In one of my recent readings of Cory Doctorow’s valuable blog, he discussed the value of “vultures” in the economic ecosystem, and reminded us of an important idea by Douglass Rushkoff explaining the weird “abstractions” we see.. To quote Doctorow:

“Douglas Rushkoff calls this “going meta”: don’t drive a taxi, rent a medallion to a taxi driver. Don’t rent a medallion, start a ride-hailing app company. Don’t start a ride-hailing company, invest in the company. Don’t invest in the company, but options on the company’s shares. Each layer of indirection takes you further from the delivery of a useful service – and insulates you further from risk.”

Going meta is something we see everywhere, to the point we are used to it. Giant companies with packages of packages of companies. Financial jobs that are, as I heard it once put “sloshing money around and scraping up what falls out.” Hell, with Kalshi and Polymarket and the various betting markets, we’ve gone meta on reality, allowing people to bet on anything, including things that are already pretty meta.

A friend recently summed up the overwhelm of modern technology by noting how much of what we do is metadata. You can fill out a paper form and have to store it and retrieve it – but if you put it on a computer it needs a name and a location – and cloud storage involves even more metadata behind the scenes. New software that lets you “easily” track information often has “new” features that require you to enter even more data to use features. At some point paper seems easier because the metadata can take more effort than the data.

(Remember, I once interviewed at software company that did Scrum with post it notes, having given up on tools.)

The ultimate meta is AI. AI takes our data, our metadata, and approximates us. It’s a world of data centers funded by this group, run by that group, and owned by another group. The power and water consumption are abstracted away. That’s if things are even being built, which seems to be a point of confusion – but boy companies want AI in everything.

It feels like our world is more and more meta all the time. Actual, hands-on, reality has layers of layers over it and we consume the reality to power the unreality.

Everything else is pretty meta too. Ever notice how these days in 2026 that our health care decisions by the federal government seem to be driven by internet conspiracy theories not based in anything? How memes and rumors can drive actions even if they have no existence in reality? Watch the news and people are trying to talk about reality with a thick layer of marketing and political opportunism. Even the propaganda seems meta, if people even know it’s propaganda, and sometimes I’m not sure the propagandists know.

So what I wonder is how much time and energy are we wasting doing meta but you know not doing stuff? I mean here in May 2026 farmers seem to be pretty impacted by whatever the hell is up with the non-ceasefire in Iran but it’s not making the news enough. Various Influencers famous for being famous are going around being famous and Influencing, but what are they about? People are betting on various important events in the world while others short markets, making us suspicious of what’s happening why. Also software seems to get exponentially harder to use as we add more stuff because of . . . I dunno, sales or something?

I mean how much time and energy are we burning here? Well time, energy and planet. Not sure much meaningful is happening, you know.

The problem with all this “metaness” is I think we won’t notice it breaking down until a lot of other stuff does. All the meta stuff, all the abstraction, the financialization, the investment vehicles, the BS media hype, that can keep going for awhile as it has money and momentum. But there comes a day when memes don’t fill your bank account, you can’t use AI as fertilizer, and you didn’t bet on very angry people being upset about unemployment. The people who think meta miss this stuff.

It’s best we don’t.

Steven Savage

• www.StevenSavage.com
• www.InformoTron.com

My regular readers will know that Dan Davies’ The Unaccountability Machine was a big influence on me. If you didn’t know this, well, you’ll probably keep hearing about it every now and then. Anyway, the short summary of this must-read book is that a lot of our systems (government business, etc.) go off the rails because they focus on a few metrics, insulate themselves and their leaders from impact, and become destructive.

There, I summarized an enormously complex book that sums up decades in a paragraph. Go me. Anyway, on to the subject.

I was reading a recent article in 404 media on how people are “staffing” companies with AI, or even discussing having entire companies that are just bots/agents. Yes, it won’t surprise you that people flush with cash or wild ideas imagine a world where they just automate everything and rake in cash. Yeah, you’re not surprised.

Nowhere’s many things wrong with this idea, from data center water burn to legal complications to AI being surprisingly crappy at many jobs. But I want to address something about what it’d be like to run a company with a bunch of stochastic systems doing work for you, because this sounds like the fears of The Unaccountability Machine taken to it’s logical conclusion. Or illogical conclusion.

Anyway, let’s imagine these AI companies, these automated companies, and what we know about AI. You have a lot of automated processes running things, running them with no moral agency because they’re not people. We know how sycophantic AI can be dangerous because it tells you what you need to know. All of this abstract and distant from real human experience, moreso because of the hype cycle.

What you’ve got here is, well, an Unaccountability Machine. A nearly completely automated company of AI agents spinning around one person is not going to get good, safe decisions. You may get something you can use to juice stock and sell off, but it won’t be safe.

What you have are devices that ape human awareness, using old data, telling people what they want, and when things go wrong the AI takes the blame. You have people insulated from real information, focused on limited measures, and using technology that will sound like it’s kissing up to them. All it is is amplifying what happens to various leaders anyway in our decaying government and business systems.

So, really, it’s just business as usual but faster. You can spin up bad ideas and unaccountability quicker.

Now I suspect a lot of this is just juicing stocks, posturing, and trying to ignore how AI costs are going to go up and legal issues will proliferate. So I’m more concerns what happens in the meantime and I doubt it’ll be good – and then of these “auto-companies” will need their work walked back.

Honestly, I hope most of them are scams. Maybe that’d be good.

I suspect Dan Davis is going to have to write yet another book.

Steven Savage

• www.StevenSavage.com
• www.InformoTron.com

So let me take a break from discussing heavy world issues to focus on organization. In this case a more personal experience – what day of the week should I do my planning on?

No, trust me on this. Let me explain.

For a long time I did my planning for my week on Sunday (being an organized person, of course I plan my weeks). However the more I did that the more onerous it became. I was using my weekend to plan things and not relax. Why end the weekend with bureaucracy?

Yet at the same time wasn’t Sunday the start of the week and the end of the weekend? Wasn’t it the perfect day to do this? As a professional Project and Program Manager I felt myself in a quandary. As an organized person in general I was also in a quandary. Double quandary.

I confess this felt ridiculous at first. Why did the day matter? Well as I thought it over it mattered quite a bit.

Think of much much specific days matter. There’s the day you start work and the day you end it. There’s the time off you have that you want to enjoy. There’s the day traffic is the least worse so that’s when you do grocery shopping. All of these things affect your life – and thus when it’s best to plan it.

After some thought and discussion with friends, I settled on Monday as my planning day – essentially my week began and ended on Monday. It was the start of the workweek, it wasn’t on a weekend, and it wasn’t so far along the week it made things confusing.

My Mondays often got busy, but I’d carve out the time to make it work. Know what? It did.

Monday fit my needs perfectly as planning day, even with other things happening. The need to plan on the weekend was gone. I had clarity on my week and weekend. Thinking about what’s the best day to plan made a huge difference – and it was much less stressful.

I even changed up how I did my planning. Now that I was more aware of my time usage and rethinking things, I asked what other things I might do differently. I start planning my months not at the end of a month, but in the middle of the previous month. That let me get a better view of my upcoming weeks, which made Monday planning easier. One change had led to others.

Of course this helped me at work, and made me think over what I did when at work. I have statuses and reports and meetings to do. Now I have an experience to guide me on selecting the best day for things, a way to explain it, and some insights to share.

It’s a simple thing, but in busy times, deciding when to do what, the ideal day or week or month to accomplish something, can make a huge difference. Small things make a big difference organizationally.

So what day, or week, or monthly planning might you want to switch up?

Steven Savage

• www.StevenSavage.com
• www.InformoTron.com

So as of this writing the Iran War ended. Or restarted. Or is under negotiation. I have no idea what’s going on and anything I do say may be irrelevant. Anyway it’s August 11, 2026 so you can remember how wrong or right I am.

You know I’d like to discuss what an absolute humiliating mess this was for America. But plenty of people far more qualified than me are discussing it. Actually people less qualified are discussing it too. Welcome to the modern age, and because it is the modern age, let me discuss two things that surprised me which is what I DO want to talk about it.

“War never changes,” is the quote from the Fallout games. Well, guess what, it damn well changed, and that’s a good reminder that we’re usually living in the future and don’t know it.

First, let’s talk drones.

We’re well aware of how effective drone have been for the Ukraine in their battle against Russian aggression. We know Iran has deployed both missiles and drones to definite effect, and everyone I read seems concerned about the drone part. A $10,000 drone can cost you an expensive missile and do plenty of damage if said missile misses.

Now Ukraine’s work with drones, it’s innovations, has been a diplomatic and economic boon thanks to relations with Middle Eastern states. Ukraine innovated on drones because it had to, and now that’s given it power and prestige, further giving it allies against Russia (or what’s left of it).

How much change did we miss, or not take into account, or figure was a localized issue? How much drone tech is out there we haven’t payed attention to as a society? Maybe it’s just me, but I feel that a whole lot of war changed, and a lot of people haven’t adjusted their mindsets? In turn this means Iran surprised people and Ukraine has leveraged their experience to become an even more major player.

It’s multiple world-powers getting ju-jitsued. It reminds me of a recent joke about people who played games like World of Tanks missing that their games were irrelevant.

Next, let’s talk memes.

I did not expect Iran’s social media game to be this good. From memes challenging the president to mockery using Lego aesthetic, they had a good game. I didn’t expect a repressive theocratic republic to be this good at social media, not going to lie. In a Mastodon discussion, someone noted they found the dry Iranian sense of humor was known, but not to Westerners.

As I understand it the team is probably a subcontracted group that’s not even in the country. But who knows what the story is. Anyway, whoever they are they’re playing to win.

Honestly, where was America’s meme game? What little I saw was Trump ranting, some strange propagandist stuff, and that was about it. Where was the humor? The fun? The meme potential? The Iranian social media folks seemed to be having fun, which is not something I associate with the Iranian government who are, let’s be honest, a bunch of religious a-holes.

And I saw it get mentioned all over, amplified. I have to ask how much are memes part of modern warfare. I wish I knew because I expect it’s a lot more than I would have guessed.

So here we are in iran. It’s a fluid situation as I write. I don’t know what’s happening. But what I do know is I saw two changes in warfare, and we need to pay attention. I’d like a future without warfare, but until we get there, we need to understand how they work.

And apparently it’s drones and vicious mockery. Well, that’s what I missed and some others missed – what else are we missing?

Steven Savage

• www.StevenSavage.com
• www.InformoTron.com

Han Solo’s famous quote (and Harrison Ford’s brilliance) aside, sometimes I want to know the odds. Actually I definitely want to know the odds, because I’m someone that likes to plan things, evaluate success, and plan for contingencies. I say this as a person who has debated with himself on “what day of the week does the week really start” kind of planning.

The odds, to me, a professional Project Manager (which I suppose means I’m worth listening to), are a way to calculate what to build. They let me evaluate success, plan for contingencies, and make something solid. If I do things right, the odds barely come into play because the plan, risk assessments, and options are all in place.

The odds are, at best, a tool, a way to get better, a way to improve. For all my world of flowcharts and checklists – professionally and privately – my world is one of solidity. I deal in how and results and measurements. From personal zines to environmental systems, it’s about results

But right now it seems society is more and more about playing the odds. As my friend Serdar put it once, more and more aspects of our society are coming to resemble a casino. The problem is casinos aren’t about building things, and that’s the problem.

As of this writing there are plenty of discussions about Kalshi, Polymarket, and other activities that are “prediction markets” which are really just gambling. That’s it, they’re gambling, and you can’t call it anything else. Draft Kings may have led the way with sports betting, but now we have prominent gambling companies. Call it what it is.

Our society is a casino. But it has been for awhile.

The stock market is not the economy, as we’re often reminded. It is, to an extent, about playing the odds and estimating chances. Now any economy is going to have some of that, as will any part, but if you ever looked at overvalued stocks and wondered, it’s not about the economy in many cases. It’s about the odds that something pays off, and it’s why some investments in companies that don’t do anything pay off, because people think they can sell before they loose.

Then there was Crypto, which really is just a stock on the blockchain. Then there was the NFTs, which thankfully crashed and burned then sunk into a swamp, that was gambling as well. Now we’re just to plain almost-honest gambling. It’d be refreshing if it wasn’t so prominent, so pathological, and in more and more cases it seems about people manipulating odds.

It’s all been a bit of gambling for decades – centuries? – but now it’s all gambling front and center. Bets and odds and manipulation. Know what it isn’t? Doing something with measurable achievements..

Where’s the plan? The results? The thing built? The thing made? Something that gets something done, that helps people, that can be felt, seen, touched, used? Where’s something I can break down into a Kanban backlog, where I can say “yes, here is a distinct result.”

But it’s a Casino. It’s about playing the odds, getting money, and that’s it. Nothing to be built, to be made, to be achieved. If you can manipulate things (say, with a bit of insider political information) so much the better. Why do something that has a role, a result, a history when you can just get paid for wondering what the body count is in a train wreck?

Play the odds enough and that’s all you can do. Look for the gamble, the payoff, the high. You just slosh money around and play the odds. That’s it.

The Casino economy is forgetting how to do things, and forgetting the value of doing things for and with people. And as a Project Manager, a person, and a citizen, I hate it.

Steven Savage

• www.StevenSavage.com
• www.InformoTron.com

I was discussing jobs and careers with a friend recently, and as you may guess it wasn’t complimentary. I mean there’s a reason David Graeber wrote a book called “Bullshit jobs,” which surprisingly I have not read.

What got me thinking is not how many jobs, are well, bullshit (I mean I know that but I should read the book), but the danger of the job description itself. Jobs can become a kind of “Accountability Sink,” and I think that’s potentially more common than we may realize.

An Accountability Sink is a concept I was introduced to in – you guessed it – The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies. The idea is that some processes and parts of an organization that adsorb accountability. It’s the help line that never lets you actually reach someone. The process no one is responsible for. The idea that “number go up” means all else is fine.

Now these aren’t always bad. Some people make bad decisions due to bad data. Accidents happen. We need some Accountability Sinks where the organization takes or diffuses the hit otherwise no one would want to do anything. I mean I work in medicine, and everyone is working hard, everyone is addressing risk, and if the organization didn’t accept responsibility, everyone would go insane from stress.

However you can guess that though they may not be bad, Accountability Sinks become problematic. Enough Accountability Sinks and leadership of a company can devastated people, states, economies, and countries. They may not even realize what a-holes they are as they’ve lost feedback.

Now, let me bring it down to the level I started at – I wonder if some jobs, some positions are Accountability SInks. The job is a convenient person to blame or the job comes with the assumption of unaccountability.

Ever been some low-level peon on a job? First to take blame? First to get laid off? Your position is an accountability sink. You can be let go because you carried out someone else’s bad decision. You can let go to juice stock prices because of a bad quarter brought on by C-level failure. You were the accountability sink, a human crumple zone for corporate accidents.

But also ever seen how some jobs – and not necessarily leadership (but too often, leadership) can make the most dunderheaded decisions and get away with it? You’re assumed to be right as you’re an expert or a business genius. Your failure might be considered part of your job, and it’s fine that, say, a system went down as that’s expected. Yes, you decided on conflicting standards, but as it’s not apparent until people try to make shit work you’re fine because you followed the recommendations.

Your job may be the accountability sink for others or have accountability sink built in. Either way congrats, your job may reduce responsibility.

Kind of makes you want to take a look at your job again, doesn’t it? Though it might not hurt to take a look at your co-workers as well . . .

Steven Savage

• www.StevenSavage.com
• www.InformoTron.com

A second book review in a row? Well, yes it is! I just finished reading Politics Without Politicians by Hélène Landemore and it’s one you should definitely read. But let’s talk why.

Landemore’s thesis is simple: democracies in history had often used “lotteries” to select people for civic duties, along with citizen councils (often random too), rotating positions, referenda, and so on throughout history. Politics with less politicians or without politicians as we know them. It not will surprise you that someone writing a whole book in this is of course in favor of the idea that we can replace a lot of our politics with random selection and councils/parliaments.

The book is thus a breezy read as Landemore establishes her premise with historical example, then goes into a mixture of actual experience, actual implementations, research, and philosophy to justify her thesis. Her statement is simple – essentially reviving some elements of Athenian Democracy, then examining why she thinks it’d work, when it was tried, and what she’d do.

So spoilers, it’s actually very convincing, and in some ways surprising. If I were to compare it to something, it actually reminds me of my much-beloeved The Unaccountability Machine. It’s both obvious and not, and once you read it, you see things very differently.

Landemore describes our current crises and the idea of more randomized democracies as seen in Athens and in other states and societies, not necessarily democratic ones (a random council of nobles is still random). Random selection requires citizens to step up, reduces corruption, and requires building functional infrastructures to get things done. Our current political crises of modern times are, in her thesis, the result of a kind of “Electoral Aristocracy” that is clearly not responsive to people’s needs and is very disillusioning. And yes, she brings receipts on much of our dissatisfaction in our times.

Despite her cynicism about a lot of our current politics, Landemore is a passionate believer in democracy and citizenship. She wants more democracy, more power in the hands of people, and for voices to be heard. Indeed, ensuring people who are not currently engaged in politics can and will be engaged, is part of her thesis. Even when I find critiques (and I have a few) it’s clear she cares about the results and the people.

Landemore also looks at cases where randomized citizen councils were used in various countries to address issues – some of which she participated in. Coming from this direct viewpoint, she also describes experiences and why things worked – and didn’t – mostly focused on her native France. Landemore takes you into what it would be like, say, for twenty citizens to suddenly be asked to come up with policy for a referendum.

This personal experience, combined with her research, did help me understand why these kind of randomized councils and other approaches can work. If you have a diverse group of people and give them experts who respond as needed you can get a surprising amount of good ideas – something I’ve seen in my own management work. People who are responsible for results and dealing with each other as people will surprise you and probably break more than one of your stereotypes and assumptions.

Landemore did something very effectively – reminding us that our fellow citizens are probably more capable than we give them credit for. It’s just that they may be capable in different ways than us and that people coming together change. Some of her experiences made me understand my gaps, and in a few cases my arrogance. This, again, reminded me of my own worn in Project Management when people came together with just a bit of facilitation – and when I had my own assumptions proven wrong.

All of this of course reminds me of Agile, the productivity/project method I’ve used for years in various forms (sometimes inside other methods). A lot of Agile is “make it obvious, make it visible, make people responsible.” Though Agile usually lacks randomization, I see echos in Landemore’s writing.

It is clear from her writing Landemore has soured on the political classes, and even filtered, both the research she shares and the experience she has make a good case. Attempts at citizens councils often saw career politicians want to put on their own stamp, experts expect to be right all the time (thinking as experts, not impacted citizens), and so on. I finished the book with a better opinion of my fellow citizens, and a worsened one of our political class. Politicians can be distortive people, even if well-meaning, as things warp around them.

Ladenmore finishes with ways to implement more direct Democracy, and her thoughts of were to go next. She’s ready to go, clearly passionate, though I wished she’d done more to provide “next steps” and ‘who to talk to” that was more clearly spelled out. Still, I found some resources to investigate my own interest.

Ultimately, it’s hard to fault her case – we need more citizens and less politicians. Indeed, having more “governing-by-lottery” would mean people have to step up if called – and step up to help neighbors and friends and family who might be called upon. Certainly I’m a believer in her method because I am a believer in citizenship and this is a way to cultivate that.

As for flaws, there are moments her humor or references, especially about American figures, seems a bit off. There are a few cases where I wanted her to address some truly vile things we see like racism and religious fanaticism. But these are minor – she has a thesis, she justifies it well, and she takes us into the experiences and mechanics of it.

Much like The Unaccountability Machine, Politics Without Politicians is about why things are obviously wrong, how we probably had the solution, and what to do next. It’s also about giving a damn, which makes both books passionate. Maybe Landemore and Dan Davies should team up, so I have yet another book to go on about until people are tired of it.

A recommended read. Perhaps you’ll want complete rule-by-lottery, perhaps you’ll become a booster of citizen referendum, but I think you’ll have a lot to think about. Best of all, you’ll become a better citizen, and we need all of those we can get.

Steven Savage

• www.StevenSavage.com
• www.InformoTron.com

Ever read a book that was very obvious but also a must-read? Well that’s Enshittification by Cory Doctorow.

You’ve probably heard the term Enshittification before because Doctrow made it famous. It’s a term to describe how things get worse and worse as they’re exploited, usually technology companies that were Doctrow’s initial targets. Well this is the book about why everything seems to be worse in the technology world. Companies locked us and their customers in and are squeezing us for every dime.

There’s very little in here that’s a surprise. But at the same time you’ll have a much better grasp about why your phone overheats when you go to web pages, why you get spam, and why your damn dishwasher has an internet connection.

Doctrow dives right in by discussing case studies of companies and services that Enshittified. None of this is going to be news to you in general, but the specific instances he invokes are eye-opening. You probably have at least one tech company you complain about and though it’s bad, it’s actually probably worse.

After giving you some examples that you’re all-too familiar with Doctorow then explores the Pathology of Enshittification. Simply put, there are usually social, government, and financial processes that keep companies from making their products worse. If you break those then, someone is going to start messing with the system, exploiting their locked-in users as much as they can.

Doctrow is pretty much of the opinion that modern corporations would Enshittify immediately, and gotta say, he has a point. Again a lot of this is very obvious, but when you see how many guardrails and limits to keep companies from making you insane for profit are gone, it’s worse than you think. Obvious, just worse than you think.

Then Doctorow does a deep dive on the Epidemiology of Enshittification, the various pathologies and signs and methods. This section introduces a number of useful terms, research, and concepts to help you understand what’s going on – and going wrong. Again, not a lot of it is surprising, but when you see the whole picture the depth is surprising.

To give an example, let’s talk what he calls “The End of Self Help.” We’re all aware of how many companies restricted the ability to repair devices, but the legal restrictions on what you can do with devices and software are probably far more strict than you realize. Repairing, playing with, modifying, or even accessing some devices in an “inappropriate” way can be made impossible or even illegal. Throw in internet-enabled tools and devices, and companies can lock you in and go after people who try to undo said locks.

Think about how that affects business, competition, and removes the concept of ownership. Now take this bit of Enshittification and multiply it by a whole lot of others. As I’ve mentioned a few times a friend decried in 2025 that it seemed technology hadn’t done anything truly new and good for ten years or more, and I kind of agree with her.

(Yay, we have better graphics, great, that’s being used to make Slop AI just like it was used to mine Bitcoin).

Finally, Doctorow looks at solutions. Some of this is the weakest part of the book as the solutions are obvious, but also we face a lot of challenges. Doctorow needed to give people more suggested action paths, communities to get involved in, and so on. The solution are movements and I think he could have done more with that.

And all of this, all of this is familiar. It’s just actually worse and dumber than we expected.

So my recommendation is that this is a must-read book but I’m not sure it’s a must-keep book. You’ll probably “get it” in one read and move on – hopefully after looking at the section on solutions and deciding to take action. So I do recommend buying a hard copy (which can’t be enshittified like a virtual one) and then when done lending it to someone else. Or have your book club do the same.

Let’s make sure this book doesn’t become a timeless classic.

Steven Savage

• www.StevenSavage.com
• www.InformoTron.com

OK folks, I said I will discuss politics more, albeit in my own way so don’t assume this is going to be typical ranting. It’ll be my ranting, so it’s from a source you can trust.

So let’s talk the Iran War. A lot of people are talking about the Iran War of 2026, and everyone is wondering what will happen and in a lot of case telling us what is going to happen.

Now me I am going to say that I think the war is a bad idea, done under multiple questionable circumstances, with multiple unpredictable factors. There’s a can of worms, then there’s this, and know what, we don’t need this.

But am I going to say exactly what will happen? No, because:

1. My skills relevant to this are Project Management, Technology, and a slight bit of economics.
2. My knowledge of the Mideast is mostly “oh, gods, not another war” when other people know it far better than me.

I’m not exactly the guy to predict things. I am the guy to go “oh, not again” and “hey, remember how things went for the Kurds before?” but not laying out probabilities. In fact I’m suspicious of people who seem sure how things are going to go, because my PM instincts say a lot of people don’t know what they’re talking about.

Whenever some political event happens like the Iran War people start making very solid predictions about things. It’s not academic predictions (many an academic seems to be more in the “oh, no” category). It’s stuff that I’ve seen christened Political Fanfic, stories spun of wishes, dreams, hallucinations, agendas, and possible substance abuse.

I love that term, because it’s accurate.

It’s not hard to find politicians, pundits, preachers, and a lot of people on social media who have too much time on their hands writing political fanfic. They’re sure what’s going to happen. They spell it out in excruciating detail that sets off my Project Manager senses (if people can’t agree on fonts, you can’t predict the next ten years, bub). They’re very sure and very elaborate.

If your response to a war is to do some Game of Thrones level description, you are, as the kids say, “sus.” Also I will try to drop no more slang in the rest of this essay as it makes me feel old.

I see this all over and have seen it for so long. People just weaving tales for whatever reason – to feel smart, to get attention, to get social media clicks, or just plain arrogance. When it gets to actual politicians it’s potentially fatal, but when it’s just someone with fourteen Instagram followers it can still become a force multiplier for B.S.

It’s really starting to wear on me. The world is quite messy before the Iran War, and as this all can get very bad and fatal I’d like to focus on actual goals and solutions. It’s not reality TV here, even if the Iraq War seemed to kick that politics-as-reality TV into overdrive further all those years ago.

We don’t need political fanfic. We need to be asking what kind of world do we want and how do we get there. It’s two very hard questions! They’re so hard and so revealing that maybe it’s easier for some people to create their political fanfic.

But take it from a Project Manager – something I am qualified to speak on – we need people who show us goals and ways. Not political fanfic. If I want fiction, I’ve got plenty of that, and the plots are more sensible than whatever the heck people are spinning about Iran.

Steven Savage

• www.StevenSavage.com
• www.InformoTron.com

When you work in IT if you have a problem, someone has The Solution – for money. Ok there’s free/open source versions but a lot of times people want to pay cash. You don’t get fired for spending someone’s money in too many cases.

There’s always some new piece of software, new module, or new upgrade that’ll solve The Problem. I get this at home as a hobbyist and writer, and I get it at work. My friends who usually work in IT experience the same thing.

However there’s a problem with buying The Solution.

That new software tool or module that will solve The Problem also requires you to follow procedures, and enter data, and do things just a bit differently. Sure you can get customizations or do them yourselves, but usually The Solution to The Problem also adds The Work.

Which, you figure will pay off. Eventually. Yeah you have to track this and add that, but eventually it’ll be more efficient.

Except, then sometimes you add another Solution to another Problem and add more Work. So yeah, you just added a bit more of extra stuff to do, right? It’s worth it! You have The Solutions to the Problems!

Now zoom ahead a few years (or maybe a few months at some places) and you’ve purchased or expanded so many Solutions and added so much Work that you have a new Problem – all the extra Work added to solve the Problem in the first place. Hell, at that point you may have been better off with the Old Problem before you decided to solve things.

We’ve probably all been there when The Work to use The Solution becomes more important than actually solving whatever The Problem was. We may miss the old Problem. We understood The Problem.

Essentially companies and individuals have paid to get more overhead. I’m sure you’ve been there. You may be there now. You may be drinking because you’re there now. Stop that, it’s bad for you.

I think this is because fixing a Problem is hard and requires effort and argument. Making changes needs effort and arguments. The temptation to buy a Solution is both fast and might seem easier at the time. It’s kind of like the old “no one got fired for buying IBM,” whereas the challenges of overhauling The Problem means you have to ask how you got there.

Sometimes I think we need a new wave of minimalism in IT. How can we do more with less? What do we really need to do? How can we scale back to find what we really need to do at a reasonable price?

Because I’m finding that a lot of Solutions just create a new Problem – more Work.

Steven Savage

• www.StevenSavage.com
• www.InformoTron.com