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Scott Adams' revolution was to get users to give him plot lines. He was the first to publish an open way to communicate with him in order to out the corporate

by w10-1 1y ago

Scott Adams' revolution was to get users to give him plot lines. He was the first to publish an open way to communicate with him in order to out the corporate crazies, and readers did in droves, explaining the inanity of their workplace and getting secret retribution for stuff they clearly couldn't complain about publicly. A good percentage of youtubers and substackers today actively cultivate their readership as a source of new material. They're more of a refining prism or filter for an otherwise unstated concerns than a source of wisdom. Doing this seems to require identifying with your readers and their concerns. That could be disturbing to the author if the tide turns, or to the readers if they find out their role model was gaming them or otherwise unreal, but I imagine it is pretty heady stuff. I hope he (and anyone facing cancer) has people with whom he can share honestly, and has access to the best health care available.

veqq 1y ago
> a refining prism or filter for an otherwise unstated concerns than a source of wisdom Grand Budapest Hotel starts with the author stating that when you're an author, people simply tell you stories and you don't need to come up with them anymore!
- xnx 1y ago
  This is a common trend now on TikTok for any "creator" with a moderate follower count. The template goes something like "I'm bored, tell me the thing you bought that you can't do without". The creator doesn't have to do anything, the followers create the content for them in the comments.
  - woleium 1y ago
    And another echo chamber is born.
pfdietz 1y ago
Remember this one? https://dynamicsgptipsandtraps.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/dilbertrwtemp.jpg https://dynamicsgptipsandtraps.wordpress.com/wp-content/uplo... "The clue meter is reading zero." Everyone at Motorola recognized it immediately.
- vintagedave 1y ago
  Why, what’s the backstory?
  - pfdietz 1y ago
    They had a program called Individual Dignity Entitlement as well as mandatory drug testing.
  - umeshunni 1y ago
    Found this on an ex-Motorola employee's blog: The IDE process at Motorola asked every employee to answer “yes” or “no” to six questions; 1. Do you have a substantive, meaningful, job that contributes to the success of Motorola? 2. Do you know the job behaviours and have the knowledge base to be successful? 3. Has training been identified and made available to continuously upgrade your skills? 4. Do you have a career plan, is it exciting, achievable and being acted on? 5. Have you received candid, positive or negative feedback within the last 30 days, which has helped in improving your performance or achieving your career plan? 6. Is adequate sensitivity shown by the company towards your personal circumstances, gender and culture? This was done online every quarter and followed by a one-to-one with your boss to discuss how you could improve things together. Every manager in your reporting line could see your results and your own boss would expect to see your action plan to improve your team’s scores over time. What do you think of this? A draconian measure or a positive statement of a minimum standard of expectation for all employees? At the time of IDE being implemented, I was struck by the choice of language; • INDIVIDUAL • DIGNITY • ENTITLEMENT It’s a declaration of what we are choosing to become as an organisation; what we want the experience of being a Motorolan (and yes, that is a thing) to be. It’s universal and unbounded by grade, function or language and culture. It’s a clear message to every manager of the minimum expectation of them in relation to the people they lead. It humbles the role of “manager” to be in service of their employees’ entitlement to dignity at work. Then there is the “yes/no” answer. No score of 1-10 or five point Likert scale or shades-of-grey adequacy. You either do or you don’t; clear and uncompromising. The implementation of IDE was often painful. Employees worried about the consequences of saying “no”. Managers worried what consequences would arise from negative scores. Everyone was anxious about the one to one conversations.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> good percentage of youtubers and substackers today actively cultivate their readership as a source of new material. They're more of a refining prism or filter for an otherwise unstated concerns than a source of wisdom Isn’t that all comedy? It’s halting because it’s true. And sure, we may find striking truth through meditation. But it’s more likely to hit you in the real world.
tim333 1y ago
Here's a theory why Scott went from funny to a bit weird alt right. For much of the time he was getting users sending office stories by email, but in more recent times was on twitter and getting info from the alt right bunch on there who push a lot of weird stuff. The reason he got banned from most papers was getting sucked into this stuff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white
- 7thaccount 1y ago
  Dilbert was such a revolutionary comic strip in a lot of ways. Here are a few things related to Scott Adams and Dilbert that have stood out to me over the years. Apologize in advance if any of this sounds like it came from an LLM. Me and most of my family just like to info dump on subjects of interest. I didn't understand it much as a kid, but later read an old copy of his book on how offices and office culture works (basically each chapter is Scott describing office did functionality with a liberal sprinkling of related Dilbert comics) and literally almost everything was 1:1 with the company I was at, only it was a good bit toned down of course. The beauty was that it was somehow generally applicable anywhere a company gets above a certain amount of employees. There was a lot of good information there such as how the company tries to get you to poop on yourself in your performance review in order to justify not giving you a raise or firing you (see - you yourself said that you needed improvement in working with others). There are many other insights as well that I found useful in my career. A lot of it is common sense, but it helped me come to terms with the irrationality of the corporate world. Every few years I reread it and find it more applicable than before. He later wrote a book on why he thought Trump beat Hillary and it also had a ton of insights I didn't think about as I'm not a marketer. Anyone on Hilary's campaign team should read it. Of course it doesn't cover how Hilary was painted as some kind of evil queen from a fairy tale since the 90s. Scott kinda acts a bit nuts in this book though as he goes off on frequent tangents about being a trained hypnotist and how he recognized that Trump was doing the same thing. One of the many examples was that both of them went on SNL, but Trump attempted to act presidential, while Hilary was attempting to act more like the common person and it just didn't work and came off unprofessional. He also flew in a plane that looked like Air Force One and gave press conferences with a little fake Oval office desk. Adams also came up with the term "confuseopoly" to describe companies that make it so hard to compare products and companies that you have to purchase on vibes. Economics textbooks use it now along with his blog example of trying to buy a truck. I see this dark pattern everywhere now. I hadn't really thought about the twitter angle you talk about, but did notice his blog started changing back in 2016ish. I just attributed it to him running out of ideas for the comic and finding that grifting made him more money. I guess you really can see some of the shift in reading the more recent books, which is sad.
alickz 1y ago
You see it sometimes on Reddit in /r/comics, where someone will post a comic and then the idea for the next comic comes from a comment on the first one etc.
xhkkffbf 1y ago
There were plenty of cartoons in the paper that solicited ideas from readers. There Ought To Be a Law comes to mind, but I'm sure there were others. https://archive.jsonline.com/greensheet/there-oughta-be-a-law-tapped-readers-for-material-b99707747z1-378193161.html https://archive.jsonline.com/greensheet/there-oughta-be-a-la...

by w10-1 1y ago

veqq 1y ago

> a refining prism or filter for an otherwise unstated concerns than a source of wisdom Grand Budapest Hotel starts with the author stating that when you're an author, people simply tell you stories and you don't need to come up with them anymore!

xnx 1y ago
This is a common trend now on TikTok for any "creator" with a moderate follower count. The template goes something like "I'm bored, tell me the thing you bought that you can't do without". The creator doesn't have to do anything, the followers create the content for them in the comments.
- woleium 1y ago
  And another echo chamber is born.

pfdietz 1y ago

Remember this one? https://dynamicsgptipsandtraps.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/dilbertrwtemp.jpg https://dynamicsgptipsandtraps.wordpress.com/wp-content/uplo... "The clue meter is reading zero." Everyone at Motorola recognized it immediately.

vintagedave 1y ago
Why, what’s the backstory?
- pfdietz 1y ago
  They had a program called Individual Dignity Entitlement as well as mandatory drug testing.
- umeshunni 1y ago
  Found this on an ex-Motorola employee's blog: The IDE process at Motorola asked every employee to answer “yes” or “no” to six questions; 1. Do you have a substantive, meaningful, job that contributes to the success of Motorola? 2. Do you know the job behaviours and have the knowledge base to be successful? 3. Has training been identified and made available to continuously upgrade your skills? 4. Do you have a career plan, is it exciting, achievable and being acted on? 5. Have you received candid, positive or negative feedback within the last 30 days, which has helped in improving your performance or achieving your career plan? 6. Is adequate sensitivity shown by the company towards your personal circumstances, gender and culture? This was done online every quarter and followed by a one-to-one with your boss to discuss how you could improve things together. Every manager in your reporting line could see your results and your own boss would expect to see your action plan to improve your team’s scores over time. What do you think of this? A draconian measure or a positive statement of a minimum standard of expectation for all employees? At the time of IDE being implemented, I was struck by the choice of language; • INDIVIDUAL • DIGNITY • ENTITLEMENT It’s a declaration of what we are choosing to become as an organisation; what we want the experience of being a Motorolan (and yes, that is a thing) to be. It’s universal and unbounded by grade, function or language and culture. It’s a clear message to every manager of the minimum expectation of them in relation to the people they lead. It humbles the role of “manager” to be in service of their employees’ entitlement to dignity at work. Then there is the “yes/no” answer. No score of 1-10 or five point Likert scale or shades-of-grey adequacy. You either do or you don’t; clear and uncompromising. The implementation of IDE was often painful. Employees worried about the consequences of saying “no”. Managers worried what consequences would arise from negative scores. Everyone was anxious about the one to one conversations.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> good percentage of youtubers and substackers today actively cultivate their readership as a source of new material. They're more of a refining prism or filter for an otherwise unstated concerns than a source of wisdom Isn’t that all comedy? It’s halting because it’s true. And sure, we may find striking truth through meditation. But it’s more likely to hit you in the real world.

tim333 1y ago

Here's a theory why Scott went from funny to a bit weird alt right. For much of the time he was getting users sending office stories by email, but in more recent times was on twitter and getting info from the alt right bunch on there who push a lot of weird stuff. The reason he got banned from most papers was getting sucked into this stuff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white

7thaccount 1y ago
Dilbert was such a revolutionary comic strip in a lot of ways. Here are a few things related to Scott Adams and Dilbert that have stood out to me over the years. Apologize in advance if any of this sounds like it came from an LLM. Me and most of my family just like to info dump on subjects of interest. I didn't understand it much as a kid, but later read an old copy of his book on how offices and office culture works (basically each chapter is Scott describing office did functionality with a liberal sprinkling of related Dilbert comics) and literally almost everything was 1:1 with the company I was at, only it was a good bit toned down of course. The beauty was that it was somehow generally applicable anywhere a company gets above a certain amount of employees. There was a lot of good information there such as how the company tries to get you to poop on yourself in your performance review in order to justify not giving you a raise or firing you (see - you yourself said that you needed improvement in working with others). There are many other insights as well that I found useful in my career. A lot of it is common sense, but it helped me come to terms with the irrationality of the corporate world. Every few years I reread it and find it more applicable than before. He later wrote a book on why he thought Trump beat Hillary and it also had a ton of insights I didn't think about as I'm not a marketer. Anyone on Hilary's campaign team should read it. Of course it doesn't cover how Hilary was painted as some kind of evil queen from a fairy tale since the 90s. Scott kinda acts a bit nuts in this book though as he goes off on frequent tangents about being a trained hypnotist and how he recognized that Trump was doing the same thing. One of the many examples was that both of them went on SNL, but Trump attempted to act presidential, while Hilary was attempting to act more like the common person and it just didn't work and came off unprofessional. He also flew in a plane that looked like Air Force One and gave press conferences with a little fake Oval office desk. Adams also came up with the term "confuseopoly" to describe companies that make it so hard to compare products and companies that you have to purchase on vibes. Economics textbooks use it now along with his blog example of trying to buy a truck. I see this dark pattern everywhere now. I hadn't really thought about the twitter angle you talk about, but did notice his blog started changing back in 2016ish. I just attributed it to him running out of ideas for the comic and finding that grifting made him more money. I guess you really can see some of the shift in reading the more recent books, which is sad.

alickz 1y ago

You see it sometimes on Reddit in /r/comics, where someone will post a comic and then the idea for the next comic comes from a comment on the first one etc.

xhkkffbf 1y ago

There were plenty of cartoons in the paper that solicited ideas from readers. There Ought To Be a Law comes to mind, but I'm sure there were others. https://archive.jsonline.com/greensheet/there-oughta-be-a-law-tapped-readers-for-material-b99707747z1-378193161.html https://archive.jsonline.com/greensheet/there-oughta-be-a-la...