🖋️ LongForm
Want to reduce the noice and just focus on things with a little more meat - the this category is for you. Like so much on this site we have a ‘WIP’ as i take some out - and put some in - but safe for at least starting in 2026.
🎶 🎵 Revisiting 'Odessey and Oracle'
Revisiting Odessey and Oracle today after listening to the Rockentours talking to Colin Blunstone.
Great Songs.
🎥 Lansky, 2021 - ★★★★
For a 99 cent rental I wasn’t expecting much - but heh - Harvey Keitel - right? Well worth it. In fact at $9.99, would have been worth it.
🎥 Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, 2021 - ★★★★
Not as good as the 2017 Hitman’s Bodyguard - but definitely well worth a watch.
Is America Great?
Dave Winer over on Scripting …
“I am an American, nothing is going to change that, but if you asked me do I feel this is the greatest country ever, I’d say that’s an idea we have to purge from our minds, the US is the opposite, it’s a fat, lazy, spoiled, ridiculous excuse for a country. If we want to amount to anything we need to take a 180 degree turn now.”
Channeling Jeff Daniels / Will McEvoy 8 years later?
ATS systems should just be banned.
They are singularly the most inhuman invention you might imagine. But they aren’t half as bad as humans.
I went through a process about three months ago. You have resumes and cover letters stored on your hard drive. You even have a linkedIN profile that contains a wealth of information. But none of that is good enough. No. You need to fill in the forms that you are presented with and then add pdfs of the docs to the application.
You just know that the form filling is the filter mechanism that the ATS will use to decide how it is all prioritised. I got it all in within the time specified and then connected with the current incumbent AND the hiring manager (knowing them both) to let them know my hat was in the ring. A little later - the application deadline was extended. No reason provided - but I was told - even though my application was in.
I could only think of two reasons.
1] There weren’t enough candidates - it’s a pretty niche role.
2] The candidate they wanted hadn’t applied - so they told him to - extended the deadline and waited.
Other than that single communication …
Nothing … nothing … nothing … except alerts from the ATS saying that I won’t hear more from it - since the application was ‘now in the hands of the recruiting organisation’.
Nothing … nothing … nothing … and then
**In their occasional newsletter I read that the position has been filled … by someone I also happen to know. Good chap actually. **
Still heard nothing from the ‘recruiting organisation’. At minimum I might expect a pro forma - ‘thanks for applying’ at the start - and then a ‘sorry you didn’t get it’ pro forma at the end.
At best,I look to how I used to operate.
- I would meet everyone on candidate short lists.
- I would insist that my recruiting managers connect with every candidate personally - not the HR wonk - the line manager.
Maybe I am odd. I am certainly an exception, because this story is not new. It happens every single day to people all over the planet.
When you read how tech has lost its humanity - people blame the machines.
I don’t. I blame the people.
The good news - if this is how they operate - glad I am not part of it.
If I say this I am going to be in trouble. I don’t care.
Much as when a clear and obvious lie is stated - it doesn’t give you confidence that the rest is going to be any different. I refer you to ’45’ over the past 4 years.
I have not seen ‘the’ recent Oprah interview. Life is too short.
But when I hear someone claim that they “didn’t really have any idea what the royal family was, didn’t Google or do any research.” … my antennas will go up. My antennas went up!
So no … sorry. If that wasn’t a lie then stupidity is the only possibility.
This from Peggy Noonan summarises it nicely.
”Public life has gotten extremely, unrelentingly performative. Have you noticed you keep hearing that word? It means everyone is always performing—the politician, the news anchor, the angry activist. This gives natural actors an edge, and leaves those who aren’t by nature actors at a disadvantage. Meghan was a professional actress.”
Read the whole thing - save me writing it again - and it is better written than I would manage!
Cancel Culture
The media business keeps trying to ruin Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog, and they keep prospering. On the loony Substack controversy, and the paradox of moral panic in media.
Matt Taibbi
Substack Has A Problem
I'm a fan of Substack - but it looks like they might be hitting some issues as they rush to attract famous writers to the platform - and paying them. On the outside it looks good that famous writers use you - but if you are paying them - and not discllosing that - we have an issue.
Beyond that, to pay someone means that you are choosing not to pay someone else - at which point you are becoming a publisher - not a platform and thus arguably support/agree with those writers words and opinions. What then distinguished you from any other publishing vehicle.
Then again there is this (spolier alert - an opposite pov : Adding My Data Point To The Discussion Of Substack Advances.
The Future of Remote Work
Over on the podcast and in the newsletter - oh and in the People First network, I have been ruminating about remote work.
Specifically about work visas and wondering where work is done and once you know where it is done - then - do you need a work visa?
Quick example. You LIVE in P0rtugal. You connect to servers in the US. You are paid in London. Your value is delivered (eg where the code (for example) is rendered and turned into something that can be charged for in Canada.
Where do you work?
Seems like I am not the only one, Adam Ozimek from Upwork shares his ideas about nomadic workforces with Matt Yglesias. He is really only talking about the US - but still raising valid and related questions about the other side of the where do you work equation - where do you go if you cant work. Which state?
They discuss the implications for migration, local governance, and the elusive concept of work/life balance. (Where have I heard that one before?)
Adam argues strongly for the whole work thing in America to be Federalized.
Listen to the podcast here. If you don’t have a full 60 minutes to listen - scoot through to minute 4o for the pertinent stuff.
Switch It Off Already
I'm kind of over people complaining about how LinkedIN sucks because ... or Facebook users are ... or Instagram Photos are ....
Social Media channels are like TV channels. If you don’t like them you can ignore them or even delete them.
Just do that. Why fill my feed with your rubbish.
In fact you can refine your feed even further ... block, remove, delete the people that offend you. It is
- much easier
- massively more effective
- way quicker
than writing a screed on why you feel so upset.
Why Do You Work?
I promise, Manton, Daniel and I did not coordinate this - I think sometimes synchronicity just happens.
In last weeks newsletter I asked the question
A reply post will be available this Saturday.
There have been some great answers, but that is not the reason for this post.
Manton Reece - the brain behind Micro Blog 1 and Daniel Jalkut - the brain behind Red Sweater 2 have a weekly podcast called Core Intuition. This week I learned that they have been running their podcast for twelve years. A remarkable feat even of itself. Both of them are independent developers and this week the conversation turned to employment. A really nice discussion between two professionals that wrestle with following their dreams and passions, while balancing the need to put bread on the table.
Have a listen - you won't regret it and very pertinent to the discussion 'Why Do You Work'.
Footnotes
1] If you want to see MicroBlog working in the real world, my web site - John.Philpin.Com is powered by MicroBlog.
2] If you want to see Red Sweater working in the real world, that’s a little harder - but Daniel has a superb product called Mars Edit that I am using to write and post this article. Seriously. If you are a Mac user that writes a blog - you should be using Mars Edit.
When Zero Is Everything
For decades, the business world has embraced worker empowerment. But recently a countermovement—workforce optimization—has been on the rise. It treats labor as a commodity and seeks to cut it to a minimum by using automation and artificial intelligence, tightly controlling how people do their jobs, and replacing employees with contractors. This approach is especially prevalent in the tech sector and the gig economy. And it is cause for deep concern.
Peter Cappelli
I can only agree.
Read what Doc Searls has to say about Zero Party Data
Shaped By History?
”I thought back to the day I decided to go to law school. It was a warm spring day. May 4, 1970. I was a freshman at Oberlin College. A few days earlier, President Richard Nixon had expanded the Vietnam War by invading Cambodia. Antiwar college protests erupted throughout the country.
About 1 p.m. in the afternoon, the news hit us in the gut as we huddled around TVs and radios on our sheltered college campus. In just 12 seconds, the Ohio National Guard fired over 60 shots at student protesters at nearby Kent State University. Nine students were wounded, one of them paralyzed for life; and four students — Allison Krause, Jeff Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and Bill Schroeder — were killed.
Bill Schroeder was an ROTC student watching the protest; he was shot in the back. Sandy Scheuer was walking to class. I didn’t know them, but I’ve never forgotten their names.”
Lee Fisher
That quote comes from an article that my friend, colleague and 'he that keeps me on the straight and narrow' … Stuart Robbins just shared with me.
Stuart, thank-you.
My father fought for the British Army in the second world war. If you are 75 or under, you were not on planet earth during that war and as a result, the impact it had on that generation is being lost - if not forgotten.
The Vietnam war is much more recent, but still, is - like WWII being lost into history, so when I read first hand experiences, especially something as personal as the words Lee wrote, I like to stop and reflect for a moment.
And who is Lee Fisher?
”Lee Fisher is dean of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University. He is the former Ohio attorney general, lieutenant governor, director of the Ohio Department of Development, chair of the Ohio Third Frontier Commission, president and CEO of the Center for Families and Children, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, state representative and state senator.
But there's more. He recently came on to the People First Podcast and talked with Stuart about Law - and, IMHO, more importantly Leadership in Law. If you don’t want to jump off to another site, you can listen to it right here ...
Or follow the link to a great interview, weighing in at under 30 minutes of 'gold'.
I often find that knowing a little more about people, their history and what shaped them, helps me understand the context of who they are today and what they are saying. Lee is no exception. In fact I think it is possible to draw a straight line from the experience he described in that quote above to his life's work. I hope you agree.