@Gabe Michael Norton is awesome. @Laura and I met him at a conference Dan Ariely ran on behavioral economics for startups. Norton knows more about the science of happiness than almost anyone. Short version: Spend money on experiences, not stuff. And spend it on others, not you. Giving money/stuff away makes people WAY more happy than almost anything else, even people who aren’t terribly inspired to, but only do it as part of an experiment.

Addict Power User : Mod :: Mod : CM -- your world view changes when you see how the sausage is made/what's behind the curtain, and so does the way you spend your time to forward the sites. One of the tough parts of the job is taking the time to make sure that you are properly communicating the what and the why, otherwise people think you're just being dictatorial, arbitrary, and other varieties of not-so-nice adjectives.

I spent part of my day thinking that we don't provide enough guidance early-on to our moderators. I spent the rest of the day remembering that we're in the business of trusting people, and not laying out a bunch of problems that they'll probably never have as a welcome wagon. Had an epiphany surrounding ML and just-in-time help that I really want to explore.

I'm a little more than bothered by something that someone said during our last DIP (diversity / inclusion panel) chat. It took her months before she felt safe enough in her position to start talking about policy stuff when it comes to diversity and inclusion. We're supposed to be the anti-suck of all things that suck. What sucks? Not feeling safe enough to talk about not feeling safe. We need to do better at telling people we don't suck in our hiring process. Might take this on.