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Ada Powers Profile picture
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11 May, 5 tweets, 1 min read
Serious question! I know and agree with all the critiques of the "manager README" popular a few years ago. I'm starting a senior position soon—I'm also trans and neurodivergent, and have been burned at work by those things before. Would a short personal FAQ still be a bad idea?
Great thread of critiques (#1)
Great thread of critiques (#2)
Basically, I'm stuck between wanting to get some stuff out in the open that's affected me negatively as an IC, while also reckoning properly with the power dynamics implicit in being even a senior.
What I'm taking away from the critiques I've read could be summed up as "personal documentation is mildly presumptive, but it only becomes actively harmful when inaccurate to the point of negating a person's experience of you, or when used to abdicate your own responsibility".

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More from @mspowahs

Ada Powers Profile picture
10 May
You can tell a lot about how much an industry values a role by how it's gatekept. The stages seem to be:
- Hostile
- Resistant ("pitch it next quarter")
- DIY ("20% project")
- Buzzword (wild enthusiasm, 0 credential check, 0 support)
- Bought in (roles given only to white guys)
The stage after that? Purely theoretical
Another way of expressing resistance is the "120% project" (do what you want, just don't let it impact your existing work in the slightest or require any budget or process changes)
Read 4 tweets
Ada Powers Profile picture
6 May
What are the best resources, tips, advice you have for how (and why) to break into UX? I’m getting a lot of DMs about it, but thanks to my highly idiosyncratic career path, I’m actually the worst person to ask 😬
“Study HCI at a top-tier uni, work in Don Norman’s lab, resist UX for years on principle, leave academia in a huff, let your skills degrade, become a queer punk, reconsider UX from an industry activism/harm reduction perspective, then get people to take a chance on you.” Easy
This might become more meaningful writing later, but for now I just threw a few links that look moderately helpful on first skim into Notion. <3

notion.so/powers/Breakin…
Read 4 tweets
Ada Powers Profile picture
8 Apr
totally love that twitter swapped the filled/outlined button styles for people you're following/not following on lists of likes. super stoked that the active style is no longer a state indicator but a prompt vying for cognitive bandwidth. my peripheral vision really respects it
[sees someone cool] HOW am i not following them alread—oh. i am. fuck you
not you. [gestures] them
Read 4 tweets
Ada Powers Profile picture
1 Mar
Putting @PostTechRadio on temporary hiatus! After four episodes I'm really proud of, I wanna take a couple weeks to tighten some things up, then come back swingin'. In the meantime, check out the great conversations we've had so far:
Our first episode with @jordonaut and @tobamese blew my mind, and made me excited for where this project could go. We talked tips on creating worker-owned tech co-ops, and navigating the ever-present tension between human and business needs.
Next, in a last-minute ass-saving, @tobamese jumped in to co-host again and brought along @quarefutures, who's so rad I could barely even. We talked queer and embodied futurism, weird and visionary fiction, and the many links between sci-fi and UX design.
Read 7 tweets
Ada Powers Profile picture
8 Aug 20
Anyone interrogating their gender eventually has to answer the question for themselves: is any dissonance—or yearning euphoria—I feel a response to identity, or role? But whatever the answer, know that you owe no camp your fealty; repression is a praxis borne only of scarcity. 1/
It is acceptable, even awesome, to want your gender to inhabit a place that is political: but there are infinite ways to do so, and all of them are more effective when they come from a place of authenticity, where your full creativity can be unleashed. 2/
Let the people for whom their camp feels most like home fight their battles; they too will be more effective for it. And also, it is yet another falsehood that transness requires the total severing of ties. You can decide the nuance of your affiliation. 3/
Read 5 tweets
Ada Powers Profile picture
29 Jul 20
In an effort to contribute to the growing corpus of #ActuallyUsefulADHDTips, I want to share one of the concepts that has been most helpful for me in collaborating with my brain: strategic externalization of agency, or what I'm calling SEA. (THREAD)
SKIM LEGEND:

1-13
Background

14-24
"Object permanence",
Social interventions,
Pomodoros,
Ritual

25-36
Cognitive load audits

37-45
Case study,
Cohabitation

46-49
Summary
1/ I think SEA's a useful concept for a few reasons:
1. It's the invisible root of a lot of ADHD advice.
2. Implementing it effectively requires a pragmatic acceptance of your unique brain, which is a thing most of us are working on.
3. Neurotypical folks can benefit from it too!
Read 52 tweets

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