Harold Ramis on Ghostbusters, Collaboration

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

My friend, Kate Wing, sent me this glorious oral history of the movie, Ghostbusters. My favorite line was from Harold Ramis, who said:

Aykroyd used to look at me, Rick, and Bill, and say, “Three directors, four writers, no waiting.” If you didn’t have a good idea, someone else would.

This was Kate’s reaction to the line:

Exactly — isn’t that the kind of team you want to be on? Not worried about looking the best or competing, just being part of a continuous fountain of good ideas.

Yes. This is exactly the kind of team I want to be on, and it’s the kind of team I’ve been fortunate to have been on several times.

Making Hard Choices

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Earlier this week, a familiar foe reared its ugly head: irritability. Every little thing was annoying me, and I found myself wanting to snap at people.

It’s something I used to feel constantly at my previous job, but that I haven’t felt in quite some time. Back then, I wasn’t taking care of myself, and I wasn’t in an environment that encouraged me to take care of myself. Last year was a giant reset button. I rested, recovered, and reflected. I got clear about what I wanted to do next, and how I wanted to do it. I started carefully putting into place the structures that I thought I needed to support me in being successful and in maintaining balance. On January 6, 2014, I pressed “Go.”

Six weeks into the year, I’m doing okay, but I’ve been slipping. Old patterns are starting to reappear. They’re patterns that come from a good place. I’m loving my work, and good things are starting to happen as a result of the seeds I’ve been cultivating. The problem is that, when I start seeing little seedlings sprout, I get excited and motivated, and I want to go faster rather than maintain my pace. This is how I overwhelm myself. This is how my performance starts slipping. Worse, the thing that suffers most is my health and my personal life.

What’s been different is that I’m far more self-aware this time around, and my structures have really been helping me.

  • I’ve been monitoring my self-care dashboard religiously, and I have obsessively made sure I’ve been maintaining these practices.
  • I’ve been good about playing basketball regularly, decent at seeing friends.
  • I keep a timesheet, so I know exactly how much time I spend working, where, and on what days.
  • I’ve been using SCRUM principles for realistic planning and a Kanban Board to track and prioritize my tasks.
  • I formed a “colearning” group with which I’ve been doing regular checkins, which increases my accountability.

All of these things have been working, and yet I’m feeling like I’m about to slip into the abyss again. The reasons are simple: I’m working too much, but I don’t want to slow down.

Earlier this week, I was in a meeting with Rebecca Petzel, where she said, “I’m better at setting boundaries than Eugene is, but I use his tools to help me do that.” She was paying me a compliment, but she was also being real, and she was right. All the tools in the world won’t help you unless you are committed to your goals.

So now I’m in an interesting place. I’m doing too much, and the pace is starting to get unsustainable, but I’m feeling the temptation to do even more. The solution is simple: Do less. Cut something out.

My brain and my gut knows all this to be true, and I know my body will eventually enforce it, but only after I put it through its paces. My heart hates this, and my habits are all oriented against doing it. I want to live a healthy, balanced life, but I also don’t want to stop doing anything that I’m currently doing.

So what will I choose? Because at the end of the day, you can put all of the structures in place that you want, but it still boils down to choice. Will this time be different?

Through Our Eyes: San Francisco’s Richmond District

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

I participated in a wonderful photography workshop last year hosted by the Richmond District branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Throughout the workshop, Natalie Schrik was shooting documentary footage.

The library just published the final video, and I absolutely love it! It’s a three-minute documentary of us shooting the neighborhood, intermixed with our commentary (including mine at the 1:32 mark) and photos (including one of mine at the very end).

It was a great experience, I was happy to be a part of it, and I’m happy to be able to share this video with all of you!

Amy Poehler on Creating and Collaborating

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Here’s some delicious wisdom on creating and collaborating from an interview with the great Amy Poehler. (Hat tip to Michael Swaine for sharing!)

On power:

Power sometimes comes down to knowing the vocabulary, figuring out how the system works and how to work within it. You need to believe that you deserve to be in the room once you get there.

On functional collaboration:

I met a lot of the people I collaborate with now doing improv, and I’ve had the experience of being in functional creative environments. I don’t think creativity has to come from a place of dysfunction. It can come from nice people with good parents.

On caring and risk-taking:

To some people, not caring is supposed to be cool, commenting is more interesting than doing, and everything is judged and then disposed of in, like, five minutes. I’m not interested in those kinds of people. I like the person who commits and goes all in and takes big swings and then maybe fails or looks stupid; who jumps and falls down, rather than the person who points at the person who fell, and laughs. But I do sometimes laugh when people fall down.

Photo by Renee Barrera. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

CBC Radio Piece on Wikipedia and the Future of Knowledge

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

I was one of the featured commentators on a two-part CBC radio program about Wikipedia. Each part is just shy of an hour. If you’re new to Wikipedia, start with part one. If you’re interested in a broader philosophical discussion about community, knowledge, intellectual property, and the Internet, go directly to part two (where I’m more heavily featured).

I had mixed feelings about the program. After part one came out, Sue Gardner (who is heavily featured) asked me what I thought about the piece. I said I didn’t like it very much. She laughed, and pointed out that I was not the audience for that piece.

She’s right of course. The first part featured the voices of many of my friends, people who are deeply embedded and knowledgeable about the community. Kat Walsh was particularly well-spoken, and it’s worth listening to part one just to hear her commentary.

However, I had difficulty enjoying the first part in particular. First, there were lots of mostly inconsequential, but annoying factual errors. I was horrified to hear myself repeatedly described as an “IT consultant,” something that I’ve never even resembled.

Second, I was bothered by who wasn’t included in the piece. In the first part, several of us pay homage to Ward Cunningham, who invented the wiki and who is thoughtful and brilliant. Instead of having us speak for him, why didn’t the reporter just talk to him directly? I also felt like I and others were taking up space — especially in part one — that would have been better served by other members of the community. For example, Pete Forsyth (who has a cameo at the beginning of part two) is one of the most well-spoken leaders in the Wikipedia community. I would have loved to have heard much more from him, and I would have gladly sacrificed my voice to do so.

All that said, I think that the piece was solid overall, especially part two. If you listen to either part, I’d love to hear what you think.