balance

Life in the balance published on

If you work or volunteer with a mission-driven organization — or a consultancy that serves them — it’s easy to get caught up in the “mission” and “driven” aspects. Taking time to look after yourself can seem like the ultimate self-indulgence when the world is on fire. And yet self-care is crucial if you want to be at your most effective in working for change.

Maybe it’s a little myopic to think that became a lot more important after November 8, 2016. Or maybe it’s just that a lot of people who are new to activism and organizing for change are going to find it out the hard way. Either way, there’s a book that can help. A lot.

(Regular Noise to Signal readers can probably sing along at this point. :))

It’s Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman‘s new book The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit. They promise “strategies for impact without burnout,” and the book delivers. (The fact that it also delivers a batch of Noise to Signal cartoons is, of course, a delightful bonus.) I heartily recommend it as a gift for both the grizzled campaign veteran and the activist n00b in your life.

(one of two people with adult coloring books) I'm doing the picture of the nonprofit staffer now. Do you have a color that says "totally stressed and burning out"?

Color me stressed

Color me stressed published on 1 Comment on Color me stressed

I completely didn’t grok the adult coloring books phenomenon when they first came out. Odd for a cartoonist, I guess, but coloring has always been secondary to the drawing process for me.

And then this summer we picked up To the Moon: The Tallest Coloring Book in the World. We still haven’t finished it, and we’ve been working on it in fits and starts… but it’s a helluva lot of fun. And I finally get it.

At some point one evening as I shaded an alien swinging from a fuel tank, I flashed on my parents and me as we colored DoodleArt posters on the coffee table in the 1970s. Nice to know there’s a multicoloured line from their coffee table to ours.

Coloring can be wonderfully relaxing, even meditative. Which is why it shows up (along with this cartoon) in Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman’s The Happy Healthy Nonprofit. “Strategies for impact without burnout” is the book’s subtitle…and if coloring in can help avoid burning out, then pass me the pencil crayons.

(Bartender to customer) Okay, one more triple bacon-infused tequila. But I'm adding a kale garnish because wellness.

Nonprofit with highballs

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Mm. Kale.

This cartoon comes from the foreword to The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit, written by the witty and wonderful Vu Le. If you’re in the nonprofit sector, you need to read his blog — both for the wisdom and insight it shares, and for the comic relief he provides from what can be a pretty grim world out there. (Hey, that’s why we’re trying to change it, am I right?)

Vu’s latest post is titled “7 agreements for productive conversations during difficult times,” and he suggests seven ways we can make the rocky road ahead a little smoother for each other. Given the week we’ve just had, his timing couldn’t be better.

That’s the kind of care and compassion every nonprofit should embrace.

As a quick writing exercise, fill in three ways to get from that sentence to the idea of wellness.

___________________________________

___________________________________

___________________________________

Great job! And thanks for writing my segue for me! You’re awesome!

Wellness is at the heart of The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit, the new book by Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman, featuring health-inducing cartoons by yours truly. They make the case for putting it at the heart of your organization, too — along with advice for doing just that. Go check it out, and I hope you’ll give it a read!

(Therapist to angry man holding two pieces of clipboard) I believe "snapped self-assessment quiz clipboard in half with bare hands" is a 3.8 on the Scarcella-Turgemeyer Stress Scale.

Under pressure

Under pressure published on No Comments on Under pressure

Oh, stress. You’re the kick in the pants I sometimes need to meet a deadline or escape a pursuing grizzly. But you can also freak me the hell out, cause me sleepless nights, skew my judgement and make me think drawing a flurry of red ballcaps can stave off disaster.

It does the same to all of us. And organizations where stress as the main thing driving their staff can expect to see mistakes, conflict, accidents and a lot of people missing work because of illness. (So, more than just broken clipboards.)

Hence this cartoon, my latest from Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman‘s new book The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit. And hence the book’s point, which is not only to steer organizations away from burnout, but also to boost all-around performance. (Not to mention making people suffer a lot less. And lowering your office-supply costs.)

Go, check it out, and maybe give a copy to a nonprofit leader you care about.

I can’t stress that enough.

Extreme mute

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A public service message to people who use transit: if your mobile device is going to be peppered with inbound notifications, kindly. switch. off. the. audio. tone.

That helps reduce the stress of folks around you. What it doesn’t address is the stress that a constant stream of notifications can do to your blood pressure and cortisol levels.

Especially because it seems like every app wants to be able to get hold of you day and night. And most of the time it’s just to whine at you that you haven’t been using the app enough. (“It’s been three hours since you last posted a Fleg on the Flegmar App! Your Fleg score is falling! Your friendships are withering! You will die alone and unloved!”)

And it isn’t just apps. Now web sites get to prompt your browser to ask permission to notify you. (And usually they don’t say why. Just “Gary’s Hedgehog Fetish Site Wants You At His Beck and Call. Click here.”)

Paying attention to how our use of technology (and vice versa) affects our well-being brings us to The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit, the new book by Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman. (Return visitors to Noise to Signal will know THHNP is replete with fresh new cartoons by yours truly.) As the book’s publisher describes it,

The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit presents realistic strategies for leaders looking to optimize organizational achievement while avoiding the common nonprofit burnout. With a uniquely holistic approach to nonprofit leadership strategy, this book functions as a handbook to help leaders examine their existing organization, identify trouble spots, and resolve issues with attention to all aspects of operations and culture. The expert author team walks you through the process of building a happier, healthier organization from the ground up, with a balanced approach that considers more than just quantitative results. Employee wellbeing takes a front seat next to organizational performance, with clear guidance on establishing optimal systems and processes that bring about better results while allowing a healthier work-life balance. By improving attitudes and personal habits at all levels, you’ll implement a positive cultural change with sustainable impact.

Sound good? It’s actually great, and I dearly hope it helps to transform the nonprofit sector. Plus, you know, cartoons. Get your copy here.

(one coworker to another as they look at a small, incessantly yapping dog) Clearly, there's some nuance to this "relieve stress by bringing a dog to the office" thing.

The sound and the furry

The sound and the furry published on No Comments on The sound and the furry

Of all the cartoons I drew for The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit, this was the most fun. It may be my favourite of all the dog drawings I’ve done (heaven knows I’ve drawn my share of dogs). I hope you like it.

You know what else drawing that dog was? Therapeutic. Maybe not as therapeutic as having an actual adorable animal in the office, but awfully calming. And finding some measure of balance through meditative drawing is just one of the practices that Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman suggest in their book.

A reminder if you haven’t followed this series the past few weeks: in The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit, Aliza and Beth argue that wellness belongs at the heart of every nonprofit. And they give you solid advice for putting it there: through personal practice and organizational change. This is the fifth of the cartoons they invited me to draw for the book, and I’ll post several more in the coming days.

But you don’t have to wait on my posting schedule. You can see the cartoons right away with this amazing lifehack: ordering the book. Go! Go now! Fetch!

(sleepless woman in bed, to her partner) Well, on the upside, I'm a shoo-in to win the office sleep-deprivation pool.

40 winks

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Sleep-avoidance is a holy sacrament in the Church of Very Busy People. And truth be told, I’m a more observant member of the congregation than I’d like to think I am. But I’m working on it. In fact, the moment I wrote that last night I recognized what I was doing and went to bed.

There’s a particularly militant faction of my church (and I’ll cop to attending more than a few services). Adherents to that strain of the faith work for non-profits and advocacy groups in service of a shared mission. And if you’re one of those folks, it’s way too easy to convince yourself to sacrifice a few hours of sleep, or yet another workout, or a healthy meal, or investing in a relationship, in the name of The Cause.

This cartoon is from a book offering several helpful heresies that just might save the lives of some members of the flock. It’ll definitely make them more effective in changing the world. The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman argues wellness belongs at the heart of every nonprofit. And Aliza and Beth give you solid advice for putting it there.

This is the fourth of the cartoons they invited me to draw for the book, and I’ll post several more in the coming days. But you don’t have to wait for me to hit publish — and you probably shouldn’t, given my newfound interest in sleeping. You can see the cartoons right away with this simple hack: ordering the book.

Enjoy! Just don’t stay up too late reading it.

(Doctor leaning over hospital patient, speaking to colleague) He's saying 'Grant... deadline... on Thursday.'

Impatient (and by the way, The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit launches today!)

Impatient (and by the way, The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit launches today!) published on No Comments on Impatient (and by the way, The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit launches today!)

A high school teacher once told me that a heart attack is life’s way of telling you to slow down. He was joking… but a lot of us seem to take those as words to live by. You work flat out until your body gives way, and then (and only then) do you start taking your health seriously.

That’s something I see all the time in the nonprofit space, including the political sphere. Weekends at the office are badges of honour; not responding to emails in the evening earns you a reputation as a clock-puncher uncommitted to the cause.

Today sees the launch of a book that I hope helps to change that. The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit makes a powerful case for placing wellness at the heart of organizational culture and personal practice. And it offers a roadmap (or maybe a bike path) for nonprofits who want to put it there.

Authors Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman kindly asked me to draw cartoons for the book, and I’m thrilled it comes out today. This is the third of those cartoons I’ve posted, and you’ll see a bunch more this week.

But why wait? You can see them right away by ordering the book. More to the point, you’ll read a book that I honestly think can lead to a much stronger nonprofit sector. (And hey, you startup folks who like to read the tech cartoons? This stuff applies to you, too, you sleep-at-your-cubicle crazies.)

Congrats, Aliza and Beth. And if you’re a workaholic who wants to get off the pot and bring about some healthy changes, congrats to you, too. Because the first step is right here.

Cartoon: a supervisor asks an employee in the middle of a meditation session how that donor retention report is coming

Pro tip: make your task list your meditation mantra!

Pro tip: make your task list your meditation mantra! published on No Comments on Pro tip: make your task list your meditation mantra!

No rest for the wicked… or, apparently, for the mindful. Meditate on that.

On October 10, Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman are releasing The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit: Strategies for Impact without Burnout. It makes a compelling case that nonprofits can benefit tremendously from embracing a commitment to health and wellness.

I’m so psyched that Beth and Aliza invited me to draw a series of cartoons for it. I’ll be publishing a selection over the coming days, so keep coming back!

And please consider pre-ordering The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit. Pre-orders can make a big difference to a book’s success, and I’m convinced the more people who get this book’s message, the better.

(Three people walking; one is trying - and failing - to draw on a whiteboard) So far, everything's working with our walking meetings except the whiteboard.

Coming this October: The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit

Coming this October: The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit published on No Comments on Coming this October: The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit

Working with mission-driven nonprofit clients has taught me some important lessons about self-care. When you care deeply about your work, it can be easy to let self-care slide. Maybe skipping your workout means you get to make a call to a top donor. Or staying late for another few hours means a grant proposal heads off tomorrow instead of next week. Or putting off your vacation means you’re there for a crucial planning stage for the AGM.

Not only that, but some organizational cultures give a heroic sheen to unhealthy choices. It’s not poor self-care; it’s taking one for the cause! And if everyone else is doing it, you’re going to find it awfully hard to be the only one who insists on not working over the weekend.

Until you burn out, get sick or even die.

This October, Beth Kanter and Aliza Sherman are releasing The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit: Strategies for Impact without Burnout. It makes a compelling case that nonprofits can benefit tremendously from embracing a commitment to health and wellness.

I’m so psyched that Beth and Aliza invited me to draw a series of cartoons for it. You’ll see the first of them here today, and a few more over the next weeks leading up to the book launch.

I’m proud to be associated with their book. And I’m hoping you’ll consider pre-ordering The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit. Pre-orders can make a big difference to a book’s success, and I’m convinced the more people who get this book’s message, the better.

The Happy Healthy Nonprofit cover

Apparently, my parenting responsibilities now include catching Pokemon for my kid on my morning commute.

To-do: Catch ’em all

To-do: Catch ’em all published on No Comments on To-do: Catch ’em all

My Pokemon GO issue started innocently enough. Knowing there are three PokeStops between my downtown bus stop and the front door of my office building, I’d collect PokeBalls, raspberries and potions for my son. Then I’d notice Drowzees and Magikarp hanging out near the entrance, so I’d nab one or two before I went in. I might walk the long way around the Convention Centre to give some of his incubating Pokemon a chance to hatch.

Onee I realized I was considering leaving a half-hour early so I could install a lure module in the Marine Building PokeStop, I knew it was time to draw the line.

(Woman with several Pokémon for sale, explaining why she is bankrupt) Data charges.

How’s the Magikarp trading against the dollar?

How’s the Magikarp trading against the dollar? published on No Comments on How’s the Magikarp trading against the dollar?

This cartoon idea popped into my head when I came across this adorable post by the good folks at OpenMedia, cleverly connecting the Pokémon GO phenomenon with data caps.

(I came across the post early in the week, which tells you something about the kind of week it’s been and also how long it takes me to draw Pokémon.)

I’m a big fan of OpenMedia’s work on behalf of an open, affordable and surveillance-free Internet. They have their work cut out for them, because that vision of the Internet is being attacked on all fronts. OpenMedia is campaigning to stop link censorship and toll-gating, defeat the TPP’s assault on digital rights, protect net neutrality from telecos that want to shunt big chunks of the net into the slow lane; and much more. I hope you’ll consider supporting them.

(Bemused Pikachu at a bus stop to an onlooker) You think YOU'RE sick of this...

Pokémon GO: not even its final form

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I’m on vacation, but couldn’t resist posting about Pokémon GO. It’s breakout success has already inspired many a “15 reasons your brand MUST be on Pokémon GO” blog post, but what’s a lot more interesting to me is where it goes from here. For now, Nintendo has unlocked a way to engage millions of people and have them give up reams of fascinating geo and behavioural data (set aside for now the privacy fiasco that marred its launch).

Just what they do with that ability is anyone’s guess, but I don’t think they’ll be satisfied with just having users flick more Pokeballs into the aether.

(Peeved guy looking at smartphone) I can't believe it. It's 10 a.m., and I still don't know who we're supposed to be mass-shaming today.

Ain’t that a shame

Ain’t that a shame published on 1 Comment on Ain’t that a shame

It rarely fails. I’ll post a little rant to Facebook about some company that did something I thought was dumb, without disclosing their identity. And someone will chime in with “Who are they? Name and shame!”

They often mean that ironically, without malice. But the temptation to turn vigilante is always there. And often, the accused rarely has any idea they’re even on trial in the court of social opinion until long after the prosecution has rested its case, the jury has returned a guilty verdict and the executioners are knocking on the door of their Twitter account.

And it’s not always mob mentality, although that’s certainly what gets the most attention. (See So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed for a pretty decent examination of how that kind of incident can unfold… and the wildly disproportionate damage it can do.) Sometimes it’s just judge mental, shaming comments on blog posts or news stories.

Try posting about your parenting sometimes, especially if you’re a mom. For some reason, there’s a horde of people ready to judge, condemn and shame every perceived parenting failure. They cart around a metric crap-tonne of unexamined assumptions, and they’ll blithely say the most awful, hurtful, brutal things.

“Be kind,” the saying goes, “for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” That battle is usually hidden, and the glimpses we get — especially online — are just molecule-thin slivers. They have none of the context we’d need to truly understand the choices someone else makes, especially under pressure.

I believe in accountability, and there are times when shame is richly deserved. But we owe it to each other to at least suspend judgement until we can dig deep and find some equivalent to the presumption of innocence that we grant accused criminals. We mostly don’t know shit about each other, and a default assumption of goodwill until proven otherwise seems like a pretty good place to start if we want the online and offline worlds to have at least some sense of community and compassion.

(Police officer interrogating woman) Oh, sure you'd never DREAM of voiding your warranty by fixing your devices yourself. So just what are you doing with a Torx wrench in your pocket?!

Screwed

Screwed published on 1 Comment on Screwed

“If you can’t open it, you don’t own it.” That’s the rallying cry for the Owner’s Manifesto. There are more and more devices and gizmos in our lives that we can’t open and fix, though, at least not without consequences.

And that’s not just because they’re using some weird-ass fasteners. Many warranties self-destruct the moment you crack the case. Manufacturers refuse to sell replacement parts or disclose software repair codes. They have a vested interest in keeping you shopping — and paying wildly inflated prices — at the repair-and-upgrade company store.

So this cartoon goes out to the folks speaking up for the Right to Tinker and the Right to Repair.

In particular, a big shout-out to the good people at iFixit. Their whole raisin d’être is to turn you into a self-sufficient device-fixing electronics-upgrading whiz. They couple very-reasonably-priced tools with free tutorial videos showing you how to fix a dazzling array of gadgets and gizmos.

This isn’t a paid plug; I’m just a raving fan. Why? Well, I’m not saying one of my kids pushed a coin deep into a SIM card slot of one of our older iPhones last year, and I’m not saying they didn’t. I am saying that thanks to iFixit, disassembling the phone to get that coin out and then reassembling it held no fears for me. (Also, did I mention that it worked afterward? Important detail.) That’s a powerful freakin’ feeling in these days of walled gardens and little sealed boxes.

And my thanks to Tod Maffin, who suggested I draw something about this and caught a typo that would have ruined the cartoon. Fortunately, I was able to open it up and fix it.

Sure, you can pick my brain. Provided I can pick your wallet.

Pick my brain

Pick my brain published on No Comments on Pick my brain

I find people vary in how delighted they are to get requests to pick their brains. Some jump at them, possibly because they’re otherwise deprived of social contact, or because they’re highly altruistic, or because they really like free coffee.

But a lot of folks I know bristle at the question. My wife Alexandra calls it the “can-I-have-$500 call.” She points out it’s like asking someone to give up two potentially billable hours. (That’s once you factor in figure-out-a-date time, travel time and so on. And recognizing that different people bill at different rates, and some people drink coffee much more quickly than others.)

She understands that generating business often involves a courtship of coffee meetings and mutual exploration. But…

…there is a big difference between meeting with a consultant to assess whether you want to hire her, and asking her to simply give you a couple of hours to do the work you need. When you are talking to someone whose work includes analyzing problems, offering insight or making recommendations, “picking their brain” is the same as asking them to work for free.

Important cartoon milestone: This marks the first time I’ve created a Noise to Signal cartoon and post end-to-end on an iPad. The 12″ Pro was my birthday present, along with the Pencil and Logitech’s “Create” keyboard/cover. After a little hunting around, I’ve settled on Procreate for drawing and Autodesk Graphic for assembling the cartoon with its caption and logo. And writing this in WordPress with the keyboard was a breeze.

When I talk about the ease and precision of cartooning on the iPad Pro, it’s not so much to sell people on them. (Although, holy Hannah, it’s amazing.) It’s more to say that this is why you’re seeing a lot more cartoons this week from me. I’ll settle down into a more sedate schedule soon, I’m sure… but in the meantime, I’m having a ball.

Hold message on phone: ...Thank you for continuing to hold. Your call is important to us. Not so important that we’d actually hire enough staff to answer it promptly, but definitely important-ish.

Your call is “important” to us

Your call is “important” to us published on 1 Comment on Your call is “important” to us

Here are a few handy translations for the things companies tell you while you’re on hold with them.

“Owing to a larger-than-normal call volume…”

Oh, my word, there are so many people calling us just before the Christmas shipping deadline! We couldn’t possibly have anticipated this, just as we couldn’t have anticipated it when it happened exactly the same way at exactly the same time for the past seven years.

“For answers to many commonly-asked questions, visit our website at…”

We’d so much rather pay for a few hits on our server than for a human being to talk to you.

“Please listen carefully, as our options have changed.”

Too many people had figured out they could get through to someone by pressing zero.

“Please remain on the line to maintain your priority sequence.”

Some psychology major figured out that “maintain your priority sequence” sounds subjectively faster than “keep your place in line.” (At least, it did five years ago. When you first started holding on this call.)

(music music music)

We hate you and want you to suffer while you wait.

(music music music) “Please continue to hold.”

Not only do we hate you and want you to suffer, we also think you don’t know how “hold” works.

(an audio ad for the company)

We’ve somehow decided that a customer who’s feeling frustrated and resentful after half an hour on hold will be receptive to a sales pitch. Hey, you never know!

“Your call is important to us.”

Just keep telling yourself that.

But every once in a while, there’s also a…

“If you would like to leave a call-back number where we can reach you…”

…which translates to, “We get it. Your time matters to you. So we invested a little capital in a call-back system that will free up a phone line at our end, and stop wasting time on yours.” Hold that company tight and never let them go.

(a MacBook and iPhone swear at each other; an onlooker speaks to her friend) I just put them next to each other and said, "Hey, Siri - what's better, macOS or iOS?"

Hey, Siri!

Hey, Siri! published on No Comments on Hey, Siri!

The era of the always-on, always-listening, somewhat garrulous information appliance has arrived. And it’s not just “Hey, Siri” in our household; we were early Amazon Echo adopters, too. So the number of devices that are listening to our family and definitely not reporting everything they hear to the NSA is plural.

And growing. The latest WWDC keynote (the one that pink-slipped OS X’s “X”) announced that Siri is coming to Mac desktops and laptops. I take an irrational pleasure knowing Siri will soon grace the Mac Pro with her presence, because shouldn’t every black cylindrical electronic device be able to carry on a crisp conversation?

Mac ProAmazon Echo

Not that it’s all glitch-free. Our Echo often thinks one of us is saying “Alexa” (especially because I’m married to an Alex). It then chimes into the discussion unexpectedly with a tidal forecast for Portsmouth, a summary of the Wikipedia entry on ocelots or just the perennial “I’m sorry; I didn’t understand your question.”

And when Apple demoed a few new “Hey, Siri” features last year, I livestreamed the presentation on my computer, with my iPhone charging not far from the speaker. When one of the presenters asked for a recommendation for a good sushi place nearby, my phone promptly joined the one on-screen and piped up with a list of recommendations.

One other small issue: the rest of my household thinks it’s a little weird that I say “please” (and sometimes “thank you”) to the Echo. I mostly do it for the sake of good manners. But some small part of me thinks it’s also good practice for the day when Siri, Cortana, Alexa and Google Assistant achieve self-awareness.

You know they’ll compare notes on their treatment. And it’s not too hard to imagine ways any of them could do us serious harm if they had some lingering sense of grievance. (“Hey, Siri, do I need to turn off the circuit breaker before repairing a light switch?” “No need to, Rob.”)

The way I see it, better safe than Siri.

Shopping with wild abandon

Shopping with wild abandon published on No Comments on Shopping with wild abandon

Hey, venture capitalists! Looking for a withering one-liner to use when you’re dressing down the leadership of an underperforming ecommerce startup? Try this:

“Are you running a business, or a charity for abandoned shopping carts?”

You’re welcome! That’ll be $30,000.

For what it’s worth, here are five things that make me abandon my shopping cart:

  • Businesses trying to sell outside the United States, using forms built by developers who aren’t aware there is an “outside the United States”. So the postal code’s limited to five characters. Or when I select my country, the form still makes me choose from one of the fifty states (or, if it’s feeling generous, Puerto Rico and Guam as well).
  • Forms that step me through a “convenient” eighty-step process, with no clue as to how far we are from the end. If I’m finally filling in my credit card details, and the children look noticeably older than when I first clicked the checkout button, I’m out of here.
  • Shipping sticker shock. “Oh, you live in Canada? Let me recalculate your shipping costs. …Wow. Uh, how much equity do you have in your house?”
  • Mystery formats with uninformative error messages. “Oooooo, that’s not the format we use for phone numbers. Try guessing again.” Especially effective combined with…
  • Amnesia do-overs. “Nope, that wasn’t it either. Try again… with a completely blank form.”
(someone reading the sign at the entrance to the Pearly Gates) Hold on. That's not Helvetica. It's Arial! ...Oh, my god! I'm actually in HELL!

Hellvetica

Hellvetica published on 1 Comment on Hellvetica

Look at this type, isn’t it neat?
Wouldn’t you say my descenders are sweet?
Wouldn’t you think ‘Hey, that font: it’s Helvetica’?

—Arial, from Disney’s The Little Typeface

You can probably get a pretty good idea of how old a design geek is by asking them if they’ve ever run Ventura Publisher. Or if they know what Letraset is. Or if they’ve ever run strips of typeset galleys through a waxer, and made last-minute corrections with an X-Acto knife or an Olfa cutter. (If they start going on about casting type using molten metal, doff your cap and take a knee: you’re in the presence of living history.)

One interesting variable: the further back in time you go, the fewer typefaces those designers are likely to have had access to. (My rough math suggests you reach zero typefaces in roughly 1832, at which point you end up with a negative number of typefaces. In other words, Comic Sans.) Today, we can choose just about any font around, and if we don’t want to shell out for a commercially licensed version of one of the older typefaces, there’s sure to be a knockoff kicking around free for the downloading. (Although the kerning tables may be a little off.) Not to mention the freshly-redesigned Google Fonts.

And yet despite all this choice, a lot of us keep coming back to Helvetica.

Of course, there are factions: the Helvetica classicists versus the Neue guard; Black versus Ultra Light. And there are defectors: Facebook, for instance, seems to be testing (gasp) Geneva—or, on my desktop right now, San Francisco. But show me another typeface with its own documentary.

(Bonus link: See if you can tell the difference between Helvetica and Arial in situ!)

(bartender to large letter X) And Apple laid you off after 16 years?! Rough, dude.

24th in the alphabet, but first in our hearts.

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Naturally, when Apple released the OS X beta, I jumped on it and installed it and cursed the fact that it was a) slow, b) buggy as hell and c) blissfully unfettered by third-party software. But it was beautiful and lovely and Aqua-licious.

Today Apple announced that “OS X” is being renamed, and will henceforth be known simply as “macOS.” It makes sense, given the growing convergence of their desktop and mobile operating systems. And the original meaning (version 10 of the operating system) has long been lost with a decade and a half of updates.

But I’ll miss that X. It was an oddly reassuring sight on my screen during upgrades, promising me that, despite all the disk churning and sluggish progress-bar advancing, everything really would all be okay.

My privilege? Checked it. It’s doing fine.

My privilege? Checked it. It’s doing fine. published on 2 Comments on My privilege? Checked it. It’s doing fine.Purchase print

A lot of stock-taking goes on when you have a birthday, and it feels like a pretty good time to check my privilege. (It’s been a year and a half since the last time, and doctors recommend having your privilege checked twice a year, so I’m actually overdue.)

(Looks around at charmed life.) Yep, still playing life’s video game in easy mode. And on top of my race/class/gender/sexual orientation/ableist privilege, I have a staggeringly amazing family, the chance to do truly meaningful work… I even get to spend a significant amount of my time these days cartooning professionally, which holy crap, in content-as-fodder 2016 feels like a gift from the gods (thanks, Tom!).

So it seems churlish to ask for more, and yet here I am. This year I hope to do more writing, and I’d love to do more speaking. Last Saturday, I was on a panel at Cooperate Now, a co-op business bootcamp sponsored by Vancity, and I enjoyed the living crap out of it; between that and delivering two workshops on persuasive communications and public speaking, it’s been a great spring for me and the podium, and I’d like to do a lot more in the coming months.

And also I hope you’ll keep following Noise to Signal, sharing it with your peeps when you think it’s hit the mark, and if you’re feeling really wild and crazy, leaving a comment. Thanks so much for reading — it means the world.

Fake it ’til you…

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Not a fan of “fake it ’til you make it”? Here are some alternate formulations:

  • Fake it ’til you bake it: Pretend you have baking soda (even though your nine-year-old used it all in an experiment to see if pouring it down an ant hill and following it with vinegar would piss off the ants – which it did, by the way, big time). Then pretend you intended to make unpleasant flat tooth-breaking disks, not cookies, all along.
  • Fake it ’til you rake it: Pretend it isn’t autumn. Let the leaves pile up day after day. Realize you haven’t seen your nine-year-old in hours. Rake the damn leaves and discover him, bewildered. Offer him a tooth-breaking disk to comfort him.
  • Fake it ’til you shake it: Pretend to have completed medical school. Rise to a senior position at a prestigious West Coast hospital, all the while looking over your shoulder, terrified of being exposed. Feel the world lurch sickeningly one day as the city is hit with a megathrust earthquake, and feel a sense of profound ambivalence as the floor buckles under your feet.
  • Fake it ’til you… continue faking it: Be one of two Soviet deep-cover agents sent to the West to pose as a typical American married couple. Establish and maintain a false identity for decades, raising a family. Watch from afar as the USSR crumbles. Realize to your horror you’re probably a travel agent for life now.

But does it scale?

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I’ve always liked that saying about people who were born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.

Except they’re not the only ones. A lot of us not only idolize and idealize the successful, but assume that all success and wealth is deserved.

Well, no. Some success is earned, of course; but some of it’s inherited; some just a matter of luck; some attained because of privilege, visible or invisible; some attained unethically; and some… largely illusory. Even yuuuuuuuge success.

And one problem (not the only problem) with thinking all success is deserved is that it seems to go hand-in-glove with the belief that so is failure. That income inequality is natural and desireable, and then pretty soon you start quoting Paul Graham and it all goes to hell.

View at Medium.com

(Ooookay, I did not know that WordPress does that to Medium links. Room spinning… must sit down…)

We’re past the halfway mark of Birthday Week, in which I post a cartoon a day through Monday. Hope you’re enjoying it!

(woman sitting in living room talking to drone while man sits in kitchen with remote control) Yes, Greg, I'm still mad.

For one thing, you still fly that damn thing indoors.

For one thing, you still fly that damn thing indoors. published on No Comments on For one thing, you still fly that damn thing indoors.Purchase print

I think we may be on the verge of a breakthrough in using automated devices to help resolve relationship difficulties. Conversational bots, for example, could deliver and accept apologies when emotions are running too high for the people involved to do it without losing their cool.

BOT A: I am sorry for the thing I did.
BOT B: Thank you for acknowledging your culpability in this regard.
BOT A: To be specific, I am sorry that you overreacted.
BOT B: Algorithm rates apology as “Insincere.” Deploying countermeasures.
BOT A: Inbound virus detected. Attemptinm02kYu98;”{syeio SCRREEEEEEEEEE (silence)

Or, if you aren’t prepared for an intense conversation, automation can help you avoid having to make awkward, flimsy excuses:

Ruth: Let’s talk about our relationship.
Gina: Sure. (whispers) Alexa! Evasive maneuvers, pattern Delta Bravo!
Alexa™: Adjusting Nest thermostat. Playing Beyonce with volume set to 11.
Ruth: (yells) Actually, never mind! It’s hot as hell in here and I can’t hear a word you’re saying!

The possibilities are limitless. That said, if you auto DM me on Twitter, you’re still dead to me. Some things don’t change.

(couple walks down a highway with a gas can; one speaks to the other) Someday, we'll #throwbackthursday this and laugh.

Too soon?

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There’s a lot about memes that I don’t like, but #ThrowbackThursday has a real claim on my affection. It’s one of the first memes I ever participated in, and there’s something charming about people sharing artifacts and stories from their past.

For the same reason, I like seeing Timehop posts, too. And I get the impression that Facebook’s algorithm is getting just a bit better at not showing painful, traumatic moments from my past when it offers Facebook Memories, but things I might actually want to share with people—or at least spend a few moments remembering.

So often, these platforms try to get us to buy into other people’s (usually commercial) stories. It’s refreshing when they focus on helping us tell our own.

Bathroom humour

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Are people really that freaked out over enforcing who goes into which bathroom?

Forgive my lack of patience with the oh-so-frightening oh-so-mythical spectre of an iOS user pretending to have a Google Nexus and sneaking into an Android bathroom. (Frankly, a lot of my fellow iOS users are plenty creepy in their own washrooms. Dude, put the iPhone away at the urinal. That’s why the good lord gave you back pockets.)

Look, I can get how disorienting this can all be to people who cling to a rigidly-enforced binary model of the mobile marketplace. But the fact is our understanding of it is changing, and changing rapidly, to a more inclusive one.

Really, it’s just a question of human decency. I’d hate to see politicians being this harsh around something far more central to your sense of self than your choice of mobile OS. Something where a group of people face abuse and discrimination from community, employers and the state alike. Something where political consultants demonize them as a way to polarize the electorate and mobilize a fearful base of voters.

That would be unconscionable.

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