Sorry you can’t find a slot! It’s already booked up for the next 60 days and I use Calendly to keep a rolling availability window. I've just opened a handful of extra times in October and November.
I highly recommend making this part of your weekly rhythm too — it’s a big part of how I find new ideas, and it helps get me out of my bubble.
I can't agree more with what you write!
Keep going!!!
There have been some really unusual moments -- like reviewing the pitch deck of a monk, or being suddenly involved in a design crit for a class of masters students.
And some are extraordinary. Last week I spoke with a hugely successful children's book author who has just opened a kids' playground that builds familiarity with the fundamentals of computing!
Sometimes I feel like I'm able to help. By being a second pair of eyes on what the other person sees as ordinary, or even tangled and overwhelming, we can identify a way forward or point of focus for a project or artistic practice.
But my favourites are the everyday conversations where we find common ground, and I learn something and they learn something too in the exchange.
I find that when I'm required to explain an opinion or some knowledge that I take for granted, the act of verbalising it illuminates new ideas, and talking to somebody else about it helps me find new perspectives.
It's the highlight of my week, and has been for 4 years now!
I originally had a specific agenda - to get a perspective on a core project with moral considerations. In between booking and having the call the project was written off. I kept the call.
It gave me the option, as someone currently freelancing and consulting, to talk to someone in a different boat, going to a different place, on the same sea.
Impactfully he gave me some simple advice that I struggle with - paraphrased "act in the open / people will find you". I've spent a great deal of time since struggling with it - it is a loss of control when being perceived, and flies in the face of a lifetime of believing in internet anonynimity!
Of course the first time I was worried that no one would show up. So for the first session I had a plan for what I would do if no one showed up or there were no questions. Now some people also submit questions in advance so I have a small agenda to get started with until people ask questions.
So far it's been encouraging. About 10 people join the live sessions and there are enough questions to keep the conversation going and not too many questions so I have to ignore some. But the most surprising is the recorded sessions get many more views afterwards. So it's a good way of generating content that people actually watch.
I'd love to do something like this though - I've always enjoyed teaching so maybe something where I offer free calls to help newer developers with their project for an hour? Interesting idea!
A long time ago (12+ years) was Little Printer, an internet connected/social little thermal printer, with the Berg group. There's a loving open source effort maintaining the systems ? Which I haven't gotten around to installing on my own off the shelf printer). https://nordprojects.co/projects/littleprinters/
Matt's current effort is the Poem/A1 rhyming poetry AI clock. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/genmon/poem-1-the-ai-po...
A submission got popular - Product Innovation is sometimes the Supply - and mentions the excellent very old Machine Supply, a tweeting vending machine selling books and notebooks. https://www.actsnotfacts.com/made/machine-supply https://interconnected.org/home/2024/09/27/distribution https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41709429
Matt's blog is extremely longstanding & excellent. His work always finds playfulness & creativity, embodies that rich interesting Splime sci-fi internet that seemed so full of open potential when I was growing up in the 90's & 00's. Thank you Matt Webb for adding so much to my life! I highly recommend adding Matt to your blogrolls, & checking out his deep & prolific archives.
Instead of complaining about the status quo and going abstinent, this sort of mindset is such a good alternative.
On the one hand, the vibe is very much "show up and let's talk like friendly socialized people" and I bet that's a huge amount of the joy in it.
On the other hand, perhaps the people who _really_ want to talk to Matt should be able to? And while imperfect, paying for is an unshakeable signal that you _really_ want to.
(Note: I started this comment eight hours ago and apparently didn't submit it, so maybe someone has said the same thing in the meantime. I'm too annoyed with myself to check.)
Here's a post about the Cursor Party code (it's open):
"Every webpage deserves to be a place"
It's always bothered me that there isn't a layer "above" the web that integrates discussion features. I always thought a browser addon would solve that by now, but nothing seems to have caught on.