She is probably right. She usually is.
## The Alliance Conference
In mid-October, Julia confirmed my slot at the Alliance’s spring conference. It is a half-day session rather than a breakout, which is a different level of platform. The audience will be larger and the expectations correspondingly higher, which is a good kind of pressure.
I told Daniel about it at dinner.
He asked about the topic. I explained the framework I was developing, an extension of the friction-mapping concept toward what I was calling structural friction — the difference between friction that comes from a specific bad process and friction that comes from the organization’s underlying structure, which requires different interventions. He listened carefully. He asked two questions, both of which were good questions, the kind that push on the assumptions rather than just accepting the framing.
At the end he said: “You should write that up.”
“Write what up?”
“The structural friction thing. Like an article or something. It seems like a concept that people in your field would want to read about.”
I looked at him. I had been thinking, vaguely, about writing something for one of the Alliance’s publications. I had not said this to him. “That’s actually what I was thinking.”
“Okay. So do it.”
It was not a remarkable conversation. It was the conversation that should have been available to us from the beginning: two people who talk about their work over dinner and actually listen to each other. It was available now.
I am going to write the article. Julia has already connected me with the editor of the Alliance’s quarterly. The draft is due in December.