#1. Why a newsletter, chasing impact
Also history of English, Piranesi, Bridgerton, post-festive cooking
Hello!
Thanks for signing up to The Change Curve. Especially given that I don’t know what I’m going to be writing about, or how often I’ll be writing, or anything useful like that. It’s an adventure in the middle of yet another lockdown.
I’m going to restrict myself to two or three things in each newsletter to hopefully (i) keep the length down and (ii) leave myself something to write about the next time around. So here goes…
Why a newsletter
Lots of other people are doing it and I’m not immune to social proof. Also I like new things. And I’ve been inspired by Sonia Turcotte’s Some Reading Thing where she talks openly about what she’s learning.
Plus although I love writing blog posts they take me quite a lot of time. I know they’re meant to be throwaway but for me they feel permanent. At Local Welcome, Ella Fitzsimmons encouraged me to put half-finished thoughts out in the spirit of working in the open. Maybe newsletters will help me do that?
A deeper reason is that I want to get back to reading more. Between 2011 and 2015 I self-trained as a designer and researcher by reading loads. Since 2015 I’ve done less of that. Partly because I’ve been learning-by-doing, but also because I’ve been trying not to think about work outside work. Writing more often feels like a good way to force myself to read more widely.
Finally, I just straight-up miss human interaction. I’ve been locked down for ages. Blogs aren’t conversations. Twitter is emptier. I’ve got enough videocalls. So ask questions, tell me what you think, or even just say hello!
Chasing impact
I’m looking for a new role at the moment so I’ve been thinking about what I care about at work.
I’ve settled on some things that are not that important to me. I don’t care much about specific roles (or I’d still be an editor, or a designer, or a researcher), different sectors (I’ve been happy - and very sad - doing work in the commercial, government, and charity sectors), or organisation size (big institutions have ups and downs, but then so do tiny startups).
What I do care about is having meaningful impact.
The ‘impact’ part has been clear to me for a while. Scanning the archives of my blog I’ve written about this again and again (and again, again, again). It’s so pathological it’s embarrassing. Looking at my career has the same vibe. I left agencies because I got frustrated at the limited impact I had as an external consultant. I left GDS because the leadership stopped funding things that had impact. I stopped being a user researcher because I got tired of my research findings failing to translate into real impact.
The ‘meaningful’ part has been much less clear. I grew up thinking I knew what mattered to me. But at some point in my 30s I realised most of this was other people’s ideas handed down to me. I didn’t really know myself. So I went off on a weird journey into meditation, counselling, and even flotation tanks as a way to listen to my inner self. Gradually I’ve worked out the things that are meaningful to me - worthwhile missions, interesting problems, diverse teams, kind environments - and now I’m looking for these things.
That’s why this newsletter is a mix of outward-facing work stuff (having impact) and inward-facing personal stuff (finding meaning). Personal stuff might be weird if you’re expecting work stuff. But that’s how it is with me.
History of English
I’ve been listening to The History of English Podcast. It’s chronological and although it’s up to episode 143 we haven’t even reached Shakespeare yet.
On one level it’s dull in that it’s one man’s monotone voice. It’s so soporific that I use it to get to sleep when I wake in the night.
But my brother calls it a staggering work of performance art. He’s not wrong.
Before the English language there was Germanic, Norse, Latin and Greek and before those there was Indo-European. I have a history degree and it is NO JOKE to say I knew nothing about the Indo-European people other than the name of the language. The first 10 episodes blew my whole worldview. I want an Indo-European TV series and I want it now.
Also, Anglo-Saxons. In my mind, between the Romans and Vikings was the Dark Ages and nothing happened. Except the tiny matter of the foundation of the English language after people migrated here from Germany!
Right now I’m listening to one about Germanic/Norse mythology. Odin lived in the north and visited tribes at winter solstice on an eight-legged horse. Now Santa lives in the north and visits each house with eight reindeer. We pagans.
Every episode is full of realisations about where the words and stories we use every day come from. It’s part-linguistics and part-historical narrative but either way it’s a dizzying procession of wonderful revelations.
Reading, watching, cooking
I’ve just finished reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I enjoyed her Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell but it was looong. Piranesi is better, shorter, and the audiobook is narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor. My friend Justin summed it up:
I loved watching Bridgerton. I fell hard for the beautiful colour palettes which is unusual for me. The whole ‘love is something you choose’ speech had me in tears of recognition. And, of course, representation always matters. Daniellé Dash said it better than me:
Finally, I had an unexpected blast cooking things with the weird remnants of Christmas food. Usually I have good intentions but lockdown has fired my improvisational kitchen skills. The juices from the boiled ham turned a forgotten packet of brown lentils into a marvel. I cooked them in a clay pot after Patience Gray and chucked in all my old cheese rinds after Tamar Adler. If you like weird anti-recipe books then these are two of my faves…
If you read this far, wow, thank you! I’m partly doing this to help myself through lockdown so I hope you’ve got things that do the same for you.
Stay safe.
Will