(Thanks to Colin Dabritz for taking notes)

Misogyny + Bigotry in tech

• lots of incidents recently
• maybe some of this crossover from video games?
• lack of professionalism in general
• Are parts of the culture perpetuating a lack of professionalism?
• Casual culture, you feel less ‘accountable’ but you are representing a company, profession
• profession is young, no liscensure to revoke (e.g. you can’t be disbarred for unethical behavior)
• Youth culture contributes

How much prediction making do you do?

• Agile, so many unknowns can’t predict, so don’t. Manage and move.
• Sales need targets, sometimes hard deadlines.
• lost of people forget, can adjust schedule or features
• Mcconnel estimation (book)
• This is an exploration, research, not mechanized process
• Predictions are dangerous, can become constraints
• Predictions can be important to coordinate, can cause issues, why not buffer?
• Just make the development team as productive as possible
• Making predictions is natural, making promises

What kind of interruptions do you allow? How do you manage them?

• git stash – temporarily ‘stash’ work
• Kanban – focusing on the thing  you are doing
• Feel about – “oh great, I’m accumulating inventory in my warehouse that’s costing me money”
• (who fights fires this week?)
• allow? can’t choose interruptions, distractions
• (context switching is expensive)
• (understanding management vs maker schedule)
• (true fires, understand the cost)
• (have a good product manager, prioritize properly)

How do you manage your brain?

• Problems in work and life don’t always give you a choice
• Do what you want to be good at, e.g. if you switch to managing that’s a shift, you will lose some dev ability.
• Learning, practicing
• Taking breaks (pacing)
• Managing stress
• Learn your rhythms, 90 mis is a magic number for me, give yourself time, find others who can handle your rhythm
• Be mindful of the things you put into your brain (e.g. sources of news, how they make you feel)
• your environment, habbits
• surround with smart[er] people, choose your work, environments
• exercise, diet, socialization
• Space – space where it’s easy to access healthy things, exercise, standing desks
•      – Avoid stress, ability to move and adjust, eat good food
• Competitive can be stressful, but can also be positive, pushing you.
• Stress spectrum, can be different kinds
• autonomy, mastery, purpose
• too comfortable, not exploring new things
• sharpen the saw, be attentive, prioritize yourself and your brain, get coaching

Forward thinking companies

• Have you heard of OKCupid? Was it because of the service, or the blog posts with data?
• How is this measured?
• Being trusted experts. (Unbounce)
• Who do you think of as forward thinking? Company providing fungus that acts like styrofoam
• Cellular level mechanism, nanotechnology, nano power generation in clothing
• SpaceX
• Used to think of google as a forward thinking company
• Challenging norms
• Code schools
• Connecting
• trying new things
• Try to solve a problem that doesn’t affect just the privilege of the bay area
• Companies that measure
• Watsi
• Do VCs and the startup industry promote this?
• Pharmacutical companies, make or break on FDA approval

What’s hard or challenging?

• Simple – to make or do simple things, always harder than the compacted.
• e.g. quitting smoking. Very simple, very challenging.
• Changing habits
• Software – making it simple, elegant is hard.
• Understanding the problem
• Quick feedback loop makes things easier, long or complex feedback loop is much harder
• People issues are a long feedback loop
• People are hard
• Department has “solutions” in the name, but uninterested in the solutions, much more interested in the problems
• The problem is you don’t understand the problem
• Starting with the wrong question, finding the right question
• Exploring the landscape
• Follow up, follow through, ideals
• Doing the RIGHT thing now, vs the fast easy thing
• Working in teams
• Others perspective, doing the right thing for everyone
• Being ethical for all stakeholders
• The unknown unknowns
• Missing pieces, missing requirements
• Communicating ideas, sharing vision
• (Vulnerability, taking real personal risk)

Learning Center

• making a space where learning happens
• Where existing engineers can mentor, and improve their own skills
• Book: The quick start guide to the five years of accelerated learning Willem + Diana Larsen
• First thing you do is take care of peoples basic needs (comfortable, fed, relaxed, welcome)
• Mix between – solid, things aren’t moving, not a good environment. gas – chaotic, moving too much. Liquid – move enough
• Zone of proximal development
• Whiteboards – Whiteboard paint (“winking”)
• What makes a learning environment welcoming?
• What motivates people to learn?
• Parents sense of expectation was a big driving force in undergrad
• Suddenly having to come up with intrinsic motivation was hard
• Book: “Confessions of a buccaneer scholar”

Programers are to sysadmins as doctors are to surgeons

(missed notes here)

Vacation – do you check-in or not?

• “what is a ‘Vacation'”? (sarcasm)
• What types of responsibilities does your job have?
• If you’re at a job/company
• (lost notes)