"Geoff" has been running critical parts of every business on a Byzantine spreadsheet empire for 20 years. Every IT department wants to regulate him. Who's right? (Trick question: you need both.)

In this episode, we feel our way through the murky territory of protocols—from life-saving surgical checklists to shadow IT empires built by people like Geoff, who just want to get their jobs done without asking permission. What we discovered: protocols aren't the enemy. Neither are the people who break them. You need both, and—whether you like it or not—you're going to get both anyway.

Fascinations:

• Why giving someone just enough control over how they wash dishes is a vital part of management
• The novel "tracer dye" method for tracking shadow IT (and why Geoff will quickly find a way around it)
• How a 19th-century doctor was ejected from the medical community for [gasp!] suggesting surgeons wash their hands
• How expert oil rig workers can land helicopters in storms through tacit knowledge no checklist could capture
• The difference between a checklist, a flow chart, and knowing when neither will save you
• How social norms function as soft protocols (and why London Tube etiquette is more fragile than you think)

This one's for anyone who's ever tried to bring order to chaos — and for anyone resisting someone else's attempt to do the same.

Links and references

• Venkatesh Rao – "Summer of Protocols" / protocolization concept
• Vaughn Tan – "boring tiny tools" concept https://vaughntan.org/bttparadigm
• Ignaz Semmelweis – 19th-century physician who pioneered handwashing
• Atul Gawande – Author of The Checklist Manifesto
• Dave Snowden – Cynefin framework / oil rig helicopter story
• Gary Klein – Expert intuition and pattern recognition
• Procrustes – Greek mythology (innkeeper with the "one-size-fits-all" bed)
• Chick sexing – Example of tacit knowledge that can't be articulated
• Social protocols – Norms like cheek-kissing customs across cultures
• Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) / Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) – Technical protocol examples

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