Simon Ouderkirk
@s12k.bsky.social
Product, Climate Dad, Streaming Media, Philosophy Major - Group PM @ Disney+, prev dbt Labs, WordPress.com - s12k.com
From Dune, "The flesh shapes the day, and the day shapes the flesh"
September 26, 2025 at 11:20 AM
From Dune, "The flesh shapes the day, and the day shapes the flesh"
In 2015 I would have been High/High for ggplot2 - but these days I'd find myself in Low/Low for sure - and I think we all can relate to the experience of someone getting rusty in their actual skill set but their Confidence stays sky-high!
Like I said - much to consider here. More to come!
Like I said - much to consider here. More to come!
September 25, 2025 at 11:15 AM
In 2015 I would have been High/High for ggplot2 - but these days I'd find myself in Low/Low for sure - and I think we all can relate to the experience of someone getting rusty in their actual skill set but their Confidence stays sky-high!
Like I said - much to consider here. More to come!
Like I said - much to consider here. More to come!
Time isn't just represented by individuals/teams moving into that high/high quadrant - but time itself can pass and have an effect on the overall status!
September 25, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Time isn't just represented by individuals/teams moving into that high/high quadrant - but time itself can pass and have an effect on the overall status!
It can also help explain a person or a group's incentive structure (which, as has been pointed out, is so important in a professional setting) - if they're competent but not confident for some reason, it can offer some light into behavior, and also how to help guide it to a new conclusion.
September 25, 2025 at 11:15 AM
It can also help explain a person or a group's incentive structure (which, as has been pointed out, is so important in a professional setting) - if they're competent but not confident for some reason, it can offer some light into behavior, and also how to help guide it to a new conclusion.
This 2x2 status in a given area - maybe, "Node.js" or "Public Speaking" - understanding whether performance outcomes are a result of in-fact a skills issue or a motivation/confidence issue, can help us define next steps for ourselves, for our teams, for our firms generally.
September 25, 2025 at 11:15 AM
This 2x2 status in a given area - maybe, "Node.js" or "Public Speaking" - understanding whether performance outcomes are a result of in-fact a skills issue or a motivation/confidence issue, can help us define next steps for ourselves, for our teams, for our firms generally.
Probably eventually a blog post, but consider a 2 x 2 grid with Low / High Confidence and Competence - for a person considering themselves, for a team you're leading, even for teams and organizational units that you're working with.
September 25, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Probably eventually a blog post, but consider a 2 x 2 grid with Low / High Confidence and Competence - for a person considering themselves, for a team you're leading, even for teams and organizational units that you're working with.
...& a blog post explaining what it is and why I built in in the first place:
s12k.com/2025/03/21/i...
s12k.com/2025/03/21/i...
Introducing More Good Work Talk
I’ve been working on something – and in the course of working on it, I realized that it was part of a bigger thing for me and the way I think about the Internet. I have goals for 2025: …
s12k.com
September 22, 2025 at 10:31 AM
...& a blog post explaining what it is and why I built in in the first place:
s12k.com/2025/03/21/i...
s12k.com/2025/03/21/i...
It has to start at the top - as an org leader you need to encourage folks to make their calendars reflect their priorities, and a priority of the org should always be, Do The Reading.
September 19, 2025 at 2:07 PM
It has to start at the top - as an org leader you need to encourage folks to make their calendars reflect their priorities, and a priority of the org should always be, Do The Reading.
Like a lot of organizational problems though, you won't solve it by changing your individual behavior - if you're the one informed person on a call with 8 folks who didn't have time to be prepared, you've fallen victim to a prisoner's dilemma.
September 19, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Like a lot of organizational problems though, you won't solve it by changing your individual behavior - if you're the one informed person on a call with 8 folks who didn't have time to be prepared, you've fallen victim to a prisoner's dilemma.
It's a vicious cycle. You need to make time to do the reading - carve out focus time, make your calendar reflect your priorities.
September 19, 2025 at 2:07 PM
It's a vicious cycle. You need to make time to do the reading - carve out focus time, make your calendar reflect your priorities.
Then, since half of every call is spent on a read-in, you have to have twice as many calls to get the same effectiveness - which of course takes even more time away from being able to do the reading.
September 19, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Then, since half of every call is spent on a read-in, you have to have twice as many calls to get the same effectiveness - which of course takes even more time away from being able to do the reading.
Folks are too busy (mostly on calls!) to do a thorough review of their pre-read artifacts, so when they arrive on the call, they need to spend half of that time being read into the documents they haven't been able to get to.
September 19, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Folks are too busy (mostly on calls!) to do a thorough review of their pre-read artifacts, so when they arrive on the call, they need to spend half of that time being read into the documents they haven't been able to get to.
Could maybe be akin to tech debt in a way - a temporary shortcut to achieve important known goals, but you can't build a long term stack on it?
September 19, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Could maybe be akin to tech debt in a way - a temporary shortcut to achieve important known goals, but you can't build a long term stack on it?
Product/Engineering orgs that are able to scale up their discovery efforts to not only write more code, faster, but are able to leverage the emergent technology and tooling to build great things that customers want - will win the day.
September 19, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Product/Engineering orgs that are able to scale up their discovery efforts to not only write more code, faster, but are able to leverage the emergent technology and tooling to build great things that customers want - will win the day.
Improvements made to a process that aren't made at the bottleneck, aren't improvements.
September 19, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Improvements made to a process that aren't made at the bottleneck, aren't improvements.
When we see AI products out in the wild - already evoking waves of meme disdain about "clanker customer support" and "AI slop," both of which sound like a product that's not finding great product market fit! - we already have a wide landscape of solutions desperately scrabbling for a problem.
September 19, 2025 at 10:46 AM
When we see AI products out in the wild - already evoking waves of meme disdain about "clanker customer support" and "AI slop," both of which sound like a product that's not finding great product market fit! - we already have a wide landscape of solutions desperately scrabbling for a problem.
Discovery is one of the essential ways that mature Product/Engineering organizations work together to make great stuff out in the world.
September 19, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Discovery is one of the essential ways that mature Product/Engineering organizations work together to make great stuff out in the world.
The bottleneck today - and I expect in the future - is more about understanding the right idea, and the predictable tools that help guide us to deploying our scarce resources to the best possible product - that's Product Discovery.
September 19, 2025 at 10:46 AM
The bottleneck today - and I expect in the future - is more about understanding the right idea, and the predictable tools that help guide us to deploying our scarce resources to the best possible product - that's Product Discovery.
It's not a lack of code being written that keeps the other 98 from being explosive successes, and creating machines that write more code, faster, isn't going to change that ratio.
September 19, 2025 at 10:46 AM
It's not a lack of code being written that keeps the other 98 from being explosive successes, and creating machines that write more code, faster, isn't going to change that ratio.
Early stage tech investors have known this for a long time - look at how angel investors talk about The Power Law, where they'll make 100 investments and expect to make huge returns on only 1 or 2 of them.
September 19, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Early stage tech investors have known this for a long time - look at how angel investors talk about The Power Law, where they'll make 100 investments and expect to make huge returns on only 1 or 2 of them.