In last week’s WB-40, guest Rufus Evison drew an interesting analogy between how LLMs work and Daniel Kahneman’s Fast and Slow thinking model. Rufus described how LLM responses are “fast”, almost instinctive based on past experiences and pattern matching, and the problem with them is that they need to be more “slow”, deliberative and logical. … Continue reading The Messy Truth About “Thinking” Machines
This week I have learned: how much of my cognitive capacity went into preparing and delivering a pitch presentation this week. That's not a moan, it's just a reflection on how much brain power and emotional energy goes into bringing together a team and a script to delivery something compelling to clients. that for all … Continue reading Weeknote 738: post performance
I've been thinking lately about how we're rather good at solving problems, but surprisingly bad at identifying what the problems actually are. Take the double diamond process that every design consultant worth their salt will draw on a whiteboard: diverge to explore numerous solutions, converge to select the best one, diverge again to prototype, and … Continue reading The problem with problems
This week I have learned: how nice it is to hear that I am an inspiration to others looking to get better at working out loud. I think I'm one of the top five longest-running weeknoters, and working in the open kind of comes naturally. I think meeting John Stepper a decade or so ago … Continue reading Weeknote 737 – independence
Things I have learned this week: That the glorious Lianne La Havas song Weird Fishes is actually a Radiohead cover version. I'm not a big Radiohead fan, and I'm not entirely sure why, because I seem to like their stuff. I'm finding all of this out thanks to the random trip through the Rolling Stone … Continue reading Weeknote 736: reflecting
This week I have learned: when people are confronted with what really should be a normal workload after years of slugging it out in "high performance" (ie exploitative) environments, one thing they might experience is detox. That insight came from a contact of mine who totally burned out a few years ago. talking of which, … Continue reading Weeknote 735: proposing (again)
This week I have learned: the delights of getting together en masse. It was our annual conference at the beginning of the week, and so we had three days to explore and connect with people from across the organisation. disposable applications are a thing now. Well, at least I think they are. Here's an app … Continue reading Weeknote 734: Conference
This week I have learned: how nice it was to meet up with a bunch of people I worked with at the BBC some 20 years ago. We've all got a little bit older, but nobody has really changed that much. It was a delight to catch up on what we've been doing, reminisce about … Continue reading Weeknote 733 – reunion
This week I have learned: I probably, in the great scheme of things, underestimate my ability to be creative. It's the drawing thing, that if you aren't able to draw well, then you're not (from school onwards) marked as being creative. I create a lot of things. I'm increasingly fascinated by making software things. At … Continue reading Weeknote 732 – LLMing
This week I have learned: in a fascinating round-table event featuring Team Topologies' Matthew Skelton, that maybe we need a change in the sorts of people who work in tech if technology cycle times fall in the coming years (that's a big "if", mind). People who revel in context shifting. People who take pride in … Continue reading Weeknote 731 – human contact
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