GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: OPM letter

  • OPM.55 (notes on) Small is the New Big, Seth Godin, 2006

    Stop making products and start making magic.

    This has been Seth’s mantra over the years. This book is no exception.

    It’s a fun read, delightfully nostalgic for someone that live through the internet revolution. Even though this book was about the World Wide Web before social media inhaled the information superhighway, Seth’s encouragement is still as powerful as ever.

    Go out there, let it all hang out, and do something.

    This book emphasizes “zooming” — acclimating to the difficult art of change. He posits that zooming is a powerfully motivating way to view the world.

    This book comes from that short lived genera of collected blog-posts volumes. The world has changed a bit since publication, but it still rhymes with the 00’s, even if things feel a little gloomier.

    Seth has been telling the same story for the past three decades.

    So if you dig him, check it out. If you don’t, this book won’t change your mind.

    With AI, change is coming (again!). What would you do if you knew for certain that what your work today won’t survive the next two decades of disruption? How will you embrace the change that is coming? Are you gonna zoom?

    ~

    One of my favorite riffs is when Godin embarks on an extended discussion about “maybe-proofing” the company. One of the best ways to kill a project flow is to dawdle. Sometimes we should pause and let things develop, but that should be a deliberate choice. As OPM’s, we have to maybe-proof ourselves. Our job is to make choices.

    ~

    In the two years after reading this book, I’ve realized that I’m on the back half of my career. So I’ve lost interest in self-help and Seth has been a casualty of this shift. He’s correct that one needs to embrace change in your career, but I’m not focused on my career anymore.

    I will always work hard and dabble with process improvements, but when I’m not at work, I focus on other joys. I no longer feel an urge to to maximize my output or lead the charge to make things better in the office.

    ~

    Some Links

    At the end of each month, I often need to use up my quota at Hoopla (a library streaming service). I invariably return to these albums. Two of them are absolute classics. The third is lesser known, though by perennial request by our kids. The fourth is a nod to my weakness for EDM.

    Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert. It’s the best selling solo jazz album of all time, but I’ll switch it up and borrow his Paris Concert which forays into baroque counterpoint.

    The Awakening is one of the most sampled albums in hip hop. Recorded in February 1970, it feels like a distinct evolution by the Ahmad Jamal Trio from the bebop of past decades. If I’ve had too much piano lately, I’ll get Way Out West with a unique trio of bass, drums, and saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins.

    My kids are obsessed with the “Ballad of Pancho Villa” (which they call “cafe music”) so they always insist on borrowing From All Sides, a collaboration between guitarist Bolo Sete and the Vince Guaraldi Trio.

    I recently mentioned Klangphonics for their quirky YouTube shorts. Driving feels better with Songs to Try on the speakers (but it’s not so aggressive to become dangerous).

    ~

    Park Shade, 2022

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • OPM.54 RFQ Hacks

    I started this letter two years ago. After reviewing another round of RFQ’s, it’s time to publish four ideas that might help. But really the last one is the only one that counts (assuming you already have relevant experience for the project).

    Take care in your project approach narrative. It’s your only chance to signal that you understand what the selection committee is searching for. A mistake in this section is catastrophic. Don’t make it easy for the reviewers to disqualify you.

    Show experience that is directly related to the project. If you apply to multiple projects, try to submit separate portfolios for each project. Make it easy for the reviewers to connect your expertise and their project.

    Explore white space. A wall of text is bad enough — multiply it by ten (while still saddled with the usual day-to-day work overwhelm). Punchy >>> flowery. Try reading your PDF on a smartphone on Friday afternoon. Make your book easy to read.

    Create relationships. When given a chance, put a full team on a small job. Earn a reputation. The same words sound totally different depending who wrote it. The time to make an impact was four years ago.

    ~

    Some Links

    David Marquet gave an excellent talk at Google about his time as the Captain of the nuclear sub Santa Fe. I’ve tired of military men turned business consultants, but I was pleasantly surprised.

    Perun is publishing some of the best strategic and operational analysis videos of the war in Ukraine. His quadrilogy How Corruption, Lies, Politics, and Procurement Destroys Armies is not to be missed.

    Jonathan Parshall examines history with a presentation on a major myth in the Battle of Midway. After the formal talk, they have great chat about the challenges of translation.

    ~

    Playground Train, 2022

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • OPM.53 (notes on) A Sense of Style, Steven Pinker, 2015

    I often write about the grand challenges aspects of this work — eliminating and preserving slack in the system, juggling budget and schedule, fostering a decisive culture, executing a careful process, developing relationships.

    But in this world of digital communication, much of my time on the job is trying to write good. A well turned email can make a difference, and it’s amazing when a carefully crafted memo gets the needed response.

    This book stands out from prescriptive manuals (like Strunk and White) because Pinker carefully explains the why behind the rules. This book’s strength is also reflection upon what I do as an OPM.

    Yes we must follow our agency standards. And we all got personal preferences. But we’re at our best when we can explain the logic behind our decisions. It’s important for our team to know why, especially if the institutional logic results in weird choices.

    At least that’s what I hope. Maybe I just bore my consultants to tears with extended explanations of bureaucratic esoterica.

    That’s one of the perks and dangers of being a client — no one will tell you to shut up.

    ~

    Listening is not the best way to consume this book, but a little is better than none. There are diagrams and complex analyses that warrant a visual reading (either physical or electronic). But I haven’t bothered in the past couple of years, so I guess it’s not going to happen.

    ~

    Some Links

    Live performances of electronic music sounds like a contradiction, but they have a spark that is sometimes missing from their albums. Here are a few examples.

    I’ve haven’t gotten into his studio albums, but I often play Oupio’s concert at Red Rocks with the SYZYGY Orchestra when I’m cranking on work.

    Admittedly Caravan Palace’s animated music video is wildly vivid, but there’s a great vibe in this live performance of Lone Digger.

    I used to listen to Moon Safari album on a little blue MP3 player while walking to studio. This video of La Femme d’Argent in a recording studio materializes the music and the memories.

    ~

    Ferrero Rocher, 2022

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • Running From or Running To?

    When a project hits a snag – run to the problem (advice from my administrator at a partnering meeting with our contractor in 2019.)

    I often say, problems don’t fix themselves, they only get worse over time.

    Borrowing a phrase from Jocko Willink, Default Aggressive is the best way to tackle issues (though one of the choices is may be to actively choose to let things play out for a moment).

    Remember the hidden costs of waiting for a perfectly confirmed answer. Colin Powell had the 40-70 rule. Don’t make a rash decision, but waiting for all the information can lead to a lost opportunity. (Of course Powell famously made a serious error in the yellow cake presentation, so the risks are also real.)

    A leadership position frees you from long work, but you owe the team the risk of owning the hard work. (As soon as I write a blog post saying I’m over Seth Godin, I come right back to one of his key concepts).

  • OPM.52 Don’t Wait

    My frustration with a superintendent boiled over at the end of a project.

    Should have done it months before.

    Yes, he should been doing better work. But if I brought up my concerns early, he could adjust. I waited too long. He had no chance.

    I need to stay warm hearted but become thick skinned.

    Kindness is not pushing things under the rug. Kindness is (gracefully) surfacing problems while they can be fixed.

    My job is to have uncomfortable conversations — I owe my teammates the best opportunity to excel at their work.

    ~

    Some Links

    A Love Supreme on bagpipes by Rufus Harley. nuff’ said.

    Andrew Eberlin took amazing photographs of Charles Jenck’s Cosmic House (1978-1983). It’s wild. Check it out. His newsletter is well worth checking out — his photographs find the extraordinary in the mundane (without trying too hard).

    Ryan Pendell reads widely and writes with breadth. His newsletters are always enriching, and I suspect he’s been a subtle influence to encourage my continued turn towards ancient literature.

    ~

    Playground, 2022

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • OPM.51 Do what?

    Describing my job as an OPM is easy and hard — I’m the ultimate middleman.

    The architects, contractors, and users bring specific expertise to the project. I take take care of the weird stuff so they can focus on the work.

    I navigate the peculiarities of my institution towards a successful outcome.

    • Guide the team through the process and the timeline.
    • Provide extra feedback during design.
    • Chase information the architects can’t find.
    • Watch the big picture so let the field guys focus on construction.
    • Manage expectations with the user groups.
    • Advise the team sidestep mistakes.
    • Encourage them towards their best work.
    • Celebrate the end.

    I don’t bring obvious value, but done right, project succeeds naturally.

    ~

    I’ve been subscribed to Grant Snider for years. His Incidental Comics always brighten the day.

    The Daily Overview posts an aerial photo (almost) every day. It’s a regular reminder about the greatness of our world — and our intrusions upon it.

    I just stumbled across this brilliant 24 hour comic, The Gaeneviad by Boulet, about an old woman who rescues Zeus, who is thus in her debt. Do yourself a favor and read it!

    ~

    Burnt Pancake, 2022

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • OPM.51 Electronic Erasure

    Team,

    We’ve updated the documents to reflect the retirement of our Administrator – the Boilerplate Word Documents, AdobeSign Workflows, and AdobeSign Templates.

    Along with Letterheads, we also revised the Administrator signature section to be entirely blank so we won’t have to change it again in the future.  As such, all AdobeSign templates have been revised to auto populate the Full Name and Title for those sections (like the Consultant or Contractor signature sections).

    For the next few weeks, please double check all typical documents and templates – both in the signature section and in the letterheads.  If anything slipped through please email me.  I’ll jump on it.

    Regards,

    Justus Pang
    Project Manager / Architect
    State Public Works Division

    PS: This exercise has been a grim reminder about the ephemerality of our careers.  A few months ago, I deleted Debbie from our workflows.  Now Ward.  The day you retire, someone like me will quietly scrub you off the servers.  Give your family a big hug tonight.

    ~

    Some Links

    Accented Cinema has been on a run of great videos commenting on movies and life. His last three on Overwork in China, Bad Fight Scenes, and a bad sequal to Journey to the West are all worth watching.

    I found Ashlyn via her great series on fountain pens and I’m staying for her joyful weekly newsletter. I grok that some people need tough-love suck-it-up motivation, but I fall on the side of working for the fun of it!

    Paula Borchardt tells the story of her desert environs with drawings and words. It’s a weekly reminder that the image of the desert as a dessicated wasteland is only a human mirage from our lack of observation.

    Empty Coliseum, Chicago, 1912, Bain News Service

    ~

    Thanks for Reading!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • OPM.50 (notes on myself, from) Icarus Deception, Seth Godin, 2012

    I wrote this near the start of this OPM Letter. I started strong in 2021 but then went on a long hiatus before deciding to give this project proper closure. Even so, I thought I’d share as a way to celebrate the half century mark.

    ~

    This book hit me at the perfect time. Seth’s encouragement to step out into the void really hit after having started this OPM Letter project.

    Every few years I feel an urge to level up. After my first gig in a firm, I went to grad school. After Rice, I jumped from a small shop to work to try a corporate firm. Jumped from CAD to BIM. Took some (a lot) time remodeling our house. Slid over over to owner side.

    As discussed in Bob Buford’s Half Time, the best time to start the next thing is before the current thing has run out of steam.

    Maybe that’s the role of this newsletter.
    (2023 note: Doesn’t seem like it. I still enjoy my work, but I’ve moved my focus away from advancing my career.)

    I’m sticking myself out there, as if I’m an expert or something. I’m not. But maybe this project will help me contemplate my work.

    Maybe it results in something worth sharing. Otherwise why share?

    And if it doesn’t go anywhere? At least I’ll remain anonymous. Fame is overrated!

    ~

    Interestingly, I wrote almost nothing about the book in my first draft draft twenty four months ago. And now I can’t remember a single thing from the Icarus Deception aside from the green cover. I bet it had some inspiring moments about putting yourself out there in the new connection economy, but that’s just guessing. But I copied quote back then still resonates.

    Grit is the attitude of someone who realizes she has the power to care and is intent on doing something with it.

    An agency client just sent me a kind note before she retired. Maybe she was just being nice, but if I actually did anything special to earn her compliments, it was only because I cared and did something with it.

    ~

    Some Links

    Mark Starlin writes a fun newsletter every Monday with three quick fictions, a witty sentence, a flash fiction, and a short story. It’s a great start to the week.

    Carolyn Yoo explores the creative practice every week. I dig her warm embrace of the world at large. A great start is this newsletter sharing how she published a zine about finding her wedding dress.

    A few weeks ago I thought I becoming a Glitch-hop aficionado, but I’ve realized it’s too close to big-time EDM. Instead, I’ve been playing this Chiptune playlist on repeat. It reminds me of the days of downloading mods from BBSs.

    X-15 Crash (Pilot Jack McKay survived but was forced to retire early), Mud Lake, Nevada, 1962

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • OPM.49 Brute Force

    When I first got out of college I had no job prospects.
    (Networking is not one of my strong suits.)

    So I found work the old fashion way.

    I xeroxed the yellow pages section for architects, cut the pages into strips, and xeroxed each strip onto their own page. I worked down the list, using the wide margins for taking notes.

    Unimaginable brute force in today’s networked environment.

    But it worked! I found a small firm that set the trajectory of my career.

    Occasionally, I do something that reminds me of that initial job search. Something that requires a deep breath of air and picking up the phone. Again and again.

    A few years ago, I led the programming for a major state office building. There’s only one way to call the heads of twenty-three agencies, introducing myself and the upcoming project. Same with advertising a new project for bidders.

    No one told me that the relentless job search would come in handy long after I got that first gig, but any work done earnestly can repay itself in surprising ways. Effort done contentiously might not be optimal, but it isn’t wasted.

    ~

    Some Links

    Having cut current events out of youtube, the algorithm fed this lovely dance video pairing tap dancer Aurélien Lehmann and pianist François-René Duchâble. Which reminded me of this epic challenge scene in Tap with Sammy Davis, Jr.

    Matthew Poburyny has just moved to America! He has a distinctive photographic style that harkens to the new topographics and I always savor his contemplations. Plus one of our conversations convinced me to stop listening to podcasts when driving and just observe.

    Jo Mortimer just started a newsletter with a series of great essays. One of the agencies I serve is public behavioral health, but as an OPM I only have an abstract understanding of their work. Her creative non-fiction on a former patient makes shit real.

    ~

    Police Dog, Tess, New South Wales, 1935, Sam Hood

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA

  • OPM.48 (notes on) What your CEO wants you to know, Ram Charan, 2018

    I listened to this book three years ago, and all I remember was his obsession with cash flows. Which isn’t particularly relevant to a guy who has no plans on going back into private practice.

    However, in updating this draft, I was reminded about his last chapter on “synchronization”. It sounds like a gem to revisit. This section is all about sharing information so the team can work together in unity.

    Charan emphasizes the concept of a “social operating mechanism”. It could be a regular update letter, some sort of webtool, or a recurring meeting. The key is that important information is shared and that people walk away energized to tackle the key issues in their responsibilty.

    Charan identifies four key aspects for a good dialogue:

    • Openness – be honest in the search, don’t pre-decide, listen to everyone.
    • Candor – be willing to speak and be honest about the conflict.
    • Informality – encourages candor. don’t be stiff and prepackaged
    • Closure – once done, be disciplined to ensure that follow through happens.

    I’ve tried to adopt this attitude during my time as OPM. With some folks it can be difficult, but I find that acting otherwise just makes it even harder. Social lubrication is real and has earned good feedback from my project mates (admittedly they are all financially incentivized to butter me up).

    However, this past year, I had gotten lax about the regularity of these meetings. I had a few projects with long lead times where I skipped the recurring meetings until things got started in earnest. Unfortunately, I found out on the back end that things just slipped through the cracks until we started meeting regularly.

    So until I find a better solution, I’m resorting to requiring regular (virtual) meetings on my projects. I hate the distraction of having a meeting on the calendar, even if they are for a few minutes. However, I don’t know of a better way to ensure my teams are keeping pace on their jobs.

    Even if I can’t recommend this book as essential, I’m a fan of Charan’s Leadership Pipeline which I have recommended multiple times.

    ~

    Some Links

    A few years ago, CGP Grey went on an information diet to reset his attention habits. My purge won’t go two years like Project Cyclops, but I started July by unsubscribing from news podcasts and YouTube channels.

    One immediate side effect of this cull is that the algorithm has been feeding evergreen comedy, such as British comedy skits. One of my new favorites has Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie as competing psychiatrists analyzing each other.

    Weston Parker is a (mostly retired) carpenter who has been sharing lovely poems on A Carpenter’s Point of View. It’s fun to find other industry folks who are practicing the arts. A recent poem includes the line “with good drainage”. I feel seen.

    ~

    Town Hall, Halmstad, Halland, Sweden, 1939

    ~

    Thanks for reading!
    Justus Pang, RA