Get lost in the details of communication

Are you a big picture person, or more details-focused?

Do you live in the abstract, or like the nitty gritty?

Are you comfortable in concepts, or prefer the particular and specific?

I think I’m a strange blend of both: I talk in generalities and concepts, but think and see things very specifically.

This might just be poor communication though. A struggle to connect my specific to your particular via a concept we can both understand (except I can’t explain).

It is less “lost in the the details” and more “lost in translation”.

*I have no idea what the movie is about.

Public places and spaces

We recently opened our new central city public library building, Tūranga.

It’s pretty awesome.

Our city’s pretty flat, and there’s not many tall buildings, so you can see a long way from the top floor.

There’s a ground floor cafe that serves all-day fried chicken burgers. And a Red IPA.

There’s essentially an entire floor devoted to children’ spaces. It includes a slide and nooks an crannies you can hide away in and read a book. The Health and Safety people must go nuts.

And there’s the usual things you’d expect in a modern library: Books, wifi, computers etc. But the most awesome thing is the people.

Every time I’ve been there (and it’s a few times now. Did I mention it’s awesome?) there’s been heaps of people. All sorts of people. Doing all sorts of things.

Public spaces can make places feel public. Make the public feel like it’s ours. Like we’re allowed to be somewhere other than just our own houses. And that this spaces, this place, is Ours, collectively.

Here’s to great public spaces making places great for the public.

If we owned the block

If you had the opportunity to redevelop your entire block (or maybe just start with a group of say, 6 adjacent properties), what would you differently? Around here, I’ve got a few thoughts on what could be possible:

• We could increase density by building smaller homes and multi-storey (low-rise) buildings.

• We could layout the buildings so that there was minimal shading.

• We could drop a ground-source heat pump that fed all the properties.

• We could have vegetable gardens located at premium positions.

• We could have warm, dry, healthier homes.

• We could have a range of homes so that a range of people could live there, and so people wouldn’t have to move elsewhere as life circumstances changed.

• We’d have waaaay less fences.

• We’d probably have some shared facilities, like a workshop, children’s playground and possibly vehicles and or garage/storage space.

• We could a central battery bank and solar panels on all the buildings to collect and share electricity, and group-buy power from the main grid.

Of course, all of this shared stuff is pretty challenging if you’re working on the assumption that we all “own our own home” in the traditional sense. But there is some form of common ownership (or non-ownership), creating some shared commons is not only easier, it becomes a natural extension of the advantage of (all) owning the block.

Have a break...

… have a Kit Kat.

Sometimes, we just need to stop.

To sit down (or lie down) and take a break.

Our homes can be places of work, places that energise us, and places full of life and energy.

Sometimes, that work, energy and life looks like stillness, peacefulness and calm.

Anti-mobility (it's called stability)

We’ve been sold a mantra of mobility.

But what if what we need, if what the world needs is a little less movement, and a bit more stickability. A bit more stability.

Even in when we buy a house, when we literally buy a bit of dirt that doesn’t move, we’ve got half an eye on where to next. On who will buy it after we leave. On how buying here, now, helps us get there, later.

If we’re not expecting to be around long, how much does the world miss out on what we could have contributed. How much do we?

Pick a spot. Plan to stay there for a while. Move if you have to, sure, but stay for a while.

First, slow down (but don't kill the economy)

Changing anything takes time. And when we want it to happen, we want it to happen now. It’s hard to hang on in the meantime. But here’s how I think it works:

First, you have to slow down.

Then, you have to actually stop.

Next, you need to turn around.

And now, you can start moving in a new direction.

This is hard enough when you’re trying to change something yourself. It’s exponentially more difficult when you want to move a social group.

But changing society is a whole other level of difficult.

Because slowing down (and stopping) usually brings the economy into the discussion.

And here we find (one of the many) tensions.

If the status quo isn’t just or equitable, and you need to flip the systems, how do you transition in a way that is just and equitable?

Start by acknowledging you need to change (slow down).

Plan to stop.

Figure out where to head (it helps if you’ve done most of the figuring out earlier on).

And then move.

Good tools

A good workman never blames his tools, or so the saying goes.

But this doesn’t mean tools aren’t important. What matters is what stage of the project you’re at.

If you’re at the end, or partway through, and things aren’t going too well, don’t blame your tools.

But if you’re yet to start and you’re planning on producing something great, choosing your tools matters.

The environment we put ourselves in influences our ability to deliver. Along with our tools, and skills, the space we’re in matters and makes a difference to the outcome.

We care about our workplaces for productivity, our cars for driving comfort (and style), and our clothing.

But how much attention do we pay to the environment we live in at home, and all the components that make it up.

Don’t blame your friends if you don’t see them any more, but you just moved to the other side of town.

Don’t complain about it being cold in winter if your house is in constant shade.

Don’t wonder how you got so much stuff when you live in a 200 square meter house with one other person.

If you’re lucky enough to choose where you live, choose wisely.

Family home

What makes a house a “family home”?

Probably just the fact that a family lives there.

Because what each family needs is different.

And we won’t even start on what could constitute a family.

Homonyms, history, language and the evolution of systems

It’s hard to write about homonyms, because the whole point is that they’re words that sound the same but have different meanings, but if I write them down it can be obvious that they’re different*

Like pen and pen.

Or neigh and nay.

And buy and by.

English is confusing, and given that language is essentially a way to get an idea from one person’s head into another person’s head, this is something of a cause for concern for me. I didn't spend four years studying engineering to not value precision and clarity.

And yet, the vagaries of the English language also lend itself to humour and also the continual evolution of the language as we develop alternative ways to be both more precise (e.g. “google”) and more confusion (e.g. “yeet”).

In the hands of a skilful comedian, or youth culture, the English language continues to evolve. The system’s built that way.

On the other hand, the property system seems to be pretty baked-in, and unlikely to shift anytime soon by virtue of spontaneous innovation, the way that language appears to do. This may simply by my lack of understanding of history and the system, but at the very least my observation is that most people seem to go along with the status quo and conventional wisdom.

It’s going to take a skilful group of people for the property system to evolve.

And it seems to be starting.

*English nerds will know that, strictly speaking, I’m only talking about homophones, and a strict definition of a homonym would be a word that is spelt and sounds the same, but has multiple meanings.

Take a look at that inside view

I’m not referring to the view from the rooftop bar (although it was pretty awesome, if a little windy). I’m referring to the inside view, a term coined by the ever-present and oft-quoted Daniel Kahneman.*

Basically, we humans have a tendency to adopt a particular attitude when assessing the potential of a venture we are part of of. Unsurprisingly, we tend to expect that we will succeed. Even in scenarios where we know the greatest likelihood is failure, we work on the assumption that our project is different, that we are special, that we site outside the norm and the rules don’t apply to us.

• It’s why we open new restaurants, knowing that most fail.

• It’s why we start small businesses.

• It could even have something to do with why we have kids (it won’t be that hard for me…)

We know that many people with a mortgage end up stuck in jobs they hate, scared to risk a stable pay check. But we assume we’re different when we buy.

We know that renovating old houses often cost more than the initial budget because of unforeseen work. But we commit out maximum amount from the outset.

We know that building a house typically takes longer than expected. But we take on a fixed-term rental agreement that ends the day after the first finish date.

When it comes to out attitudes and actions in the property market, how else are we each special in our perception, and totally normal in reality?

*You can read an excerpt from Kahneman’s primary piece of work, Thinking Fast and Slow that talks about the Inside View at this McKinsey article.

Make a prediction

Want to learn something?

Think you know something?

Make a prediction. Then review what actually happens. What can you learn?

• If you think you know about a sport, make a prediction about the result of the next game.

• If you’re interested in politics, predict the top three issues at the next election.

• If you want to learn about the housing market, go to an open home and predict the auction price.

• If you do the shopping every week, predict next week’s grocery bill.

Predict. Review. Reflect.

Oh, and do it all in writing.

Mini village

What would a tiny house village look like? Is it just a village, writ small, or is there more to it that just downscaling our experience of a full-size (mega size) village?

• What do common spaces look like?

• Are there shared facilities, like tools, workshops, creative studios, vehicles?

• How does gardening work?

• Who owns it? Everyone? No-one?

• How long do people stay there?

• Who lives there?

• Are there pets?

Mothers in law

Mothers in law aren’t usually the favourite characters in a story.

Could you live with yours?

Multigenerational living means living with parents, which means someone’s probably living with their mother in law.

Part of the problem might be our houses, they’re not designed for much shared space.

Another part might be ourselves. Are we actually any good at getting on with people who aren’t the same as us? People who are a generational arm reach away?

And sure, part of the problem is your mother in law. But only part.

Let’s learn to live together. At least as neighbours on the same street. Then maybe we might be able to live together on this planet, and maybe even with our in-laws.

Single unit value

Here’s a question to ponder about making an impact:

If we can only make a small amount of impact with our finite amount of time, is it more valuable to create an incremental gain, or create something new?

i.e., is 100 to 101 more valuable than going from 0 to 1?

Sure, real life is much more complicated than this, but the core question remains:

Is it worth focusing effort on something which is already OK, when something else hasn’t even been looked at yet?

Personally, I’d rather shift the margin than polish the centre.

A civil chat

I was at a meeting recently where I was reminded of how civil we humans are actually able to be when discussing challenging issues with people who have opposing viewpoints.

It makes a nice change to much of what we’re seeing in some parts of politics and society at the moment.

Maybe it is possible to be good neighbours.

On another note: What does the YMCA and Nepal have in common?

Unrelated but interesting: My local YMCA made a documentary about alternative education. If you want a full on and refreshingly frank look at how we support young people who aren’t able to stay in mainstream education, take a look.

p.s. they go to Nepal.

Grow food, not lawns

Around where I live, fairly well all of the houses are standalone buildings with reasonable sized yards.

Some of them have impeccable lawns. I can tell, because our house is two storey. And there’s some very nice green areas on google maps.

One neighbour around the corner is different though. No open green space there. It’s all cover up. “Messy”.

Because they have a permaculture-based system running. It’s pretty awesome.

A family friend built a new house with no lawn. Raised garden beds and wildflowers. Their opinion was that the ground was meant to grow food, not grass. And food for bees counted as well.

Plus, they lived next to a large public park.

And there’s the rub: Access to excellent public spaces is critical if we are going to give up our tiny backyard fiefdoms of manicured pasture and make some good (food) come from the dirt instead.

Where would you rather be?

Over the next ten years, would you rather live alone in a house you own yourself, or live with others in a house you all own?

It seems simple and fairly obvious on the face of it, and most of us will have an instinctive response. But we move on, I’d suggest there’s more layers to this than just property.

Here’s some things to potentially consider:

• What kind of house are you imagining in both cases? If you’ve spent ten years living with people, you’ve probably figured out a few things, and the house probably isn’t quite the ‘normal’ kind of building. What could it look like?

• What long-term financial assumptions are you making? In terms of your income, the cost of living, the cost of finance. And remember capital gains aren’t guaranteed, especially when continuous growth isn’t necessarily a good goal.

• If you’ve been able to co-own property for 10 years, you’ve probably been able to do more than just share ownership. You’ve probably had more time and/or money to spend on things you want to do. You’ve probably had to experience significant personal growth in order to live the more than one other person for an extended period of time. You’ve probably shared a whole heap of life moments and memories with a small group of close friends. You’re probably more like (a functional) family than a bunch of mates (although the argument could be made that the most functional family is a bunch of mates).

• What is the benefit of stability? Because you’ve probably lived in the same place for ten years. How many people on your street do you know? How big is your vegetable garden now?

Would you rather…

Making money off mates

Is it reasonable to complain about the price of housing, and then have your mates as flatmates to help pay the mortgage? If you’re in a fortunate enough position to buy a house, should those in a (presumably) less well-off financial position pay the price (literally) for you to continue to improve your position?

Of course, the better question is: What’s the alternative?

Probably, co-ownership. You have $100k deposit. Buy a house work (say) $500k. Split the mortgage 50/50 with a friend ($200k each). Reduce your term and pay down the mortgage. Airbnb, work from home, maybe even some short-term flatmates. Then buy a second place, and call it quits.

Sure, you’re a little bit worse off (financially). But the world’s a bit better overall.

Cooking up change

I think there are three ingredients in the delicious cake that is a just world.

• Foolishness

• Wisdom

• Courage

The recipe is simple: We need these in equal measure, but add them in the correct order.

• Start with foolishness. Dare to dream of what could be, and spend time in that future.

• Add an equal measure of wisdom. Recognise your resources and context. Recognise competing future visions. And understand what it will cost to attempt to make the dream a reality.

• Drizzle with a healthy amount of courage. A good plan, well executed is better than a perfect plan, never executed. And it takes courage to acknowledge the foolishness, the cost, and to step out into action.

The secret ingredient in this all, is feedback. Serve the cake, and find out how it tastes. Share it with the world. And then make another.

Go bake a cake.