August 13, 2020

Email Is Dead - NOT

5 years ago - JOHN BRANDON published Why Email Will Be Obsolete by 2020 over on Inc. He was wrong then. He remains wrong now.

It’s one of a series of failed predictions about email and why it is dying.

I wrote this two years before in 2013

I’ve written a lot more about the topic. All these ‘email is dead’ articles … clickbait.

Fascinating Facts And Email Stats 2019

Source

293.6 billion emails get sent and received every day in 2019
In 2019, there are nearly 4 billion email users worldwide
The active email accounts worldwide are about 5.59 billion
There are about 1.5 billion Gmail accounts worldwide
The average office worker receives about 121 emails daily
40 is the average number of emails per day a person sends for business purposes
In December 2018, 43% of all emails were opened via mobile

No - it’s not going away - not with this kind of data to support it.

business.of.tech

July 14, 2020

2020 - So Far

This is not my writing - and have no idea where it came from … but if I find out - I will credit!

Dear Diary 2020 Edition,

In ❄️ January, 🔥 Australia caught on fire. I don’t even know if that fire was put out, because we straight up almost went to war with Iran 🇮🇷 . We might actually still be almost at war with them 🤔. I don’t know, because 👩 Jen Aniston and 👨🏻 Brad Pitt spoke to one another at an awards 🏆 show and everyone flipped the crap out 😲, but then there was this thing happening in 🦇 🇨🇳 China, then 👑 Prince Harry and Megan ✌🏼 peaced out of the Royal family, and there was the whole impeachment trial 👩‍⚖️ , and then corona virus 🦠 showed up in the US ✔️“officially,” but then 🏀 Kobe died 😭and UK 🇬🇧 peaced out of the European Union.

In February, 🌽 Iowa crapped 💩 itself with the caucus results and the president was acquitted and the 👩🏼‍💼Speaker of the House took ten. Whole. years. to rip up a speech , but then The👨‍🔬 🌎WHO decided to give this virus a name COVID-19, which confused 🤔some really important people 👔 in charge of, like, our lives, into thinking there were 18 other versions before it, but then Harvey Weinstein was found guilty👨🏻‍⚖️, and 🇺🇸 Americans started asking if Corona beer 🍺 was safe to drink🤦🏻‍♀️, and everyone on Facebook became a doctor 👨‍⚕️ who just knew the 🤒flu like killed way more people than COVID 1 through 18.

In March, stuff hit the fan👿. Warren dropped out of the presidential race and Sanders was like Bernie or bust 💥, but then Italy 🇮🇹 shut its whole country down 🚷, and then COVID Not 1 through 18 officially become what everyone already realized, a 😱pandemic and then a nationwide state of emergency 🆘was declared in US 🇺🇸 , but it didn’t really change anything, so everyone was confused or thought it was still just a flu 💁🏻‍♀️, but then COVID Not 18 was like ya’ll not taking me seriously? 💡 I’m gonna infect the one celebrity everyone loves and totally infected Tom Hanks👨🏻, get y’all to close all of the schools so y’all can 🙏🏼 appreciate teachers 👩‍🏫 for once (because you can’t teach them anything other than how to use a touch screen🤦🏻‍♀️ ) close down all of salons so you can’t get your 💇‍♂️ hair or your nails done💅 , everyone had to work from home and attend Zoom meetings in their underwear. The 📉 DOW took a crap 💩 on itself, and most of us still don’t understand why the stock market is so important or even a thing 🤔 (I still don’t), We were then all introduced to 🐅 Tiger King and the ONE thing we can all agree on this year , 👍🏼Carol totally killed her husband⚰️ ….. whacked him! And then Netflix was like you’re welcome, and we all realized there was no way we were washing our hands enough in the first place because all of our hands are now dry and gross and were all searching for lotion now.

In 🌧 April, Bernie finally busted✌🏼 himself out of the presidential race 🏃 , but then NYC 🗽became the set of The Walking Dead 💀 and we learned that no one has face masks 😷, ventilators, or toilet paper, or THE FREAKING SWIFFER WET JET LIQUID , and by now our 🦁outgrowth is showing, so there’s a shortage on 📦 box hair dye and all of our hair dressers are like , 😱 NO DONT DO IT!!! But, then Kim Jong-Un died, but then he came back to life … or did he? Who knows, because then the Pentagon released 🎥 videos of UFOs and nobody cared, and we were like man, it’s only April….

In 💐 May, the biblical end times kicked off , historical locust swarms, we learned of murder hornets 🐝 and realized that 2020 was the start of the Hunger Games🙈 however people forgot to let us know. people legit started to protest lockdown measures with 🔫 AR-15s, 🏀⚾️sports events were cancelled everywhere. But then people all over America finally reached a breaking point with race issues and violence. There were 🗣protests in every city🌃 ,which was confusing to some of us because people were definitely gathering in 👫crowds of more than 🖐🏼🤚🏼10 and for sure closer than 6 foot away ⬅️➡️from each other . Those people must have forgotten about the 😖pandemic called COVID Not One Through 18. Media 📺 🗞 struggled with how to 🤬focus on two important things at once, people in general struggle to focus on more than one important thing. A dead whale 🐋 was found in the middle of the Amazon rain forest 🌳 after monkeys 🐒 stole COVID 1 Through 19 from a lab 🔬 and ran off with them, and either in May or April (no one is keeping track of time now) that a giant asteroid ☄️ narrowly missed the Earth🌍.

In ☀️ June, science and common sense just got thrown 🤾🏼 straight out the window and somehow 😷 wearing masks became a 🏛political thing, but then everyone sort of remembered there was a pandemic, but then decided that not wearing a mask was somehow a ✝️God given right (still haven’t found that part in the bible or even in the constitution). then 👨‍🔬scientists announced they found a mysterious undiscovered mass at the center of the earth, and everyone was like 🙅🏽‍♂️🙅🏻‍♀️🚧DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH IT, but then everyone took a pause to realize that people actually believed Gone With The Wind 💨 was like non-fiction, but then it was also announced that there is a strange 🛰radio signal coming from somewhere in the universe 🌌 that repeats itself every so many days 🗓 , and everyone was like 👽 DON’T YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH IT‼️🚫 but then America reopened 🙌🏼from the shut down that actually wasn’t even a shut down, and so far, things have gone spectacularly …. not that great 👎🏼. All of the Karen’s came out at once, and people started tearing down 🔨 statues. Everyone is on Facebook arguing 🤼‍♀️ that masks kill because no one knows how breathing works 👃🏼, but then Florida 🏖 was like hold my beer 🍺 and let me show you how we’re number one 🥇 in all things, including new Not Corona Beer Coronavirus. Trump 👱🏻‍♂️decides now is a good time to ask the Supreme Court 🏛 to shut down ❌Obama Care because what better time to do so than in the middle of a pandemic 💁🏻‍♀️ , but then we learned there was a massive dust cloud ☁️ coming straight at us 📍from the Sahara Desert 🐫 , which is totally normal, but this is 2020, so the 👻 ghost mummy thing is most likely in that dust cloud. We then 📚 learned of meth-gators 🐊 , and I’m like that is so not on my flipping 2020 Bingo card 😡 can we use it as the free space?? 🤷🏻 Then we learned that the Congo’s worst ever Ebola 🚨 outbreak is over 😓, and we were all like, there was an Ebola outbreak that was the worse ever? 👀 ……. and don’t forget we just discovered FLYING SNAKES! 🐍, seriously! FLYING SNAKES!!!!

So here comes July…. at this point we are over it , just tell us what’s next …. 👽 Aliens? 🔱Zeus? ☄️ Asteroids? Artificial Intelligence becomes self aware? Can it just be something cool 😎 or fun for once? Maybe even a good laugh , like hahaha 😂 April Fools! We all actually wouldn’t mind that joke at this point.

😂 💬 📜 observations

July 3, 2020

Testing Otter.ai

I just recorded the 10th episode of my convocast with Andy Sylvester, In parrallel I ran the file through Otter.ai - this is the raw output - totally uneditied by me - pretty good really !

The Original Convocast is here If You want to compare the transcript with the original

Caveats

The sound quality is not good - I do know that - different problems that I am in the process of fixing …
I was talking extemporaneously - unstructured - not with prepared notes - I suspect if I was - it would flow better straight out of the system.
There was only me talking - Otter will distinguish between two speakers in a conversation - which would laso make the transcript easier to follow.
Otter also automatically tagged the flow with links in the audio to the tags

Try Here to see how that works.

All in all - so far - so good.

The Transcript

You know how bad it is when your partner in crime in this case is the enemy. So there’s two things you one day and says, john, I fully understand. We’re all very busy if you really don’t do the combo class, that’s okay by me. Let’s Let’s move on. And it’s because I’ve taken so long to get back. Yes Andy, I still want to do it. Thank you for the job. All right onwards. Ken, can you believe that Convo cast 10 we have hit double figures. And truly, truly impressed by that. Even though I’m the slow one. And by the way, hopefully you all listen to Comcast nine.

Amazing who knew the hidden talents of Mr. Andy Sylvester ukuleles on ukulele guitarist Event Manager. He’s actually runs talent shows As his workplace who knew he used to perform the ukulele on the podcast for us to walk here. Brilliant, Andy, thank you so very, very much. And now we will truly understand what your questions are outside of what you do on a day to day basis basis when you’re earning your crust and keeping your wife in the custom that we want in the manner of which she wants to become accustomed. Anyway, onwards, Comcast, as they say, and the at the end of his Comcast asked me, well, I’ve answered you, john, so what are your passions? And I think that might be partly why I slowed down because I stopped me a little in my tracks because there was proviso, he said, beyond people first and really truly people first is my passion. That’s why I do it. It’s not what I spent my life doing. And I’m doing it because I love it. And it’s involved in all kinds of different areas that I’m pretty passionate about. So I thought I could just say that but I decided So I decided no, john, you’ve got to come up with something. And he did. So I’m going to. So I started thinking about this. And I realized that over on one of my blog sites, very specifically words.filter.com slash interests, don’t worry, I’ll put it in the show notes. There is a page where I tag basically things that tickles my fancy as I go through life, they have all listed there in the giant tangles. And if you’re interested in what I’m interested in, there’s a tag list for you. But in amongst that, you’ll find things like travel art, literature, movies, theater, reading, writing, photography, those kinds of things. And, and I, I’m not a coder, I will say that I am really interested in things like the indie web site, play around with sort of, you know, with my web mentions and deck things and all kinds of people from the microblog community way and help me thank God because I don’t know where I’d be without them.

And that’s why I enjoy doing it. Punch puttering, it’s it’s puddling. And then I like to engage with people. I enjoy conversation. I like the good wine over coffee, dinner, lunch, whatever, meeting people conversing with engaging, sharing ideas. And as I look down that list as they fall through these kinds of things, you know, the fact that I love music. In fact, I love going to concerts and listening to different musicians in action. I realized that my particular passions could be reduced to three broad churches, if you will umbrellas, which I thought I might go through. One of those. The first if you will, is discovery and exploration just just unearthing things I can lose myself in Wikipedia for quite some time. But I mentioned travel, you know, I like to go to places I’ve not been to before. I like to understand the cultures, the food, the drinks, the people, what’s going on in that country. I’m very interested in the small p politics on what goes on there, how it whatever that country does engage to this neighbors and And then so I discovered the culture of the people I look around next for us to travel with the same thing would happen with a book, I suddenly others the book, and I dive into it and explore it. And if I really like it, I think what else is this person written and go from Reba.

So there’s a discovery and exploration part of my passion, which then connects number two, which is what I’ve done learning and connecting. Learning is pretty much what I’m trying to do with the end where learn, learn, learn as much as I can. And then connecting dots within that learning process. So by that, I mean, you know, so I’ve got my microblog site and I’m learning things around that. I think what else can I do around that I discover David Murphy’s blocks and I get involved with that. I start thinking about this. I connect different ideas together. So I have this web of different things that probably me and my dog go look at from time to time. But for me, it’s a learning exercise and there’s a lot of stuff in there besides curated of yours, and We talked about curating things, right with Him. I think curating curating is a very good thing to do. And it’s useful for me to do that. And then the final part of it is sharing. Let’s call it teaching. Much like, I’m a guitar player, not a guitarist. Pictures, I’m not a photographer. I like to teach with, I’m most certainly not a teacher. Both my parents were teachers, and I fully understand what it takes to be a teacher, what makes a teacher, I am not one of those. But hats off to everybody that can and does.

But if I can, and I bought knowledge that I can impart share with other people to help them along whatever path they’re on, right? And then and I will help as much as I can. So it’s only the third bucket. So discovering exploration, learning, connect and sharing and teaching. And in many ways people first hits all of those, right? So always learning things around the people first world, but what I’m primarily involved in To connecting more and more people into sharing it, and central now trying to build a community of like minded people around that, that will be accelerated when my book comes out in a couple of months. I’m actually sort of going to be launching a podcast around it soon. In fact, I think it’s the middle of August and many shows are going live with the first one. And so I’ve got some pro help on that, that will actually make not only that part better to make my congregation better because you know, I have a right kit. I’ll be better trained and how all this works. So that’s only going to get better. So yeah, I mean, that that, that that connection, I don’t dive into things very, very deeply. So you take the guitar playing, they might my parents wanted me to learn the piano.

In those days when you can also talk to me You did. I wanted to learn the guitar. So we got a guitar and I learnt it. I was proficient I performed on stage at the time, but I never really got deeply into it. I never became a great guitar player by any stretch of the night. But because it was a stringed instrument, I started finding fascination for stringed instruments. So I bought a banjo, learn how that plays, I bought a mandolin and work how that did. I did a school project, which was the history of the stringed instruments. So that’s the connecting part, I think we can find the thing and start moving it along. Likewise, with music, I find a musician I like and enjoy. And from there, I learned other things around it. Some of you might remember a guy called Pete frame back in the 70s. Pete wrote a couple of books called rock family trees, and he took bands like Fleetwood Mac or Jethro Tull. They will take bands in those days, and basically said, yes, these are the personnel. This is where they came from.

This is the way they went to an all hand drawn beautifully in a way that you start to understand how these bands connected together and where they came from. And that’s kind of how I’ve discovered music over the years, right. So I today Roger Waters fan, because he comes from Pink Floyd and Pink Floyd was my go to band in those days, but because of Pink Floyd, I also found out and discovered a seed Wilson and from that a Porcupine Tree and his solo album. And from that, and nazma, and OPEC, and most recently, back to Sweden, and so on. So I explore things I don’t actually always like what I find. But I follow those connections, which again, is going back to the sort of these passions I have, is that the web was invented from the hyperlinks is my life, I find the hyperlink and rather than read the article, I’ll jump through the hyperlink, and then that So anyway, that’s it that there’s a my passions, the connections that drew me a long, long way.

That’s why I love the web. In fact, even even in my book, just thinking about this, my book in acknowledgment section and acknowledging all kinds of different people but 1011 so who are people We’ll be writing good things and referencing my book and helping you promote it, or people I’ve known personally over the years. And the acknowledgement is a story of the connections, how those people relate to each other, as they relate to me what they’ve done for me what I’ve done for them over the years, so even that stuff becomes a story of connections. So anyway, that says that that’s who I am.

That’s that those are my passions. Thank you for asking me. And I guess it makes sense. Last your question. I have one question. Why the hell would you put up with me? Why don’t you kick me around and kick me out? Get somebody’s going to do this on a more regular basis. Now, seriously, here’s my here’s my question for you. COVID is all going to come to an end and you’re going to some point say right, let’s get out of here. You’re going to go on a vacation. Where would you like to go on a vacation to and why? What are you going to do when you get there? How long do you think it might be? I mean, if your vacation to Seattle, it might be a little To visit if your case vacation is to Thailand. So if I’m interested in where to next, we’re all going to emotional COVID at some point for elders and just practice. I’m thinking about traveling at the moment. where’s where’s your next vacation? Look forward to talking to me. Thanks so much for putting up with me. Bye, everybody.

💡 🔗 💬 🖋 🔍 help

June 29, 2020

“To Sarkar, each age would run its course, with the social motivity going too far, causing much grief to the majority of people (Sarkar, 1967). The situation could go on unchecked for a long time, before things got so bad that a spontaneous revolution and overthrow of the system took place. In fact, as this was the reason for social change, it was clear that no single class of people could remain dominant indefinitely. Social power was destined to pass from one class to next in the prescribed order, or cycle. The ‘age of warriors’, which brings strict order to society and a return to fundamental values, essentially leads to excessive focus on strong man rule and warfare. It is followed by an ‘age of intellectuals’, which bring a sense of liberation in the mental sphere but soon replace that freedom with the yoke of newer ideas. Over time this age merges into an ‘age of acquisitors’, which brings progress in the material sphere, but this is soon replaced by increased physical and mental exploitation. The Servile Wars spelled the doom of the Roman Republic. Labour conflict could be the undoing of Capitalism, according to this theory. And so the cycle moves on its endless round, until the civilisation ceases to exist or is taken over by a superior or more powerful civilisation.”

MY EMPHASIS

💡 💬 people.first

June 25, 2020

Jobs and Gigs, Piece Work and Contracts, IP Sales and Asset Rental … all different ways to earn an income now - and more readily in the future. But this is diffeent to the ’skill’s needed to do that. And those are definitely different to the character traits best suited to those skills. Lets get talking.

Sometimes writing comments just becomes too hard. Or too long. This is in response to a great set of words from Stuart posted on this past week’s newsletter.

Thankyou Stuart.

Eloquent … as always. Agreed … as always. Completing each others sentences … as always!

Re Biden, point taken. The only miners I know (well knew actually) are over in Wales and The North of England - but no doubt Joe will have me beaten hands down when it comes to numbers. Those two regions suffered badly at the hands of UK government policy in the 80s.

The Hill is just one of the news sources that picked up on Biden’s comment. .. and within there’s that word ‘training’ again - very different to ‘learning’, so yes you are so right about language (a People First Tenet), and $5 million for retraining in Appalachia … it really is just a drop in the bucket and does nothing to work out how to rebuild communities.

Just a couple of days ago some long time friends all got together on one of our regular Zoom calls - and mining came up - one of my friends coming from a family of the mines was commenting about the total destruction of communities with the destruction of the mining industry. Now - this is not to say that we should ‘save mining’ … but the law of unintended consequences is definitely writ large. Ever seen Brassed Off? This clip is so poignant, I have adopted it for the People First canon.

Moving on to your Aunt Becky, I (of course) didn’t know her, but that timeline of 60 years ago … is exactly when all that was going on. Not sure if you clicked through to the full analysis referenced in the article. If you did, you will have notice that one entry was actually ‘Telephone Operators’ … more support for the total lack of thinking these people demonstrate when they write these articles.

Regarding Jobs / Work. EXACTLY, that is why one of the People First Tenets is ‘There is NO Future of Work - There is only a Future of Income’ and relates to The Future Of Income that I published in December last year.

In conclusion .. Jobs / Work / Income … is it a pre requisite to have a ‘job’ mean that you are employed by someone else? Let’s add ‘gig’ into the mix. The etymology of ‘job’ is not that dissimilar to gig - hence we have things like ‘job shops’, ‘job production’ . So yes, we need to be real clear as to where we are heading .. so let’s try this on for size.

To live in this world you require an income. For most of us that means we are paid for the work we do. By the hour or for a ‘job done’ (my toilet is now fixed). What we get paid is generally defined by either ‘Time, Materials and Expenses’ OR A ‘fixed price contract’. Full time work tends to be in that latter category … these are your hours … this your salary … job done.

But of course income is also made through clever utilization of assets.

I invest my money to make more money.
I translate my personal IP into a product that gets bought … I write a book, create a training program, make a movie ….
I create a company and pay others to do work that I make a margin on …

Etc etc.

Too many people argue that the future of work is the gig economy … it is not. The gig economy is just another stage to move people off the books / get tasks done for less. Nothing wrong with that … but It’s clear that these low range task driven jobs are being replaced by AI/Bots … what then happens to those people?

That’s where I am heading.

Stage One is definitely understanding two things.

What the real skills required for the future are
What the better characteristics and traits in people are for the future.

Observation - the two do get conflated and that is annoying.

Example - If I have a character that includes an insatiable appetite for knowledge, that I am always seeking to discover stuff, that I am always interested …

then the skill of ‘life long learner’ is definitely a lot easier than if I did not have that character trait.

I can learn a skill but my character will manage how (easily) that process occurs.

Stage Two … which of those character traits and skills translate into ‘income’ … which may be a ‘job’ - but in fact might be an alternative income generator, a contract, a gig, an IP sales process … you name it.

You are right … ‘job’ has become a word to mean doing something for ‘the man’ and getting paid. That will still exist in the future - but less than today, being replaced with gigs, contracts, jobbing, piece work, freelance contract etc etc

What I think those jobs might be … that is the week AFTER next’s email

Next week tackles the characteristic and skills I think are important in any of our many futures.

For example, a recurring message from the readings is that ‘good moral code’ and an ‘understanding of ethics’ with a ‘high EQ’ is important in the future … but how do you get paid for that. How does it translate?

Onwards.

💡 🥇 ↩️ people.first

June 21, 2020

‘Making Hey’ (pun intended) - OR Leveraging The Hey Commentary To Make YOUR Point.

If you’re listening you will have picked up on the latest Apple furor and how they are abusing their power with the App Store.

In one of my many groups, someone shared this, commenting that the relevant part is about Hey.

I took umbridge and replied, but decide to house the story on a post for posterity.

The ‘hey’ part might be the relevant part but the story is about moral leadership - and connecting the two stories with the words …

“Apple and eBay show the state of moral leadership in Silicon Valley. Absent. Or perhaps present, but actively malicious.”

… is akin to the claim back in the day that there was no difference between clinton and trump because they both lied.

I don’t know anything like enough to know who’s right and who’s wrong in the apple story BUT I do know a false equivalency when I see it.

If he wanted a real comparison of the lack of moral leadership in Silicon Valley - he could have drawn much tighter parallels with Uber - where scandals continue despite Daria running the ship, or the shenanigans of Zuckerberg. But no.

Instead he gets to promote his story because Apple - which we know - are always good for a headline.

Hey isn’t designed or marketed as an email platform that is more secure than other options. It’s a batch of features designed around common email use cases that aren’t well handled by current email. Many of those features require server smarts and storing your email on the server (renaming and merging multiple historical subject lines for instance). IMAP would throw away most of the reason for using HEY.

Jonathan Peterson

One reponse I personally enjoyed;

No, IMAP would throw away their reason for picking an attention-getting fight with Apple.

If they wanted to do a service that would be friendlier to people who want to bring their own address, and not provoke Apple, they could have designed it more like

Mail server (standard IMAP)

Mail client (with new UX features)

Mail bot (automated IMAP client service that does any special mail processing that the client can’t, and that isn’t built in to IMAP servers) (This is similar in concept to what a lot of long-time free software email users have set up with their own tools. Harder to develop than a tied client+server, but easier for users to try out with their own real addresses.)

With the 3-component design, if a user wants to use their client and special features with their existing address and mail archives, the user can get the client and sign up for the bot as a service. If you just buy the client on Apple’s store, you could point it at any IMAP server, but you don’t get the bot features, so possibly some of the nifty UI in the client doesn’t show up.

Instead, what Hey did is try to run a tying and lock-in racket, old-school 1990s MS-Exchange style, and ask Apple for distribution. And Apple’s app store reviewers think far enough ahead to know that only one company is allowed to play the lock-in game on their infrastructure.

Don Marti

🥇 ↩️ business.of.tech

June 17, 2020

Legacies of my distant relatives

Cartoons (Jon)

Criminal Profiling (John)

Doctor Who (Harriet)

Donkeys (Violet)

Music (Five)

More to come … hopefully.

📚 🔗 🗒 🎵 #️⃣ observations

June 17, 2020

‘A’ Future - Not ‘The’ Future

Time
Is it really a dimension if you can’t travel in the opposite direction?

In January 2020, not a single CEO, government leader, politician or consultant let alone futurist, futurologist, sociologist, FoW expert, forecaster, strategy planner or pollster … wrote or talked about what we should do 6 months later when the world was in the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu, suffering the deepest financial depression in nearly a hundred years with a global #BLM movement provoking civil unrest that threatens the global power structure that has been in place for centuries.

Read The Whole Article.

“Expect the unexpected.”

social media meme

When it happened. We froze.

This will become a repeating paragraph on the bottom of newsletter posts.

future Newsletter archive.pf.business

June 10, 2020

Roadblocks

https-bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com-public-images-33063204-80a8-4133-a135-d3e36d78201a_1920x1080.jpeg

Teseract

Here are more things that don’t always help;

Looking through ‘different lenses’
Putting ‘new filters on the glasses’
Viewing things from a ‘different angle’

Read The Whole Article.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Upton Sinclair

Newsletter archive.pf.business

June 9, 2020

360 Degree Assessment Is Flawed

That moment, when your manager says to you … we are introducing 360 degree assessments into the business …

Say what?

How flat, How retro. How old school. How two dimensionaL. How wrong.

We are people in a three dimensional world - surely our assessments deserve more than two dimensions.

Me - I assess a full 4Pi Steradian view!

Steradian … An area on the surface of the sphere equivalent to the square of its radius.

Explanation

Angular measurement on a circle is defined by the ratio of the arc length to the radius of the circle, so a full rotation is 2 pi r / r = 2 pi radians, or 360 degrees if you want to use Babylonian units.

For a sphere, the idea is similar. You take the ratio of the area of the part of the sphere that you can travel to, to the square of the radius. These “angles” are called solid angles, and since the area of a sphere is 4 pi r^2, a sphere subtends a solid angle of 4 pi, the units being steradians. So the mathematical analog for a 360 view would be a 4 pi steradian view.

Someone, Somewhere.

From Wikipedia

A square degree has sides of one degree, projected on a sphere.

There are (360)^2/pi square degrees on a sphere, which is approximately 41252 square degrees.

You can also use stereo-radians, or steradians, which is an area on the surface of the sphere equivalent to the square of its radius.

It is commonly used in radiant energy measurements, like in “X watts per steradian”.

A full sphere has 4*pi steradian.

In short, a 3D equivalent of a plane 360 degree view is 41252 square degrees or 12.5 steradians.

🥇 💡 🗂 people.first

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