Change One – Or, When a Publisher Developed a Diet, and it Didn't Completely Suck

Do you remember the Change One diet and fitness plan?

I expect you probably don't, it was a brief flash-in-the-pan thing that didn't take off the way the diet's creators were hoping it would. And those creators were... The Reader's Digest.

Literally, it was the Readers Digest – the magazine. Staff writers and editors. They created a diet and fitness plan for a book they were trying to sell.

I first encountered the Change One plan back in the early 2000s when the Reader's Digest magazine ran a few articles promoting the diet and the book they had published about it. They were probably hoping it would pick up the kind of traction the CSIRO's Total Wellbeing Diet had (and still has), but it didn't. They did reissue it in 2014, but the Readers Digest don't even mention it any more.

And yet, it was actually a really good idea. I didn't manage to read the book until a couple of years ago when I found it in a library, and the book itself was... well, it's what you might expect from a diet book written by the dietitians employed by the Reader's Digest. Which is to say: largely indistinguishable from any other cookbook based on a diet, and filled with recipes and "meal plans" that no one has time for.

I don't know why dietitians who write books with meal plans forget that most of us work full time and have no energy to cook, but they do. They seem to assume we've all got buckets of time to spend on food preparation and we're all really engaged in making "proper" meals in the kitchen. We are not. Those of us who aren't super food conscious are just looking for something we can throw together after work without a lot of planning, preparation or forethought. And, I think I'm not alone in saying this, we don't really want a meal plan that involves thinking of 21 different meals for the week. Eating the same thing for several lunches is okay. It really is.

But I digress.

Apart from the fact that the Change One meal plan had the same problems as pretty much every meal plan book I've ever seen, it was kind of sensible. Remarkably so.

In fact, I would go so far as to say the Change One programme (or, at least, the basic concepts behind it) was one of the best I've ever seen. Even better – dare I say it – than the CSIRO programmes. I think, if you put the CSIRO programme and the Change One programme into a blender, you might end up with one of the best things ever produced in this genre.

The basic idea behind the Change One programme was that you focus on changing one thing at a time. Instead of overhauling your entire diet, you overhaul breakfast. Spend a couple of weeks getting some new breakfast habits bedded down. Then change one aspect of your exercise habits, like making a point to go for a walk at the same time every afternoon.

After a few weeks of eating your overhauled breakfast and going for a walk every afternoon – so that it becomes a pattern you can just maintain, rather than something you consciously have to work on – change what you do for lunch, and build some healthier habits around that. And so forth and so on; just keep changing one part of your life at a time, give yourself a few weeks to absorb the new habits, and then stack another habit change on top of that.

A heck of a lot of the book was just the “sensible” advice you would get from your average middle-aged GP, who has seen the fads but isn't invested in them. Sure, the composition of the food they recommended was based on the preference for “low fat” food that existed at the time, but the idea behind the programme – that you overhaul your life one change at a time, and keep everything you do at a level you can maintain long term – is a good one.

I have a habit of reading self-help books for fun. They normally are a bit like reading a science fiction novel, or a holiday romance or cosy crime: something comfortingly familiar, but you aren't going to suddenly go out and fly a space ship, fall in love with a billionaire or solve a murder. I'm also not going to suddenly get my act together because I read a book that recommended I eat X number of calories in a day. I'm not going to count calories; I don't mix maths and food.

But, what I will do is potentially listen to a little bit of sensible advice that can work with my stupid executive dysfunction.

I may not do it immediately, but eventually something might stick. I can't remember the details of the diet, now that it's been a few years since I read it, but the idea of gradual, stacked improvements has been floating around in the soup that is my brain for some time now, and might eventually do me some good. Who knows?

The Master and the Student.

 

Image generated using DALL-E 3
via Bing Image Creator

I've been involved with (or I've been sitting in on) a lot of meetings at the moment about the future of assessment in a post AI world.

How can you ensure the students are actually learning when they can use AI to complete any part of any assessment for which they have advanced warning? If your goal is to test their own, actual knowledge, the options available are limited. They grow even more limited if you don't want every assessment item to be some kind of invigilated exam.

So what can we do to make sure the graduates of our universities actually meet the graduate attributes? In a world where it's almost impossible to survive without hustling, how can we ensure the student who has graduated from your university actually learned anything, apart from how to hustle their degree?

To be honest, I'm not sure you can. The more I hear and read about this conundrum, the more I think about the implications of this Brave New World in which we find ourselves, the more I think our current education system can't continue to work like this.

What's the solution? 

Well, some clever bunny somewhere is going to come up with a better option for assessing large numbers of students with small numbers of teachers and markers, but I think the only "true" solution that will let us ensure the graduates actually know their stuff is to go back to the old "Masters' Apprentices" way of doing things. Small numbers of students attached to teacher who is able to regularly talk to them and watch them work, and glean from those conversations and observations if they know what they are doing.

This is going to fly in the face of budget conscious higher education institutions who want to have hundreds of "bums on seats" while only having scant handfuls of academic faculty members on the payroll.

But I honestly think this is the way we need to go to ensure we aren't completely deskilling ourselves and undermining our future. The Capitalist way of delivering education has just "Capitalist-ed" itself into a corner, and it was barely fit for purpose before it became possible to outsource your every thought and sentence to a machine.

How can you ensure your students actually know their stuff before they go out into the real world? By talking to them. Really, deeply, meaningfully talking to them. Have a real conversation with them about what they know and how they would apply that knowledge. Give them puzzles to solve and be with them, as they solve them – watching how they go about it, asking them about their processes.

This is, I feel, the best way to know if you are happy to release that student out in the world to be a professional in your field.

Tough and Competent, or: Ad Astra per Aspera

For some time, I had a badly drawn image of the Apollo 1 Command Module on my desk. I recently replaced it when I needed a badge design to upskill myself with the library's badge maker. Instead of a poorly drawn image, I now have a home-made badge using the official mission insignia.

I've been slightly obsessed with the Apollo 1 mission ever since I first read about it. You may be more familiar with Apollo 11 (landed on the moon) and Apollo 13 (had a movie with Tom Hanks), and maybe Apollo 17 (last manned mission to the moon), but Apollo 1 was the first manned Apollo mission. Then they had a bunch of unmanned missions and tests before having the second manned mission with Apollo 7.

Why such a long gap between manned missions? Because Apollo 1 was a death trap. All three astronauts were killed in a systems test before they even got close to launch.

The Command Module of Apollo 1 (which I had badly sketched to keep on my desk) was riddled with problems. It had faulty wiring, flammable materials and a badly designed hatch that couldn't be easily opened from the inside if it was under pressure. As it turns out, the hatch couldn't be easily opened from the outside either, if the inside was on fire. 

They pumped the thing with oxygen for the "plugs-out" test, then an exposed bit of wire overheated and the interior of the module went up in flames. Then, thanks to the poor hatch design, they couldn't get out of the module to escape the fire.

They also couldn't call for help, because the comms system was faulty and kept cutting out. The patchy recording of the crew's last words included the phrase "How are we going to get to the Moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings?"

Why did I keep a drawing of this death trap on my desk? Why do I now have the mission patch as a badge?

Because every single one of the faults that lead to the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee were noticed before the test. They knew each and every one of these problems (and many more besides) existed, individually, prior to trapping these three men in a tiny fire bomb.

No one took the time to fix them, because there were budgets and deadlines to meet. And no one made sure you could get out of the module if something went wrong, because everyone just assumed nothing would go wrong.

This disaster, and the knowledge that it was entirely preventable if people just took the time to fix the little isolated problems when they noticed them, lead to Gene Kranz, the Chief Flight Director of Mission Control, making the following speech:

“Space flight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity and neglect. Somewhere, somehow we screwed up. It could have been a design in build or in test, but whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung-ho about the schedule, and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work.

“Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, 'Damnit. Stop.'

“I don’t know what the Thompson Committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause. We were not ready. We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day when, in our hearts, we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did.

“From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words, 'tough’ and 'competent.' 

"Tough means we will forever be accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control, we will know what we stand for.

“Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect."

 "Tough and Competent."

Tough means we will not compromise when it comes to our responsibilities, competent means we will not fall short in our knowledge and skills.

I have this reminder of Apollo 1 floating around to remind me that I should try to take care of a problem when I see it. I should make sure that, when I do a job, I should make a point of doing a good job. 

I know nothing I do will ever be perfect. I know I'm not capable of doing perfect work – and I'm especially not capable of single handedly changing an organisational culture that is far from "tough and competent"... But...

But insofar as it's within my ability to do so, I should strive to be tough and competent. Insofar as it's in my ability to do so, I should encourage the people I work with and work for to be tough and competent.

It's easy to forget this when you have deadlines and budgets to meet, and when some of the problems you notice aren't yours to fix, and some of the jobs you have to do are outside of your current abilities.

Sure, no one is going to die in a fireball if I let something slide, but I expect whoever didn't get around to checking they'd removed the nylon from inside the Command Module before the plugs-out test didn't expect a tragic outcome either.

No harm comes from doing a good job.

Yes! And...

It took me a ridiculously long time to understand the point of "Yes, And..."

I didn't get it at all when I was in school and my drama teacher was trying to get us to learn improv skills.

I didn't really get it at university, where I was studying to be a drama teacher (gods save us).

I barely got it when I was a drama teacher, and certainly didn't understand it well enough to teach it to my students (one of many reasons why I'm not a drama teacher today).

It wasn't until after I became a librarian and found a book on Improv Skills in the library I was working in that it all clicked into place. And, like many things that should be self evident, it was both a life-changing revelation and an embarrassing "well, duh!" moment.

"Yes, And...", for those of you who haven't been introduced to the joys of Improv, is an improvisational technique, but also the name of a Theatre Sports "game" that is designed to teach that technique. 

In this game, whenever anyone says anything, the other person is supposed to reply with "Yes, and..." and then say something that builds on what the other person said:

"Isn't it a lovely day today?"
"Yes, and the whether forecast is looking very promising for the weekend."
"Yes, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the football match."

"That person just shot a gorilla!"
"Yes, and not before time – that escaped gorilla was about to climb the Empire State building."
"Yes, and it would be dreadful to have to get the biplanes in."

"I really wish I hadn't watched that horror film straight after eating all that weird street food."
"Yes, and I really wish I wasn't sitting next to you at the time."

That's the game. In Improve, the principle of  "Yes, And..." is essentially the same, but you don't actually have to say the words "Yes, and..." You just have to keep going in the spirit of what has gone before:

"My goodness, Jack, you look like you've been dragged backwards through a hedge!"
"I was! A Hawthorn! By a Sasquatch!"
"Oh, no, don't tell me Benny's back in town?"

The fundamental idea of "Yes, And..." is that you just accept whatever reality has been offered to you and riff on it without hesitation – and offer the other players in the improv something to build on and riff with in return. It requires a complete lack of defensiveness and an open-handed generosity, with the understanding that your pride isn't at all important, but the flow of the story is.

Whatever the other person says to you, you're all in. Whatever character is suggested to you, that's who you are – no questions asked. Whatever offer is made, you accept whole-heartedly, without any ego.

Which is, of course, why high school students struggle with it so much. All teenagers instinctively feel very embarrassed at all times, and they want to try to protect themselves from anything that might threaten the appearance they want to present to the world. Teenagers and youths instinctively want to control the narrative, so they can control how people see them. 

In addition to this, conversations amongst teens and youths have a tendency to become combative. In a good Improv, the conversation is a volley and the aim is to keep it going for as long as possible while making it interesting for the audience. But most kids can't engage in a conversation as a game without trying to "win" by scoring points off your "opponents".

A good improve is supportive. You carry the rest of your team through it because you want everyone to be able to shine. Sometimes, for the sake of an amusing performance, this involves making at least one person an unfortunate clown. But this should never be done out of malice – only for the sake of the story. If everyone knows that they are safe, then they can play the clown happily without feeling like they are being attacked.

Because that's the point of "Yes, And...": to know that you are all part of the same team, and whatever ball you throw, you are throwing to a member of your team, and whatever ball is thrown in your direction is something you should catch and play, for the good of the team. And because we all have each other's back, we know to throw the balls in good faith, and to catch them with good grace.

Which is one of many reasons why I'm ashamed that it took me so long to understand the point of "Yes, And..." It's a principle I try to live by, these days – to varying degrees of success, it must be said, but I'm working on it.

Permitted and admitted

 With the rise of casual use of Generative AI software over the past year and a bit (has it really only been that long?), we've also seen a lovely little moral panic sweeping the nation(s).

Should we be using AI? Is it cheating? Is it being lazy? Is it ripping off millions of authors who actually had to work on something? Will it spawn a group of people who can't string a sentence together to save themselves?

The answer to every single one of those questions is "Yes... and no." 

Ever since the Industrial Revolution (which was, as far as I'm concerned, a Bad Idea) we have been devising ways to get a machine to do the bulk of our work for us. 

We replaced ourselves in the field with tractors (and then we replaced ourselves in the tractors with remote control and robots).

We replaced ourselves in the factories with rigs and jigs (and then with robots).

We replaced ourselves in the copyroom with printing presses, and then we replaced ourselves in the typing pool with computers... it was really only a matter of time before we replaced ourselves at the computers with robots.

Replacing ourselves with robots is just something we do. As our main industries moved from field to factory to office, where and how we replace ourselves moved with us.

Should we do it? Heck, we should probably still be tilling a field somewhere with a couple of oxen. Or at least making a cabinet out of actual wood with honest-to-god hand tools. And then we should be writing a letter with pen and paper to send to our friend who lives a 6 day journey from here. 

We're not going to do that, though. We're going to use whatever tools are available to us. It behooves us to learn to use them well so we can make a quality product.

Every time we invent a new tool to do the "heavy lifting" for us, we deskill ourselves in the old ways. We could keep whining about that, or we could just accept that this is what we do, and make a point of learning to use the new tools in a way that keeps us actively engaged in the quality control of the process.

Oh, and have a secret enclave of people who can still write actual sentences with their own brains and hands, for when the solar flare (or the cyber-terrorist EMP) wipes out technology and we need to rebuilt society after the resulting apocalypse. Basically, writing is going to become like knitting and woodwork - a quaint little hobby that will eventually save the human race.

Not that we're worth saving.

The important thing with using a tool that replaces us intellectually is that everyone is on the same page with this – we need to ensure no one reads something written by a machine and assumes a human wrote that.

Eventually, it will be assumed that all copy was written by a machine unless otherwise noted (just like we assume everything we use was made by a machine, even though the vast majority of the things we touch in our lives are still "handmade" by actual people in factories. Very, very poorly paid people in very, very unsafe factories...), but at this point in our evolution it's still the other way around.

So, for now, we still need to insist that any use of Generated AI is "permitted and admitted" – you don't use it when you were told not to, and whenever you do use it, you outline/admit to what you used it for.

My Job Still Doesn't Exist

 I was cleaning up some comments on this blog when one of them lead me to an old post from 2009:

My Job Doesn't Exist

In this post, I talked about how my job is almost entirely made up: I teach people to use things that they only need to use because I told them these things exist and they should use them. In the post I mentioned several tools that no longer exist - I'd completely forgotten they existed, to be honest, and we don't miss them. I wonder how many of the tools I teach people to use today will be forgotten relics of a brief period of time in the near future?

Almost 15 years later, I'm still teaching people to use tools they only need because we tell them they exist, but with slight variations. Instead of "training a unicorn to fly a spaceship", I'm now teaching people what they should now about flying spaceships with unicorns, so they understand the principles and can better adapt to the new spaceships they may encounter in the future and the legendary creatures that might be flying them.

But... 

Teaching transferable skills is all well and good, but - as I have bemoaned many a time - if these skills aren't transferable to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, then what's the good of them?

After the "something that happened", will we need to know how to use a database that uses boolean operators? I doubt it. Will we need a plumber? Yes.

If I run away from this job and move to a quaint sea-side town with a population of 20 farmers, 10 fisher folk and a vet, will these people need me to teach them how to use EndNote? Probably not. Could they do with someone who can make cupcakes and coffee? That's more likely.

What I do isn't real. I don't make anything real.

I need to learn how to bake bread. Bread is real. People will always need bread.

Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash

I Think it’s Only Fair to Warn You…

 A few years ago I bought a T-Shirt that had the quote “I think it’s only fair to warn you that I am, in fact, a librarian” (from the movie The Librarian) on the front of it.

Unfortunately, I bought a long-sleeved women’s shirt from an American store – completely forgetting that American women aren’t allowed to have arms. Or, if they do have arms, they aren’t allowed to wear clothes. As a result, whenever I put the shirt on, I have difficulty bending my arms and spend most of my time with them hanging limply by my side, like that character from Sesame Street who lost his elbow. Needless to say, I almost never wear it.

This is a shame, because I think I should probably go about my business wearing a suitable warning about my librarianship. I think people need to be warned that I have probably done some research prior to coming here tonight, and therefore have unexpected amounts of information about this topic that I ostensibly have no business knowing.

Take the other night, for example. I was at a Foundations course at my local bouldering club. We went around the table introducing ourselves and saying how much climbing we have done. Most people (except for someone who had been roped into trying it for the first time tonight) had at least six months experience; I’d just finished my two-week trial.

At some point one of the other participants asked a question, and I instinctively answered it. I was closest to her when she asked and the course instructor hadn’t heard her, so I just told her the answer. I watched her face move from “oh, okay…” to “…but wait, why would she know?” and I realised I hadn’t mentioned that I’d been reading up on bouldering in the past month or so and watching YouTube videos about it on and off since the last Olympics. I’m a librarian – if I’m interested in something, I look stuff up.

If I can do one thing to make my life worthwhile, it will be to introduce a second librarian stereotype into the mix. I know we’ll never be able to shift the idea of the crusty, old, cardigan-wearing lady in a dusty old building telling people to “shush”, but in library circles we have a completely different stereotype that I think the media would have fun with if they adopted it: The thirty-something person with green hair and tattoos who has always done pre-reading on every topic and will answer questions you didn’t even ask… even if you didn’t want them to.

Granted, I didn’t get tattoos until my 40s and when I coloured my hair I went purple. I’m also nowhere near hipster enough to truly match the stereotype we have within our circles (maybe I should start wearing a vest?), so I’m not personally going to be the biggest flagship for this stereotype. But that’s neither here nor there.

However, the “cardigan-wearing” thing is a keeper. We really do all have one close at hand.