I had tacos with Chase Jarvis earlier this year and he asked if he could record part of our chat on voice memos.

I’ve written more about a lot of the topics we chatted about and wanted to link to them here:

• “Comfort Work,” like “comfort food” and “comfort viewing,” comfort work is work that I do when I don’t know what else to do. It is actual work, but it is comforting.
• “Creative tension” — a lot of creative work is the result of being pulled between two poles, and finding energy in the tension of that pull. Think of a guitar string: if it’s too slack, the string buzzes and makes no music; if it’s too tight, it snaps.
• Friction, or “Resistance is necessary.” Artists need something to push against. Like when you’re riding a bike — too much or too little friction means you won’t go anywhere.
• Subtraction: This gets a whole chapter in Steal Like an Artist, but basically the idea is that when you subtract certain elements and put some constraints on yourself, it actually activates your creativity rather than squashing it.

You can listen to the whole chat here and check out our typewriter interview.

Today’s teens aren’t informed or confident enough about what they want to do after graduation – research shows that more than 65 percent feel they would have benefited from more career exploration during middle and high school. Moreover, 87% of middle schoolers were interested in ways to match their specific skills and passions with potential careers. This can’t possibly happen in the classroom alone, so why not meet them where they are—on their phones. Working with thousands of teens, American Student Assistance (ASA) created EvolveMe™, a free digital resource that gives teens fun digital experiences to learn about education and career possibilities that match their interests, along with building skills and confidence. It prepares teens for their career journey by incentivizing them to explore, experiment, and take actions via tasks related to mentorships, virtual internships, mock job interview coaching, and coding challenges offer transferable skills development, mentorships, and real-world experiences like virtual internships opportunities. EvolveMe works because we co-created it with thousands of kids who gave us feedback and direction on everything from features and functionality, platform names, color palette, fonts, and overall design. There are nearly two million users now and more than 200 career tasks. For these reasons and more, EvolveMe earned a Cool Tool Award (finalist) for “Best Career Planning Solution” as part of the EdTech Awards 2024 from EdTech Digest. Learn more. 

The post EvolveMe appeared first on EdTech Digest.

Today’s newsletter might be my favorite I’ve ever sent out:

I figured a letter sent out on such a Tuesday better be full of delight. Luckily, today we have the marvelous Lynda Barry with us. To celebrate the release of the paperback edition of her masterpiece What It Is, she answered a batch of my questions via the United States Postal Service…

No artist has had a bigger impact on my work, so you can imagine what this meant to me!

You can read the whole interview here.

Filed under: typewriter interviews

My latest typewriter interview is with Chase Jarvis, who has interviewed me many times over the years. You can read the whole thing here.

I guess this really is a series now? I’m sending out questions to a new batch of folks this week, so stay tuned. (You can read the others here.)