Clay Parker Jones

Clay Parker Jones

I lead Organizational Design at Airbnb. Previously: August, Undercurrent.

Worse Is Better

I was familiar with “Weniger aber besser”. But until I started diving into Linux vs. Unix (as a result of my week in Vegas) I’d never heard of “Worse is Better.” It’s a concept in software engineering that indicates an inverse relationship between quality and functionality (more functionality

Feb 8, 2014 2 min read

Five Practical Things N° 1

Rules for Critique Tools for thinkingAn excerpt from Daniel Dennett’s new book, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, outlines seven of Dennett’s tools for thikottke.orgJason Kottke These basically work for feedback, too. Copying mostly whole-cloth from Kottke until the book he references magically appears via Prime.

Jan 19, 2014 4 min read
Five Things

Five Strategy Things N° 4

Super Bowl spending; Robots; Defining Strategy; Loyalty Cards r Bad; Disruption & Airbnb; How to win championships.

Jan 2, 2014 5 min read

The Undercurrent Skills Maturity Matrix

This development tool is designed to give strategists clarity into their path forward, help them define and deepen strengths, and give managers a way to guide their directs.

Nov 12, 2013 7 min read

Complex Good

Build discoverable complexity (otherwise known as interestingness) into your business and brand.

Aug 31, 2013 3 min read

Forty Business Tips

These are all really two tips: focus on service and execution; if it’s not working, get out.

Aug 19, 2013 5 min read

Objection Criteria & Strategy Reviews

Along with a few other folks in the UC “Management” crew, I spent Monday and Tuesday learning about Holacracy. It’s an interesting organizing idea that deserves a much longer set of posts, but the five-second version is that it’s a explicitly structured, distributed-authority, adaptive decision-making system that aims

Jun 27, 2013 1 min read

Communicating Intent

Remember Commander’s Intent? Basically: a nugget of communicable strategy that helps a team make effective decisions in the face of changing conditions. It’s primarily a military thing, but since we use words like “campaign” a lot (whatup, Cannes?) I think we’re allowed to continue our appropriation of

Jun 21, 2013 2 min read
Radar

On Advertising

There’s a lot of back-and-forth on the internet about the value of banners, the value of social, and whether or not it’s a good idea generally to advertise on the internet. I’m not sure where we’ll all come down on this – ultimately I think we all

Mar 25, 2013 1 min read

On Resolution & Parameterization

Numerical weather modeling splits up the globe into a series of three-dimensional pixels. It applies a ton of math to the data representing each of those pixels to make predictions about the movement, intensity and impact of weather systems. These predictions are generated by specific models developed by groups of

Mar 25, 2013 2 min read

Aviation: Not Easy

From the chronicles of “Easier Said Than Done, Airline Edition”: five lessons on innovation and the future of organizing.

Mar 5, 2013 1 min read

The Awesome Science of Cheetos

Lots of interesting stuff lately on the internet about food. The first is from the trailing end of a meandering piece on The Awl about a “McWorld” in Times Square. The author is suggesting the eponymous fast-food giant build a Disneyland/Mecca for Big Mac lovers in NYC, with a

Feb 23, 2013 4 min read