Hobbyist Academia #23
Hello! I unintentionally took a bit of a summer break from writing this newsletter, which turned into a fall and winter break too. Acknowledging my risk of being a giant cliché, what better time to begin again than spring?
If you need a refresher, Hobbyist Academia is a newsletter at the intersection of digital sociology, design, business, and personal development. The Collection is my curated collection at that same intersection.
In the spirit of Oliver Burkeman, I’m not going to systematically backtrack through all the notes I’ve taken since last July. I’ll just pluck a few things out of the river, because we’d never see the bottom of a bucket. After our regularly scheduled programming, stay tuned for a brand new section at the bottom of the newsletter. And for me to hopefully run out of trite figures of speech.
Engage and Interact
I recently experienced an incredible live workshop with Sari Azout about how she builds her personal knowledge library. Her presentation was inspiring and the chat in the Zoom was buzzing with energy and excitement. As part of attending the workshop, I was also granted early access to Sublime, which I will mostly defer to the founding team to attempt to describe. It goes beyond existing categories in a way that has the power and potential to usher in an entirely new way of being on the Internet.
I’ve also been following Monika Jiang’s new work, Sharing Our Loneliness. Informed by her years at the helm of creating the House of Beautiful Business community, her new independent offerings include online community circles, in-person event experiences, and a newsletter.
The House of Beautiful Business has also released a card game designed to facilitate meaningful connections at work and beyond.
Read
My colleague from my Beautiful Work Lives research has published a book in collaboration with another working group of Residents from the House of Beautiful Business. 10 Moral Questions- How to design tech and AI responsibly is out now and is a very timely addition to the growing discourse around how and why our technology is designed.
In an adjacent vein, Ted Gioia’s The State of the Culture, 2024 is a must-read piece about the ongoing devolution of culture in a digital age and the business of selling distraction and designing apps for user addiction.
I’m also slowly making my way through Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World by Vivek H. Murthy.
Listen
Alex Lieberman recently tried out a new format on his podcast where he discusses key takeaways from a book- sort of like a one way book club. In this episode about Million Dollar Weekend by Noah Kagan, Alex gives listeners methods of testing business ideas early and quickly.
Save This for Later
I’ve collected about 60 new book titles since last July. I’m working on adding them to the Hobbyist Academia Bookshop, but in the meantime some highlights are here:
Outrage Machine: How Tech Amplifies Discontent, Disrupts Democracy--And What We Can Do about It by Tobias Rose-Stockwell
Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier by Oprah Winfrey and Arthur C. Brooks
Avidly Reads Screen Time by Phillip Maciak
Truth: How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our Reality by Hector MacDonald
All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley
The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center by Rhaina Cohen
Optimal Illusions: The False Promise of Optimization by Coco Krumme
A Therapeutic Journey: Lessons from the School of Life by Alain de Botton
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Open Questions: Thirty Years of Writing about Art by Helen Molesworth
How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World by Deb Chachra
Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World by Jennie Allen
Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka
Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport
Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life by Nathan Schneider
Creating the Future
Before my unintentional break, I was leaning into a renewed desire to create alongside curating. As you may have gathered from some of my highlights, I’ve also been thinking a lot about community: how we define community, how to build a successful community, how to be a part of a community, how to build a life in community. The foundation is there for a writing project rooted in qualitative interviews, but the more I thought about potential interviewees the more the idea began to grow in a different direction.
I’m excited to share my intention to build a digital tool for young professionals seeking connection and community in real life, outside the bottomless scroll of social media feeds. It’s a to do list meets reminders meets personal CRM meets guide to building a life in community, and it is mostly not a communication tool directly.
I have four design principles to guide me:
No feed. No endless scroll. This is a tool that waits on the shelf to be picked up; it doesn’t poke at and manipulate users into engaging.
Friction is a feature, not a bug. Purposeful friction drives more intentional use of technology.
The tool is not free because the tool itself is the product, not the users or their data.
It feels joyful and human in both visual aesthetics and user experience.
I’ll share more soon.