Category: ramblings

Restorative justice and resolving online conflict

The most important part of last week's episode of On The Media was probably the segment on how the Restorative Justice process can serve as an alternative to the broken prison system in the U.S.  I highly recommend it. But the segment that followed, about what role Restorative Justice could play in resolving conflicts that happen online, was also intriguing, especially as someone who has been trained as a conflict mediator and participated in conflict resolution advocacy programs in the past. It got me thinking about what the one-off experiment on Reddit that Micah Loewinger and Lindsay Blackwell conducted might look like in wider practice.

Right now when two or more people are in conflict on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or elsewhere, the most likely eventual outcome is that someone will be blocked, banned, muted or otherwise removed from the conversation, either by a participant or by a moderator of the service itself. As the On The Media episode notes, the best that social media companies seem to be able to come up with in this problem space is making it even easier to report or block someone. (And to be clear, I'm generally a supporter of users being able to block/mute someone else at will without having to explain themselves.)

But if anyone involved in or affected by the conflict was interested in a different outcome, how could they get there?

An idea I'm exploring here would be a bot that someone, either one of the parties or an observer, could mention to initiate a conflict resolution process with elements of the Restorative Justice approach included.

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Air travel and the carbon footprint of distributed work

In touting the benefits of distributed models of work, which I do often, there's a temptation to make the point that not having an office building and the energy-intensive practices that go with it (commuting, for example) must translate to a lower overall carbon footprint for distributed organizations.

While I think a lower carbon footprint is a possible benefit of distributed work, and one very much worth pursuing, it should not be taken as a given.

In fact, my experiences with distributed work (and in the tech world particularly) indicate that there are many, many energy-intensive practices to be considered, including:

  • The energy required to light, heat and cool residences with home offices that might otherwise go unoccupied during the day. I imagine temperature control in cavernous co-working spaces is also energy-intensive.
  • The computing power, equipment and energy usage at the growing number of data centers that support the many online services created and used by distributed workers (from collaborative office suites to audio/videoconferencing tools to Slack-bot cottage industry startups and more).
  • Any additional tendencies for distributed workers to have supplies and equipment shipped to them individually on a regular basis, compared to bulk buying or centralized shipping to an office. (Amazon next-day delivery is killing people.)
  • The materials, production processes and energy usage of laptops, phones and other devices that facilitate working from anywhere. Yes, there might be similar energy usage in an office environment, but whereas a physically central org might have an IT staff to repair/refurbish those items, with distributed that all mostly happens via shipping and may be less likely to facilitate re-using and recycling older devices.
  • Air travel and related energy usage to enable in-person meetups of distributed workers.

The last one feels important to dwell on for a moment.

Aircraft usage and flying account for a growing percentage of the climate change impact of human activity, some estimate 4 to 9 percent. "Take one round-trip flight between New York and California, and you’ve generated about 20 percent of the greenhouse gases that your car emits over an entire year," says the New York Times, citing the EPA.

So from an energy usage perspective, "I don't commute to an office anymore" starts to feel like a bit less to celebrate if at the same time one is flying around to meetups or conferences several times per year instead. More so if your office might have been a reasonable walk or bike ride away.

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What can I contribute to journalism?

What can I contribute to journalism?

It's a question I’ve been asking for years now.

My questioning has taken a variety of forms, including:

  • writing and editing for my high school and college newspapers,
  • hosting a weekly podcast with analysis of the local news,
  • blogging as a media critic,
  • serving on the local daily paper’s editorial board,
  • having letters to the editor accepted in local and national publications,
  • working professionally to advise and support some of the biggest news publishers on the web,
  • helping to organize a three-day national conference for publishers, and
  • researching business models for local journalism.

I’ve been rewarded and challenged in all of those things, and in most cases I’ve been told that I’ve made a positive difference. And yet...I feel more concerned than ever about the waning appreciation for journalism and pursuit of the truth in modern society. I also feel more drawn than ever to trying to do something (else) about it.

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Go toward the hard stuff

At work I recently offered some unsolicited advice to my team as I head on sabbatical. I'm sharing a slightly modified version of it here because in addition to being a way I've approached my job, it's a way I've tried to approach a lot of things in life. Here it is:

Go toward the hard stuff.

If there’s been a driving strategy in my work as a team lead, it’s been to get us to uncover the hardest, most complicated, messy, unclear, unsustainable parts of what we do, and hold them up to the light for examination.

Whether it’s in processes, workflows, tools, communication, relationships, quality, performance or outcomes, I am proud of the ways we’ve been questioning the premise, seeing through the eyes of our clients, stakeholders and the broader WordPress community, willing to throw out old/broken ways of doing things, and reflecting carefully and in-depth on what we can apply from each experience the next time around.

Going toward hard things has rarely been super fun, is often tedious, and sometimes it hasn’t even “worked,” but I think it’s always been worthwhile. And usually once we’re on the other side of the hard stuff, people seem to be glad that we got there together.

So if it’s something bugging you about work we’re about to deliver, or a remark from a colleague, or a gap in your understanding of the “why” behind a task or project, I say go toward it.

If it’s perpetuating something that doesn’t scale or feel sustainable, go toward it.

If you know a problem is going to make you or someone else miserable later on but you’re tempted to work around it for now, go toward it instead.

We won’t always find clarity or a solution. But done with kindness and empathy, patience and openness, I think this can be one of our most powerful tools in any challenge we face as a team.

See also: Conflict resolution as a life skill, Crucial Conversations, Are you working around someone?

Sabbatical cometh

In a few weeks I'll be starting a three-month long sabbatical from my work at Automattic.

As a benefit provided by the company, it's pretty amazing. After every five years of employment, Automatticians are eligible to take a two or three month paid sabbatical to have a break from work, refresh and recharge. Several people (mostly used to academic versions of sabbatical) have understandably asked what expectations are placed on us during that time: research, writing, professional development? Nope, it's all about having a break.

For me personally it's a really neat opportunity, and one I haven't had before in this particular way. I started my first company when I was 19 and have pretty much been working full time ever since. Automattic has a generous and flexible time off policy but to have such a significant amount of time to pursue hobbies, personal projects and time with family and friends is really quite an amazing gift.

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Remembering Daniel Quinn

Daniel Quinn died over a year ago, but it doesn't feel too late to offer up some remembrances and tributes to the many ways he made a difference in my life, and the lives of so many others.

Quinn's novel Ishmael, and the lifetime of study, contemplation, research and thinking that led up to it, is at the center of his impact, at least for me. In critically examining the most fundamental stories our culture tells itself about our origins, our purpose and our place in the world, Ishmael and subsequent books from Quinn provided a new framework of understanding and exploration about how human society works, and could work.

It would be over-simplifying to say that it is a novel about environmentalism and sustainability, or uncovering cultural biases, or problematic religious traditions, or human potential and selfishness, although it is deeply about all of those things.  For me personally, reading it was a ground-shaking event in my college years, both because it named feelings, experiences, certainties and doubts I already had inside me, and then introduced a slew of new ones that I had to work through. That I am probably still working through. Whereas some novels have to invent a plot device that provides a dramatic twist at the end -- the ancient secret society DOES exist and the magical stone was hidden behind the painting all along! -- in Ishmael all of the secrets that are uncovered are real, buried in our cultural history and traditions, and the implications for revealing them are far reaching in how we live our lives.

As a person, Quinn was not a pushy evangelist for his ideas, nor did have a neatly packaged solution to offer up for the many challenges his books highlighted. Yes, he spent a lifetime trying (along with his wife Rennie) to make his ideas more clear, more accessible, more actionable through giving lectures, engaging with his readers and their questions, traveling to events and facilitating connections between those who were inspired by his work. But he wasn't selling, he wasn't anybody's savior, and his emphasis was always on improving our thinking and what might come from that.

I do not claim to have known Dan very well, but every time I talked with him or saw him in person, I experienced him as a grounded, authentic, kind, and intensely intelligent person. He had a contemplative nature, and I always appreciated that when asked a question about his work or his ideas, he would listen carefully and then pause for as long as he needed to provide a thoughtful, intentional answer. If he didn't know or couldn't form a useful response, he just said so. He was keenly aware of the power of words to persuade, convince, change minds and alter the course of history, and so he also seemed wary of uttering something that could be misinterpreted, re-appropriated or used to stuff his very not-mainstream ways of thinking into a comfortable mainstream box. He didn't have much patience for people who weren't trying to think for themselves or learn from past mistakes.

Because of the power of his books, many people wanted Dan to be their leader: the leader of their movement or their project or their personal journey through the world, or all of the above. I was always careful about not worshipping Dan himself or of not elevating his writing as sacred texts. But I guess I did help to start a group of people and a series of events centered around his work that jokingly referred to ourselves as a "cult of Ishmael" -- sorry, Dan. 🙂

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Building momentum for your distributed work day

Imagine that you are about to go on stage to perform some amazing thing that you know how to do. You're waiting in the wings for your moment to shine, and you want to bring your very best to the experience.

But then also imagine that you spent the last several hours or even days in isolation. You haven't really talked to anyone or had much human interaction at all. No one has given you encouraging words or expressed excitement about what you're going to perform.

And then you find out that the time of your performance has not really been set or advertised. There will be an audience but they will be coming and going from the auditorium where you're performing, and they may or may not be paying attention to you. When you do the thing you're best at, someone may or may not notice. Oh and the stage is actually going to be a small, dark closet.

Now go out there and be awesome? Umm....

It's a silly scenario, but for some people who work in a distributed environment, especially one where a lot of collaboration happens asynchronously across individual schedules and time zones, this is what the beginning of our work day can feel like: quiet, slow, isolated.

In a traditional office setting where workers tend to arrive, collaborate and leave on roughly the same schedule, the energy and pace of work can come from the environment itself. But for distributed workers, even when there is actually a lot going on in the organization we're working with, it can be a challenge to build momentum at the start of our days. Sometimes the work itself is enough to generate that energy, but sometimes we need help getting into the right mental space for high productivity.

So how can you build that momentum if it's not coming from your physical work environment? Here are a couple of things that I've seen work well:

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Conflict resolution as a life skill

I've always had an interest in understanding and practicing conflict resolution. In recent years I've realized just how important the ability to identify, mediate and resolve conflicts is as a skill in life and in professional development.

In our personal lives, being able to see conflict and move toward it with hopes of addressing/resolving it makes for better and deeper friendships, relationships, marriages and family dynamics.

In our neighborhoods and communities, being able to resolve conflicts without calling the police or filing a lawsuit is a way to build trust, connection and understanding with the people around us.

In our government institutions and with our elected leaders, the ability to engage in respectful dialog and work toward compromise around issues where we disagree prevents deadlock and leads to improvements in services, infrastructure and public life.

In our places of business, being able to see a conflict with a coworker or supervisor, actively trying to understand each others` underlying interests and needs and working toward a solution that is acceptable to all involved can mean the difference between being miserable or thriving in our careers and professional lives.

In activism and social justice work, the ability to speak clearly and boldly about the systems, laws and practices that are problematic and engage directly, respectfully and effectively with people who have a different point of view can be critical to making real progress.

Even in tech and software development, the concepts of conflict resolution can be essential for success. Maybe it's reconciling different approaches to software architecture, or moving toward the hardest, most complex technical problem to solve first so that you can untangle it and remove any unknowns or mysteries that might affect the rest of your project.

In these cases and more, it seems being able to handle and resolve conflict is critical. But I have also been learning just how hard this is for so many people.

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I'm new here, let's change everything

Does this sound familiar?

Someone is newly hired into a position of influence or leadership at an organization. One of the first things they do is propose investing considerable resources into making a big change.

The organization says "yes!" because it's new and different, instead of evaluating the proposal on its merits. Time and money is spent, things are changed. And then the new hire moves on to another organization, leaving things in turmoil. Maybe someone else is hired and the process repeats. Oh no!

Maybe you've seen it play out in these ways:

  • A new director of marketing wants to change the logo, tagline and reprint all promotional assets.
  • A new website manager wants to change the underlying Content Management System.
  • A new lead back-end developer wants to change the underlying software framework or database system.
  • A new lead front-end developer wants to redesign the website from the ground up.
  • A new CEO wants to change the company from distributed to centralized, or vice versa.
  • A new HR manager wants to switch to a new payroll system.
  • A new customer support manager wants to switch to a new support ticketing system.
  • A new office manager wants to install a new phone system.
  • A new finance director wants to switch accounting systems.

And so on.

Sometimes these changes are absolutely the best and most important things to happen at an organization. If it's been avoiding switching to better tools or processes because of apathy or fear, having a new voice in the mix can be just the thing needed to push everyone in a better direction.

But I suspect many times these kinds of changes are being used by the new hire as way to establish their value and power. They want everyone to know that there was how things were done before they arrived, and how things will be done moving forward. And if the new way is derived solely from their personality or preferences, everyone will need to depend on them to figure out best practices.

When these unhealthy dynamics are the driving force behind a big change it can be at best a huge disruption and waste, and maybe even an existential threat to the organization's work, services or products.

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6 ways to get more involved in your local community

Someone recently asked me for ideas about how they could get more involved in their local community.

I like thinking about this question and coming up with suggestions. It may seem like the most consequential decisions and conversations about our future happen at the national or global levels. But when it comes to actions that we can take as individuals to make the world a better place, our attention is also needed at the local level.

Here are a few of the ways you could try to get more involved in your local community:

1. Join or form a neighborhood association. When we know more about the people we live around, we can tackle challenges and provide support a lot more quickly and easily. In-person gatherings can be a great way to learn about projects and opportunities for helping others, and many associations now have online groups that share neighborhood-specific information too. If you live in a mostly business-oriented area, look for a small business or merchants association where you can sit in and learn about issues facing those stores. If that all seems like too much, consider just starting with an open house or back-yard potluck and inviting the folks who live right around you.

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