Things are probably good. We'll see how it goes. Kid woke up at midnight and figured she was done sleeping so the rest of the night was a bit weird. Right now is fine, a bit tired but who knows what kind of wreck of a man you'll have at livestream o'clock.

I have a wild livestream planned, 16.00 CEST. We will be setting up an independent livestream. So this is one step on the journey off of YouTube for my livestreaming. I'd rather experiment with it on my own and the Membrane folks helped me out by creating the RTMP support I was missing and now follows as much experimentation with building a cool streaming experience as I can find time for. This livestream is the start.

I also published a blog post on finally using your Raspberry Pi that seems to have resonated with folks. Felt good to put out a non-video post. I really do miss writing blog posts more often, getting that feedback. I just have many things to balance so I haven't found the time in a while. I fully intend to find a pace that works there.

Beam Radio release episode 22, I don't think I was on it so I wonder what led to the title Total World Domination.

I don't like letting go

All good collaboration I've experienced runs off of a good chunk of trust and an even mix of butting in and butting out. Contrast my business and website versus my collaborative endeavours.

I have strong creative opinions on what my business is, should be and how I want to run and represent it. Even when I bring in help I'm the ultimate arbiter on what goes. I think this contributes to a strong individual streak in how the site and business operates. And I rather like it that way.

Meanwhile, a thing like BEAM Radio, where we are half a dozen people collaborating to make a single thing. I've had a lot to say in what we do due to being a loud person and having some time to put into making things happen. Putting my time where my teeth are I guess. I'm not as particular about the exact flavor of that podcast that I would be about my website. Because that podcast is, and should be, a mix of the people involved and we aren't all the same.

If I leaned in with heavy editorializing every time a co-host put up a topic for their time at the wheel I'd be an awful collaborator. If I never responded to topic suggestions I'd also be quite lackluster as a collaborator.

This goes again for working as a team. You need a good mix of butting in and butting out. In my experience people aren't all that great about saying "hey, I need help" and more insidiously "hey, I'm stuck at a glacial pace on this because the task has zapped all my drive". So checking in and following up can be helpful and it opens the door for useful exchanges. On the flip side, I don't know anyone that wants to be micro-managed, whether from actual leadership and managers or from co-workers.

A friendly reminder of "hey, did you do that thing?" can save someone a lot of trouble and let them know that the thing is still wanted. But most of the work you have to be able to assume that people will just do.

I like the whole ownership thing because it motivates me, it gives me a sense of urgency and challenge. And it works fantastically for solo consulting in my experience. You work under the assumption that anything that other people need to solve is a risk-element to your delivery. You work around that as much as possible. Not necessarily because you think people can't do their jobs but as an independent dev from the outside you don't have all of the complexity of their job. Your task is clear-cut, they have to compromise and prioritize.

(sidebar: I don't have an ADHD diagnosis or anything but this post explains how I roll too well. I clearly have structured my work to always incorporate a mix of these factors. I know I flounder without them.)

Shared ownership is another beast entirely,  still powerful and useful. When collaborating you need to rely on other people delivering to some extent. Even as lead you can only take responsibility for the big picture and pay attention to the parts. You are not supposed to work around the parts or do that work yourself. It becomes an organizational dysfunction if you do too much of that.

Letting go in this way is tricky for me. The upside is that I love handing off work I don't enjoy, assuming that someone can pick it up that doesn't hate it. I hate paperwork, paying bills, bookkeeping. It is all frustrating, tiring and I will entirely blank it from my mind until the reminders show up. My wife likes it okay and wants it done properly and in time. But if we need to decide how something is done or what widget to order, I'm our best bet. We have our strengths and we've negotiated how we do things quite well.

That my wife would edit Regular Programming was in the plan early but that was also a bit challenging. It isn't a type of creative project we've done together before. I have strong opinions about the creative side of that show (curious what people think of it by the way) but I knew I didn't have the time to edit it. I had to hand that off. That's an exercise in trust. Granted, trust is already quite well established in that particular relationship. Still, I let it some creative agency go and it works well.

Collaboration and letting go is key to "doing more with humans". I'm going to be trying more things with video. I'll be working with someone to do it. Video is time-consuming and I have tight constraints right now and he'll do a much better job as well. I've brought in help for website design in the past because some people are much, much better than me at certain things. And also I'm working on some writing projects, I have an editor work with me on those because I want to move beyond my comfort zone. These all require some letting go, opening up the process to more people and the risk that entails.

The output of these things will not always be what I envisioned. Sometimes worse, sometimes better, sometimes really different. That's what we get with humans.

If you have thoughts you can reach me via lars@underjord.io or on Twitter where I'm @lawik.

Thanks for your time, I appreciate you reading this.

- Lars Wikman