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Putting Irregular.Cafe on Hiatus
I’ve been doing Monday – Friday morning Zoom calls for more than a month now as the Irregular.Cafe project. These have been a lot of fun for me, but interest has been dropping. I don’t want to run them into the ground, so I’m going to put them on hiatus for a few weeks. I…
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Playing with Levels of Fidelity
When building software as a team, you need to pay attention to the levels of fidelity of your representation. Developing software to be shared with the world can be a long, arduous process; it is full of all the boring and malicious bits of testing, polishing, and generally getting the idea ready for the world.…
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Community Development on the Brain
Yesterday, I read a piece by Jay Clouse on building community. I’ve been reading Brad Feld’s new book, The Startup Community Way. I’m currently in Seth Godin’s Creative Workshop. I’ve got community on the brain again. I first started to develop a passion for communities back in 2013 at a Startup Weekend event. I was about 7…
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Simple Founding Principles for Driving Change
I spent a few years working at 18F/General Services Administration and I’ve run our local Code For America brigade in Dayton, Ohio. I believe in the power of civic tech – using technology to solve problems for our community. I’ve moved away from that space in the last few years, but I still come back…
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The CRAFT Model for Better One on One Meetings
The CRAFT Model is a model I am roughly using for the one on ones I run with my own team. It’s a backronym of my own devising. Connect – Don’t let the meetings become rote; they should be more than status updates. Keep them honest and useful. Review – Before the meeting, review action items that both…
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Time Management for Team Leads
Now that I’m a team lead, how do I manage my time between doing my work and mentoring my team? Step one is to be intentional about how you are spending your time. If you hope to work both simultaneously or jump between the most urgent tasks, you will let down both yourself and your…
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No-Coding the Blog
The idea of not spending a lot of time writing code to support a blog isn’t innovative, but it can be hard. I identify as a software developer. It can be hard for me to get past that first inclination to build something when facing a problem. Even when there isn’t a good reason for me to…