Comedy Jobs Language

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Jobs to be done is built on the customers language. How do they define problems? How do they frame Solutions? How do they interpret the context?

Comedy is the customers language. Laughter is customer language. Comedians, says MORGAN Housel, are brilliant. 

“Comedy is a way to show you’re smart without being arrogant…the best comedians are some of the smartest people in society.

They understand psychology.

George Carlin understood psychology, I think, better than Daniel Kahneman did. That’s a bold statement, but I think that is actually true. They are so smart at understanding how the world works, what makes people tick, how people think.

But they’re doing it in a way where they don’t want to just impress you with their intelligence. They want to make you laugh. What could be better than that?”

From The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish: #195 Morgan Housel: Get Rich, Stay Rich, May 28, 2024
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/195-morgan-housel-get-rich-stay-rich/id990149481?i=1000657006147
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This Time is Different: College Football

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Our TTID series is built on the idea that this time is different when the structure of the system changes. In what ways have the participants, incentives, and “laws” shifted so that new things emerge?

High jump changed with the Fosbury flop because the landing area softened. A similar sport story may be happening in college football. With the rise of NIL, transfers, and [generic social media self-branding explanation here] the player’s incentives shifted.

In the fall of 2023 there were headlines like “Deon Sanders is the best coach in college football” and “Shaq says Deon reminds him of Phil Jackson”. Ex ante, bettors [predicted](https://www.vegasinsider.com/college-football/odds/win-totals/) Colorado to win three games. After notching two wins, their predicted total is 6.5. (Note: What might Laplace lead to?).

So, is this time different?

Answer 1: Nothing changed! Something is always happening. Each year some team, through a combination of skill and luck, overachieves. The most parsimonious explanation is that Colorado is that team.

Answer 2: This time is different. Deon is a good coach and through NIL, transfers, and [generic explanation] his team is now excellent. Blue blood programs must now adapt or die.

Number 2 note: I’ve known about the red queen effect but just learned about the court jester effect. Where red queen is PVP, court jester is player vs environment, like in wonderful book, Beak of the Finch (5$ for a used paperback shipped to your door). College football may still be a PVP zero-sum “arms race”, but it’s interesting to think how it may be a macro influenced system too.

Use care explaining “this time is different” because usually it’s not. System, when healthy, change slowly. Like children growing taller, the daily difference is imperceptible. Only after time do we notice the growth.

Chess Forks

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In the 2023-2024 school year I was back in the classroom. It was a successful year. There were ups and downs, but the setbacks provided chances to grow and the successes led to further advances.

During the last eight days, after exams and projects, we played chess. It was a blast.

I’d last played this much chess in middle school. A friend brought a rolled up board to lunch and we would play over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apple slices, and potato chips. Among our lunch table I was about average. I’m still about average. My strategy is winning by accident.

For instance, I didn’t know about “chess forks”:

From ChatGPT: In chess, a fork is a move where a single piece attacks two or more of your opponent’s pieces at the same time. This puts your opponent in a difficult situation because they can usually only move one piece to safety, leaving the other piece (or pieces) vulnerable to capture. Knights are particularly known for creating forks, but any piece can perform a fork. It’s a clever tactic to gain an advantage by threatening multiple pieces simultaneously.

To prevent forking, a player needs to stay out of trouble, unlike Amina.

The best selling fantasy adventure story The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is one fork after another. Amina, our buccaneer hero, faces one tradeoff after another. Unlike my chess skills, she wins not by accident but…., well no spoilers.

Does this happen in real life? Go to a meeting and deal with obstinate coworkers or skip the meeting and be left out? Have a difficult conversation with your loved ones or let the issues fester? Sell an investment for a loss or continue to psychologically carry the burden? Waste more time in a job or face the unexpected prospects of starting over?

One solution comes from Shane Parrish’s book, Clear Thinking, where warns against two-dimensional solution sets. This or that. Burgers or dogs. Good or bad. Day or night.

But, Parrish prods, get creative. Ask: what would it take for one of these options to be good? Can you empathize with the obstinate coworker? Can you have a hard talk with the goal of one step backwards two steps forward? Can you sell an investment as a tax-loss? Can you side-hustle while staying in the job?

Chess and fantasy adventure novels are too strict for this sort of Alchemy.

But life is flexible. It’s malleable. We should avoid getting forked. But if we do, maybe with a little work, there are 3D chess moves to make.

Amazon WAS A SAW

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”I think Amazon may have made a mistake about the choice architecture of Amazon marketplace,” begins Rory Sutherland

”They have assumed everyone wants maximum choice. And actually, one of the great values of a physical retailer is curation. We won’t stock this, unless it is reasonably repeatedly shopped for.”

Was a saw: Weaknesses are strengths and strengths are weaknesses. Amazon is THE EVERYTHING STORE and what’s a drawback of that? It’s hard to find things.

Amazon addresses this well, but Rory points out the contrast and we can use that. Things are un/helpful, better/worse, un/necessary depending on the context.

Brands succeed, Rory writes, not because they are good but because they certainly aren’t bad. New entrants compete on a new angle – upside, new jobs, etc.

So, what’s really a strength, what’s really a weakness?

Make it easy, CAC

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When I talk to young people, they often think a gatekeeper prevents a goal, outcome, or desired effect.

And when young, there often is a gatekeeper!

My advice begins with the suggestion of making it easy. How can they make it easy for their listener to say yes?

During some advising for highschoolers, a lot of it was about talking to their guidance counselors who could approve a class. The students who bought in and prepared their case ended up having their way.

Changes can’t only be logical, they have to overcome inertia. Things are the way they are for a reason.

A humorous example of this came up on the Stratechery podcast.

Talking about Netflix, paying for the rights for NFL games, a reader wrote in saying that Netflix specifically chose Christmas because that’s when boomer’s kids were home. 

That makes it easy!

Get the kids to set up the Smart TV, login, share a good show or two.

There is no better mouse trap. People do not beat a path to your door.

Things need to be sold, people need to be convinced, there is a hurdle for switching.

Often our point around customer acquisition cost is about finding the right customers. Where are the people who will say yes easily?

This is the heart of jobs to be done. This is the central tent pole of many successful businesses. This is where customer acquisition is either a cost or profit center.

Custom language

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Florida Publix, February 2024

I used to return these shopping cart to the store. Not anymore.

One of our dog walking neighbors is Jewish and she turned us on to the idea of the Mitzvah. As she explained, it’s the act of doing (unrecognized?) good deeds daily. So on our dog walk we pick up trash around the neighborhood and at Publix we return some of the shopping carts.

It’s only some of the carts because this cart is exactly where it should be. It’s not in a coral or back at the store but it’s next to a handicap parking spot.

Sometimes people with handicap parking needs also have walking assistance needs. Hence the cart. The cart isn’t randomly there, it was purposely placed there by someone who “gets it”.

The same day as this picture, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz was on the Michael Shermer Shoe podcast.

He mentioned a viral tweet that got over a million impressions but only led to five book sales.

So much for “going viral”.

A few days later was Valentine’s Day.

–

Be curious.

Wonder about oddities, like stray carts.

Be curious.

Think beyond the metrics, like tweet impressions.

Be curious.

Listen to your partner, what do they really want?

Be curious.

Even governors use JTBD

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From Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Be Useful.

It was November 10, 2005. I’d been governor of California for two years, and I’d just had my ass handed to me in a special election that I had called against many people’s advice, in order to present four policy ideas to the voters that I couldn’t make headway on by working with the legislature.

The issues?

Teacher tenure. State spending limits. Union dues and political contributions. Even redistricting reform failed to connect with them.

…

Simply put, I’d filled the bucket with a bunch of shit that most Californians weren’t interested in wading through at the time. It was my fault, and I wasn’t going to do that to the people ever again.

Arnold was speaking in terms of supply rather than demand. Customers won’t wade through anything – unless they really want it. Unless they understand and value it.

And you know what the key was to selling that infrastructure package to the people? Having learned my lesson from 2005, I rarely ever used technical words like “infrastructure” by themselves. Instead I talked about needing to fix our old roads and build new ones so parents wouldn’t be stuck in traffic for so long and miss their kids’ soccer practices so often.

People don’t care about the roads, they care about their time on those roads. That was the job to be done.

Clear Thinking (book review)

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Comparison is the thief of joy, this is how Shane Parish closes his book, Clear Thinking.

But it’s how he should have started it.

Maybe that’s another book, but we have to want the right things first. What’s important?

My gripe is that this book was not a daily devotional. It could’ve started with wanting the big things , enforce that each day, and given specific tactics, ideas, and questions. 

We want actions, but what are we acting towards?

Comparison is the thief of joy. We have to be careful about our wants. It is easy to want the wrong things. Many celebrities have noted that the downside of fame – the things we don’t see! – do not balance the upside.

And this is where the book could have started. Making sure we use clear thinking on the important things. 

It’s a good book, even though it isn’t a daily devotional. It’s broken down into two big ideas.

First, do we have the right mindset. Does someone have the right person on their shoulder, whispering in their ear? Do they have the right feelings in their heart? Do they have the norms, customs, culture, habits, in their life that leave them to the things they want?

The ways we act. The things we say. How we compose emails. How quickly we respond to text messages: and with what emojis. That’s how our norms. It’s the slope of our line (y=mx+b). There’s only so much we can do, but we need to have something helpful there.

Second, the systems we can design around our mindset. We aren’t always going to be humble, or getting after it, or on top of our game. In those situations, we rely on the systems we design around us.

The four enemies we face are emotion, ego, social pressure, and inertia. These are the enemies that rise up and whisper to our mindset. They are louder than the normal voices in our head. They steal our heart, they infiltrate our culture.

What may look like discipline often involves a carefully created environment to encourage certain behaviors. – Shane Parrish

The good news is, these enemies are not that strong. For example, Shane writes that it is easier to go to the gym seven days a week than three. Objectively this doesn’t make sense, but it uses the principle of a inertia to our advantage.

A tactic to avoid the social enemy is to have personal rules. I don’t drink on Thursday nights. I always sleep on it before signing a deal.

The influence of monger, the stoics, and the many others of Shane‘s parish run through this book. So much of it is about avoiding mistakes. It’s about avoiding these enemies, not through choice, but having good design and the right mindset.

The book also includes a section on decisions in action. It offers incredibly helpful specific questions for decision-makers to ask. I won’t spoil them here. 

Two Rules of Thirds

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Rule #1

The game was developed by the same Firaxis Games team that developed the expansions on Civilization V, and most of the new mechanics introduced in these were present in Civilization VI at its launch.[10] This follows from Sid Meier’s “33/33/33” rule of sequel design: 33% of the game should retain established systems, 33% should feature improved systems over the previous version, and the remaining 33% should feature new material

Wikipedia: Civilization VI

Rule #2

When training for something, you should be disappointed in your results a third of the time, content with them a third of the time, and pleased with them a third of the time.

Unknown

What both of these ideas get at is change. Grow or die.

How much change? Well that depends, but the rule of thirds feels like a good proxy. It’s not going to be exactly one-third, but it’s the right approach. Sometimes we should be disappointed in a result and sometimes we need to change a major thing. But sometimes we’ll be pleased and sometimes we need to keep what works.