I recently got my 6 year (!) anniversary badge on this forum, which has me feeling sentimental. What’s your favorite thing you’ve gotten out of Commoncog?
Mine is very much the introductions to a number of thinkers I may never have otherwise intersected:
Deming
Ryan Singer
Bob Moesta
Asian business tycoons
There’s undoubtedly a lot more, but that’s all I can conjure up on a Monday morning
I must say, Asian business tycoons is a hilarious thing to include in the list.
Because I blame you for it, and because my daughter vomited an hour ago and I have to put her to sleep (and thus can’t write a longer response), this community has given me Dungeon Crawler Carl and I hate you all for it.
No line on the next book yet. He dropped a couple chapters to Patreon members over the summer but has been largely silent.
My hypothesis is because he has two books worth of planning to do, there’s going to be a longer gap than usual. He has far less runway to say “I’ll figure it out in a future book” so he’s being very judicious about releasing anything. There have been a few fun cold readings by Jeff Hays at some of the conventions, but that’s usually not more than a few paragraphs.
I appreciate the frameworks, because I’m a framework guy.
Expertise as Sensemaking, and the idea that it is uncommon common sense, helped me understand the value of the experience I have accumulated: I have different frames I can bring to situations which allow me to see “obvious” possibilities that are invisible to others. And, incidentally, it also helps me continue to break the idea that value only comes from hard work - an insight can eliminate the need for weeks or months of work.
I still refer people to the Be Good To Your Mentors the idea that menteeship is earning the right to continue asking questions.
The Demand series was super helpful to me in understanding the skill I was missing. I still haven’t undertaken the work to improve at the skills (despite buying the 30x500 course, I only completed a few lessons) but am clearer on the gap.
The Idea Maze and Effectuation thread has been interesting to follow as Cedric unwinds the idea that there is a single path to product market fit. Instead, the key is to have the capital to keep experimenting.
Speaking of capital, the business triad has also been helpful in understanding why successful businesses can continue to adapt. It doesn’t necessarily explain how to excel at each leg, but it is a useful lens to understand why many businesses fail, failing to navigate a change in demand or skill needed to offer supply, or running out of capital for various reasons e.g. over expansion or macro conditions changing.
There are probably others but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.
My favorite part of Commoncog is the forum. I love reading and occasionally being part of a bunch of smart, educated, friendly, and civil people making sense of the business world.
In terms of content and concepts, my favorites include
The business triad as a neat way to organize knowledge and my understanding of business
The recent sense-making series and more generally, the accelerated expertise cluster of writing
The intro to effectuation as an alternative to goal-oriented planning in more early-stage contexts
