đď¸ 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.
Louis Daguerre and Daguerreotypes
I asked a question about this image in this newsletter.
More to come, but to recognize here that it was a stretch ... First Person ... People First!
People First!
People First!
Why would it be any different?
Why People First? Itâs a question that I am often asked. Why not? If not people, then what should be first?
The questions being asked by mainstream media are primarily about how markets and business will recover - few ask how people will recover.
đŹ John Philpin
We Live In A Viral World.
There's A Perfect Storm On The Horizon
Garbage Language
We need to stop it.
âWeâre waiting on specs for the San Francisco installation. Can you parallel-path two versions?â
Good grief ... I think Molly Young is channelling me.
... at the very bottom, customer service. Which, by the way, has been rechristened âcustomer supportâ or âcustomer experienceâ at most companies â as though the word service might remind the college graduates recruited for these roles that they will in fact spend their days pacifying irritable consumers over phone, chat, text, and email.Â
As you know - Language is one of the People First pillars.
I have no reason to write more on this article - it only becomes a block to you reading it yourself.
đ§ Data Is Being Used To Screw Us
This popped into a thread that I am part of ...
A thread that caused 'Friend of People First' - Adrian Gropper to write;
A talk that argues that most of the big data is being used to screw us and mentions data trusts as a possible solution. Data trusts are an immature concept but worth considering because it's one approach to decentralizing governance. Until we figure out data governance principles that are transparent and contextual to specific communities we should limit data aggregation by default and focus on personal agents and other fiduciaries.
Adrian Gropper
It is interesting because on that very same day I received these words from another 'Friend of People First' and occasional colleague Daniel Szuc after he received my newsletter declaring Data is Energy.
Energy is energy.
Daniel Szuc and Josephine Wong
Climate is a result of energy misused.
Environment is the outcome.
What are the impacts on our environment today, inside people and in the outside environment people live in?
What contributes to the health or toxicity of the environment?
Data, understood deeply, should be used to contribute to the healthy environment ... yet ... how is it being used today?
The answer, of course, is exactly what Adrian expressed above.
It is being used to screw us.
Ian Grigg On Identity
I think that is the opportunity and in five years time we'll know whether we got the mega-corporations holding my identity or whether we managed to take it back.
Ian Grigg - October 2015.
The five years are just about up and I think if the 'megacorps' have not won - they are about to. Is it too late?
Three years ago he wrote: Identity is an edge protocol, and not a nodal protocol. (pdf)
Fuck You. Pay Me.
Imagine, turning around to a lawyer, an accountant, a doctor and telling them that they weren't going to be paid.
Dear Lawyer
I listened to your advice - but I am not going to use it - so I donât owe you.
Wrote no one ever.
So why does that happen to designers, creators, writers et al?
Thinking Allowed
This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. Itâs a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.- More about People First
- Other People First Posts
(not just from the âother domainâ ⌠all of them.)
Technology?
O.M.G. Technology!
We live in the thrall of technology. âShiny Thingsâ, that deliver 'squirrelâ interruptions into our daily lives. Nothing wrong with that, with all the usual caveats that we read about. BUT âŚ
â OMG - Technology ⌠all
Owned
Managed and
Governed
Not by you - but by the very companies that 'sold' you the âbill of goodsâ to begin with. â
John Philpin
Reflections on Reflections
I have been reflecting on the pillars of People First. Each pillar has at least one reflection that throws new light on something we might have thought we understood, but on reflection we might conclude that 'common wisdom' should be questioned.
Reflections of any subject aren't exactly true to the original. Sometimes distorted. Occasionally murky. Always the opposite of what we perceive as reality. Yet they are valid representations of reality.
Always revealing differences. Often adding new facets. To know the reflection is to understand the subject.
This is a living post and will be updated as reflections are added to the canon.
| Pillar | Reflection |
| Identity | ID - Entity |
| Data | Data? Data Is Energy! |
| Technology | Technology? OMG - Technology |
Identity
To know the reflection is to understand the subject.
Politics In Business
The New York Times : Yellow or Blue? In Hong Kong, Businesses Choose Political Sides on the 19th January contains this quote ...
Families and businesses have cleaved, sometimes forcefully, between those who believe Beijing must be compelled to carry out promised reforms and those who worry that the democracy crusade is destroying Hong Kongâs reputation as a stable financial capital.
I thought of the UK and the US ... and made two modifications
For The USA
Families and businesses have cleaved, sometimes forcefully, between those who believe Washington must be compelled to carry out promised reforms and those who worry that the democracy crusade is destroying The USA's reputation as a stable financial capital.
For The UK
Families and businesses have cleaved, sometimes forcefully, between those who believe London must be compelled to carry out promised reforms and those who worry that the democracy crusade is destroying The UK's reputation as a stable financial capital.
People: Sylvester
âThey come for three months - they stay for four years - and I welcome that. Thatâs how we learn. They see us up close and personal and we see them. A lot of countries that they come from have very different governments, with different rules. We get to learn about each without the filter of what they are told. I wouldnât say that when they leave we fully understand each otherâs cultures, but we are surely better off than we would have been if we hadn't.â
âWe bring people in from all over the world, staff and customers. So, why would we treat anyone differently? Them, Us, Staff, Customers, Family ⌠each one of us is part of anotherâs world. And I mean all of us.â
âI donât know much about those large companies you hear about in the news. You could fit our entire community into one of their office blocks. They have their ways. We have ours. So weâre different. Except weâre not. None of us are. They just havenât worked that out yet.â
âTurns out, we have more in common with âforeignersâ - like youâ (he smiles and points his finger at me) âthan some of the people from our own country. Turns out that the ones that are just here to 'party' are the odd ones out. Thatâs why we came up with the 'Silly Bugger' rule.â
âIt goes like this. When you come here, you can work and you can party. But thatâs on your time. If you play 'silly bugger', there is no second chance. You are out on the next boat. Thatâs how we build and strengthen our community. Everybody is welcome until they make themselves unwelcome.â
âMaybe thatâs something else those big companies could learn from us. If they did, we wouldnât charge. Thatâs another thing - we donât charge to learn - learning makes us all better.â
âThere is no harm in our criticizing foreigners, if only we would also criticize ourselves. In other words, the world might need even less of its new charity, if it had a little more of the old humility.â
G.K. Chesterton
Thinking Allowed
This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. Itâs a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.- More about People First
- Other People First Posts
(not just from the âother domainâ ⌠all of them.)
Postscript : Ad Tracking
Are we winning? Well a whole lot more than we might have been pre-internet.Â
Ad blockers are used by some 25% of internet users in 2019. In real terms, this means that 25% of internet advertising that uses trackers will not reach their intended audience. (Itâs quite a bit more complicated than that, but the point is that somehow the word got out that people were being tracked and it was those pesky Ads doing all the tracking - enter Adblocking and so an industry was born and an âarms raceâ ensued.)
The peak of the internet searching for the term âAd blockerâ was September 2015.Â
Me - I call it âtracker blockingâ. There are sites that allow advertising and do not track. Ad blockers donât work there - because there is no tracking to be blocked.
But there is no escape that at one point people were increasingly aware of ad blocking - what it was doing and most importantly - what it was doing to them. They got interested. And then it all fell away.
That's the mistake - we need to keep piling on. Keep reminding people what is going on.