What Works

"No one is ever completely safe from the critical gaze of a culture steeped in the makeover ethos." —Micki McGeeI have a theory that you can measure the decline of any social media platform by the time it takes for its feed to become a firehose of unsolicited advice. Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are all sludge piles of advice now, but it took them years to devolve. TikTok took maybe 18 months. Substack Notes? Like 3 months. Threads? Instant.Most of us (I think) can agree that the vapid posturing that occurs through posting advice on social media makes a platform less enjoyable. I don't open one of these apps in the hopes that I'll learn the one weird trick that can turn my frown upside down or give me six-pack abs. What we once loved about these platforms is how people shared their everyday descriptions of life, love, family, and curiosity. But much of that mutual exchange of experience has been ceded to the commercial interest of advice.After all, we love advice. We also hate advice. We love it when someone can tell us what we should do next. And we also hate being told what we should do next. So what gives? Today, a description of why that is. But first, things are going to get awkward.Footnotes:Read the written version of this episode.Awkwardness: A Theory by Alexandra Plakias"Signs of social awkwardness and 15 ways to overcome it" via BetterUpSelf-Help, Inc by Micki McGeeSelf-Help, LLC - a special What Works series exploring the business and culture of self-help (00:00) - EP 493: Why We Just Can't Quit Advice Culture (19:44) - Credits ★ Support this podcast ★

Explore how rethinking societal challenges can lead to innovative solutions. Discover the significance of enabling structures in fostering creativity, using historical gems like the Federal Music Project as inspiration. Delve into the complexities of content moderation and the shift from restrictive practices to nurturing dialogue and community values. Learn how these concepts can transform not only macro issues but also enhance our everyday work and family lives.

Explore the compelling concepts of your inner critics, personified as Tiny Capitalists like the Tiny Puritan, Tiny Manager, and Tiny Entrepreneur. Discover how societal pressures about productivity shape our views on work and rest. The discussion reveals the impact of cultural beliefs on labor exploitation and self-worth. Unpack the evolving narratives around capitalism and the role of collaboration in reimagining our relationship with work. It's a witty and thought-provoking journey into our psyche and the systems we accept.

Explore how standardization shapes our choices, from clothing sizes to voting preferences. Discover its impact on education and consumer behavior, revealing how tests like the SAT influence identity. Dive into how standardized categories can constrain self-perception and challenge the labels that limit us. The conversation encourages embracing diverse frameworks for understanding identity and navigating personal and social issues in a more nuanced way.

Explore the concept of temporal bandwidth and how it shapes our commitments and relationships. Discover how the perception of time influences our ability to pursue meaningful projects beyond the urgency of the present. The discussions include intriguing insights from the Steerswoman series, linking the protagonist's journey to our need for deeper understanding and connection. Learn how expanding our view of time can enhance personal growth and enrich storytelling, ultimately allowing us to navigate life’s significant questions.

Most of the work I do that's not this revolves around coaching, editing, and/or thinking with people who have meaningful ideas they want to better express to the world. In this work, the question I hear most often is about making sense of a complex idea—the kind of idea that contains many smaller, supporting ideas and stories and research. The sort of complex idea best expressed in a lengthy essay, a book, a podcast series, or a documentary.How does one make a plan for tackling that kind of idea? How does one get started writing or designing that complex idea? How does one keep track of all the bits and bobs that go into a massive project like that?From my perspective, three biases tend to trip us up when working on a project of this sort. I'll call them the linearity bias, the stick-with bias, and the waste-not bias. I'll explain how each gets in the way of big, messy projects—but first, I have to tell you about HONEYDEW.Footnotes:Read this episode as an essay12 Bytes by Jeanette WintersonBird by Bird by Anne LamottThunder and Lightning by Natalie Goldberg"Making What Can't Be Sold" by Tara McMullinI work with people who want to turn their meaningful ideas into remarkable content. Whether you want feedback or thought partnership in a 90-minute strategy session or you've got a more hands-on project involved, I'd love to help. Click here to learn more about working with me. (00:00) - Honeydew (Or, 3 Biases That Derail Meaningful Ideas) (19:10) - Credits ★ Support this podcast ★

The tech industry has a central role in shaping our work, our communication, and even our identities. Its mythology is woven into the products and services we use on a daily basis. So understanding how the people leading the tech industry think—how they perceive their own stories and generate their own hype—is a solid step toward making sense of what can seem so nonsensical.And there is one book I go back to over and over again when I need to make sense of our mythologies of disruption and failure, value and genius—and that's What Tech Calls Thinking by Adrian Daub.In this episode, I share 3 ideas from that book that help me make sense of the headlines shaping politics, business, and work.Footnotes:What Tech Calls Thinking by Adrian Daub"Mark Zuckerberg" on In Bed With The RightFind a text version of this episode at whatworks.fyi! (00:00) - Introduction (02:00) - What Tech Calls Thinking by Adrian Daub (04:34) - Idea 1: Silicon Valley is a mythology. (08:37) - Idea 2: Gender becomes encoded in all judgments of value. (13:01) - Idea 3: Money does not follow merit, nor vice versa. (16:39) - The Last Word (18:07) - Credits ★ Support this podcast ★

What does my new website, the TikTok "ban," and the ongoing purge of "woke" from government websites have in common?The power to decide what content counts and what doesn't—and use that power to shape the knowledge and experiences of others.In this episode, I continue to examine the state of The Website today. Amidst a backdrop of diffuse epistemic violence, the website is both an archive and a communication tool we can use to preserve the knowledge and ways of knowing we care about. In the second half of the episode, I share a piece I wrote last year on how artificial intelligence disrupts and deskills our critical thinking.Footnotes:"Broken Links" by Tara McMullin on What Works"Knowledge Is Power: A Brief History" on Mental FlossFull text of the House bill "banning" TikTok"Multiple Ways of Knowing: Expanding How We Know" by Elissa Sloane Perry and Aja Couchois Duncan on Nonprofit Quarterly"Black Box Thinking" by Tara McMullin on What Works"Scientists Increasingly Cannot Explain How AI Works" by Chloe Xiang on Vice"Google is redesigning its search engine: it's AI all the way down" on The Verge"Hostile Epistemology" by C. Thi Nguyen"Microsoft Finds Relying on AI Kills Your Critical Thinking Skills" by AJ Dellinger on GizmodoFind a written version of this audio essay, subscribe free to the What Works newsletter, and learn more about working with me to turn your meaningful ideas into remarkable content at whatworks.fyi. (00:00) - EP 486: How Knowledge Really Does Become Power (03:21) - 1. Knowledge is Power (06:41) - The Purge (14:05) - 2. Black Box Thinking (18:07) - Technological Conditioning (26:12) - Credits ★ Support this podcast ★

This discussion dives into the challenges of maintaining a meaningful online presence amidst a cluttered digital landscape. It explores the metaphor of 'broken links' and how fragmented identities can feel like digital homelessness. The emotional toll of digital clutter and the struggle to curate our online archives is examined. There’s a nostalgic look at the past creativity of the web, along with a call to rethink how we manage our digital identities. Get inspired to navigate this chaotic environment with fresh perspectives!

So, health insurance is in the news. And so is Americans' feelings about it. I got to wondering how we ended up with this terrible health insurance system in the United States. I uncovered a fascinating story about the marketing campaign that sunk Truman's national health insurance program in the 1940s. I also discovered some interesting parallels to popular marketing messages among today's influencers, gurus, and marketers.Today's episode is a little trip through history that will hopefully put some of our current issues in perspective.Footnotes:Gallup's survey data on healthcare"The Lie Factory" by Jill Lepore, in The New YorkerInterview with Leone Baxter in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting"Campaigns, Inc." via the California State Archives"The deprofessionalization of medicine. Causes, effects, and responses." by RR Reed and D Evans"Professional Identity Misformation and Burnout: A Call for Graduate Medical Education to Reject “Provider” by Deborah Ehrlich and Joseph Gravel"White Privilege and Professionalization: A Decolonial and Critical Feminist Perspective on Professional Nursing" by Natalie Stake-Doucet"Why Doesn’t the United States Have National Health Insurance? The Role of the American Medical Association" by Marcella Alsan and Yousra Neberai"Oli London & the Right Wing Grift" by Matt BernsteinFind an essay version of this episode at whatworks.fyi! ★ Support this podcast ★