Proud-Of List for 2015
An editor at my favorite magazine, in his response to my initial unsolicited pitch, cut to the quick: “What recent work are you most proud of?”
Upon reflection, the work I’m most proud of seems to be about satisfying one or both of these imperatives:
- Clear a path. (to understanding the gist of something complex/intimidating/“hard”, but also useful/valuable/meaningful. Guiding question: What is it about?)
- Open a portal. (to an unexpected experience or point of view. Guiding question: What is it like?)
This is pretty highfalutin’ (or just banal) as a Grand Unified Theory of my actual output, which is popular sci/tech/business/design/math articles with a “gee-whiz” or service-journalism angle. But so be it. Here’s this year's list:
How to Be a Better Sleeper (Scientific American): I have two children under the age of 5. Sleep is important. So I interviewed some top scientific experts about what really matters about sleep and how to do it. Four tips, empirically supported, no lifehacker-ish nonsense. (Well, #3 is borderline.) Sweet dreams.
What Code Isn’t (Playboy): I devoured all 38,000 words of What Is Code?, but at the same time, it bugs me that everyone on earth seems to be haranguing me (and you) to LEARN CODING NOW or risk becoming some kind of Morlock. I wrote this piece as a corrective to the PANIC that most mainstream articles about coding seem bent on inducing in their readers. TL:DR — fear is the mind-killer. Don’t be scared. (Bonus thing I’m proud of: Paul Ford read it and told me he liked it.)
The Pleasure (and Necessity) of Finding Things Out (Simons Foundation): Many people have argued for the value of supporting basic scientific research. My version locates this value not in treating science as a kind of intellectual venture capitalism (e.g., support the NSF because they once gave a grant to Larry Page and he went on to make Google! #ROI), but rather by regarding it as a fundamentally aesthetic pursuit with its own intrinsic worth.
5 Steps to Recreate Xerox PARC’s Design Magic (from the guy who helped make it) (Fast Company/Co.Design): I had contrived a reason to interview polymath/genius/STEAM-superhero Alan Kay for a different magazine, but most of his material was cut. It seemed like a hideous waste to just flush his insights about the difference between invention and innovation down the memory hole. So I didn’t. (Yet more gold nuggets here.)
Two Things You Must Do To Achieve Work-Life Balance (Fast Company/Co.Design): Jim Coudal is a hero of mine, but not just because his multidisciplinary creative studio created Field Notes and Layer Tennis. It’s also because he knows a lot about how to do meaningful, satisfying, exploratory creative work while also maintaining a sane middle-class life. No mean feat.
Toy Systems and Taco Trucks (Tangled Bank Studios): HHMI’s in-house science-documentary production company hired me to prepare some case studies of “effective multimedia and interactive content” (i.e., what’s good). This document contains my current working theory of what “good” means— a first stab at developing some qualitative UX best practices for the kind of media I want to start creating myself.
