Education
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Understanding the Game
→: Understanding the GameI used to panic when someone asked me what I thought about an acquisition. I had vague opinions, weakly held, because I didn’t know enough to reason about it. My opinions were about the product and the team. Knowing that most acquisitions fail to deliver their value (and having seen a couple up close) the…
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A Season of Learning
→: A Season of LearningThere’s a concept in computer science called explore vs. exploit. Exploitation means using what you know to get reliable returns; exploration means trying new things at the cost of those returns. Most algorithms skew too hard toward exploit. Humans have also been known to do this – including me. The known path is comfortable. My…
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From Chaotic Learning to Intentional Growth
→: From Chaotic Learning to Intentional GrowthBefore the pandemic I was always on the move, and I would have told you always learning. I found myself at various events, talked to many different people, was always reading something, and my job changed frequently, even within the organisation I was in. I also wrote a lot, which helped me consolidate and clarify…
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Explore / Pursue / Depth
→: Explore / Pursue / DepthMy friends and I went pottery painting recently. Next, we’re trying crotchet. The pottery painting was fun, and my star shaped bowl painted in rainbow colors came out better than I expected. I’m thinking to go back and paint a dragon next. My friends and I, we’re exploring. Trying some new things. Seeing what we…
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Building Alignment with Co Leadership
→: Building Alignment with Co LeadershipIn February I took the building alignment workshop run by Co Leadership with my colleague (at the time) Beau. I had wanted to take one of Jean and Edmond’s workshops for some time, and it did not disappoint; it was super helpful, going beyond the normal management 101 and more deeply into collaborating cross functionally. Whilst they…
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Interview Prep Tips
→: Interview Prep TipsI have done a lot of technical interviews. And mainly I think that interviewers have to change, but I do have some suggestions for interviewees. Ages ago I wrote up my prep list for interviewing at The Conglomerate, which is comprehensive, and frankly excessive. This is the short version with the benefit of spending more…
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Female Entrepreneurship: Observations and Opportunities
→: Female Entrepreneurship: Observations and OpportunitiesI’ve been generally skeptical of whether we would see a rise in Female Entrepreneurship, much of which was because looking at the data (female-led companies are more likely to succeed, male-led companies are more likely to fail) it wasn’t clear to me whether more women should be starting companies… or just fewer men. However there are some…
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Software Engineers Aren’t Normal
→: Software Engineers Aren’t NormalTechies often try and do design (I am also guilty of this), and typically they design for themselves. I don’t think this is uncommon – a lot of people think they would be a good product manager based on little or no evidence, for example. However with techies, there are three common areas where they make…
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Some Thoughts on Blogging
→: Some Thoughts on BloggingThings I’ve Found Have a Backlog I always give the same advice when people ask me about starting a blog. I say: put together a month’s worth of content first. As far as I know, no-one who has asked me this has actually started a blog, so maybe it’s bad advice. Or, maybe it’s good advice,…