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One of the biggest tells that someone doesnât know what theyâre talking about: glossing over addressing resource constraints, or saying things that imply infinite resources. Effectively everything is resource-constrained, & seasoned practitioners are especially sensitive to this https://t.co/DZi8XbYQqx
The inverse is also remarkably true: telling stories about dealing with resource constraints often quickly reveals that a practitioner really knows what theyâre talking about. (See also: incentive structures, social norms, common mistakes & misconceptions, prices...) https://t.co/HjfebCj4vH
Excited newbie: letâs do all the things!! Grizzled veteran: we have limited time, energy, morale, goodwill. Keeping this in mind, letâs pick one demonstrably good thing weâre confident we can achieve, and get it done decisively so we unlock more resources to do more things https://t.co/2JlAJC0E2z
In a single visual: https://t.co/EfEZ0z7YHq
I think about these two pictures from @joulee a lot â very succinct and powerful way of describing how professional creatives have a more structured process, and how that isn't necessarily limiting â you actually get to try more things this way https://t.co/XUA8zUZBMb
In another: https://t.co/XGrkk1VuY2
A concept that I really liked from my army days is âorder of neglectâ. Ie, if you donât have enough resources to sustain your full operation, whatâs the first thing you drop? Second? Third? All the way to the most critical thing. Really clarifies your priorities and purpose https://t.co/lRVoHvfSph
Another useful tool is the concept of bottlenecks. If youâre trying to do more of something, or do it better, the most important thing to do is often (always?) to figure out the tightest bottleneck, and loosen it https://t.co/UBgA120wtD
2. Bottlenecks. The only meaningful improvement you can make in any system is at its tightest bottleneck. Progress at the second tightest bottleneck is still constrained by the tightest bottleneck, and it can actually make things worse, because of congestion. (@fortelabs remix)
fantastic example of a thread by an industry veteran who clearly knows what heâs talking about. Look for constraints, look for creeping hidden costs, look for trade-offs https://t.co/g3mFi0gnFh
People dunked on this tweet, saying, in essence, "This isn't 100% correct - you shouldn't pay attention." But that misses the point. The value of any model is that it's simpler than reality so that you can gain insight. Here are the insights I have gained from this model.
Great setup. Good teachers, like magicians, are storytellers, and they know how to work artfully with the audienceâs expectations and assumptions https://t.co/WXGKqGff2l
August was finally landing the payment for a large deal with a large enterprise. As you can imagine, that required a lot of pre-work. Pre-work costs current money. You would think a profitable software business with a contract in hand would get all the money from banks, right?
ask other people about the constraints theyâre operating under https://t.co/bnSPukC2jd
effort shock https://t.co/G1xicKHQ6b
@visakanv Interesting that this link also came up today -- short article about details & constraints, on "Military Logistics for Fantasy Writers" https://t.co/HNwfqAn8Vz
14. constraints in growing construction biz notice right from the start theyâre like âtoss whatâs not helpfulâ. then âdonât assumeâ, âyou canât X until Yâ â lots of little markers of âexperienced practitionerâ
16. agriculture
2/ I raise 3 hogs per year, maybe every other year. The idea that one can "merely" just raise 10 pigs is ... insane. Also ... pigs eat food. If you're keeping them on 1/2 an acre (or far far less if you're also gardening), they're not foraging > https://t.co/tcrV3nM0u3
17. comms https://t.co/MVCEfVa596
One thing it took me quite a while to understand is how few bits of information it's possible to reliably convey to a large number of people. When I was at MS, I remember initially being surprised at how unnuanced their communication was, but it really makes sense in hindsight.
19. acres
"Ok but tell me a precise number" You can't. "How much food can you grow on X square feet?" depends on how long the growing season is. How much it rains. What the soil is like. How much $ & time you have to throw at irrigation, food preservation, etc.
20. video editing
Dear video editors looking at this: For transparency, when @tonystoodios started with me 5 years ago, we started at $350/video and very quickly increased rate from there. "Length of video" is a garbage metric for setting a rate. Charge either hourly, or by average project complexity. A per-video rate can work well if you build a long-term relationship with your client, but be cautious about it in the beginning. Get a sense of the project's scope. Leading with, "I charge $300 per video" is a good way to find yourself underneath a 100-hour project, and realize you're making $3/hour. Trust me, I've been there. Just out of high school, I once quoted $50 for a project that ended up taking 80 hours. Lesson learned. A 10-minute assembly cut of talking-head footage might take 30-60 minutes (of edit time), but a 10-minute explainer with b-roll, motion graphics, etc can take 40 hours of work. It all depends. Keep in mind that edit time isn't your only time expenditure. You'll spend time waiting for your client to deliver assets, and if they expect you to render the video, that's time your machine is basically unusable. Consider all these factors when setting your rates. Use a contract, and include language about how you handle revision requests. Typically it's a good idea to charge hourly after the first round or two. When I did web dev, I charged $60/hour after 2 revision requests â and that was back in 2009, when I was 18. Stand your ground if asked to do more work than your negotiated rate covers. It's ok to give your client a bit of leeway in order to build a good long-term relationship, but don't let yourself be exploited. And let me put this part in bold: Your portfolio is everything, and it can include work you do for yourself. I have my eye out for motion graphics artists right now, and I couldn't care less if the work in an artist's portfolio was done for a client or for themselves. Don't let a cheap client try to pressure you with the old "work with me and I'll help you make more connections". There's merit to that â to a degree â but not to such a degree that you should allow yourself to be exploited.
21. hit em where it actually hurts
Iâve seen posts over the past few days talking about âgo to rural america to get a job and find someone to teach you the ropes!â and âthere are plenty of young women to choose from if you drive across the country!â Here's a thread detailing my experience in North Dakota
@visakanv wholly agreed, and would add I think it's an interesting exercise to continually cycle through constraints and ask how you might do things differently if this constraint *didn't exist* [which seasoned practitioners don't always do well, ime]
@dsdtzero yeah https://t.co/wCjbstIa9z
People typically have high-res models of their own lives and lower-res models of other peopleâs. We are all born clueless with incredibly low-res models of the world - then we tweak and upgrade our models. Different people do this to different degrees depending on many variables
@visakanv Great thread! Meta-question: Given technology's rising curve, at what point does constraint evolution outstrip our capacity to solve constraint problems? As in, by the time I've understood a problem, tech has alrady iterated it into something unrecognizable? What happens then?
@visakanv https://t.co/7DPXzuGi9t
@visakanv It's an inherent part of nature. A sound wave that propagates through a medium exists and changes in accordance with the environment's rules, information is subject to the constraints of the computer; There's an *interaction* among objects and environments governed by rules