Jul 25
MC#012: The Humor Edition — 🌗 Coping with dark humor + 👨🏾‍🏫 Funny teachers + 🎭 Sarah Cooper's comedic training + 😅 Are YOU funny? (quiz)
Jul 18
MC#011: The Gymnastics Edition — 🐥 Why gymnasts are young + 🎬 Athlete A + 👩🏾‍🏫 Simone's Masterclass
Jul 11
MC#010: Seeking a Benign Violator — 😅The Pleasure of Rule Breaking + 📋 Making it Easier to Send + 🎮 Gaming = Fun Work
Jul 04
MC#009: Decade of Insights — 20 books 📚 that made a difference for me in the last 🔟 years
Jun 29
How Tech Workers are Finding Their Footing in a Pandemic — This piece first appeared in Fast Company [https://www.fastcompany.com/90515519/tech-workers-are-showing-the-effects-of-covid-19-related-burnout] The start of 2020 should have been an energizing time for me, personally and professionally. I had just returned from a long-awaited holiday honeymoon and closed a new round of funding for my startup. But I found
Jun 27
MC#008: Not So Secret Memo — 🧮 Advertising: Profitable (and therefore Taxable?) + 🚜 The Resilience and Fragility of Rubber + 🪐 Ring Strength
Jun 20
MC#007: The Infant Mindset — How Rejection Works + Thinking Like a Baby + Making Mistakes
Jun 20
My Pandemic Burnout Piece in Fast Company — Double header this weekend! Back to your regularly scheduled Making Connections newsletter next Saturday. Have heard from a lot of folks who appreciated my piece in Fast Company on how tech workers are experiencing burnout in the face of the pandemic [https://www.fastcompany.com/90515519/tech-workers-are-showing-the-effects-of-covid-19-related-burnout] . I spoke to
Jun 13
On Protests and Movements — This is an attempt to integrate a series of shorter, related writings that I’ve published in my newsletter [http://jasonshen.substack.com] over the last few weeks. Much of it touches on the Black Lives Matter movement, which I wrote about back in 2016, [https://www.jasonshen.com/2016/
Jun 13
MC#006: The Exponential — Bounded performance vs unbounded success. The Thief of Joy. A Movement's Tipping Point.
Jun 07
MC#005: Protest Edition — The Law of the Instrument. When Aggressive Tactics Backfire. How Much Money is Enough? Who Guards the Guards?
May 30
Making Connections #004 | What opportunity looks like, learning by shipping & the arc of social progress — Hey friends, Welcome back the 4th edition of Making Connections, where we take a random walk down tech, fitness, product thinking, org design, nerd culture, persuasion, and behavior change. Today we’re talking about what opportunity looks like, learning by shipping & the arc of social progress 1. Knowing the
May 23
Making Connections #003 — Biological thinking, no sweat workouts, "talent needs trauma", birthday coaching
May 16
Making Connections #002 (purpose, iteration, social games, + more) — Hey friends, Welcome back the 2nd edition of Making Connections, where we take a random walk down tech, fitness, product thinking, org design, nerd culture, persuasion, and behavior change. 1. Dan Pink's "Small P" and "Big P" Purpose Psychology | Burnout I was talking to
May 11
The Product Genius Behind Jackbox Games — This article first appeared on TechCrunch [https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/04/all-product-creators-can-learn-something-from-jackbox-games-user-experiences/] During this periodof shelter-in-place, people have had to seek out new forms of entertainment and social interaction. Many have turned to a niche party series made by a company best known for an irreverent trivia game in
May 09
Making Connections #001 — A list of TikTok formats, why friction can be good, working out with a mask, and Pmarca's It's Time to Build
May 08
Making Connections #001 (audio) — 00:18 - Incomplete List of TikTok Formats 02:57 - Friction Theory 04:01 - Working out with an N95 mask will not supercharge your fitness 06:04 - My problem with “It’s Time to Build” Article link: Making Connections #001 [https://www.jasonshen.com/making-connections-001/]
May 02
Welcome to Making Connections — A random walk down tech, fitness, product thinking, org design, nerd culture, and persuasion/behavior change.
Apr 12
How to Become More Adaptable — Republishing my piece from TechCrunch
Apr 04
What's Going to Change — It’s April 4, 2020. I stopped going to the office on March 13, and according my Captain’s Log [https://www.jasonshen.com/2020/captains-log/], we’re on Day 24 of this self-isolation. I don’t have any symptoms, but I’m assuming I have it and wear a