streetlight’s reflection
ripples across the puddles
windchime’s gently tones
An evening haiku
Author: Carl Setzer
A blogger blogging from just north of Seattle.
“Be myself? I’d rather die.”
Substack has a feature where they serve up posts that I might like. Not all of them have been been hits, much less home runs (wait…why the hell am I serving up sports analogies?). But this one was good! “Be myself? I’d rather die“, a post by psychologist Adam Mastroianni, and it looks at many things, but the focus that spoke to me was on the evolutionary value of conformity.
TLDR: social norms are one way we communicate our learnings about survival. He references cassava, which is edible ONLY when prepared correctly. Otherwise, it’s potentially lethal. Makes me think of the Hebrew proscription about pork, as an other example.
It’s rather eye opening to consider that social norms are often survival mechanisms. And, thus, that feeling of “needing to obey them”, even when they don’t seem to match make much more sense.
I want to remind folks, though, that as valuable as those learnings are, it’s the people willing to push through the norms and challenge are the ones that change things. I’m sure, at one point, no one ate cassava as it’s rather problematic until “treated”. Yet someone, somewhere, said, “I think I can eat this”, and, for whatever reason, we stumbled through it and the world was changed.
I appreciate the insights, especially on why the urge to conform is so damn powerful. However, I intend to live my somewhat contrarian life. I’ve enjoyed most of it so far.
An Atypical St. Patrick’s Day Song
Though this song has an Irish flair, this band is not Irish, rather, Canadian. I find this somewhat Celtic tweak on this old Bob Dylan tune.
Anyway, it’s my St. Patrick’s Day gift to you.
Forward Motion
I haven’t written about this much, but my current career development focus is on Data Analysis. To start with, I like working in Excel. I’ve found spreadsheets fascinating since the days of Lotus 123. In addition, as many of you know, I spent the Pandemic working on a degree in Web Application and Cloud Development at Edmonds College. During that, I spent a huge amount of time studying data: databases, database construction, SQL, database theory and design. That was some of my favorite coursework.
Recently, I discovered the role of data analyst. It looks like a fantastic blend of these elements. And it’s a growing field, which says a LOT in today’s economic climate! This looks like a way I can make a solid contribution now, and have lots of room to grow. It seems a great blend of my past, my studies, and where I am right now, in order to grow into the future.
Digging a bit deeper, I see some key areas for growth in the short-term.
- Data Visualization:
- I have not worked with Tableau or Power BI…or any of the other visualization tools. I have created presentations where I manually built visualizations (yay PowerPoint!), mostly graphs, but a few times with PhotoShop. I’m really looking forward to diving in deeper to what I can do with Power BI (which is my next series of course work on Coursera).
- Excel:
- I’m a solid user of Excel, having it used it extensively in pretty much every role I’ve had in the past 20 or so years. Budgets, project tracking, dashboards, project feasibility, and operations analysis, I’ve done all of these in Excel. But there’s always room to grow! And it’s an evolving product, so even more to keep learning.
- Statistics:
- I have only a rudimentary understanding of statistics. I want to expand that greatly. I think I’ll take statistics at Edmonds College soon.
These are the short-term learnings I’m planning on feeding myself with. I also think that the WGU BS in Data Analytics looks really interesting. And having that Bachelors will be valuable, and that knowledge critical.
During my studies at Edmonds, we touched on big data, data lakes, data warehouses, as well as No SQL based stored data. This all looks fascinating to me.
So, I’ve launched into the Data Analytics studies with Coursera’s Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst Professional Certificate. I finished the first course yesterday, Preparing Data for Analysis with Microsoft Excel. It was solid review of my skills, which I appreciated. Now, I shift to Power BI, which will be new. I’m pretty excited for Power BI. And I’m excited at what my future holds.
I hope the same for you!
Ooohhh…this scam almost got me
I just got this email a few minutes ago, ostensibly from RyanAir:
Man, this one looks pretty legitimate. The things that caught my attention? #1, I haven’t booked any travel with RyanAir.
#2, the email is one I haven’t used in ages, but it is set to auto-forward to me main one. But it’s not one I would’ve used. Perhaps I used it in the past with RyanAir? Nope. Never flown with them.
But what if, maybe, just maybe, it was someone else, some other Carl Setzer, who accidently used this email that was off in some weird capacity. Hmmm…
Oh, well if someone made a mistake, I should click on this link, right? Be nice and help a chap out, right? Knowing how many people want to be nice, I opt to hover over this link, which leads me to the big ol’ red flag
Check out THIS url:
Yep, my friends: classic phishing!
Now, you don’t need to dig around like I did. I did so mostly for the academic exercise. My first impulse was to mark this as phishing immediately, but I just was too curious.
For most folks, just mark as spam and ignore these things. Do NOT click on any of the links!
So, the world of spams & scams is evolving. Be aware and be safe, my friends!
Recommended Reading: In search of kindness by Richard Branson
Richard Branson is a leader I’ve looked up to for years. And his recent blog post adds to that:
In search of kindness – Richard Branson
I deeply value the idea of “look for the best in people”. And how that leads into “…embrace failure as essential to our journey…”. If you want people to push boundaries, to innovate, you need to accept that failure will come of it. Build processes that maximize the learnings from that. Then move on.
One idea I’ve held for years is simply “it’s more powerful to build people up than to tear them down”. This mindset doesn’t seem to be highly valued right now, but I think that it holds true. And it is how I lead.
Ah, Yes…Another Scam
I posted this article to Facebook last week. My son let me know he received one that day. And I won this lottery today!
This one is text based. Watch for these E-Z Pass texts that state you have an unpaid toll. Well, it’s fraudulent. As always, DO NOT CLICK THE LINK! Report it as a scam or junk text, then delete it.
Oh, and it’s more than E-Z Pass, but also SunPass, Peach Pass, EZDriveMA…and I’m sure others. And I expect this list will expand as the scammers find other passes to spoof.
I expect this one will get larger before it fades into the next scam.
Be safe my friends!
A morning meditation for you, my friends
I have plenty of moments when I don’t trust my gut. When my heart screams out, but I don’t believe that it can be right. I’m working on that, though.
I deeply value the arts, and have encouraged many to pursue that path. Even when it’s likely they’ll not attain wealth and privilege. So, this post sings to me.
So, I pray you find your place. Find the beautiful place within yourself. And share it boldly.
Early morning thoughts
I’m wondering at what my path forward looks like. I love technology, in all it’s variety, and blended in insanity. Yet I adore people, too. Helping guide folks, especially in terms of projects. Helping organize people into effective teams, to see the value each of us offer, and to feel the wonderful sensation of meeting goals. That’s delightful to me.
I’ve been told many times over the years that I’d be great as a manager. I wonder, though, as my values don’t align with the current “presentation” of the successful manager. I stand against the idea of people/teams simply being consumables to extract the most value from before they’re discarded.
So, I sit and ponder when I should be sleeping. It is the Way, I guess.
An uptick in Facebook & Instagram Spam Messages
Last June I wrote about a scam running through my Facebook accounts. Well, I’ve now seen this a few times over the months. However, starting overnight last night, several of the pages I managed have been inundated with the message. I think I’m up to 7 or 8 on one page alone.
Here’s a screenshot of the message:
Ultimately, it’s a phishing scam. If you click on the link, it’ll either ask you for your credentials or download malware…or both. Dear friends, DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK!!!!
Part of me takes delight in reporting these…people…for spam and getting their accounts blocked. However, in the end, it’s just a game of whack-a-mole. Clearly, they are able to create new accounts as fast as they get deleted. A part of me wants to kick these folks in the gonads.
Anyway, I wanted share this ASAP and I’m sure there are some people alarmed and, thus, more likely to click on the link. Please be safe out there in cyberspace!