Brian Feeney
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03/18/24
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From the Washington Post, a "mile-by mile map of the total solar eclipse" that will happen this April 8th. Nice visual for confirming its path, if you weren't sure. Lisa and I will be in Indianapolis for it. Total coverage at my parent's house!

March 15, 2024

notes


News Orgs on the Fediverse

Ben Werdmuller:

Subsequent conversations have convinced me that I'm right about the assertions I made about the Fediverse for media organizations. There's a huge need, a huge opportunity, and the underlying technology is there.
...
What if we had a great experience that ties together both short-form discussion and re-sharing and long-form reading, in a way that better showcases both kinds of content and realizes that the way we consume both is different? What if it had a beautiful, commercial-level design? And what if it remained tied to the open social web at its core, and pushed the capabilities of the protocols forward as it released new features and discovered new user needs?

I'm on the same page. Media companies and newspapers everywhere could really benefit from a first-class fediverse client built for their exact needs. Posting to social media could be much more functional than sending out a small bit of text and an unfurled URL. I haven't done any exploration on this myself, but I sense in my gut that Ben's correct.

Three immediate ideas. 1) Full control over what content is pushed out to the Fediverse and direct ownership of the conversation which takes place around it. 2) Reporters for a newsroom can post from accounts on that instance, essentially bringing their official social media presence into a verified and trustworthy location. 3) A more controlled environment for publishing breaking news or simple updates.

I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of reporters and editors having their own accounts on a newsroom's fediverse instance. You can't beat the kind of legitimacy that provides. It also greatly extends a paper's reportage, piggybacking off of the personalities they employ. Because of social media, tons of reporters have higher profiles these days. It only makes sense to offer them an official place to break and discuss news related to the coverage of their paper. Of course, plenty of reporters would still prefer to have social media accounts outside of their place of employment. I'm just imagining how fruitful this kind of collaborative opportunity could be.

March 14, 2024

blog


March 13, 2024

notes


Zach Seward of the NYT has published as an article his 2024 SXSW talk on AI and journalism. It's very good! I'm in full agreement with his conclusions. Approved usage for AI: providing assistance with search, data organization, and other creative research methods. What it should not do: write content while pretending to be something it is not. There are legitimate ways to incorporate AI into newsrooms, and Seward has outlined great boundaries around how one might.

March 13, 2024

notes


Ideal Process versus Reality

Matej Latin provides good advice for young designers. Namely, that the ideal process learned from books is not true to life.

[T]he double diamond design process which has been often cited as the design process doesn't reflect reality. It's the perfect ideal that designers strive for but rarely achieve. Designers simply don't have that much control over the influencing factors so a design manager reading through a perfect, cookie-cutter case study, even if it uses the double diamond process, knows immediately that it's fake.

Frankly, I sometimes see advanced designers demanding excessive adherence to process from their reports. I suspect that comes from a lack of faith in their designers, and also anxiety from not knowing every detail of the project. Delegating work means trusting that your staff can handle the job. Overemphasizing a double diamond process (or the related documentation) for every single thing creates a classroom-like environment. It feels less than professional despite being by the book.

March 12, 2024

blog


The Pudding takes a look at the differences between two Rolling Stone's lists of the best records of all time from twenty years apart. Obviously, it's a subjective process, but it's interesting to see what drops off after white boomers begin to lose their voting majority.

March 11, 2024

notes


It’s so exciting to see XOXO return for one more conference. I had an amazing time there in 2018. If I make the list this year, I’m definitely going to find a way to get to Portland in August. 

March 06, 2024

notes


Downsizing and Continuing On

Two weeks ago, my company went through another round of layoffs. One of my direct reports was relieved of his job. He was a strong designer who was becoming more reliable by the day. In no way did he deserve to be axed. And it certainly won't help our company reach our stated goals. We invested a year and a half into him, and he repaid us by taking the job seriously and taking increasingly more initiative. It was exactly what you hope to receive out of a young designer. Another company is going to be lucky to have him. I know he'll be fine, in the end.

For the time being, I'm left to catch up on all the in-the-weeds details on projects I had delegated to him. He had been handling that work so well, I was only needed for the design direction. Now I'm catching up on a dozen BAU Jira tickets and reintegrating myself into the day to day of a couple teams he had been in. My workload has doubled, even if my responsibilities haven't changed. I am being provided some time from another UXA in the company, which I'm thankful for. I hear she's a skilled designer, but even so there's going to be weeks of onboarding her.

I'm also thankful to still have my own job. Thankful that at least one person looked at my name on a list and chose not to mark me as expendable. I mean, I don't see myself as expendable. I aim to provide far more benefit to my company than is listed in the job description. Is that apparent to the people running the budget? I don't know. Can you know? As far as I can tell, "work hard and be nice to people" remains the best career advice I've yet found. More than anything, that should put you on the good lists and keep you off the bad lists.

Before all of this happened, I was getting into another good rhythm with this site. Writing more. Posting more. I was feeling good about sharing more of my life, here. Then the layoffs put me in a mood. I wrote a few versions of this post which ended up in the digital garbage. When I'm feeling bitter, I find it's best to hit pause. Try to rebalance. Suss out what really happened and why. I now believe what my manager told me is true: it wasn't personal, it was a balance sheet issue. Executives set a new payroll limit which was lower than before. Simple. Mechanical. Capitalism doing its thing.

I'm convinced all of the recent layoffs in tech are the result of executives continuing to seethe about the wage gains workers made over the last few years. Low unemployment was giving laborers more strength in the bargaining. Wages were outpacing inflation. People with million dollar salaries hate that. A lot. The easiest fix is to increase the unemployment. Downsize the company, claim to be restructuring for future growth in a changing landscape, blah blah blah. The same as it ever was. So it goes.

March 06, 2024

journal


Robot Friend

Robot

Making friends with the robots living in the local antique shop. Beep boop.

March 05, 2024

journal


March 01, 2024

notes


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