Arrivals and departures | #10
Arrivals and departures | #10
The comings and goings in life and choosing focus
It's interesting how much of life is focused on the arrival of something new and the departure of something old. Time rolls forward, and events bring dynamism to life.
A new year brings hope. Arrivals of a new job, new family are moments of change too, each bringing new dynamics to life as lived. These events could also be marked by departures; year end, left a job, saying goodbye. The perspective of whether you're saying "hello" or "goodbye" changes the system for navigating each event.
Much of my work in data engineering and information design can be simply explained as creating mental models of significant arrival and departure events, then creating technology systems to manage that information. Designing and documenting these mental models is a systems thinking exercise. Imposing order onto the fuzzy, unclear, complex business of market interactions feels zen. That said, the intuitive, sometimes emotional process of creating order from seeming chaos is not always easy.
A significant personal arrival for me this year was joining Arbol this year to lead the company's data department. My team manages the arrivals of weather information into our data systems and the departures of transformed versions of that data into products and services throughout the company. With that, I've had the interesting opportunity to learn about climate events and the methods used to collect and model the weather - truly one of nature's premier complex systems.
My research interests have been influenced by this work as well. Arbol invested in a creating a distributed information backend with InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) for its benefits of immutable records of information, operability with blockchain protocols, and decentralized network of data providers. How information is deconstructed and reconstructed via networks of connected nodes lends well to principles of self-organization, nature inspired computing, and complexity science.
In my personal life I follow a loosely organized version of this structured mindset. Sometimes I track my health, sometimes I don't. I never count calories. My son grows, seeing new milestones, and my wife and I navigate life together, sometimes counting but mostly feeling. I love and appreciate them and their support of me. Balanced optimization is a guiding principle, both in business and life.
As we depart one year and arrive into a new one I reflect on what I want to bring with me and what I will leave behind. For one, I will bring Emergent Outcomes, and all of you reading this, with me. I keep as regular a writing schedule as I can, and I thank you for your interest and patience.
This newsletter began as my outlet to muse on systems thinking for business, art, and life, and build connections with an interesting audience of thinkers, doers, and dreamers all the same. Through this writing I’ve met new people and encountered new ideas, creating a platform to share my interests and receive feedback in return. I look forward to discovering what arrives and what departs in the year to come.
What are you looking forward to?