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When we make something new, people often ask "why don't you just add that to Basecamp?" There are a number of reasons, depending on what it is. But, broadly, making something brand new gives you latitude (and attitude) to explore new tech and design approaches. It's the opposite of grafting something on to a heavier, larger system that already exists. The gravity of existing decisions in current systems requires so much energy to reach escape velocity that you tend to conform rather than explore. Essentially you're bent back to where you started, rather than arcing out towards a new horizon. New can be wrong, but it's always interesting. And that in itself is worth it. Because in the end, even if the whole new thing doesn't work out, individual elements, explorations, and executions discovered along the way can make their way back into other things you're already doing. Or something else new down the road. These bits would have been undiscovered had you never set out for new territory in the first place. Ultimately, a big part of making something new is simply thinking something new. -Jason
Whenever I talk about working in real-time, making decisions as you go, figuring things out now rather than before, I get a question like this... "If you don't have a backlog, or deep sets of prioritized, ranked items, how do you decide what to do next?" My answer: The same way you do when your made your list. You make decisions. We just make decisions about what to work on next as we go, looking forward, rather than making decisions as we went, looking backwards. Why work from what /seemed/ like a good idea before? Instead, work from appears to be a good idea now. You have more information now — why not use it? It's always baffled me how people who pluck work from long lists of past decisions think you can't make those same kinds of decisions now instead. It's all yay/nay decisions. Same process. Before wasn't magical. Before was just now, then. Why not look at now, now? Now is a far more accurate version of next. The backlog way is based on what you thought then. The non-backlog way is based on what you think now. I'll take now. One's stale, one's fresh. We'll take fresh. Then is further, now is closer. There's nothing special about having made decisions already. They aren't better, they aren't more accurate, they aren't more substantial just because they've been made. What they are, however, is older and often outdated. If you've got to believe in something, I'd suggest putting more faith in now. -Jason
Business isn’t something you learn in books. Or posts. Or threads. You can’t read your way to the right hire. You can't consume enough content to produce a product. You have to do. You learn business by doing business. Hiring by hiring. Products by building them. We know this is true in music. Never pick up a guitar? Go read 100 books on guitar. You'll suck just as much. You have to play. You can only learn guitar by playing. Business is music. Some things can be taught. Some are just knowledge. Business isn't that kind of thing. Products aren't those kinds of things. Like music. Like sports. Like anything physical. You have to do the thing to get better at the thing. In that way, business is more physical than mental. It's not a formula you can learn. It's not a series of lessons you can internalize. It's not a list you can complete. Business is muscle memory. It's built by doing. Go do. -Jason
One of the great lessons of nature: Randomness is the most beautiful thing. Every forest, every field, every place untouched by humans is full of randomness. Nothing lines up, a million different shapes, sprouting seeds burst where the winds — or birds — randomly drop them. Stones strewn by water, ice, gravity, and wind, all acting on their own in their own ways. Things that just stop and stay. Until they move somehow, another day. The way the light falls, the dapples that hit the dirt. The shades of shades of shades of green and gold that work no matter what's behind it. The way the wind carries whatever's light enough for liftoff. The negative space between the leaves. Colliding clouds. The random wave that catches light from the predictable sun. The water's surface like a shuffled blanket. Collect the undergrowth in your hand. Lift it up. Drop it on the ground. It's always beautiful. However it comes together, or however it stays apart, you never look at it and say that doesn't line up or those colors don't work or there's simply too much stuff or I don't know where to look. Nature's out of line. Just right. You too. -Jason
In the end, judgment comes first. And that means hiring is a gut decision. As much science as people want to try to pour into the hiring process, art always floats to the top. This is especially true when hiring at the executive level. The people who make the final calls — the ones who are judged on outcome, not effort — are ultimately hired based on experience and judgement. Two traits that are qualities, not quantities. They are tasked with setting direction, evaluating situations, and making decisions with limited information. All day long they are making judgment calls. That's what you hire them to do, and that's how you decide who to hire. Presented with a few finalists, you decide who you *think* will do a better job when they have to *think* about what to do in uncertain situations. This is where their experience and judgment come in. It's the only thing they have that separates them from someone else. Embrace the situation. You don't know, they don't know, everyone's guessing, some guess better than others. You can't measure how well someone's going to guess next time, you can only make assumptions based on other assumptions. Certainty is a mirage. In the art of people, everything is subjective. In the end, it's not about qualifications — it's about who you trust to make the right call when it matters most. Ultimately, the only thing that was objective was your decision. The reasons were not. -Jason
More in life
I celebrate the pianist's milestone birthday by sharing my favorite music from his first decade as a recording artist
When we make something new, people often ask "why don't you just add that to Basecamp?" There are a number of reasons, depending on what it is. But, broadly, making something brand new gives you latitude (and attitude) to explore new tech and design approaches. It's the opposite of grafting something on to a heavier, larger system that already exists. The gravity of existing decisions in current systems requires so much energy to reach escape velocity that you tend to conform rather than explore. Essentially you're bent back to where you started, rather than arcing out towards a new horizon. New can be wrong, but it's always interesting. And that in itself is worth it. Because in the end, even if the whole new thing doesn't work out, individual elements, explorations, and executions discovered along the way can make their way back into other things you're already doing. Or something else new down the road. These bits would have been undiscovered had you never set out for new territory in the first place. Ultimately, a big part of making something new is simply thinking something new. -Jason
a recap + recording of BATWRITE #001
Those of you who remember when I used to blog things that weren’t about travel, rejoice! This was our last full day in Japan before we travel back to Australia, with heavy hearts and significantly heavier baggage. I’m at our local Doutor having a coffee and thinking back to how great this was. The start was awful on account of that migraine and stomach bug that wouldn’t quit, but I was relived it only lasted a few days. Nagoya, Takoyama, and Toyama were so much fun! It’s always a novelty seeing somewhere new, but they were all amazing places. Toyama in particular is a place I could see myself moving to; I joked that it was our $SydneySuburb in Japan. We wanted to look for gifts for a few friends and family, so we spent our last full day in Tōkyō going to the requisite places. This meant Akihabara again, which honestly as a nerd wasn’t exactly an onerous requirement! Detractors claim Akihabara isn’t as good as it used to be, which may be true. But seeing all the pop culture I otherwise only ever see in a computer screen displayed out in the open and in dozens of stores, and more electronics than I’d be exposed to in Australia in a given year, it’s something else. To get there we walked a slightly different route, which took us under that famed JR arch bridge. It’s honestly far larger, higher, and more impressive in person than any of the photos online I’d seen suggest. But first was brunch! The first time we went to Akihabara I was only able to keep water and those CalorieMate blocks down, so we decided to re-visit The Flying Scotsman café we went to on one of our first days. We ended up at our same table, with the same wait staff who drew us little happy bunnies on our receipts and napkins. If you’re in Akiba and want somewhere to chill, I can’t recommend this place enough. They’re lovely. We walked past the massive JR Akihabara Station and Atré building, and saw the walls plastered with images for the 30th Anniversary of AQUAPLUS! The ToHeart2 visual novel and anime were oddly one of those series that Clara and I first bonded over, to the point where our combined domain is named for a character from it. They had merchandise in one of the small halls upstairs, though they were already sold out of the characters we knew! People of discerning tastes had been through before, it seems. While we were there, we also checked out the IDOLM@STER Official Store, because that’s also what people of discerning tastes do! IM@S was the first of these idol groups I ever knew, and while the lineup has been updated and changed a lot over the years, they still had a small shelf of the original characters I used to listen way back when; including my beloved Yukiho Hagiwara! Atré should have called this the Nostalgia Floor. We went hunting around a few more of the anime shops down the road, including the other Lashinbang, Mandarake, and BOOK·OFF stores we didn’t get time to before. These second-hand stores are absolutely packed with every series, character, and type of merchandise you can imagine. If teenage me had the money and access, he would have gone absolutely nuts in places like this. Fortunately Clara and I are far more responsible and rational and financially prudent and… oh no, how will this all fit in our bags? We also made the mistake of going to both HARD·OFF second-hand stores in Akiba. Their outlets elsewhere in Japan are definitely better on account of tourists generally not venturing out from the big cities, but they still had items that I would have loved to stuff in my bags had we the space for them. I also managed to snag a couple of PC-133 DIMMs which most of my desktops use, but are becoming as scarce as hen’s teeth. For a part of Tōkyō we were only going to “quickly” check out “in the morning” before going to Kinshichō, we ended up staying there till the late afternoon. Akihabara is a classic time void; I blame Makise Kurisu among others. We got the JR Chūō-Sōbu Line from Akihabara over to Kinshichō station in Subida, in the eastern part of Tōkyō. We left the station and were greeted with a familiar sight in the distance! I know the Skytree is a polarising piece of architecture, but there’s no doubt it’s… omnipresent, especially on a clear day like this! It seemed like it was popping up everywhere we walked. Clara was able to find the stores she was after for her friends, then we went to get some dinner. We ended up at this Chinese/Japanese restaurant where I was able to tick off having gyoza and omurice in the one meal… though the flavours were decidedly not Japanese! It was amazing, and a silly opportunity to use the Art mode on my OM-3 to take a picture of it outside as we left. Our flight isn’t until late tomorrow, so our plan is to wander around Ikebukuro after we check out, and to pretend that we somehow have another two weeks! One can dream, desu. By Ruben Schade in Tokyo, 2025-05-08.
