Accidentally in Code

Tag: Networking

  • Some Thoughts On Mentoring

    Some Thoughts On Mentoring

    quokka family
    Credit: Wikipedia

    I’m lucky to have a large and broad network, internally and externally. Well, I say lucky. I work at it. I stay in touch, ping people to say hi, schedule lunches, arrange to meet up when I’m in the area, or they are in the area, ask how they are doing, take an interest in their achievements and lives.

    Here, I wrote about different kinds of people who give helpful career perspectives, and I assembled a list of mentor and mentee tips (thanks to some wonderful people for suggestions).

    Friends

    I include friends here because: your mentors are not your friends. They are not the people you unload all your crazy on. But, it’s really good for you to have someone to unload your crazy on, talk to, vent. Even better if these people will give you some perspective. If you leave work in tears, you need to have someone you can call.

    It’s good to build your network outside of the office too, because there are things that it can be hard to talk to someone who works at the same company about without legal ramifications. For example, someone who is sexually harassed may want to process it before taking it to HR, or not take it to HR at all (article on the failings of HR in the tech industry) but if someone who works with them knows, they may be legally obliged to do something about it (I am not a lawyer, but I have been told this is the case in Australia and the US).

    It’s helpful to have internal people to talk to, because they have company context, although your colleagues are not your friends either. But I’ve found having work friends I hang out with outside of work is really beneficial – there are things that are just too much of a pain to discuss otherwise: “I’m working on this project, which I can tell you nothing about, and this guy working on this other project, which I also cannot reveal any details of, and I clashed about the meaning of this company priority, which I have to keep to myself”.

    One of my friends in Sydney, we would vent to each other, and that was fine, but when the vent was over we’d challenge each other to take a positive action. It was really helpful – these kind of friendships are golden.

    Benefits:

    1. Maximum context (the people you speak to most often, they’ll get the mostly irrelevant details you won’t bother other people with).
    2. On your side.

    Watch out for:

    1. Especially if they are more senior to you, friend’s first, career advice second.
    2. They may not want to give you “tough love”, and might tell you what you want to hear, rather than what you need to hear.
    3. Dysfunctional friendship dynamics (e.g. being threatened by you succeeding).

    Peer Mentoring

    I have a peer mentoring group from a leadership course I took, we try and catch up roughly monthly, which is super helpful. This is the main place where I get the male perspective, as my network is pretty female-dominated.

    There’s a certain amount of chit chat, but typically one or two of us have some pressing problem that they bring to the group to talk through and get some thoughts on. Pretty often we can make connections for one another, which is great.

    Benefits:

    1. Variety of perspectives.
    2. Broadens network.

    Watch out for:

    1. May not always have the experience to give good advice.
    2. Scheduling conflicts are hard.
    3. Time management – one hour session, 6 people = 10 minutes each if you start on time.

    Role Models

    I have a mentor who has the job that is medium term goal – Staff Software Engineer, not a manager (regular readers may have gathered that I lack the tact or emotional capacity to be a manager). I try to catch up with her roughly monthly, although this can be hard with timezones and schedules.

    She’s amazing, she was the mentor who gave me this advice about Confidence. In general, I talk to her in some amount of depth about what the 1-2 biggest immediate challenges I’m facing, and she gives me some insight, and some encouragement.

    Benefits:

    1. Inspiring: a relatable person, who career-wise is where I want to get but worry I won’t make it to. Getting to know her humanises her, makes it seem more possible.
    2. Less close, she’s also more likely to notice longer term trends – that I seem more confident lately, for example.
    3. Often overcame similar challenges, relatively recently.

    Watch out for:

    1. They are awesome because they have a lot going on – be prepared to do the work to schedule with them.
    2. Time management: don’t ramble, give highlights.
    3. Not all advice is right for you, it’s not a silver bullet.

    Oracles

    This is the far away mentor, like one of my mentors is just way beyond where I ever hope or expect to be. She is seriously amazing, and seriously successful. I catch up with her maybe quarterly, and I’m careful to be super respectful of her time (this quarter I know she’s extra busy and I’m pretty happy, so I will just send her a highlights email).

    Her, I ask the high levels questions of and then use her answers to guide me for the next couple of months. So when I was deciding what to work on in London, I ran my decision by her, and got her thoughts on that and some general advice for things to do to when starting on a new team. At the end of last quarter, I talked to her about things I was focusing on over the next few months, and how to demonstrate I’m at the next level. I’ve also had really helpful conversations with her about things like how to deal with engineer arguments, casual undermining, being ignored etc. She’s great at cutting to the core of the problem and giving me a heuristic to use.

    Benefits:

    1. Career visionary (think like, Product Visionary) – great for the big picture.
    2. Again, longer term trends. She was the first person to notice how much more confident I am since I moved, “I think you learned more last year than you realise… [key achievement], that took confidence”.
    3. Can open other doors: get you into programs (this is how I got my other mentor).

    Watch out for:

    1. Very little time, make sure you plan in advance, no emergencies.
    2. No time to understand your day to day, make questions strategic.
    3. Can be too removed from where you are.
    4. Don’t ask them for too much: time, favours, whatever.

    Specialists

    I’ve written before about my experiences with getting coaching for public speaking (1, 2) – this has been super helpful to me. A long time ago now, I also hired a professional to create my resume. Mentors give general advice, but sometimes we have a specific task that could benefit from specialist help. You can find that online, and you can find people who offer that as a service.

    I think it’s often helpful to allocate money, not just goodwill to building your confidence and skills.

    Aside from that, there are people in my network who encourage me just on certain axes. For example, a friend who pings me CFPs (thanks Chiuki!), and who recommended me to speak at a conference (2 of my 6 talks this year wouldn’t have happened without her).

    You don’t have to have your One And Only Mentor, you can have different people you turn to for different aspects of your career. And some of them you my also pay.

    Benefits:

    1. More in-depth expertise on specific things.
    2. Fresh perspective.

    Watch out for:

    1. Lots of people offering various kinds of coaching online, make sure you determine who is a good fit for you (personal recommendations are good, or the writers of blogs you love).
    2. Can lack context on your field.

    Sponsors

    Anne-Marie and I wrote about how we think Sponsors are an answer to bad managers in the tech industry. A sponsor is someone who advocates for you and helps you get that next project, or opportunity.

    Whilst sometimes you can sign up to be mentored, that is not the case for sponsorship. Sponsors you have to find, and cultivate. Look to work more closely with the person who is most supportive of you, highlight your achievements to them (not in an annoying way), and if they do anything for you appreciate it. They used their reputation to help you, that is an amazing gift.

    When I think about the difference in my job now, versus my job a year ago, sponsors made all the difference. It’s transformational.

    Benefits:

    1. Biggest career-impact.
    2. Best way for women to get ahead.

    Watch out for:

    1. Resentment from peers.
    2. Focus on bringing them your achievements, not your problems (if they are not also a mentor or friend).

    Being A Mentor

    I think the best way to get people to want to help you, is to demonstrate that you are the kind of person who pays it forward. I know that me writing a blog for example, and being open about my experiences, makes more people keen to help me.

    Also, I wholeheartedly subscribe to Madeleine Albright’s “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”

    I think mentoring can be a formal thing, but it can also just be a relationships you build, where over time someone reaches out to you, and you reach back. Even in the case of the more formal relationship, the mentee needs to keep reaching out to build it. Someone doesn’t care about your wellbeing because they got allocated to you, they care about your wellbeing because they get to know you.

    I put the lists below together from my own thoughts and some helpful tweets from @skamille, @jewelia and @knitterjp (thanks!) and from this storify of what looks like an amazing panel (thanks @lccarson for the hattip).

    Being a good mentor:

    1. Make it clear you want to make time for them.
    2. Let them know what schedule you have time for.
    3. Don’t dismiss their concerns; listen.
    4. Sometimes people take a while to warm up, ask questions (I once thought that someone didn’t really need to talk to me at all, but the actual concern came up at about 20 minutes. She just needed more time).
    5. When you can do more than mentor, sponsor (e.g. help find that intern her next project, promote their work).
    6. When someone reaches out (e.g. friendly email, question buried within it) respond.
    7. Ask questions that get mentee to address broader context and consequences.
    8. Be open about failure; those stories are more useful than those of success.
    9. Praise, showcase their achievements, be encouraging.

    Being a good mentee:

    1. Expect to be the person who reaches out, and schedules.
    2. Don’t take it personally if they are busy.
    3. Ask what frequency and format they prefer (Walking meeting? Times of day? I schedule as much as possible over lunch, because Efficiency).
    4. Be respectful of their time.
    5. Take notes! This will help you retain the conversation.
    6. Come with concrete points to discuss. Get to them quickly.
    7. Take anything with a grain of salt. The more senior you are, the more this is necessary (if you are super junior, the advice is easier and the situations are less unique than the junior person thinks they are).
    8. Say thank-you. Send follow up notes if their advice was particularly helpful.
    9. No blame if their advice sucked, you are responsible for what you do.
    10. Don’t expect miracles. Mentors aren’t coaches. They can’t hold you accountable, only you can do that for yourself.
    11. Look for ways where you can also be helpful (information, introductions).
    12. If they do you a favour (e.g.introduction) follow up! Follow up on the favour, and let your mentor know that you did.
    13. Don’t ask “will you be my mentor”, build a relationship based on shared interests, ask for specific advice. “I’d love to chat to you about X” is much lower key than asking for an ongoing relationship up front.

    Both:

    1. Be fully present in your interactions.
    2. Show up on time.
  • GHC: Leadership Workshop with Patty Azzarello

    GHC: Leadership Workshop with Patty Azzarello

    Bouldering
    Credit: Wikipedia

    I was interested in this workshop, because I had read Azzarello’s book, Rise: How to Be Really Successful and Like Your Life.

    “Your job description is not a life sentence.”

    “You have more control than you think.”

    These quotes set the stage for a really helpful presentation about how we see our jobs, and how we advance using a framework of Do Better, Look Better, Connect Better.

    As a kid, Azzarello was into arts, and her mother said to her: “You will go to college. You will get an education. You will support yourself. Don’t expect anyone else to support you.” As a result of this, Azzarello decided to do Electrical Engineering instead of art, where she was one of three women, also achieving a minor in CS. Electrical Engineering wasn’t natural to her, but coding was ideal.

    Azzarello’s first job was at Bell Labs, which should have been a dream job, but wasn’t. She wasn’t using enough of her strengths, and was interested in products and business. So she took a job as a Sales Engineer at a Silicon Valley company. She’s held every level of position at a company, didn’t drop into being a CEO – had entry level jobs. And Engineering and tech education was a big part of her success, it taught her about problem solving, and that there is always somewhere to start.

    Did Product Marketing at a couple of Silicon Valley startup companies. Azzarello was technically in Marketing, but spent half her time with Engineers. At HP, she had the choice between Marketing Manager and Software Development Manager. She picked Software Development Manager, because she knew she wanted to be a General Manager some day.

    The product was a mess. Quality and morale were both low, they were on a two year cycle and running late. After a year, all the problems were fixed, in part because they had moved to a 6-month development cycle. But after all that, Azzarello did not get a raise. When asking why, given that, the answer was “I tried, but nobody knows you”.

    This was a huge slap in the face about how the world works. Work is not enough. To have more impact, it’s not just about recognition and raises, you need to be known, respected, and recognised. As a result, you get more opportunities, more money, and more interesting projects. The results have to be seen.

    Worst job, was Sales and Marketing for HPs desktop systems, but it gave her more experience to help become a GM. You can’t get a job without experience, but you can get experience without the job. Moved to HP Openview Software business, ran a global org with 5k people. Then became CEO of a startup. Then Chief Marketing Officer at Siebal, but after that was bought by Oracle she was paid off and has been running the Azzarello group for 6 years.

    Do Better

    Work, or the environment, beats the “I can change the world” out of you”. The key is to focus on your natural strengths, which we often take for granted. When working in our areas of greatest strength, it feels ideal, and we don’t think that it can be impressive. When others are amazed, and it doesn’t feel like a big deal to you… that’s a strength.

    We are impressed when others do the things that we think are hard.

    Invert that – focus on the strengths. The ROI on strengths is higher than the ROI on stuff we’re not good at. So spending time on things we are naturally good at, has big returns! Hated every minute of working on weaknesses, and never got any better at any of it. Once she stopped worrying about weaknesses, and invested in strengths, business improved and her career soared.

    No one person can be good at everything, but a team can.

    Tune your job over time to suit your strengths. Know what works for you – you can change your job, without changing your job.

    EXERCISE: Think about a time when you were at your best.
    What was special (extra good!) because you did it?

    The energy in the room is tremendous when talking about strengths – I know I feel a boost focusing on a positive experience.

    Celebrate natural strengths – figure out what you’re naturally good at. Don’t try to earn your primary living doing something you’re not good at. It’s painful.

    Developing a strategy to use strengths and values at work.

    Too Busy

    To think, to reorganize… “to busy to scale”.

    No-one other than you has any motivation to make you less busy. Most successful people didn’t happen to be less busy on the way – they figured out how to get things done in spite of being busy.

    If you are overwhelmed by your job, you aren’t ready for promotion. People wish for work that is more important and has more meaning, no-one wants more meaningless crap.

    Are you a workhorse? If you are, the reward is – more work. It feels like you’re doing the right thing, but you have to catch and wiggle out of this way of working. It doesn’t get you ahead, it just gets you more work.

    There was an inventory crisis at HP. A guy spent time on crisis, but he wasn’t a workhorse, he was strategic and so delivered better results without burning up all of his time personally.

    Give yourself time to think – get known for rising above work, solving problems in a more strategic way. You need a system or process for dealing with it in a different way. Move yourself out of workhorse mode. No-one will do it for you.

    When you have time tot hunk, consider what the business really values. Think about how to do your job better.

    Ruthless Priorities

    Too many things on todo list, all of them seem important. Decide, what are the things that you will not put at risk? Ask how bad is it if this fails?

    It’s not about saying no, it’s about allowing yourself to finish your ruthless priorities first. Get famous for finishing important things, not for being busy. Talk about what you are doing, not about what you are not doing.

    Being a leader is about getting the most important things done when it is hard.

    Defend Your Time

    Your job is not to do everything and die trying. Not all requests are created equal. Advise your boss, and negotiate. Your boss delegates thinking and judgement, not just the work.

    Look Better

    This is about credibility. Being invisible doesn’t work – you can’t opt out of communicating. If it’s not a natural strength, develop it as a skill.

    If you are not communicating, you are communicating. But, it’s OK to be just OK at it. Azzarello trained herself to be a more convivial listener.

    Be visible, but not annoying. You can’t be credible if you are invisible. You are never annoying if you are genuinely adding value, or if you are communicating about important outcomes achieved.

    Be more relevant, you need to translate:

    • Business first.
    • Don’t educate
    • No jargon.
    • Talk their language.
    • Create “the hook”.

    If you have to educate someone about what/why – you are not relevant. What’s relevant is what they wake up in the morning worrying about.

    Magic Communication Tool

    Business initiative / realities (“hooks”). The only way to know their hooks is to ask. Really understand who your stakeholders are.

    Personal Brand

    Your brand is how you are perceived by others. Example: Disney has the brand as the happiest place on earth. They have turned waiting in line into an art form, and you never see a security force (but they are there).

    Your brand is not what you say, but what everyone else says. Your brand is what people see from you most consistently.

    PERFORMING OR PRESENTING

    Performing means owning the outcome.

    • Not just content.
    • You are being assessed.
    • Not about having a “big personality”.
    • Humility is OK… invisible is not.
    • Don’t be afraid of being judged – seek it out.

    Patty told us an embarrassing story of going to a client and having someone say: “why did you bring her? She doesn’t know anything.” She didn’t die. “Fearless” people are afraid, but do it anyway. Just because you are scared, doesn’t mean you are not qualified. Be scared, and do it anyway.

    “Men will say anything”, men with no experience will be saying “Sign me up! I’m your man.” Recommends Amy Cuddy’s TED talk on Body Language.

    Body language is not just what you show to others, it changes you. Influences your brain chemistry. When you smile, sends stimulus to your brain. It makes you feel more powerful and less afraid. A pen between your teeth achieves the same thing.

    Power poses. Wonder women – don’t hunch in on yourself! Wear a sweater (theory is that women sit like this because we are cold).

    Be very focused on outcomes and excellence, and just stand your ground. You are stronger when you are yourself – don’t try and turn into someone else.

    “The last thing you need is another one of you.”

    Connect Better

    Get help! Never struggle along. Get mentors, and build your extra team.

    The most successful people are those who get the most help.

    Types of Mentors

    Smart people.

    • Can’t have too many.
    • Engage several per year informally.

    Personal Career Advocates.

    • Add one every 1-3 years (informal and formal).

    Business Advisors.

    • Be on the lookout for help at getting better at your business.
    • Create your personal advisory board.

     

    You can attempt your career by yourself, without mentors, but why would you?

    If you have mentors, good for you, get another. If not, get one.

    “Mystery mentors”: they are your mentor, but they never know it.

    Figure out what job you want, then figure out how to get that experience.

    You current job will never give you all the experience you need to get the next one.

    Networking Paradox.

    • Need a network that can help you.
    • Networking is about giving, not taking.
    • Give before you need anything.
    • On balance, always take less than you are giving.

    Authentic Networking

    • Keeping in touch with people you already know.
    • Meeting new people.

    Meet new people based on things that actually interest/inspire you.

    • Give positive feedback.
    • Reach out based on something specific.
    • Offer to be of service.

    Recommendations:

    • 30 minutes networking a month.
    • Send 10 emails a month.
    • Connect properly with 2 special people.

     

    Summary

    Do your job and change your job.

    Do Better – impact.

    • Refuse to burn time on low value work.
    • THRIVE: redefine your job to add more value; raise the bar.

     

    Look Better – Credibility

    • Be visible, but not annoying.
    • Be a translator: be relevant, show your value.

     

    Connect Better – Support

    • Build a broad network.

    All in all, I enjoyed it, and I got things out of it – more so than when I read the book, I think. I was a bit wary at first, because I hate the advice of women with other interest, take less technical roles, but I don’t think it went that way at all, and this advice is relevant whether you’re in a technical role or more of a management one.

  • Girl Geek Dinner

    Girl Geek Dinner Cup Cakes
    Credit: flickr / Annie Mole

    Last night I went to my first Girl Geek Dinner. It was awesome. I don’t think I’d even realized how male-dominated my existence was, until I was in a room full of women (and maybe 2 guys). Yes, there was some talk of handbags, but everyone seemed interested in everyone else, there was so much talk of the projects we’re working on and when people stood up to do the open mic, it was great to hear about what they’re doing.

    I really felt that this was a community of women who gather together – not to compete – just to connect and cheer each other on. That’s amazing.

    Last call for Open Mic, I was brave enough to do it! Earlier in the evening I was all, nooo could not do that, too scary but I did it. And the other women I was sitting with were literally cheering me on. Wow.

    I talked about WISE, and how we are always looking for great speakers (afterward a couple of people connected with me and now February’s event is covered, it’s going to be on entrepreneurship – more soon!). And I mentioned what I was working on and invited suggestions from people as to what they’d like to see about their Twitter network.

    There was in fact no dinner last night, so once people had dispersed I went for sushi with Terri from CU:WISE and her boyfriend John. There was some competition for biggest geek (it will come to no surprise to anyone who knows me that I lost) and we talked about programming and open source (another blog post, coming soon) and it was really great.

    So what did I come away with? A stack of business cards, speakers for WISE in February, a bit more confidence after speaking in front of people with a microphone and total impatience for the next event. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to follow all the awesome people I met on Twitter.

    Thanks to everyone who organized it!

  • On The Spot

    Quotes - 10/60
    Credit: flickr / B.Romain

    Tonight I went to Students and Startups at The Code Factory. It was really good, although I was nervous at first because we were doing these building challenges, which I worry I suck at. In the end it was OK – we didn’t win, but I don’t think anyone else had much more of a clue than I did.

    First off, each student had 30 seconds to introduce themselves. We were supposed to say, who we were, what languages we liked, and what our ideal job would be.

    Most people went over time and rambled a little. It’s tough to stand on the spot and do that. People kept saying they liked Java and sometimes C, to which I just tend think “y’huh, Java’s probably the only language you know” – I know, in my head I’m mean. Mostly I don’t say this stuff.

    A side note on, “Java is my favorite” – in general I get the impression from so many CS students that Java is the hammer and every problem is a nail, you know? It’s too prevalent. Learn a bunch of languages, have a favorite, sure, but don’t have your favorite be your favorite because it’s the default. I like Java, it’s up there in my favorites but I’ve tried a bunch of other ones and also, I mostly love it because Eclipse is a phenomenal IDE and there are so many fantastic Java libraries and toolkits available. Ultimately, Java is just one tool in my toolbox, and I love it because it’s like one of those screwdrivers, you know? With all the different heads.

    And then someone mentioned Haskell. And I thought, “nooooo!” because he would be the first person in Canada I’ve encountered that even knows what Haskell is, let alone can code in it. So then I couldn’t mention Haskell. And I was adamant that I was not going to go over time.

    In the end, I said something like,

    My name is Cate Huston, I’m a masters student at uOttawa. I work on, basically data-mining and visualizing Twitter. I’ve coded in 10 plus languages and I liked them all, except for Tcl. You can find me at catehuston.com or on Twitter, I’m @kittenthebad.

    Like almost everyone else, I forgot to say what my ideal job was. And afterwards I kicked myself, because I knew exactly what I wanted to stay, but then on the spot I totally forgot.

    So here it is:

    I want to make stuff, that’s beautiful, functional (useful), and usable.

    How about you?

  • Learning How To Network

    network
    Credit: flickr / dsevilla

    I’m fairly outgoing – I mean, I moved to another country knowing basically no-one. And I coped. But it’s easy to meet people when you’re a student, and there are a lot of international students here who know what you’re going through. So it’s not been that hard for me to build a group of friends. Meeting people outside university though, is harder and scarier. It took me ages to connect with people I met at kickboxing outside the dojo, for example.

    At my first conference (MCETECH), I met someone who suggested another conference (FOSSLC) and then I went to that as well. Another person at that conference followed me on Twitter, and we started interacting, and after a while, hanging out. And then I went along with her to an Ottawa tech event (Democamp – I blogged about it here), where I met some more people, discovered that there are a lot of tech events in Ottawa and also an easy way to find them.

    Since then, I’ve been to Ignite and last night I went to Teamcamp. One of my friends went to Ignite, as well as one a guy I met at Democamp and had been interacting with on Twitter. Teamcamp was new, because I didn’t really know anyone there, although there were a couple of people who I’d talked to on Twitter. I nearly flaked, because I haven’t been feeling well all week, but I told myself to snap out of it and set off. And then I got lost in the rain because Google maps was confused.

    But once I made it I had an awesome time, met some cool new people and really enjoyed myself. I’m really glad I went!

    I guess I’ve accidentally given myself a crash course in “Networking”! Here’s what I’ve learned.

    • Going with someone is fine, but try and come away with one or two new connections.
    • It’s OK if you’re not comfortable working a room, connecting with just a few people is still connecting.
    • Follow up – see how you can help someone and pass that information or contact on. Add them on Twitter and LinkedIn if you want to as well.
    • If you’re nervous, connect with people beforehand on Twitter. Find out the hashtag and tweet about it.
    • Be interesting – have something you’re working on that you can talk about. Be passionate about it!
    • Listen. You’ll have more to talk about later (and if you end up in the vicinity of a presenter, something to complement them on!)
    • Go for it! Most people are nice, and are probably going to these events hoping/expecting to meet people too.

    Anything I’ve missed?

  • Democamp 12

    Monday was Democamp 12, I heard about it in the morning and managed to get a ticket (someone dropped out). It was really a great evening; I met some really cool people and won a model plane.

    Events: Betidings and Twegather

    First up presenting was Betidings. The concept is that you have a calendar of events that you’re interested in, and you can follow other people and events they add to their calendar will show up for you as well. So with very little effort I now have a schedule of events in Ottawa and I can see what days I’m free and what interest me. The downside – I was living in contented ignorance about the Girl Geek Dinner on Monday, and now I’m gutted that I’m missing it! I think it’s worth checking out, you can see what I’m interested in here.

    This is still in the very early stages and is more of a proof of concept than a fully fledged application but I think it’s worth a go – the more data there the more useful it will be. And it’s a nice way to share stuff you’re interested in without forcing it on people. I guess it could potentially be for events what Twitter is for ideas and content. Not sure everyone got this though – one jerk said the user interface sucked. Not quite in the spirit of democamp! The UI isn’t fully there yet and I’m not a big fan of the colorscheme but they’re actively looking for feedback and welcome any comments to @betidings.

    Twegather (not yet public) was created through TeamCamp – read about it here. It’s an event system using Twitter, you’ll be able to create an event using @WhoWantsToGo.

    Crazy Planes

    The planes were what I was talking about in this tweet. A full article on it is this one, by the lovely @loudandskittish. I thought these were awesome because to me they illustrate the programmer mindset applied to something not-programming. I’m definitely going to be taking mine (and hopefully a few more) to my Holiday Science Lecture in December!

    Twitter Procrastination Tool: BattleTwip

    This is kinda cute! Battleship on Twitter, played against everyone. Created by 76Design, you can follow @battletwip and play via Twitter when the next game starts. They also have a really awesome looking web interface which we saw a preview of, but as far as I can find it’s not up yet.

    Advertising: Shiny Ads

    Shiny ads is an alternative to Google Adsense. It allows you to attract your own advertisers, gives them the tools to make their ad or upload it and then you can approve it (or not) and earn a much better rate for click-through. Wasn’t so relevant to democamp – although most people had websites, they seem to use them to either promote their (non ad-based-web-) business or personal brand.

    Overall

    Great experience, great people, great opportunity to interact with the Ottawa tech community and it’s nice to see what’s up and coming. I love the vibrant tech scene here! Can’t wait for democamp 13 – wonder if I could present my graphs…?