When I work with engineers in my day job, I often find that they struggle with articulating their work in financial terms (or of thinking in financial terms period). So I’m going to consider some of the dynamics at play in businesses from a microeconomic perspective through the example of considering whether to invest in a “Learning from Incidents” program.

A concept is a brick. It can be used to build the courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.

-Brian Massumi, Translator’s Foreword to A Thousand Plateaus

Listening to the latest interview with Dan Smith on the MUHH podcast has rekindled a lot of the feels that led me to read Deleuze with safety science literature. Here I’ll say a little bit about that relationship by way of an example.

What people often forget is that the event of remembering which is the basis of that appraisal, like the event of anticipating or planning, is itself a “situated action,” to use Lucy Suchman’s classic phrase.

The New York Times continued its hit-and-miss coverage of outer space stuff today, with a quick overview highlighting upcoming space launches and events in 2023. The preview focused on splashy tech and science stuff, which is unfortunate.

One thing that people moving from the ‘tech’ sector into others will need to grapple with is learning these new-to-them domains. In order to create and sustain good services (and avoid what happened with Southwest) they’ll need to let go of established knowledges and practices and collaborate with those with long-time domain experience.