№ 400. Man Music & Machine

The fear that machines will replace human labor is a durable one in the public mind, from the time of the Luddites in the early 19th century. Yet most economists have viewed “the end of humans in jobs” as a groundless fear, inconsistent with the evidence. The standard view of technical change is that some jobs are displaced by the substitution of machines for labor, but that the fear of total displacement is misplaced because new jobs are created, largely due to the technology-fueled increase in productivity. Humans have always shifted away from work suitable for machines and to other jobs. This was true in the 1930s, when the shift was away from agriculture, through the 1990s and early 2000s, when the shift was largely out of manufacturing.

However, the expansion of what can be automated in recent years has raised the question: Is this time different?

№ 223. Happy 7th, Sophia

Let wisdom be your shadow:

At sunrise, yellow,
Like omelettes and jams from mom;

At midday, white,
Like lace, linens and lunch breaks;

At sunset, orange,

Like tickles and pups to walk you home;

At nighttime, grey,
Like warm cloaks of dad's goodnight tuck.

№ 221. Virtual Lawyering

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." --- Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities

What is out there for the once and future lawyer?

Emails are so mid-90s. Google has grown up and morphed into a teenage giant. Social networks are slowly plateauing. Wireless, and its many iterations, is almost the humdrum norm, circa 2015, except maybe for my desktop office.

№ 214. A Day in the Life

"I’ve always told myself to treat it like a 9-to-5 job. You just go do it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re feeling good that day. I don’t think writers or artists can afford to have a “creative temperament” or to wait for inspiration to descend. You have to simply sit there and make yourself do it. And over the years that’s a discipline I really developed. I can sit down at my desk every day and do my work, never give myself permission not to do it. Once your mind understands that it has no excuses, it’s remarkable how it begins to play along." (Harvard Business Review)

Life after Law School, Circa 2005-2006

№ 115. Friday Find: How Will You Measure Your Life?

"My class at HBS is structured to help my students understand what good management theory is and how it is built. To that backbone I attach different models or theories that help students think about the various dimensions of a general manager’s job in stimulating innovation and growth. In each session we look at one company through the lenses of those theories—using them to explain how the company got into its situation and to examine what managerial actions will yield the needed results.

On the last day of class, I ask my students to turn those theoretical lenses on themselves, to find cogent answers to three questions: First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? Though the last question sounds lighthearted, it’s not. Two of the 32 people in my Rhodes scholar class spent time in jail. Jeff Skilling of Enron fame was a classmate of mine at HBS. These were good guys—but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction."(HBR - Clayton M. Christensen)