The criteria for “best manager” is quite subjective, but hopefully everyone’s had (at least) one by now.
Read MoreAs I mentioned in a previous article, managing people is a completely different skill set than technical job skills. Just like food, what you think is “best” can differ tremendously from someone else’s perspective.
One of the country’s largest companies had a very rough weekend, and it had nothing to do with its products or services. Instead, Google joined Amazon, Uber, and many other tech giants experiencing a self-inflicted string of massive workplace culture breakdowns.
Google’s current sh*tshow came via an inarguably sexist 3,000-word memo written by a relatively junior engineer. The memo, which covered its misogyny with sophomoric sops to diversity of intellectual discourse, was posted to Google’s internal network, a version of the company’s Google+ service used only by employees. When Vice’s Motherboard got wind of the post Saturday and wrote about it, all hell broke loose. Then Gizmodo got a copy of the actual screed, and Techmeme lit up with follow-ons from just about every outlet imaginable.
Read More
So you took some time during the weekend to process the whole Google Anti-Diversity Manifesto scandal.
Just in case you virtuously stayed offline: an anonymous Google employee wrote a 10-page argument against the company’s efforts to improve diversity. It leaked and predictably got a lot of attention. You can read the whole thing here. But the core argument (warning, sexism ahead): there are fewer women in technical and leadership roles partly because of innate ‘biological’ differences between men and women. The author says that Google’s diversity initiatives ignore this core truth. In consequence they are ‘unfair, divisive and bad for business.’
Read More
About 6 months after I was promoted to Director of Marketing at FarmLogs, my team was going through some serious growing pains. We were coming off the completion of two huge marketing efforts — the launch our new website and our second annual User Conference. And, I was spending every free moment available analyzing the previous year and working with our Sales Team to create our goals 2017. Everyone was burnt out and stressed out, and on top of that, we terminated a position on my team. This was the first real personnel shake-up for Marketing and the effect was palpable, bringing team morale to an all-time low. We needed a reset, and I knew that in order to be successful we needed to be a well-oiled machine. So, I cleared our plates and re-prioritized our workload so we could focus on one thing — team-building.
My team was craving transparency and clear expectations, so I wanted to start our team-building week with an all-day role clarity and expectations meeting. We needed to address individual tasks, establish a hierarchy, and define the rules of how we work together. It honestly would have been easier for me to write job expectations, create an organization chart, and outline expectations, but I wanted their buy-in.
Read More
No, it’s not an Eastern European carmaker. That was Yugo. And yeah, it’s not an Italian restaurant in SOMA either. That’s Buca. I’m not a big fan of either of those, but I am a huge fan of VUCA.
VUCA stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Any startup or anyone going to work at a startup needs to index high on their comfort level with each of these. Trust me: it’s VUCA out there.
Steve Lohr wrote a great piece for the New York Times today, called “Hot Spot for Tech Outsourcing: The United States”
“As brands pour energy and money into their websites and mobile apps, more of them are deciding that there is value in having developers in the same time zone,” Lohr writes.
Read More
So, imagine my surprise when I attended my very first engineering conference as a woman… it felt a little like this:
Here’s how my inner-monologue sounded:
Read More“So…many…dudes… oh! Is that a woman? Hmmm, no… she’s on the catering team. Oh wait! Is that another one? NOPE just a dude with a man bun.” 😐
Every team needs a written working agreement. Without one, there’s bound be chaos, bloodshed, and death.
Or at least it might feel that way.
Read More
By Mousa Ackall, VP of Brand Marketing, WorkMarket
The hype around artificial intelligence (AI) and automation is alive and well. It’s hard to browse your Twitter feed or peruse the web without seeing something about autonomous vehicles, AI powered thingamajigs, or the impending robot apocalypse.
Read MoreFive athletes take the stage in preparation for combat. The lights are blinding, the energy of the crowd is intoxicating, their roar deafening. These combatants aren’t phased, they have trained relentlessly for this moment, the moment to prove they are the best at their craft and cannot be defeated as long as they work as the cohesive team they have become. These aren’t physical athletes, these are professional gamer’s and they have mastered teamwork.
I know what you’re thinking, what could a bunch of gamer’s teach me about how to run a team? My question is why haven’t we developed their type of teamwork already.
Read More
