Weeknotes – Expedition Works

Welcome to the fifth weeknote (reminder: weeknotes are intentional moments of reflection), and the first time we are putting this out over email. Yes, I guess everyone will have an email/substack/whatever for the next 15 minutes. I can’t resist, I’m within the event horizon. These updates used to just live on the website (and will continue to do so), but we live in a multichannel world, and I’m a Barbie Girl.

Speaking of last century pop culture, It has been exciting to work with old friends the last few weeks on some projects we can’t yet speak about. But I can’t get the A-Team reference out of my head, as we are coming together to work cooperatively on tough problems. Maybe I’ll just lean into it by listening to 10 hours of the A-Team Theme Song.

I published another interview for Typology City – my project focused on urban typologies, especially the tiny bits of urbanity which we connect with on the street. I spoke with Mari Kroin about her student work, Wet Paint: A Study of Subway Columns. Please read the whole interview.

Interesting conversations had:

Spoke with the managing director of a huge management consultancy, where we traded leadership styles, prompting us to remember the Six Emotional Leadership Styles (PDF) by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee

Spoke with a friend-of-friend who used to work in government as a designer, who reminded me that organizational structure eats culture, and to be clear what kind of future we want to create is baked into the org structure.

Friend who is a head of innovation in a US county reminds me that enablement is more authentic than empowerment (can I really empower you?) and passes on this link: Enablement: how governments can achieve more by letting go

On Tap for Next Week

Getting deeper into content around cities and housing typologies.

Journeys with purpose

New book alert: Alexandra Schmidt is about to publish Policy and Design: Untangling connections to build a future in the public interest.
How to balance free speech, the free exchange of ideas, and to counter disinformation and bad actors will be the work of a lifetime: A New Congress Needs New Tech to Counter Disinformation and Build Trust
Tim Brown and Iain Roberts speak with Gen. (ret) Stan McChrystal on how prototyping mitigates risk. Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/dWKSFg5 and Spotify: https://lnkd.in/d4NgTyc
Transitioning from private to public sector: lessons learned from those who experienced it
Serving & Returning to the USDS: Maya Mechenbier

Engagement in the news

By friends at Gehl Design: Homelessness in public space: A toolkit for respectful coexistence
Presidential Innovation Fellows Impact Report (PDF)
Democracy Fellows Inaugural Cohort

New Journey Opportunities

These are links to job openings collected from friends, and friends-of-friends, which might be interesting in your journey

Applications are now open for the 2021 Congressional Innovation Scholars Program
Work with friends in Omaha: DAA is searching for a full time architectural designer
Work with my friend Emily at CLEAResult: Senior Solutions Design Project Manager - Energy Efficiency
Lots of openings at my friends startup, CashApp: Brand Designer - Cash Card, Cash App, Design Researcher, Cash App, Product Designer, Cash App
Work with my friend David at Citi Ventures Studio: Product Design Leader & Digital Product Design Lead
Work for a friend-of-a-friend’s human rights consultancy: Responsible Innovation Manager/Director focusing on ethics in AI and product.
Product Designer at Remind! Remind runs one of the largest free services in education
Design For America has a bunch of open roles
Design better neighbor communication at Next Door as a senior product designer on the Public Agency design team
Amazon Pharmacy is hiring: Senior Brand Designer / Art Director, Senior Copywriter, Senior Marketer, Brand Strategy and Insights

News from Expedition Works

This week was all about writing proposals, continuing the arduous work of company formation (wow, how many of the same forms do I really need to fill out). Basically everything that every business needs to do to be legal. I’m swimming in acronyms, but breaking apart the tasks into smaller chunks and distributing it across the week allows me to not feel like I’m drowning in paperwork.

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Tags: meta, weeknotes

Reminder: weeknotes are intentional moments of reflection.

So this was a short week with Christmas break the last two days of the week. This allowed me to both have conversations and be present with family.

Interesting conversations I had this week:

The best conversations are those which consist of about 60% catching up and just talking, with 20% explaining what I’d love to do in the future, and the balance setting up next conversations and whom to speak with.
I hope to mix these type of conversations with more tactical and directional conversation in the next few months.
Rank and file federal government workers (the bureaucracy or deep state to some) are cautiously hopeful that the new administration will respect internal expertise and install political appointees with some knowledge of how to run an agency
Discussed how focusing on the spirit can help define what tactics to employ
Looking at future opportunities through the prism of autonomy, mastery, and purpose can help me decide what new roles to prioritize or defer
Triangulating and understanding what a possible position requires, demands, and what the current company culture values requires lots of conversations, before the electron cloud-like picture emerges
Sometimes it only takes 10 minutes to explain what you want and need, as long as you have clear and actionable requests.