I sent 40 WTHIC letters from 17 countries on four continents, and published two posts on Medium (one of which got over 33K views). I also wrote up my set up for Uses This which was pretty cool!

This blog was seen by a smidgen under 57K visitors for just under 94K views, and I published 88 posts. This is down from last year’s 77.5K visitors, just over 124K views and 134 posts published.

It’s nice to see so much of my writing on management in the top posts of this year, and my technical posts having such longevity.

Most Popular Posts 2017

1. All the Shades of Unsurprised. Like everyone, I was annoyed about the Uber thing. I wrote about how it wasn’t surprising, either, but extremely prevalent and happening at the companies we like as well as those we hate.
2. On Improving Diversity in Hiring. Building a diverse team is not hard in the way rocket science is hard, it’s hard in the way math is hard – with sustained effort, most people can do it. It’s just hard work, which I broke down in this post.
3. Running a Manager Feedback Cycle. I wrote up the process I followed to do a full feedback cycle for the managers on my team. I’ve gone through this twice now, and it’s been super helpful.
4. No Technically Speaking in 2018. I wrote about ending Technically Speaking (a three year project), but also about community work and burnout.
5. Things to Figure Out as a New Manager: Part 1, Your Schedule. The first in a five part series for new managers. I plan to build on these ideas in a talk for 2018.
6. Things to Figure Out as a New Manager: Part 2, Social Support. Part two of the same series! I really enjoyed writing it, and was glad to see so many people reading it.
7. Most Productivity Advice is Bullshit. I wrote about the implicit assumptions in most productivity advice, and how they don’t apply for everyone.
8. Sponsorship Can Start Small. Moving from mentor to sponsor is about moving from passive (advice) to active – I wrote about some small ways to start.
9. Speaking and Nerves. I wrote about how nerves around speaking are normal, and some things I do to manage them.
10. Things to Figure Out as a New Manager: Part 5, Trust. The last post in the series. Excited to build on this in 2018!

Most Popular Posts Pre-2017

* indicates that this was also on the pre-2016 list last year.
^ indicates that this was one of the top posts of 2016.

1. The Day I Leave the Tech Industry*. From 2014, and still going.  I wrote about feeling like my time in tech was running out – it resonated with a lot of women, and continues to (especially with the revelations earlier this year). I am starting to figure out how to follow it. I gave an interview this year to a writer working on a book about tech (which should be out in 2018, will be interesting to see what he uses), and wrote about the environment I was in when I was in that place emotionally – That Time I Was an Imposter.
2. Extracting the Dominant Color from an Image in Processing*. An early technical post (2013!) in what went on to become Show & Hide. It’s about determining the dominant color in an image.
3. Testing Intents on Android: Like Stabbing Yourself in the Eye with a Blunt Implement. Intent testing was not particularly straight-forward, or well documented, and I shared what I found in a weekend of fighting with it. I think this is one of my best technical posts, and it’s nice to see it finally get the attention it deserves! I want to believe this is because more people are writing tests now.
4. Creating and Comparing Images on Android*. More technical work from Show & Hide (2015) – I replicated my work on iOS to create test images, and compare images against each other in tests.
5. The Hardest, Shortest, Lesson Becoming a Manager*. From the very end of 2015, and one of the first things I wrote about management – I talked about letting go of writing code.
6. iOS: Getting a Thumbnail for a Video*. Another technical post from 2015!
7. Your Guide To Undermining Women Whilst Being Nice*. From 2014, still – unfortunately – applicable today. A series of techniques that get used to undermine women, with plausible deniability due to “good intentions”.
8. Unfriending on Facebook. 2010 answers to some search terms about using Facebook… I’m surprised people are ending up on this but it still seems accurate enough!
9. Creating Test Images and Comparing UI Images. Technical work from Show & Hide on iOS (2015) In which I nerd out about UIImages, creating test images, and comparing them pixel by pixel.
10. Interviewing @ Google*. From 2010!! My study guide for technical interviews. Still relevant, which I guess you could a take as a statement on how technical interviews are improving — or not.