Weekly Thing #211 / Polar Bears, Delegating, Capes
I’m Jamie Thingelstad, and you (in theory) signed up for this weekly letter from me sharing things that I have found notable and engaging for the week.
Hey there! 👋
This was another week with a lot going on. I frankly wasn't sure I was going to be able to get a newsletter out this week, but persevere I did! I’m feeling like I have a lot of balls in the air. 🤹♂️
I've been continuing to focus on my fitness and for the first time in more years than I can remember I successfully worked out every day this week. That felt great!
I also got an Oura Ring this week and have been impressed. The sleep data has already given me some insights that I have been able to put to work.
No photo this week… I like to challenge myself to find something that catches my eye each week. Didn’t happen this week.
Now onto the links… 👇
Currently
Watching: Lots, and lots, of the Winter Olympics! ⛷
Notable
Managing people 🤯 | Andreas Klinger
An outline of various manager tips focusing on smaller organizations, but most of it seems to apply to any organization trying to create new things.
When to delegate, when to say no
Great walk through on using an Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize what is on your plate.
At the heart of this idea is that there will always be fires burning. It’s impossible to put them all out. As a leader, most days you’ll probably be reminded of them all. And if you spend all your time trying to stamp out fires, you’ll never be able to look ahead, strategize, or actually grow and evolve.
So it’s our job as leaders to figure out which fires to let burn. Sometimes we just need to walk away and return another time, even if those fires will keep growing. This will help us invest our energy, attention, and skills in the fires that we are best-positioned to address today.
Many leaders have to acknowledge that there is no way to get everything done every day… the skill is figuring out what doesn't need to get done.
How I Finally Embraced the Apple Watch as a Fitness Tracker - TidBITS
Very detailed article with links to various apps on getting the most out of your Apple Watch for fitness and activity tracking.
No capes: the perils of being a hero-engineer
I've seen this "hero" approach far too many times in my career. I'll admit that early on I didn’t even see it as a problem. There were a core group of people that could be trusted to fix pretty much anything. But inevitably this fails at multiple levels.
People start expecting you to take on every emergency, so you don’t get praised for it any more. The company grows and the number of fires you’re fighting increases. You probably have important company goals you’re expected to be contributing to.
It’s easy to start to start feeling stressed out, under-appreciated and struggle to find the time to work on anything else.
I've had people burn out from being a hero multiple times. Ultimately the hero themselves, and the organization lose. One of the benefits of a defined, trained on, and well understood incident management program is to limit the extent that you get hero problems in your tech team.
When Women Make Headlines
I found the data and analysis in this article insightful and raised my awareness of the topic. The interactive data visualizations are very powerful too.
The story of when women make headlines is, like most stories about people, full of contradictions. It is violent, sensational, biased, hopeful and empowering although not all of them in equal measure. This visual essay suggests that headlines used to report women-centered news can be biased and can reinforce existing stereotypes. These headlines also tend to be more sensational than for other news topics, and they tend to represent women in situations of crime and violence.
🤔
Precision In Technical Discussions
Sometimes even technical people can use very vague, and non-specific language to describe a technical concept. I have a personal favorite that I call people on routinely when they say a process, application, or computer "crashed." Crashed is a non-technical term used by people that do not understand how computers work. Crashed is a pointless word for technical experts to use to describe an event. Instead of crashed, describe what actually happened.
Polar bears move into abandoned Arctic weather station – photo essay | Arctic | The Guardian
I have a soft spot in my heart for Polar Bears. I often refer to them as my spirit animal. The only other animal that comes close for me are Bison. These photos of Polar Bears on this island are really incredible. So many of them in close proximity too.
It turns out that bears very rarely appear on the island in such numbers. No one knows why, but once every nine years the floating ice remains near the shore in summer. Consequently, the bears do not travel far to the north with the ice, as usual, and take up residence in the abandoned polar station.
If you are like me you are wondering how these photos were taken without the bears attacking the photographer. Drones!
It was too dangerous to land on the island that day, so I took pictures from a drone equipped with special low-noise propellers.
How delightful. Found via Five Things on Friday #321.
Journal
Neeva "New Beginning" NFT
Neeva recently rolled out their premium search offering. I've been using it as a tester for months and it was a "no brainer" to me to sign up for a year. In addition to the features I would have expected, they also offered an NFT to early Premium subscribers. What a great idea! This gives me an NFT as a keepsake to highlight my early support for private search.
Today I received my New Beginning with Neeva NFT, and it is super fun. OpenSea says there are 101 owners so far. OpenSea chose to mint the NFT on Polygon.
Thanks Neeva!
Final prep for afternoon presentation to the amazing #TeamSPS sales team. ☕️🙌
I find Nerdle much harder than Wordle. 😬
nerdlegame 19 5/6
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nerdlegame 20 6/6
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Remembering Matthew Dornquast
I first met Matthew when he was CTO at Fallon. It must have been 1997. I don't remember how we got introduced to each other. We both went to the University of Minnesota in Computer Science but Matthew was a few years ahead of me and we didn’t overlap there. I do remember meeting Matthew though. We were building BigCharts and Matthew and I immediately connected on our shared passion for technology and specifically the Internet and the rapidly evolving web. Matthew was very smart, passionate, focused. I remember him talking about moving on and doing something new, the thing that eventually became Code42. Not before I tried to persuade him to join our ragtag band at BigCharts. But it was very clear that he wanted to pursue something on his own.
We stayed in touch over the years and would regularly meetup to chat technology, the Internet, startups, etc. He returned my favor of gently trying to bring him into BigCharts when we had lunch downtown and he gauged my interest in joining them as they started to build out CrashPlan. I was an early user of the peer-to-peer version of CrashPlan and used it to for a neighbor and I to be each others offsite backup. As always, Matthew was passionate, excited, driven and always focused on the technology.
Matthew and I would regularly connect around our shared passions and joint focus on doing everything we could to make the Twin Cities technology community stronger. Matthew was always a dedicated supporter of Minnebar and Minnedemo. He cared deeply about the technology community around him, and always showed up to support and grow the talent around him. I will forever miss that about him.
Matthew and I never did get to do a project together. I have an incredible amount of respect for what he built. Through the consulting business of Code42 they bootstrapped a product that became the largest Series A investment in Minnesota history. In the middle Matthew made several bets in early stage companies by building the technology in return for some equity.
Unfortunately it has been a few years since we connected. After Matthew moved on from Code42 and moved to New York we didn’t have those serendipitous moments to connect. But by his tweets you can see that his passion for technology was present through all of his life. It is sad to see a mind as bright as his go so early in life.
Thank you Matthew for all you did for the technology community, and for building so many things that continue to provide value today. You will be missed.
Related:
- Marc Grabanski on Matthew's Passing
- Joe Payne, CEO of Code42 on LinkedIn
- Jason Scott on Twitter
- Matthew's Minnestar Presentations
- Matthew in The Line in 2011
- Matthew as 2014 Titan of Tech
- Twin Cities Business
- Matthew on Lifehacker
- Top Info Guide on Dornquast
It is cool to see increased workouts showing a new baseline. I started working out with a trainer and have a more structured program.
Briefly
I’m not necessarily a Julian Assange advocate, but this is another example of a DAO with a lot of momentum in a very short time. → AssangeDAO Raises $55M in Six Days to Help Liberate WikiLeaks’ Founder - Blockworks
Very cool project that allows you to step through every part of the SHA256 algorithm. I can’t say that I know how it works now, but if nothing else it is cool to watch it run! → SHA256 Algorithm Explained
Like Wordle but for numbers and math. Also, requires an entirely different approach. → Nerdle - the daily numbers game
Interesting service that sends you a different newsletter each day so you can "sample" them and if you like it subscribe. → The Sample
Good resource if you need a set of flags on the web. → Country Flags in SVG | flag-icons
Beware, reading this blog post may result in you wanting to build a home. The home and location look beautiful. 🛠 → building a modern home - Johnny Rodgers
Another local company completing a successful fundraising. → Minneapolis-based Tech Company Yardstik Lands $8M raise | Twin Cities Business
Fortune
Here is your fortune…
It is so very hard to be an on-your-own-take-care-of-yourself-because-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up.
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About
I'm a fan of the lawn game Kubb and play on the Kubbchucks. Together with a friend of mine, we created the very first scoring & notation system for Kubb so that games can be recorded like a baseball box score. Here is an example of a game-winning turn 3ir 2f f - b b K!
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