#70 September 8, 2018 2018

Weekly Thing #70 / Sep 8, 2018

I'm ready to put this year's Fall allergy season into the Guinness Book of World Records. 🏆 Even with loratadine and pseudoephedrine I've been struggling with watery eyes, congestion and itching. I've been having to tell people that while they are very important to me, in fact, I am not crying upon seeing them. 😂

The kids told me a joke this week that I’m still chuckling when I think about. Never trust an atom ⚛️ — they make up everything! 🤣

Featured Links 🏅

Sprints, marathons and root canals

This is how I tend to think about this type of team driven work in a product backlog. I like the name “sustainability tasks” and also agree with the sentiment that these may or may not appear in a backlog.

Putting regular sustainability tasks into a calendar would just create noise. Putting sustainability tasks into a product roadmap has the same effect. Having a budget removes the pressure to plan, prioritise or estimate such tasks, and avoids the need to compare them to features that bring immediate value.

Allocating budget and thinking about sustainability as an investment criteria works well, and gives you a more direct way to think about that work. You may even change that investment rate from time to time.

Tesla, software and disruption — Benedict Evans

This article captures part of the intrigue I have about Tesla, and what got me to place the order for my Model 3. I’m particularly interested in the integrated nature of the software stack in a Tesla, and the fact that Tesla is so far ahead of any other automotive company in how they change it. I think of what Apple did with the iPhone. Before the iPhone, the phone you bought was the same forever. With the iPhone, you bought a phone and it got better with software. The thing you already owned did new stuff it didn’t do when you bought it. Tesla has that potential, and I want to be part of it.

My Weekly Photo 📷

Fairy House at Minnesota Renaissance Festival . The door is about 3 feet tall.

Fairy House at Minnesota Renaissance Festival. Sep 3, 2018 at 1:00 PM Renaissance Festival, Shakopee, MN

Notable Links 📌

All Things Sales! 16 Mini-Lessons for Startup Founders – Andreessen Horowitz

This is a great intro to a variety of sales topics. This was made focusing on technology-minded startup founders, but I think is a great primer for anyone in technology that doesn’t understand how sales organizations work.

Steve Blank Is the Lean Startup Dead?

This falls in the category of indeed, you can have too much money in your startup. 💰 Constraints are valuable.

Techie to tech lead: My five biggest mistakes | ThoughtWorks

This is a great read for individual contributors that are moving into their first lead or even management role. 👍

Advice for a new executive | Lara Hogan

Every bit of this is absolutely great. I particularly like the recommendation to “Always have a story”. 💎

The secret to successful BBQ pork butt and brisket is science | Ars Technica

What!? 😲 I have read so many BBQ books and it is absolutely considered fact that the smoking plateau is when you are breaking down collagen. But hold up, a water soaked sponge shows the same plateau!

Breaking Bad News

This is one of the skills that I tend to find managers, particularly new ones, find really hard. I know I did, and I still do, it’s never easy. However I agree with this article. Own it, be direct, and show respect.

The Canon EOS R isn’t a mirrorless 5D IV, but it’s a start: Digital Photography Review

This is the first new Canon camera that has piqued my interest in years. For sure mirrorless is the way to go for cameras, but after you have a full-frame sensor like I do on my now ancient 5D Mark II you really don’t want anything less. This camera looks really great to me, despite the somewhat tepid review. Plus you can continue to use your existing EF lenses with an adapter. 📷

Ironic Sans: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica? Quiz

Fun quiz to give the Helvetica snobs in your life. I got 19 out of 20. The all caps ones were the trickiest for me. The give away is the straight lines of Helvetica.

The full stack product manager – UX Collective

Interesting reflections on the different definitions of the role of a Product Manager, along with links out to a number of other articles on the topic. No great conclusion, the role will be different based on company, product, market, etc. The main takeaway I have from this is to know that the title can mean so many different things, and that it can’t mean all these things or you can’t possibly succeed.

Product Ownership: Explained

Nice set of slides highlighting the Product Ownership role. I like that this touches both on the job of product owner, as well as the Scrum role of product owner.

Auth0 Architecture: Running In Multiple Cloud Providers And Regions

They increased availability, performance and reduced cost by consolidating on one cloud provider. This is an interesting argument about regionality within a single provider versus multi-cloud. There are big tradeoffs there.

Give Back 🎁

https://www.hackthegap.com

The mission of Hack the Gap is to amplify the voices and cultivate talents of underserved people in our community. I serve on the board of Minnestar with Jenna Pederson , one of the founders of Hack the Gap, and I love what this organization is focusing on. Gender diversity in tech is a real problem and it’s far too often brushed off as some endemic issue that cannot be solved. That isn’t the case at all. Hack the Gap is creating a way for people to get into the technology industry and breaking down barriers. Donate to Hack the Gap today!

Highlighted iOS App 📱

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/libby-by-overdrive/id1076402606?mt=8&uo=4

Libby, by OverDrive

by OverDrive, Inc.

Meet Libby. Did you know your local library has thousands of ebooks and audiobooks? You can borrow them, instantly, for free, using just the device in your hand.

I found this app via another newsletter and think it’s just great! I’ve had a nearly unused Hennepin County Library card for a while. I installed this app, punched in my Library Card information and instantly had access via a great interface to so many books. It integrates perfectly with putting books on hold and then puts the ebook on your phone immediatley when available. If you don’t have a library card, this app is good enough that you should make a trip and get one.

Yet More Links 🍞

Serverless Microservice Patterns for AWS - Jeremy Daly www.jeremydaly.com 19 patterns used by teams to build production microservices.
Why does everyone hate Read Receipts? We did some research to find out. medium.com So I’m in the majority on my dislike of this feature. 🤨
Reboot Your Dreamliner Every 248 Days To Avoid Integer Overflow www.i-programmer.info 🤦‍♂️✈️
bat: A cat(1) clone with wings. github.com Syntax highlighting and other advanced capabilities.
How to Manage Your Mood by Managing Your Mind —Matt Norman www.mattnorman.com A personal story about what you can do with those negative thoughts in your head.
The Early History Of Smalltalk worrydream.com Smalltalk was an important development in the history of computer science and languages.
Symbol in Ruby – Mehdi Farsi – Medium medium.com Symbols were always the cool kid thing in Ruby that bothered me. This writeup helps clarify what they are.

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