Irregular Update #4

Hello Friends in the Computer,

As I write this, it is a snowy Saturday morning in Northern Indiana. As is our custom, Dad and I are watching the US Farm Report on RFD-TV. They’re doing a live hit (recorded) from CES in Las Vegas to talk Ag-Tech and I am reminded of two things: (1) I really need to go to that conference one of these days, as consumer tech shows us the trends that eventually trickle down to enterprise tech and expectations of users and (2) I *really* need to write the “everything I need to know about surviving in legal tech I learned from growing up on a farm” thing one of these days.

Back to my Disney/EPCOT Thing Again

As I’ve said before, one of the fun things about legal tech is that it’s international. That also makes it challenging because, while there are similarities in practice and use case for legal practitioners, especially at the AmLaw 50/Magic Circle/Seven Sisters level, there are also some major differences. There’s a lot of localization that needs to be done, but tech designers also need to understand the work practices of different regions. For a great example of that, Jack Shepard wrote this fascinating thread recently about differences in attitudes towards KM.

More anthropologists and sociologists in legal tech design, please.

Keep Writing and Grinding

I’m still trying to figure out what to do with my one wild and precious life and as a result, I’m “introducing” myself and otherwise talking about how great I am a lot.

I don’t suffer from false modesty. I am pretty great. And I don’t think I have an overinflated assessment of myself… I’ve scoped out the - I don’t want to say competition because I’m not competing with anyone and I want us all to win - let’s call it the “benchmarks” of people in my professional sphere and yeah..I hold my own.

I am an expert in the weird professional world I inhabit. No one is more surprised by that fact than me and it was highly improbable and unplanned that I got here but that also doesn’t me that it’s not true.

How did I get here? How can you get here? There’s the pop culture thing that if you do something for 10,000 hours you can attain expertise. I mean, maybe. I sort of can’t stand Malcolm Gladwell sooo…

But if my math is mathing, that’s around four years of full time work dedicated to something. That seems both an extremely short and unnecessarily long time to know what I know? I recently read two accidentally complementary pieces about becoming and expert and the short answer is “be weird and stay curious.” Done and Done.

Anyway, check them out..

Grinding out the Expertise by Ken Adams

The Power of Indulging Your Weird, Offbeat Obsessions by Clive Thompson

Thompson also wrote a perhaps unintentional companion piece How Blogging Changes the Way You Think. I absolutely credit writing publicly with helping to shape my thoughts.

Wonderful Segue to Self Promotion

Come hear David Whelan and I talk about writing publicly on the web!

I Loved This Analogy

If You Can’t Beat Them…?

I live in Northern Indiana. I keep my house at around 67 or so during the winter because I grew up in a drafty farmhouse and I am used to having blankets on my lap or whatever when I sit on the couch at night. Lap blankets aren't really practical when I’m sitting at my desk in my home office. I could put on a sweatshirt but Im going through this weird period where I’m super sensitive about my arms feeling super constricted. I realized that what I need is a vest.

Yes, a nice fleece vest would be just the thing.

Then I realized...

Oh no.

Oh NO.

Reader, I bought two fleece vests. From Amazon with next day delivery so I’m REALLY going to Hell in a handbasket. Looking forward to having a warm core though.

That’s enough for now. The farm news is over and Dad and I need to figure out what we’re doing today.

Take care,

Sarah