Digital legacies and The Unicorn Project
What's that noise?
Ian:It's beard ASR.
Ash:Oh, not right. Okay. Twelve hours, beard.
Ian:Yes. We're back to twelve hours video.
Ash:That's that's probably That's what it always comes back to See, the Steamed Hands episode was voted one of the top five Simpsons episodes of all time. And Monorail was in there as well.
Ian:Monorail is brilliant.
Ash:Yeah. Definitely. Did you see the
Ian:yeah. You probably showed it to me, didn't you?
Ash:Oh, the safe.
Ian:Yeah. I've sold Agile to
Ash:Yeah. That's really
Ian:North Haverbrook and whatever the other places were.
Ash:It's one of those it's it's funny because it's true and also sad because it's true. Yes. And it's that fatalistic, well, we need to laugh about it. But it's yeah. Yeah.
Ash:Absolutely. That is absolutely it.
Ian:There is a a genuine funny because it's true way of being funny, though.
Ash:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Definitely. Rather than the this we're doomed. So let's laugh in the face of our oncoming doom.
Ash:We're doing the same thing again, and it's not gonna work. But, you know, we need to laugh about it. Well, so yeah.
Ian:The death march misery of millions.
Ash:So I'm always my general opinion on such things is when companies say, we're gonna do this, they're always gonna struggle because they never have the internal discipline to do most methodologies. Right? So whenever I used to go to a new company when I was with the test people, it'd always be like, well, they'll be like, well, we do scrum here or we do waterfall. And then you look at what they actually do, and they just do, like, multidimensional chaos. Yeah.
Ash:And it's like, well, how do you expect to be able to perform any form of methodology when you just do chaos now? You're just gonna do chaos again. So
Ian:But with different meeting names.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So it's like, well, rather than thinking about methodologies, let's have a look at your chaos and see what's
Ian:in there. Oh.
Ash:But that's, like, the much more valuable way to to start.
Ian:Yeah. But nobody wants to look at their chaos, do you know? People want to pretend their chaos is
Ash:Yeah. Part of the the organizational healing process, the the admission of chaos needs to happen. It's like, we need to say that we're not in really in control of anything that we're doing, and we're just freewheeling towards our next big deliverable, and we'll do what needs to be done together. That may involve big design upfront. It may involve iterating over things.
Ash:But in general, we're just pretty much freewheeling. So let's let's admit that. And sometimes when you do admit that, there's catharsis there as well. It's just like, well, actually, yeah, we are a bit chaotic. We're not doing so bad.
Ash:So hello, are you? Oh, you're cock.
Ian:And I've just blown my meters here as well. I'm gonna turn myself down slightly.
Ash:Oh, well. So it served a purpose then?
Ian:You turn yourself down slightly.
Ash:No. You can stop talking. Goddamn it. We can't even say hello.
Ian:We can. We can do this. We got this.
Ash:We got
Ian:We got this.
Ash:And then we've got more. So we've got loads of things to talk about and two things as well. Yeah. So and we've not done hello.
Ian:Right. I'm gonna have a brief pause now. Okay.
Ash:Hello, Ian.
Ian:Hello, Ash.
Ash:How are you doing?
Ian:I'm doing very well. How about you?
Ash:Yeah. Very good. Very good.
Ian:So? We're here again.
Ash:We're here again?
Ian:We always say that, don't we?
Ash:We do.
Ian:We do. Perhaps it's me that always says that.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. You always sound quite surprised as well.
Ian:Yeah. That's because I've been party to the run up.
Ash:The run up. What's the run up?
Ian:The run up is the stacking cushions around the room to Alright. Okay. Absorb the stray echoes and putting up microphones and Yeah. Generally doing something which Yeah. Seems to be the equivalent of a technology system that's strung together with bits of sellotape and string, and then it somehow works.
Ash:Yeah. I'm familiar with all those things.
Ian:Yeah? Yep. So that might explain the surprise. So I feel morally obliged to follow-up on last episode's Alexa skill. Uh-huh.
Ian:At that time, I hadn't published it. And then between recording the episode and releasing it, I polished it vigorously and then published it. Although, it was rejected by, Amazon the first time because, believe it or not, of a failed test.
Ash:Failed test. Testing always gets in the way of release, doesn't it?
Ian:It it it's so inconvenient.
Ash:Yeah. Absolutely.
Ian:The test that failed would never have happened anyway. Of course. Because I was only gonna publish it to The United Kingdom. So why would I make it be able to tell you gracefully when you were in a different country?
Ash:Who thinks about error handling?
Ian:It's just just, you know, just nitpicking and
Ash:No one's got time for that.
Ian:No. No. So I was slightly inspired by Amazon's cruel rejection of my, of my broken Alexa skill. So I fixed it and, polished it a bit more, and it's now up and running. And, guess how many people have used it?
Ash:More than zero?
Ian:Actually, only just. So one other person other than me has used it according to its log files, and that person used it because I rang them up and asked them to.
Ash:That's very direct marketing.
Ian:Yes. So I think I've come up with, an Alexa skill that's extremely useful to an extremely small number of people.
Ash:That's okay.
Ian:And it's very hard to communicate or know who those people are. So maybe it will continue to have zero or maybe one reluctant user.
Ash:Well, there are quite a lot of filters on it. You have to use Octopus and,
Ian:Have that particular tariff.
Ash:Have that particular tariff. So the I guess it's targeted at a very particular group.
Ian:It is. It is. And I'm I'm not unhappy because the point of it was not to liberate people's electricity usage, although that is a nice side effect. The purpose of it was to learn how to do it, and I did that and, improve my code, which I did as well. So
Ash:So people shouldn't devalue the learning experience?
Ian:No. Because if we did, there'd be nothing left. So, yes, please someone use my Alexa skill. I'll publish a link to it in the I'll publish a link to it in the show notes, and then you can just use it to find out which would have been the cheapest two hour slot for your, for for your electricity usage if you were only on the right tariff and the right electricity provider. Mhmm.
Ian:Another bit of follow-up is that my friend, who I'm gonna call Mark from Basingstoke because I feel like that's how you should refer to it's like radio shows. I should refer to people's first name from place they come from. So Mark from Basingstoke did mention the very loud beeps in episode three, which I was talking about in the last episode
Ash:Right.
Ian:As having been a slight audio glitch. And he says, nice beeps on episode three. Glass half full, I still have 50 hearing in my good ear. Mhmm. So it wasn't just me.
Ash:So does this mean you're gonna go back and correct them in your perfectionist manner?
Ian:I already did that. I just can't publish it, so it might as well not have bothered.
Ash:See, I I think that I I was pleased to hear that piece of information that if we once we publish the, the episode between publishing and sharing, then this Ian cannot go back and start to edit things again, which I feel is quite a Ian needs that particularly that that sort of powerful, deadline or blocker to striving for perfectionism. Once that once it's been once it's been uploaded, then that's it. We're done.
Ian:Yeah. We are.
Ash:No further twiddles can be made, and we need that. Well, Ian needs that specifically. I don't.
Ian:We're calling them twiddles now. Twiddles. Twiddles.
Ash:See, I often say, if I'm committing something to source control, you know the where you you do your commit and then you you push it up there and then you forget something. Yes. And you put a really nice message on the first commit and then on the second commit where you've forgotten something, usually, I just put twiddles.
Ian:Well, that's good because I I have lots of examples of that in the commit chain for my Alexa skills. Yeah. Because I don't think I've put twiddles on any of them, though.
Ash:Yeah. Because you can always rebase, but I don't.
Ian:That sounds like sort of git ninja Yeah. Thing.
Ash:Yeah. So to to be fair, if I'm if if this is if I'm working for a company, I do rebase. If it's on my own stuff, I don't rebase. I'm not that obsessed.
Ian:So that's given me something to do with my spare time now. Yeah. That's okay. Rebase all my small
Ash:Yeah. Twiddles Yeah. Twiddling.
Ian:Yeah. Cool. So, I apologize to your, your bad ear and your good ear, Mark, for my terrible bleeps. And I promise that future bleeps will be I'm tempted to swear now just so I can have a bleep, but I'm not going to. Future bleeps will be, marvelous and wonderful in ways that we cannot fathom.
Ian:We had a fun letter.
Ash:We did. It was very exciting.
Ian:It was. My head nearly exploded. So given my new policy of how to refer to people, the fan letter was from Mary from Lancashire. And we know it's a fan letter because it says it at the top. Yep.
Ian:Literally says, this is a fan letter. And, there were many points of feedback in the fan letter.
Ash:There were.
Ian:And I feel we don't have time to highlight all of them. The most useful piece of feedback in there was, please do more singing, Ash.
Ash:It wasn't singing. It was kind of humming with some some melody, perhaps.
Ian:When when your musical career kicks off into full flow and you're basically, some kind of rock star, you will remember these beginnings.
Ash:Yeah. So it'll just be various mixes of the theme from Dog Tanya and the three Muskerhounds. Twelve hours worth. Sorry.
Ian:Well, actually, I think we have the wherewithal to do that today. Yeah. We just need a YouTube channel.
Ash:Yeah. I see, I don't know that that exists, but I would I would put a reasonable amount of money on that existing.
Ian:No. It definitely doesn't exist. I'm talking about your version of it, not Oh, my not not not
Ash:the version that's already been done. No. If someone had already done the twelve hour version of the theme tune from Dog Tannion and the Three Muscough Hounds, then I I'd probably just leave it.
Ian:But, I feel as though your rendition should be made into a twelve hour version.
Ash:Could
Ian:be. We could have some really interesting, visual effects. If only we had a YouTube channel.
Ash:Funny we did have a YouTube channel, which is apparently a very good idea.
Ian:Should we get a YouTube channel?
Ash:Yeah. I think we probably should.
Ian:Do you think? What's the We've
Ash:got a Google account, don't we?
Ian:Yeah. We do.
Ash:So we can have a YouTube channel. Yeah. There's already one waiting for us. Yeah. We just merely need to put the effort in.
Ian:And hopefully, no one's taken the name.
Ash:Oh, yeah. Otherwise, we'll end up with another what a lot of thing or
Ian:I don't think I don't what a
Ash:lot of things or something like that.
Ian:I honestly don't think my, I think my circuits would overload if I got to say what a lot of thing twice in an episode. Yeah. Yeah. So, yes, please do more singing. Mary also refers to our rambling waffle, which I think is what we're doing now as opposed to talking about the thing.
Ian:Yeah. Which she describes as a soothing balm in a world of splintered fragments.
Ash:So the rambling waffle is splintered fragment. But
Ian:Made into soothing balm.
Ash:Made into soothing balm. So to to be honest, as far as feedback goes, I'm pretty pleased with that.
Ian:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I am.
Ash:Yeah. Absolutely. I think there's there's there's room in the world for purposeless soothing balm.
Ian:I couldn't possibly agree more.
Ash:Yeah. Because there's so much call for us to be purposeful that, you know, I enjoy a bit of purposelessness, apart from the many jobs that I've had, which when I look back, they were purposeless. But but that's different.
Ian:Well, I guess as long as you got paid.
Ash:Oh, yeah. That's enough to, maintain the human spirit.
Ian:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How depressing. Well, thank you very much.
Ian:Mary from Lancashire and Mark from Basingstoke.
Ash:Thank you. It's so nice to hear from you. Sorry. That sounded really not genuine. See?
Ash:Okay. He does
Ian:he does really mean that.
Ash:Yeah. I do. So I I have a somebody used to work with could not give a genuine he wanted to give genuine compliments about people's work, but he couldn't do it. It would always sound really terrible. So someone would, like, I don't know, write some tests or something like that.
Ash:And he'd be like, nice one. And he'd be like, I really offend everyone, but I can't help it. I mean it. I was really pleased with that. I'm really pleased with that.
Ian:Oh, dear.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. I found it very entertaining.
Ian:Reminds me of father Ted. Yeah. Yeah. The most sarcastic priest in the world. Yeah.
Ian:And they said to him, no. No. I'm not gonna go there. No Irish accent impersonations. No.
Ian:This podcast.
Ash:No. It never turns out well, does it? No. I can't do accents anyway. I have rubbish accents.
Ian:No. You're pretty good at your accent.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. So I always found when as a a speaker at conferences, I remember getting some feedback that people couldn't understand my accent. I think I have quite a neutral accent.
Ian:But I won't go so far as neutral, but you you definitely have a definite accent. Yeah. But it's not it doesn't obscure your words.
Ash:No. No. But I just found that really strange. Yeah. But anyway, but I I wasn't trying to do an Irish accent while I was talking.
Ian:No. I'm really happy to hear that.
Ash:Yeah. That would have been really terrible.
Ian:It really would have been terrible.
Ash:Yeah. Definitely.
Ian:I suppose at some point, we ought to bring ourselves to the topic of things.
Ash:Yes. Let's talk about two things.
Ian:So I think that
Ash:Who goes first this week?
Ian:Well, I think it's gotta be you. Okay. It's monopolizing the airwaves time.
Ash:Monopolizing the airwaves time. Right. Are you ready for a lengthy monologue about the thing that I want to talk about?
Ian:Use your powers only for good.
Ash:Yeah. So my thing is that Twitter had planned to start to deactivate a load of old usernames and accounts Oh. Which really picked my interest from a very selfish point of view at first because I want the at Ash Winter Twitter handle. And when I look at the at Ash Winter Twitter handle, it's not done a great deal without wishing to be too judgmental. I'm not quite sure what, you know, what value it's added to the world.
Ian:Well, it has two very important pithy comments in it.
Ash:I do enjoy a pithy comment.
Ian:And and I think the first comment is insulting a footballer by showing them something.
Ash:Yeah. Which is actually quite a common usage for Twitter, apparently. Yeah. So it's not out of the ordinary what Ash Winter has has used their Twitter account.
Ian:No. No.
Ash:But I feel like as a person who, contributes often to the technology community, I would quite like that.
Ian:Yeah. Not not unreasonably.
Ash:No. No. But then, once I started looking into this, it actually led down, a slightly deeper rabbit hole as most most of our things tend to do to
Ian:be done.
Ash:And it started to talk about, well, what happens if that Twitter account that hasn't been used for the past five years or whatever the policy is, is someone who's died or someone who's some kind of legacy in some kind of way? Mhmm. Which made me think. So, obviously, from a selfish point of view, I would like a a new Twitter handle, which is my name. But what happens if those two pithy comments, you know, all that's left of that particular person, in terms of their digital legacy?
Ash:So that kind of it piqued my interest. It really did.
Ian:I think it's very interesting. And you do kind of there there is some balance to be struck, isn't there? Because you could you don't want Twitter to delete your loved one's Yeah. Account just out of the blue because really, you that might be a significant I mean, some people use Twitter a lot. That might be a significant repository of their thoughts and
Ash:Yeah. That they Yeah. Absolutely.
Ian:Done in their their lives. But, I mean, equally, I I'm not sure the particular instance of the at Ash Winter Twitter account has that same kind of value. Yeah. Maybe they were cut off at the start of a brilliant and glittering Twitter career by some tragic incident that happened in 2009 immediately after they posted that whatever his name is was something or other. So I've just indicated my entire understanding of football in that statement.
Ian:It seems less perhaps valuable than some other some other things.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. And it it really got me thinking about when these various social media sites application were being created, did we really think about, like, the ramifications going forward of of storing this amount of data and it becoming literally like a memorial to someone. Looks like it's quite a profound change in the world, isn't it? Because essentially, you've you've captured a lot of their, like, essence if you like digitally.
Ian:It is. It really is. And actually, it it kind of shows how things have changed because it's like photographs. I imagine an archaeologist in three thousand years' time looking back at us and wondering what happened to the photographic record in around, you know, 2005 or something. And, effectively, we all stopped taking pictures that got printed.
Ash:Yeah.
Ian:And they're all just digital now.
Ash:Polaroid.
Ian:Yeah. Although I think they're, someone's bought the brand and they're still going into a boat. Alright. But the number of printed pictures is is a fraction of of what it was. And people, they express themselves in that digital way now.
Ian:So it really is a profound insight. I mean, clearly, it must be of value because the companies collect it assiduously.
Ash:Yeah. But it's, it's kinda telling that initially, Twitter initially, they said, well, we're gonna do this sort of purge, if you like, of of inactive account. But it I I it seemed to be delivered in a fairly butter of facts sort of way, which it's just seeing data as data. Yeah. It's just kind of, you know, it's just tables and blob storage or or whatever it is.
Ian:We're gonna write some scripts to do some housekeeping.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. And I'm certainly of of the cost of my career, I've been part of teams that have built, like, archiving services, and all of them are very matter of fact, and they don't think about the story of that data.
Ian:Mhmm.
Ash:And the thing is with the data around social media is that it's a very rich story as well. Yeah. Because it's it has a timeline. It represents, like, to a certain extent, events in the real world or certainly mirrors them, you know, depending on how much you post and what you post about. And then it has, like, it's like multivariate.
Ash:It has the actual content as in the words and then the time and then images and videos. And it's like, well, actually, this is one of the richest records of people's lives that have ever been created.
Ian:Yeah. And I guess it extends to quote unquote ordinary people's lives. Yeah. And, you know, history records the actions and the lives of people of particular significance. Mhmm.
Ian:And I suppose what we've got here is a is a history that altogether different in scale Yeah. And essentially important.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like now, lots of lives get examined in a you know, and you can examine a lot of lives in quite a deep way, can't you? Yeah. If you've got, you know if you if you aggregate, like, if someone's active on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and various other places, that that is a highly examined life and a very, very public one as well.
Ash:So just to say, well, you know, we're going to we're going to archive these away, and let someone else have the handle. It's quite a it's quite a big thing to do, isn't it?
Ian:Yeah. And it looks like they've backed off from it a bit.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Which is probably the sensible thing to do.
Ian:Oh, absolutely. I mean, they've realized it's not a technical Yeah. Thing they're doing. And they've realized, actually, I suspect that as well as not being a just a purely technical thing, there's a kind of next level of, well, they're taking up all these usernames that other people want. Yeah.
Ian:And, you know, that's the case with your, you know, the at ash winter Yeah. Username. And that's the sort of sort of level of that's why they publicized, I guess, what they were doing because they were sort of saying, look, we're gonna free up all these these username. And then and now they've kind of realized, well, actually, there's this rich legacy, and we have to Yeah. In some places anyway, and we have to figure out a way of of doing this in a way that has, I guess, the least harm.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So how would you like your your digital legacy to be preserved?
Ian:So really, that's an interesting question because I when I have or see little scraps of writing that come from, you know, my grandparents
Ash:Yeah.
Ian:Who died quite a long time ago now, I that has huge value to me. Yeah. Just seeing their, I don't know, their handwriting or a picture of them or something like that. So I suppose I want my my children, the the next generation, to be able to to have access to things that I've written down and thought or maybe even recorded on a
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. This that's a podcast is a is a is an example as well, isn't it?
Ian:Yeah. Yeah. It is. I would like that. But on the other hand, there's a sort of balance there, isn't there?
Ian:Because do I want them to see everything I've ever written on a social media account? I'd probably be embarrassed by some of it. I mean, if you think I mean, I've been on Twitter since 02/2007. Yeah. So that's twelve years of tweets.
Ian:I mean, I haven't tweeted nearly as much as some people I know, but twelve years of tweets is still a lot. Yeah. Thousands and thousands. And I'm sure some of them I would have tweeted when I was angry or maybe even drunk or something like that where I would think Oh,
Ash:that one.
Ian:Who I do. I don't know. But you kind of think I want my whatever digital legacy I have to show me in a good light. So maybe maybe it's not everything.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. I suppose there's also that as well, isn't it? Because my Twitter account, for example, I tweet about articles that I've written, podcasts that I've been on, talks that I've given, talks that I'm attending. I don't really post about my personal, you know, talk about my my life, if you know what I mean.
Ash:Mhmm. Just that aspect. So it's a very it's a very incomplete it's a it's an incomplete view of me. It's my social media. So I don't have Facebook, and I barely log into Instagram.
Ash:So it's it depends how you use it as well. Yeah. Yeah.
Ian:Yeah. Yeah. It does. Because I mean, I guess you're getting into being a work persona and a Yeah. And a and a rest of your life persona.
Ian:Yeah. This is full of depth, this topic.
Ash:Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Which is so why I got really interested in it. Because, I guess, my other question was, so if you go say if you if you and you went and became a monk and lived in a monastery, which I know is one of your dreams,
Ian:as long as you've got good broadband. Oh, wait. No. I'll go out to destroy this analogy. I'm sorry.
Ian:Go on.
Ash:And if you say if you suddenly so would that, became went to a monastery and became a, you know, essentially is that a digital death, do you think, if you suddenly rejected technology?
Ian:Well, I suppose that depends what does a digital death mean. Yeah. I mean, somebody who's surveilling the the digital record would see it as such, I suppose. Yeah. I suppose that then you you're getting into what's the benefit of a recorded life.
Ian:Yeah. If I were to, retire to a, a monastery on an island with no mobile signal and no broadband
Ash:Sounds amazing.
Ian:Then I would clearly have lost my mind. But if I were to retire to Or
Ash:found it?
Ian:To yeah. To that island, maybe I would learn a tremendous amount about myself. Maybe I maybe I would have tremendous insights that the world needed to hear, but they would never know because I would have discarded my my digital shell that walked off into the brave unknown future.
Ash:Until they found your your notebooks afterwards. Yes. Three thousand years later.
Ian:Scratching on the walls like the Tower Of London and the jail sitting in the cells of the Tower Of London and the graffiti of various prisoners carved into rock. Yeah. Permanent.
Ash:So okay. So let's flip it around a bit. So if if you if you died sorry. I didn't mean to laugh when I said that.
Ian:Well, I I don't think you need to the if. I think at some point, I'm going to die unless the singularity happened. You may get uploaded to a bloody server farm, but,
Ash:you know Oh, god.
Ian:Have very little. So that that's a rabbit hole as well. Yeah. I feel as though I would need to see IT security being solved much more fundamentally before I would let someone make a digital copy of my brain that could then be made illicitly further copied by criminals and made to work in a spam email producing virtual sweatshop.
Ash:That just sounds amazing, doesn't it?
Ian:Well, it it sounds like the original noncopied version of me might not even know. And there'll be and there'll be something else which would be just as much me being tortured into writing crappy emails. I just think we need to we need to know that's not gonna be able to happen before it makes anyway, sorry. I'm just going off on one.
Ash:That's alright. So if if you were to unfortunately pass away, which, as you say, inevitably will happen. And also, you have a a three letter Twitter handle as well, which is quite desirable, I would imagine.
Ian:I could tell you some reasons why it's undesirable if you want.
Ash:Yes. But we'll let the we'll let the listener, delve into those for themselves. But a three letter Twitter handle is quite desirable. So if you were to, if you were to die, and then five years later, they, put your Twitter handle up for up for auction, how would you feel?
Ian:I'd feel better if my remaining family members and the beneficiaries of whatever will I might make were receiving the money from the auction.
Ash:I see. So you've gone you've gone full capitalist there. Yeah.
Ian:Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I you you're right. I mean, it is I suppose in terms of in real estate terms to use, the Americanism Yeah. It's it is desirable to desirable Twitter handle.
Ian:Yes. I'd feel slightly annoyed at Twitter for doing that, I think. Yeah.
Ash:Yeah. So you can make a social media will, and there's a place called, oh, the Digital Legacy Association Oh. Which is really interesting as well to read about. Yeah. Because they take this very very seriously because they kind of recognize the the profound nature of some of the data that you leave behind.
Ash:So it's definitely worth a read. So in my social media will, I'm going to leave a request to insult a footballer from the at Ash Winter sort of angle that I'm going to have and then close it down. So the circle will be complete.
Ian:Yeah. I think, really, what else can you do?
Ash:No. Absolutely. I can't I can't think of anything else. Because they say that is the most common use case for Twitter. Find someone who's famous, insult them, and then don't don't go back on the platform for years and years and years.
Ian:I suppose it's a way to, basically avoid any possibility of a comeback from them.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. Joke's on you. I'm dead. Sucker.
Ash:So?
Ian:Wow. Wow. Yeah. That was deep.
Ash:That that was pretty deep. But that was my thing.
Ian:What a great thing. Thank you, Ash.
Ash:No worries. So should we move on to thing two?
Ian:There's a thing two.
Ash:Ian, what's your thing?
Ian:Two. My thing as well. So my thing is a book. So a few episodes ago, and we can now say that because we've made some Yay. Few episodes.
Ian:In episode two, we talked about Team Topologies.
Ash:Yes. We did.
Ian:Great book. And it was your your thing for this episode. Yeah. So my thing for this episode is an another book, from the same publisher.
Ash:We're not sponsored by that publisher.
Ian:We're not sponsored by that publisher.
Ash:To sponsor us.
Ian:We've given our contact details several times over the course of this podcast, and we will reiterate them again at the end. All sponsorship money, great for you to see, especially if that means I can buy new technology to improve the podcast. Seriously, don't let me do that. So the book that I'm talking about is a brand new out, I think, on the November 26. Yep.
Ian:And it's called The Unicorn Project. And it is a novel about digital disruption, red shirts, and overthrowing the ancient powerful order.
Ash:Oh, sounds intriguing.
Ian:Have you read the Phoenix Project, Ash?
Ash:I have read the Phoenix Project.
Ian:So that was a novel about IT, DevOps, and helping your business win. Oh. And the Unicorn Project, I'd like to say it's a sequel to the Phoenix project, but it isn't really because it happens at the same time just from the perspective of a different bunch of people in the same company. And so the Phoenix project came from an ops perspective. Yep.
Ian:And the Unicorn project comes from a development perspective, which is obviously a slightly different kind of emphasis, but it's the same situation just seen by different people. And a lot of the same characters are in it as we're in the Phoenix project. And I think the Phoenix Project might be my one of my number well, one of my number one. One of my
Ash:number one books.
Ian:Let me, let me let me back cover.
Ash:Oh, it's amazing.
Ian:The Phoenix Project is a book I've recommended to a lot of people. And the reason I recommend it so much is that it really well articulates some quite counterintuitive things about the best way to do things. Yeah. And things like, WIP limits, limits on how many things it's okay to be doing at the same time. That seems like quite unintuitive thing to limit, but actually, it's quite profoundly powerful to do it to do it.
Ian:So I I love the Phoenix project because it expresses a lot of those things really clearly. So I'm really it was really excited when I heard Yeah. The sequel was coming out.
Ash:Yeah. Because the Phoenix Project was a number of counterintuitive concepts like you say, but also it was familiar enough. It had enough enough sort of pathos in it to say to appeal to people and people would would see themselves and their companies in it, which I think is really important as well. Yeah. And it's and it's a non textbook way of ex of expressing those concepts, which is probably has a chance at wider engage, I think.
Ian:Yeah. Agreed. And everyone who's been in some kind of terrible IT death march of a project will rec will recognize it.
Ash:I've never been in one of those.
Ian:No. No. Nor have I. But, you know, I've heard that some people have. Yeah.
Ian:So in the Phoenix project, they talked about the three ways, which was really about DevOps and, it was system thinking and feedback loops and continuous experimentation and learning. Yeah. And in the course of discussing that, they they outlined the four types of work Right. Which was business projects and IT operations projects and then changes, and then the one that we all love, unplanned work. Yeah.
Ian:So having got three of something and then four of something, the Unicorn project is topping the bill by having the five ideals. And whenever I hear the three things and the four things and the five things, it all reminds me of that Monty Python sketch about, yeah, anyway, without going there. So the five ideals are about delivering software. Yeah. And I guess the thing to do might be if I just read out to you what they are,
Ash:then you
Ian:can maybe drill into a couple.
Ash:We can pick
Ian:a couple. So the first ideal is locality and simplicity, which is about having loosely coupled architectures, but also, not requiring endless collaboration between teams in order to get anything done, which is kind of what we talked about when we were talking about team
Ash:to party. Absolutely. Cognitive load. Yes. Concepts.
Ian:Ex exactly. And the second ideal was focus, flow, and joy, which I really become attuned to that word joy Yeah. Because of Marie Kondo and her, house decluttering Yeah. Usage of of it. So her thing is that if you have a thing in your house and it doesn't spark joy, then you should get rid of it.
Ian:And I think that's a a really good way of doing that. But the second ideal is focus, flow, and joy. So are you focused on a business problem? Are you being able to deliver value and make the world better? And are you having fun?
Ian:So the third ideal is improvement of daily work, and that kind of was also present very strongly in the Phoenix project. The really strong message of of this book is saying that improving daily work is actually a higher priority activity than doing daily work.
Ash:Yeah. So And
Ian:again, that's quite counterintuitive. Yeah.
Ash:Absolutely. I can think of a few people who would look at me like I was insane for saying that.
Ian:But, actually, if you look back through the history of IT, there's quite a lot of stuff around that. So, you know, the famous Bill Gates trustworthy computing memo where he said, he insisted that programmers at Microsoft, if they have a choice between implementing a feature or improving security, they must improve security. Yeah. And the opposite of of that is being obsessed with process compliance and doing things the way we've always done them.
Ash:Because that's best.
Ian:Yes. That's how we got into this, man.
Ash:We'll just do more of that but harder. I'll dig this hole deeper.
Ian:Yeah. And then we'll see if that made it easier to get out. So the fourth ideal is psychological safety. There's a really interesting Google report actually that they it gets cited, which is to say that Google did an analysis of their high performing teams and found that psychological safety was the most important of the five things they looked at in high performing teams. And and, you know, again, if people don't feel safe to express concerns or try new things, then, you know, that really impairs how well the team can do.
Ian:So I thought that was a really good one. And then the fifth ideal was customer focus, and they talked a lot about dividing activities into core activities and context activities. That's, obviously, particularly use of the word context. I don't wanna get muddled up with other uses of Yeah. That term.
Ian:But core is basically stuff that your customers are paying you for, the stuff that creates real value for them, and the context is everything else. Yeah. In the fifth ideal, there's a lot of talking about what stuff are you doing that isn't really helping your customers. Yeah. And do you really need to do that?
Ash:Like filling in your time sheets.
Ian:Yeah. I guess that helps your organization, build money. But other than that Yeah. You know, is it an activity that customers see as valuable? Absolutely not.
Ash:No. So I don't
Ian:do it. Do you find it very easy to get paid when you don't do it? That might be core for you.
Ash:Well, I guess that is, that's probably the consideration there. Right?
Ian:Yeah. I think it is. Yeah. It is. Yeah.
Ian:So what grabs you out of that lot?
Ash:So I think the first thing would probably be, the use of the word joy.
Ian:Oh, yes.
Ash:Because I think often we see work as as drudgery, and and we think that soldiering on through something that we dislike intensely is some kind of badge of honor, and it just needs to be done. Early in my career, certain people would say to me, and I would always find it really strange, you haven't been on a really terrible project yet. So you, you know, I was early in my career be doing what I thought was great work and delivering, loads of value. But when it came to, like, promotion and pay rise, it was like, well, you haven't been on a really terrible one yet.
Ian:Oh.
Ash:You haven't shown your your worth. You haven't, you know, battled through the the drudgery and the horror of a terrible project. So that that one always really, really, like, got to me.
Ian:Yeah. And I I
Ash:like to see the the use of the word joy and enjoying your work because I think we value the opposite of that sometimes.
Ian:Yeah. So he quotes like, we're not paying you to have fun.
Ash:Yeah. If you want
Ian:to have fun, do it on your own time.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've heard that before.
Ian:Yeah. I have.
Ash:Yeah. And why is there so much laughter going on here? So, well, because we're having a good time.
Ian:Oh, you you mean you don't mean here in this room now?
Ash:Not in this room now. No. But in general. So, yeah, I think it's really important to use the word joy and to allow ourselves to use such words too.
Ian:I couldn't agree more. And, you know, I do like the Marie Kondo thing Yeah. Of does does a thing spark joy? And if it doesn't, is there a place for it?
Ash:Yeah. And I think it says focus, flow, and joy on purpose there. Right? Yeah. Because all three are are fairly well related.
Ian:They almost lead to one another, don't they? Yeah. Because focus can lead to to having flow and being able to sort of work in that kind of magic way where you you no longer get the passage of time and you're just really focused on what you're doing. Yeah. I mean, that is that is a really great feeling.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And you know when you're in it because it's quite actually quite rare.
Ian:Yeah. And Normally, you have to stop and go to a meeting.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't think a lot of workplaces are kind of conducive to helping you get to that state either, which is kinda sad really as well, isn't it?
Ash:Because you would hope that you would be able to feel that on a on a very regular basis, but it doesn't seem to be the way.
Ian:And I guess it ties into that third ideal as well of the improvement of daily work. Yeah. Because actually, what you really want is for your organization to continuously improve the way that things are done Yeah. Until you can actually have that focus and flow Yeah. So that you're not being interrupted to go to meetings or not being interrupted by things that aren't your core mission of adding value to Yeah.
Ian:To your end users and your customers. And then I think that if nothing is getting in the way of that and you are being super productive, I think that does lead to joy. You do you do feel good about yourself Yeah. And what you're doing.
Ash:Yeah. Absolutely. I think in organizations where you don't spend much time on on continuous improvement, I think that's probably one of the the sort of chief thieves of joy, isn't it? Yeah. You know, it's just like, well, you really struggle.
Ash:And then your brain starts to think, well, is there any point? Yeah. Which is a really dangerous place to get to, isn't it?
Ian:It really is. Yeah.
Ash:I I find I always find that really interesting with especially with programming as well, because I've seen lots of people on teams asking permission to, like, write tests, unit tests, for example.
Ian:Asking permission?
Ash:Yeah. Saying, well, have we got time to do this? So it's kind of part of what you do.
Ian:Have we got time to not do it?
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think as soon as someone says, well, you don't have time to do that or you shouldn't do that.
Ash:You shouldn't create something that you're that you would be proud of. I think that's kind of a thief of joy as well. Yeah. And it starts to kinda sap away at it. I think as long as it's again, it's kind of what's in context, you know.
Ash:If you're in a if you're in a a startup who's trying to validate an idea quickly, well, you could probably make certain compromises there. But if you've got a massively scaled system, which millions of people depend upon, then you need that engineering excellence and that level of of joy, you know, the joy that that gives you and the focus on what you're trying to achieve. So I always find it interesting how much time organizations spend on continuous improvement as well. So I think in the in the third ideal, does it say 20%?
Ian:Jean Kim, who wrote the he he was one of the co authors of the Phoenix Project Yeah. And he wrote, the Unicorn Project. He did a talk at the Portland DevOps days about about the book and the five ideals. Yeah. In that, he was saying that 20% of time should be spent on fixing things that need fixing Yeah.
Ian:And on making on paying down technical debt.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah. So it's not to say it should never exist. It's just to say, you know, you should have a focus on at least making inroads into it rather than just leaving it to to fester forever. Because a few places where I've worked, we've suddenly embarked on a like a like a vast improvement project.
Ash:When things have got so bad that everything's ground to a halt, and then it's you need to stop feature development entirely in order to go and fix all that stuff, which is doesn't seem like a very sustainable flow of work, does it?
Ian:No. And, actually, that's exactly what happens in the Phoenix project and the Unicorn project Yeah. Because they're on the same timeline. But they they have a a month where they stop feature development. They just work on improving how they work Yeah.
Ian:On paying down technical debt. And that's what enables the whole positive sort of outcomes in the book and Yeah. That that that take place.
Ash:Yeah. Because in the DevOps handbook, I think they talk about an example from LinkedIn, which is very similar. Yeah. Essentially, they, you know, they built a platform for thousands and then suddenly it had millions. But then after a while, they just spent all their time fighting the fires and just trying to crank the handle of the thing that they had.
Ash:And in the end, they just had to stop and essentially rebuild the entire system on a different architecture. And then they had to have very difficult conversations with their product people in order to make that happen because they were like, well, we're growing at such an exponential rate, and we need these features. But it's not we're growing at such an exponential rate that we're not gonna have a platform soon. It's just going to melt. So we need to do something about this.
Ash:So that was really interesting as well. So it does happen at big companies in the real world as well.
Ian:Well, I mean, the the argument in the book is that, basically, all of those companies, the what they call them, the FANG companies. It's Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, and maybe other ones. Yeah. LinkedIn. Fangle.
Ian:Newfangle. Newfangled. In the book, he talks about those all of those companies. He adds Microsoft actually as well to the list Yeah. Had near death experiences Yeah.
Ian:Where because of technical debt. And and he also talks about uses the example of Nokia, which is a company which actually died from it technically.
Ash:Had an actual death experience.
Ian:Yeah. And Symbian, which was their sort of Yeah. Their platform, it took two days to do a build. Yeah. And nobody could move off it because the top executives kept shooting it down.
Ian:Yeah. And, you know, that went on to not end well. So when you look at all the near death experiences and then the actual death experiences that are really to do with how you deal with technical debt
Ash:Yeah.
Ian:It's quite sobering. It's not something that you you can just kind of gloss over, really.
Ash:No. Then it just always feels like a a hard sell to either, an individual team who, you know, are under pressure to to deliver a thing, and therefore, they start, like, cutting corners but with no plans to pay it back later. Yeah. Or to, you know, an executive or product person who who wants something, but doesn't really take into account the the, like, the implicit requirements as well. Everybody wants nobody says it, but they want reliability and they want uptime.
Ash:Yeah. But they also want the feature, but the feature is the thing that gets written down and built. And then somehow, we have to make sure that it's reliable and has, you know, error handling like your Alexa skill. All those types of practices as well. So it's like, well, how do you do that?
Ash:How do you get that reliability and uptime and all the good stuff while in a in a feature factory type scenario? I don't think it's with a, you know, a % focus on features.
Ian:Well, I guess all I can say is that our listeners should read the Phoenix Project and the Unicorn Project because those books together are a story of exactly that.
Ash:Yeah. And the goal as well?
Ian:And the goal. Oh, well, the goal. Yeah. Mhmm. You want to describe what the goal is?
Ash:Describe what the goal is. So, I really like the goal, but I mainly liked it because I wanted to know what happened to the, to the main sort of protagonist and and his wife at the end to make sure that they had a happy ending. But essentially, it's about turning around a manufacturing plant by focusing on the entire system and where the bottlenecks were and solving them rather than locally optimizing in individual areas and hoping that everything's gonna be okay.
Ian:So it's basically the Phoenix project for factory.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah.
Ian:Well, actually, the Phoenix project had a factory in it.
Ash:Yeah. That's true. It was a bit of a homage, wasn't it, I think?
Ian:I think it was. Yeah. So there's a limit to how much we can talk about this, but Yeah. Because there's loads of other good
Ash:stuff in there as well, isn't there?
Ian:That absolutely is. But I thoroughly recommend if you haven't read The Phoenix Project, then read The Phoenix Project. And then once you've read that, you can move on to The Unicorn Project. And then you'll have three ways, four types of work, and five ideals.
Ash:Two books. Three ways. Four types of work.
Ian:Oh, god. Two books.
Ash:One Jean Kim. Two books. It's almost like an alternative, twelve days of Christmas song.
Ian:Yeah. Well, maybe we can release that. Make make our millions. And a partridge in a pear tree. Cool.
Ash:K. Thank you, Ian. That was a great thing.
Ian:Well, thank you. I have enjoyed recording this episode.
Ash:Me too.
Ian:That that sounded really insincere, didn't it?
Ash:It did. That was great.
Ian:Yeah. That was so good. Can we do it again?
Ash:Well, if if it recorded.
Ian:If it recorded. Yes. That's an hour and seven minutes of us talking to dead microphones. If you love the Phoenix Project or or the Unicorn Project
Ash:Or have thought about your digital death.
Ian:Then you should get in touch with us and tell us your story.
Ash:So how can I get in touch, Ian?
Ian:Well, you could tweet to us.
Ash:At what a lot of thing.
Ian:Only one thing.
Ash:Only one thing. Or you could email us.
Ian:Whatalotofthings@gmail.com.
Ash:And you can leave us a voice recording message?
Ian:Yes. There's
Ash:I think?
Ian:Yeah. But no one ever has. No. But the functionality definitely exists on our podcast homepage at anchor.fm, which is anchor.fm/ what a lot of things. And it should be in the show notes as well.
Ian:There's a link in the show notes. And you can follow us on Instagram where we occasionally post hilarious pictures. Maybe what we should do is record a video of us making the clanger sound.
Ash:Okay.
Ian:And then we can put that on. Okay. If the world is ready for that
Ash:to go on. Sort of
Ian:type of thing. Those
Ash:those sorts of hijinks.
Ian:It's likely that we're gonna skip an episode over Christmas It's
Ash:Christmas.
Ian:So that we can enjoy our Christmas festivities unencumbered with the dread associated with trying to edit the sound of our voices going on various things. And everyone needs a couple of weeks off from perfectionism every year. This will be mine.
Ash:I expect Ian just to work on this for two weeks now.
Ian:I'll be rebasing all my all my gigs a bit. Yes. So what that really means is that our next episode will be coming out.
Ash:Don't say a date. Don't say a date.
Ian:Because that's the kind of No. It's so sad. Role. So at the moment, this episode is gonna come out on the tenth, and then we're not gonna release an episode on the twenty fourth.
Ash:Spend some time with your families, for goodness sake.
Ian:And we will release our next episode, therefore, on the January 7.
Ash:Can it just be beard noise?
Ian:It could. It's a beard noise. I'm not sure if anyone would thank us for that.
Ash:No. Maybe not.
Ian:Is that is that an insufficient gap?
Ash:We'll we'll see. Just don't put that in the pot. Don't don't mention dates. I'm still really paranoid about dates and estimate. We need to talk about estimates as well, don't we?
Ian:Yeah, we do. So we
Ash:could get to the bottom of my rampaging paranoia about saying when something will be done. Maybe it's because I'm paranoid about when when when people say things will be done, what they mean is they're gonna have done some programming. And then everybody then turns around and looks at the testers to say, why are you holding everything up?
Ian:I mean, you testers.
Ash:Yeah. Always getting in the way. No fun. Cool. Okay.
Ash:Well, thank you very much, Ian.
Ian:Thank you. And thank you to our listeners.
Ash:Yes. Always. More fan mail, please.
Ian:More fan mail. Yes.
Ash:Stoke the ego.
Ian:Yes. And,
Ash:yes. Yes and yes.
Ian:I was about to demand that Mary sends us a second fun message, but that seems a bit harsh.
Ash:Yeah. Yeah.
Ian:She should be able to do that spontaneously when the spirit moves her.
Ash:Yeah. Absolutely. With her own free will.
Ian:So if we don't get some spontaneous
Ash:Expected.
Ian:Then we'll be coming around your house.
Ash:Live in the whole of Lancashire.
Ian:We know where you live because of no. No. Not married. Just everyone.
Ash:Alright. Okay.
Ian:We'll pick someone and punish them.
Ash:That's not what we're about. Are you sure? Certain.
Ian:Okay. We can skip that bit. Yeah. But, yeah. Okay.
Ash:Okay.
Ian:Have a good Christmas.
Ash:You too.
Ian:See you in the New Year.
Ash:Goodbye. Bye. You always do that. Not
Ian:gonna do that anymore.
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