Jeff Shearer

When I first started down the path of what became my 3D maps project, 48 Contours, I had a rough plan in mind for producing the models for my initial launch. I’d develop a process for turning map data into files that would work with a laser cutter. I’d cut them out, assemble them, then sell them online for a reasonable price. I’d repeat with new locations, and build a nice tidy side business doing it.

But that plan went sideways from the start, and I think that’s the problem with most plans. Plans assume tidy journey from start to finish, but reality is never that, and we humans never seem to learn that fact. As Jason Fried said more succinctly, “A plan is simply a guess you wrote down”.

Take just the first step in my plan: figure out how to turn map data into a model I can use for a product. Unimaginably more complicated than I had thought. I had to learn an entirely new skillset in GIS. New software, lingo, processes. Then I had to break a lot of those conventions to adapt the work to a use case GIS wasn’t really intended for, a physical, layered 3D model. What I figured would be a month or two of learning took half a year.

Then there’s production. Get a laser. cut the model on it, assemble. CNC laser cutters look simple but they’re way more complicated in reality, especially for the kind of work I do. I’ve had to fine tune the speeds and feeds of the tool for every element of a map. Engraving text too blurry? Try increasing DPI. Oh but now that causes scorching that will be a pain to remove later. Let’s try
minimum power threshold. And on and on…

And by the way, my plan was to ship a new model every two weeks. Hah. I think I made 5 models total last year. And quickly after I launched, I discovered a critical issue with my initial map data that required me to redesign every one of my models. Good thing I wasn’t immediately inundated with sales.

I could never have imagined and planned for any of these things beforehand. And I’d be willing to bet if you look back on a plan you made a year ago, how things played out probably looked a whole lot different. Planning isn’t bad. It’s helpful to get a perspective of one possible future (however unlikely). But I think the need to plan, at least for me, comes from a place of wanting to avoid the feeling of uncertainty. Yet uncertainty is the only certainty out there.

I won’t end this saying I’ve somehow transcended the trap of planning. I still build foolishly optimistic plans, and inevitably learn the same lesson later. But I like to think I’m learning. I’m a bit looser with plans. And a lot easier on myself when reality inevitably refuses to conform to my plan.

About a year ago, I left behind my full time role leading a team and charted out on my own, both to restart my ops & analytics consultancy, and to make time for a new venture.

I’ve had a lot of great opportunity and experience in my FTE roles, and I’m thankful for that. But the last few years I grew weary of people management and the politics of senior leadership roles. I used to happily want to climb the career ladder. But once I reached director/senior director roles with multiple levels of reporting, it lost a lot of the appeal. I looked with apprehension at VP and higher roles. The level I was already at was pretty exhausting.

Part of the issue was the meetings. As someone who loves to build and solve problems – the crushing weight of a day packed with meetings got old – and it only looked worse the more senior the roles. I also didn’t always agree with the corporate direction & initiatives my team was tasked with, or the task of navigating politics as a full time job.

The other part was boredom with the problems themselves. I’ve been an ops guy for most of my career. I’m great at it, and I mostly found the work interesting. But the funny thing about ops is most companies have pretty darn similar problems, and solving them over and over gets a little stale.

I knew I needed to make a change, and consulting seemed a logical step to accomplish two goals: 1. To pick the jobs that interested or stretched me. 2. To make time for side projects. 

Now, a year later I have worked on some rad projects, and learned a ton. But the consulting space is a hell of a lot more crowded than it once was, so picking the ideal project isn’t always an option. Sometimes you just need a payday. Plus there’s all the other nonsense that comes with solo endeavors. Chasing down invoices. Resetting expectations with an unreasonable request. Learning what bad debts are when one of your clients suddenly goes bankrupt 😬. I’ve been fortunate to have a strong network to mostly fill my time with interesting work. I’m thankful for that, and I can’t imagine trying to do it without the network I’ve got.

Balancing my time has also been a mixed bag. I’ve made time to explore a wild art business idea that was surprisingly successful in its first year. But I now have effectively two jobs to juggle, and it’s a daily challenge to figure out how to balance them. Some days I’m literally hopping from writing SQL queries and client calls to troubleshooting a laser cutter and figuring out how to safely ship a delicate wood map.

Yet a year later, I’m happy with my decision. I’m more engaged by the work. I’m a hell of a lot less stressed. I certainly don’t have much desire to go back in-house, but maybe that will change someday. Right now I spend about half my time on consulting. The other on my small but growing maps business. We’ll see if that balance shifts in the future.

This is honestly the first good view I’ve seen of genAI search optimization across the models. But good to know it’s still a bit of 🤷‍♂️ for everyone.

https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/what-is-generative-engine-optimization-geo

I’m a childless man in my late 30’s, so naturally I’ve become a pretty serious runner.

But I always seem to lose motivation around this time of year. I blame the dark, short days in the PNW. This year I tried to anticipate this lull, and I joined a pool.

I swim every Monday and Friday, and I’m awful at it.

I can do one, maybe two laps at a time (25 yard pool) before I’m gasping for breath. I’m sure it’s partly due to poor form and breathing technique. The lanes to the left and right of me are full of people who seem to have perfect strokes. Who never need a break. I know that’s not actually the case, but it sure feels like that in the moment.

Each session is a struggle, yet I keep going back, twice a week, for my 30 minutes of not so much fun. Yet it’s what they call “type 2 fun”: not fun in the moment, but fun in retrospect.

I’m learning to seek out these sorts of experiences more as I get older. It’s surprisingly rewarding, and humbling, to fight the instinct of familiarity, and try stuff you’re so inexperienced at that it’s a little embarrassing.

Read this earlier today, and was reminded about the magic of RSS, something I definitely take for granted.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/16/keep-it-really-simple-stupid/

The argument is stronger now, in the dystopian internet we have today. But even in the early days RSS was one of the best ways to sift through the garbage and mess of the web. These days, it’s a protocol rarely discussed. I imagine most have forgotten about RSS, or don’t even know it exists. But it’s always been there, humming along, and it’s arguable more useful than ever in curating what you read on the web.

Years ago, when my beloved Google Reader was killed off, I temporarily was fooled into thinking social media feeds, and their built-in curation would replace RSS adequately. I eventually woke up from that reality and started using readers again, first Feedly, then NetNewsWire, and lately Readwise Reader. 

Some sites are better than others in handling RSS. But even if a site supplies only the bare minimum in their feed (A headline and a link), I still get what I want: Getting direct updates from the writers and sites I want to hear from. Ownership of my own curation, rather than delegating it to an algorithm to decide for me. 

RSS doesn’t solve everything. Walled gardens like LinkedIn aren’t really accessible through it.  And that’s a shame. We shouldn’t have to be bound to a single platform to share and consume great ideas. But there’s still plenty of the web that RSS can still reach. It might be time for you to to dust off this delightful old tool of an earlier internet. It still works well.

It took me awhile in my career to realize there’s a big difference between report building and analysis. I figured if you build it, people will use it, understand it, and come to their own conclusions. I thought that the main value I brought to the table as an analyst was the know-how to assemble the right data in the right place.

The reality, though, is that people actually want more from you than a report. They want your assessment of it. Your analysis. That step is harder to offer – it requires not just a technical understanding of the data, but an opinion for what it all means.

And too often, analysis work is treated as an afterthought, rather than being the focus of any data work. Always ask “What’s this for” when you’re tasked with a new data project. The answer probably isn’t simple a report, but rather, the insights gleaned from it.

Have you ever noticed that once a meeting grows past a certain number of invitees, people stop trying to cater to calendar availability? The meeting evolves from “How can we make sure we have you in the room to make this decision” to “Here’s when we are meeting, figure out how to be there”.

Typically for me, this happens at five or so people. But the fact that you’re no longer ensuring attendance and instead shoving your way into calendars is likely cause to question the purpose and value of the meeting in the first place.

If you need to get a message out to a large group – is a meeting even the best approach?

Meetings can be a powerful tool to solve a problem quickly with the right people in the room. But they’re only effective if you recognize and respect their limitations, chief among them: there is such a thing as too many people in the room.