Words. Ideas. Actions.

15 March 2023

Well, I spent a good part of the day gathering my thoughts, looking back over notes, and taking a lot of deep breaths. I’m not sure, however, that I’m any less troubled by how bad we are at categorization. So, let’s get started, shall we? But first, a flashback …

More than a decade ago, while leading a team at Symantec, one of my favorite schticks at lunch was doing an Andy Rooney impression (I was old way before I actually got old). The premise was his thoughts after going to the farmers market. 

“I went to the farmers market with my wife this weekend. She likes to get our produce fresh. Have you ever noticed how strange the names of fruit are? As we wandered around, I kept noticing them. I like oranges. Oranges make sense — they’re orange. But why don’t we call bananas “yellows”? I like grapes, too. They’re fruit. But grapefruit? That’s not only redundant, it’s just factually inaccurate. There aren’t any grapes in grapefruit! …”

I can go on like that for a while. A long while. But it brings me to my point: Every name you can think of came from a human. A wonderful, fallible, living, breathing human, much like yourself. Maybe. It could have also come from a racial segregationist and apparent accessory to murder. So, you know, maybe not like you at all. But these names tend to stick around, no matter where they came from. And no matter whether or not we have any similar intersections with the people who came up with them, we have to live with their consequences. And, not to get too TED Talk-y, but we need to be a lot more diligent and thoughtful about the labels we place on things and — especially — people.

I mentioned last night that this came up again for me as I was applying to jobs. A lot of the online systems I’ve been using for applications have sections which gather demographic information. Some of them are well thought out. Others, not so much. But one thing they all have in common is a set of labels each and every candidate needs to fit themselves into, whether or not they identify precisely with them or not. And all of them are fiction. To quote one of the Daniels during one of their acceptance speeches at the Oscars the other night: 

“We are all products of our context.”
– Daniel Kwan 

Names, labels, categories. They all result because of somebody’s decision. We can decide how we want to be identified. But we can’t impose that choice on someone who’s meeting us for the first time. They are going to bring all their lived experience and bias and assumption to define you for themselves. Until you define yourself for them. But if they only give you a few options for how you are able to do that, are you defining yourself, or are they still defining you?

It all comes down to choices. And the more of us who are making those choices, the better. I know I don’t want rooms full of people who look like David Starr Jordan to come up with the names of things that I am going to have to use for the rest of my life. Not only do I not have a lot in common with him, but I don’t really trust his judgment. And when it comes down to it, don’t we need to trust the labels and categorization which we give to things? Otherwise, we are entrusting a handful of the powerful to decide between terms like “looter” or “survivor,” “refugee” or “migrant.” Let’s take two more examples that have always gotten under my skin. 

First up, Comcast. Or Xfinity. Good lord, now that I think about it, they can’t even get their own name right. And when I scroll through their program listings looking for soccer, I find everything with that label is all men’s teams. But if I want to watch the NWSL, I have to search for “women’s soccer”? Why is that? The number of players are the same. The objective is the same. The field, ball, and rules are the same. So why are the listings named differently? Soccer is soccer, no matter where it’s played or who is playing it. So the distinction is either unnecessary or sexist. If it’s unnecessary, then any match, whether it features men or women, should just be labeled “soccer”. If it’s sexist, then let’s list “women’s soccer” next to “men’s soccer” so that there’s no question as to why Comcast/Xfinity includes “women’s” on certain events. 

Another example is musical. And may be a bit more controversial. It’s about genres. These are tried and true, sure, but are they still helpful? Take jazz, as an example. How are we defining what jazz is? And who came up with that definition? Is it dependent on the instrumentation? The composition? The performers? What Miles Davis did with J.J. Johnson is very different from what he did when he played with Carlos Santana. Are they both jazz? And if so, why? I think it comes down to putting a label on something so that it’s easier to find. And now we’ve gotten to the content strategy portion of the program.

All of these categories and labels and taxonomies are methods to try and bring some order to what is, essentially, chaos. We try every day to communicate the amorphous ideas and emotions trapped in the squishy collection of fat and water and protein and nerves, we call a brain, housed inside the bone helmet we call skulls. And we have to do it in a way that makes sense to other people with a completely different collection of fat and water and protein and nerves. So whatever names we come up with have to be understood and agreed upon, otherwise, it’s just more chaos.

To go back to the candidate identifications, I have to ask myself who is imposing these choices on the chaos of our varied identities? I know when I look at these lists, I have a hard time figuring out which levers to pull. How do I qualify my own heritage? I’ve learned the birthplaces of most of my great-grandparents. But the lineage of one of them has become a bit more muddled the closer we look. And some of those Italian secrets were taken to the grave long ago. Without divulging too much about our own possibly torrid family history, though, it makes me wonder how much of my identity is truly definable, and how much of my presentation is quantifiable. Do I present as Hispanic to you? What if I tell you that I grew up eating much more ropa vieja than apple pie? Does that, along with the fact that my grandfather was born in Cuba, qualify as enough to put a tick in the Hispanic box? And who’s checking anyway? It’s a name. A label. A category some fellow human came up with so that I could be quantified. And, these days, it sometimes sits right next to the relatively new “LatinX” label. I have no problem using it, especially when referring to people who prefer it, but when I talk to family still in Florida, they have no idea where it came from or why they need it. It’s just a new square-shaped box they’re not sure how to fit themselves into. 

I wish that this post had a really concise solution for this problem. It doesn’t. Sorry about that. But I do have a suggestion: Bring more brains into the conversation when you are naming and categorizing and sorting your information. If yours is the only collection of fat and water and protein and nerves coming up with a name, you’re going to miss something. Or unintentionally exclude somebody. Or worse. We have to be more deliberate, and careful, about the way we are identifying things. Especially people. 

See you tomorrow?

14 March 2023

Well, while applying for jobs today, I got really worked up about the names we give to things again. I know it’s a little bit of a recurring theme around here, but naming and labeling and taxonomies and categorization are all ways influence is imposed and structures are enforced. 

I definitely have a lot more to say about this, but I feel like if I try and get it all down tonight, it will just end up as a ranting tirade without a real point. I mean, I could turn it into a bit of a party trick and just vomit a bunch of poorly thought-out half-ideas, like starting with 3.14159… and just keep going until I run out of breath. So, instead of just aimlessly venting here, I think I want to put a little more focused effort into talking about pull-down menus with the titles companies use to try and categorize its candidates. White. Black. Hispanic. Female. Male. Disabled. Veteran. Ethnicity. Identity. Almost every application includes a demographics section where we have to squeeze into these little boxes, defined by others and understood by few (and don’t even get me started on the places which use Workday as their application software).

This is my promise to you: I am going to jot down some notes tonight, watch a few new episodes from season three of “Ted Lasso” (I know!), and sleep on all this angst in the hopes that I can have something of a little more coherent approach to talking about why we should be more careful when we attach a label to something. Especially if we want other people to feel both represented and understood.

See you tomorrow?

20 February 2023

Noise Pop’s 30th anniversary event starts today, so this post is going up a bit earlier than usual so I can get in line for a show. Tonight’s post will probably be a bit abbreviated, too, because I feel like I’ve been waiting all day. I drafted what feels like a metric ton of cover letters, sent maybe a dozen of messages on LinkedIn, and I drastically revised a pitch script for a UX conference talk which is due tomorrow. So, I’m repurposing a lot of that pitch script for you tonight. You know, just in case.

I think I’ve mentioned my naming talk before. I’ve given it internally a few times, and every time I do, I feel like it could be more provocative. More urgent. More about how we show up in the world. Even with this last draft, I still don’t think I’ve nailed it. Here’s how it starts:

My name is Stephen, I use he/him pronouns, and I’ve been wrangling words (including these) for longer than I’d care to admit. The work I’m doing now is content strategy. Or content design. Or maybe UX writing. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure what we’re calling what we do anymore. And that naming issue is kind of what I want to talk to you about today. 

See, the names we attach to apps and features and products — as well as those we use to identify ourselves and our users(?), customers(?), consumers(?) — they go a long way in framing how each of them are presented and interpreted. Essentially, those names have meaning. Now, I know that’s not a groundbreaking thought, but please remember: I used to work for a company which called its own employees “Tweeps”!

Most of us know how important and contentious naming can be. But today I want to help you figure out the best way to find exactly what you want to name something, while making sure you have both your users’ and your business’s needs at the forefront of your thinking. 

That introduction is fine, I guess. It definitely highlights what I want to get to. But honestly, I think our industry needs a good kick in the pants when it comes to talking about identity and how we present and the intersectionality of the people making our user experience decisions. And the lens I want to use to bring this more into focus is through naming. Or labeling. Or categorizing. 

It’s a lot to cram into one cohesive talk. And I’m still working out how to tell the story in a way which both informs and entertains. But I still have time to get it right. If my pitch is even accepted. So, wish me luck, I guess? Now, I’ve got a show to get to.

See you tomorrow?

30 January 2023

I spent a good part of the day working on my résumé (sorry for the rhyme; should I add it as an endorsable skill on LinkedIn?). As I tried to cobble together the metrics and stats that would make me a more attractive candidate for a future employer, I realized a couple of things. The first is that gathering that information after the sudden and unexpected revocation of access to all of your previous role’s accomplishments is incredibly difficult. And, second, this process reminded me of an off-handed thought I added to a proposed talk about labels and naming that I pitched to a conference last year. With your indulgence, I’d like to dig a little deeper into it tonight.

For some background, the talk I initially came up with was about how important naming can be when thinking about how people will interact with your product or feature. It’s more than just a branding exercise, especially if you’re going to need them to use a search function to get anything meaningful out of it, or even find it in the first place. The inspiration for the talk came after I read Lulu Miller’s book, Why Fish Don’t Exist. There’s a lot more going on in it than just the classification of spices, but I was intrigued by the idea that every item in our known universe has a name because someone thought to attach one to it. And these names came from — and with — all that makes humans both fantastic and fallible. Creative, yes, but also classist. Pictorial, but prejudiced. Explanatory, but exclusionary. The talk went on to present some ideas to think about when coming up with a name for your thing, but there was a part I added about identity that I wanted to focus on tonight.

See, as the résumé rebuilding was going on in my head, I thought back to how much of my own identity has been tied up with some of my jobs. My self worth, too. Never was this more apparent than my time at Twitter. And, as I know now, it wasn’t healthy. By the time I got to Google, I had learned my lesson. The hard way. Now, it’s not that I wasn’t proud to be a Googler — I was incredibly proud (Remind me to tell you the story about the first job I applied to when we moved here in 2006 … Hint: It was for Google.org). I’ll be proud of finally landing a Google gig for the rest of my days. But I didn’t let the work, or the company, define me. Instead, I would use it as a way to help define my priorities. And as a constant reminder of the privilege I had at my fingertips. Thankfully, that job let me live a life I defined. But it didn’t define my life for me. 

Which leads me to the point of all these sentences. Despite working for Google and Twitter, or any of the other accomplishments I’ve achieved in my life, I still experience imposter syndrome. A lot. And the off-handed thought I added to my talk was This: Even as you look at people who are giving talks or posting insights on LinkedIn or climbing up their ideal career ladder as aspirational or something you don’t think you’ll ever be able to do yourself, their are people looking at you and admiring all that you’ve done. 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been blown away by speakers at conferences and then just wanted to show up my hands and say, “I’ll never be that good, I quit!” But the whole point of going to meet-ups and training sessions and conferences is so you can learn new ideas. And then make them your own. And, hopefully, build on them so that maybe one day you can be the one on stage. But even if you’re not the one presenting, more likely than not, there’s someone in that same room with you thinking of you and your accomplishments with the same envy and admiration that you have for those onstage.  

This is all a long way of saying, essentially, “You’re doing great!” Sure, you may have unmet goals and more on your to-do list. But that ambition is what’s going to keep making you the inspiration for someone else. So, keep working on what you think is important. You may not realize it now, but what you’re doing now may not define you, but it adds to the totality of you. And that’s an inspiration. At least to me it is.

See you tomorrow?

19 January 2023

There was a moment in today’s therapy session that felt like one of those legitimate revelations. Like the ones you see in the movies. A thought that passes over your lips before you realize what you’re saying that has so much truth in it, you are pretty sure it had to have come out of someone else’s face. 

While I’ll spare you the long wind-up to how we got there, the basic idea was that I can pretty precisely identify the first time I ever created a part of an identity of my own. And, if you’ve been following me on the web for any amount of time, you’ll be unsurprised to know that definition involves Kiss. 

As I was detailing a theory about my own parenting, I was reminded of this moment. And the fact that I wrote about it back in 1996. Kiss was returning to the touring circuit in makeup, with the original lineup, for the first time in what seemed like eons. And I was not going to miss it. The local music magazine I was freelancing for at the time, Tallahassee’s Break Magazine, asked me to put together an article about the upcoming date in Jacksonville, the closest stop on the tour to our Capitol City. I scratched out a few hundred words, went back and forth with my editor for a bit, and landed a two-page spread in that week’s issue. 

One of the oft-repeated ideas in the World of Content™ is “write once, publish everywhere.” Well, I definitely put that idea to the test with that piece. Not only did it appear in Break, but I also used it as a commentary for Florida Public Radio, and then as a portfolio piece when I applied to be a producer on “This American Life” in 1998 (I did not get the gig). Rather than paste it here for y’all, too, I’ll let you hear the commentary versions, which I dug up some years ago and uploaded to SoundCloud.

Obviously, the Kiss lens is still part of how I navigate the world. Thanks for letting me take another walk down memory lane tonight. And I appreciate you letting me define and redefine myself in these posts night after night.

See you tomorrow?