A very Happy, healthy and prosperous Diwali to you!

So, I'm on a week-long holiday in sunny Kerala and especially loved the backwaters of Kumarakom and the fascinating multicultural ethos of Fort Kochi.

An area called Kuttanad is one of the many interesting places I learnt about during the vacation. It's located just south of the Vembanad lake (India's longest lake). It is among just two sites globally where farming happens below sea level (around about 4 to 10 feet below). More on the history of Kuttanad (also known as the rice bowl of Kerala) here.

And now, on to the newsletter.

Welcome to the eighty-eighth edition of '3-2-1 by Story Rules'.

A newsletter recommending good examples of storytelling across:

3 tweets
2 articles, and
1 long-form content piece

Let's dive in.

𝕏 3 Tweets of the week

Interesting stat. Didn't know the difference is so stark. Our promoters sure do love their control!

That second list can be uncomfortably long for me...

If you had told me 10 years back, that Halloween would become a big deal in India, I would have laughed you off. But boy, is this a popular event in India today!

📄 2 Articles of the week

a. 'Writes and Write nots' by Paul Graham

An interesting and provocative perspective by Paul Graham (one of the OG internet writers), on what might happen to the skill of writing in the age of Gen-AI.

Paul has long made the case that clear writing is clear thinking:

The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it's fundamentally difficult. To write well you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.

And yet writing pervades many jobs, and the more prestigious the job, the more writing it tends to require.

His provocative point? In the Gen-AI age, the world will be divided into just two categories - writes and write-nots:

The result will be a world divided into writes and write-nots. There will still be some people who can write. Some of us like it. But the middle ground between those who are good at writing and those who can't write at all will disappear. Instead of good writers, ok writers, and people who can't write, there will just be good writers and people who can't write.

He still makes a strong case to learn to write for yourself:

You can't make this point better than Leslie Lamport did: "If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking."

So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too.

This situation is not unprecedented. In preindustrial times most people's jobs made them strong. Now if you want to be strong, you work out. So there are still strong people, but only those who choose to be.

It will be the same with writing. There will still be smart people, but only those who choose to be.

I think he is being a bit extreme here. I know of a lot of very smart people (much smarter than me) who don't write (or need to write) at all.

Still, I liked the 'working out' analogy. This newsletter is where I get my weekly reps btw!

b. 'Five proven prompt engineering techniques (and a few more-advanced tactics)' by Mike Taylor

In a nice contrast to the previous article, this one teaches you how to create better drafts using ChatGPT. In this guest post for Lenny Rachitsky's newsletter, Mike Taylor shares some useful ChatGPT prompts.

(I don't know the reason behind the fancy term of 'prompt engineering'. Why can't we just call it prompt writing?)

Here's an example cited in the article

Situation: You’re preparing for a crucial meeting with the engineering team to discuss a new feature’s technical feasibility.

Problem: You’re not confident in your ability to articulate the technical requirements clearly and persuasively.

Prompt: “You are an expert software architect known for bridging the gap between product vision and technical implementation. Help me prepare talking points for a meeting with our engineering team about the technical feasibility of our new AI-powered recommendation engine.”

Another technique stated by Mike is copying the style of someone you admire:

Prompt templates:

- Prompt 1: “Describe the key elements of [expert]’s style/skill in bullet points.”

- Prompt 2: “Do [task] in the following style: [style].” Note: The key-element bullet points we get in response to the first prompt go into the second prompt as the style guide.

I don't use these techniques (nor do I plan to...). But interesting to see how folks are using creative prompts in ChatGPT.

🎧 1 long-form listen of the week

a. 'How To Actually Build Lasting Memories With Your Kids' | Tod Francis on the Startup Dad Podcast

I don't remember how I came across this podcast episode - whether it was on Twitter or while casually browsing the podcast app. But I'm so glad I did.

It is such an eye-opening conversation about cultivating stronger relationships (and building lasting memories) with your kids, especially if they are pre-teens or teenagers.

The guest is a VC investor called Tod Francis (investments in Canva, Task Rabbit, Mint). But he's not been interviewed for his investment skills. He is here to talk about how he managed to build a strong relationship with his two adult sons and to discuss the results of a fascinating study he ran with young adults about their relationship with their parents.

What prompted Tod to run the study was the surprised reaction of his friends to him sharing pics of having enjoyable experiences with his teenage kids:

... you know, (I) might post an outing, maybe a bike ride with my 13-year-old or a camping trip with my 14-year-old son, and people would be like, whoa, how are you getting your teenage kids to spend weekends doing this kind of thing? Like I'm having a hard time getting them away from the TV or the video games and off the computer. And so I kept getting this feedback very frequently... and it made me realize, whoa, this is an important topic for people

What's super cool is what Tod did next. He figured out that the best people to ask about the relationship are the kids themselves:

My thought was, okay, I don't want to talk to other parents about this because they have their views that are skewed as a parent and how they think they're doing. Well, I want to talk to young adults who've just been in the households with their parents. So the youngest access I could get in a research study was 18 to 21, I think was the age group.

I really loved the questions that Tod framed for the survey (he got responses from around 1,250-1,500 young adults):

How's your relationship with your father? How's your relationship with your mother? What activities did you enjoy doing? What are some of the special memories you had as a child?

Of these 20 activities, what are the five most memorable of these?

And then I finished with a question of which I thought was the best question because here's an 18, 19 year old, maybe a college kid, someone out of their home. It's like, if you could spend a day with your parents, an afternoon with your parents, how would you design to do it? And I felt like that might bring out the most authentic way they wanted to connect with their parents.

The responses are quite eye-opening and I would highly encourage all parents to listen to the conversation in full.

The biggest insight for me was the concept of the time-pyramid:

...so think of a pyramid, you have the base layer, the foundation is where we spend 98 per cent of our time. And this is not a criticism. This is a recognition that most of our time is spent in the processing or foundation layer with our kids.

It is getting ready for school, taking them to school, picking them up at soccer, going to soccer, tutoring, going to these things. It's a lot of processing.This is super important again, I'm not taking away from it, but that's not where the connections are made. It's where we spend most of our time. It's not where you're connected.

The mindblowing part - just around 2% of the time we spend with our kids leave them with the most lasting memories. Around 98% of the time is spent just doing basic 'maintenance' or logistics tasks.

In fact, Tod uses the provocative line of this layer being like a reporting relationship - with the child 'reporting' to the parent and looking for their approval:

...ultimately, you know, when you're with your child, most of the time they are kind of reporting to you. And what I mean by that is pick them up school. How was school? Well, what kind of question is that? That is like, how was school? Oh, wait, I got to tell him how I did. How was the soccer game? Oh, I got to tell him if we won or lost, I got to tell him how I did. Do you see what I mean? It's not like you're going through it together. You are like reporting into your parent...

Let's face it. You are in command as a parent. You are in charge. So you are in a vertical relationship with your child, and that needs to happen. We need to have, you know, authority and rules and boundaries. So again, not taking away from it, but we spend most of our time in that kind of relationship.

Connections and lasting memories aren't made at this level. They are made at the next level:

The next layer is where the connections start, and I call it side by side, and I would turn that vertical arrow to a horizontal area, where you have two humans side by side. And what happened is, these themes started to become more clear when I read the comments. The feedback was, what are your favorite memories? Camping, hiking, road trips, cooking, games, one on one time, by the way, I really want to emphasize for any parent listening to this, The kids want one-on-one time. There are literally comments of like, you know, my sister or my brother, you can insert either word is just overwhelms every time I'm with my parents.

There are many more interesting insights in the conversation. I have already started thinking about and trying to use some of these principles in my case. (I enjoyed a lovely one-on-one kayak ride with my 12-year-old son in the Kerala trip, for instance!)

Highly recommend that you listen to the full episode.

That's all from this week's edition.

Ravi

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Ravishankar Iyer

How to Build Lasting Memories with your Children (3-2-1 by Story Rules #88)

𝕏 3 Tweets of the week

📄 2 Articles of the week

🎧 1 long-form listen of the week

The Fascinating Story of Oil (3-2-1 by Story Rules #90)

India's Centre-State Fiscal Schisms (3-2-1 by Story Rules #89)

A Data Story on India's New Elites (3-2-1 by Story Rules #87)