Civic Diary: The Lack Of Planning

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I’ve been thinking about why politics sucks.  When the world is burning up, and people blame Millennials for problems the previous generations created, and we put migrant kids in jail, you kind of wonder “what the hell happened.”

Now is where I get very weird and discuss the ability to plan and organize.  Also, yes, this is going to involve Agile and Project Management, and no it’s not bullshit.  I’m serious.

One of the things I noticed over the years is that people are often terrible at planning – when you’re a planning professional, it gets noticeable.  You’re hired to help people get their act together, which tells you that they can’t do it themselves or don’t have the time.

As you help people plan – and watch plans fall apart – you realize many people can’t plan for crap.  This is nothing against them – we’re not taught to plan or organize very well. However, they still fail, and why don’t we do anything about it?

A thing we get taught in any form of planning or management, from typical Waterfall to Scrum, is that you need a goal.  If you have a goal, you can direct your actions and make things work, and if you fail, you know why so you can adjust and try again.

So how many people are good at setting goals and measuring them?  I’m guessing a lot of us aren’t as good at it as we’d like to be – myself included (one thing you get taught in management practices is to keep learning).

Apply this to politics.  How many of us have a vision for the world, our lives, our countries, and the future?  How many of us have an idea of steps like A to B?  How many of us have at least a vision to work towards that makes sense, and we can evaluate?

Yeah, I know the answer.  I didn’t for a lot of my life, only the last decade or so did I think about these things.

Now apply this to politicians and big money donors and the like.  Sure they think they have a plan, but also have a lot of money and power, so they don’t have to think about results (beyond “hey I got more money and power.”).  The world burns and things fall apart, but they’re shielded by money and power so they can avoid consequences of bad choices for a long time – while we get to pay for them.

No vision, no plan, no goals, just flailing around.  If you have enough money or power, you can try to grab more, but it won’t solve the problems bearing down on us (hell, it makes them worse).

Right now if you look at the good things in the world, think how many people who helped make them happen did plan, did focus, did think.  Feel like we’ve got enough people like that?  Probably not.

We’ve left a lot of the world in the hands of surprisingly few people who have their shit together.  It’s not fair to them.

So yeah, if you want to change the world, start learning productivity techniques and such and use it to get your personal and political life in order.  Think about goals and plans and visions – because by and large, we’re kinda bad at them.

Also, it’s going to kill us if we’re not careful.

Steven Savage

Steve’s Update 10/13/2018

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

My weekly update.  Sadly not too exciting because . . . well, editing.

So what have I done the last week?

  • A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:  Editing away, and two more chapters to go!
  • Way With Worlds: Writing away as well on the organization book (still due November, but we’ll see).  This one is turning out surprisingly good as, well, I manage professionally.
  • Other: Not too many other updates here because of my focus on the novel.  More on that below.

What am I going to do this week?

  • A Bridge To The Quiet Planet: Finish editing the chapters and probably posting most of them for betas.  Then gear up for a “polishing” readthrough.
  • Way With Worlds: Writing of course!

Long-term, I’ve learned a few things on my writing from the novel.  I share this as my status updates make them clear:

  • First, I do best with a good outline – then just vomiting things onto the page.  This works in fiction and in my nonfiction.
  • Secondly, things like Grammarly and other editing programs are absolute godsends.  They are best used as early as possible.
  • Third, I think in the future I will alternate between “doing several things” and “focusing on one thing,” not one or the other.  For instance, the novel would be better written in a fast vomit draft then edited, but except for that “vomit phase” I’d be better off doing two things at once to keep my mind fresh.

Steven Savage

Some Thoughts On My Media Choices

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

My media tastes seem odd for a man of 50, at least for many people’s point of view.  I’m big into anime, documentaries, unusual or odd films, animation, and things that catch my fancy.  It’s not a lot of typical stuff out there, even though a lot of supposedly “mainstream” stuff (like “Better Call Saul” or “Atlanta) is pretty damn spectacular, especially compared to past shows.

It’s strange to explain it to people, because really why should I?

We all have our own tastes and reasons.  We all have our inclinations.  We all have different needs.  What’s weird is how it seems some things are “appropriate” by simple things like age and gender – as if a lot of media even fit those definitions easily.  I can show you a few episodes of the anime My Hero Academia, supposedly targeted at a young male demographic, that would make you think otherwise.

But we feel that our tastes somehow must fit a series of checklists for our demographics.  I’m not sure why we do that.

Is it part of our culture?  Is it part of our ideas of gender?  Part of our idea of ages?  I’m sure all that plays in, but know what I think?

I think a big part of it is how we want definition – and marketing.

Marketing drives us to classify and target works.  What sells.  What fits.  What makes the most money.

Definition is our need to classify things, to not deal in ambiguity.

Combine Marketing and the need for definition, and you’ve got a toxic stew of assumptions.  I’m kinda tired of being told I should like “X as I’m Y,” while I try to explain how awesome Steven Universe is.

This is why I am so pleased that Netflix, Amazon, television, and animation in general is crossing boundaries. I’m glad to see stuff like The Dragon Prince that has that family-for-all feel, a highly accessible but very smart and serious fantasy.  I’m glad to see hyper-real stuff like Atlanta, a heady and near-experimental mix of character story and hyper-reality.

Let’s enjoy what we like.  Which is why I’ll be watching Deku become a superhero, then scope out an indie film, and then on to a documentary on fonts.