Blog de Joe Freeman

Slack and other messaging platforms are mainstream platforms in many companies.  They provide great asynchronous ways of detailing activity and issues so that people can stay up to date while preserving standups or other meetings for interactive troubleshooting and planning. The teams I've been on have used Slack or other platforms to share  Yesterday, Today, and , Blockers for the last 5 years.  I've given up my geezer opposition to emojis and fallen in with using them to signify the category for everything reported.  As an example: Yesterday, Today, and Blockers the emoticon way 👈Yesterday Yesterday's events that affect others or the backlog 👉Today's Activity The main things we want to get done today ✋Blockers Things in my way that others can help with or that are holding us up 👊Thank you Callout for someone's timely help or them taking an extra effort.  Example for Joe's weekend Joe for 2023/MM/DD 👈Worked on Advent of Code 2023 👈Created content for blog...

Make a checklist and review it before, during, and after creating a presentation. Here are 4 things that I have to remind myself whenever I create a presentation or information transfer content. What are the top 3 things you wish to communicate? Who is the Audience? What outcomes are you trying to achieve? How will the materials be used over time? Click to Enlarge The mindmap was created in Mural .  You may be able to see it  with this Mural link  if it hasn't yet expired. Video Partial transcript The following text is from the talk transcript and require clean up. This is really about how we're going to communicate? When we communicate with other people, we create a presentation or create some type of canned or interactive communication. What are the things we should think about? What are the kind of checklists we should have to make sure this communication is going to work the way we want? This really came out of reviewing a PowerPoint presentation. There were parts ...

A broad range of behaviors and commitments happen when working beyond what you thought was possible, building a team with a passion, and building things bigger than yourself.  The best parts of that aren't what you build even though that is amazing. The best part is the experience gained and the relationships built with people you can't believe you get to work with. Companies don't care about individuals and will push you out the door and find someone fresher without a thought. The company lives for the company. Billionaires live to be bigger billionaires. You have to protect your mind and your health. When you inevitably leave, you will take the experience, memories, and co-workers you hope to meet in future work lives.   YouTube Version When I love every day at work I think this: "hard work" "I'm one of the lucky people who loves what they do" "creating things/work is a passion" "Working with passion is the only way" "I...

We, technicians, need to at least try and communicate with our non-technical partners. I loved this Renate-ism and want to make it sticky somewhere visible everywhere I work. "If Einstein was able to explain the theory of relativity, then surely someone can give an explanation I can follow along with about a framework or technical feature" Product people are smart. It is on us if we can't get communicate the value and function of something to others!  We are not creating anything more complicated than an entirely new branch of physics. Einstein Quotes “The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.” All Industries I wrote this about software engineering and product owners but it applies to all industries.  There is nothing worse than a medical doctor who uses jargon in a way that you can't tell whether or not you have a real problem. Video Revision History Published 2023 02