Josh Allred's Blog

There is so much noise in the world today. Perhaps, it has never been noisier. It’s fair to want to listen and stay informed of what is going on. I wrote many years ago about the idea of allowing yourself 15 minutes per day to read the news. Today, that is perhaps more true now more than ever. Otherwise, it’s just gossip we are glued to.

(Recently, I started giving NPR’s Up First. Other publications have been doing this for a while like Apple News or New York Times but this is by far my favorite I have listened to. Highly recommended.)

Recently, I’ve made the switch from Apple to Android. And I cannot tell you how frustrating a process it has been to detach from Apple products. I’m 10 days in and still not finished. Grant it, there is 10 years of cleanup/digital debt I am paying the price for. But it makes me think about what kind of company one really embodies when you try to leave. While it’s difficult to leave any system that locks us in, we also remember and it’s the reason why we don’t go back. It’s a reminder to any corporation out there to simply let go of your customers.

At the moment, AI can write stellar code. And it is only getting better. But as the sourcors apprentice knows, having the wand and the incantations isn’t enough to do a spell. With having so much opportunity at are finger tips, it is tempting to sit back and wait to be told what to do next. But the better move is to cease the opportunity right before us. There has never been a better time than to learn to code than today. But just cause the bar has been lowered, it doesn’t mean it has been removed.

Curious folks will ask what’s wrong and not get mad at the other person’s response. Defensive people brace for impact.

Nothing is inherently wrong with either approach. Sometimes you do need to defend yourself. Over time, however, it is easy to turn our insecurities into other people’s insecurities. Mudding up the waters of what is actually happening.

Fear. Failure. Fall.

On assignment with SLUG.

Enjoy.

Once the printing press helped millions to gain access to information, domain knowledge became less valuable if it was something that could be looked up. As long as you knew how to read, a blacksmith could search how to optimize building swords. The Internet and Google have sunk this even further. “Just Google it.” wasn’t a saying when I was born.

We are seeing the same trend now with doing a task. After all, an ATM, a self checkout at the grocery store, and an automated driving car, much like the printing press, took someones job. And with Agentic AI, doing digital tasks are getting easier (and the tools are only going to get better).

So what’s valuable?

It isn’t the knowledge (although some will help) but really who has the guts to try to solve something, the person who can organize, and the person who can communicate. Those who initiate and lead. All the soft skills, that have been preached for 50 years, are even more valuable today. If you have been a generalist, this is a huge moment to get to work.

Debt compounds and compounds making it more difficult to ever pay off.

The problem with digital debt, companies are not  incentivized to help you declutter. The more clutter you have, the more you will pay in the long run.

For instance, think about switching from an Apple ecosystem to Google–fron password managers, hidden emails, apps, etc. Another example, is cleaning up Google photos. Google isn’t incentivized to create a tool to quickly scan which photos to keep and which to delete. Have you tried to unsubscribe from Disney lately? They make it hard to let go.

The point here is that there is a cost to change systems. The later we wait to pay for it, the more expensive it gets.

The default is to think about what we can add to it. We don’t think what we can take away to make it better.

Some examples:

The John Muir Tail doesn’t have Internet access most of the time. That’s a feature not a bug.

Not setting expectations based on reel you saw on social media, changes how you feel when you walk along the sunset at Big Sur.

Instagram makes it easy to be seduced you are missing out on something. And it’s right. You are missing out on being present to what the experience can offer right now, not what it could be.

Unsubscribing today can feel like you’re doing something wrong. Companies bury the button under a plethora of pages. Buttons are misdirecting, making it easy to click the back button. Warnings asking if you’re sure. Threats that you’ll do something (even if they don’t know what that something is themselves).

Recently, I went through and compiled a list of everything I subscribe to (AI was wonderful at helping me create it). And the list was longer than I had suspected. So, I started slashing. Taking note of which companies were treating humans as dignified beings with autonomy and which ones were screaming, “Don’t leave!”

It’s liberating. And I think it’s worth taking some time to see which services you actually use and which are just gimmicks.

There are good political reasons to do this too.

Companies must earn our trust and attention. And it’s worth thinking about why we have five different television apps, Amazon Prime when you have a store on every corner, unnecessary auto-completes in the age of AI, and so on. 

The amount of blame people place on each other when we are the ones hurting inside never ceases to amaze me.

Often, the thing we are most upset about is the thing we fear the most.

When we are lonely, we reject the people around us.

When we are scared, we take our anger out on those closest to us.