Sixian

i am very grateful everyone who came to my talk at fwb fest and those who helped me out with it recently. in some ways this talk took 6 years to put together. the basic theory of "lifestyles," identity, and brands was there by 2016, but i was missing a strong notion of culture

I think it's easy, especially when we're talking about technology, to imagine that the solutions are all technical. Most of running your own social networking is social. It's like, how do you get people together in a way where they're feeling something? So to the firepit question, to me, it points to play, it points to art, it points to other... See more

Each time we explore a new format, we ask: How do we make it easier for readers to find wisdom that’s relevant to their own unique knowledge gap? Are certain knowledge gaps shared by all creative people at one point or another? How might a reader translate knowledge gained through a narrative format into actual wisdom?

But I do think work can be a source of real meaning in life. But, we’ll only ever get out what we put in. And in the case of work life, it is kind of a collective decision. Once your neighbor starts signing off Slack at 3:30 consistently, it’s hard not to do the same. If your closest collaborators don’t turn stuff around quickly, why would you? If... See more

We often think making things for the web is a process of simplifying—the hub, the dashboard, the control panel are all dreams of technology that coalesces, but things have a tendency to diverge into a multiplicity of options. We pile on more tools and technology, each one increasingly nuanced and minor in its critical differences. Clearly,... See more

" I think what’s funny is that I used to marvel for a long time why my best ideas — and by ideas, I don’t mean the ideas about what to write or all of that, but just insights on the truths of my experience, of the human experience, whatever. Those ideas, the best of them came to me at the gym or on my bike or in the shower. I used to have these... See more

Data embedding is the idea that by holding more and more of your clients’/users’ data, the harder you are to remove, and that gives you some defensibility.