In music, there’s a concept known as counterpoint. It refers to a part in a musical piece that harmonizes with another part, even though it may feature a different rhythm and melody. Listening to any one part in isolation may hint at the whole, but can’t replace it. The ensemble of two (or more) parts make the piece; having access to only one leads to a diminished experience.

I find listening to counterpoint a useful analogy for understanding reality. If our goal is to make better decisions, we must open our ears to the “whole piece.” This is hard to do. To begin with, listening to one part is much easier than listening to several — especially if they don’t move in parallel. Also, one of the parts may resonate strongly with us. Today’s information environments make it easy for us to tune out the other parts — and so we do. Then when we hear the whole, we think, “That can’t be right!”

Lately, I’ve seen perspectives from sources I trust that confound my understanding of social media, AI, business objectives, and more. Some of these issues are at the core of Living in Information, so my gut impulse is to think, “That can’t be right!” When this thought arises, I check myself: What if I'm not listening to the whole piece? I don’t want to be “right” if that means I’ll make bad decisions. Reality is complex and multi-layered, so I'm actively listening for counterpoints.
 

Also worth your attention...

• “Using social media is essentially a trade-off. You get very small but significant advantages for your well-being that come with very small but statistically significant costs.” Scientific American on why social media may not be as bad as you think.
   
• Perhaps YouTube’s recommendation algorithm isn’t radicalizing us after all.
   
• "While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions." Jack Dorsey on why Twitter is banning political ads.
   
• “I think the most stunning surprise about the state of the world at the moment is to see such a profound lack of optimism in the future, by so many people, in a time of great prosperity.” Microsoft’s Brad Smith in an interview about his new book.
   
• A lesson from the richest person in the world: The particular sale isn’t the ultimate goal of the interaction; building the overall relationship with the customer is.
   
• Would you watch TV shows or movies at double speed? Netflix is testing such a feature, and some movie people are not happy.
   
• Jean-Louis Gassée on iPadOs’s poor discoverability. (I, too, have written about the challenges of making things discoverable in touchscreens.)
   
• Long-time app/web users don’t like it when navigation options move around. To whit: Some iOS 13 users are unhappy with changes to Mail.app's toolbar.
   
• Resources to help drive more responsible use of AI from Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce.
   
• “This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff. You should get over that quickly. The world is messy; there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.” President Obama on call-out culture.
   

The Informed Life With Vanessa Foss

Episode 21 of The Informed Life podcast features an interview with Vanessa Foss. Vanessa has been planning and managing conferences for twenty-five years. She’s the founder and president of Kunverj, an event planning and managing company. Vanessa and her team run one of my favorite events of the year, the Information Architecture Conference.

In our conversation, we discussed what it takes to organize and manage such an event. The bottom line? Event planning is a relationship business, one that requires tuning in to the needs and capabilities of the people you’re working with — especially the conference chairs, who are ultimately responsible for the success of the event. It was a pleasure to have Vanessa on the show and to be able to highlight her work.

The Informed Life Episode 21: Vanessa Foss on Event Planning

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