The 2024 Newsletter Plan
Hi! It’s been a while.
What is this?
You’re getting this email because you subscribed to Diverge Weekly in the past (my email from andrewlb.com), or subscribed to the Knowsi email (RIP, though will be making a return as an open source project eventually). If it’s not your jam anymore, you can unsubscribe.
Where have you been?
A few things have happened since the last Diverge post. I submitted my covid-era masters thesis (2010 Syria + food security), I shut down Knowsi, I led research at an infrastructure startup, I trained and certified as a coach, and went back to consulting (Megafauna ApS). My son Emil is now 5, and Ayla and I are surprisingly still in Copenhagen. I said goodbye to my dog (a greyhound named Moon) and hello to another (a whippet named Nell).
With all this, I have been conflicted on what to write. I’ve done personal projects (weirdo hardware design, just-for-me software, a barely working vertical farm, music, and workshops), but my focus has been on product research and prototyping with engineers, the coach training, and being a parent. But I need to deal with the conflict and the void left by not writing. Regular writing with the (imagined or real) pressure of an community has been something I really came to love, and its been on pause for too long. So it is back as andrewlb notes (or something. Unclear on name. We can figure that one out).
What to expect?
I’ll be sending this out every two weeks, usually an essay or tool. I’ll be writing through a lens of design, craft-based practice, and strategy.
There’s a few topics that are on my mind lately, in the form of markdown notes, half-essays, and conversations:
- Fun games for serious things
- Risk and “vibes”
- Automation and when not to
- Climate, food security, and surviving
- Bullshyt (and its value)
- Protocols and prototyping
- Post-Covid Friendship, Community, and Networks
- Aging as a maker
What else?
There’s a few things.
- I am actively seeking consulting clients for summer/fall 2024. I’m a great design researcher who can also makes things. I excel at making complex systems legible in medium-to-large orgs. I often work around internal tooling, developer experience, APIs, and protocols. I run awesome workshops and training programs. I’ve worked at IDEO and the Pentagon (USDS), ran a B2C indie SaaS, and was an founding researcher at a serverless infrastructure startup. Some past clients include IKEA, Mozilla, CIID, Opentron Lab Robotics, and Innovation Fund Denmark (Innofounder). If you know a person or team who could benefit from my support, let’s discuss!
- I am making instagram videos, god help me. They are mostly about running effective participatory workshops for now. It is terrifying and I would value feedback. This is a “do 100 of a thing” type of activity. You can find them here: instagram.com/megafauna.cph
- I’m running standing “office” hours for sparring, questions, and fun. Plenty of you are making use of this already and I’m loving it. calendly.com/alb/social
With all of that said, I’ll leave off with this blog post. It’s a planning workshop tool I’ve been experimenting with since finishing my coach certification, though the post itself has ballooned to about 2000 words. You can skip ahead to the figjam board to get the gist.
See you in two weeks.