A phone zombie is a regular pedestrian turned zombie walker because they’re busy staring at their phone.

Sometimes it’s hard not to be a phone zombie—whether it’s a notification about where you’re about to meet, a message about something you just finished at work, texting to say you’re on your way home, a sudden thought to look something up, reading a weekly newsletter, or maybe it’s just switching the podcast. On a long, quiet street on my commute, I’ve also read a book while walking. There are so many reasons why it’s easy to turn into a phone zombie walking unthinkingly down the street.

Once, while waiting for a crossing light to change and checking train times on my phone, I noticed the people around me starting to cross. Taking my cue, I began to walk too, only realising a few steps later, with a car bearing down on me, that the light hadn’t changed to signal it was ok to cross. I’ve also seen people walk into cyclists, a near miss with a bus driving close to the curb, and someone tripping and falling. Take care, and don’t let it be you!

Also known as smartphone zombies, smombie for short, or zombie pedestrians.

You can get a printed gift of phone zombies, but as zombies aren't that nice to look at, I also made a friendlier version of phone zombies

Also see: continuous partial attention, when drinking tea and phubbing

Phone zombie

The Pyramid Principle is an approach to getting your message across by starting with the main idea supported by the relevant facts or arguments grouped by linking ideas. In this way, the writer clearly makes their point and shows how each idea supports it rather than having the reader try to piece it together as they muddle through.*

As everyone is different, we can't help others draw inferences different than we intend if we present each point in isolation. Instead, leading the reader through by first showing where you're going then raising and answering questions in turn, helps make the reader's life easier.

Barbara Minto, who presented this idea in her book The Pyramid Principle, distinguishes between our everyday approach of thinking through an issue where we often start bottom-up and ultimately get to, or figure out, our main point at the end. While this may be fine for a memo to reschedule a meeting, it's not ideal for an important proposal. Communicating bottom-up makes the reader work harder throughout and risks losing them along the way. Minto advocates doing the work upfront of organising your ideas and presenting them top-down, in a pyramid fashion, to get to the outcomes you want.

Rather confusingly, a related writing technique for journalism is called inverted pyramid writing.

*I first wrote the last sentence here in reverse while thinking through my point: "In this way, rather than having the reader wonder as they go through what point you're making and how the ideas fit together, you have instead done this work for them." Interesting to compare the two.

The Pyramid Principle

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is fond of saying:

"Timing, perseverance and ten years of trying will eventually make you seem like an overnight success."

Rarely have I heard someone so clearly articulate both what it usually takes to do well at something and how commonly we misrepresent the path to success.

Biz Stone explains his story in Things a Little Bird Told Me. 

Also see: the long nose of innovation, survivorship bias, optimism bias, Hofstadter's law, Kitty Hawk moment

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Overnight success