You made a wrong turn along the way. Maybe the map was upside down. You find yourself alone in a wilderness... that is, aside from hidden pits that make you ever vigilant; aside from tangling vines that impede your progress; aside from lonesome howling winds; and aside from the silence – the absence of the only voice you really want to hear. There is a light at the distant horizon, and you must reach it ... or maybe it was a mirage. – Why, oh why, couldn't you have been one of those crystal rubbing hippies? At least they act like they've figured it out. At least they seem... at peace?
It has gnawed on my subconscious for the past 5 years. Even as I wrote Relevant Search it was there at the back of my mind weighing me down - the fundamental problem of search. But only now has the problem taken shape so that I can even begin to describe it. Succinctly, here it is:
Users don't know what the heck they want and couldn't tell you even if they did.
A notification popped up on my Slack messenger at work; it was from Mary, our office administrator.
Are you here today?
Now Mary has an interesting side career, she's a yoga instructor. But she is not a yoga instructor of the common, everyday, throw-your-leg-over-your-head variety. Rather she prefers to instruct in the more ancient and traditional notions of yoga - notions that include the physical practice but are also related to meditation and to philosophical detachment from the more selfish aspects of the ego. Given that, and the fact that her yoga practice had come up in conversation recently, I decided to poke at the question "Are you here today?":
Now that's a rather deep question don't you think?
Moments later Mary arrived at my desk with a copy of the Bhagavad Gita. Ha! I'd poked fun at her, but she was actually planning to lend me a copy of a book that delves into why this actually is a deep question.
I was lucky enough last week to find myself drinking a beer with Pat Poels, Eventbrite VP of engineering and two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner. And I was luckier still that he was in the mood to talk about his poker days. I love hearing these stories but I'm always reluctant to ask because I suspect people ask him about "the poker days" all the time.
In the start of the discussion Pat was talking about just how much of an edge you have if you are able to read people closely. He told me a story about a very subtle tell that one of his old poker buddies fell victim to. This friend, we'll call him Bob, had the tendency to fold his hand quite predictably when confronted with the right circumstances. In particular, if Bob knew that he had a bad hand and if someone else showed an inclination to start betting aggressively, then Bob would quickly leave the hand on the table. Another one of Pat's buddies noticed this first. This buddy, (we'll say Steve), found out that every time he wanted to check on Bob's hand, all he had to do was riffle around his chips, indicating that he was in the mood to bet big. If Bob folded, then that would be the answer Steve was looking for. If Bob didn't fold then Steve would think long and hard about whether or not his hand was good enough to stay in the game. Thus, having this one insight into Bob's behavior and psychology provided quite an edge to Steve's game.
Following Pats story I aimed the conversation more towards business. "In the time since you retired from poker have you put your psychic ability to read people to any business use?" In my mind I pictured Pat in board meetings peering into colleagues eyes and inferring any hint of a hidden agenda.
"It's not a psychic ability." This is where Pat turned my thoughts around on me. "And the important lessons that I learned from poker were not about reading others but about reading myself." Then he explained: Even though reading others' tells could give you an advantage in poker and in life, that advantage pales in comparison to being able to understand your own intentions and motivations, your own abilities, and the limitations of what you can know about the world around you.
In his 1943 paper, A Theory of Human Motivation, Abraham Maslow introduced a simple principle that has had a profound influence in the fields of psychology and sociology. Namely, he introduce the concept of a hierarchy of human needs which he termed Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence. And Maslow's big main point here was that it is necessary to first satisfy the basic needs before we can even have the luxury to start worrying about the higher-level concerns. But for me, looking through Maslow's hierarchy in some detail, it seems that all the cool kids hang out towards the top of that hierarchy. I've been there in the past, and am occasionally so fortunate as to touch the top of the hierarchy again from time to time. But I think that I (we) can do better than this! So I determined myself to try and devise a way to "hack" Maslow's Hierarchy so as to maximize the time I'm spending near the top.