Greater Than Code

02:28 - Jonan’s Superpower: Jonan’s Friends * The Quality and Reliability of One’s Personal Network * Finding Community * The Ruby Community in Particular – Focus on People and Programmer Joy * Happy Birthday, Ruby (https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/)! 09:07 - How Developer Relations is Changing (DevRel) * Kicking Off New Relic (https://newrelic.com/)’s New Developer Relations Program * Outreach and Community Growth Value * Developing Developer Empathy & Adjusting Content in the Spirit of Play * The Correct Role of DevRel 22:41 - Doing DevRel Right * Feedback Loops * The Definition of Success 31:45 - Engaging with Communities & Networks via DevRel * Using Twitch, YouTube, Discord, TikTok, Twitter, etc. * Consider the Platform * The Relicans (https://www.therelicans.com/) * Emily Kager's TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@shmemmmy?lang=en) * @theannalytical (https://twitter.com/theannalytical) * @cassidoo (https://twitter.com/cassidoo) * @laurieontech (https://twitter.com/laurieontech) 40:22 - Internal DevRel * Content Review Meetings * Make Friends w/ Marketing/Internal Communications (Comms) * Be Loud & Overcommunicate 53:32 - Addressing Trauma & The Evil in the World “I respect facts but I live in impressions.” In The Mouth of Madness (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113409/) Reflections: Mando: We are who we spend time with. Rein: If you want to understand how someone behaves, you have to understand their environment and experiences. Jess: If it works, it’s going to be obvious it works. Jonan: Talking about the things that suck and talking about who you are in a real way. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Whether you're working on a personal project or managing enterprise infrastructure, you deserve simple, affordable, and accessible cloud computing solutions that allow you to take your project to the next level. Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode's Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier. Get started on Linode today with $100 in free credit for listeners of Greater Than Code. You can find all the details at linode.com/greaterthancode. Linode has 11 global data centers and provides 24/7/365 human support with no tiers or hand-offs regardless of your plan size. In addition to shared and dedicated compute instances, you can use your $100 in credit on S3-compatible object storage, Managed Kubernetes, and more. Visit linode.com/greaterthancode and click on the "Create Free Account" button to get started. JONAN: Welcome back to Greater Than Code. This is Episode 227. I am Jonan Scheffler and I'm joined today by my guest, Jessica Kerr. How are you, Jessica? JESSICA: Thank you, Jonan. Well, I’m great today because I get to be here with my friend, Rein Henrichs. REIN: Aw thanks, Jessica. And I'm here with my friend, Mando Escamilla. MANDO: Thanks, Rein and just to bring it back around, I'm here with my friend, Jonan Scheffler. Jonan Scheffler is the Director of Developer Relations at New Relic. He has a long history of breaking things in public and occasionally putting them back together again. His interest in physical computing often leads him to experiment with robotics and microelectronics, although his professional experience is more closely tied to cloud services and modern application development. In order to break things more effectively, he is particularly excited about observability as of late, and he’s committed to helping developers around the world live happier lives by showing them how to keep their apps and their dreams alive through the night. Welcome to Greater Than Code, Jonan. How are you doing today, bud? JONAN: I am great. I liked the part where I got to intro your podcast. That was a lot of fun, actually. MANDO: It was fantastic, man. JONAN: This bio, this guest sounds really interesting, if I would be permitted to say so myself as the guest. MANDO: So we like to start off every podcast with our normal question that we ask every guest, which is, what is your superpower, Jonan and how did you acquire it? JONAN: My superpower is my friends. They are my superpower and I acquired them after a long career in software and talking to a lot of humans. I don't know actually why, but it's been easy for me to make friends in software. I felt like early on, I found my people and then I just got lucky and it's going okay so far. I'm very fortunate to have them. MANDO: Well, we're fortunate to have you, bud. It's interesting that you say this, I mean, just like Slack for operators, DevOps folks, and Savvy folks, there’s been a lot of discussion as of late on the quality and reliability of one's personal network in things like finding new jobs, finding new opportunities, learning and growing in your career, and stuff like that. It’s been interesting for me personally, because my experience, Jonan sounds a lot more like yours. I was very lucky to find some strong communities of folks that were very welcoming to me. I found my people pretty early on, but a lot of the folks in this other community that I'm tangentially related to seem to have had wildly different experience. I don't know if it's like a software development versus operator kind of thing and in-person versus not in-person kind of thing. It's something that struck me as weird. JONAN: I think it varies by community, too. I've gone to a lot of conferences for a lot of different languages and depending on the conference and depending on the community, I think that you're going to have a different time. I think if I were starting over again, I would probably follow about the same path—attend small conferences with tight focuses and get to know a couple people early on who seem to be having a lot of those conversations, watch for a social butterfly and tag along for a bit and you'll get introduced. MANDO: I'm pretty sure that I met Rein at a local Ruby conference here in Austin. Is that right, Rein? REIN: Sounds right. Sure, yeah. MANDO: But I think it was one of the first Lone Star Ruby Conferences where we met. REIN: Yeah, that sounds right. JONAN: Yeah. I think speaking of butterflies, I also met Rein, I think at one of the very first conferences I attended back in the day. Being welcomed and seeing the application of the Pac-Man rule, where when standing in a circle, you always leave a space for a guest to join and someone joins and you open up again in-person back in the Ruby community in that day was, I think inspiring for me; directed how I decided I was going to be when I showed up here. So thank you, Rein. REIN: It's funny. I remember when I was new to the Ruby community and not sure what to do. I was new to programming, too. I started going to the local Austin meetup actually and the welcome I got as someone who didn't go to college for computer science, someone who wasn't a professional programmer, someone who was just thought it was cool and thought maybe that I could get paid to do it at some point in the future really made a big difference in my life. JONAN: Jessica, how did you get started? JESSICA: Good question. Before I answer it, I noticed that we're talking about Ruby conferences and Ruby programmers and indeed, I learned Ruby in order to go to Ruby conferences so that I could talk to Ruby people because part of the superpowers that that language gives you is friends or buds back in the day, but still is because the Ruby conferences are still super friendly back when we had them. REIN: Yeah. MANDO: Yeah, that's a really good point. I was a professional programmer for probably 5, or 6 years before I started doing Ruby programming. I would say that for those first 5, or 6 years, before I joined the Ruby community, I didn't feel at all like I had any kind of community or group of people. JONAN: What do you think inspires that in a community? I think strong leadership is part of it. Matt has certainly received his share of criticism over the year, but I think that fundamentally, he was trying to build a place where people focused on people instead of the glyphs that we type into our little boxes. I think that matters. What else do you think there is to that? REIN: We here at Greater Than Code also agree with that sentiment. [laughter] JONAN: Seems to align, doesn't it? JESSICA: Yeah, that focus on people and Ruby was always about programmer joy. It was always about the experience; it was always about being happy and there wasn’t that expectation that the optimal thing to do is to go in a corner and type. JONAN: Yeah, I think it's very fortuitous timing that we're actually discussing Ruby so much on the 24th, which was the day that Ruby was named 28 years ago on February 24th, Ruby became the name of this language. So happy birthday, Ruby. JESSICA: Aw. Yeah, happy [inaudible]. JONAN: It really has changed my life. I have regularly, whenever I've seen Matt at a conference, got up to thank him for my house and my kids' college education. Before I got into software, I did a lot of things, but none of them would have brought me either of those. I spent probably 10 years in factories and hotels and casinos. I was a poker dealer for my last gig before I got into software and the number of opportunities that Ruby opened up for me, I can't as long as I live be too grateful; I'll be paying it forward till I die. JESSICA: Yeah, but not the language it's the community—the people, the friends. JONAN: Yeah, exactly. It's the community. It's the people who welcomed me with open arms and made sure that they were contributing to my growth in a far more altruistic sense than, I think is reasonable to expect. I mean, I had nothing to offer in return except a good conversation and high fives and hugs and they spent their time in their energy taking me around conferences and making sure I met people and it was great. REIN: I remember when you first went to New Relic and you were first thinking about, “Hey, maybe I could do this developer relations thing.” What I remember about that, in addition to your obvious aptitude at talking to people about things, is the help that you got, the advice, the mentorship that you got from your friends in the community. I remember at the time being blown away by that; by how many people were willing to just take an hour of their time to talk to you about what it was like for them as a DevRel and things like that. JONAN: Yeah, and I'm still very fortunate to have those people who have helped me build this team here. When I did the onboarding, I put together an elaborate onboarding process. I was able to hire all ten of the DevRel engineers here at the same time. We spent a week doing improv training and having speakers come in as guests and I was able to invite all of these DevRel leaders from over the years to give a perspective on what DevRel was in their eyes, but it is today and always has been clear to me that I am only here where I am by the grace of the communities that I was lucky enough to join. I wonder if developer relations is changing; if it's at a different place than it was when I started out. I feel like certainly, pandemic times have affected things, but all that aside, the segment of the industry is still pretty small. There are only maybe 10,000 people doing this work around the world. It's hard to believe because we're quite loud, right? [chuckles] We’ve got a lot of stages. You see a lot of us, but there are many of us and I think that the maturity of the discipline, I guess, is progressing. We are developing ways to measure the effectiveness. Being able to prove the value to a company is going to change the game for us in a lot of ways. REIN: Yeah. I would love to talk to you about that at length, [chuckles] but for the purposes of this podcast, let's say that you're someone who wants to start a program at a company that doesn't have directly tangible make numbers go up in a business sense value, but you believe that if you're given the chance to do it, that you can show them the value. How do you get that opportunity? JONAN: That's a really good question. Kicking off a developer relations program is, I think it's the same as building most major initiatives within a company. If you had an idea for a software project that should be undertaken, or a major feature that mattered to you, it's about building allies early and often. Making sure that when you show up in that meeting to have the conversation with the decisionmaker, that nine out of ten people in that meeting already know about the plan. They have already contributed their feedback; they feel ownership of that plan and they're ready to support you so that you have the answer going in. I think the mistake that I made often in my career was walking into that room and just pitching my idea all at once and then all of the questions that come out of that and all of the investigation that is necessary and the vetting appears as though this wasn't a very well-thought-out plan, but getting the people on board in the first place is vitally important. I think also you have a lot of examples to look through. You have a chance to talk about other programs and the success that they've brought, the companies where they started off. It's not a thing that you need to start in a big way. You can put a couple of people on the conference speaking circuit, or a couple of people focusing part of their week on outreach and community growth and see where it takes you. If you start to see the numbers, it becomes a lot easier case to make. REIN: You were talking about how you're excited about being able to make this value more tangible in the future. What do you think is the shift that's happening in DevRel that’s making that possible? JONAN: So I think there are actually kind of a lot of factors here. One is that DevRel had a division almost of method where some people, probably by the leadership of their companies, were convinced that what they should be doing is talking about the product all of the time. You're there to talk about the product and evangelize the product and get people to use the product. That is part of your role, but it shouldn't be, in my opinion, the primary role that you play. You should be there in the community participating. In the same way that Rein stood in that hallway and welcomed me to Ruby, I need to stand in that hallway and welcome newcomers to all the communities of which I'm part and in so doing, build that group of friends and build that understanding of the community and their needs. I develop empathy for the developers using our product and, in the industry, generally and that's invaluable intelligence. I sometimes think of ourselves as these like operatives—we’re undercover marketing operatives out there in the developer world talking to developers and just understanding them and it at one point, took a turn towards, “Well, I'm just going to talk about New Relic all the time,” for example. It feels good to see all that content and see all those talks. However, you're only talking to your existing audience. No one is Googling “what exciting things can I do with New Relic,” “seven awesome New Relic tips.” No one's searching for that. They're out there looking at things that are interesting. They want to click on a link on Twitter that is about some random topic. Running Kubernetes on Raspberry Pis and soldering things to Yoda dolls. That's the kind of stuff that I'm going to click on in my free time and in that spirit of play, that's where I want to be engaged and that's where I want to be engaging people. So I think there was this turn. That's part of it and then in reaction to that, I think that the teams who were doing DevRel well and actually seeking out ways to lift up and support the communities and gather that information for their companies—and yes, certainly talk about their products when the situation warrants it. But I mean, how do you feel about that person who shows up to a conference wearing a New Relic hoodie and a New Relic shirt and a New Relic backpack and says “New Relic,” the first 10 minutes you meet them, a hundred times? But you're like, “Wow, this is a friend who is here for my best interests.” MANDO: Right, or every presentation that they give is 30-minute infomercial for whatever company. JONAN: Yeah. So I think people are headed away from that and in response to that, you saw a lot of success from the people who are doing DevRel well. In addition to that, it's becoming to measure these things in hopefully less creepy ways. We can track the people who show up to anything that we do now. If I have a Twitch stream, I can see how many people were there; Twitch provides good stats for me. I can pull those stats out via an API, I can connect them to my podcasting for the week, I can connect them my blogging for the week, and I can show that my audience is growing over time. So whether or not it is valuable yet, we're building the machine right now. We're finding ways to measure those things and that will allow us to adjust the content in a direction that is popular and that’s really just what we're trying to do. We're trying to give the people what they want. We want to talk about the things that people want to hear about. I want to talk about the fun stuff, too, but I'm very surprised sometimes when I learn that hey, nobody wants to hear about my 3D printer API project with Ruby. They want to watch me solder a Raspberry Pi to a Yoda doll and that's great. I'm down for both of those things, I really don't care. But being able to adjust your content towards the sort of thing that is going to interest your community is really valuable obviously to developer relations and we're getting better at it. We have more data than we've had before and not in a way that, to me, feels like that is violating people's personal privacy. REIN: Where do you think that DevRel ought to fit in a company's structure? Is it part of revenue? Is it a sales adjunct? Like, what is the correct role of DevRel? J: I don't think it's part of revenue. I think that it leads to that. But in developer relations, we talk about orbits a lot instead of funnels. We talk about bringing people into the orbit. You generate content so that you generate gravity and you move people in the orbits closer to the company so, you can talk to them more and help them with their problems. When you tie that to revenue, it changes the goal. Is the goal to be out there and help, or is the goal to get the cogs into the machine and continue turning them until they produce coins? When you tie developer relations to revenue, you become trapped in this cycle because look, we’re hackers. If you give me a number you want me to hit, then I can hit the number. But am I hitting the number in the most useful way? Am I generating long-term value for the company? Almost certainly not. 
 It's like the leader that you bring in. So like, “Hey, revenues are up because I fired customer support. Yes, all of them.” In the short-term, there's going to be some great numbers. You just believe yourself and entire team. Long-term, you’re the new Xfinity with the lowest customer support ratings that have ever existed for a company. So I think that actually the majority live under marketing right now and I think it makes sense. I think that developer relations people do themselves a disservice by not understanding marketing and understanding the role they play there. I actually think it belongs under its own organization. But if you try and think about that means from a corporate hierarchy perspective, that means that there's probably a C-level who is responsible only for community growth and C-levels by design, they have numbers, they have dollars that they are bringing in. So until we get to a point where we can prove that the dollars are coming in because of our work, there's not going to be a chief developer relations officer at any company. But give me 5, 10 years, maybe I'll be the first CDRO. MANDO: It's interesting to hear you. I didn't know that they were usually grouped under marketing, but that sounds right. In my most recent life, I worked at two different companies who did a combination of social media management, analytics platforms, and stuff like that. A majority of our customers at both of these places were in the marketing org and they were hitting the same kinds of things that you're talking about that developer relations groups are hitting. They're trying to provide numbers for the kinds of stuff that they're doing, but there's that inherent, not contradiction, but discord between trying to give customers what they want, but have it also not be infomercials. JONAN: Yeah, and I think that that is a tough spot for DevRel teams. I think no matter where you stand in the organization, you need to be very close friends with marketing. They have a tremendous amplifying effect for the work that I do; what I want to do is produce content and I am uniquely suited to do that. I’m a person who can show up on the podcast and wax philosophical about things like developer relations. I enjoy that. I would like it if that was my whole day. What you need to try and design is a world where it is your whole day. There are people who are better at that than you are; that's why you're there as a team. Your job is to get up and talk about the thing, explain technical concepts in easily digestible ways—a process called vulgarization, I guess, a more commonly used word in French. But I think it's very interesting that we vulgarize things. I mostly just turn things into swear words, but the marketing organization puts a huge amount of wind at your back where I can come onto a podcast and spend an hour talking words and then the podcast is edited, tweets go out, images are made and it's syndicated to all the various platforms. If you can get that machine helping you produce your work in the background, you don't have to know all of the content creation pieces that most of us know. Most of us are part-time video/audio/any content platform, we mostly do it ourselves and taking the support of your organization where you can get it is going to be tremendously helpful in growing the team. REIN: So if you can't tell, this is a personally relevant topic for and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the short-term pressures of there might be for DevRel orgs to produce numbers that the business likes and how you balance that with your long-term vision? What's the story you tell leadership that's effective there? JONAN: That's a really good question. So I talk about this developer orbit as being almost pre-funnel work, that there are people that we have within the company who are real good at turning an email address into a dollar and turning a dollar into 10. There are people who have spent 20 years learning how to do that thing. What I'm really good at is getting people to care in the first place and that's my job here. I describe it sometimes like an awareness campaign in marketing; this is the thing that you put the money on the billboards all over San Francisco and people spend millions and they'll go and get VC events, spend every dollar, making every billboard look like their logo because it works. Because just making people aware whether or not they like the billboard, making people aware that you exist is a first step and I would rather that people complain about our product and complain about our company on Twitter than just not think of us because then you're irrelevant. You're not even part of the conversation. Being able to shift sentiment in the community and being able to hear people, genuinely hear people. It doesn't matter to them, when they're angry on Twitter, that they're factually incorrect. Wrong answer. It's your fault. Show up and just address it, “Hey, that sucks. I hate that. Wow, I'm sorry that happened. Let me see if I can fix it,” and go talk to the product team. So I talk about it in that way as this kind of pre-funnel work. And then I talk about how we are measuring it and where we measure it as a team is this care orbit where we have a curiosity and awareness step that work in tandem, where people either have seen the words New Relic, or they've seen the logo, and this is awareness. Or they are curious and they've actually clicked on a thing; they've actually followed that down the rabbit hole. And sometimes, they may be aware because we sponsored a conference one time; they've seen us, they know that we exist, but they have no idea what we do. So if they are curious, they're getting to a step where they could buy a free word association exercise, connect New Relic and observability, for example. And when they're doing research, I don't think there's a whole lot of interactivity we have there as a team there. When I go and research product – think about how you'd buy a developer product. I hear someone say something three times, tail scale. I've been seeing a lot of conversation about tail scale lately. So I hear someone say tail scale three times and then I think to myself, wow, I should probably care about that thing because it's relevant to my career and I don't want to fall behind. In a couple of years, this may be the thing that everyone is using for whatever it does. I don't even know what it does. I better go figure it out and then I go and I do my research and, in that step, I'm reading documentation and I might have run across a blog post, but I'm certainly not watching webinars. I'm just not going to be in that step. And then there's entry. I say entry instead of sign-up because I just want people close to us. I want them to enter the orbit. I want them to be bought in on the dream of the community and hopefully, we've expressed our values in a way that makes it clear that this is the place for them and we're talking about values and not features of a product. Think about how Apple has been successful. Apple is selling a dream. Apple's throwing a woman throws a sledgehammer through the screen in front of people and that's the dream. That's what you're actually buying is this identity, this tribe. I think companies more often end up creating these bulleted lists of checkmarks. I saw one the other day that was probably 50 items long. Here are the 50 things that we do and look at those 2 checkmarks. Our competitor doesn't have those. Gotcha! I don't care. Prove to me that you value the things that I value. Sell me on the purpose and that's the kind of thing that we're really good about talking about. And if you can demonstrate that in a boardroom, then your program will be fun, but you've got to measure it, you've got to show that people are making progress, and you've got to show growth over time. “See, look, we may not be pointing the megaphone in the right direction right now, but it's growing. We're getting a better megaphone. Is that enough for now?” And then we can direct over time, our contact direction towards the place that is being most successful for us as a company and hey, maybe it's I just talk about New Relic all the time, but I'm willing to bet it won't be and when the time comes, I'll have data to prove it. REIN: In the meantime, how do you know whether what you're doing is working? What are your feedback loops look like? JONAN: My feedback loops, our feedback loops as a team right now, we know what we're doing is working when our total audience size is growing. This is kind of a sketchy metric because there are different values to different audiences. For example, Twitch versus Twitter. If I'm going to follow on Twitter, then I follow on my personal account or I follow on the New Relic account because those both provide a place for me to use my voice to engage people. It's a much lower value engagement platform, though from a one follow perspective. 30,000 people I tweeted in front of, 5 will click or 5 will care about the content and that's great and maybe I'm really good at Twitter. I'm not, if I fail, I don't spend as much time on it as I should, but maybe I can refocus my content. I get more via the platform. If you look at something like Twitch, however, someone follows me on Twitch, that means that every time I go live on my stream, they get a notification on every single one of their devices by default. I mean, you can turn it off, but what's the point in following someone, if you're going to turn off the notification; you want the notification. You're saying, “This is the content that I am here for, watching Jonan solder on this silly thing or teach people how to write Ruby from scratch. That's the stuff I signed up for. That's why I'm here on Twitch and I want to be a part of that.” Those have a kind of a higher value. So there is something to weighted consideration across the platforms. But first of all, is your audience grow, just generally? Are you getting a bigger megaphone and more importantly, how are you doing it and moving people from “I'm aware that you exist” to curiosity, “I'm investigating you”? And that's a step when they're aware they've done something like click on a Twitter profile. It's a hard case to make that if they click on my Twitter profile and they see that it says New Relic, that they will have no idea what New Relic does. I have now at least made it into their brain somehow and they will say, “Oh, I've heard that name before.” But the next step of getting people over to curiosity, let's say that we successfully get 10% of our audience over there and 1% of our total audience size, this quarter actually ended up creating accounts and that's where things get real hard because companies tend to have really entrenched MarTech, measuring marketing technology, measuring, and Google analytics setups. And it's hard to bind that piece together to be like, “That signup? That came from us.” We did that and you need to stand up and say it loudly within a company because everyone else is. Everyone else is real excited to take credit for your work, believe me. You’ve got to stand up and prove it, stand up and say, “DevRel did this. DevRel was growing the company.” We're doing good things for the community. We're helping people understand how to use our product. They're caring more about us because we care about them first and here are the numbers to show it. Did that answer your question? I tend to ramble. REIN: Yeah, no it did. Can we do a thing? Can we do a little improv thing, Jonan? JONAN: Yes. REIN: Okay. So I am a chief revenue officer and I hear your pitch and what I say is, “Okay, so I get the DevRel increases engagement. So how much are you committing to improve conversion? How many percentage points are you guaranteeing that you'll deliver in the next quarter?” JONAN: In the first quarter of our existence, I'm going to go with none. I would say in the second quarter of our existence, we will have developed a baseline to compare against and I can guarantee that we will be growing the audience by 10% month over month, over our previous audience size. As the audience grows, it is very directly correlated to numbers that you care about like, signups. If I talked to a 1,000 people, I get 10 signups. If I talk to 10,000 people, I get a 100 and that's the baseline. I mean, that's just the math of it. And if I'm doing a great job, maybe I get 15. So if we want to actually do the math, give me a quarter to do the math. Give me a quarter to establish a baseline because I don't know where our company stands in the market right now. If I'm starting off here at this company and you're Google, I'm not going to have a hard time raising awareness, am I? I think most people have heard of you. If you're Bob's awesome startup and you don't have any awareness out there, then we have some different things to focus on and our numbers are going to look different. We're have a slower ramp. But if you're asking me to commit to where you are right now, then I need numbers first. I need to be able to build the machine, I need to be able to measure it, and once I have those metrics in place, I can tell you what those goals should be and we can set them together and when we exceed them, we will adjust upwards because we are aggressive by nature. We like to win at these things. We like to be good at it because for us, it means that we're doing a better job of loving our people. That's what success means by the numbers. The numbers that to you mean money. If we're doing DevRel right, to me, they mean that I am living with purpose. So yes, I can measure those things, but you’ve got to give me time to get a baseline, or the numbers that I make up will be meaningless and we'll be optimizing for the wrong things. How'd I do? REIN: I’d buy it for a dollar. JONAN: Yes! Sold! MANDO: Yeah, I believe you. So tangentially related; you talked about Twitter and Twitch as two platforms that you're using to engage with prospective folks and grow and welcome the community. I was wondering if there were other places, other things that you use either personally, or as part of your DevRel work to do that same kind of stuff, or if you have specific types of interactions for specific different types of networks? JONAN: Yeah, absolutely. I had left one of our primary platforms off of there, which was YouTube because we're still headed in a direction where we can make that a lightweight process of contributing our work to YouTube. So our strategy, as a team, is to head for platforms that offer two-way engagement. I think that in our generation, we've got a lot of criticism for being the Nintendo generation. “Oh, you were raised by television; you have no attention span.” I have no attention span for TV news. I have no attention span for this one-way oration that has been media consumption my entire life because I live in a world where I have “choose your own adventure” media. Where I can join a Twitch channel and I can adjust the direction of the conversation. Where I can get on Twitter and have a real conversation with famous people, because I am interesting and engaging and responding to them in intelligent ways, hopefully. When you tweet poop emojis at people in your software community as your only game, it's not as likely to drive engagement, but they're very engaging platforms and so, we're aiming for things like that. YouTube being the possible exception. YouTube is still levelling up there. I'm not sure if you find out on the YouTube comments section lately, but it's a little bit wild in there. It's getting better; they're working on it. And those are the kinds of platforms that I want to be a part of. So as far as new things go, I'm going to go with not Clubhouse. Clubhouse has one, got some accessibility stuff to work out, but two, in my opinion, stuck in a trap where they're headed towards that one-way conversation. Anyway, it may be a conversation like this podcast, which I love doing, but our audience isn't given an opportunity to respond in real-time and to drive the direction. Clubhouse is eventually going to turn into a similar platform where you have a hundred people in a room. Can a hundred people speak at once in the same conversation? I don't think so. So there's the accessibility piece – [overtalk] JESSICA: In text! JONAN: In text, they could. JESSICA: Yeah, that’s the beauty of the combination. REIN: Clubhouse needs to innovate by providing a text version of their application. JONAN: Or when we get NLP, when we get natural language processing to the point where those kinds of things can become accessible conversations automatically, then it's different and people can contribute in their own ways. You can have a realistic sounding robot voice who’d read your thoughts aloud for the group. But beyond those, beyond Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, we're checking out TikTok a little bit, that's kind of fun content. It's a good way for us to reuse clips and highlights from our Twitch stuff without having to go through the old process of creating the new content and similarly, for YouTube. If I get on my high horse and I'm waxing philosophical about why you should use instance variables instead of class variables, I can put that piece out and I can make a YouTube video about why you should use instance variables instead of fostered. That kind of content does well on that platform, but you need to consider the platform and I would say, choose a few and focus there, look for the ones that actually have high engagement. Discord is another good place to hang out, love hanging on Discord. And then you've got to be blogging too, but blog in a place where you can own the conversation and make it about what matters to you as a community. We're real focused on learning and teaching, helping people become content creators, and focusing on the quality of software, generally. We're data people. We want to be talking about that. So we have our own community on therelicans.com where we talk about that. That's just a instance of forum. It's just like dev.to, but we own it and we get to period the content a little bit in a direction that is valuable. You want to keep them loose when you're going in community so that you can let the community take shape as it grows into those values. But that's my recommendation for platforms. MANDO: Right on. Thanks, man. It's funny that you bring up TikTok—not at all related how I've recently fallen down and continuing to fall down the TikTok rabbit hole and out of all the different types of content I see on TikTok, it is tech content that I have seen almost zero of. It’s just like, I don't know if there's just like a dearth of the content or if the algorithm hasn't set stuff up to me. JONAN: Yeah. MANDO: The algorithm is super good about all other kinds of things that I'm super into like, I'm inundated with cute dogs and goats and [laughs] you name it, but I don't know. Maybe the algorithm is telling me something about myself that... JONAN: No, I mean, you just have to click on it. JESSICA: Or something about tech content. JONAN: I always just cause answer. Yeah. Jessica, you have thoughts on TikTok? JESSICA: Well, TikTok is really cool but it t's just takes a ton of work to make a piece of content that tight, especially around something technical. JONAN: Yeah. I think that's a good point, actually, that it's not as easy as it looks ever producing a piece of content. You may watch a video for 2 to 3 minutes. I once had a 5-minute lightning talk, but I did 65 takes on it. it took me maybe 20 hours to just record the thing, not counting the 100 hours of research I put into the actual content. So depending on the piece of content and how polished you’re going to make it – TikTok’s initiating platform, though. Look up Emily Kager. If you go watch Emily Kager’s TikToks, you'll head down the right path, I suspect into the good tech ones. MANDO: Awesome. Thanks, man. JONAN: I really like the ones that are explaining algorithms with M&Ms. That kind of video, I like those ones a lot. Here's how databases work under the hood. This is actually what in the endgame using toys or whatever is handy. Cats, I saw someone that worked with their cats and the cats are running all about it. [chuckles] It was fun. MANDO: Oh, that's awesome and that's the kind of stuff that, I mean, I don't know what the time limit is on TikTok stuff, but our TikToks, if they seem to be about a minute to a minute and a half, it's not like you could do any kind of in-depth deep dive on something, but something like describe what Kubernetes with Legos, or something. It seems like you could fit some sort of bite-size explanations, or a series of definitions, right? JONAN: Yeah. MANDO: I mean, there's someone, whose videos I see all the time, who does these videos on obscure Lord of the Rings facts. She'll describe this intricate familial family tree of beings whose definitions have spanned not only the Silmarillion, but other – and she fits it all in a minute and a half. It's fascinating and it's amazing to watch. I'm sure, like you were saying, the stuff she's been researching and she knows this stuff. She spent probably years and years and user for life gathering this knowledge and gathering the ability to distil it down into a minute and a half. JONAN: Yeah, and I mean, it's not even – look, I think a lot of people have the perception, especially starting out creating content, that you have to be the expert. You don't have to be the expert. You just have to do the work, go read about the thing, then talk about the thing. You're actually better suited to talk about it when you've just learned it, by far. Because you know the pain, you have a fresh memory of the pain and the parts of that API you're describing that were difficult to understand and once you become a Kubernetes expert, those things are lost to you. They become opaque; you can't find the parts that were terrible because the memory of the pain goes away. So TikTok is a good place to explore with that kind of stuff in a short-form piece of content. I have a couple more recommendations for you that I'll drop for you in the show notes, too about the people on Twitter—@theannalytical is great at that thing, @cassidoo, and @laurieontech. I'll put them all for you in the show notes. But there are, there are some people you can emulate early on and if you're just starting out, don't be afraid to get up there on the stage. The bottom line is in life in general, we're all just making it up as we go along and you can make it up, too. What have you really got to lose? You're not doing it today. Tomorrow, you would still not be doing it if you don't try. REIN: Continuing with my program of using this podcast to ask Jonan to help me with my personal problems, do you have any thoughts about internal developer relations? Or let me ask this a different way. There are companies that are big enough that there are teams that have never met other teams and there are teams that produce platforms that are used by application development teams and so on. What are your thoughts about building more cohesive and engaged developer communities within a company? JONAN: Yes, do it. I've considered this a huge part of what developer relations needs to be doing generally. Binding those departments together and finding the connections for people and advocating the use of internal software, those internal tooling teams. This is why a lot of DevRel people have a background in internal tooling, myself included. It's just fun to be helping out your friends. That's why you get into DevRel. You like helping your friends and developers are your friends and they're my favorite people. The point that I was making about internal developer relations is yeah, you should be doing it already as part of a DevRel team, but there are actually dedicated teams starting to form. Lyft, I think was one of the first people I heard of doing this where there's an entire team of people. Because the bottom line is DevRel is a very, very busy job. Because you don't have this marketing machine behind you working very effectively, you're probably doing a lot of the production work of your role anyway and it takes a full day to do a podcast well, in many cases. So you're losing a day every time you spend an hour on a microphone. But if you're doing that and then you're going to conferences and then you're writing blog posts and then you're having the usual buffet of meetings and everyone wants to talk to you all the time to just check in and sync and see how we can collaborate; we need forms for that. When people come to me and they want us to speak at their event, or they want us to collaborate on a piece of conduct, I have a form for that and once a week, the entire team sits down and we review all of those in a content review meeting and that guarantees that person, the highest quality of feedback for their project, all 10 of us, 11 of us counting myself, are going to look at that and give them the answers they need and we have guaranteed timeline for them. We have a deal that we will respond to you by Friday 2:00 PM Pacific if you give us the thing by Thursday morning, every single week like clockwork and that encourages the rest of the organization to engage you the way that makes sense for you as a team, instead of just little random ad hoc pieces. So yes, it should be done internally. You need to make space for it. If you are doing external DevRel, too, but it's already part of your job and having a dedicated team actually makes a ton of sense. I would love to see more of that. REIN: Let's say that I am a technical lead, or a senior developer and there's this thing that my team has been doing and I really wish the rest of the company knew about it because I think it could help them. What should I do? JONAN: You should find marketing people. You're looking for the internal comms team in your marketing organization. There are people whose whole job is to communicate those things to the rest of the company; they're very good at it and they can tell you about all those avenues. We all have that internal blog thing, whatever. They're all pretty terrible, honestly, especially in larger companies—nobody reads them, that’s the problem—but they can help you get engagement on those things, help them be shared in the right channels, in your chat platform. That's the people I would work out to. There are humans who are real good at helping you talk about your work and they're in marketing and it's a difficult place to engage, but look for your internal comms person. Failing that, make sure that your project is on point before you take it to people. If you don't have a read me that is at a 110%, that's your first step. Make sure that people understand how they can get involved and how to use the project and try it over and over and over again from scratch. Break it intentionally and see how painful it is to fix. Make it just the most user-friendly product you possibly can before you take it out there and you'll get better. MANDO: This is something also that not just techniques and senior engineers should be thinking about management should be thinking about this for their entire teams and the people that they manage and lead. Because if you can provide visibility for the stuff that your people are working on and have worked on throughout the year, when you, as a manager, go to your management when salary reviews and unit reviews come up, it's much easier to make the case that your team mates or your people on your team should get the salary increases that you're trying to get them. If they have had the visibility for their work. If you can say, “Oh, remember this big thing,” and you can point to the blog post and you can point to the Slack conversation where 10 people congratulated Sam on her upgrade for Costco or whatever it is. You know what I mean? JONAN: Yeah, and you have to talk loud here. MANDO: Yeah. JONAN: You’ve got to scream about it. Look, people are only going to hear 25% of what you say anyway, and it feels like bragging, but overcommunicate and often, especially people in management. I mean, really think about how many bulleted lists go across a manager's desk and how you want yours to matter. Better make it longer and more relevant and as detailed as possible so that some portion of it actually makes it through to their consciousness and they can communicate it on there's superiors. Superiors is a terrible way to say that; they're managers. MANDO: They're managers, right? Yeah. This is something that I learned as I was going through management and something that was never taught to me and it's something that I advocate really strongly about. But if you're managing people, if you're leading people and you're not advocating for them and for their work, like you're saying, as loudly as possible to the point of possibly being annoying, you're straight up not doing your job. JONAN: Yeah, you are. I learned early on in my career that the loudest people were the ones getting the promotions and having the career success, whether or not they were good, or they were actually contributing things that were value. I watched someone merge 600 lines of untested code against the objections of his coworkers and get a promotion about it. That's about conversations; it's not about quality. REIN: Yeah, I also think there are things that companies can be doing to make this easier. So you can have a weekly show and tell email. JONAN: Yes. REIN: You can let people pitch stuff to it, you can track engagement with it, and see whether people are getting value out of it and try to make it better. JONAN: And that's exactly it: you have to have a feedback mechanism so that you can adjust the direction of your content. We actually have plans, when we get our feet under us a bit, to do a morning news show like of us had in high school. Just 5 minutes in the morning where we take a question a day and explain it. There are a lot of people who work at our companies who have no idea what a virtual machine is, or at what layer it operates, and how it differs from a container. Telling them the difference between LXC and VMs, that's a thing that DevRel people do well. So we can actually explain, I can take Kubernetes and I can explain it with M&M's in 5 minutes, and then I can invite people to come and talk to the devil to come hang out in the Slack channel. There's a Q&A form. We answer one of these every morning, maybe your question will be next. By the way, here's some fun and interesting stuff that we're up to this week, come check it out. You can find this all on therelicans.com and we've got the internal page over here, and we've got this over here. And then you just have an opportunity daily to communicate this, what feels like a waterfall of work coming out of your team, but getting those daily touchpoints, or maybe weekly to start is a good place to go. MANDO: I love the idea of morning announcements, especially as for specific teams. You assume that a certain size of an org to be able to do this kind of stuff. The place that I'm at right now, there's 4 of us total, so we're not going to be doing this kind of thing. But my last gig, there were thousands of people who worked there and I was in charge of the operations team. JONAN: I actually think the morning news show is a really good way to do that, but you're right that in a smaller team, it's not as relevant. I would argue however, that you're doing it anyway, because with 4 people, you're able to communicate everything that you're all working on all the time. MANDO: That is exactly what happens. JONAN: And you don't have to scale. MANDO: Yeah. JONAN: But it's nice to be bought in on the dream and to feel like you're living your life with purpose and work is a huge part of our lives whether we like it or not. We live in this system and we get to choose every day. I choose to live a life that feels purposeful. I choose to seek meaning because I want to wake up in the morning and be excited to come to work. I want to help lift up the rest of my team so that we're out there making more developers who get to turn this into their dream, which we can't know or predict. I just want to help those people get over the line because I now have desperate it feels on the other side of the fence. I mean, I worked 16-hour days for several years at 5 different jobs and I came home and the world was telling me to live myself up by my bootstraps. You’ve got to be kidding me. That's your American dream? Come on. MANDO: Yeah, I got no more bootstraps. JONAN: Yeah. I want you politician to go and spend 3 hours getting a jug of milk that you pay twice as much as it's necessary for it and have to take two buses to find. I want you to have that experience, how desperate and time consuming and expensive it is to be poor in this country and then lift yourself up by your bootstraps. Because it's not a thing. We have a finite amount of motivation, of will in our day to spend and you've got to make the room. You've got to pay yourself first in that. Get up in the morning and write some code and then go exhaust yourself so your employer gets shortchanged. Your fourth job of the day, they're going to get a little bit less of your time and energy because you gave it to yourself first. That's how you're going to build a wedge to get into tech and I want to be there to help people do that thing. That's what I want to spend the rest of my life doing is making more developers and supporting them as that grow. I mean, I can see dystopia from here. The tech is headed towards a place. MANDO: Oh, yeah. JONAN: We have 1% of people on earth able to program today and we're about to double the global access to high-speed internet. When Starling comes on board – they're launching 70 satellites a month now. When Starlight comes on board, everyone on earth will have access to hopefully low-cost, high-speed internet access. We will double the global audience for many of our services. That's going to be real bad for the world if that 1% who can program and control most of the money in power on the internet becomes half a percent. Historically, that has not worked out great for humanity. So we need to start loosening that up. We need to make more developers yesterday by the thousands, by the millions. We need more people writing this code and helping us to turn this industry into a place that we want to be because the model culture is not going to make it. We will extinct us. We will eliminate humanity whether only the soul or in reality, if we continue down this path where we have a whole bunch of people collected in Valley somewhere, who are defining the rest of the planet. Facebook had no small part in recent revolutions around the world. That's tech. That's us. Whether you want to own it or not, you contributed to the culture and the software that built that monster. REIN: And the other side to making more developers is not having work that chews up and spits out their desiccated husks at a profoundly troubling rate. JONAN: It's true. It’s absolutely true and I think that that's equally, if not more important, that we're not feeding more to the machine. We have toxic spaces in our companies and in our communities and we define them. We need to change them. We need to create better ones. That's, I think a better option, even because you're not going to change that many people's minds. I think that especially this late in the game, for many people—people who have had success with their bad opinions—they continue to spout those bad opinions and believe them. Make a new space. Make a new space and prove it. Show your community, the numbers. If you have another meetup, because the one you're going to has had 18 months of 18 white men speaking and mostly the same people, then make a new meetup and see if the community likes it better and I bet you, they will. I bet you, they'll come. If you build it, they will come. But we got to do the work to make these places better before we just bring people in and watch them suffer. I can't do that anymore. I can't be that person in the world. For a while, I stopped speaking at code schools and bootcamps because I felt like a monster because I knew what I was setting these people up for. I was looking around tech and seeing the poison and I was bringing people, who I genuinely cared about, to the slaughter and I couldn't do it anymore. But I think that now I can do along the way is advise them how to avoid it, what red flags to look out for, how to find the good parts in between, and that's a better approach. It enables me to feel good about my work. MANDO: Yeah. Building up that, I don't want to jump us to reflections yet, but the thing that I keep coming back to is the desire to help your friends. JONAN: Yeah. MANDO: And for me, personally, something that I've been struggling with for a long time now and it's really crystallized over the past, I don't know, year or so, is seemingly how few people have that desire. Maybe not have the desire, I think it's natural to have a desire to want to help your friends. But maybe there's so few people who see everybody as someone who is potentially your friend and someone that you want to help. It's like, they'd be willing to help the person that they hang out with every weekend. But they're going to step over the homeless guy who is standing in front of Target while they walk in. You know what I mean? JONAN: Yeah, and I don't think that they're bad people. Like, I’m not actually a big believer in bad people; I think that there are good misguided people. I don't think there are a whole lot of humans on this earth, with the exception of maybe a handful, who wake up in the morning to do evil. Who wakes up and is like, “Man, today, I'm going to make some real bad days for those around me.” They mostly, I think, believe that they're contributing too good to the world and many of them are very misguided in those attempts, to be clear. There are people actively contributing harm every day, but they don't see it as such. So we have that piece of the conversation and the other part, where I just fail to have empathy for other people, is probably in part about not having good experiences. When I reached out to other people, having a form of attachment in my life, maybe when I was younger, that was traumatic for me. That taught me that I could not trust the world to catch me when I fall; that I couldn't trust other people will be there for me and to show up. Because of that, I had to rely on myself and here I go again on my own. This song I'm off on this walk and it's just me and I need to look out for myself because nobody else will. It's the hurt people hurt people. We saw a church sign when I was driving with my son when he was quite young and he said, “Hurt people hurt people. Why do they want to hurt people so bad?” So internally, in our family, this became a chant: hurt people hurt people instead of hurt people hurt people conversation. But I think the part where we are perpetually enacting our traumas on those around us, because as a society, we've decided that addressing your own traumas, getting your own crap out of the way first is somehow a taboo subject. Like, just go to therapy, people. We just have to put mandatory therapy for people. I want to see a government program that institutes mandatory therapy for people. I'm sure the people will love that. “Oh sure, everyone gets to see a doctor now. I bet you don't want people to die of preventable diseases either?” No, I don't. I want people to get over their collective trauma and stop harming other people because you were harmed and it takes work. Because you got to do the work if you're going to make the world a better place. MANDO: Yeah, I don't know. I personally feel like it's difficult for me when it seems as though the trauma is ongoing. Without this turning into my own therapy session, it makes me sad to see how different I've become over the past year. Is it a year ago? I would've said the same thing that you did, Jonan where I didn't believe that most people were awful monsters hellbent on destroying me and everyone that I love. I don't know so much that I believe that anymore. JONAN: I think JESSICA: They don't think of themselves as monsters. MANDO: Right, right. JESSICA: They may be hellbent on destroying you because they really think that's somehow good are wrong. MANDO: Right. At the end of the day, you're absolutely right, Jessica. How much of that matters? How much of that distinction matters? JESSICA: It does matter. JONAN: I think it does. JESSICA: It matters in what we do about it. JONAN: Yeah. JESSICA: And I don't want to destroy them either. I do want to segregate them off in their own little world. JONAN: Yeah. I love that. MANDO: For me, the ratios make it work in the other direction. JESSICA: Like you want to segregate off in your own little world? MANDO: Well, just that there's way more of them. JESSICA: Oh, okay. MANDO: And so, putting them off someplace would never happen. JONAN: Yeah. I think it's worth noting here that I am a large loud white man speaking from a place of tremendous privilege in that I maybe have experienced less of that “You don't get to exist.” Like, “You're not welcomed here in life in general.” Not even a maybe but that like over my lifetime, very few people have come out to me and just said like, “I wish that you weren't a thing. I wish that you as a human didn't exist on this earth, that you were never born, that your parents were never born.” I've not had that experience. I mean, I have when I've received somehow particular malice from someone usually as a result of my ridiculous jokes. JESSICA: But then it’s personal which yeah. JONAN: But then it’s personal and that’s [inaudible]. People who don't even know me. So yeah, I do. I speak from that position, but I think that this is another – gosh, I'm really not trying to be like let's all come together and have a conversation person because some are too far gone from that. But I think that I'm not ready to give up on humanity as a whole just yet, as much as I'm inclined to. I might be ready to give up on the United States, looking into options overseas. [laughter] REIN: I think for me, the reason this distinction is so important is because when someone claims that there's just evil in the world and these chaotic forces, it decontextualizes people's behavior from ideology, from culture, from socialization, from the worldviews that they have that mediate these behaviors. So I think it's important to understand that people aren't just evil. People have certain worldviews and ideologies and that those manifest in these behaviors. JONAN: And that we built the – JESSICA: Which meant the ideology is evil. JONAN: It makes the ideologies evil. JESSICA: Yeah, which causes the behavior of the people to be evil. That if – [overtalk] JONAN: And these are the systems that we build and perpetuate. JESSICA: Right, exactly and if we keep blaming the people and saying, “There are evil people,” then we will never fix the system. JONAN: Exactly. REIN: The most profound example of this I am aware of and if this is too heavy, we can cut it out of the show is [laughter] when Jordan Peterson claimed that the Nazi's final solution was because they were just evil, chaotic forces. In fact, their worldview demanded it. Their ideology demanded it. JESSICA: Yeah, there was nothing chaotic about that. JONAN: No, it was pretty organized. JESSICA: Yeah. MANDO: Thanks, IBM. JONAN: Yeah. JESSICA: Did you say IBM? MANDO: I said thanks IBM for their efforts. JONAN: And Bosch and every other company, right? MANDO: Yeah. JONAN: I mean, the world would not be able to sustain its current population without the work of Bosch creating nitrogen out of the air and also, then the Nazis used it to get gunpowder when they had no access. So we have a lot of those kinds of systems that we've built over the years and that's absolutely a part of it. You talked about the industries that are involved across these bridges. You don't get to show up to work, team and just be like, “I don't actually care about the impact that I have on humans. I care about the impact that I have on this graph.” You can't be that person anymore if we're going to make it and you can't walk around and point at those people and be like, “Yeah, they were fundamentally flawed from birth.” Whatever that thing means to you, you can't just say like, “Yeah, that person's evil. They probably had bad parenting.” Yeah, maybe they did. But I know a lot of people who had bad parenting or no parenting and turned out okay because they fought their way up that mountain. They overcame it. JESSICA: And they found friends, it helps them. JONAN: Yes. JESSICA: It's not, “Fight your way up the mountain, pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” No, it's, “Keep looking for a better place,” and by place, I mean friend group. JONAN: Yes. Surround yourself with people who genuinely care about you and care about the things that you care about. I wish I'd learned that earlier in my life. Man, I hung out with some people who had different values than I did over the years and I changed my life just by finding a good friend. JESSICA: Yeah. Because we are social animals and we really are the people we're closest to. MANDO: Yeah, absolutely. JESSICA: That's what makes sense with us. That is the world we live in. What was that John Gall quote from earlier? “I respect facts, but I live in impressions.” Especially the default appropriate behavior is whatever the people around us do ad that is what we will fall back to without active intervention and w

01:49 - Kurt’s Superpower: Lifting Others Up: “A rising tide lifts all boats.” 07:00 - “Self-Taught” vs “Self-Guided” vs “Self-Motivated” Developers 11:32 - The Intersection of Incarceration and Technology * Destigmatizing Incarcerated Folx * Hiring the Formerly Incarcerated * Providing Stability to Folx Coming Out of Incarceration 22:15 - Having Privilege Working in DevRel to Raise These Issues * Bias and White Privilege 26:51 - Helping and Advocating For the Formerly Incarcerated 29:32 - The Interview Process as it Relates to the Formerly Incarcerated * Background Checks * Rolling Jobs 36:26 - Always Be Applying (ABA); Technical Interviews and Fabrication/Bending Truths * Voluntary Disclosure: I'm an Impostor - Incarceration and Living a Lie (https://theworst.dev/im-an-impostor) 45:29 - Problematic Binary Identities 47:07 - What can companies and hiring managers do? / Problems with Hiring in Tech and Tech Interviews * Make No Assumptions * Avoid Feigned Surprise * Don’t Treat People Differently * Don’t Take Advantage * Don’t Interrogate 01:05:19 - Contextualizing Advice Reflections: Kurt: Community is what you surround yourself with. Laurie: Having empathy and understanding as a hiring manager for people who have perceivably negative things in their background. Jacob: Polyglotism and not being so gatekeep-y. John: Being reminded of how terrible our carceral state is here in the U.S. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Whether you're working on a personal project or managing enterprise infrastructure, you deserve simple, affordable, and accessible cloud computing solutions that allow you to take your project to the next level. Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode's Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier. Get started on Linode today with $100 in free credit for listeners of Greater Than Code. You can find all the details at linode.com/greaterthancode. Linode has 11 global data centers and provides 24/7/365 human support with no tiers or hand-offs regardless of your plan size. In addition to shared and dedicated compute instances, you can use your $100 in credit on S3-compatible object storage, Managed Kubernetes, and more. Visit linode.com/greaterthancode and click on the "Create Free Account" button to get started. JACOB: Hello, everybody and welcome to Episode 226 of Greater Than Code. My name is Jacob Stoebel and I’m joined with my co-panelist, John Sawers. JOHN: Thank you, Jacob and I’m here with Laurie Barth. LAURIE: Thanks, John. I’m excited to introduce our guest today, Kurt Kemple. Kurt Kemple is a technical writer, speaker, and software developer living in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He’s very passionate about the intersection of technology and incarceration. Currently, he works for Apollo GraphQL, as a Developer Relations Manager and when not working he can be found by the ocean or relaxing with his family, which sounds really incredible. So Kurt, I'm going to have you start us off by answering the question we ask all of our guests, which is what is your developer superpower? KURT: Well, first thank you for that awesome introduction. It's a pleasure to be here. So diving into what is my superpower, I thought about this a lot and I'm not really someone who I feel has some innate skill or ability that really makes me stand out in any particular area. But I think one thing that I do really well is I care very much about lifting up the people around me. I work actively to generally help others more than I'm helping myself. I think the rising tide lifts all boats kind of mentality and I think that that is definitely something that sets me apart is I gauge my success by how successful folks around me are. JACOB: That sounds fantastic. Was that something you felt like you've always done, or was it something do you consciously develop, or did it just sort of come around? KURT: I think it evolved out of situations in my life. I've dealt with a lot of stressful situations and pretty tough upbringing and I think a lot of it is just finding opportunities to make sure people don't have to experience those things and not being so drastic that it's always in relation to something very life altering. But there's something about removing roadblocks for other folks that you have the ability to do that is very rewarding to me and I think I just started to realize that later in life that that's something I value greatly. LAURIE: That's really interesting to hear because I think in a lot of areas of technology and in the industry, we often hear people saying like, “I had to do it, so you have to do it, too.” I've heard that with sort of the toxic interview, it's almost like hazing mentality and the tools may be abstracted, but if you don't know the super, super low-level piece of it, then you're never going to understand it the way I do sort of mentality. A lot of this gatekeeping stuff comes from that. So it's really refreshing to hear that you feel sort of the opposite of that. KURT: Yeah. Like I remember very distinctly, many times starting out programming, like getting the response: RTFM. It's like, people, they don't want to help for whatever reason. They want you to – it's like almost like a badge of honor; forcing folks to figure things out for themselves. There's something to be said with taking on learning as your own responsibility, but part of learning is knowing how to get answers and ask for help when you aren't figuring it out and so, I definitely really cannot stand to see that kind of lift the ladder up behind me mentality, or pull yourself up by the bootstraps type mentality. JACOB: So who are those people around you in your role with Apollo? Who are the people that you would measure the success of? KURT: Yeah. So it's actually spread out across multiple things, but I'll start from Apollo. I'm a manager of the developer relations team so definitely my direct reports absolutely care about how well they are doing as well as the DX organization, it extends out to their world. We're all part of developer experience and we want to make sure that things we're doing is helping lifting up the education team and DX as a whole. And then of course, that spreads out into Apollo, which is just by helping developers be successful with Apollo, we're actually helping a policy succeed. But when we talk about developer relations, really that's just communities I'm involved with at all. So that could be anybody from the communities that I'm a part of, whether that's content creation, DevRel, things around GraphQL, or developments, it could be anything related to that. Pretty much any person that I have interaction with, I start to look at ways in which I can help them move forward. JOHN: It's funny the phrase “bootstrap” is so embedded in our culture because it's coming from – it’s technical terminology at this point, but it's so interesting and I think important to think back to the origin of that phrase, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” was satirical because it's obviously, not possible to do that for you. You can't lift yourself by grabbing your boots and that's the whole point, but it's almost like turned over on itself and becoming oh, that's just what you do as economic policy or a social policy despite the fact that it was originally the complete opposite of that. KURT: Yeah. It's funny. I never really thought about that, but it's very true. They took something that was meant to be like satire, like, “Oh yeah, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” and then turned it into something serious. I still view it as satire. To me, it's the silliest phrase ever, but a lot of folks take that very seriously. JACOB: What else is satire or was originally satire was the word, “meritocracy”? KURT: Oh wow. JACOB: Yeah. It was basically like oh, the new aristocracy of people who think they're on top because of their merit; it's the meritocracy. It's something else I think about is the phrase self-taught; ex self-taught developer, self-taught engineer, or the million Medium posts of how I taught myself to code in 12 weeks. What does that mean, taught yourself? Do you have no interactions with any human? JOHN: You didn’t think a human produced? LAURIE: Yeah. The self-taught thing is actually really complicated and nuanced in my mind because a lot of people like to claim it and say, “Well, we're all self-taught because we all read blog posts and have to teach ourselves other things because as a developer, you're always learning new things and so, we can all claim that title.” And then there's the area of people who consider themselves self-taught, but they were working one-on-one through DMs with someone that is a working developer and they know really well. But then there's actually a last category of people, which is what I feel the label was sort of designed for, which is they never had any formal classroom experience that taught them like, the variable goes on the left side of the expression. So they had to learn just those super fundamental syntactical things through reading and through example videos and potentially sometimes asking questions, but it was a very async process. I think that's what self-taught is designed to imply that there wasn't a curriculum laid out in front of them and that they didn't have a helping hand along the way. I think there's something incredibly powerful about that and I hate the idea that it's been co-opted as well, everyone's self-taught, I'm like, “No, I got to sit in a computer science program and have teachers tell me what I needed to know in a certain order.” Was that necessarily the best way for me to learn? No. Did I have to go in and teach myself how to do things after that fact and for the rest of my career? Absolutely. But did I have some of those baseline foundational things conveyed to me based on someone who knew the order of operations of learning this topic? I did. So I am not self-taught in any sense of the word. KURT: Yeah. I think that's very interesting point and what I've been using. So I'm the other end of that spectrum. No official – that's actually not true, I took intro or intermediate web development course when I was incarcerated. But this was basically, here's a book on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and good luck. But aside from that, I had no real formal education, but I've adopted the term self-guided, which I feel is a better descriptor of that. Because it's more about guiding yourself through a curriculum to learn programming and it's like, you're pulling bits and pieces from wherever. You can find it to create your own curriculum is essentially what you're doing. But I did learn from lots of other folks along that journey, both through asynchronous communication and DMs, watching videos, reading, blog posts and stuff. So it's not like I was in a room with no outside influence and had a computer and was like, “I will code.” But I think I really like that term, self-guided, because that's a better representation, I feel like of what actually happened. LAURIE: I love that and it reminds me of when I was in high school where you get to take independent study and it's sort of the same concept of you get to go in-depth on a topic, but you're determining what shape that takes and where you go and what you focus on. JACOB: What successful means. KURT: Yeah. JACOB: And then no one will probably care, to be truthful. No one will actually care if you don't do it. LAURIE: Yeah. Yeah, that's the other thing; self-motivated is a big part of that. Like, no one's grading papers or assignments. There's no papers in coding. [laughter] No one is grading assignments. You don't have deadlines that are imposed by other people. If you buy the course and you never watch a single video, the only one accountable for that is sunk cost fallacy of having wasted the money. There's nothing forcing you to power through and that's actually a great way to prepare yourself for coding on the job. Because it's like, technically, there's just this ticket and you need to be looking at it and feel the sense of oh no, I need to get this done because no one can actually force you to do it! [laughs] KURT: Yeah. That's very accurate. [chuckles] JOHN: Concurred. It sounds like from your bio there that the group of people that you consider yourself to be responsible for helping to lift up is beyond just the team that you're responsible for. So I’d love to hear more about the other groups that you're working with on that level. KURT: Yeah. So, I think it's interesting when we talk about community and groups and to me, community is not like a thing with guidelines and boundaries, community is whoever you surround yourself with and so, to me, there is no React community, or GraphQL community. There's just people in my community who happened to know React, or GraphQL and I think it's an interesting way to look at community because it breaks down a lot of barriers. But if we do talk about specific groups, I am very into the intersection of incarceration and technology and the reason why is because I myself am formerly incarcerated and getting into tech had such a drastic effect on my life. So it’s just naturally, I want to and again, a lot of this motivation for lifting others up stems from this. I feel like I am often sitting on a gold mine and I feel selfish when I know that there are people who were in a similar situation who are coming out of prison and don't have any idea that this industry exists, that they can have a future in it with some self-guided learning, some hard work, and a lot of perseverance. It's by no means easy, let's be real. Coding is a very difficult skill, but most folks can accomplish that goal of learning it and it just feels like if I'm not actively working to help expose people, who are coming out of incarceration, find this industry and see if it's a fit for them, then I feel like I'm just like holding something that I should be freely giving away. I think a lot of where it comes with lifting others up is that feeling of, I'm holding something that other people should have access to and that's education, information. When we talk about self-guided, it's actually one thing about picking your own curriculum that is anxiety inducing is, am I picking the right things to learn? The industry is huge and you could pick so many different things and I lucked out that I was introduced to something that was a good path into tech for me. I would like to provide folks coming out the information that the industry exists, but also a little bit of guidance around some of the different ways that you can go and break into it. So I'd say that is definitely a community, or a group of folks in my community that I care deeply about is those who are transitioning from incarceration back into society. LAURIE: I'm curious if – obviously, this is an experience and a community that a lot of us don't have a lot of insight into and it's great that you do and you have those connections. Can you talk to us a little bit about the kinds of things that we all can do to make that transition easier to support those groups of people, whether it's in an organization or outside of that? KURT: Yeah. I'll say there's really two avenues where you can do a lot of good. One is in de-stigmatization. So it's sharing information about incarceration, figuring out who these people in the community are, building relationships with them, checking at your companies, and seeing if they're adhering to the laws around hiring formerly incarcerated folks. A lot of times background checks will violate labor laws within states and companies don't check that. They say, “Give me the default. I want all the information.” It's up to the company to actually check and make sure that they have the proper configuration that they're not losing people based on laws. A good example of this is in California, they can only look 7 years back on your record for criminal activity, barring certain types of activity. But for most things, only 7 years. However, there's companies that will do background checks and pull stuff up from way back. I had this happen with a company and I was like, “Hey, just to let you know, you're not allowed to pull up information from when you did. You showing me that you found my background is actually admitting that you're violating the state laws.” Now here's where the problem lies. It takes people who are the ones, the vulnerable being affected by it to push this forward because our only recourse is to hire a lawyer and to fight it in court. I'm jobless, have just come out of prison; I don't have any money for a lawyer to fight some company, to do that and then do you want to go now work for a company that you had to fight for the job in court? So it takes people who are not in that situation asking their employer, “Hey, what is our policy on hiring formerly incarcerated? What programs do we have in place to make sure we're not dropping them out of the pipeline?” That's a huge one. And then the second one is most people don't really want to go back to prison. That's not always true. You have people who actually do want to go because it's a place where they can get more stability and safety and stuff than they can. That says a lot about the United States as a whole, but most people, they come into prison with high hopes. I wasn't the only one in that web programming class like, I wasn't the only one learning how to train dogs, learning welding, carpentry, plumbing; taking every course that was available to me. There's a lot of other folks, too. But what people don't have and why recidivism is so high is there's no stability. So we get these skills. We get out into the world. We have no income. We have no job history for years because of this. Companies that would hire folks for the skills that we have learned are doing background checks and turning us down because of them. So it's like yeah, we're learning skills, we're learning stuff, but none of it can actually be used until x amount of years after you get out and you're just kind of left floating there. So finding programs, local programs that are based in civil activities, providing housing, providing food, providing access to equipment and education, further education for folks coming out of incarceration. Those are the two best places that you can by far have a huge impact. $50 worth of food can be the difference between somebody going back to prison or not. Because if they don't have it, they're going to revert to what they know and what they know is crime often, and then boom, they go back. Of course, if we look at who's the most affected by this, it's marginalized communities. So focusing on those communities is especially going to be impactful. JOHN: Yeah. I would also imagine that the lack of a support system in the outside world is also a huge factor there. Like you were saying the $50, people that have a support system can probably make-do relying on other people that they know to help out, to get by through that part where they need that extra money for food. But if you don't have that, there aren't really any other options. KURT: Yeah. It took me almost 3 years to land my first job coding as a software developer and I can pinpoint multiple times during that 3 years where I came very close to committing a crime again and that's wild to think about now. Now, I would never in a million years do anything, but I also have stability. It’s just a living example, somebody directly in front of you just proving that the prison system, prison industrial complex is really just a money-making machine that is not incentivized in any way to help provide you with stability and keep you out of prison. Most of our prisons are actually owned by private businesses and private businesses need revenue and for a private prison, what do you think the revenue stream is? Prison labor, slave labor, me working for 14 cents an hour. That is how they make money. So what is the real incentivization, or real incentive, I guess, is the actual word to actually have programs to help people be stable when they get out? To provide learning and education around things they'll actually be able to get jobs for? To not have lobbyists literally fight to keep laws around hiring formerly incarcerated as strict and terrible as they are? So the prison industrial complex literally sends people to Congress and have them lobby against improving these systems and then they pay people at the state level and it's just like all the way down. They pay judges to make sure they send non-violent offenders into the prison system. It's a nightmare of a system, but to circle back to that, that $50 makes a huge difference and can really be the differentiator. LAURIE: For what it's worth, I appreciate you being so candid about all of this. I think it's a topic that some of us are tangentially aware of, but don't necessarily have the specifics. I remember some of this from my poly-sci degree and it was horrible then and it's worse now. KURT: Yeah. It's not fun or pleasant, but I am privileged enough to be in a position to candidly speak about it and so, again, if we use manager speak, [chuckles] circle back to lifting up others and feeling like I'm holding onto something. This stuff is really stressful. It's hard to talk about even with as much as I do, but I find that the DMs that I get from folks who are struggling and trying to get into tech. When they reach out to me and they're like, “I found your blog posts or this podcast or video and it gave me hope,” I'm going to keep trying that's that motivates the ever-living crap out of me and it far outweighs that pressure. But another thing, too is not everyone is in a position to be able to speak about this. It's just, I've developed enough of a brand and identity in the industry. I have enough of a work background. The incidents have happened so far in the past now that they can't really be held against me for finding future work. So not everyone has that situation. LAURIE: I'm curious if you feel like being in the developer relations space has impacted your ability to have those conversations and have those interactions and be more visible compared to some sort of a more IC coding role where you don't necessarily have the same kind of network effect based on the work that you're doing day-to-day. KURT: Yeah. Oh, that's a really interesting insight. I mean, yes, the faster the audience grows that I can reach, clearly, it’s the more people I can reach with this message. So I definitely think DevRel has put me into a situation where I can reach more people faster because my network is growing faster than it was as an individual contributor. So yeah, a 100%. I think it's also interesting to find the balance between like, we all know how tech folks feel about people being people and having lives outside of technology. So it's like finding that line of growing your audience while producing information about things or causes that you care about and stuff without causing a lot of churn in drop off is a feat in and of itself. Every time I tweet about prison or something like that, I watch my followers drop. It's just like you can set a clock to it. But it's an interesting balance to try to not overshare in that regard and just continue to lose audience because then that affects things like algorithms and how many people I reach and stuff. So it is interesting. I never really thought about that, though. JOHN: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that like the way you talk about the work you're doing. At this point, you have the privilege to be able to talk about those things when so many people don't and that's certainly a powerful way to use that privilege that you currently have. What you're talking about there is losing follower count, which affects your job a little bit and trying to balance how you're talking about these things without cussing yourself too much. But it's interesting that those are the costs that you're weighing about speaking out and you know what those are and you also know that so many other people can't speak out because their consequences are going to be so much more drastic. KURT: Yeah, absolutely. When we start to look at this through the lens of bias in the industry. I am cis white dude; I have the benefit of like failing upwards. So it's like me going to prison, I get to spin it as this redemption story and I get to be the symbol of hope for prisoners coming out and breaking into tech. But it's not the same story for a lot of folks that I talk to who don't look like me or aren't basically white men. It gets really tough the further you get from that. So I also want to call out, too that a lot of times, the privilege to be able to speak is based on literal white privilege; I always get the benefit of the doubt. It's interesting, but yes, I get the benefit of doubt. I get to fail upwards. I'm formerly incarcerated, who's now the DevRel manager of Apollo. But I know so many other formerly incarcerated people who are way better at this stuff than I am and they still haven't found a work yet. So those disparities exist and when you compound other issues that the tech industry faces against that. Like, the hiring rate for formerly incarcerated Black women is like 4% or something ridiculous like that according to last statistics, from what I could find, which was about 2019. That's 4% compared to white males, which is about 43 or 44%. We have to take that into account, too. That privilege is steeped in white male privilege as well. JOHN: It's like the prison association just magnifies all of those existing inequities. KURT: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You're an ex-con, or a felon—I get to be formerly incarcerated, not a felon. JOHN: Yeah, the language matters a lot. KURT: Oh, yeah. JACOB: So what are some of the details of how you're helping folks? It looks like you have, it’s a Twitch stream? I just pulled up your Twitter account just a minute ago, but tell me details. KURT: Yeah. It's interesting. So when we think about helping people, I have stream, which I do a lot, a lot of blogging, involved in a lot of communities. Most of the work that I do. So if we're just talking about community in general, also the Apollo stream; I do a lot of streaming for them. My calendar is open; folks drop in there a lot. When it comes to helping formerly incarcerated, that's a lot more scaled down and on a one-on-one basis because every single person has a different situation. Also, a lot of them can't come forward and say that they're formerly incarcerated. There's an entire network of folks. Some of them can and they have, but there's an entire network of folks who I'm working with regularly and just, nobody knows because they can't really share or express that information. But I really focus on a couple of things, which is helping them figure out their path into tech, what it is that they'll like. So trying to get them guided on that, helping them build their network, teaching them about things like learning in public and how to do that. We work on freelance, because it's really hard for folks to get jobs, full-time employment so we focus on freelance work and how to look for red flags, clients, promote yourself, and stuff like that. It's generally different for each person because it all depends on where they are on the scale of their education into tech, how stable is their environment at home. It's just a lot of things that go into it. I am working on starting a nonprofit to formalize this training, but it's very slow going. I just really don't have the time that I would like to dedicate to it. Some other ways that I've been helping out is there's a really cool nonprofit project called The Marshall Project. They take a data-driven approach to exposing issues within the criminal justice system. I do a lot of stuff with that. I sponsor and support a lot of prison reform lawyers. They don't get paid a lot and stuff like that so monetary support for them, monetary support for the people who are coming out, who need that. There's really where I spend most of my focus, but if you ask anyone, I'm available. If somebody wants or needs something from me, I try to make myself available I talk to a wide range of people from all different communities about all sorts of different things. But I don't really have a centralized way, a singular path into helping folks out. It's pretty disparate, honestly. LAURIE: This is a slightly different topic, but it's something you touched on and what you just said. I'm wondering if we can talk about the interview process as it relates to being formerly incarcerated and revealing that information. Because I think one of the – I had an interaction with someone a couple of years back who said, “I got all the way through the process. I didn't tell them they offered me the job and now I have to tell them because it's about to come up on a background check,” which the efficacy of that we can discuss for a long time. “But it's about to come up on a background check, what do I do? How do I have this conversation?” I think we all know that especially for entry level positions, there's thousands of applicants and the minute you give them one red flag, they're like, “Oh, well, we have 500 other people to talk to.” So what has been your experience with talking to people going through this and how they can navigate what is already an incredibly stressful and difficult process, even not having some flags that unfortunately, don't get perceived the way that we wish they would? KURT: Yeah, this is a really great question. It’s the most – I won't say the most, it is an extremely stress and anxiety inducing situation. I've developed a system over the years from having dealt with this, but in the beginning, it was very chaotic. You would just get through the process; you don't say that you have a record, you don't come upfront and say it. You never do that. If they're going to do a background check, let them do it. I've had situations where companies have made me fill out paperwork for background check and then they never, I guess, submitted it because they never came and said anything about it, or maybe at that job, they were following their state's laws and it didn't come back. I would say it's a multi-step process. So first things first, never say that you have a background upfront. Second of all, is investigate the state laws around hiring the formerly incarcerated for that company for where they are located. Where is their business set up at? Understand those state laws? The next thing that's going to happen is if you get through the interview process and they're going to do a background check, so what they always do—this is the most annoying thing. Oftentimes, you will sign your offer letter. You will have a start date. You will do all this and in there, it says contingent upon a background check. This puts you in this situation where, especially if you're at an existing company, you want to give them time. Do you put in your leave and throw all of your eggs into this basket only to then come on and then they do the background check and then it comes back and they fire you? It puts you in this just purely stressful situation for about two weeks. But a couple of things that you can do to get ahead of it is I started doing things where I will message them and I get real creative and I'm like, “Look, I've had issues with discrepancies, with insurance and other things, not going through before I've signed my start date and then there were problems, disagreements. I need to know all the paperwork. I need to have that signed upfront and have everything taken care of before I will decide on a start date. I want to make sure I give ample time to leave.” So sometimes that will work and that will get you a lot closer. When that doesn't work, the other thing that I do is anytime they're going to do a background check, you have to consent to it and part of that consent is they'll tell you the company that they're going to use. If I've made it this far, I will then pay out of pocket and go get my own background check from this company. For most of them, you can do that. Now what it is that even if a company reaches out, I will put them off until I get the background check so I can see what has come back about my record so I can better prepare my statement for how I want to discuss this with them. If you make it through all of that and you get there, sometimes they just still are going to say no, or they'll just ghost you and I've had that happen to me, too. Just literally been ghosted and it's just hard, it's stressful. There's not a lot you can do with it. The best thing that you can do is understand the laws around the different 50 states, figure out which ones are the most forgiving towards you and your situation, apply for jobs—ideally, remotely—within that place. If you're in that position, a lot of people aren't in that position, but it's just stress-inducing nightmare. One thing that I did do is I always had backups. I would have offers from multiple jobs and accept multiple offers, which sucks. But then if I get one, I stay in and I don't, but I would stagger the start dates. LAURIE: Wow. KURT: Yeah. I learned that from my 3 years of trying to get my first job because even trying to work at Target, Walmart, all these places I check yes on that have you been convicted of a felony in the last 7 years and I'd never hear from them. So I just stopped checking it. I would get a job at Target. I would work there for three weeks and then they would be like, “Hey, background check came through. Wish you wouldn't have lied to us. You're one of our best workers, but now we have to let you go.” It's like, “Well, cool. You wouldn't have hired me anyway. I'll take my 3-week paycheck. I've already got a job lined up at McDonald's. So I'm going to go work there for three weeks now.” My first 2 years out of prison, I had like at least 10 W-4s, at least 10, probably closer to 20 my first year and then I got a little bit smarter about places that I was picking through the second year so I was able to stay places longer. But you just have to do whatever you have to do or you have to resort back to crime, really. That's always, my advice to folks is rolling jobs like, ABA. Always be Applying. Always be applying for jobs and lining them up so if they come at you, “We did your background check. We're going to let you go.” You can just go to the next place and you don't have to go so long without having income. LAURIE: That sounds like an incredibly stressful way to live. KURT: It is a very stressful way to live. Yeah, it absolutely is. And that kind of comes back to tech can change lives. Even my first job was a really crappy paying job doing pretty boring work, but I was so happy when I actually got my first job. It changed my whole life. Literally changed my life and then after learning about the industry, finally getting my job, talking to other industry professionals, I was able to realize how drastically underpaid and overworked I was. Slowly started to work my way out of that and up to a standard developer salary for this day and age. I make money today that I never dreamed in a world of possibility that I would ever make in my entire life ever. Never thought that this would be the life that I live today and it can really change folks' lives and that's why I'm so aggressively trying to help folks. LAURIE: It's interesting that you talk about Always be Applying. There was some Twitter threads stuff going around a couple of weeks back about that in relation to the tech industry and talking about you should always see what's out there and see if there's better possibilities. My first reaction was interviewing is the most stressful part of working in tech, who would voluntarily do that if they're not looking to leave a job? I suspect it is slightly less stressful in some ways, if you're applying to retail positions, but more stressful if you're dealing with something like a record. Just having to have that in the back of your mind and always trying to find a new job and that new security is – I mean, we talk about people in tech who do it every 1 to 3 years and that already seems like way too often. Every three weeks is just unfathomable to me. KURT: Yeah. It's like you said, it's a lot of stress. By the time you figure out who everyone is, you're onto the next place. You get so tired of hearing, “You're one of our best workers, but we have to let you go.” You can only hear that so many times in a year before you just never want to hear that phrase again. It's just very aggravating for sure. I will say that that was less stressful than tech interviews in my opinion. LAURIE: Oh, that's damning! JOHN: Yeah. KURT: Yeah, that was way less stressful. The anxiety of technical interviews, especially when they're asking me questions about my background, because I have to fabricate basically 10 years of my life and that was one of the hardest parts. So one of the hardest parts about having a record and not being able to share it, especially in an industry where everybody wants to know how you got there, it's very hard to build that lie around what you do and it starts to really weigh on you. I made me really depressed constantly having to lie. “Oh, how'd you learn how to code?” “Well, actually I was in prison and they had a course called Intermediate Web Page and I took it.” I can't say that. I can't say that. So I have to fabricate and then I just bend the truth, which it was true. Like, “Oh, a friend of mine was going to take this course, I decided to take it with them.” That was true. I just left out that that decision was made in prison. It's like, “Oh, I got my first taste of it and then I just started buying books to continue to learn and use any opportunity I could in front of a computer to continue programming.” Also true. Just didn’t mention that for the next about year and a half, I didn't have access to a computer and I picked that back up when I got out. Yeah. It's just about bending those truths and it's like, “Oh, well, where did you work?” Not a full lie, I'm like, “I did a lot of freelancing and consulting,” which I did. I did IT and website development and stuff, freelancing and consulting work, the little bits I could get. Doing a local plumber's website or something like that, helping somebody get all the viruses off their computer. Wonder how those got there. But it's stuff like that. So that's what I had to do. I had to fabricate this false history. Part of me coming out and talking about this was also selfish. It was just very depressing and I was tired of lying all the time. I was finally in a position where I felt that while coming forward about this part of my life could still have negative impacts that I have enough of a time distance and enough of an identity that I could probably still have a future in tech. That's what I did. I was at Major League Soccer and I let my team know and the people around me know and then I posted a blog post about it and that's really when everyone started to find out. This is only 2018, 2019. I got my first job in tech – or 2018. I got my first job in tech in 2013 so it was like 5 years, I went with only telling a couple people. LAURIE: I was about to ask if you still have to lie because I feel like the minute you Google you, that's one of the first thing that comes up, this really incredible post about your experience. It's like if someone didn't check your Twitter, I'm questioning the due diligence that they did and just relying on a background check seems a little odd if they haven't even looked up your social media. Your public technical, social media, not looking to see if you have a Facebook with lots of beer cans behind you sort of thing. KURT: Right. Yeah. No, absolutely. But you'd be amazed. I mean, people don't look at your social media first. It's interesting when we think about especially tech hiring; your resume in a pile and before you even get to that pile, you're just a resume that gets pumped through a system a lot of times. It's like until you build a network that is often yeah, you are a victim of that a lot of times. They're not going to know who you are personally before they see you on paper and that's very detrimental, but you would think they would do a little bit of research and look that up. It's actually funny, you brought up a good point, which is if you search, you'll bring it up. I worked so hard to actually get my actual prison from North Carolina thing pushed off the first page and build a public profile and now it's right back at the top, but because I put it there. So that is really funny. [chuckles] LAURIE: But that matters, right? KURT: It matters. LAURIE: It’s like voluntary disclosure versus something that you don't have control over, that is a huge, huge difference. I’m thinking of the Meghan Markle thing right now, where everyone's like, “She sued because they published a letter with her father, but now she's disclosing her pregnancy,” and I'm like, “Yeah, very different! One she chose to and the other one, she did not.” KURT: Exactly. Yeah, that's a huge difference. But it's just really interesting to think about that I'm back at the top of Google now for being formerly incarcerated. [laughter] But under much better terms and I get to tell my story and explain why. Not just be like a mugshot with some records. JACOB: If you had asked me before this episode, “Have you ever worked with an incarcerated person while you’re working in tech?” I privately would have told myself, no. I mean, I probably would have said, “I'm not sure,” but I think my implicit bias would have said no. KURT: Yeah. JACOB: And I think this is making me realize I probably have and I think probably a lot of our listeners have, too and it just either a, it didn't come up at all, or b, was handled in a way that it didn't get around to the rest of the workforce, which is probably the best thing. KURT: Yeah, there are some companies. I have found the companies that do you actually advocate for formerly incarcerated. They do it really well and only because I'm so vocal is why my team knows. Even at Apollo, they're very careful about it. We talked about my background actually coming up and then they were like, “Well, this wasn't supposed to show up, but even regardless, we're not going to hold this against you even if it was within the timeframe.” It was very nice and this is between us, it won't matter and I'm like, “Well, I've kind of let the cat out of the bag so it's not a big deal if it's between us,” but I loved seeing the approach that they took. You're right, you probably have worked with people who were incarcerated before. It's a large percentage of people who have been to prison in the US. A very large percentage, way more than it should be and so, it's really interesting to think about, but you're right. It hasn't come up. Most people who have been incarcerated aren't going to just leap out and be like, “Oh, that's an interesting thing. Let me tell you about the time I was locked up and how this was.” They're going to keep that to themselves because you never know how people are going to take it. You just don't know how people will react and some people, even if they are cool with it, will still look at you differently and I've had situations like that happen and it's tough to deal with, but it's a part of life. Again, I'm not trying to make this a sob story. I did things that put me in prison and I did my time and I I've paid my dues to society. Rightfully so. Well, there's a whole thing about the sentencing and what we should be doing in the US, but according to law, I paid my dues and I was released and really, the buck should stop there, but you don't stop doing time when you're released. You continue to do it pretty much forever because the US again, we have the stigma around prisons and why do we have that? Because the prison industrial complex is pushing this agenda that we have a lot of crime and we need a lot of cops and we need to lock people up and people who come out of prison are in prison or felons and bad people and deserve to be there. This is instilled into us from the time that we're kids and that's why I say the two most important things are providing stability for folks getting out and helping de-stigmatize having a record and helping break down the prison industrial complex. It's the only way we see a future where this is not an issue. LAURIE: This could probably be a whole other episode, but you saying that and talking about there are felons and they're bad people in there and it's instilled in us. It's the idea of a binary identity, which exists in so many different places in our society. There's good and bad, and there's right and wrong, and there's the reason that people hate using this term, because it's incredibly racist and problematic. It's black and it's white. All of these things are rooted in the same ideology, which is that to simplify the way that our brain experiences life, we can categorize things into one is good and one is bad. That's not the way the world works and that's not who people are. People take bad actions and they take good actions, but that doesn't make them bad people or good people. A lot of the reason we do that is because we like to tell ourselves we're good people. And I'm sure you've heard this phrase, I'm sure all of us have heard this phrase, but the phrase, “You didn't make good choices. You had good choices” is the same as the meritocracy argument, which is like, you had the ability to get somewhere because you started on third base, you had the ability to make all the right decisions and do all the things because you had stability and resources and comfort. Without those things, would you have made the same choices as the person that you're looking down on? Probably honestly, probably and you just have no idea what that's like. So I appreciate you pointing that out because I think we've had episodes in the past about binary identities and what problems that causes. JOHN: So Kurt, you called out something that's pretty interesting that was going by and what you were saying earlier about how Apollo treated you when they found out about your record and the way they went through that. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about if there's someone who's a hiring manager, maybe in a small company without a giant HR organization and strict policies around the hiring. What is a good way for that person to handle when they find out through the background check that the candidate that they really like has a record of some sort like, what's the good path there? KURT: Yeah. There's two things there. So I want to answer that question, but one thing I do want to actually circle back to very quickly, which is what you said about bigger companies with stricter policies. In my experience, it's actually the bigger companies that you have an easier chance of getting a job at. They have huge HR departments and law teams and want to protect themselves and we'll make sure that they're actually following the proper hiring laws and state regulations for wherever it is they are. I had no problem getting a job at AWS, but when you flip it in reverse to these startups and they outsource their HR to these other companies, that is actually where most of the trip-ups happen because they don't have – well, a lot of times it's ignorance of the situation. They're ignorant of the fact they're violating hiring and labor laws and they don't even know. So I just want to state that is something because that was something I learned, too that actually shifted my job search function was I would actually target more organized companies because I stood a better chance of knowing that if they did do a background check, it would actually follow the state guidelines. But to answer the question, that's a really good point and a really good question, I mean and a tough one to answer. I think just number one is making no assumptions. There's a couple things and this actually kind of relates to some other stuff. So there's going to be – you can't be defensive. I've discovered that a lot of times when people find out that you have a background, they feel somewhat lied to and it's like, “I didn't come up front about it up forward,” but it's kind of a bomb when it lands. Again, we have the stigma about people with records and then they see it, their first instinct is to be like, “Well, why don't you share this with me?” The obvious reason that it wasn't shared with you, but you might not be realizing it at the time, is because I don't know if it's going to matter getting this job. It's something that could hurt me and I don't want to reveal it until you've had a chance to get to know me. So just know that, the reason that they did not share it with you is because they wanted you to know them as a person and go through the interview process before you find out about something like this. They're just trying to get a little bit of empathy from you. The second thing is to avoid things like feigned surprise, like, “Oh my goodness, I can't believe you have a record,” or “I never would have guessed that you would have a background.” Things like that, they start to split somebody's identity and make them feel like again, we talk about this good and bad binary and that's going to really cause them a lot of stress and anxiety. You want to avoid things like that. And then the last thing to do is just to continue to treat them the exact same way that you did before you knew. If you can do those things, that person is going to feel safe and they're going to have a great experience working with you. JOHN: Great. That's super handy. I imagine that there's some people out there having that question like, “Oh I've never been in that situation, but what's the best way to handle that?” So it's definitely good to know. LAURIE: Totally outside the episode, but Mandy Moore just released a screenshot of a place that wanted to interview her about her entire career and she said she wouldn't talk about the abuse allegations against her ex-husband and they canceled the interview and they said it would be essential to the story. She said, “If you only want me for my trauma, when I have a 20-to-30-year long career, then I have no interest in having this conversation,” and how upsetting that was. It’s like one person is not their worst – I mean, not even a mistake. Like, one person is not their association with another person's bad actions. KURT: Yeah. That actually brings up a really interesting topic, too, which is people trying to take advantage. When you talk about lifting others up, I often find myself in situations where people are just blatantly trying to take advantage of me and my willingness to help folks. That happens all the time. JACOB: How so? KURT: Just a lot of things like, private companies will want me to do webinars or talks on things about breaking into tech and just different topics, or ask me for access to my network or do I know formerly incarcerated folks who might be interested in contract work? I can tell that they're asking because they feel like they could get them for a cheaper price. You know what I mean? They're not going to have to pay them as much and it's like a lot of shady business practices and stuff like that. I get that on the regular. It's pretty frustrating. LAURIE: Oh my gosh. It's Women in Tech in a different outfit. [chuckles] KURT: Yeah. LAURIE: It feels the same hearing you explain it. I'm like, yup, yup, yup, yup. KURT: Yeah. It's been an interesting side effect of this. JOHN: Yeah. That reminds me of we had Veni Kunche on the show a while back talking about the diversified tech system platform that she's built and how people paid to post jobs to her audience. But she does a lot of work to vet those companies to make sure that they're not going to just come in the door and be kicked out again in eight months because there's no support for actually having those sorts of people joining the team. So it's such an important trust relationship there with the community you represent, especially because most of them need to be somewhat on the DL as being part of that community. It's like, if you're a Black woman, it's no surprise that you're a part of that community, but it's still so important for you as someone, who's much more public and representing them, that you have to be so careful about who you're connecting to. KURT: This has been one of the biggest holdups for me starting this nonprofit and providing training is there's a lot of issues with exposing people through this. So it's like the end goal would be for them to leave and be able to seek training, or employment, but the real problem comes afterwards when you are trying to help them seek employment or freelance jobs. It's like you have to disassociate your network and attachment with them from that nonprofit. If a lot of people know that I'm doing that nonprofit, then they're going to automatically start to assume everyone who I provide through my network is going to be coming from this program. So there's just like a lot of things. I've been very much trying to figure out how do I prioritize these folks and vulnerable people, in general and I think a lot of that has to do with, I don't know, I'm like why I've been so hesitant to move forward with this? I don't want to start a nonprofit with the best of intentions, but that the impact of that nonprofit ends up being more harmful than good and it's like, who does that really benefit? That's why so far, I've been sticking with this more kind of like one-on-one. I know it doesn't scale well, but that's okay. If I help some people that's better than helping no one, first of all and second of all, helping a few people and having that be really beneficial to them, as opposed to helping a bunch of people and it might end up good for you, or it might end up bad for you and we don't really know, it seems very risky to me. So I think it's why I've been working very slowly at that and really trying to figure out what does that process look like once they're done training because there's still a lot of unknowns there. JOHN: Yeah. It's a conundrum that most training programs and diversity programs don't have to deal with because most of them, they want to highlight the intersections of the people that come through their program because that's part of what they're after and raising the profile there and you have the exact opposite situation, which is how do you smuggle them in before prejudges? KURT: Exactly and so, completely flips the game on its head. I think it was you Laurie, that tweeted if you had your salary, your developer salary and you could do anything, what would you do? I would actually become a prison reform lawyer. I think the real goal is to stop the flow of folks going in. The band-aid is helping folks come out. The real work is stopping folks from going in to begin with, but I can't go back to school for another 8 years to become a lawyer and then move forward with that direction. So that's what I want to talk about. I've been helping sponsor prison reform lawyers and look for ways to get involved with that. I've offered volunteer time to The Marshall Project to help with them and their data collection efforts and stuff like that. Again, taking myself out of the center, the nonprofit I'm very centered in that scenario and I feel like I can have a bigger impact in more areas by just contributing as opposed to being the creator of the thing. So right now, that's kind of where my mind is at while I feel out this nonprofit and see if I can develop something I'm comfortable with, from that. LAURIE: I was just going to say, I was doing that math and you just said 8 years. Does that mean you have your GED? This may not be a thing that I know. KURT: Yeah, I have my GED and no college education. I went to college for a little over a year for graphic design, but could not afford to go anymore, so stopped and then that's like my education. In order to get a law degree, I would first have to get a Bachelor's so I need 4 years of college—I don't know how many of my credits would be transferable from graphic design—and then I would have to go to law school afterwards and then still deal with certain states. If I can even take the test for the bar, or be on the bar being a convicted felon, which in most states you can, but there are still states where you cannot. LAURIE: So the reason I asked and it wasn't to do the math, but it was more, that is another community that you belong to that, I think perhaps in the past had a very different set of opportunities available to them in tech. And as tech has become higher paying and we've done a lot more recruiting from the Stanfords and the MITs and Harvard and Yale and all of those things, it used to be, you could break in – it goes back to the self-taught like, you could break in without any undergrad degree and now that's getting harder and harder and harder and harder. So I'm curious if—obviously, it's hard to decouple those based on your experience because you were formerly incarcerated and you didn't have that formal Bachelor's degree. But have you seen situations in which that has been a different community that you're a part of, or that has impacted the opportunities that you can pursue? KURT: Yeah. I wouldn't be able to separate maybe if I went back and thought about it, but in my mind, every time I've been ghosted has primarily been – well, it stopped me from not applying to a lot of places. That's for sure. It's blocked me from feeling confident enough to even apply and that was definitely in the beginning before I knew the industry and how bad most job application postings are and realize that the requirements they often ask for are way beyond what you actually need to do the job. But I didn't know that. So I would see like needs a Bachelor's degree and I'd be like, “Nope, not applying to that one.” So I guess, I did miss out on a lot of opportunities just from that. But most times, I feel like if it came down to decision and I went through the interview process and they did a background check—I just always assumed it was the background check that I got ghosted. JOHN: Yeah. Usually, if the degree is going to be a factor, it's right at the front of the process. KURT: Early on, yeah. But it could be a deciding factor, especially with entry-level folks. Two people made it through the interview process. They both did really well. It really comes down to what the person who makes that decision cares more about, do they care more about this on paper or some sort of like behavioral give that seems this person would be better to work with. It's like, what do they care about and so, it can definitely have huge effects. This gets into a whole another discussion, but that's just the tech industry and hiring in general is just terrible. LAURIE: Broken! KURT: Beyond broken. Yeah. It's just like you know? [chuckles] The fact that it can come down to whether or not you get a job based on the preference of the person who's looking at the things in front of you is just super problematic. But I definitely feel that I'm sure, there's a lot of cases where people would see one has a degree, the other does not and they're going to go, “Oh, taking the CS grad anytime, because we're about to go write all these algorithms.” LAURIE: Kurt, do you know my favorite story about ridiculous things that should not be a thing? KURT: Oh, I can't wait. LAURIE: So I was interviewed for a job, internal transfer. I got the job. They sent the paperwork to HR and HR said, “Sorry, you can't hire her because she has a Bachelor of Arts and Mathematics, not a Bachelor of Science and Mathematics.” Literally not even joking, this is a real thing that happened. I was halfway through a Master's of Science in Computer Science because I was annoyed by the fact that they cared that I had a Bachelor of Arts and they said, “So because she doesn't have the right degree, she needs to have the right amount of courses that would be equivalent to the degree.” In that case, that was 16 computer science or math specific hard science courses, which is more than the Bachelor's degree was required! So if I had that, I would have had a Bachelor's degree of Science and Computer Science or a Bachelor's degree of Arts and Computer Science, because I went to a liberal arts school and they are not accredited to give Bachelor's of Science regardless of what your major is. So on the scale of ridiculous things that happen in tech, just add that as a fun story to remember. KURT: It's like what goes through their heads? It's like, “Oh, well, we must adhere to this policy because clearly, the policy makes more sense than somebody who has worked here, has a proven track record of doing their job well, has already moved to the other team and everyone is cool with it, but wait a minute, you don't have enough credits.” LAURIE: I got blocked. I didn't get to move. To be fair, it was the federal government so that's sort of how the world works, but still. KURT: Yeah. Still, it shouldn't work like that and it's symptomatic of the ridiculous hiring process that we've developed as a tech industry. It just like, I don't know, I've worked in construction. I've worked in the restaurant industry. I've worked at a lot of other places and none of my interviews have ever felt really like somebody was trying to prove that they knew something I didn't, or like catch me in a gotcha. You know what I mean? This is what I mean by tech interviews are more stressful than even when I was interviewing at all those other jobs combined, because I never felt like I was being interrogated and that's the difference. Honestly, tech interviews feel a lot like when I was actually being interrogated. That should tell you something. It just feels like they're constantly trying to trip you up, trying to get you to say something that disagrees with what you said five minutes ago, prove they know something that you don't. Does all of this sound familiar? LAURIE: I mean, Kurt, if you're a personal brand is that you're kind and you help people and you were formerly incarcerated and you do cool things now, you know that mine is just railing against tech interviews, so. KURT: Yeah. [laughter] LAURIE: This is a known thing. KURT: Well, that's amazing. But it's a very aggressive interview process. It often pits folks against each other as opposed to working with each other. I just have never been a big fan of tech interviews. LAURIE: Terrible for anyone who has ever had anxiety in their life or deals with any kind of PTSD or trauma. Yup. No, it's really – My favorite tweet about this is that Tatiana explained that she felt it was equivalent to – it was an abusive relationship and that it's string you along for seven interviews and then they're like,” Oh, well you don't have the skill that we need,” except you would have known that I didn't have this skill because it was on my resume and it's been in every conversation, but you just put me through all of this just to say no, because you told yourself that it was better for me and you were giving me a chance and all of these things. A lot of people came back and they were like, “That's going to step too far,” and I was like, “You know what? I honestly don't think it is.” It really is that bad and that's horrifying and it's why so many people stay in toxic work environments because the idea of going through a toxic interview process doesn't feel like something they can possibly do. KURT: Yeah, and those folks who are saying it ain't that bad are probably the ones who are normally on the other side of that table, so. [chuckles] JOHN: Yeah. I always find I have to hold my tongue when people are in otherwise, decent situations or even when they're in bad situations, my automatic recommendation is, “Well, start looking for something else,” but I always have to back up from that and not say that because if there's any sort of difference in privilege between us, I can't give that advice because it's such so much more work for them than for me. So I have to be very careful. KURT: Yeah. That's another really awesome point and something that I have worked a lot on over the last 2 years in helping folks, which is contextualizing

03:31 - Uncovering Patterns * Making the Covert Overt * Reasons for Covertness 13:22 - Taking Care of People as Whole People * People Are Dynamic – Not Stagnant * Roles Are Constantly Changing * Iterating on Practices * William A. Kahn: Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work (https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/256287) * Financial Compensation * Metrics and Observability 28:43 - The Tech Industry: Now vs Then (aka we still have A LOT of work to do) * Gatekeeping * Accountability * Inclusivity * New Zealand Maori leader ejected from parliament for refusing to wear 'colonial noose' (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-politics-necktie/new-zealand-maori-leader-ejected-from-parliament-for-refusing-to-wear-colonial-noose-idUSKBN2A9329) * Whitewashing 45:59 - The Messaging Around Diversity and Inclusion * Doing the Right Thing 51:26 - Changing Mindsets * Using Privilege to Speak to Power Reflections: Rein: Capitalism and White Supremacy are the same thing. The Invention of the White Race (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Invention_of_the_White_Race_Racial_o/G4elgqb-MjwC?hl=en&gbpv=0). We have an obligation to not just make it possible for people to exist in the industry, but to also make it healthy. John: It’s always great to have these conversations as reminders. Tim: Figure out why something makes you uncomfortable. Look and uncover the pattern underneath that in yourself. Be comfortable with being uncomfortable. If you run away, you’re never going to grow and things are never going to get better. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Whether you're working on a personal project or managing enterprise infrastructure, you deserve simple, affordable, and accessible cloud computing solutions that allow you to take your project to the next level. Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode's Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier. Get started on Linode today with $100 in free credit for listeners of Greater Than Code. You can find all the details at linode.com/greaterthancode. Linode has 11 global data centers and provides 24/7/365 human support with no tiers or hand-offs regardless of your plan size. In addition to shared and dedicated compute instances, you can use your $100 in credit on S3-compatible object storage, Managed Kubernetes, and more. Visit linode.com/greaterthancode and click on the "Create Free Account" button to get started. JOHN: Hello, everybody. This is Greater Than Code, Episode 225. I’m John Sawers and I’m here with Rein Henrichs. REIN: And I’m here with our guest, my friend, and Dungeons & Dragons party member, Tim Banks. Tim Banks has a career spanning over 20 years through various sectors. Tim’s initial journey into tech started as a US Marine in avionics. Upon leaving the Marine Corps, he went on to work as a government contractor. He then went into the private sector, working both in large corporate environments and in small startups. While working in the private sector, he honed his skills in systems administration and operations for large Unix-based datastores. Today, Tim leverages his years in operations, DevOps, and Site Reliability Engineering to advise and consult with engineering groups in his current role as a Principal Solutions Architect at Equinix Metal. Tim is also a competitive Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, having won American National and Pan American Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu championships in his division. Hi, Tim! TIM: Hi! Good to see everybody in here. REIN: Yeah, I did that on the first take and I'm very proud of myself. TIM: I am so, so proud of you. That was amazing. REIN: Tim, it's time for the question. TIM: Right. REIN: What is your superpower and how did you acquire it? TIM: So my superpower is using empathy to uncover patterns that people haven't seen in the past and I think that's a superpower because a lot of people can look at something, there's a lot of folks out there that can see a pattern just on the surface like this does that, this does that, this does that. But when you really talk to groups and you talk to people, you can see some common things that aren't necessarily things that are going to have an output or a metric, but you can see how people feel about a thing. And then when you get enough people who feel a certain way about a thing, that's not going to be a coincidence, it's going to be a pattern. So finding those patterns is my superpower. As far as how I acquired it, it's hard for me to say. The easy way to say is over time, but over time and myself being a person who necessarily wasn't listened to, or seen, or heard trying to explain how things are, why things are the way they are without having metrics. So having been on one side of that equation, I've been able to see people on the other side of it. REIN: So Tim, you said “to uncover patterns.” Can you say a bit more about the word uncover? Because I feel like that might've been a specific choice that you made to use. TIM: Yeah. There are typically, as we see with anything else, especially being tech or people that like to take things apart, I'm sure as we all did as kids, there are things that you see on the surface. There are things that you see, this pattern or this thing happening here, but you take the face plate off of something, or you delve down below the API, or you delve down below the operating system and there are so many other things that are happening beneath that. If you kick over amount of dirt and you see an ant hill, the ants have their own system, how they do things down there that you don't necessarily create, but you're just going to see it and you have to uncover a few things. You have to move things around. You have to look below the surface to see some of these patterns that happen just below the surface that bring the things at the surface to fruition. REIN: This reminds me a lot of I guess, it's a mantra that I learned from Virginia Satir, which drink if you're playing that game, make hidden things visible, make the covert overt and make the general specific and related to you, me, here, now, and the current situation. TIM: Yeah. I think that's actually a good – I had not heard of that one before, but I do like that a lot. REIN: So when you say uncover, that makes me think, make the covert over. TIM: Yeah, I think so. I like that. It's interesting because people sometimes think that things are covered up to make them hidden and it's not necessarily, they're hidden like someone has hidden them so you can't find them. A lot of times they're hidden in plain view. You don't find them because you're not looking for them and when you actually start to look for some of these things, some of the underlying causes, you'll be surprised what you find. It's like a lot of us here have done RCAs on things and oftentimes, if you do a good RCA, you're going to go through a few levels and different layers to find what the actual root cause. Like, most of the times the root of something is not at the surface, it's way down. So you actually have to go down and dig to uncover these things, to really find out what's at the base of something. REIN: So since this is the show where we talk about the social side of things, I want to ask you about these things that are covered that are maybe covered for a reason and maybe that the reason that they're covert is that people are trying to protect themselves and they don't feel safe to make them overt. So do you think about these situations and how do you go about making that safe to talk about? TIM: So I do think about these situations and there's a couple of reasons why. First, obviously, is in the professional world you can't always call people out immediately for things. Even if you know that there's something that's a lie or something that's not right, there are the political reasons why you have to be tactful or you have to be very deliberate and cautious about how you uncover these things because even if people aren't necessarily intentionally hiding things, or it is their mind that I must hide this as he'll feel safe, people's egos are the number one obstacle, I think to innovation. Someone has staked out a claim. Someone has a territory. Someone has some domain that they have, that they are a gatekeeper thereof and it is their ego that makes sure that you have to pay homage to them or to that ego in order to get anything done. So figuring out what they're protecting, whether they're protecting their job, whether they're protecting their ego, whether they're protecting levels of influence so that they can rise in their career. You have to figure out what that is, that what that thing is that is important to them so that way you can make sure that it's either protected, or you can make sure that there are more than one person that have access to that thing so you can make your way. At personal levels, there are things that people cover up because they don't feel safe and doing the work of trying to make them feel safe so you can talk about these things, I think that's the hardest thing that we do in the industry. Solving technical problems is easy compared to solving people problems, or cultural problems, or societal problems because those are the problems that we've had for millennia that we, collection of people in a common industry, are trying to figure out. Saying to somebody, “Hey, I see these patterns here of work, or absenteeism, or productivity, or whatever it is and I need to know what it is that's going on so that we can fix that,” and make them understand that you are there to help them and there to fix that problem, whatever it may be, that takes some work on the part of the person who's trying to uncover that pattern. It takes vulnerability and it takes confidentiality. It takes empathy. Especially if it's something that you've never dealt with before. Someone's going to tell you, “Hey, I have this problem,” and you're going to say, “All right, well, I know leadership or I know management or unknown this senior technical professional here, but I don't know the answer to this problem, but I can say that I will help you find it and then we can work together on it.” And a lot of people don't like to say, “I don't know the answer.” We see a lot of people that are very technically savvy and because they're very technically savvy, they are now considered to be experts in all kinds of domains. Nobody in particular—Elon Musk—but there are people that are looked to be some kind of great genius just because they happen to know how to code something, or architect something. I think when you display the vulnerability of saying, “I don't know.” Or you are upfront about your problems or upfront about your struggles, it makes people feel safer about being upfront about theirs and then you can go through the work of trying to solve those problems. Well, first of all, identifying if it's a pattern, and then solving the problem that's causing those patterns. JOHN: I like that you use the metaphor of anthill earlier on in this, because rather than when you describe something as pattern, it's very abstract and feels like an object. But when you talk about an anthill, it's individual entities working together in a system. It's something that exists on its own, made up of other individuals. It's not just some object that we can examine and I think that brings it into thinking about it in a different way and much like the way you've been describing how you talk about these things and how you work with people. Very humanizing and I like that. TIM: Yeah. I do think there's a lot of us when we're looking at an organization, whether we're looking at a society, or government, or whatever it is, a neighborhood even all of us have the role that we play whether we're aware of it or not. It's a role not necessarily either we're assigned, that we signed up for, or that we just have by nature of and by coincidence of our birth. But we all do something that contributes in some way to the organizations that we're in. When we look at that as that – okay, that role covers a lot of things. No one is just one thing; no one is just a software developer, or no one is just a cashier at a grocery store, or no one is just an artist. No person is monolithic. No one is defined by their job save except maybe the police and that's not a slam—they're always at work apparently. But there are all these things that we have that yes, as you look at an ant farm, this one ant does all these various things, but they have this contribution to the colony as a whole. And I do think that when we look at it as a pattern, if we look at one individual person and all the things that they do, it is important to see that they are more than just a worker. We are not ants. We're not that specialized. We have all kinds of things that we contribute to. So like the colony metaphor breaks down there just to understand that all of us have different things that we do outside of just what our role is to make money or to contribute. We all have dreams. We all have hopes. A lot of times, the fact that these dreams or hopes have been unrealized or worse yet, they have been forcefully deferred by the society as a whole affects that role that we have. It affects how we view ourselves. It affects how others view us. That's what we bring when we sit down at our desk every morning, that collection of all those things rides along with whatever your skills are, that is it's not compartmentalized. As much as people may want to say they can't compartmentalize these things, you can't. You can’t contain it forever. So when these things start to manifest themselves in different ways, we as people—whether we are neighbors, whether we are leaders in government, whether we are coworkers, whether we're management—need to do whatever we can to make sure that these people can become a whole and they can thrive. When people thrive on a personal level, they thrive on a professional level. Maybe not at the job that they're in, maybe not at the company that they're in, but wherever they end up, when they thrive as people, they are going to thrive as professionals. REIN: I also want to throw in another element of the ant colony metaphor, which is that ant colonies are dynamic. They're constantly changing. Tunnels are caving in, new ones are being constructed; the colony itself changes over time. You were talking about the complexity of a person in a given moment, but their roles within the company are also constantly shifting based on how they interact with other people. TIM: That's true; how they interact with other people and how the companies need change. I mean, no company is typically monolithic in and of themselves. They always have to be growing, they have to be thriving, and they have to be moving into different segments and as that happens, your roles change within that company. What's been being kicked around Twitter these past few weeks is people talking about like, “I don't understand why people leave jobs,” and I was like, “Well, yeah, they leave jobs because they want to go do other stuff.” People don't like to stagnate, typically and people who do like to stagnate, most companies don't want to keep them around. So stagnation is not really in human nature. As resistant as we are to change, we are all extremely adaptable. It's built into our damn DNA so we tend to do that well. I do like the fact that people are dynamic, or if you look at what maybe people had expectations of what 2021 was going to be in 2019, it's clear that a lot of things have changed due to the various circumstances around the world—pandemic, social uprising, Nazis, whatever it is. We've all had to make some big changes and even though it sucked and it has sucked, we're still here. We are in the new normal because we are adaptable and so are the dynamics of our existence lend ourselves to the fact that our roles are constantly changing. What does it look like when you were a working parent 2 years ago versus what does it look like you're a working parent now? What does it look like if you were a single person with a job 2 years ago versus if you're seeing a person with a job now? So many things have changed and it speaks to the fact that we are adaptable. That all said, if you're looking at how we can improve and make better for people, we can't look at the ideal state or the state we were in 2019 or whatever it was. We have to look at how things are now and then we had to look at what we have learned in the past year, year and a half will prepare us for what's yet to come because we know that shit is always going to roll downhill. So we have to figure out what have we learned here and what can we do next? I think a lot of the things that we still need to embrace is how to take care of our people as a whole people, and not just employees and not just take care of how they can contribute to us. How many commits can they do? How many tests can they write? Or anything like that. We need to take care of their needs as people and when we take care of their needs as people, they are more likely to be able to take care of us, our needs from them as companies and orgs. REIN: What Russell Ackoff always says when people talk to him about total quality management and all of these things about how to improve the quality of your business, what he always says is, “The quality that matters is quality of work life.” The quality of the lives of the people who are doing the work. TIM: That is absolutely true. It's absolutely true. Some of the worst cases of burnout that people ever have, some of the worst working environments, it's because they do not treat their people like people. They treat them like any other resource, like print, toner, cartridge, and the people personally as people cannot thrive and people burn out that way. People have a hard time setting and maintaining boundaries around their work life. Yay, capitalism. That's one of the things that we start from. It's like, if you want to get ahead, you’ve got to work real, real, real, real hard. Well, yes, to some extent, but the higher up you go, let's be honest that “hard work” looks way different. You're working hard on a yacht apparently, or you're working hard on a vacation to Paris apparently, but the people that are actually doing the labor to enrich the people higher up the chain, those basic human needs for rest, relaxation, recovery, they're oftentimes not being met and I think that's a fucking shame. REIN: Yeah, and if something is particularly incumbent upon leadership to show that by example and to encourage that behavior because I think lower down in the ranks, if they've probably been punished for any sort of thing like that, or they've seen people punished for that kind of thing, they're going to be highly resistant to doing that unless you can prove that it's safe for them to do so. TIM: Oh, absolutely. I think it's interesting when you talk about what it is for a person lower down in the rung and the common gatekeeping tactic you see is “Well, they've got to pay their dues.” They've got to suffer through this role so that way, they can make it for other people or they can be a better employee going forward. That is so horribly bassackwards. I mean, you really want to nurture junior folks. You want to nurture people coming into the industry. You want to nurture people who are just starting. You want to mentor them. You want to give them knowledge and guidance. You don't want to push their nose into the grindstone. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish there. That's fine if you're in the Marine Corps. That's fine if you're going into the military service. That's obviously, a consequence of the choice you made to join. But if you're not doing that, you don't need to punish people at the bottom ranks, really You should be, as a leader, like you said, modeling those behaviors, but you should also be making sure that they can thrive, whatever that looks like. Thriving for a junior person doesn't look like giving them a half hour lunch break and watching them clock in and clock out. It doesn't look like monitoring their bathroom breaks, or some of the stuff that I've seen the junior folks have to do. These people are whole people, they are not servers. They're not computers. They're not billed by the hour like that to perform X number of tasks. They really have to be nurtured and they have to be guided and mentored. The other thing we have to take into the fact is that not everybody learns the same. People are neurodivergent. So what productivity looks like for some persons, it’s going to look completely different for another person. For me, the worst thing I had as a senior person was to be expected to sit down and work 4 hours, take a half hour break, and then work another 4 hours straight. I have ADHD and anxiety and that is torturous for me. Now I did it and some people will turn around and say, “Well, I did it. So you can do it. too” like the motherfuckers that talk about student loans. But I would say, “I had to do it and it sucks. So I don't want anyone else to have to go through that.” That's what we should be doing. We should be iterating on our practices as an org, iterating our practices as a society to say that, “Oh, well, just because I had to suffer, that doesn't mean that you should have to as well. We should actually fix that so that you don't have to go through that.” Typically, in capitalism, that's how they say you're supposed to do. A 2021 Ferrari has more features than the Model T because you add features, and you add features, and you add features. So I don't see why we can't do that for the people that actually build these vehicles, or build anything else for that matter. REIN: There's a study that whenever this topic comes up, that I refer people to, because I think it's really, really good. It is from Kahn in 1990 and this is interesting because this is the study of the “Engagement of the Human Spirit at Work.” So even the idea that in a capitalist country, you could get a grant to study the engagement of the human spirit at work is amazing to me. But the idea is that there are three psychological conditions that relate to this. What I wanted to do was list them and then get your thoughts. TIM: Sure. REIN: Add them, change them, do they resonate with you? The conditions are meaningfulness. Do I find meaning in the work and my job title, my tasks, and so on? The second is psychological safety. And the third is the availability of emotional and psychological resources and this includes things like, am I emotionally drained at the end of the day? Do I wake up looking forward to going to work? Am I being supported by my manager or my supervisor? TIM: I like all of those. I think those are all really good, but I do think it overlooks the financial aspect and the reason why I say it overlooks the financial aspect is because those things are important for how you feel about your work. But if you are struggling financially, your ability to deal with the normal rigors of work are significantly decreased when you have to then go home and figure out how you're going to make the ends meet. Are you living paycheck to paycheck? Are you going to pay off debt? You're trying to figure out how to take care of your children. You're going to have to figure out how to do all these other things. Your overall capacity is reduced because you have these other concerns as well. So I think it cannot be overstated, the impact of making sure that people's needs outside of work are met to make sure they can also, you can also take care of the needs inside of work. But going back, I do think those are very, very important aspects of people feeling spiritual engagement at work. I think the meaningfulness and the psychological safety to me are the two most important. You can do meaningful work, but if you're getting harassed all the fucking time, it's not a great place. Or you can have a great loving and nurturing environment, but you're just toiling away in dumb anguish and it's like, “Oh, well, I don't know why I'm doing this job. Everyone's super happy and I'll stay here for a while because I really like everybody, but I don't really get any meaning out of what I do.” So I think I like that list. I would just add a fourth one talking about making sure people are financially compensated to make sure their needs are met plus, plus. REIN: And actually, the study doesn't consider that and I think you're right that that's a huge oversight. There's a second study that attempts to quantify these relationships to say how much each of these influence engagement and the result is that meaningfulness was the highest correlation, but the way they did this is interesting. They did a quantitative survey and the survey would include different sections with questions on for example, rewarding coworker relations with questions like, “I feel worthwhile when I am around my coworkers.” I think we should be asking questions like that more often. I think that the engagement surveys you get in the modern world are superficial. TIM: Oh, they absolutely are. They absolutely are. Well, I mean, it goes back to a lot of topics we have in observability. What are your metrics if whatever you measure is what you're going to do? I learned this lesson working in tech support call centers right out of the Marine Corps where if they're going to reward you for the number of calls or they're going to – the primary metric is the number of calls you took in a day. So people were going to do whatever they can do to take the most number of calls, then to like, “Oh, then we're going to do NPS scores after that.” But they set the NPS score pretty low and saying, “Well, we just need you to answer the calls. They don't have to be that good.” That's what you're going to get. If you were measuring things like, “Oh, did your manager make you feel good this month?” If you ask that and they answer honestly, maybe they made you feel good once a month or something like that since the last one, but primarily, they made you feel like crap. That's kind of what you need to ask. I do think the interpersonal relationship aspects, they're hard to quantify because it looks different for everybody and even the nature of the questions are different for everybody. What that question looks like to a cis, white, straight male is going to look way different to say, a queer Black woman. REIN: What if the question is: “I feel a real kinship with my coworkers and I'm like a little, eh about that one?” TIM: Yeah, that goes back to that we're a family thing and I don't necessarily like that at all because we aren't a family. You can't fire your family or lay your family off. REIN: But then there were questions like: “I believe that my coworkers appreciate who I am,” and I like that one a lot. TIM: That's a good one. The appreciates who I am, that speaks to being a whole person and the more that we can be whole people at our jobs, the better off we are going to be. If you have to bite your tongue, if you have to cover your tattoos, if you have to make sure your hair is undyed, or you have to wear clothes that you don't necessarily like because they’re considered “professional” whatever that means. That the more that a person has to distance themselves from who they are as a whole person, probably the less happy they're going to be in that environment. Less safe they're going to feel in that environment. JOHN: Yeah, I find that there is a gap between the rhetoric about bringing your whole self to work and the practice of building a space where it's safe to do that. Like I myself know some things that can lead us in that direction, but I don't feel like there's a great playbook on building that all out. TIM: There really isn't and part of the reason is that the tech industry started out, by and large, as an artifact of the US government, US military, which is never not really known for being very welcoming and safe for people outside of a certain demographic. You talk about what the industry looked like when I got in back in the late 90s, IBM had just stopped requiring people to wear suits to work and they were allowed to wear polo shirts and khakis. That look was what you had. It was the “business casual.” Couldn't have long hair, couldn't have accessed piercings, no visible tattoos; not unlike dress codes or appearance regs that you would see in the military. So you make everybody look like the stereotypical white guy, essentially, because this is what you have to wear because some old white guy said, “This is what people should look like.” Those things are hard to break because who still has power in those things and it's a self-perpetuating society. People that do not fit that mold do not last in that industry, or the people that do last in industry had to divorce themselves of who they are so much that it becomes hard to break that mold once you get into places of power, because you can very quickly be run out for rocking the boat too much and it was very, very self-standing. This is the one thing that I think came out of the .com bubble burst after Y2K and the early aughts was that it broke up a lot of these big companies, big old legacy companies and you saw a lot of smaller startups come out. A lot of these smaller startups that came out of it maybe had a different way of thinking because they weren't run by 70-year-old white guys who were defense contractors. But I do think, when we get into that, if you look at what a person in the tech industry looks like in 2021 versus what they look like in 2001 is dramatically different. I can have my hair long. I can expose my tattoos. I can have a beard. I can say, “I'm a queer, ADHD, Black-Mexican man,” whereas such a thing would be dangerous career-wise and maybe even personally, 20 years ago. I remember in the industry when the first person that I knew personally came out as being transgender and the harassment that she had to go through was horrifying, but it was considered perfectly normal in 2001. We have come a long way, but that just speaks to what a shitshow it was before. Not that we're doing great now, because we have so much farther to go and we are still here in 2021 seeing all white panels, all white male leadership, diversity being heralded when you bring a white woman onto a board or when you bring a gay white man onto a board. And that ain't it chief. That is not it. We have so much more to do and the hard part about that is convincing people that you can't rest on your laurels. Convincing people that you haven't done enough in the first place. Convincing people that there are still problems. That goes back to what you're saying about some of these questions, about some of these metrics that we have about people in the workplace. The questions that you have to ask on these to really get an idea of where you are, have to be uncomfortable. They have to be uncomfortable. They have to challenge people's safe spaces and not just a safe spaces of other people who are marginalized, but certainly, the safe space of the people who are overrepresented. It goes back to talking about, “Hey, do you realize that you have gotten where you are largely by privilege?” or that you've been able to fail up, or that doors have been opened to you that haven't been opened to others, or bars have been lowered for you that weren't as lower for others, or even at the bar wasn't lower, the bar was not raised for you like it was for others? People don't like to hear that. People get very upset when you challenge the notion that maybe they haven't had to work as hard as other people have to get where they have. If you tell somebody, “Well, you got here because you had a fair amount of pillars to help you along the way.” People don't like to hear that. Now I will very much, I've said in the past I may be Black and I may be queer but I'm still a man so I have some privilege that goes along with that that women and non-binary folks have not been able to enjoy. I typically don't have to go to a conference and worry about whether I'm going to be sexually assaulted. God help the person that tries at least with me. But that is a worry and a concern that people have to have going to a conference that's supposed to help their career and that's a big detractor. That is a big obstacle that people don't realize that they have and then worse. I mean, heaven forbid, we even talked about motherfuckers that actually do the harassing there that are still allowed to enjoy their place in the industry, that are still allowed to hold positions of power, positions of influence where they can continue to do this. Not even just keep their jobs, but they keep being by to back these places and they can continue to perpetuate that kind of harassment and making the industry hostile to brilliant people. But it's funny that I will say that here I am on a podcast and every podcast I've ever been on with the exception of one – well, no, all the podcasts I've ever been on hosted by all white people. Every last one. Some have had white women in them, but it's all white people. So when we talk about these subjects, it still comes from a certain perspective that white folks aren't going to have, or that men aren't going to have. It's good that we're talking about it, but we need to do something about it. We need to have more of these voices routinely, not just in our panels at tech conferences, but in our normal, everyday consumption and I think that's important. We talk about what do these things look like? What are the patterns we're seeing? If you look at a tech company, especially in Silicon Valley, tech companies look like the neighborhoods. It's not very diverse. People refer their friends, people refer their coworkers, or they have these things about what was that Google employee letter? “We only want people with Bachelor's from Stanford or Ph.Ds. from these places and no one else gets accepted.” Those places are already quite exclusionary in and of itself. They list no HBCUs on that piece of paper, because they don't value HBCUs. They don't value schools that allow people of lower economic or lower in the socioeconomic strata to attend. It's literally self-perpetuating, that kind of gatekeeping. These people who pass through these gates erect those exact same ones and only the people that fit that mold are going to go through it and you never fix the problem. We do not do enough to break those gates down. We don't do enough to model that kind of behavior that we should be expecting. It's good that we're talking about it, but we need to be more about doing it. REIN: Yeah, and our whole panel for this show is majority not white dude, but it might not surprise you that the people who most often have the spoons and the privilege to take time out of their workday to do this podcast are the white dudes. JOHN: Yeah. TIM: Yeah. But I think when we talk about going forward, it's one thing to see a pattern and I think people who, if they're looking, they can see what it is, but what do you do? Do you just throw up your hands, go, “We tried, it's hard to do, so we're not going to do”? “Ah, all right, we gave it a shot. We asked some folks, but they can’t do it.” Or what do you do? I've seen a couple of folks, to call out the good behavior when I see it, I know Ashley McNamara when she had said that she was going to step aside from doing conferences, she was like, “Don't talk to me about conferences. Go talk to underrepresented minorities about these roles. Don't talk to me. I'm not going to take it.” I've seen folks that will say, “I'm not going to speak at this thing if it's an all white panel or if it's all male panel.” “If you're not paying your speakers, especially of color, to come, I'm not going to do these things.” That's how we see it in action. Holding the people that build the platform accountable to make sure that everyone has access to it. I think the thing that the pandemic has taught me that I've seen, for the most part, is a lot of these conferences have become free or very, very low in price because there were virtual, a lot more people showed up. People that couldn't necessarily go before and sometimes, it was harder even for them like you mentioned before Rein, just to get off of work and now they can kind of manage to do it in between because they don't actually have to leave. So when we get to a point where we can have in-person conferences again, I think it behooves the organizer of these conferences that if they're really serious about doing something about being more inclusive about breaking these patterns, not to have them in Silicon Valley, in the most expensive real estate on earth. Have them someplace less expensive to lower the cost for people, if they charge it at all. If anything, you cannot tell me that AWS cannot put the cost of an entire – AWS, Microsoft, all these panels’ sponsors cannot put the cost such that you don't have to charge people for a standard price of admission. You can't tell me that they can't sponsor it to the level where you can pay your speakers, especially women, underrepresented minorities, people of color, like that to come in and appear and talk about these things. Especially if it's a topic on which they have to do the emotional labor for. That's what I want to see us do to break some of the patterns that we're seeing, to make things better for everyone else, and then once some start doing that, that is going to be it. Once you start modeling that behavior, you're going to see other conferences do the same, where these big trillion-dollar companies that are sponsoring these orgs or sponsoring these conferences can actually put some money into it so that more people can come. I don't really have a good understanding yet as of why that hasn't happened and I'm sure folks who organize conferences will probably have plethora of reasons. But I feel like the time has come to do these kinds of things and if it means we have fewer conferences, okay. Move them more virtual, it's fine. REIN: Yeah. I have liked that some conferences are starting to do two tier tickets where if the company's paying, you pay the higher price and if you're just an individual or whatever, then you're paying a much lower price, and then usually, there's also some sort of scholarship program again, to try and bring people in. But I think you're right. Especially if it's the much more company focused things like AWS re:Invent or whatever, why is there a cost to attend that? Even for the tickets, but on top of that, there's all the travel, there's taking time off work, there's childcare; there's so many other attendance costs to going to a conference at a place that even if the tickets were free, there's still a huge barrier there. TIM: You could even go as far as say some of these venue choices. You go to a place like D.C., or New York City, or someplace that have HBCUs, those HBCUs have [inaudible] and conference centers. You don't have to go to some Richie rich hotel. Why don’t you give Howard some money to use their facilities? Why don't you do it in the [inaudible] area? Why don't you give Home by the Sea Hampton University some money? Or Atlanta? Any of these places where you have – or some of these are just lower income schools that serve underprivileged communities, give them the money to host these conferences. Not some hotel. Have it catered by minority-owned businesses, have something, do some things to get more people in. Like, have scholarships for HBCUs CS students where if you're a student—junior, senior—looking for internships where they're like, “Hey man, you know what, come to this conference, we’re not going to charge you and we're actually going to give you a stipend for travel.” That's doing something and it is almost the peak of intellectual dishonesty for people to try and act like the money isn't there because it's there. We've seen time and time again, all these earnings calls coming out, all these market caps going up and up and up and up. The money is there; just people don't want to open up them purse strings, I guess. REIN: Before the moment passes, I do want to point out that you call this podcast out for not doing enough to schedule things so that all of the panel can attend. I gratefully appreciate the rebuke and we're going to go work on that. TIM: I appreciate that and I appreciate you for giving me a space that I feel safe to say that. That matters. Like, if you want to do something, give people space to talk about it and don't get butthurt when they say something. REIN: So when you were talking about white person dress codes and the need to assimilate into that, I was reminded of this thing that actually just was published by CNN about a Maori representative in New Zealand’s parliament who was objected for refusing to wear a tie. TIM: I think he called it a colonizer's noose? REIN: He did and when they changed the rule and he was allowed back in, I am still thinking about what he said, which is, “The noose has been taken off our necks and we are now able to sing our songs.” TIM: It's true and it's a big deal because I know for me as, especially as a young Black male, it is imperative for our survival to not be threatening and I'm not overstating that. It is imperative for our survival to not be deemed as threatening. If you go into a workplace and you don't have a comfortable appearance whether your hair's cut close, you can't have dreadlocks, you don't want to have anything that's let's say, too Black. You have to look a certain way. Your car has to look a certain way. You can't listen to certain music. Can't talk a certain way. Those are the guardrails which I had to perform under and I say perform early on when I was early in the industry, because that's what was expected. You would see when the few Black people in an org would get together and the white folks weren't around, we would relax and it looks a whole lot different. If you're a fly on that wall, you would look and sound a lot different because we could be who we were and the problem happened was that you would see, you'd have to go out there and you'd be like oh, man. “Hey, Tim you have a blah, blah. You don't really sound Black.” Hm, okay. REIN: You’re so articulate. TIM: Oh yeah, that's a good one. “You're so articulate,” “You know a lot of words,” and that kind of stuff. The problem with that is that in order to do that, in order to assimilate into that culture to make a living, you have to do that and then we have to go back to our communities and hear about it. Hear about selling out, hear about – and it's one thing to get a job. People like to see people succeed, but what they don't like people have to do is change who they are in order to succeed. But that's what was expected of us to fit into this predominantly white culture. White people didn't have to change. Not really. I can't recall how many dudes I saw walking around with mullets. Even to this day, you see guys walking around with khakis, the polo shirt tucked into the belt, the mullet, the wraparound sunglasses. That has been unchanged since like 1985. But Black people now are starting to be able to be our whole selves, but how many didn't last in the industry because they couldn't? There's a lot and that was just for being Black. Heaven forbid, people who are gay, people who are trans, people who were immigrants first generation, or immigrants that really had a hard time. It's not great. We have not done, this “progressive tech industry” has not done a lot. Did not do a lot early to be welcoming or to do anything, really towards inclusion. It had to be done kicking and screaming by people who have kicked down the doors and I think, honestly, we really need to be. I am grateful that you are kicking down the doors for me and I've done my best to kick down doors for people behind me, who've come after me. But we need to keep doing that and I don't think we acknowledge really, how bad it was because it's uncomfortable. Especially the folks who are still in the industry that were part of that. You catch a lot of these high-tech level CEOs, C-levels SVPs who say they've been in the industry 20 plus years. They were complicit. No one was talking about that. They want to talk about what they're doing now, but no one wants to come up front and be like, “Yeah, I actually participated in this. This is the things that I was doing back then.” Or “I didn't speak up for whoever, whoever.” I guarantee you, if people had an honest disclosure of all that, you're going to see that. It talks about what US history looks like if we don't whitewash it. If we're really honest about it. We can prevent making the same mistakes, hopefully because we don't have this narrative that we were great all the time. Companies are the same way, managers are the same way, people who are long in the tooth of this industry are the same way and I think it's important that we talk about that especially when we talk about even now. You take salespeople, that is a good foray into tech for people that don't have a technical background, especially people of color and women and they still have to look like they're fucking bankers to sell a SaaS to people who are wearing hoodies and boardshorts to work. That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make a damn bit of sense. REIN: Can I share a hot take with you, Tim? TIM: The hottest of takes, please give me lava. REIN: I'm getting really frustrated with the messaging around diversity and inclusion that works and the fact that we have to use it, which is look how good this is for the business and I have a huge amount of respect for the people who do that work, sell that message. A lot of the people I've talked to who are doing this are Black women and they know how to get it done better than I do, but it must be grading to not be able to just say, “Look, we do this because it's right. We do it because it's just.” TIM: It's because the people that they have to placate in order to get this signed off on. Who are they? They are, by and large, white men and to try and give a message to them of doing it just because. People who are a hundred millionaires, billionaires sometimes, if you don't tell them it's going to be good for their bottom line, they're not going to do it. For the most part. Then there are some folks that I'm sure that wouldn't, but in the most part, you're talking about raging capitalists that will be glad to cut off. That would be the same people that didn't offer health insurance to their employees because they didn't have to. The same ones that give them shitty healthcare, but the executives get really, really nice healthcare. The stratification of the value that you hold to the companies is very apparent in the benefits package, pays, and other kinds of things they offer them. To expect them to do it for altruistic reasons is the peak of naivety. So yes, the people that can get those people to sign off on a diversity and inclusion program are fucking miracle workers. REIN: Yeah, and to be clear, I'm not mad at them for choosing that messaging. I have a huge amount of respect for their ability to be pragmatic and use the messaging that gets the job done. I mad that that's what they have to do because of how the system is. Because of how racism is. TIM: I wished we could live in a society where we can say, “This is the right thing to do so we're going to do it.” I've talked about this before, where you look at that AWS Leadership Principle of leaders are right. There's no impetus on doing the right thing. You can say, “Oh, I was right about this.” Well good, congrats on your fucking jeopardy win. But do you do the right thing? Doing the right thing is an ethical question. Do you do the right thing? Not for the business, right thing for the business. There's no parenthetical after that, there's no qualifying clause. If you are ethical, you will do the right thing and if that right thing isn't necessarily good for the business, okay. That's fine. All right. There's more money to be made and if your business cannot withstand you doing the right thing, then you're probably a shitty business in the first place. REIN: It’s not a means, it’s an end. TIM: Exactly. REIN: Okay. Well, there's my hot take for the episode. TIM: That was like medium hot. That was like jalapeno hot. JOHN: It's something we've all noticed, that language always comes up the moment you start talking about DE&I. TIM: What I think for me, the hurtful part is when I watch these things especially as you see these things like what you're seeing at Google because of fucking course, Google is that when people really start to move the needle, when people start to make a real impact, the powers that be get uncomfortable and then they start to let people go and they replace them with someone that they are more comfortable with. They don't realize that the discomfort that they feel is what's supposed to happen and you can make it very, very simple for them. If you were to talk about this as a digital transformation, as we say, it's like, “Oh, well, we're going to go from this monolithic gigantic system that we’re running on to microservices, cloud-based API, stuff like that,” and people say, “Well, these old school database administrators are very uncomfortable with it and they tell them.” It’s like, “Hey, well this is how it is now. You're going to have to deal with it, or you're going to probably have to find a different way to get the industry, because this is the way it's going and it's better for everyone involved.” They explain all these benefits and they tell people that discomfort is part of this journey. You're going to have to learn to swim in new waters and things are going to be different, but they're going to be better overall once you get on the other side of that, but they can't apply that to them fucking selves when it comes to about diversity and inclusion and I don't get it. JOHN: I mean, that's the privilege that they haven't had to be practiced at being uncomfortable in those situations, or even if it's a little bit of technical discomfort versus the much more impactful discomfort that comes when you start actually talking about race. TIM: Yeah, there's a level of introspection that they haven't had to do and they are seemingly unwilling to do. That's the part that's most frustrating; the people that have the least to lose in this are the most unwilling to change. REIN: Oh, do you think it's worthwhile if what we're talking about here is a change in mindset? It's a change in what these people strive for, what they want and I think that that change is incompatible with let’s call it, white supremacy and capitalism. So do you think that it's worthwhile to try to pursue that, or do you think we have to continue doing these pragmatic things? TIM: Well, first of all, I would say that white supremacy and capitalism are redundant, but I would say that we cannot change the minds of the people in power with anything other than pragmatic reasoning because if we could, they would have already. There has been more than enough reason, appeals to emotion, consequence, societal collapse, all these other things that we've seen, especially these past 18 months or so. A reasonable person would say like, “You know what,” or all the people who are reasonable about this and who are ethical about this have already changed their minds. At this point, anybody who doesn't see the need for it, the self-evident need for it without for the justification for business reasons, but the self-evident need for it will not be convinced. So you have to appeal to pragmatic reasons until they leave the industry. REIN: This is a Kuhnian paradigm shift: the people with the old views have to die or otherwise go away and be replaced. TIM: Essentially, that's it and so that's why it's so important for us to nurture the junior folks coming into the industry and the people who are mid-career to make sure that people who understand this, to make sure that the people who are underrepresented, and to make sure your LGBTQ, your people of color, any manner of folks that are not properly represented or that have been heretofore unsafe in this industry, stay in the industry by any means necessary. To make sure that the industry can change in the long run. It is incrementalism and as unpopular as it is in some circles to say, “Oh, we can't just change everything right now because we're inspired to do so.” I'm sorry, you don't steer a ship that quickly. This is a large thing we have to change. The industry is a lot of people and it's a lot of money. So you're going to have to change it a bit at a time and the only way to bring that change about is to bring and keep people in the industry that can affect that change. REIN: And for those of us who are more securely in the industry, whether it's because we're white dudes or we have experience, whatever it is, we have an obligation to do what it takes to keep them around you. TIM: You absolutely do and you also have an obligation to continue to push on the folks that don't see the value in keeping them around. Very openly. You have to use your privilege. You have to use your privilege to speak to power. You don't have to take anyone else's voices. You don't have to pick up someone else to sign a waiver on his own, certainly, but you have to keep them from being silenced and that is the important thing that we need to do. If you are a straight white male in this industry and you have seen the necessity of the industry being more inclusive, diverse, and to have a good sense of belonging, then what you have to do is you have to check your peers when people speak. REIN: And not just keep them around, but make it possible for them to thrive. TIM: Absolutely, absolutely. They have to have strong roots in the industry. They have to feel like they're safe here, that they can grow here, and that they belong here and then when they do that, that's when they can affect change. JOHN: Yeah. That is how you keep them around, either that, or you don't want to them to have to rely on just complete bloody mindedness to have the perseverance to go through all of the pain to stay in the industry. You want it to be them thriving in the industry. Like you said, they can be the tomorrow's leaders that can start that real change. TIM: The last thing I want to do is also say, I want to make sure that when we talk about doing that thriving, that again, we're talking about not just taking care of them in the workplace, but taking care of them as whole people. I will beat this drum every time I can get on, we cannot let, we cannot let women leave this industry. We cannot do it. We're losing too many women because they have to make the choice right now in 2021, in this pandemic, as to whether or not they have to be mothers or whether they have to be career professionals and it’s bullshit. It is bullshit and it goes two ways with that: we're not supporting mothers and we're not supporting our fathers. We can support our fathers, then they can play a more active role in raising their children and Mom doesn't have to take care of everything. Now obviously, work can't influence whether a father is a piece of shit father or not and there are a lot of them out there, I'm going to be honest about it, that won't change a diaper, that won't clean the house, shit like that. We can't do that, but we'll at least avail them the opportunity and not have them use work as an excuse. So we have to change the way we do business to make sure that working mothers can be whole people so they don't have to choose between raising their children and doing work. If we don't protect these women, and the reason I say that is because it is the women of color that are the most susceptible to having to make this choice, because they have fewer resources outside of that, typically. So we need to protect people. We need to protect these people so that they can stay in the industry and we need to do that now. Because we are bleeding off too many women as it is like way, way too much. And that goes beyond whether or not we're actually treating them as they should be treated like equals, like the brilliant engineers they are in the conference rooms. So that's a whole other problem. We need to tackle that too, but we need to at least keep them from saying, “Hey, I’ve got to leave the industry because I got to take care of my kids.” We should be fixing that and we should be fixing that yesterday. JOHN: Yeah, that’s part of bringing your whole self to work is the other selves that you're taking care of. Like, if you can't have that baby on your lap for the meeting, then you're not going be on the meeting and then it's snowballed from there. TIM: Absolutely. Absolutely. When we start coming back, whatever that looks like post-pandemic, think about what they did in World War II and beyond to keep women in working. They had daycares, like the companies had daycares. But why fuck can't we do that now? We have so much money. You mean to tell me Amazon can’t have a daycare at the facilities You mean to tell me that Microsoft can have a daycare facilities? You mean to tell me that fucking WeWork can't have WeWork fucking daycare that companies pay for? Like, there's no reason for it. People just don't want it and it comes down to greed and it’s bullshit. REIN: So maybe now is a good time for us to do reflections. I usually have two things, I guess, that's my pattern now. One is I wanted to point out that Tim said that capitalism and white supremacy are the same thing and I didn't want that one to go under the radar either. If you're a white person who doesn't know what Tim is talking about, I can recommend a book called The Invention of the White Race. Maybe Tim has some of his own recommendations. My reflection is that we have an obligation not just to make it possible for people to exist in the industry, but if we're dragging them through the barbed wire that is this toxic garbage industry, we're hurting them, too and so, our obligation is to make it healthy. JOHN: Yeah, I think that's really just been reinforcing a lot of my own thoughts on things like, I don't know if this is a reflection other than just it's always great to have these kinds of conversations as reminders. These are thoughts that happen, but sometimes they happen in the background or you're not quite sure to connect them to action and continuing to have these conversations to continually remind me what the priorities are and what the other perspectives are is incredibly useful to me. So Tim, if nothing else, I appreciate you spending the time talking with us, talking to me in specific about your perspective on this. So thank you. TIM: I want to take a moment again, to acknowledge and thank you all for giving me a space and a platform. I know it's difficult sometimes to hear criticism especially if you're doing what you think is right for someone to say, “Hey, well, you can do better.” It's hard, but I think it's important for us also acknowledge that growth is uncomfortable. Improvement is uncomfortable. One of the things that I learned in jujitsu, if it has taught me anything and it's something that I've reinforced in my life, is that adversity makes you thrive in some ways. Not adversity for adversity’s sake, but when you exercise harder, you get stronger. If you run faster, run harder to get faster. If you spend more time being crushed under a 300-pound man, you get better at jujitsu. In this context, the more time you spend listening to some of these things, the voice of the people that have been marginalized and it makes you uncomfortable, figure out why it makes you uncomfortable and don't figure out how to disqualify the person talking. Think about why you're uncomfortable, look and uncover the pattern underneath that in yourself and in your world and how you interact with it, and then once you find that pattern, fix the problem. Once you do that, you can then help others do it. But you have to at first be comfortable with being uncomfortable and to do, if there's maybe sound a little cliche, but it's true. If you just run away from that feeling, you're never going to grow, you're never going to improve, and things are never going to get better. JOHN: Thank you so much for coming on the show, Tim. TIM: I appreciate it, John. Thank you all for inviting me. I’m honored and humbled. Special Guest: Tim Banks.

02:31 - Karen’s Superpower: The Ability to Simplify Things * Simplifying in a Team Context 05:55 - Better Allies (https://betterallies.com/) – Everyday Actions to Create Inclusive, Engaging Workplaces; Triaging and Curating Research * @BetterAllies (https://twitter.com/betterallies) * Better Allies: Everyday Actions to Create Inclusive, Engaging Workplaces (https://www.amazon.com/Better-Allies-Everyday-Inclusive-Workplaces/dp/1732723303) (Book) * The Better Allies™ Approach to Hiring (https://www.amazon.com/Better-Allies-Approach-Hiring-ebook/dp/B082WR7F86) (Book) * Present! A Techie's Guide to Public Speaking (https://www.amazon.com/Present-Techies-Guide-Public-Speaking-ebook/dp/B01BCXHULK) (Book) 14:15 - Maintaining Anonyminity (at first); Prove It Again Bias (https://genderbiasbingo.com/prove-it-again/) * Channeling White Men; Men Listening to Other Men * Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (https://www.amazon.com/Whistling-Vivaldi-Stereotypes-Affect-Issues/dp/0393339726) (Book) * [Podcast] 'Whistling Vivaldi' And Beating Stereotypes (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125859207) * Reduce the influence of unconscious bias with these re:Work tools (https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/fight-unconscious-bias-with-rework-tools/) * Build the Culture Instead of Fit the Culture 26:09 - Culture Add + Values Fit * Recognizing Bias Instead of Removing It * Meritocracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy) 32:11 - Network Effect: Venturing Beyond Homogenous (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/homogenous) Networks * Marginalization + Privilege Can Be Self-Reinforcing * 50 Potential Privileges in the Workplace (https://betterallies.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/50-potential-privileges.pdf) 41:58 - Doing This Work is Everyone’s Job 48:12 - People to Follow * Minda Harts (https://twitter.com/MindaHarts) * The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table (https://bookshop.org/books/the-memo-what-women-of-color-need-to-know-to-secure-a-seat-at-the-table/9781580058469) * Jeannie Gainsburg (https://www.savvyallyaction.com/about) * The Savvy Ally: A Guide for Becoming a Skilled LGBTQ+ Advocate (https://www.amazon.com/Savvy-Ally-JEANNIE-GAINSBURG/dp/1538136775/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=savvy+ally&qid=1608561617&sr=8-3) * David Smith (https://twitter.com/davidgsmithphd) & Brad Johnston * Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace (https://www.amazon.com/Good-Guys-Better-Allies-Workplace-ebook/dp/B08412XCHB/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=good+guys&qid=1614095097&sr=8-3) * Corey Ponder (https://www.coreyponder.com/about-me) * Learning the ABCs of Allyship (https://www.coreyponder.com/single-post/abcs-of-allyship) 51:13 - The Decline of Gender Parity in the Tech Industry * Women in Tech -- The Missing Force: Karen Catlin at TEDxCollegeofWilliam&Mary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uiEHaDSfgI) 58:15 - Making Statements and Changing the Status Quo Reflections: Rein: Getting better at praxis: for every white dude with a beard you follow on Twitter, go follow 10 Black women in tech. Damien: How bias can interfere with an action right before the action happens. Chanté: We’re all allies. We cannot do this work alone. Today you might be the ally, tomorrow you may be the bridge. Arty: Expanding our homogenous networks. Change takes courage on all of our parts. Karen: Turning period statements into questions or adding “until now” to those statements. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Whether you're working on a personal project or managing enterprise infrastructure, you deserve simple, affordable, and accessible cloud computing solutions that allow you to take your project to the next level. Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode's Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier. Get started on Linode today with $100 in free credit for listeners of Greater Than Code. You can find all the details at linode.com/greaterthancode. Linode has 11 global data centers and provides 24/7/365 human support with no tiers or hand-offs regardless of your plan size. In addition to shared and dedicated compute instances, you can use your $100 in credit on S3-compatible object storage, Managed Kubernetes, and more. Visit linode.com/greaterthancode and click on the "Create Free Account" button to get started. REIN: Welcome to Episode 224 of Greater Than Code. Take two. So full disclosure, we recorded this or more specifically, didn't record this conversation so we're going to do it again. I'm your co-host, Rein Hendricks, and I'm here with my co-host, Damien Burke. DAMIEN: Thanks, Rein. And I'm here with my co-host, Chanté Thurmond. CHANTÉ: Everyone, Chanté here. And I'm here with Arty Starr. ARTY: Thank you, Chanté. And I'm here with our awesome guest today, Karen Catlin. So after spending 25 years building software products and serving as a vice-president of engineering at Macromedia and Adobe, Karen Catlin witnessed a sharp decline in the number of women working in tech. Frustrated but galvanized, she knew it was time to switch gears. Today, Karen is a leadership coach and a highly acclaimed author and speaker on inclusive workplaces. She is the author of three books: "Better Allies: Everyday Actions to Create Inclusive, Engaging Workplaces," "The Better Allies™ Approach to Hiring,” and "Present! A Techie's Guide to Public Speaking." Welcome, Karen to the show! KAREN: And it is a pleasure to be back with you and to be having this conversation today. Thanks so much for having me. ARTY: And we very much appreciate you being here again with us. So our first question we always ask at the beginning of the show is what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? KAREN: Okay so, my superpower is the ability to simplify things and I joke that I think I acquired this superpower simply as a coping strategy because there's so much information out there. We're all bombarded with things and maybe my brain is just not as big as other people so I constantly am trying to simplify things so that I can understand them, remember them, convey them, and so forth. And I'll share, I think it served me well, not only as I embarked on my computer science programming school and just trying to like grok everything that I was trying to learn as well as then entering the field initially as a software engineer. Again, simplifying things, divide and conquer, break things down into those procedural elements that can be repeated and generalized. Certainly, then as I moved into executive roles as a vice-president of engineering, you're just context switching all day long. Again, I just had to simplify everything that was going on so that could really remember things, take notes on things, and make decisions based on what I thought I needed to do. Yeah. So that's my superpower. ARTY: That's a great superpower. So in the context of the workplace and you've got teams trying to things out, maybe a design problem you're working on, trying to solve. How does simplifying things come into play in a team context like that? KAREN: Well, it comes into play a lot of ways. I'm remembering one example where there was some interpersonal conflict between two people and I was hearing both sides, as one does, and talking to them both. I got them both in a room because they just weren't seeing each other's point of views, I thought, and they were just working at odds to each other. Hearing them both talk, I was able to say, “So at the heart, this is what we're all trying to do. This is what we are trying to achieve together,” and I got them to confirm that. That was the first step in simplifying just the discussion. They were getting a little emotional about things. They were bringing in a lot of details that frankly, weren't necessary to really understand what was going on and I was able to focus them on that shared purpose that we had for the project. It doesn't even matter what it was. Actually, it was so long ago now I can't quite remember what the issue was, but I remember hearing afterwards one of the people say, “You are so good at simplifying things got down to the heart,” and I'm like, “Yes, I am. That's my superpower.” ARTY: It sounds like even more than that, or maybe a slightly different frame of just the example you just gave. It's not only simplifying things, you are distilling the essence of what's important or what someone is trying to say, and getting at what's the underlying message underneath all the things that someone's actually trying to communicate, even if they're struggling too, so that you can help two people may be coming from different directions, be able to understand one another. That's pretty powerful. KAREN: Well, thank you and I love the way you've just framed it, Arty and oh, those are big shoes to fill. Woo! I hope I've been able to do that in a number of different settings as I think back, but that's yeah, it is powerful. I think I probably still have some stuff I can learn there, too. CHANTÉ: Arty, thank you for teeing up this because what I am curious about in relation to what Karen just mentioned as her superpower, which I think is amazing, is obviously, you have authored a number of books. When it comes to allyship, it sounds like this is a great time where we can get somebody to distill and to simplify and not to oversimplify because there's an art to it. But I would love if you could maybe take us down the pathway of how did you arrive at this moment where you are authoring books on allyship and maybe you could give us a little bit of the backstory, first and then we could get into the superpower you've used along the way in your tech journey. KAREN: Okay. CHANTÉ: And how you're coaching people. KAREN: All right. Chanté, thank you. Yes, I'm happy to. So the backstory, first of all, I never set out to become an author, or to become a speaker, or this expert that people tap into about workplace inclusion. That was not my goal. I was doing my job in tech. I was a vice-president of engineering at Adobe. I was leading engineering teams and realizing that there was a decline happening before my eyes in gender diversity. Now I started my career in tech a long time ago and I started at a time when there was sort of a peak period of women studying computer science in the United States. And so, when I started my career, it wasn't 50-50 by any means, but there was plenty of gender diversity in the teams I was working on, in the conference rooms I was in, in the cube lands that I was working in and I saw a decline happening. So while I was still at Adobe, I started our women's employee resource group—goes back gosh, like 14, 15 years now—and I've started mentoring a lot of women at the company and started basically, being a vocal advocate to make sure women were represented in various leadership meetings I was in, on stage, at our internal events and conferences, giving updates at all-hands meetings, like well, thinking about that. I love doing that work so much and loved doing that work less so my VP of engineering work, I must admit. So about 9 years ago now, I decided to do a big change in my career pivot in my own career, I started leadership coaching practice. A leadership coaching practice focused on helping women who are working in tech in any capacity, any role. But women working in this industry, I wanted to help them grow their leadership skills so they could stay in tech if that's where they wanted to be and not drop out because they felt like, “I just can't get ahead,” or “I'm seeing all the white men get ahead,” for example, “before me.” So I started this coaching practice. I soon realized, though that I had a big problem with my coaching practice and the problem wasn't with my clients—they were amazing. The problem, I don't think was me. I think I'm a decent coach, still learning, still getting better, but decent. And realized the problem really that I was facing is that before I could truly help my clients, I needed to make their companies more inclusive. All of them were working at tech companies where the closer you get to the leadership team, to the C-suite, to the CEO, just the mailer and paler it got. With all due respect to anyone who's male and or pale, I'm white myself, anyone who's listening, who's male and/or pale, like that's just what the demographics were and still are in most of our companies. Also, that coupled with this mentality of, “Hey, we are a meritocracy. People get ahead in our company based on their merits, their accomplishments, the impact to the business.” When in reality, that's not what happens because if it were then the demographics across the company would be uniform, regardless of what level you are at. So the white men were getting ahead more than others. So I was like, “I need to make their companies more inclusive. In fact, I need to make all of tech more inclusive to really help my coaching clients,” and yeah, laugh, right? A big job, one person over here. Now, what's the first thing anyone does these days when they want to change the world? You start a Twitter handle. So I started the Twitter handle @betterallies. I started in 2014 with a goal to share simple everyday actions anyone could take to be more inclusive at work. In hindsight, I was leveraging my super power as I started this Twitter handle. I leveraged it because I started looking at the research that social scientists do about diversity in the workplace and not just gender diversity, but diversity of all kinds. The research that shows that they were uncovering, that shows the challenges that people of non-dominant genders, as well as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, identity, age, abilities, and so forth. What are the challenges these people face in the workplace as they navigate that? Others are doing this great research and I really am—and this builds on what Arty was saying—I used to think I curated this, but really, I was triaging the research. I was triaging it to simplify it, get it to its essence, and figure out with all this great research that gets published, what is someone supposed to do with it? How is the average person who works in tech supposed to take action with this great research that's out there? So I triage and curate and I do it not just based on the research, but also what I'll call cautionary tales that appear in our news, in our Twitter feeds, and so forth. I'll give you two examples to make it real. One is based on research. There's research that shows that men interrupt women more than the other way around and so, based on that research, I go over to Twitter and I type in something like, “I pledge to notice when interruptions happen in the meetings I attend and redirect the conversation back to the person who was interrupted with a simple, ‘I'd like to hear Chanté finish her thought,’” and something like that that's research-driven. Then the more, the cautionary tales that pop up in the research or in the news that we consume, I remember a few years ago when there was so much that was coming out about Uber and its non-inclusive workplace. Just one of the many things we learned about was that the CEO at the time and founder, Travis Kalanick, he was using the nursing mother's room for his personal phone calls. That's not cool because then the nursing moms can't get in there to do what they need to do. So I would go over to Twitter and just a little bit of snark added, I was like, “I pledge not to use the nursing mother's room for my personal phone calls unlike Travis Kalanick at Uber,” [chuckles]. That kind of thing. So I'm just tweeting a couple times a day. I start getting Twitter messages to this anonymous Twitter account—by the way, it was anonymous at the time—and these Twitter requests would be like, “Hey, does anyone at the Better Allies Initiative do any public speaking?” and I'd be like, ‘The initiative? Huh, it's just me tweeting a couple of times a day. Okay.” But I wanted to speak about this topic and I want to retain my anonymity. So I would write back and say, “Yes, one of our contributors does some public speaking. We'll put you in touch with her,” and I go over to my personal Twitter account type something in like, “Hey, I'm Karen Catlin. I contribute to Better Allies. I love public speaking. What do you have in mind?” So I started speaking on this whole approach of everyday simple actions people could take, the Better Allies approach, and every time I gave a talk, someone would ask, “Hey, Karen, do you have a book? Because we want more of this.” For a few years, “I kept saying, no, I don't have a book. I don't have a book. I don't have a book, sorry.” But I did finally write my book. In fact, I've written two books on the topic—"Better Allies" and also, "The Better Allies™ Approach to Hiring.” The Better Allies book, I just released a second edition. It's been out there for 2 years. I've learned so much that I wanted to do a full update on the book. So I've just released that a few weeks ago. CHANTÉ: I have a follow-up question then, because Karen, you mentioned that you wanted to maintain your anonymity when you started off that handle and I would just love to hear maybe why that's so important when you're doing this work of allyship and accomplishing in this space? KAREN: Yes, and I don't know if it is important for everyone—and I'm not anonymous anymore. I have claimed credit for this. As soon as I published my books. Writing a book is a lot of work; I'm going to claim the credit. But I didn't in the beginning because okay, I'm going to say this. A lot of people thought it was a man behind the Twitter handle and I must admit, I was kind of channeling white men that I have worked with over my career and thinking about what would they really do? What could I get them to do? All of my tweets are first person, “I pledge to do this,” “I will do this,” I'm going to do this,” and there were people I have friends even who were like, “Hey, have you seen this @betterallies Twitter handle? I wonder who's behind it. I'd like to interview him for my podcast,” That type of thing. So I think that there were people out there who thought it was a white man behind the Twitter handle and I was comfortable with that because not only was I channeling these white men I had worked with in the past, but I also think that there's power in men listening to other men. I'll just say that. I have actually gotten speaking engagements when I've said, “I'm a contributor.” They're like, “Are there any men who could speak because we think men would like to hear this message from another man.” So anyway, that's kind of why I started out with that anonymous Twitter handle and with this character behind the scenes of this fake man. [laughs] But now it's okay. I say that I curate it, it's me, and I'm comfortable with that. I still do it first person because I think that white women can also be allies. We all can be allies for others with less privilege than ourselves in the workplace and I think it's important for us, everyone to be thinking, “This is a job I can and should do to be inclusive at work and to look for these everyday situations. I can take ally actions and make a difference.” ARTY: How's that changed things like, revealing your identity and that you're not actually a big white dude? [chuckles] KAREN: I know. Well, I never really said I was a big white dude! Or even a small white dude, or whatever. But I think it's fine. I claimed the association with the Twitter handle when I published my book and it was just time to just own it. It's not like people stopped following me or stopped retweeting or anything like that. It's only grown since then. So Arty, it's a good question, but I don't know. I don't know. REIN: And this is more than a little ironic because when you were talking about your coaching—and I'm going to read into this a little bit, but I think you can confirm that it's backed up by the research—to appear equally competent or professional, women have to do more and other minoritized groups have to do more. So what I was reading in was that part of the problem you had with coaching was that to get them to an equal playing field, they had to be better. KAREN: Yes. What you're describing, Rein is “prove-it-again” bias and this is well-researched and documented. Prove-it-again means that women have to prove themselves over and over again where men just have to show potential. This often happens and I'm going to give you just a scenario to bring it home. Imagine sitting in some sort of promotion calibration discussion with other managers in your group and you're talking about who gets promotions this cycle. Someone might say, “Well, I'd like to see Arty prove that she can handle managing people before we move her to the next level.” When Arty, maybe you've already been doing that for a few years; you've already managed a team, you've built a team, whatever. “I'd like to make sure she can do this with this additional thing,” like, make sure she can do it with an offshore team or something. “I want to see her do it again.” Whereas a man's like, “Ah, Damien's great. I know he can do the job. Let's promote him.” Okay, totally making this up. But you see what I'm saying is that this is what the prove-it-again bias is. So whether it is women have to be twice as good or something like that, I don't know if that's exactly what's going on, but they have to deal with this bias of once again, I have to prove that I'm worthy to be at this table, to be in this conversation, to be invited to that strategic planning meeting, to get that promotion, and I don't want to coach women to have to keep proving themselves over and over again. Instead, I want to change the dynamics of what's happening inside these organizations so it is a better playing field, not just for my clients who are mostly women, but also, anyone out there who's from an underrepresented group, who might be facing challenges as they try to navigate this world that really has been designed for other people. ARTY: Wow, that's really enlightening. I'm just thinking about this from a cognitive science perspective and how our brains work, and then if you're making a prediction about something and have an expectation frame for that. If I have an expectation that someone's going to do well, like I have a dream and image in my mind that they'll fit this particular stereotype, then if they just show potential to fit this image in my head, I can imagine and envision them doing all these things and trust that imaginary dream in my head. Whereas, if I have the opposite dream in my head where my imagination shows this expectation of this person falling on their face and doing all these things wrong, I'm already in a position of having to prove something that's outside of that expectation, which is so much harder to do. So this is the effect of these biases basically being baked into our brain already is all of our expectations and things are set up to work against people that culturally, we have these negative expectations around that have nothing to do with those actual people. KAREN: Thanks. Arty, have you ever read the book, Whistling Vivaldi? ARTY: I haven't. I am adding that to my list. KAREN: It explores stereotype threat, which is exactly what you've just described, and the title, just to give you some insight into this, how this shows up. The title, Whistling Vivaldi, is all about a story of a Black man who had to walk around his neighborhood, which I believe is mostly white and got just the concerns that people didn't trust him navigating this public space, his neighborhood. So what he would do, and I don't know if it was just in the evenings or any time, he went out to walk to be outside, he would whistle Vivaldi to break the stereotype that he was a bad person, a scary person because of the color of his skin. Instead, by whistling Vivaldi, he gave off the feeling that he was a highly educated person who studied classical music and he did that so that he could navigate his neighborhoods safely. It's awful to think about having to do that, but this book is full of these examples. It's a research-driven approach so, it's a great book to understand stereotype threat and combat it. DAMIEN: So in the interest of us and our listeners, I suppose being better allies, you spoke about stereotype threat and gave an example there. You spoke about prove-it-again bias and specifically, with prove-it-again bias, I want to know what are ways that we can identify this real-time and counter it in real-time? KAREN: Yes. With prove-it-again bias—well, with any bias, really. First of all, reminding yourself that it exists is really important. At Google, they found that simply reminding managers, before they went into a calibration, a performance calibration meeting, probably some rank ordering exercise of all the talent in the organization. Before they started a calibration meeting, they were all given a 1-page handout of here's the way bias can creep into this process. That simple act of having people review the list of here's the way bias creeps into the process was enough to help combat it during the subsequent conversation. So I think we have to remind ourselves of bias and by the way, this resource I'm describing is available as a download on Google's re:Work website. I think it's R-E-: work. There's a re:Work website with tons of resources, but it's available for download there. So that's one thing you can do is before a calibration meeting or before you're about to start an interview debrief session with a team, is remind people of the kinds of bias that can come into play so that people are more aware. Other things, and I'll talk specifically about hiring, is I am a huge proponent of making sure that before you interview the first candidate, you have objective criteria that you're going to use to evaluate the candidates because otherwise, without objective criteria, you start relying on subjectivity, which is code for bias. Things will start to be said of, “I just don't think they'd be a culture fit,” which is code for bias of “They're different from us. They're different from me. I don't think I'd want to go get a beer with them after work,” or “If I had to travel with them and get stuck on a long layover somewhere when we can travel again, I don't think I'd enjoy that.” People just instead say, “I just don't think they'd be a culture fit. So you get away from that by, instead in your objective criteria, looking for other things that are technically needed for the job, or some values perhaps that your company has in terms of curiosity or lifelong learning or whatever your company values are. You interview for those things and you figure out how you're going to measure someone against those objective criteria. Other way bias creeps into interviews is looking at or saying something like, “Well, they don't have this experience with Docker that this other candidate has,” but really, that wasn't part of the job description. No one said that the candidates needed Docker experience, but all of a sudden, because one of the candidates has Docker experience, that becomes important. So instead of getting ahead of that, make sure you list exactly what you're going to be interviewing for and evaluating people for so that the bias isn't there and bias, maybe all of a sudden Docker becomes an important thing when you realize you could get it. But it may be that it's the person who seems the most like the people in the team who has it and that’s another – you're just using that as a reason for increasing that candidate’s success to join your team because you'd like to hang out with them. You'd like to be with them. You would want to be getting a beer with them. Does that help, Damien? DAMIEN: Yeah, that's very helpful. The framing is an absolutely pre-framing before an evaluation, before an interview what biases can happen. That's a wonderful tool, which I am going to be using everywhere I can. And then what you said about culture fit and really, every subjective evaluation is, I think the words you used was “code for bias.” Like, anytime you have a subjective evaluation, it's going to be biased. So being able to decide in advance what your objective evaluations are, then you can help avoid that issue. Culture fit is just such a red flag for me. You said, I wrote down the words, “culture built,” right? Decide what the culture is – because culture is important in the company, decide what the culture is you want and then interview and evaluate for that. KAREN: Yeah. Oh, I love that. Build the culture instead of just fit the culture. I've also heard people say, “If you ever hear someone say, I don't think they'd be a culture fit, respond with ‘Well, I think they'd be a culture add,’” or Damien, to quote you, “I think they build our culture instead of just fit in.” Really powerful, really powerful. CHANTÉ: Yeah. I agree with you all and Karen, I'm not sure if you knew this, but one of the many things I do, which takes up most of my life, is I'm a DEI practitioner and I have a firm, and I also work in-house at a company, Village MD, as a director of DEI there. So one of the things that I talk a lot about is culture add and one of the things I'd love to see more companies do is to think about like, basically take an inventory of all the people on your team and try to identify where you're strong, where you're weak, and look for the skills gap analysis, basically and say, “What don't we have here,” and then, “Let's go hire for that skillset or that expertise that we don't have that we believe could help us build this thing better this year.” That's going to require people to do that exercise, not just once because your team dynamic shifts usually a few times a year. So if you're a high growth company, you should be doing that probably every quarter. But imagine what the difference would be if we approach interviewing and promotion building from that lens instead. KAREN: Yeah, and Chanté, the way you framed it is amazing. I love it. You said, “What do we not have that we need to build our product to deliver to our customers?” I don't remember the exact words you used, but that I think is important because I've also, in conversations I've had around culture fit and culture and everything, someone say to me, “Well, wait a second, Karen, what if you we're evaluating a white supremacist? It's clear, there are white supremacists and we don't have one of those yet on the team. Does that mean we should open the doors and let them in?” That's when it's like, you can use the way you've just framed as “Well, if we're building a product for white supremacists, then yeah, probably.” But to be more serious about this, it's like what's missing from our team structure, from the diversity within this team, that is going to allow us to deliver on our product, on our offering better? I think that's important. Another lens to apply here is also you can still do values fit. Make sure people fit with the values that you have as a company and that should allow you to interview out people who don't fit with your values and just to use that example of a white supremacist. That would be the way to do that, too. REIN: I think it's really important to say that ethics still matters here and values fit as a way to express that. One of the things that I would maybe caution or challenge is—and this isn't a direct challenge to you, Karen, I don't think—but it's been popular in the industry to try to remove bias from the equation. To do debiasing training and things like that and I think that that's the wrong way to go because I don't think it's cognitively possible to remove bias. I think instead what we should do, what I think that you're talking about here is being aware of the biases we have. Accounting for them in the way that we hire, because the same heuristic that leads to a bias against certain demographics is the one we use to say, “We don't want white supremacists.” KAREN: Yeah. Plus a hundred, yes. [laughs] I agree. What I was going to say, Rein to build on what you just shared is that it's important to see things like color, for example, to understand. Even if you feel you're not biased, it's important to see it, to see color, to see disability, to see someone who is going through a transition, for example, on their identity. It's important to see it because that allows you to understand the challenges that they are facing and if you say, “I don't see color, I just see them as their new identity, post-transition. I don't see their disability; I just see the person,” it negates the experience they're having, as they are trying to navigate the workplace and to be the best allies, you need to understand the challenges people are facing and how you can take action to help them either mitigate the challenge, get around the challenge, whatever that might be, or remove the challenge. ARTY: So you're not being empathetic to the circumstances by pretending that they don't exist. KAREN: Yes. Well said, yes. REIN: It’s the idea that you can be on bias that I think is dangerous. I want to call back to this idea of a meritocracy; the idea that every choice we make is based on merit and that whatever we choose is indicative of the merit of that person is the bias that is harmful. KAREN: Woo, yes. I can't wait to refer to that. I can't wait to come back and listen to you. What you just said, Rein that is powerful. REIN: Because becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? We're a meritocracy so everything we've chosen is means – if we chose someone that means that they have merit by definition. There's no way out of that trap. KAREN: Right on. CHANTÉ: Yeah. When you say that, it makes me think, too of just the sort of committal to always transforming and iterating. So if you come in the door saying, “Listen, there's no way we can eliminate bias all the time.” We're going to make the assumption that we're always being biased and therefore, what things can we put into place and what tools can we use? What resources can we leverage here to make sure that we're on a pathway for greater inclusion, greater accessibility? Therefore, making our organization more diverse and more innovative. I think, like Rein, I just want to really underscore that because that is something that I've had to really try to lead with versus add to the conversation later. So I'm appreciating that you brought it up today. Thank you. REIN: It’s like some of the choices, some of the evaluations we're making are subjective. We can't make them objective in every case; I think what we want is a framework that allows us to do these subjective evaluations in a way that accounts for bias. DAMIEN: So that's amazing. Where do we go from here? ARTY: One of the things we talked about last time with regards to various people getting promoted, this effect of maler and paler as you get closer to the C-suite, is that one of the effects of that is when you're sitting down to hire someone, well, who do you know? Who's on the list of people that I know within my network? So one of the huge biases we end up having isn't necessarily a cognitive bias, it's just a effect of where our attention has been and who we've been hanging out and who we have relationships with that are preexisting. These existing network effects also keep us in the thinking and stuff and making decisions within the context of those networks. We promote people that we know. We promote people that we have relationships with. So even just some of the dynamics of if you've got existing C-suite dynamics that is dominated by men and you've got these dynamics where it’s difficult for men and women to have relationships for various reasons, things that get complicated, that those sorts of things can end up creating a self-reinforcing effect, too. I'm wondering what are some of your thoughts on some of the ways that we can expand our networks and expand the people that we know to shift some of those systemic effects? KAREN: Yeah. Most of us have homogenous networks. Homogenous networks meaning people who are just like us because we have something in common with them, whether that is hobbies that we share, music we like talking about, food we like to go out to enjoy whatever we have things in common. So most of us end up having a –and it's true. Most white people have networks that are full of other white people and this also is friendship circles. There's again, social science research out there that shows that we tend to have networks full of people just like us. As you just were saying, Arty this impacts so many aspects of work in terms of who we hire, who we recommend, who we promote, who we even ask to take on some like stretch assignment or tasks such as giving the update at the all-hands meeting for our team, or going in and exploring some new technology that might be on the horizon that we could leverage. Who are we going to trust with these stretch assignments are people that we know and the people that we know are the people in our network. So it is important to look to diversify our network. There's so many ways to do this. When I give talks, I share some of these ways. One is literally when new people join your team or from a different demographic than you, get to know them and get to know their work and their career goals and down the road, look for how you might be able to connect some dots. But really, take the time to get to know people who you might otherwise just like, “Oh yeah, they're joining the team, whatever,” but set up that virtual coffee or whatever. The other thing you can do is join Slack groups or other discussion forums at your company for people from that demographic. After checking first, if you'd be welcome and invited, of course, but many of these groups will be open to allies and if you are wanting to join that discussion groups so that you can sort of understand the conversation, understand the challenges, get to know some of this talent. That's a great way to do it. You can also go to conferences that are designed for members of other groups that you're not a part of. Again, asking first permission, if you'd be welcome as an ally, but in tech, there's so many of these, but there's lesbians who tech, there are Black women in tech or Black coders conferences. There are Latinas in tech. Meetups and things like that. So there's so many opportunities to go and hear incredibly talented speakers talking about the technology and the projects and the work that they do and it's a great way to expand your network. I'll share my favorite hack that I do when it's in-person and I'm going to a meetup or an event. I'm an introvert, I will let everyone know that. It's hard for me to go into a networking group like the meetup that's happening and there's some pizza and some drinks before it starts, or that conference reception. It's hard for me to go into a room like that. So when I do, I quickly scan the room and I look for someone who's standing by themselves or sitting by themselves, who is from a different demographic and I go over and say, “Hi.” That's the easiest introduction for me as an introvert is to go find someone who's all by themselves and maybe feeling a little awkward that they're all by themselves too and it's a great way to strike a conversation and again, to expand my network, meet some new people, not just my friends that might be coming to the same event. DAMIEN: So one of the things that I want to call attention to, too with what you're saying there is that this marginalization and privilege is self-reinforcing. You don't have to have – even though we all have cognitive biases, they aren't actually necessary for marginalization and privilege to self-reinforce and in fact, because that actually takes effort to undo these things. If we just go along, if we pretend not to see color, or whatever, we are actually reinforcing the problems that exist. KAREN: Yeah, and Damien, on that note. In my book, and it's also a free download on my website, betterallies.com. I have a list that I've curated of 50 ways you might have privilege in the workplace. I like people to read through this list and think about all the ways they have privilege that others might not. The top of the list are “I'm a male,” and “I'm white,” and those are the top two things. But then it gets into more nuanced things and nuanced things being, “I'm not the primary caregiver for someone else.” Well, why is that something we should be aware of as allies? Well, when you're the primary caregiver, that means you may have to drop things at a moment's notice to take a child or a parent to a doctor's appointment, for example, or you might be interrupted in your work. So there's privilege when you don't have that caregiving responsibility. Another one is that you actually have budget enough spare money so that you can do after work outings with a team that aren't company sanctioned. Like, “Yeah, I can afford to go out to dinner,” and gosh, this all sounds so weird now with the pandemic and how long it’s lasting. But “Yeah, I can go out for drinks or dinner with my team after work and pay my way,” or “I can do that whitewater rafting trip on the weekend that people are getting together with.” Even though it's not company work, it's still networking and that builds bonds that builds relationships and sure, work is going to be discussed. It also includes things such as “I am not holding a visa,” which means that I have confidence that I maybe can take some risks with my career. “I can move teams, move to another manager, try something new out because I have confidence that I'm not going to potentially lose my job, which means losing my visa, which means losing my ability to live in the United States.” So there's so many ways that we have privileged that I think at first blush, we might not realize and I think building on your point, Damien it's important for us to understand this privilege so that we can be understanding of how and why we should be diversifying our network and getting to know people who have different levels of privilege than ourselves. REIN: And if you're like a white dude who's like, “This is a lot to keep track of.” Yes. When you don't have them, it's obvious. KAREN: Yeah, you can be oblivious. Otherwise – not that you would be, Rein. I'm not saying that, but one can be very oblivious. REIN: I’m probably oblivious of like, at least 30 of them, so. DAMIEN: For people who are marginalized every axes, we really cannot be unaware. It's dangerous. Those of us who were unaware of it, suffer disastrous consequences. So in places where you are privileged, if one of the privileges is to not be aware of it and yes, it is a lot to keep track of and yes, as everybody else has to keep track of that stuff. KAREN: Yeah, and building on what you both just said, this is just like technology in some ways and let me explain what I mean by that. Let's not take it out of context because there's some nuanced stuff I'm about to share. But in tech, there are so many areas of specialty, whether that is in data science or product security or accessibility related engineering or internationalization engineering and, and, and like, there's so many areas of expertise. And Rein, you’re like, “As a white guy, how am I supposed to keep track of all of this?” Well, it's hard. I get it because the field keeps changing, things keep getting innovated on or brought to the surface and the same thing, I'm sure that Chanté sees this in the DEI space. We are learning all the time about how to create more inclusive workplaces where everyone can do their best work and thrive. It's the same as like what am I learning about writing the right kind of code that is going to have lasting impact, that is going to not cause incidents over the weekend [chuckles] when we all want to be doing something else? When it's not going to down the road because technical debt that is going to have to be retired? So yeah, it's hard work. I don't mean to say it's not, but we need to make sure we have people who are thinking about this around us, who are reminding us, who are teaching us the best practices so that we are getting ahead of this versus falling behind. REIN: One of the things you said last time that I really want to make sure we bring back up is that doing this work is everyone's job. KAREN: Yes. Yeah, and Rein, I think we got into that conversation talking specifically about product security, software security. You can have a team of people who are software security specialists/experts. In fact, when I was at Adobe in my department, that was one of the groups in my department was cross-engineering product security specialists and they know this stuff. They are paying attention to the landscape. They know when those zero-day incidents happen and what the response is like, and what bounties are being paid and they know all of that because they love it. They're paying attention to it, but they can't solve the problem for the whole company. They cannot make sure that every piece of code is hardened so that the viruses don't get injected. There aren't security violations. What they need to do is educate others, be there to support them when things go bad. But it's really about educating every engineer to be using the libraries the right way, to be allocating memory in the right way, whatever so that we don't have those security violations and it's the same thing with being inclusive. I have so much respect for anyone and Chanté, it sounds like you do this work, but like, you are responsible for diversity at a company and are looking top down at what are the measurements we're going to have? What are the quarterly or annual goals that we want to have to improve our diversity? How are we going to measure that, make it happen? But we also need people in every corner of the organization, in every code review meeting, in every interview debrief, in every casual hallway conversation, or a chat in a Slack, we need all of those people to realize they have a role to play in being inclusive and have some awareness of what it looks like to not be inclusive. What someone from a different demographic is experiencing in a way you might not and what are some of the ways you can take action? So I see so many parallels there and I firmly believe, it's something I say all the time like, you don't have to have the words “diversity inclusion” belonging on your business card to make a difference. It's inclusion as a job for everyone. CHANTÉ: Yeah. That's one of the things I wrote down that I wanted to make sure that we directed folks to. I love that on your website. That was one of the things that before I ever even knew you were going to be a guest here. That's why I started following you. I love that and I want to actually dive into that because one of the things that I hear often from people when I'm doing this work, they're like, “You're so good at this.” I'm like, “Yeah, but this is a skill that you have to work towards.” So it's just like any other thing you want to make a lifestyle. You have to wake up that day and make a decision. If you're somebody who wants to eat healthier, then you wake up every morning and you have decisions to make. If you are a yogi like me, you might decide that you want to get on your yoga mat or you might want to pick up a book and read the philosophy instead. So it's a lifestyle. I'd love it if you could maybe tell us a little bit about your journey because it's humbling to hear that you got into this work knowing that you wanted to coach women in tech, but you didn't necessarily aspire to be thinking about and writing about allyship, but that became a part of it. So what are some things that you did early on, or what are some things that you're doing now in terms of showing up every day and being a better ally? KAREN: Yeah. I think that one thing you have to be comfortable with and it's hard, but I do this a lot is being an ally means realizing you're going to be wrong some of the time, because you are constantly stepping outside of that comfort zone that is just so safe—"I know how to navigate this kind of conversation, using these kinds of words and everything”—and you have to keep stepping outside that comfort zone so that you are taking some risks and you're going to make some mistakes. You are. I make them pretty regularly. I might put something in a newsletter. I send out a weekly newsletter called 5 Ally Actions with 5 ideas and things people can take and I get emails back from people who disagree with me or say, “If I had written that, I would have changed it slightly this way,” or whatever, and I'm comfortable with that because I approach everything with this mindset of curious, instead of furious. I want to be curious about why someone's giving me the feedback and what's underneath there and what can I learn from it as opposed to getting furious at them for giving me feedback and like, assaulting my expertise, or whatever, or my voice. So curious, not furious, I think is an important thing here and I want to give a shout out. I learned that phrase from a podcast I was listening to and it was Kat Gordon, who has something called The 3% Movement, which is all about getting more gender diversity in the creative industry, like the ad industry. So hat tipped to Kat Gordon for that. So getting back to you got to get comfortable with making mistakes and when we make a mistake, acknowledge it, apologize. Heartfelt apology, folks. Apologize and then figure out what you're going to do differently the next time. That's what it's all about. So the journey is real. No one ever gets an ally badge or an ally cookie. In fact, I will tell you, I recently searched on LinkedIn in job titles for ally. I was curious to see how many people put in their job titles. There are people out there who have claimed it and I don't think that's right. Unless someone else has told them that, in which case, okay, someone else has said, “You are an ally,” maybe you can put that in your title and claim the badge, but it's really not about that. It's about being on a lifelong journey really, to be inclusive, to keep learning, to keep understanding how things are changing, and not putting the spotlight on yourself. Opening the doors for other people and just stand right behind that door and realizing that it's not about you. It's so hard to do this at times because we all want to be like, “Hey, look at the cool thing I just did for somebody else.” We want that feedback, but being an ally means stepping out of the limelight and letting someone else shine. CHANTÉ: Those are great. Thank you so much, Karen, for that. I want to ask one more question since we're there. In terms of not making it about ourselves and not necessarily centering ourselves and taking action in the moment and not giving ourselves the allyship title, if you will, who are some people that you either align yourself with or that you learn from, whether it's up close and personal or from a distance? Like who are people that you feel are providing you with gems and knowledge so that you are then sharing with folks like us, that we can at least either put in the show notes or give a shout out to? KAREN: Yes! Oh, I love this. So many people. One, I will say right off the bat is Minda Harts. Minda Harts is a woman, a Black woman, and she wrote a book called The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Get a Seat at the Table, I think is the byline. She and I spoke on a panel together a few months ago and I learned so much from her. I learned a lot from reading her book about the experience with Black women in the workplace, but then also, on the panel and since then, I feel that we have a nice professional, Twitter kind of friendship going on, which I just value so much. So I learned from her and what she shares all the time. Another person I learned from is Jeannie Gainsburg. Jeannie Gainsburg is an LGBTQ educator and wrote a book called The Savvy Ally and The Savvy Ally is all about – the funny thing is she and I connected. We realized we went to college together or the same class, but we didn't know each other in college, but we have the same mindset of understanding something and then distilling it into how an ally can show up. With her perspective, it's all about being an ally for the LGBTQ community and I've learned so much from her. In fact, I've quoted both Minda and Jeannie in my second edition pretty heavily. I also have learned a lot from David Smith and Brad Johnson. They recently published a book called Good Guys and their approach is also incredibly similar to mine, but they focus completely on how men can be allies for women and they don't focus on other aspects of allyship. But very much I learned about, they're the guys who are talking to other guys and basically saying, “Hey dude, it's your responsibility as a man in a professional setting to be an ally.” Like, it's part of your job to meet with the women on your team and sponsor them and support them. So, they tell it in a real way. Oh my gosh, I feel like I learned from so many other people, too and I'm forgetting, I'm not thinking holistically. So anyway, those are four people it's nice to give shout outs to. CHANTÉ: We put you on the spot so thank you, Karen. [laughs] KAREN: Okay. Here's another one. Corey Ponder, he works in tech, but he also does speaking and writing about diversity and inclusion on the side and he is a Black man. I just learned about his experience and perspective in such a real, raw way and I value that a lot. DAMIEN: Karen, I'd like to ask you a bit about something you brought up really early in our conversation today. You mentioned that before you got into this work with Better Allies and that sort of work, before you became a executive coach, leadership coach, you noticed a decline in gender parity in the tech industry. Can you talk about what that decline was, how it might've happened? KAREN: Yeah. So first of all, Damien a question for you. Were you surprised when I said that? DAMIEN: [chuckles] Well, no, not at all. I actually just today read about one of the earliest computers at NASA which is a woman, a Black woman, that the astronauts explicitly by name depended on, for example, Apollo 13. So I wanted to hear your story about what happened. KAREN: Yeah. Okay, okay. I asked only because there are many people who, when I just drop that into the conversation, they ended up coming back to it minutes and minutes later or towards the end of any kind of interview. At any rate, what happened? So I have theory and actually I gave a TEDx talk about this, exploring the theory. I won't do all 20 minutes of my TEDx talk, but when I decided to study computer science, I was a senior in high school trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life kind of thing, what I wanted to study in college. My father said to me, “Hey, well, Karen, you're really good at math and you enjoy making things. You're always crafting and sewing and knitting, and you like solving problems. I've just been reading this article about this new field called computer science which seems like it would combine all the things you're good at and maybe you would enjoy making software and by the way, this is what people earn in this field.” [chuckles] I have to admit, I grew up in a very humble financial household and so, I wanted to make sure I could support myself and earn a living when I graduated from college. So I'm like, “Okay, I'll study computer science. I'll learn how to build software.” That was 1981, the year I graduated from high school. Now get this, I had never touched a computer. Okay, we didn't have – I mean, 1981 was the year the IBM PC was released into the field. The Macintosh did not come out until 1984. So in my home, we did not have computers in the part-time jobs I had after school and summers, no one had computers and certainly, we didn't not have computers in my high school where I could learn to code where it would probably would have been in basic. This was a situation for many people across the United States. Going to college in the early 80s, if you wanted to study computer science, many people were coming with no experience. Maybe a little more than me. Maybe they had taken that basic class, but very little experience. It was almost like a level playing field at that point and we were encouraged to pursue this. My graduating class from college, I went back through my yearbook not too long ago to count, there were 38% of the computer science degrees went to women in my class and that statistic 38% is very similar to what was happening across the whole United States. According to the Department of Education, the year 1985, when I graduated from college, 37% of all computer science and information science degrees went to women. So that was pretty good. Now, fast forward 20, 25 years and that number dropped to a low of about 17%, I think and the overall number also went down of how many women were getting these degrees. And now, you don't have to have a computer science degree to work in tech necessarily, but in many tech environments and tech companies, the engineers are incredibly valued and are very visible and are paid very well. They are an incredibly important part of any tech company. So my point is that there used to be a lot more women computer scientists and it did drop. I do think it's this level playing field that I started at, but the decline happened because I believe a society, we as a society, started thinking and encouraging our young boys to get involved with robotics, with tinkering, with coding classes, with summer camps where you might learn to do coding or programming robotics. We encouraged our young boys more than our young girls and over time, that meant that a girl, if she wanted to go to the summer coding camp in her neighborhood, would show up and see only boys there, or see only a very small number of girls and be like, “Well, maybe this isn't for me.” Or coding assignments in colleges that were much more aligned with masculine interests and more feminine interests. Things that might be more – oh, I don't even really want to get into stereotypes. I don't even want to go there, but things that would be more appealing to an 18-year-old boy than an 18-year-old girl who just have different interests and just became self-fulfilling. What we're seeing now though, is that graph is moving in the right direction. The numbers are inching upwards because there's been so much focus across the United States – and hopefully, around the world, but across the United States, in terms of gender diversity is important in this field and we should be welcoming of all and we're making changes to all of these programs and encouraging our young girls to study this field, get involved with STEM, and pursue it when they get to college and beyond. DAMIEN: Yeah, you avoided giving an example so I'll give one that you reminded me of, which is for a very long time, the standard, the most common image used as an example of compression algorithms was that of a undressed woman and so, we can – KAREN: Lena. Her name is Lena. Yes, actually I know her name. She was someone when they were working on an image compression algorithm like, “We need a picture,” and someone just grabbed the Playboy magazine from their cube, took the centerfold out, and used that. REIN: You do. [laughter] Or at least as you did. The effect here is really interesting and also, really, it makes me very sad, which is that computing became seen as a prestige job. Once men realized that there was something to this, it requires expertise, they decided that they were going to do it and when they did—there's research that shows this both ways. When men enter a field, it raises the prestige and increases wages. When women enter a field, it lowers the prestige and decreases wages. KAREN: Yeah, that's a problem, but real. I don't mean to at all disagree. It's a real problem. ARTY: Just curious. Do we reinforce these things by saying them as a statement like that with a period versus bringing it up as a question? REIN: Yeah. ARTY: I'm just wondering. REIN: What I’m trying to do is describe and not be normative, but I think that's a valid point. ARTY: In my life coaching thing recently, we were talking about statements with periods and it's really easy to define the world of expectations of ourselves, define the world of expectations of everyone else for all time and all affinity as a statement with a period. As we go and do this, it creates these reinforcing effects, and then we go and do things and enact behaviors that reinforce those belief systems. So we're sitting here talking about biases and how all of this stuff gets baked in her brain and one of the ways that it gets baked into her brain is by making statements of “Well, this is how it is period.” I realize you’re making a statement of something to challenge, but I think it's something that we really need to think about that if we want to change the status quo, it starts with reimagining it different. Coming up with a different statement, with a period even as a starting point, and then letting that lead to questions of how do we go and manifest this new reality that is more what we want. KAREN: Can I embarrass myself? [laughs] ARTY: Yes, of course. KAREN: Okay, right. [laughter] KAREN: So I have two children. That's not embarrassing. They're in their early 20s now. That's not embarrassing. I had read, when they were younger, that there is research done that said that if you tell a girl just before she takes a math test, that girls aren't good at math, that her score will actually go down. This is the embarrassing thing. So before dropping my daughter off for like her PSATs and SAT exams, I just said, “Remember, girls are really good at math and you are really good at math, too.” [chuckles] So maybe already changing the narrative by using different periods statements, too [laughs] making up alternate realities. Oh gosh, I can't believe I just shared that story. My daughter would probably be so embarrassed. DAMIEN: That’s a modern story and I don't think there's anything to be embarrassed about there and I think Arty brings up an amazing and very valuable points. The suggestion I want to make in response to that is, because what Rein was describing is a fact and I’m sure it's important to know about and to know that it happened—and I'm already using that language now: it happened. In the past when men went into a field, it became more prestigious and higher paid. When women into a field, it became less prestigious and higher paid. And that's what has happened in the past and by stating it that way, now we can go, “Okay, what are we going to do now?” REIN: There's a thing I learned from Virginia Satir that I probably should have done here, which is when you find one of those ends with a period sentences Arty, like you're talking about, you add until now at the end. So when women enter a male dominated fields, wages go down until now. ARTY: And now they go up. Now they go up because everyone wants women because they're so awesome. Women bring so much awesomeness to the table so wages go up. The more women you have, the better the wages. CHANTÉ: Period. KAREN: Yeah. [laughter] Yeah, and—yes, and—the other kind of way to look at this is, I've been doing a lot of work with how might we statements and so the question is, how might we change the trajectory? How might we imagine the future of work where all people and all identities are welcome and we are building towards a future that is literally more equitable and more accessible for all? So how might we do that? We can maybe answer that question today, or we can invite folks who are going to listen in to weigh in when we post this online and talk to us on Twitter. ARTY: I love that, though. I mean, I think if we really want to change the status quo, part of that is realizing that we're the ones who make it. We're the ones that create our reality and our culture is just a manifest of all these beliefs and things that are in our head emerging from all of us. If we realize that we're actually the ones that are in control of that, that we're the ones that are manifesting that, then we can create a

02:15 - David’s Superpower: Being Confused * Norms of Excellence (https://notebook.drmaciver.com/posts/2020-05-31-09:20.html) * The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance (https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Game-Tennis-Classic-Performance/dp/0679778314) 11:56 - Daily Writing * David’s Newsletter: Overthinking Everything (https://drmaciver.substack.com/) * Unfuck Your Habitat (https://www.unfuckyourhabitat.com/) 15:47 - Learning to Be Better at Emotions 23:22 - Achievement and Joy as Aspirational Goals * [Homeostasis vs Homeorhesis](https://wikidiff.com/homeostasis/homeorhesis#:~:text=is%20that%20homeostasis%20is%20(physiology,to%20a%20trajectory%2C%20as%20opposed) * Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming by Agnes Callard (https://www.amazon.com/Aspiration-Agency-Becoming-Agnes-Callard/dp/0190639482) * Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott (https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/dp/0300078153/ref=sr_1_2?crid=HEYGC212F6SG&dchild=1&keywords=seeing+like+a+state+by+james+c+scott&qid=1613057768&s=books&sprefix=seeing+like+a+state%2Cstripbooks%2C164&sr=1-2) * Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein (https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Investigations-Ludwig-Wittgenstein/dp/1405159286/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1JRUU030WBCWQ&dchild=1&keywords=philosophical+investigations&qid=1613058025&s=books&sprefix=philos%2Cstripbooks%2C209&sr=1-1) Reflections: Jessica: Trying not knowing yourself. Rein: You shouldn’t be the owner of all your desires. Instead, you should measure your life by how well you follow the intentions that arise out of your values. Jacob: Thinking of yourself as the sum of all of the habits you maintain or don’t. David: The [Homeostasis vs Homeorhesis](https://wikidiff.com/homeostasis/homeorhesis#:~:text=is%20that%20homeostasis%20is%20(physiology,to%20a%20trajectory%2C%20as%20opposed) distinction, and cleaning a home as an ongoing process. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: SPONSORED AD: Whether you're working on a personal project or managing enterprise infrastructure, you deserve simple, affordable, and accessible cloud computing solutions that allow you to take your project to the next level. Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode's Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and easier. Get started on Linode today with $100 in free credit for listeners of Greater Than Code. You can find all the details at linode.com/greaterthancode. Linode has 11 global data centers and provides 24/7/365 human support with no tiers or hand-offs regardless of your plan size. In addition to shared and dedicated compute instances, you can use your $100 in credit on S3-compatible object storage, Managed Kubernetes, and more. Visit linode.com/greaterthancode and click on the "Create Free Account" button to get started. JACOB: Hello and welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode 223. My name is Jacob Stoebel and I'm joined with my co-host, Rein Henrichs. REIN: Thanks, Jacob and I'm here with my friend and also stranger because we haven't done this together in months, Jessica Kerr. JESSICA: Thank you, Rein! And Iím really excited today because our guest is David MacIver. Twitter handle, @DRMacIver. David MacIver is best known as the developer of Hypothesis, the property-based testing library for Python, and is currently doing a Ph.D. based on some of that work. But he also writes extensively about emotions, life, and society and sometimes coaches people on an eclectic mix of software development, intellectual, and emotional skills. As you can probably tell, David hasn't entirely decided what he wants to do when he grows u and that's the best because if you had decided well, then so few possibilities would be open. David, hello! DAVID: Hi, Jessica! Great to be here. JESSICA: All right. I'm going to ask the obligatory question. What is your superpower and how did you acquire it? DAVID: So as you saw me complaining about on Twitter, this question doesn't translate very well outside of the United States. JESSICA: Yeah, which is fascinating for me. DAVID: I'm a bit too British to say nice things about myself without sounding like I'm being self-deprecating. JESSICA: Self-depreciating it is! DAVID: [laughs] So I thought about this one for a while and I decided that the answer is that I'm really good at being confused and in particular, I have a much more productive response to being confused than it seems like most people do because basically, the world is super confusing and I think I never know what's going on, but then I notice that I know what's going on and I look at it and I'm just like, ìHmm, this is weird, right?î And then I read a book about it, or I sort of poke at it a bit and then I'm not less confused, but I'm less confused about that like, one little facet of the world and have found ten new things to be confused about. [laughter] JESSICA: Nice. DAVID: Usually, I can then turn this into being slightly better at the thing I was previously confused about, or writing about it and making everyone else differently confused than they started with. JESSICA: Definitely confused. That is a win. That's called learning. DAVID: Yeah, exactly. [laughter] This is where a lot of the writing you were talking about comes from and essentially, about 2 years ago, I just started turning these skills less on software development and more just going like, ìLife, it doesn't make sense, right?î [laughter] And noticing a whole bunch of things, I needed to work on and then that a lot of these were shared common problems. So I am, if anything, far more confused about all of it than I was 2 years ago, but I'm less confused about the things I was confused about that and seem to be gradually becoming a more functional human being as a result of the process. So yay, confusion. JESSICA: That superpower, the productive response to confusion, ties in with your reaction to the superpower question in general, which is as Americans, we're supposed to be ñ we want to have power. We want to be special. We want to be unique. We want to make our unique contribution to the world! And as part of that, we're not comfortable being confused because we need to know things! We need to be smart! We need to convey strength and competence and be the best! I hate the superlatives. [laughter] I hate the implied competition there, but instead, we could open our hearts to our own confusion and embrace that. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. DAVID: One of the things that often comes up for me is it's a thing that I think is slightly intentioned with this American tendency youíre pointing at, which is that I kind of want to be the best, but I don't really want to be better than other people. I just want to be better than I am now. I wrote a post a while ago about neuromas of excellence like, what would a community look like, which helped everyone be the best version of themselves and one of the top lists was basically that everyone has to be comfortable with not being good at things, but another is just that you have to not want to be better to the other people. You just need want to be better. Again, this is where a lot of the writing comes from. I've just gone, ìWell, this was helpful to me. It's probably helpful to other people.î That's not as sense of wanting to change the world and wanting to put my own stamp on things and it does require a certain amount to self-importance to go, ìYes, my writing is important and other people will like to read it,î but then other people like to read it so, that's fine and if they don't, that's fine, too. JESSICA: Well, you didn't make anyone read it, but you did start a newsletter and let people read it. JACOB: Is this weird thinking reflect a journey that you took in your life? Because I think about my company and my team and how incredibly generous everybody is and even still, I just find it's natural to compare myself to everyone else and needing to not be on the bottom. Part of me wonders if that's just like a natural human tendency, but just because it's natural doesn't make it so. JESSICA: Way natural American. JACOB: Yeah, basically I'm asking how do I stop doing that? [laughter] DAVID: It's definitely not something I've always been perfectly good at. But I think the thing that helped me figure out how to do this was essentially being simultaneously at the bottom of the social rung, but also super arrogant. So it's your classic nerd kit thing, right? It's completely failing at people, but also going, ìBut I'm better than all of you because I'm smart,î and then essentially, gradually having the rough edges filed off the second part and realizing how much I had to learn off the first part. I think sometimes my attitude is due to a lot of this is basically, to imagine I was a time traveler and basically going back in time and telling little David all the things that it was really frustrating that nobody could explain to me and I sadly haven't yet managed to perfect my time machine, but I can still pay it forward. If nobody was able to explain this to me and I'm able to explain it to other people, then surely, the world is a better place with me freely handing out this information. I don't think it's possible, or even entirely desirable to completely eliminate the comparing yourself to others and in fact, I'd go as far as to say, comparing yourself to others is good, but I think theÖ JESSICA: Itís how do we have a productive response to compare ourselves to others? DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. There's a great section in The Inner Game of Tennis, which is a book that I have very mixed feelings about, but it has some great bits where he talks about competition. If you think of a mountain climber, a mountain climber is basically pitting themselves against the mountain, right? They're trying to climb the mountain because it is hard and you could absolutely take a helicopter to the top of the mountain, but that wouldn't be the point. It's you're improving yourself by trying a hard thing. I mean, you're improving yourself in the sense that you're getting better at climbing mountains. You might not be improving yourself in any sort of fully generalizable way. JESSICA: Okay. [laughter] DAVID: When you are playing tennisóbecause this is a book about tennisóyou are engaged in competition with each other and you're each trying to be better than the other. In this context, essentially, what you are doing is you are being the mountain for each other. So you are creating the obstacles that the other people overcome and improve themselves that way and in doing this, you're not just being a dick about it. You're not doing this in order to crush them. You're doing this in order to provide them with the challenge that lets them grow. When you think about it this way, other people being better than you is great because there's this mountain there and you can climb it and by climbing the mountain, you can improve yourself. The thing that stops everyone becoming great is feeling threatened by the being better rather than treating it as an opportunity for learning. JESSICA: Yeah, trying to dynamite the mountain instead of climbing it. Whereas, when you are the mountain for someone else, you can also provide them footholds. Rein, do you have an example of this? REIN: I sure do, Jess. Thanks for asking. So I was just [laughs] thinking while you were talking about this, about the speed running and speed running communities. Because speed running is about testing yourself against a video game, which in this case, serves the purpose of the mountain, but it's also about competing against other speed runners. If it was purely competitive, you wouldn't see the behaviors, the reciprocity in the communities like sharing speed running strats, being really happy when other people break your record. I think it's really interesting that that community is both competitive, but there's also a lot of reciprocity, a lot of sharing. JACOB: And it's like the way the science community should work. It's like, ìOh, you made this new discovery because of this discovery I shared with you and now I'm proud that my discovery is this foundation for all these other little things that now people can be by themselves in 10 seconds instead of 30.î JESSICA: Yeah. Give other people a head start on the confusion you've already had so that they can start resolving new confusions. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely one of my hopes with all of this writing is to encourage other people to do it themselves. Earlier this year, I was getting people very into daily writing practices and just trying to get people to write as much as possible. I now think that was slightly a mistake because I think daily writing is a great thing to do for about a month and then it just gets too much. So I will probably see if I can figure out other ways of encouraging people to notice their confusion, as you say, and share what they've learned from edge. But sadly, can't quite get into do it daily. JESSICA: This morningís newsletter you talked about. Okay, okay, I can do daily writing, but now I want to get better at writing. I've got to go do something I'm worse at. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. I think daily writing is still a really good transitional stage for most people. To give them more context for this newsletter for people listening. Basically, most of my writing to date, I just write in a 1- or 2-hour sitting from start to finish. I don't really edit it. I just click publish and I've gotten very good at writing like that. I think that most people are ñ I mean, sometimes it's a bit obvious that I haven't edited it because they're obvious typos and the like. But by and large, I think it is a reasonably high standard of writing and I'm not embarrassed to be putting it out in that quality, but the fact that I'm not editing is just starting to be sort of the limiter on growth for me. It's never going to really get better than it currently is. It's certainly not going to allow me to tackle larger projects that I can currently tackle without that editing skill. JESSICA: [laughs] I just pictured you trying to sit down and write a book in one session. [laughter] And then you'd be tired. DAVID: Yeah. I've tried to doing that with papers even and it doesn't really work. I mean, I do edit papers, but Iím very visibly really bad at editing papers and it's one of my weaknesses as a academic is that I still haven't really got the hang of paper writing. JESSICA: Do you edit other people's papers? DAVID: I don't edit other people's papers, but I provide feedback on other people's writing and say, ìThis is what worked for me. This is what didn't work for me. Here are some typos you made.î It's not reading as providing good feedback on things, that is the difficult part of editing for me. It is much more ñ honestly, it's an emotional problem more than anything else. It's not really that I'm bad at editing at a technical level. I'm okay at editing at a technical level. I just hate doing it. [laughs] JESSICA: That is most problems we have, right? DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: In the end, itís an emotional problem. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. I think that is definitely one of the interesting things I've been figuring out in my last 2 years of working on learning more about emotions and the various skills around them is just going, ìOh, right. It's not this abstract thing where you are learning to be better at emotions and then nothing will change in your life because you're just going to be happier about everything.î I mean, some people do approach it that way, but for me, it's very much been, ìOh, I'm learning to be good at emotions because this really concrete problem that I don't understand, it turns out that that's just feelings.î [laughter] It's like, for example, the literature on how to have a clean home, turns out that's mostly anxiety management and guilt management. It's like fundamentally cleaning your home is not a hard problem. Not procrastinating on cleaning your home is a hard problem. Not feeling intensely guilty and aversive about the dirty dishes in the sink and is putting them off for a week. I don't do that. But just as a hypothetical example. [laughter] I mean, not a hypothetical example, I think a specific example that comes from the book, Unfuck Your Habitat, which is a great example of essentially, it's a book that's about it contains tips, like fill the spray bottle with water and white vinegar and also, tips about how to manage your time and how to deal with the fact that you're mostly not cleaning because of shame, that sort of thing. Writing books are another great example where 80% about managing the feelings associated with writing; it turns out practical problems pretty much all come down to emotionsóat least practical life problems. REIN: Sorry, I was just buying Unfuck Your Habitat real quick. [laughter] DAVID: It's a good book. I recommend it. JESSICA: Our internal like emotional habitat and our external habitat are very linked. You said something earlier about learning to be at emotions is not just you're magically happier at other things in your life change. DAVID: Yes. I mean, I think there are a couple of ways in which it manifests. One of them is just that emotions often are the internal force that maintains our life habits. It's you live in a particular way because moving outside of those trained habits is scary or aversive in some way. Like the cleaning example of how, if your home is a mess, it's not necessarily because you don't know how to make your home not a mess. Although, cleaning is a much harder skill than most people treat it as speaking as someone who is bad at the practical skills of cleaning, as well as the emotional side of cleaning. But primarily, if it were just a matter of scale, you could just do it and get better at it, right? The thing that is holding you in place is the emotional reaction to the idea of changing your habits. So the specific reason why I started on all of this process was essentially relationship stuff. I'd started a new major relationship. My previous one hadn't gone so well for reasons that were somewhere between emotional and communication issues, for the same reason basically every relationship doesn't go so well, if it doesn't go so ñ Oh, that's not quite true. Like there are actual ñ JESSICA: Some people have actual problems. [chuckles] But these things are. I mean, our emotions really, as sometimes we treat them as if they're flaws. As if our emotions are getting in our way is some sort of judgment about us as not being good people, but no, it just makes us people. DAVID: For sure. JESSICA: So you started on this journey because of the external motivation of helping someone you're in a relationship with, because it's really hard to do these things just for ourselves. DAVID: It is incredibly hard to do things just for ourselves. I guess, that is exactly an example of this problem, right? It's that there is a particular habit of life that I was in and what I needed to break out of that habit of life was the skills for dealing with it and then figuring out these emotional reactions. But unfortunately, the thing that the habits were maintaining, it was me not having the skills and so having the external prompts of a problem that was in the world rather than in my life, as it was, was what was needed to essentially kick me out of that. Fortunately, it turns out that my standard approach of reading a thousand books now was one that worked for me, in this case. I probably haven't read a thousand books on this, but that certainly worked. JESSICA: It wouldnít surprise me. [laughs] DAVID: I read fewer books than people think I do. I may well have read more than a hundred books about emotions and therapy and the like. But I probably haven't, unless I cast that brush really broadly, because I mean, everything's a book about emotions and therapy, if you look at your right. REIN: Have you read any books by average Virginia Satir? [laughter] DAVID: I don't know who that is, I'm afraid. JACOB: Drink! REIN: Excellent! Excellent news. [laughter] JESSICA: Itís about Virginia Satir, right? REIN: Virginia was a family therapist who wrote a lot about processing emotions and I have been a huge fan of her work and it's made a huge difference in my life and my career. So I highly recommend it. DAVID: Okay. I will definitely hear recommendations on books. What's the book title, or what's your favorite book title by? REIN: I think I would start with The Satir Model, which is S-A-T-I-R M-O-D-E-L. The Satir Model, which is about her family therapy model. JESSICA: Chances are good, you've read books based on her work. I was reading Gerry Weinberg's Quality Software Management: Volume Two the other day, which is entirely based on The Satir Model. REIN: Yeah. He was a student of hers. One of the things that she likes to say is that the problem is never the problem, how we cope is the problem. JESSICA: Can we have a productive response to the problem? DAVID: Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. I think often, the problem is also the problem. [laughter] JESSICA: It's often self-sustaining like the habits you're talking about. Our life habits form a self-sustaining system and then it took that external stimulus. It's not like an external stimulus somehow kicked you in the butt and changed you, it let you change yourself. DAVID: Yes, absolutely. I guess what I mean is ñ so let's continue with the cleaning example. The problem is that your flat is messy and your flat is messy because of these life habits, because your emotional reactions to all these things. If you do the appropriate emotional work, you unblock yourself on shame and anxiety around a messy flat, and you look around and you've saw you've processed all these emotions. You fixed how you respond to the problem and it turns out your flat is still messy and you still have to clean it. I think emotional reactions are what either ñ Iím making it sound like emotional reactions are all negative and I really don't mean that. I mean, that way is just ñ JESSICA: Oh, right because once you've dealt with all that shame and the anxiety and stuff, and maybe you've picked up your flat some, and then you come in and you have groceries and you stop and you immediately put them away and you get a positive, emotional feeling from that as you're in the process of keeping your flat tidy. The emotions can reinforce a clean flat as well. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is something that has always been one of my goals more than it is what am I active? JESSICA: No, I love this distinction that you're making here. Is it a goal or is it something I'm activelyÖ? The word goal is [inaudible]. DAVID: Yeah. So I think for me, one of the other problems, other than the relationships it starts, was me essentially realizing that my emotional experience, it wasn't bad. I mean, it wasn't great, but I wasn't actively miserable most of the time, but it also just didn't have very many positive features, which it turns out is also a form of depression. It's very easy to treat depression as just like you're incredibly sad all the time, but that doesn't have to what it can be like flatness is. So I think very much from early on in my mind was that the getting better at emotions wasn't just about not being anxious. It was also about experiencing things like joy, it was about being happier and I think having this as sort of an aspirational goal is very, very motivating in terms of a lot of this work and in terms of a lot of trying to understand all of this, because I think I don't want to be miserableóit only gets you so far. If you have a problem that you're trying to solve, and that turns out to be an emotional block, you have to actually wants to solve the problem. It's like, I think if you don't want to clean the flat, then it doesn't matter how much you sort of fix your anxiety around that. You're still just going to go, ìOkay. I'm no longer anxious about this messy flat. That's great,î and your flat is going to stay messy because you don't actually want it not to be and that's fine. JESSICA: Itís just fine, yeah. Who cares? Especially now. DAVID: Unless it becomes a health hazard, but yeah. [laughter] DAVID: Certainly like thereís ñ JESSICA: If you're affecting the neighboring flats with your roaches, thatís fine. DAVID: [laughs] Yeah. JESSICA: So you were talking about joy as an aspirational goal, but it's not the kind of goal where you check the box at the end of the year and declare yourself worthy of a 2% raise. DAVID: [laughs] No, absolutely not and I think for all big goals, really, I find that I want to be very clichÈ and say, it's the journey, not the destination. JESSICA: But it is! No, it totally is! DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: See, the word goal really irks me because people often use it to mean something that you should actually reach. Like write every day per month, that's a goal that you find benefits from hitting, but feelings of joy are, as you said, aspirational. I call it a quest, personally. Some people call it a North Star. It is a direction that can help you make decisions that will move you in that direction, but if you ever get thereÖ No, that doesn't make sense. You wouldn't want to exist in a perpetual state of joy. That would also be flat. [laughs] DAVID: No, absolutely. And I think even with big but achievable goals, it still is still quite helpful to treat them in this way. So for one, quite close to my heart right now, a goal of doing a Ph.D. I think you've got a 3-, 4-year long project in the States, I think it's more like 5 or 6 and if you treat the Ph.D. as it's pass/fail, like either you get the Ph.D. or those 3 or 4 years have been wasted, then that's not very motivating and also will result in, I think, worst quality results in work. Like the thing to do is ñ JESSICA: Like anxiety, stress, and shame. DAVID: Yeah. Yeah, very much so. [chuckles] So just thinking in terms of there's this big goal that you're trying to achieve of the Ph.D., but the goal doesn't just define a pass/fail; it defines a direction. Like if you get better at paper writing in order to get your Ph.D., then even if you don't get your Ph.D., you got better at paper writing and that's good, too. JESSICA: Because the other outcome is the next version of you. DAVID: Yes, exactly. JESSICA: Itís about who does this aspirational goal prompt you to become? REIN: This reminds me of the difference between homeostasis and homeorhesis. Homeostasis is about maintaining a state; homeorhesis is about maintaining a trajectory DAVID: That makes sense. Yes, very much that distinction and also, one of the nice things about this focus on a trajectory is that even if a third of the way through the trajectory, you decide you don't want to maintain it anymore and actually you're fine where you are. This goal was a bad idea or you've got different priorities now, possibly because a global pandemic has arrived and has changed all of your priorities. Then you still come all that way. It's like the trajectory doesn't just disappear backwards in time because you're no longer going in that direction. You've still made all that progress. Youíve still got to drive some of the benefits from it. JESSICA: Yeah. There's another thing that maybe it's an American thing, or maybe it's wider than that of if it doesn't last forever, then it was never real, or if you don't achieve the stated goal, then all your effort was wasted. DAVID: Yeah. I don't think itís purely an American thing. It's hard to tell with how much American pop culture permeates everything and also, I shouldn't say that although I'm quite British, I am also half American. So Iím a weird third culture kid where my background doesn't quite make sense to anyone. But yeah, no, I very much feel that. This idea that permanence is required for importance and it's something that every time I sort of catch myself there, I'm just like, ìYeah, David, you're doing the thing again. Have you tried not doing the thing?î [chuckles] But it's hard. It's very internalized. JESSICA: If you clean your flat and a week later, it's dirty again. Well, it was clean for a week. That's not nothing. DAVID: Yeah. I do genuinely think that one of the emotions that people struggle with cleaning. Certainly, it is for me. JESSICA: Oh, because it's a process. It is not a destination. Nothing is ever clean! DAVID: Yeah. JACOB: I think of myself sometimes as I want to be the kind of person that always has a clean home, as opposed to, I like it when my house is clean. JESSICA: Yeah. Is it about you or is it about some real effect you want? JACOB: Yeah. Is it about like the story that that I imagine I could project if I could project on Instagram because I'm taking pictures of my pristine house all the time, or is it just like, I like to look around and see things where they belong? DAVID: Yeah. I'm curious, does this result in your home being clean? JACOB: No, it doesnít and thatís sort of the issue that I'm just realizing is it's not actually a powerful motivator because it's just not possible trying to imagine that I could maintain homeostasis about it. It's not a possible goal and so yeah, it's not going to happen. REIN: Yeah. The metaphor here is it changes motion, but it's always happening so it's more like the flow of time than motion through space. JESSICA: Itís not motion, too. REIN: Actually staying the same is very hard to do and very expensive. DAVID: Absolutely. JESSICA: No wonder it takes all of our feelings to help us achieve it. [chuckles] DAVID: So the reason I was asking by the way about whether this idea of being the sort of person who has a clean home is effective is that this ties in a little bit to what today's newsletter was about. There's this problem where when you have self-images that are constructed around being good at particular things, being bad at those things is very much, it's a shame trigger. It's essentially, you experienced the world as clashing with your conception of yourself and we get really good at not noticing those things. You see this a lot with procrastination, for example, where you are putting off doing a thing because it does force you to confront this sort of conflict between identity and reality. I think sometimes, the way out of it is just to identify less with the things that we want to achieve in the world and just try and go, ìI'm doing this because I want to and if I didn't want to, that would be fine, too.î Essentially, becoming fine with both an outcome and failing to achieve that outcome is often the best way to achieve the outcome. JESSICA: So practicing editing in order to practice editing, whether you achieve writing a book or not, whether you're good at it or not, and it does come back to the journey. If what you're doing is a means to an end and yet not in line with that end, it often backfires because the means are the end. In the end, they become it. So having a clean house is stupid. That's not a thing. Picking up is a thing. That's something you can do and what I am picking up. True fact! [laughs] You don't have to worry about whether you can, are you doing it? All right then, you can! Whereas, having a clean house is not a thing. DAVID: Very much. This kind of ties into the comments about books earlier, where you were talking about how many books I read, and one of the things that I think very much stops people from reading books is the idea that oh God, there are so many books to read, I'll never get through all of them. JESSICA: If I started, I have to finish it. DAVID: Oh, yeah. I mean, people definitely shouldn't do that; books are there to be abandoned if they're bad. JESSICA: I read a lot of chapter ones. DAVID: Yeah. I have a slightly bad habit of buying books speculatively because they seem good and as a result, I think my shelf of books that I'm probably never going to get around to read, but might do someday and might not and either is fine is probably like a hundred plus books now. JESSICA: I love that shelf. I have big piles everywhere. [laughs] There's always something to read wherever I sit and most of it, I will never read, but it's beautiful. DAVID: I'm currently in a very weird experience where I write, for possibly the first time in my life, I have more bookshelf space than books. JESSICA: Huh, that's not a stable state. DAVID: No, no. This will be fixed by the time I leave this flat. The piles will return. JESSICA: You will maintain the trajectory. DAVID: Yeah. [laughs] Because I'm just reading. I can read these as many books because I just sit down and read and at some point, I will finish a book or I will abandon the book and both are fine. But I think if you treat this as a goal where your goal is to read all the books, then that's not the thing and also, I think people go, ìMy goal is to read a hundred books a year,î or I don't know how normal people guesstimates are. JESSICA: Itís like, is it really or itís their goal to learn something. DAVID: Yeah, exactly. JESSICA: And the means is reading books. DAVID: Yeah. I think if one instead just goes, ìI like reading and it's useful so I'm going to read books,î you'll probably end up reading a lot more than setting some specific numerical goal. Also, you run into sort of Goodhart's law things where if your goal is to read a hundred books in a year, great buy the Mr. Men set. But wait, it's not a thing in ñ the Mr. Men are a series of kidsí books which tells ñ JESSICA: With the big smiley face? DAVID: Yeah. Exactly, that's the one. [laughter] You can read a hundred of those in a weekóI assume there are hundred Mr. Men books, I don't actually knowóand youíll probably learn something. JESSICA: Then again, you might choose Dynamics in Action, never get through it, and then feel bad about it, and that would be pointless because you learned more from the introduction than you did from the Mr. Men series. DAVID: I don't think I've even opened my copy of Dynamics in Action. I think you recommended on Twitter or something and I was just like, ìThat does sound interesting. I will speculatively buy this book.î JESSICA: It's a hard book. DAVID: Yeah. It's far from the hardest book on my shelves, but it's definitely in the top. I'm going to confidently say top 20, but it might be harder than that. I just haven't done a comparative analysis and I don't want to overpromise. [laughter] JESSICA: The point being read books because you want to know. DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: Or sometimes because you want to have read them. That's the thing. There's a lot of things I may not want to pick up, but I do want to have picked up and I can use that to motivate me. DAVID: Yeah, and even then, there are two versions of that and both are good, actually. I think one of them sounds bad. One version is you want to have read it because you want to understand the material in it and the other one is just, you want to be able to say that you have read it and thus, you ñ and probably for the status game and also, just sort of as a box ticking, like I think ñ JESSICA: Oh, itís not completely wrong. DAVID: No, it's not completely wrong. JESSICA: You still get something out of it. DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: On the other hand, if you want to read it because you want to be the kind of person who would read it. I don't know about that one. DAVID: Yeah, I agree. I thinkÖ JESSICA: Then again, life habits. Sometimes, if you want to be the kind of person who picks up and so you fake it long enough to form the habit, then you are. DAVID: Yeah, absolutely and I read a book recentlyóof course, I didóby Agnes Callard called Aspiration, which I'm glad I read it. I cannot really recommend it to people who aren't philosophers, because there's a thing that often happens with reading analytic philosophy, where the author clearly has a keen insight into an important problem that you, as the reader, lack and the way they express that insight is through an entire bookís worth of slightly pedantic arguments with other analytic philosophers who have wrong opinions about the subjects. JESSICA: Half of Dynamics in Action is like that. DAVID: Yeah, I think it very complicated. REIN: Was it written as a thesis? DAVID: I don't think so. I'm not certain about that, but it might've been. It ended up being quite an influential book and I think she was mentioning that there's going to be a special issue of a journal coming out to recently about essentially, its impact and responses to it. But I think it's just genuinely that analytic philosophers had a lot of really wrong opinions about this subject. So the relevance of this is the idea she introduces the book is that of a proleptic value where ñ JESSICA: Proleptic, more words. DAVID: Proleptic basically, I think originally comes from grammar and it means something that stands in place for another thing. A proleptic value is what you do when you're engaged in a process of aspiration, which is trying to acquire values that you don't currently have. So she uses the example of a music student who wants to learn to appreciate the genre of music that they do not currently appreciate and they find a teacher who does appreciate that genre and they basically use their respect for that teacher as a proleptic value. They basically say, ìI don't currently value this genre of music, but I trust your judgment and I value your opinion and I will use your feedback and that respect for you as a value that stands in place of the future value of appreciating this genre of music that I hope to acquire.î So I think this thing of reading a book because you want to be the sort of person who reads that kind of book can have a similar function where even though, you don't really wants to read the book, that process of aspiration gives you a hook into becoming the sort of person who does want to read the book. JESSICA: That's like being the mountain for each other. DAVID: Yeah. JESSICA: In some ways. You're not going to get a view yet. You're only 10 feet off the ground, but meanwhile, just climb to climb because it's here. DAVID: Yeah. I'm not necessarily very good at being the sort of person reading books for this reason. Partly because there are so many books, I have so many other reasons to read, but yeah. JESSICA: Yeah, you're fine. You don't need more reasons to read a book. DAVID: [laughs] But I think two books that I have read mostly to have read them rather than necessarily because I was having an amazing time and learning lots of things reading them are Seeing Like a State by James Scott, which it's a good book. I don't think it's a bad book, but it is very much a history book that also has a big idea and there are like 70,000 blog posts about the big idea. So if you're going and wanting just the big idea, read one of the blog posts, but I'd seen a reference so many times and I was just like, ìYou know, this seems like a book that I should rate,î and my opinion is now basically that like, if you like history books and if you want lots of detail, then yeah, it's a great book to read. If you just want the big idea, donít. JESSICA: Right, because other people have presented it more succinctly, which probably happens with your Aspiration book that you talked about. DAVID: I would like it to happen with the Aspiration book. The Aspiration book is only a few years old. JESSICA: You've written a ñ oh, okay, so it's too soon for that. So you'll write about it, if you haven't yet. DAVID: Yeah, I havenít yet. Looking at it, it was published in 2018 and you have the paperback from 2019. So this is really cutting-edge philosophy to the degree that there is such a thing. [chuckles] JESSICA: Yeah. Oh no, what do you mean? [inaudible]. REIN: Seeing Like a State is. DAVID: Well, I've had this argument with philosopher friends where I was arguing that it was a thing and the philosopher friend was just like, ìIs it a thing, though?î Because the interesting thing about philosophy is just that it never goes out to date. People are sort of engaging with the entire historical cannon so the question is not does new philosophy get done? The question is more, I think is this less ñ? JESSICA: This isnít really a cutting edge. DAVID: Yeah, exactly. JESSICA: Itís more kind of a gentle nuzzling. DAVID: [laughs] Yeah. But also, is this more cutting edge than, I don't know, reading Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics? I don't know. JESSICA: Philosophy [inaudible]. DAVID: Yeah, I personally think that there is cutting-edge and this is on it, but plenty of room for philosophical dialogue on that subject if you can sort of dig Socrates up and ask him about it. [laughter] Yeah, and speaking of philosophy, the other book that I have read essentially to have read it rather than because I was getting a lot out of it was Wittgensteinís Philosophical Investigations where I essentially read it in order to confirm to myself that I had already picked up enough Wittgenstein by osmosis that I didn't really need to read it, which largely true. JACOB: This is the part of the show where we like to reflect on what we took from everything and just wrap things up a little bit. JESSICA: I have one thing written down. We talked a bit about who you are and who you want to be as a person, and how sometimes what you want to do is in conflict with how you think of yourself. Like, when you think of yourself as good at something, it's hard to be bad at it, long enough to learn better. It occurs to me that in our society, we're all about getting to know yourself and then expressing your true self, which is very much a homeostasis more than a homerhesis. But what have we tried not knowing yourself? What if we tried just like, I don't know who I am and then I can surprise myself and have more possibilities. That's my reflection. REIN: All of this discussion about happiness and pleasure, and diversion and striving reminds me a lot of Buddhist philosophy, or what I should say is, it reminds me a lot of my very limited understanding of Buddhist philosophy. Specifically, this idea that you shouldn't judge your life by the outcome of your preferences; that you shouldn't identify yourself with your wants and cling to the outcome of things. You can acknowledge that these things have happened and you can avoid unpleasant things, but you shouldn't be the owner of all of your desires. Instead, what you should do is measure your life by how well you follow the intentions that arise out of your values. JACOB: Yeah. Maybe to put another way, I'm starting to think maybe I could think of myself as the sum of all of the habits I maintain or don't, and try to think of outcome of those habits as what a lagging indicator, I guess, or as a secondary and think more of myself like, ìWell, what are the things that I find I am naturally doing and if I'm not, what can I do to just try to enforce it for myself that I'm going to do that more?î Or maybe I don't care. DAVID: So I'm not finding myself with sort of a single cohesive summation of the conversation, but I've really enjoyed it and there's been a couple of things I'm going to take away from it and mull over a bit more. I really liked the homeostasis versus homeorhesis distinction. I'd obviously heard the first word, but not the second word and so, I'm going to think about that a bit more. Sort of tying onto that, I very much liked Jessica's point of how a clean home isn't really a thing, you can only do cleaning and thinking much more in terms of the ongoing process than trying to think of it as a static goal that you are perfectly maintaining at all times. Slightly orthogonal in relation to that, but I'm also just going to look up Satir as an author and maybe read some of her books. [chuckles] REIN: Yay! DAVID: Because as we have established, always up for more reading. [laughs] JACOB: That should wrap up our Episode 223. I'd like to thank David for joining us and weíll see you next time. Special Guest: David MacIver.

02:05 - Elyse’s Superpower: Fearlessness * Moving to Mexico * Living in Mexico * Dual-Existing and Codeswitching * Elyse’s Podcast (https://elyserobinson.com/podcast-youtube/) & Blog (https://elyserobinson.com/) * A Day In The Life 19:41 - Auditor => IT Consultant * Lissa Explains it All (http://www.lissaexplains.com/) * Discovering The Cloud 24:02 - Broken Interview Processes and Evaluating Human Performance Reflections: Damien: The ways that I can be fearless. Arty: You only have one life. Don’t put limits on it. Rein: Being intentional about making our networks more inclusive. Elyse: There isn’t a pipeline problem in IT. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Elyse Robinson.

01:59 - Wesley’s Superpower: Connecting With People and Being a Social Chameleon 11:31 - Sharing Responsibility Based on Strengths; Delegating “Weakness” * Strengths Finder 2.0 (https://bookshop.org/books/strengths-finder-2-0/9781531865313) * Positions vs Roles 23:52 - Mission Statements Are Bullsh*t (especially for marginalized people/groups) * False Value Systems * Veni Kunche: Diversify Tech (https://diversifytech.co/) * Greater Than Code Episode 212: Diversify Tech with Veni Kunche (https://www.greaterthancode.com/diversify-tech) “The real barrier is individuals who don’t want to lose power.” 32:16 - Talking Truth to Power: Enacting Change * Systems Thinking: A Primer (https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557) * Networking * Running For City Council / Learning How Politics Work * A Promised Land by Barak Obama (https://www.amazon.com/Promised-Land-Barack-Obama/dp/1524763160) * User Research * Accessing People “Strong opinions don’t mean right opinions.” Reflections: Damien: The decommodification of labor and people. John: Finding strengths and leaning into them so you can be the most effective. Casey: We are stronger together. Wesley: Skills are things you aren’t necessarily born with. You can create and cultivate them. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Wesley Faulkner.

01:48 - Josh’s Superpower: Teaching nearly anything he knows to almost anyone * Fear Remediation 05:04 - Safety Science and Staying Safe While Rock Climbing * 2020 Accidents in North American Climbing (https://americanalpineclub.myshopify.com/collections/aac-publications/products/2020-accidents-in-north-american-climbing) * Accidents are the result of normal work * How Complex Systems Fail (https://how.complexsystems.fail) 17:42 - Transfer of Knowledge from Experts to Non-Experts 23:07 - Root Cause Analysis & Taking Gambles 33:00 - Failure As An Opportunity For Growth * Why Tacit Knowledge is More Important Than Deliberate Practice by Cedric Chin (https://commoncog.com/blog/tacit-knowledge-is-a-real-thing/) 50:07 - Psychological Safety * William Khan: Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work (https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Psychological-Conditions-of-Personal-Engagement-and-Kahn/cbb3887590de9e5dc702b5d2655fbe804669fea0) Reflections: Rein: Operators are always gambling and taking risks. Cognition in Practice by Jean Lave (https://www.amazon.com/Cognition-Practice-Learning-Doing-Lave/dp/0521357349) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (https://www.amazon.com/Reflective-Practitioner-Professionals-Think-Action/dp/0465068782) Mando: How to properly build systems and teams that are friendly to lesser experienced individuals to bring up folx who are earlier in their careers or other industries. Josh: Commemorating team learning experiences. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Josh Thompson.

03:19 - Mando’s Superpower: Willingness to Talk About Anything Personal with Others 08:39 - Dealing with Life in 2020/2021 * Rationality vs Non-Rationality * Feeling Lost and Unmoored 18:30 - Finding Anchors * Narrative and Story * Emotion * Song * Rhyme * Repetition * Affiliation Ted Lasso (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10986410/) The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Thousand-Doors-January/dp/0316421995) 34:28 - Being Okay Being Less Productive Sea Shanty TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@nathanevanss/video/6910995345421962498?sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6902195729617257990&is_from_webapp=v2) 46:47 - Practicing Gratitude For Communities You Do Have; Talking to Kids About Feelings What do you do with the mad that you feel? – Mr. Rogers (https://www.misterrogers.org/videos/what-to-you-do-with-the-mad-that-you-feel/) Sesame Street: Dave Matthews and Grover Sing about Feelings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po5lHYJJQfw) “If it’s mentionable, it’s manageable.” – Fred Rogers Reflections: Rein: The ability for there to be a higher-level cognitive function that happens after emotional and affective responses and that it is capable of mediating between those responses and action. Mando: Giving a specific name to how he’s feeling right now: lost. Damien: The value of interrogating feelings. “Community is not the sum of its members but the product of their relationships.” – Russell Ackoff This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

02:12 - Isa’s Superpower: Being a Bridge * RailsBridge (http://railsbridge.org/) * Bridge Foundry (https://bridgefoundry.org/) – They’re Hiring !! 08:56 - Community Learning * Asynchronous Communication * Discord (https://discord.com/) * Cultivating a Leadership Pipeline * Transparency * “Many hands make light work.” 19:16 - Pivoting From Rock’n’Roll to Software Engineering: Software + Music * Gigwell (https://www.gigwell.com/): Talent Booking * Everything Relates to Tech Somehow 27:57 - Grappling with Impostor Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome) Reflections: Damien: Community over architecture. Casey: Community and mentorship. Isa: Talking to other engineers re: non-code + community and sustainability. Laurie: Finding new ways to collaborate in a remote/pandemic world. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Isa Herico-Velasco .

02:05 - Laura’s Superpower: Problem Solving 04:07 - What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots (https://www.amazon.com/What-Expect-Youre-Expecting-Robots/dp/1541699114) * Check out our interview with Laura’s coauthor: Greater Than Code Episode 216: Robot and Human Collaboration with Julie Shah (https://www.greaterthancode.com/robot-and-human-collaboration) * Where is human collaboration with robots heading? 06:59 - The Human/Robot Partnership * Robot Personification * Positives and Negatives * Robots Will Never Be Perfect * Making Our World “Robot Compatible” 14:34 - Human Behavior Towards Robots; Vice-Versa * HitchBOT, the hitchhiking robot, gets beheaded in Philadelphia (https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/03/us/hitchbot-robot-beheaded-philadelphia-feat/index.html) * Marty the grocery store robot is a glimpse into our hell-ish future (https://mashable.com/article/stop-and-shop-marty-robots/) * The robot waiters in this Japanese cafe are controlled by people with paralysis (https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/japanese-robot-cafe-dawn/) 20:38 - Robots as “Social Entities” * Safety Transcending Competition * Contextualization * Observable * Predictable * Directable 24:43 - How Media Affects The Way People View Robots * Science-Fiction Expectations 26:39 - How Humans Can “Update” Themselves: Experiencing Robotics * Direct Exposure 28:23 - Robots as “Social Entities” (Cont’d) * Vigilance Decrement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilance_(psychology)#:~:text=Vigilance%20decrement%20is%20defined%20as,detect%20a%20weak%20target%20signal.) * Communication Problems * Change Agent by Daniel Suarez (https://www.amazon.com/Change-Agent-Daniel-Suarez/dp/110198466X) * What Robots/Humans Will/Should? Expect From Eachother 39:52 - Will and, if so, when will autonomous cars become the standard? * Swiss Cheese Model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model) Reflections: John: What is the right level of empathy for social entities? Jamey: Being in the process of consciously creating new social norms and thinking more thoroughly about who you could be hurting with your actions. Push, the talking trash can, makes his final appearance after 19 years at Walt Disney World (https://attractionsmagazine.com/push-talking-trashcan-makes-final-appearance-19-years-walt-disney-world/) Casey: Treating certain social entities in different ways; i.e. a Roomba and a dishwasher. And, the way you have to think about who is outside autonomous cars: not just the passengers. Also, we should be on the lookout for robotaxis! Laura: Not wanting robots in the future to look too much like people. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Laura Major.

02:21 - Julie’s Superpower: Working Really Hard and Maintaining Focused Attention on Things for a Long Period of Time 04:25 - Robotics and Working in Artificial Intelligence (AI) * What To Expect When You're Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration (https://www.amazon.com/What-Expect-Youre-Expecting-Robots/dp/1541699114) (Julie and Laura Major’s book) 11:10 - Structuring and Optimizing the World for Machines, AI, and Robots * The Turing Test (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test) * Labeled Data * Teslas vs Airplanes * Mode Confusion * Ten challenges for making automation a "team player" in joint human-agent activity (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1363742) 26:10 - Understanding Output and Building Calibrated Trust * Mental Models 33:39 - Robots and Humans in Public Spaces * Predictability * Directability * Standardization * Infrastructure * Safety Imperatives * Future of Work Implications * Joint Activity * The Shannon Model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Weaver_model) 51:41 - What To Expect When You're Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration (https://www.amazon.com/What-Expect-Youre-Expecting-Robots/dp/1541699114) (Book Discussion) 54:40 - More on Human/Machine Collaboration: * Girl Decoded: A Scientist's Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology (https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Decoded-Scientists-Intelligence-Technology-ebook/dp/B07VF1SKPV) * Reinforcement learning with human teachers: Evidence of feedback and guidance with implications for learning performance (https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~athomaz/papers/Sophie-Guidance.pdf) * Evaluating fluency in human–robot collaboration (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8678448) Reflections: Rein: There may be a sense in which AI or ML systems are categorically different from the sorts of systems we’ve tried to control in the past because you can’t characterize the variety of the system anymore just by observing its inputs and outputs. Damien: Artificial intelligence is not human intelligence, nor should it be. The goals are making systems and human lives better; not making the computer better. Julie: Aim for mediocrity! This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Julie Shah.

01:41 - Descartes was wrong: ‘a person is a person through other persons’ (https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/AeonMagBirhaneDescartesWasWrongPersonsAreSocial2017.pdf) * Abeba Birhane on a person is a person through other persons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RVscNkiTq0) * Cartesian Thinking (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RVscNkiTq0) * Individualism (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RVscNkiTq0) 13:59 - Predicting How People Behave and Act via Machine Learning is Ethically Flawed * “Measuring” People * Simon’s Ant (https://medium.com/@seannewmanmaroni/simons-ant-2c7693335ff9) * Abstraction * Greater Than Code Episode 038: Category Theory for Normal Humans with Dr. Eugenia Cheng (https://www.greaterthancode.com/category-theory-for-normal-humans) * Order Out of Chaos by Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers (https://www.amazon.com/Order-Out-Chaos-Ilya-Prigogine/dp/0553343637) * Collecting Data * Confirmation Bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) 34:21 - Examining Machine Learning Models and Data * Means Testing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_test) * Generalized Empathy “When you get rid of what you don’t want, you do not necessarily get what you do want and you may get something you want a lot less. It is that simple…..anyone that ever watches television knows that!” – Russell L. Ackoff (http://fearlessrevival.com/russell-ackoff/) “Scoring” People Perpetuates Stereotypes Acurracy Confirms Bias 50:09 - Important Ideosyncracies and Contaminating Factors * Seeing and appreciating the potential to be different in every person in every situation. * The ability to tease apart existing cultural ideas around identity and humanity. * Taking concepts from different but related fields and seeing their connectedness and bringing them together into a whole that is more than the sum of their parts. * Seeing consequences that don’t belong to any one cause. Reflections: Mando: Cartesian thinking and worldview is embedded in us. Avdi: “Contaminating factors.” “Dive into yourself to find yourself.” Rein: Jainism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism) has gotten this right for centuries. * The Elephant and the Blindfolded Men Parable * The Theory of Conditioned Predication or Contigency * The Theory of Partial Standpoints Jessica: Giving the Cartesian program credit for what it’s good for: using science as a way to break things down into parts and studying them deeply; we’ve learned a lot. Abeba: It’s not all bad. BUT, we forget to put the pieces back together and acknowledge reality. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.) Special Guest: Abeba Birhane.

01:26 - Rylan’s Superpower: Helping People & Giving Back to Community * “The rising tide lifts all boats.” 03:01 - The Righteous Mind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind) / Making and Rationalizing Choices * Jonathan Haidt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt) * Moral Psychology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_psychology) * The Happiness Hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happiness_Hypothesis) (The Elephant Metaphor) * Social Intuitionism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_intuitionism) 09:11 - An Example of a Moral Reaction (CW Beastiality) 10:26 - Humans as Individuals vs Humans as Species / Increasing Group-Level Cohesion * Homo Duplex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_duplex#:~:text=Homo%20duplex%20is%20a%20view,other%20elements%20generated%20by%20society.) * Transactional Leadership vs Transformational Leadership (https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-management/chapter/types-of-leaders/#:~:text=Transactional%20leadership%20works%20within%20set,and%20is%20more%20future%2Doriented.&text=Transformational%20leadership%20focuses%20on%20motivating,a%20vision%20of%20the%20future.) * T-Groups: Resources for Interpersonal Skill Development (https://www.tgroups.org) 19:43 - Bridging the Gap Politically * Thinking Empathatically * “Addressing the Elephant” * CivilPolitics.org: Educating the Public on Evidence-based methods for improving inter-group civility * How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes 27:59 - Looking at Morality * The WEIRD Culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias) (western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) * 5 Main Foundations * Care vs Harm * Fairness vs Reciprocity * Loyalty vs Betrayal * Authority vs Subversion * Purity/Sanctity vs Degradation * The Omnivore’s Dilemma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omnivore%27s_Dilemma) * Liberty vs Oppression * YourMorals.Org (https://www.yourmorals.org) 38:55 - Morality Binds and Blinds / Group Cohesion * Haidt: humans are 90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee (https://theindependentwhig.com/haidt-passages/haidt/haidt-humans-are-90-percent-chimp-and-10-percent-bee/) * Sanctitity * Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion by Alain De Botton (https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Atheists-Non-believers-Guide-Uses/dp/0307476820) 48:37 - Moving Forward / Fixing Divisiveness / Welcoming People w/ Different Viewpoints * Yin and Yang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang) * APA Convention Keynote 2016 ft. Jonathan Haidt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAE-gxKs6gM) * Mani (prophet) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_(prophet)) / (Manichaeism) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism) * Anti-Intellectualism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism_in_American_Life) Reflections: Damien: The Happiness Hypothesis (The Elephant Metaphor): Reflecting on the elephant. Rylan: Finding a middle ground. “The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose; Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart; If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease.” ― Jianzhi Sengcan (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1012788-the-perfect-way-is-only-difficult-for-those-who-pick) John: The value of conservative viewpoints vs liberal viewpoints. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Switch%3A+How+to+Change+Things+When+Change+Is+Hard&qid=1607383928&sr=8-1) More Resources: The Ezra Klein Show (https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP) inter-group civility (http://www.civilpolitics.org) (Large potential list of remedies) Jonathan Haidt: The Coddling of the American Mind (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b3Ob4CK4Xs&fbclid=IwAR0JLkS8tMiGS_TZB86z9i9lpC8ImzKqeLTc0KiiN3krHGV4eDuLTvFd5-E) The Political Compass (https://www.politicalcompass.org/) Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives (https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_the_moral_roots_of_liberals_and_conservatives) (TED Talk) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Rylan Bowers.

CONTENT WARNING: Eating Disorders, Substance Abuse & Addiction 01:12 - Cher’s Superpower: Making and Collecting Hot Sauce * Gastroparesis (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gastroparesis/symptoms-causes/syc-20355787#:~:text=Gastroparesis%20is%20a%20condition%20that,food%20through%20your%20digestive%20tract.) * Hobby vs Coping Mechanism 04:33 - Good Ideas Can Come From Anywhere * Drive to Execute * Becoming a Mentor/Leader * Curiosity and Understanding the Big Picture * Seeking Feedback From Others While Introspecting Feedback From Yourself 12:50 - Bravery, Enduring, and Overcoming; Eradicating Stigmas and Breaking Stereotypes * Impostor Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome) * Blowing the Top Off Gatekeep-y Assumptions in Tech * Rawness and Integrity * Nader Dabit (https://twitter.com/dabit3) & Kurt Kemple (https://twitter.com/kurtkemple) * “You’re not alone,” “I’m not special,” and “You can get here too.” * Using Your Journey to Empower Yourself and Others * MARLON CRAFT | FUNK FLEX | #Freestyle140 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNPEEsEHepg) 30:12 - Struggle, Opportunity, and Recognizing White Privilege * Activating Empathy * Manifesting Goodness Reflections: John: The incredible power we can have as people when we claim our story rather than deny it. Rein: There is a huge potential for empathy between people with a lot in common, and it’s just about unlocking the potential that already exists. Cher: Empathy is the glue that holds everything together. Jerome: The skills transfer of experience. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Cher.

01:17 - Veni’s Superpower: Being Adaptable and Not Giving Up 02:25 - Going From Coder to Entrepreneur * Diversify Tech (https://diversifytech.co/) * Women Who Code (https://www.womenwhocode.com/) * Code With Veni Newsletter (https://www.codewithveni.com/) 07:00 - Being Protective and Selective of Company Partnerships * Vetting Companies * Glassdoor (https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm) * Talking to Underrepresented Folx at Companies to Ask for Feedback 14:05 - Changes Veni Has Seen Over Time re: Hiring Around Diversity and Inclusion 15:38 - Things Hiring Managers Should and Should NOT Do When Hiring for Diversity * Look at Metrics * Rethink Job Description Requirements * Revisit Your Interview Process 19:13 - Entry-Level Support 21:50 - Upholding Integrity > Capitalism 25:48 - Revenue Transparency 32:13 - Finding Your Place in Tech and Serving Underrepresented People * Filtering Out Companies * Guidelines * Next Steps * Giving Company Feedback and Direction * Company Culture 51:29 - Being Vocal About Work Conditions; i.e.: “Whistleblowing” / Employee Dissent Reflections: John: The critical role that organizations like Diversify Tech have created by placing themselves in a trusted position between job seekers and companies to protect underrepresented minorities. Rein: All Veni’s work developing rubrics and intuitions about companies that are worth working for/with is extremely important and her sharing this expertise is very valuable. Veni: To learn more about how comfortable candidates/employees feel about talking about dissent within their organizations. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Veni Kunche.

01:16 - Brandon’s Superpower: Recognizing Others’ Superpowers and Spotting Potential Talent * Convincing Others * Recognizing and Talking About Failure(s) 09:23 - Brandon’s Personal Journey & Transformation Towards Humility * Wanting To Be Heard * Placing Identity * Developing Empathy * Speaking Candidly Re: Growth * Talking About Negatives in Your Past 25:40 - The Importance of Community and Community Leaders * The Ruby Scholar and Guide Program (https://rubyconf.org/scholarships) * Michael Hartl’s Rails Tutorial (https://www.railstutorial.org/book) * The Beerware License (https://people.freebsd.org/~phk/) 34:35 - Being Kind vs Being Nice * Privilege 40:59 - Being Austistic and Being Visible * Tales of the Autistic Developer - The Mentor (https://dev.to/baweaver/tales-of-the-autistic-developer-the-mentor-5hi6) * Brandon’s illustrated conference talks with cartoon lemurs (https://twitter.com/keystonelemur/status/1291488545450926086) * “Looks like me” * Calling Out Hubris (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hubris) 52:32 - Tech Is Political Reflections: Jamey: When someone gives you feedback it’s because they trust you that you’re going to do something about yourself and do better. Brandon: Thinking about who is saying something. John: The power we can embrace by talking about our personal history. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Brandon Weaver.

01:30 - Harini’s Superpower: Getting Sh*t Done 04:19 - Putting Technology to Use For Those Who Need it the Most * Co-Creation and Co-Shaping * Public & Private Partnerships * Breaking Barriers to Entry 14:04 - Crisis Management and Rethinking Blueprints * Life After COVID / Reframing Crisis As Opportunity * Creating Space / Amplifying Others * Leadership Perspective 39:45 - Duality: Humans As Interconnected Systems * Solidarity and Humanity * Facade Breaking * Rationality * Empathetic Leadership 48:16 - What do we do now (to get sh*t done)? * Storytelling * D&I (Diversity & Inclusion) * Futureproofing Education and Skilling Reflections: Amy: If we end up back where we were pre-pandemic, shame on us. Rein: To make changes effectively, we need to go to the people we’re trying to help and figure out from their perspective what they need. HindSight 28 on Change (https://humanisticsystems.com/2019/02/21/hindsight-28-on-change-is-out-now/) Arty: Getting shit done on the huge, grand, level of looking at the crisis we’re currently in and how to move forward to build the future we want as humans. Harini: The sense of urgency of highlighting the problem and how we need to come together to co-create systemic, sustainable solutions that set in place new fundamentals and new structures for the world that lies ahead. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Harini Gokul.

01:25 - Mia’s Superpower: Adaptability * Applicable Skills to Basic Computer Programming * Parsing Information * Research 05:31 - Linguistics and Cultural Anthropology * Linguistic Relativism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity) (Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis) 08:36 - Parenting While Having a Career in Tech 09:42 - Objectivity and Truth in Software Development 11:04 - Tech Parenthood (Cont’d) * Maternity Leave and Returning to Work * Part-Time Flexibility * “Keep-in-Touch Days” * Returning to Work as an Individual Experience * Discrimination & Stigma * Multitasking Expectations For All * Geographic Differences * Company Culture 24:21 - Tenure in Tech, Job-Hopping, and Juggling Parenthood * Parenting in View During the New COVID/Remote Work Era “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." – Elizabeth Stone: teacher and author Psychological Safety (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_safety) and Privilege Living and Operating in Fear Code-Switching (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching) Visibility of Parents 44:05 - Self-Identity in the Tech Industry * The Handbook of Return to Work (https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B017YMXHM4?tag=amz-mkt-chr-us-20&ascsubtag=1ba00-01000-s1060-mac00-other-smile-us000-pcomp-feature-scomp-wm-5&ref=aa_scomp) 55:36 - Diversity Hiring Reflections: Mia: Psychological safety and privilege. John: “Just because I’m psychologically safe doesn’t mean everybody else is.” Laurie: The dichotomy of Mia and Christina’s experiences of being parents in tech. Christina: It is possible to remain optimistic that Moms in the United States will get better. Rein: Comfort and guilt in diversity hiring. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Mia Mollie De Búrca.

01:42 - Janeen’s Superpower: Storytelling * The Importance of Who Tells Your Story * Accountability * Generalizations Are Harmful * Responsibility 07:56 - The Wikimedia Foundation (https://wikimediafoundation.org/) * Trust and Safety Team * Thriving Movement 11:04 - Empowering Communities To Tell Their Stories * Citations * Edit-a-thons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edit-a-thon) 19:53 - Creating a Wikipedia Page 22:07 - Approaching and Engaging Youth 27:10 - Staying Connected As An Organization * Cultivating Great Leadership * Mentorship/Sponsorship * Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem by Paula Williams Madison (https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Samuel-Lowe-Jamaica-Harlem/dp/0062331639) * Paula’s Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/findingsamlowe/?hl=en) * Dr. Imani's Instagram (Paula's Daughter) (https://www.instagram.com/doctor.imani/?hl=en) 34:56 - Remote Working and Fostering/Maintaining Community 39:11 - Encouraging and Influencing Participation 47:31 - Janeen’s Move From Working at General Electric (GE) to The Wikimedia Foundation Reflections: Chanté: Making differences one edit at a time. Jamey: The importance of mentorship as something that is empowering. Rein: When a small system interacts with a larger system, it’s hard to change the larger system without being changed yourself. Jessica: Greater Than Code as an open conversation. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Janeen Uzzell.

03:36 - Chelsea’s Superpower: Software Detective Work * Grant-funded Organizations * Context Loss * Forensic Software Analysis * Software (Initially) Never Works ‼️ 08:27 - Coding in Investigation Mode * Lucifer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer_(TV_series)) (TV Series) * Setting Up a Debugging Environment (Includes a Velociraptor Example!) 15:05 - Chelsea’s Techtivism Blog Series (https://chelseatroy.com/category/techtivism/): Engineers Considering the Actions and Impact of Their Work Systematically * Techtivism 1: Eyes on the Mountain (https://chelseatroy.com/2019/10/30/eyes-on-the-mountain/) * Techtivism 2: The Four Levers (https://chelseatroy.com/2020/08/24/techtivism-2-the-four-levers/) * Techtivism 3: Biding Time, Boycotts, and Beyond (https://chelseatroy.com/2020/09/23/techtivism-3-biding-time-boycotts-and-beyond/) 20:20 - The Power of Influence (See Techtivism 2 (https://chelseatroy.com/2020/08/24/techtivism-2-the-four-levers/)) * Patronage: buying from or donating to an organization * Patronage Advocacy: convincing others to buy from/donate to an organization * Talent: devoting time and energy to an organization * Talent Advocacy: convincing others to devote their time and energy to an organization 26:57 - Making a Connection Between Values and Your Work as an Engineer * Privilege * The Status Quo * Incumbency 37:08 - Individual vs Collective Action ”A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” (https://quotationcelebration.wordpress.com/2017/02/20/a-man-convinced-against-his-will-is-of-the-same-opinion-still-unknown/#:~:text=In%20other%20words%2C%20the%20argument,being%20argued%20against%20is%20CONVINCED) Confrontation Avoidance Reflections: Amy: The ways people can be both confrontational and avoidant at the same time. Damien: How what we do impacts larger systems and how we can move entire societies. Chelsea: The degree to which our fallibility creates the positions we get to occupy and what that means about the grace that we need to have about the fallibility of other people. Jessica: Chelsea is awesome! This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Chelsea Troy.

02:11 - Brian’s Superpower: Being Able to Teach People Stuff * Guiding Learners Towards Outcomes and Success * Connecting with Students on a Deeper Level * Active Learning 13:15 - Building Relationships * Adults vs Kids * Tapping Into Individual Motivation 18:34 - Learning Useful, Real-World Material * Exercises For Programmers (https://www.amazon.com/Exercises-Programmers-Challenges-Develop-Coding/dp/1680501224) * Systems Thinking Speech by Dr. Russell Ackoff (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbLh7rZ3rhU) * Working Backwards: Identify Outcomes/Goals => Write/Build Content/Material * Docs Are (can be) Wrong! 31:39 - Constructive and Interactive Learning * Learning Happens Through Feedback and Practice * The Shannon Communication Model (https://helpfulprofessor.com/shannon-weaver-model/#:~:text=The%20Shannon%20and%20Weaver%20model%20is%20a%20linear%20model%20of,sending%20and%20receiving%20the%20message.) * Experiencing Joint Activity 37:12 - Conversation Theory (https://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/learning/Pask.htm) 43:27 - Teaching Vs Mentoring * Mentoring is a Deeper/Closer Relationship * Being Open to and Honoring Feedback * Teaching and Learning Are Activities, Not Roles Reflections: Jacob: There isn’t enough content that is in the category of, “Here’s a problem for you, go solve it,” to learn. Jamey: Identifying things (i.e. hobbies) that get other people excited and motivated to learn. Rein: Often the best way to learn something is to teach it, and often the best thing for a teacher to do is get out of the way and find ways to support the learners. Brian: The need for more complex problems to learn things. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Brian Hogan.

02:16 - Amir’s Superpower: Learning * The Value of Knowledge Work 05:42 - Growing Up As a Refugee * Maintaining Focus During Change 11:04 - A Founder’s Mindset * Trauma: Makes You Stronger * Shadow-Side Psyche (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)) * Reboot by Jerry Colonna (https://www.rebootbyjerry.com/) (Book) * Reboot.io (https://www.reboot.io/) (CEO Coaching) 19:06 - Remote Work * Opportunities and Implications * Handling Skepticism * Impact on Local Community * Remote-First Companies * Salary Transparency * Hiring Based on Mission More Resources on Remote Work From Amir: * What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work (https://blog.doist.com/remote-work-mental-health/) * Why We Don’t Have an Exit Strategy (https://blog.doist.com/no-exit-strategy/) * Asynchronous Communication: The Real Reason Remote Workers Are More Productive (https://blog.doist.com/asynchronous-communication/) Reflections: John: The impact of having a globally high salary and what that positively enables. Astrid: Negative events can help to shape you into the person that you want to be. Amir: Using trauma to drive positivity. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Amir Salihefendić.

02:04 - Nicole’s Superpower: Empathy and Community Building * “The After-Hours Vibe” Zoom Parties (DM Nicole on Twitter for an invite!) (https://twitter.com/lavie_encode) * Discord Servers (https://discord.com/) * freeCodeCamp (https://www.freecodecamp.org/) 15:06 - Overcoming Isolation and Forming Connections in the Age of COVID-19 * Masking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masking_(personality)) * Vulnerability and Transparency 20:42 - Creating a Techincal Community * Human Resource Machine (https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine) * #CodersTeach Twitter Chats (https://twitter.com/hashtag/CodersTeach) 25:54 - Radiating Love and Compassion and Learning How-To Human * Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha (https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Acceptance-Embracing-Heart-Buddha/dp/0553380990) * Making Meaningful Connections * Authenticity and Embracing Yourself Independently * Epigenetics (https://www.whatisepigenetics.com/fundamentals/#:~:text=Epigenetics%20is%20the%20study%20of,how%20cells%20read%20the%20genes.) 39:45 - Educational Tech Entrepreneurship (EdTech) * Non-Verbal Learning Disorders * Test-Driven Learning (http://users.csc.calpoly.edu/~djanzen/tdl/) * Programmatic Problem-Solving (https://www.lavieencode.net/courses/ncpss/) * Front End Happy Hour: Patron, Palomas, and Programmatic Problem Solving (featuring Nicole) (https://frontendhappyhour.com/episodes/patron-palomas-and-programmatic-problem-solving/) * Deliberate Learning * Exercism (https://exercism.io/) Reflections: Jacob: Meeting and socializing with other people outside of a professional sphere remotely since COVID. Arty: Leaning into being yourself. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) _To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Nicole Archambault.

01:54 - Matt’s Superpower: Letting Things Go Easily * Nonattachment and Immigration 08:35 - Matt’s Journey From Anthropology to Tech * The Intersection of Technology and Social Science 13:42 - Algorithmic Auditing and Accountability * Internal vs External Audits * Identifying Affected Parties * Waze Hijacked L.A. in the Name of Convenience. Can Anyone Put the Genie Back in the Bottle? (https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/waze-los-angeles-neighborhoods/) * Participation in Machine Learning * People as Constituents – Not Resources 29:38 - Data Surveillance: Gathering Enough Data vs Gathering Too Much Data (and particularly the effect on Black and Brown people) * Data & Society – Ruha Benjamin presents Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (https://datasociety.net/library/databite-no-124-ruha-benjamin/) * The Invisible Institute (https://invisible.institute/) 36:57 - Speaking Out Regarding Racial Equity/Inequity and Social Justice in the Workplace 42:26 - Getting Involved in Politics on a Personal Level in 2020 48:12 - Medical/Healthcare Informatics & Thinking About Health Disparities Reflections: Jacob: Who unintended, affected by our technologies communities and people are. Chanté: Diving deeper into algorithmic auditing as it pertains to ethics and what that means for organizations and leaders who hold power and influence. Matthew: Technology platforms are far-reaching and engineers and technologists are going to have to become more fluent social scientists. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Matthew Zhou.

00:42 - Asra’s Superpower: Unrelenting Love For Herself 02:32 - Storytelling * Storytelling is Important for Change * Taking Action with Stories 09:35 - Finding Passionate Builders * No Freedom Without Financial Freedom * Human Creativity vs Technology Automation * You Can Be Who You Want to Be 18:32 - The Responsibility of Creators and Consumers in Tech * Personal Responsibility vs Systemic Issues * Balancing Individual Responsibility with Power Dynamics and Influence * Manipulation, Fear, and Control 42:12 - Telling and Monetizing Stories Globally with Opus AI (https://opus.ai/) * Storyboarding * Democratizing Access to Technology * Oral Storytelling 48:30 - The Role of Individual Responsibility Reflections: Arty: Creating your own power. Asra: What an individual is and what they are responsible for. Rein: A system is a product of its’ interactions. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Asra Nadeem.

02:58 - Nils’ Superpower: Storytelling * Practicing Presentation * Company/Employer-Sponsored Skill Training (such as storytelling/public speaking) * Taking Courses Unrelated to Your Own Skillset 09:39 - Deleting Code * Tension Around Deleting or Refactoring Others’ Code * Etiquette Around ^^ * Sharing Codebases 20:17 - Is it ethical to invest time in learning and using technologies from companies that pay little or no taxes? * Real Rebels Pay Their Taxes (https://nilsnh.no/2020/08/14/real-rebels-pay-their-taxes/) * Value of Everything | Mariana Mazzucato (https://marianamazzucato.com/publications/books/value-of-everything/) * The economics of open source by C J Silverio | JSConf EU 2019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO8hZlgK5zc) * The Entropic Package Manager (https://www.entropic.dev/) 29:14 - What Can We Do About the Centralization of Power in Large Corporations? * Wanting an Alternative * Developer Purchasing Power * Nix VC Funding * Move Away From Framework-Thinking * Web Components (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Web_Components) * Libraries * Less Competition Between Competitors * Learning the Basics 53:18 - Using Tools for Free as Forms of Support * Alternative Cost Reflections: John: Treating tax avoidance as a social negative. Jacob: Not feeling pressure to use the next new, hot thing. Nils: Practice arguing this problem. Software development is still an incredibly young field. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Nils Norman Haukås.

02:58 - Damien’s Superpower: Being able to hold contradictory beliefs at the same time. * Working in VERY Local Government (for the City of Los Angeles) 07:05 - What is “Bad Code”? * Episode 188: Going Off the Rails with Damien Burke (https://www.greaterthancode.com/going-off-the-rails) (Damien’s Previous GTC Episode) * Objectivity vs Subjectivity: Why does code lie on that spectrum? * Metrics to Measure Beautiful Code: * Does it make the world a better place? * Is it clear? 16:38 - What should you do with “Bad Code”? * Nothing? (I know it’s bad but it’s okay!) * Do it later? (If you can put it off and make it better later, put it off!) 19:12 - Working With Others: Agreeing on “Good Code” * Go-to Values * Can we understand this? Does it convey the meaning we want it to convey? * What is most communicative? 24:34 - Damien’s Background in Hypnosis * Speaking to the Subconscious * Prescriptivity: Judgement & Punishment 34:14 - Doing Things The Easy Way * Easy Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Fast 41:07 - Distinctions Between Teaching and Learning * Learning is Goal-Driven * Perfection * Numbers tell a story. Numbers can’t give you wisdom. 54:02 - Creating Shared Understanding (in code) Reflections: Jamey: 1) Doing things yourself. 2) I want code to be beautiful because I like things that are beautiful. Rein: The importance of small changes. Damien: The power of language and story and its’ application in the engineering world in a team and in the code you write. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Damien Burke.

04:31 - Amy’s Superpower: Search Algorithms and Finding Things * Finding Things in Code * Visual vs Spacial Awareness 08:39 - Toxic Masculinity and Hierarchies in Engineering Roles * I’m not in security but whenever I hear people taking about who is more technical all I see is folks jockeying for status.(not blaming, that’s the culture we have made in software generally). But from outside whatever y’all mean when you say technical is completely opaque. (https://twitter.com/amynewell/status/1298957052694409218) * “Soft Skills” vs “Technical” 14:22 - Measuring Skill Advancement * The Individual Contributor (IC) vs Manager Track * Management vs Mentorship 21:02 - Congressive vs Ingressive * x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender by Eugenia Cheng (https://www.amazon.com/Mathematicians-Manifesto-Rethinking-Gender/dp/1541646509) * GTC Episode 038: Category Theory for Normal Humans with Dr. Eugenia Cheng (https://www.greaterthancode.com/category-theory-for-normal-humans) 22:43 - Ways Toxicity Shows Up in The Workplace * Doing/Recognizing “Real Work” * Letting Go of Past Baggage * Amy Newell - Lessons from Bipolar Disorder (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf8TYuAZY8g) (The first time Amy said the word “Patriarchy”) * Microaggressions 29:07 - Unlearning and Psychological Safety 37:07 - The Word “Nontechnical” * Respecting Expertise * Skilled/Unskilled Labor: All Labor is Skilled Labor! 40:41 - Recognizing and Feeling Value * Being Your Authentic Self * Making Culture Better for Everyone; Supporting People & Making Space * Counting Emotional Energy * Enough Leaning In. Let’s Tell Men to Lean Out. (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/opinion/sunday/feminism-lean-in.html) * Yes, and-ing Reflections: Jessica: Every person has a unique set of ways they can have an impact and best contribute. Jamey: Feeling like you belong and realizing that others might not. Being aware of both mindsets. Amy: The onus really should be on people who have power and privilege in any conversation to be doing most of the work to be aware of what I see vs what they see. Special Guest: Amy Newell.

02:30 - Rav’s Superpower: Learning to Learn * Success and Failure * Creating Environments Where It’s Safe to Fail * Exploring Ideas and Collecting Datapoints * Celebrating Feedback Cycles and Experiments 07:12 - Failing Fast – Getting Early Feedback Along the Way * Getting Over the “Being Polished” Hump * Learning for Self-Fulfilment 17:02 - Empathy as a Life Skill * Simulation * Empathy is Necessary to Learn Through Failure 26:40 - Uplevel (https://uplevelteam.com/): Empowering Engineers to do Their Best Work 31:49 - Productivity and Judgement Value * The Effect the Pandemic Has Had ^^ * Capturing Interruptions and Mitigating Responses * The “is work happening?” panic and fear and the worry “is innovation at the same level?” * The Ecology of Human Performance: A Framework for Considering the Effect of Context (https://ajot.aota.org/article.aspx?articleid=1873303) 41:42 - Using Data to Measure Well-Being and/or Engagement * Process Tracing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_tracing#:~:text=Process%20tracing%20is%20a%20method,political%20science%2C%20or%20usability%20studies.) * Why use ambient data (https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/latent-data-ambient-data#:~:text=Latent%20data%2C%20also%20known%20as,(OS)%20or%20standard%20applications.)? Reflections: Rein: 1) We need to take human performance necessary. 2) Steven Shorrock’s Model of Change. Jacob: Thinking more about ambient data. Jamey: Failing fast. Ravs: How do you know if you’ve built a great product if you don’t have a way to measure what people are clicking on and/or trying to find? This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Ravs Kaur.

02:13 - Dan’s Superpower: Ability to Keep Calm * “We need to solve this problem.” * Dealing with Frustration * Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Paperback/dp/B00ZT1W1DO/ref=pd_lpo_14_t_0/132-3661810-3882807?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00ZT1W1DO&pd_rd_r=9a9d44ae-174a-45d0-9d26-209d9489e335&pd_rd_w=DdnSJ&pd_rd_wg=kqSrE&pf_rd_p=7b36d496-f366-4631-94d3-61b87b52511b&pf_rd_r=63K9K68E65P4FKNM9XZC&psc=1&refRID=63K9K68E65P4FKNM9XZC) 07:11 - Maximizing Your Potential as a New Developer and Making a Good Impression * Overindex * Asking Questions * 054: Code Hospitality with Nadia Odunayo (https://www.greaterthancode.com/code-hospitality) * Try New Things, but Enjoy Your Work 17:55 - What Makes a Senior Engineer? * When is a senior engineer not a senior engineer? (http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2812) * Impact * Making Mistakes * Pragmaticism vs Perfectionism * The Efficiency Throne as Tradeoff * Recognition Prime Decision-Making 42:51 - Solving Big Problems vs Small Problems * Getting People to Care * Group Accountability & Presenting Deliverables 50:39 - Creating an Organization Where People Can Thrive and Grow * Fostering a Culture of Help 53:17 - Letters To A New Developer (https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/) 57:52 - Community and How They Help Developer Growth Reflections: Dan: Build your mental muscle around tradeoffs. Jacob: Thinking about talking to junior developers. Rein: The context we’re in when we’re thinking changes how we think. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Dan Moore.

02:26 - Aisha’s Superpower: Proofreading 04:05 - Documentation * “The Code Documents Itself” * Context / Entry Points * Documentation as a Narrative * The Value of Documentation 07:54 - Forms of Documentation Worth Investing In * Onboarding * Commit Messages * Pull Requests 10:34 - Architecture and Stories * Commit Messages * References * User Stories 17:17 - Telling Stories Through Documentation * Documentation as Performance * < title of conf > (https://www.titleofconf.org/) * Tail Call Optimization: The Musical!! by Anjana Vakil & Natalia Margolis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PX0BV9hGZY) 23:37 - Defining Documentation 26:17 - Making Documentation Accessible & Approachable * Requires Empathy * Collaboration * Constructing Shared Common Ground 33:33 - Giving Constructive Feedback * Feedback Requires Consent * Interviewing for Interpersonal Skills That Are Required to Give Good Feedback * “Tell me a story…” / Roleplaying * Give Feedback Fearlessly – Aisha Blake (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsoh_EDE9Xc) 44:37 - self.conference (https://selfconference.org/): Focusing on Human Aspects in Technology 48:49 - Technology is NOT Neutral * Moral Responsibility * The Things We Build Have Impact * Inclusion and Exclusion This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Aisha Blake.

02:33 - Christina’s Superpower: Resourcefulness, Industrial Design * Pratt Institute (https://www.pratt.edu/) * Building Physical Mockups of Items * Learning on The Go 07:30 - Starting Makelab (https://makelab.nyc/); Inspiration for 3D Printing * Enabling Creatives * Mitigating Risk * Clientele 15:15 - Pivoting to PPE in Lieu of COVID-19 * Making Faceshields * Handling Orders 22:04 - Advice for Other Women Who Want to Start a Business * Focus on What You Don’t Know * Stay Close to Customers 23:42 - Women in 3D Printing (https://womenin3dprinting.com/) * Organizing a Community * Networking * Community Outreach & Support * Responsibilities as a Founder 35:15 - Liking What You Do * Recognizing Emotional Patterns * Hacking Your Emotional API – John K. Sawers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGDRUI8biTc) 42:30 - Tackling Burnout and Getting Creative Juices Flowing Again * Going Back to Your “Why” * Feeling Changes and Self-Reflection 45:46 - Developing and Allocating Revenue to Respond to Current Events * 3D Printing for Emergency Situations * Prototyping and Always Iterating 55:30 - Manufacturing Jigs – Building the Tools to Build the Tools * Tool Making: A Practical Treatise On the Art of Making Tools, Jigs, and Fixtures, with Helpful Suggestions On Heat Treatment of Carbon and High-Speed Steels for Tools, Punches, and Dies (https://www.amazon.com/Tool-Making-Practical-Suggestions-High-Speed/dp/1146153104) 59:23 - Adaptive Capacity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_capacity#:~:text=Adaptive%20capacity%20relates%20to%20the,genetic%20diversity%20of%20species) * Embracing Discomfort * Going First Reflections: John: Being in touch with your feelings as a business skill. Christina M.: Stop, drop, and remember my why. Rein: Maintaining capacity for maneuver. Christina P.: Emotions as APIs. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Christina Perla.

02:28 - Courtney’s Superpower: Speaking on the Topic of Racism “You can’t prioritize your discomfort over living your own values.” – Courtney White Liberals Are Dangerous: the “I’m liberal...I’m not that bad” narrative Action & Engaging in Antiracist Practices Over Lipservice Antiracism is a Lifelong Learning Process Not Seeing Race is Problematic – Disproportive Representation 13:16 - Adopting Attitudes Towards Antiracism Understanding White Supremacy If It’s Not Antiracist, It’s Racist 16:24 - 1000 Cut Journey (https://vhil.stanford.edu/1000cut/) "1000 Cut Journey" Launches at Tribeca Film Festival (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te5X6pV7AKQ) Culture, Narratives, and Stories are Powerful Tools Feedback & Reactions 25:59 - Empathy is Insufficient * Are you aware of how white you are? 34:34 - The Tendency to Avoid Racism and Talking About Race 39:30 - Systemic Racism and Technology * Diversity is Not About Aesthetics * Centering Race * Training & Onboarding * Hiring From Non-Traditional Backgrounds * Understanding “Social Work” * Shifting Orientation: * Being Antiracist * Being Transdisciplinary * Understanding that avoiding harm is not the same thing as achieving justice Reflections: Rein: “Intention without strategy is chaos.” – Dr. Kim Crayton (https://twitter.com/kimcrayton1?lang=en) Arty: Taking an antiracist approach to product development. Jacob: Thinking more about the phrase “transdisciplinary” and the difference between it and “interdisciplinary.” Courtney: 1. Talking about difficult things in a way that can be anchored in learning. 2. It’s not about what you believe; it’s what you do. 3. There is no neutral in marginalization and oppression. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Dr. Courtney D. Cogburn.

02:09 - Tudor’s Superpower: Storytelling * Getting Beyond Your Self-Critic * Writing Code is Storytelling * There’s No Semantics Without Syntax 13:04 - Reading Stories (and Code) * Reading Code Takes Place in an Editor * Code is Not Text. Code is Data. 17:56 - Optimizing For Happiness Automation Creates More Jobs Choosing Tools is Important “The tools that we create end up influencing how we see the world.” – Marshall McLuhan 27:48 - Moldable Development * Making Metaphors and Building Abstractions * Glamorous Toolkit (https://gtoolkit.com/) 32:50 - Editing Code as a Joint Activity * rust-analyzer (https://github.com/rust-analyzer/rust-analyzer) * Simultaneous Perspectives Increase Communication Bandwidth 38:40 - Encouraging and Supporting the Presentation of New Ideas and Out-of-the-Box Thinking 58:41 - Culture is Formed by Storytelling; Identity is the Story We Tell About Ourselves * [Alasdair MacIntyre](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alasdair-MacIntyre#:~:text=Alasdair%20MacIntyre%2C%20(born%20Jan.,of%20history%20in%20philosophical%20theorizing.) Reflections: Rein: Reading and writing code can be different, but it can also be the same. See: the functional programming concept of lens (https://medium.com/javascript-scene/lenses-b85976cb0534#:~:text=Composable%20Getters%20and%20Setters%20for%20Functional%20Programming&text=A%20lens%20is%20a%20composable,known%20as%20the%20lens%20laws.&text=The%20getter%20takes%20a%20whole,the%20lens%20is%20focused%20on.). Jessica: At the end of the presentation, if there’s no question that makes you think, then maybe you haven’t moved anything. Look for surprises. Arty: Optimizing for happiness as a first principle. How do we do that more? Tudor: With software, we are forcing people to listen to our ideas and then act according to our thoughts. That is a big responsibility, a privilege, and we have to train that skill. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Tudor Gîrba.

02:36 - Siobhán’s Superpower: Catalyzing Personal and Community Change 04:19 - Managing Change During COVID-19 * Experiencing Joy While Grieving * Bringing Your Whole Self to Work (a boundary being stretched like never before) * Working From Home: Ranges of Experiences and Comfort-Levels 13:51 - Pros and Cons of Bringing Your Whole/Full Self to Work * Building Affinity & Care * Interfacing with Capitalism * Painpoints as Learning Opportunities * Having Boundaries * Building Inclusive Communities and Workspaces * Extending Grace and Care 34:08 - People Have to Do Work on Themselves “You’re not categorically a good person.” – Siobhán Check Yourself: Look at Yourself Honestly Psychological Safety Reflections: John: How can we inculcate more caring into corporate environments? Jerome: Being more fearless; acknowledging consequences but not letting them stop us. Jacob: Being more visible. Siobhán: Building on each other’s ideas during the call and showing care while showing up. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Siobhán Cronin.

02:14 - Amy’s Superpower: Looking at a mess and seeing the potential for what it could be. 03:40 - Generalists vs Specialists * 071: Brein Power with Rein Henrichs (https://www.greaterthancode.com/brein-power) * T-Shaped Skills (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills) “The job description should describe the capabilities that the team needs, not that the individual needs.” 15:28 - Finding a “Beautiful” Mess in Technical Systems “The biggest impediment to change is your users.” – Jessica Richard Dawkins Demonstrates Laryngeal Nerve of the Giraffe (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdm5he) 22:40 - Artisanal and Industrial Modes of Production * Systems are indelibly stamped by the experience of the people who built them 28:25 - Design, Use, and Reliability 32:30 - Convincing Executives to Care About a Thing * Now vs Later * Where do we spend our attention to maximize value? * Viable System Model (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdm5he) * Context Over Control / Communication Without Authority 41:08 - Whistleblowing is Good Because Misuse of Authority is Bad 51:33 - SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) “The goal of SRE is to change the way your organization relates to the systems it runs.” – Rein Reflections: Jessica: Bonus question: Amy, why do you hate the word, “mature”? Rein: “A problem is an abstraction extracted from a mess via analysis.” – Russel Ackoff Amy: Models: We keep trying the same patterns and complaining about the same outcomes. Thinking by Machine: A Study of Cybernetics (https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Machine-Cybernetics-Pierre-Latil/dp/B0000CJKQE) Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile (https://www.amazon.com/Cybernetic-Revolutionaries-Technology-Politics-Allendes/dp/0262525968/ref=sr_1_1?crid=NIL0S9DU27P9&dchild=1&keywords=cybernetic+revolutionaries&qid=1594244894&s=books&sprefix=cybernetic+re%2Cstripbooks%2C158&sr=1-1) Greater Than Code Episode 093: BOOK CLUB! Cybernetic Revolutionaries with Eden Medina (https://www.greaterthancode.com/cybernetic-revolutionaries) Brain of the Firm (https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Firm-Stafford-Beer/dp/047194839X) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Amy Tobey.

01:32 - Joe’s Superpower: Hospitality * Greater Than Code 054: Code Hospitality with Nadia Odunayo 06:20 - Social Media: It's time for us to stop acting like we are getting access to social media for free. * When you add up your household's cable/Internet/phone bills, you're paying bare minimum $100/mo. * This money isn't going to Facebook and Twitter, but it is the entry fee for bringing these platforms into your home, where they subsequently track everything you do, everyone you know, build a facial recognition database with the photos you post, and determine your sexual orientation before you even disclose it (https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/facebook-can-tell-if-you-re-gay-based-few-likes-n823416). * Nobody reads the privacy policies. * UBDI – Universal Basic Data Income (https://www.ubdi.com/) 15:36 - Owing Your Identity & Data * Email Plus: An Idea * Slack (https://slack.com/), Microsoft Teams (https://www.microsoft.com/en/microsoft-365/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software) * A Key / Distributed Data Idea 25:25 - Protecting Children’s’ Privacy & Data 32:00 - Leading The Movement; Rolling Out a Solution: Taking back control of our data * People who are willing to be hobbyists * Experimentation & Activism Reflections: Christina: The value and the power of open source and thinking beyond giving your data out willy-nilly. Jacob: Teaching our children to be thoughtful technologists. Jerome: Keeping our kids safe is a job on top of a job, and the goalpost keeps moving! Joe: A reminder that other people are thinking about this. We are all concerned about privacy. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Joe LeBlanc.

01:13 - Debbie’s Superpower: Having an excellent memory and a detailed-oriented brain 03:23 - Teaching Science in Fun Ways * Sourcebooks Baby University Books, Assorted Science Titles, Set of 4 (https://www.schoolspecialty.com/sourcebooks-baby-university-four-book-set-2023976?kxconfid=u7avswvjn&source=google&campaignid=9240857700&placement=shopping&keyword=&gclid=CjwKCAjw88v3BRBFEiwApwLevfrBS0j1HjYBbeJEDTBCZd6TlGLCGEJap-mjxWraRahzKDOThgol3BoCYvgQAvD_BwE) * Thermodynamics for Babies and Toddlers (https://www.amazon.com/Thermodynamics-Babies-Toddlers-Maths-Science/dp/1075151368) * thesciencebabe (https://www.youtube.com/user/thesciencebabe/videos) (Debbie’s YouTube Channel) * Ruth Spiro Books (https://ruthspiro.com/books/) 05:49 - Understanding Data & Data Literacy * First Steps to Understanding: See Examples; Do Experiments * Demystifying Data Science (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-17j6vjbfr8) * Why Correlation does not Imply Causation in Statistics (https://www.mathtutordvd.com/public/Why-Correlation-does-not-Imply-Causation-in-Statistics.cfm) * Divorce And Margarine (https://blogs.ams.org/blogonmathblogs/2017/04/10/divorce-and-margarine/#:~:text=The%20correlation%20between%20the%20divorce,book%20of%20the%20same%20name.) * Metis Data Literacy Course (https://www.thisismetis.com/corporate-training/courses/data-literacy) 15:16 - Negative Results Are Important (Failure) * Education Between Boys vs Girls * Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck (https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322) * Growth vs Fixed Mindset (https://fs.blog/2015/03/carol-dweck-mindset/) * Battling Discouragement, Lack of Confidence, and Perseverance 29:20 - Human Performance is Contextual – Science can be exclusionary 34:27 - Debbie’s Inspiration to Become a Scientist * Your Story Is Your Power: Free Your Feminine Voice 41:17 - Debbie’s TV Career * The Physics of High Heels (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIIo0SlagD8) * Dr. Debbie Berebichez Talks About Science (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCqRPJMd7EA) * Debbie’s National Geographic Reel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bfOq2O3U2w) * Humanly Impossible (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1701983/) * Debbie’s IMDb Page (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5636666/?ref_=tt_cl_t1) * Co-Hosting Discovery Channel’s Outrageous Acts of Science (https://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/outrageous-acts-of-science/) 50:29 - Finding Ways to Solve Complex Concepts * Go Back to the Basics * Using Code is For Solving Problems; Critical Thinking * Taking a Holistic View Reflections: Rein: Gordon Pask’s Conversation Theory (https://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/conversation-theory/) Arty: Teaching the how and teaching the why. Astrid: Perseverance and authenticity: Being yourself and allowing yourself to evolve. Debbie: This podcast was much different from being a guest on other podcasts. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Deborah Berebichez.

01:10 - Damien’s Superpower: The ability to hold conflicting beliefs at the same time. * Blind Men and an Elephant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant) * Law of Excluded Middle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle#:~:text=In%20logic%2C%20the%20law%20of,and%20the%20law%20of%20identity.) 04:09 - Life is Hard. How do we make things easy? * Simon’s Ant (https://everything2.com/title/Simon%2527s+ant) * Emergent Behavior (https://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/EmergentBehavior.htm#:~:text=Emergent%20behavior%20is%20behavior%20of,of%20a%20system's%20individual%20parts.) * Conway’s Game of Life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life) * Embodied Cognition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition#:~:text=Embodied%20cognition%20is%20a%20topic,the%20mind%20influences%20bodily%20actions.) * Cognitive Systems Engineering (https://www.ppi-int.com/resources/systems-engineering-faq/relationship-cognitive-systems-engineering-systems-engineering/#:~:text=Cognitive%20Systems%20Engineering%3A%20Cognitive%20Systems,is%20both%20efficient%20and%20robust.) * Joint Cognitive Systems (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=joint+cognitive+systems&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart) 12:03 - Treating Expertise as Transferable to Different Fields * Technical Privilege * Cognitive Bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases) – List of Cognitive Biases * Heuristic Shortcuts * Specifications not Test (https://damienburke.com/specifications-not-tests) – Damien’s “Don’t Call it Test-Driven Development Essay * Fundamental Attribution Error (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error) 17:54 - Loving Yourself Unconditionally and Seeing Flaws “You are whole, perfect, and complete.” (https://twitter.com/ExMember/status/839518385499066368) – Damien Burke Virginia Satir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir): The basis of human interaction is acknowledging the inherent value in ourselves and another person. Giving Feedback – The key is authenticity. Treating People The Way They Want to be Treated vs How YOU Want to be Treated The Platinum Rule (https://blog.peoplefirstps.com/connect2lead/the-platinum-rule-2) Mister Rogers: What do you do with the mad that you feel? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viqPDiH7M9A) “The problem is never the problem; how we cope is the problem.” – Virginia Satir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir) 27:03 - Shakespeare was Garbage * Playing Shakespeare (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2VnxiW3oqk) * Highbrow Language * Looking For Richard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_for_Richard) 30:08 - Sponsorship Message 31:20 - EarlyWords (https://www.earlywords.io) / Morning Pages * The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252) 36:08 - Damien’s Background in Theater and Applying it to Tech “I play the piano, but my instrument is the orchestra.” – Attribution Unknown “The conductor is the only person in the orchestra that doesn’t make a sound.” – Benjamin Zander (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Zander) Being a Leader/Conductor/Manager is an Act of Service 41:42 - Ontological Coaching * Epistemic – What even is knowledge? * The Scientific Method (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#:~:text=The%20process%20of%20the%20scientific,observations%20based%20on%20those%20predictions.&text=Scientists%20then%20test%20hypotheses%20by%20conducting%20experiments%20or%20studies.) Reflections: John: Why Tacit Knowledge is More Important Than Deliberate Practice (https://commoncog.com/blog/tacit-knowledge-is-a-real-thing/) Rein: It is hard to translate theory into practice. Damien: Life is hard. Make everything you can easy! This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Damien Burke.

01:50 - Bryan’s Superpower: The ability to see the world as it is 06:52 - Conference Circuits / Virtual Conferencing * KubeCon (https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kubecon-cloudnativecon-europe/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=KC_CNC_Virtual&gclid=CjwKCAjw5vz2BRAtEiwAbcVIL7LDb7jGC7Fiq3gVMxj6_SL7f4qa0eIlnMUKGtO91vtNvKkLyU35ahoCLkEQAvD_BwE) * Keynote: CNCF Project Updates - Bryan Liles, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2019 Co-Chair (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=two3TzF9mVY) * Beyond Kubernetes - Interview with Bryan Liles (KubeCon 2019, Barcelona) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNCUhD0Qeio) * Re-imagining Continuous {Integration | Delivery | Deployment | Whatever} - Bryan Liles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHuFqhE1HIM) (DeliveryConf Seattle Talk) * Engagement: In-Person vs Virtual * Conferences Aren’t Inclusive (as they stand) 17:44 - Working Remotely During Quarantine * Productivity * Depression * Find a Piece of Life That Makes You Happy 23:48 - The Premise of Being Greater Than Code * We Are Not Our Code 26:24 - Fighting/Overcoming Meritocracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy) * Be the Smartest Person in the Room * Sharing Ideas * Building a Supportive Community Around Yourself “I'm not underrepresented anymore. Y'all are over-represented. Not going to use a negative to describe my existence. I'm Bryan, and I'm supposed to be here.” (https://twitter.com/bryanl/status/1134565369098756096) – Bryan Liles via Twitter If you believe in meritocracy, you believe in white supremacy. 34:50 - How People Work and View the World * Writing Things Down * Be Ready to Perform * Cockiness vs Confidence: Celebrating Success * Humans are Inconsistent: People Are NOT Perfect 42:41 - Finding Power in Something Else * Have Mantras; Center Your Life * Meek Mill - Dreams And Nightmares (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8gfqs1-NuE) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Bryan Liles.

Emily has been on GTC before! Check out her previous episode: 037: Failure Mode (https://www.greaterthancode.com/failure-mode) 01:08 - Emily’s Superpower: Hunting Nazis and Data Science * Emily’s Motivation to Do This Work – Fighting Back * What is the question behind the question? * Data Science + SCIENCE 14:55 - Being Willing to Be Wrong / Failure and Learning * Methods for Determining You’re Going to be Tracking Wrong Things * Simpson’s Paradox (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Simpsons-paradox#:~:text=Simpson's%20paradox%2C%20also%20called%20Yule,one%20or%20more%20other%20variables.) * Means Are a Lie * Detecting Nonlinearities 34:49 - Cybernetics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics) * 093: BOOK CLUB! Cybernetic Revolutionaries with Eden Medina (https://www.greaterthancode.com/cybernetic-revolutionaries) 38:43 - The COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis and The Need For Systematic Restructuring * The Problem with Testing * Conditional Probability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_probability) * Bayes Rule (https://towardsdatascience.com/what-is-bayes-rule-bb6598d8a2fd?gi=2073fb276511) * Ventilator Production 47:16 - Nuance, Power, and Authority * High-Reliability Organizations * Devolution * The Safety Anarchist (https://www.amazon.com/Safety-Anarchist-innovation-bureaucracy-compliance/dp/1138300462) * The Difference Between: * Innovation * A Work-Around * A Shortcut * A Non-Compliant * Deciphering Good Actors & Bad Actors This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Emily Gorcenski.

There are no show notes nessecary for this episode. Your job is to listen and learn from these 3 strong women. Special Guests: Isa Herico-Velasco , Kim Crayton, and Shireen Mitchell.

02:27 - Michelle’s Superpower: Resilience * Graceful Extensibility (https://thompson.wiki.innovateoregon.org/graceful-extensibility.html) 04:59 - Techtonica (https://techtonica.org/) * The Board * Breaking Barriers Into Tech * Income Sharing Agreements * Job Placement Success * Setting Cohorts Up For Success * Becoming an Educator * Socioeconomic Factors * Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams (https://www.amazon.com/Limbo-Blue-Collar-Roots-White-Collar-Dreams/dp/0471714399) 25:35 - Adaptive Capacity and Mutual Aid * Saying vs Showing You/They Care / Investment / Helping Others * Sponsorship * Hiring * Unemployment * Survival Mode 46:51 - Techtonica Success Stories Reflections: Rein: What’s going to happen after the pandemic? How will things be different? Michelle: The world has an opportunity to change. Jamey: The things Techtonica provides to its’ cohorts to break down barriers to entry in tech is awesome. Arty: Asking what can I do to make a difference? This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Michelle Glauser.

01:39 - Ewa’s Superpower: Organization * PyCon (https://us.pycon.org/) 02:01 - Naomi’s Superpower: Empathy for the Marginalized 02:51 - The Python Software Foundation (PSF) (https://www.python.org/psf/) * PyCon Online (https://us.pycon.org/2020/online/) * PyPI (https://pypi.org/) 05:26 - Regional and Local Meetings: Building a Healthy Community 06:52 - “Everybody Pays” and the PSF Budget * Financial Aid 11:16 - How the Pandemic is Effecting the PSF * Financially * Moving to Virtual Conferencing * EuroPython 2020 Online (https://ep2020.europython.eu/) 13:20 - Intellectual Property * Holding in Trust for Community * Preserving Goodness * PyLadies (https://www.pyladies.com/) * Brand Integrity 16:36 - The Development of a Code of Conduct * Enforcement * Ratio of Enforcers to Attendees 23:08 - Naomi: Classics, Language, and Computer Science * Similarities and Differences * Jamshid Gharajedaghi (https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Thinking-Complexity-Designing-Architecture/dp/0123859158) 29:15: Ewa: Ending Up in Governance 31:03 - Ewa and Naomi’s Roles in PSF * The PSF Board * The PSF Staff 35:49 - Creating Emergency Funds 40:18 - Grants & Sponsorships * Humble Bundle (https://www.humblebundle.com/) * PPP Grant (https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/coronavirus-relief-options/paycheck-protection-program) 42:33 - Contractual Agreements 46:22 - Engaging in a Virtual Setting Over In-Person Events * Python Pizza (https://python.pizza/) 51:15 - Approaching Issues Marginalized People Experience Reflections: Rein: If you want to understand how an accident happened, you need to understand why what a person was doing made sense to them at the time. “What would this mean if this made sense?” Jacob: Looking forward to new conference formats. Carina: What solutions are people pitching for moving to virtual gatherings? Naomi: Only in our space do we think it’s "weird" to talk about whether or not we need emergency reserves. Also, online Hallway Tracks? Yes or no? What do now? Ewa: Moving to online events is emotional. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guests: Ewa Jodlawska and Naomi Ceder.

01:47 - Vaidehi’s Superpower: Learning new things and teaching them to other people * Teaching Things Helps YOU Learn * Deciding on Things to Learn 05:01 - Approaching Learning * Reading * Relating Things to Things Already Known * Ask Yourself, “Why do I need to know this?” * Tricks for Reading Papers * Read the Abstract & Conclusion * Pick Fights with the Paper * Using Tutorials * Accountability & Motivation * Learning with Others * Unraveled (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaDrN74SfdT7Ueqtwn_bXo1MuSWT0ji2w) * Hermeneutic Circle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutic_circle) 20:15 - Having Aha! Moments & Epiphanies: Brain Percolation * Russell Ackoff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_L._Ackoff) * Absolution * Resolution * Solution * Dissolution * Paradoxes 32:02 - Technologists Are Good Storytellers 39:03 - Improving Over Time and Doing Your Best * Hindsight Bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias) * Blameless Retrospectives: Accountability 47:55 - Creating Spaces for People to Succeed * Manager Training * “Managing Up”: The Phrase – meh 52:58 - Effective Mentorship * Mentorship vs Sponsorship * Trust * Lara Hogan (https://larahogan.me/) Reflections: Jamey: Incremental learning and progress – biting off small chunks and not beating ourselves up while learning. It’s not a waste of time to just do a little at a time. Rein: Soft skills are technical skills. Vaidehi: It’s hard to measure and quantify these things. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Vaidehi Joshi.

00:41 - Ellen’s Superpower: Knowing what her pets are thinking. (Observation and Paying Attention to Non-Verbal Cues.) * Virginia Satir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir), Congruence and Incongruence * Lie to Me (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie_to_Me) * Detecting Microexpressions 10:33 - Shareholder and Stakeholder Economies * Game Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory) * Out of the Crisis (https://www.amazon.com/Out-Crisis-Press-Edwards-Deming/dp/0262541157) * Mitbestimmung (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitbestimmungsgesetz) * Codetermination and Alienation * Complexity Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity_theory) 18:30 - Termination of Employment Contracts * Emergent and Deliberate Strategy 27:44 - Collective Action – Why aren’t tech workers organizing more? * Amazon Reinstates Fired Warehouse Worker After Employees Strike (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7jaaq/amazon-reinstates-fired-warehouse-worker-after-employees-strike) * The Potential Usefulness and Benefits of Unions * Project Maven (https://www.blog.google/products/google-cloud/incorporating-googles-ai-principles-google-cloud/) 37:47 - Moving in the Direction of Stakeholder Value – What do we do next? * Anjuan Simmons – Lending Privilege (https://anjuansimmons.com/talks/lending-privilege/) * Talk to Your Coworkers: Build Connections; Network Architecture * Explore Worker Power * Manager Boards Reflections: John: A reminder of the value of collective action. Rein: Tech workers are workers and workers have more in common with other workers than they do with bosses. Aaron: The practical ways of implementing collective action in tech. Episode 80: Crafting a Community with Kris Howard (https://www.greaterthancode.com/crafting-a-community) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Ellen Wondra.

02:04 - Aaron’s Superpower: Relating to people on any level because he has so many hobbies! * Useful in DevRel * Ending Up in Unexpected Places * Trying New Things and Nerding Out 06:42 - Everything Has a Technical Aspect * Music vs Computer Programming * Computer Systems as Sociotechnical Systems 10:37 - Connecting High-Performing Resilient Teams * Common Ground Within Teams * Recovering From Failure * Failover Conf by Gremlin (https://failover-conf.heysummit.com/) 14:14 - Implementing Purposeful/Intentional Communication * Team vs Individual Work * Ken Mugrage - Keynote Speaker | Everything I need to know about DevOps I learned in The Marines (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJCt041CV1s) * Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders by L. David Marquet (https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers/dp/1591846404) 17:55 - Highlights from Failover Conf - (Videos not available) * Heidi Waterhouse (https://twitter.com/wiredferret) * Honeycomb (https://www.honeycomb.io/) 19:45 - How did an actual virtual conference go since COVID-19? * Slack (https://slack.com/) Implementation * Bots * #Hallway-track channel * Each Talk Had Its’ Own Q&A Channel * Challenges * People Interaction * Breaktime * Technical Difficulties * Zoom (https://www.zoom.us/) Chat After the Conference * Deserted Island DevOps (https://desertedisland.club/) 26:27 - The Impact of Having ADHD (https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/default.htm) * Advanced Forms of Coping Mechanisms * Quality Time * Struggling with ADHD During COVID-19 * Working From Home and Being Thrown Into Remote Work * Juggling Meetings * Maintaining Comradery 39:43 - Normalcy Theater: Maintaining a Sense That Everything is Fine (When It’s NOT.) * Grief and Loss is Happening on a Global Level * J. Paul Reed (https://twitter.com/jpaulreed) * Shed Load * Sacrificing Thoroughness: we are ALL overloaded * Recruiting Resources * Shifting Work and Time * Showing Others Grace and Empathy Reflections: John: The idea of a software team plays at software just like a music group plays at instruments. (Twitter thread) Carina: Everything has technical and human skills aspects. Aaron: It’s okay to not be getting things done right now and to be taking the time that we need to take care of ourselves. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Aaron Aldrich.

02:34 - Tobie’s Superpower: Bridging tribes. * Avoiding Labels 04:13 - Being a Co-Conspirator of Ethical Open Source * Contributing to the Greater Good * Finding Deeper Meaning in Open Source, Software, and Tech * Privilege, Moral Obligation, and Responsibility * Edmund Berkeley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Berkeley) * The Priority of Constituencies (https://dev.w3.org/html5/html-design-principles/#priority-of-constituencies) * Technical Purity 12:41 - Open Source: Prioritizing Implementers Over End-Users * Richard Stallman, “Four Freedoms” (https://openedreader.org/chapter/stallmans-four-freedom/) * Everything is Software, Everywhere – Impact 17:19 - Developer Attachment to Technical Purity * Privacy & Security & Safety (Spying on your spouse on Facebook example) * Flavors of Safety (Zoom (https://zoom.us/) breaches and trust) * Physical Safety and Mental Safety * Freedom From Self-Censorship * Surveillance and Tracking 34:54 - Open Source Practitioners Misguided Thinking When Building Software * Software is Written by Privileged People * Lack of Empathy for the End-User * Comfort and Questioning * Internationalization Issues 47:03 - Talking About These Issues – What gives us hope? This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Tobie Langel.

02:43 - PJ’s Superpower: Convincing people that karaoke is a good idea. * PJ’s Karaoke History * Why Karaoke is Awesome 07:13 - The DevRel World (DevRel = Developer Relations) * Jim Weirich (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Weirich) 13:42 - Online vs In-Person/Live Conferences * Body Language and Delivery * Hallway Track: Is not a literal 'track.' It's all the interactions, conversations, talk follow-up, etc. that happen at a conference outside of the formal schedule. Hallway tracks are when people interact socially about the issues being discussed at the event. For instance, between talks or over lunch. Most hallway track conversations are open and casual. Sometimes hallway track conversations inspire a future lightning talk, Ignite talk, panel discussion, or full talk. * Can you emulate an in-person conference online? * Luck and Visibility 25:54 - Making Conferences Diverse & Inclusive * Putting People on Stage That Don’t Look Like You * Passing on “Lucky” to Others 33:01 - Prompt (https://promptconf.com/) and Talking About Mental Health * Ed Finkler on Open Sourcing Mental Illness at Distill (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqRPln8X1sc#action=share) (this was the talk that launched Prompt) * Greg Baugues: Devs and Depression (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFIa-Mc2KSk) * OSMI = Open Sourcing Mental Illness (https://osmihelp.org/) * CodeDaze 2016 - Paying Off Emotional Debt by Justine Arreche (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YppMGmdaxn4) * Madalyn Rose Parker: Overcoming Mental Health Hurdles at Work (https://www.alterconf.com/talks/overcoming-mental-health-hurdles-work) * Mental Health Summit - php[tek] 2014 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U627ps3og3M&list=PLJPRYJOPv4pTLHxR1hkeikrUn2TlOsE2R&index=3&t=0s) 43:10 - Making Conferences Diverse & Inclusive (Cont’d) * Being Seen -- White Cis Men * The Colored Musicians Club (https://www.cmctheclub.com/) * Aggressive Inclusion * Micro Opportunities * Lightning Talks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_talk) 54:14 - Accessibility * Time and Monetary Expenses * Conferencing in the time of COVID-19 PJ's First Ever Full Talk at RubyMidwest: Act Locally - Think Globally (https://youtu.be/O8IzXwNDtqA) Reflections: Carina: The exaggerated visual of putting a hand down and throwing people into the air to lift them up. Jamey: Holding onto the feeling of being lucky while feeling awful. Jessica: Getting pushes to make output. PJ: Be a Jim Weirich. Have a “Hello World” attitude. Human connection is important. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: PJ Hagerty.

Manning Publications (https://www.manning.com/) has been kind enough to give our listeners a discount code. They're giving listeners of the show a permanent 40% discount, which is good for all products in all formats for everyone. Again, this is a PERMANENT discount code for all Greater Than Code listeners. Use the code PODGREAT20 every time you shop Manning. 02:30 - Emily’s Superpower: Finding all the dogs to pet. 05:05 - Emily’s Data Science Journey * Organization Behavior * Qualitative / Quantitative * Research: Women in STEM Fields 08:21 - The Idea of Passion * Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing (https://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-Press/dp/0262632691) * Gatekeeping 10:46 - Defining Data Science * Analytics * Decision Science * Machine Learning 13:48 - Emily’s Book: Build a Career in Data Science (https://www.manning.com/books/build-a-career-in-data-science?query=Emily%20Robinson) 16:11 - Dealing with Failure * PyData Ann Arbor: Jacqueline Nolis | When Data Science Projects Fail (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW2dqQksRwo) 18:30 - Sponsorship * Emily’s Post on Sponsorship: The Importance of Sponsorship (https://hookedondata.org/the-importance-of-sponsorship/) 20:08 - The Spread of Data Science Roles * Strengthening Job-Critical Skills * The Art of Statistics (https://www.amazon.com/Art-Statistics-Learning-Pelican-Books/dp/0241398630/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=The+Art+of+Statistics&qid=1586796001&s=books&sr=1-2) * How Charts Lie (https://www.amazon.com/How-Charts-Lie-Getting-Information-ebook/dp/B07P88R6DW/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=How+Charts+Lie&qid=1586795985&s=books&sr=1-1) * The Cartoon Guide to Statistics (https://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Guide-Statistics-Larry-Gonick/dp/0062731025) * Statistical Rethinking (https://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Rethinking-Bayesian-Examples-Chapman/dp/1482253445/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Statistical+Rethinking&qid=1586804227&s=books&sr=1-1) * The Book of Why (https://www.amazon.com/Book-Why-Science-Cause-Effect/dp/B07CYJ4G2L/ref=sr_1_1?crid=S9D75K7C9UAB&dchild=1&keywords=the+book+of+why&qid=1586804292&s=books&sprefix=The+book+of+why%2Cstripbooks%2C217&sr=1-1) 27:09 - Sponsorship (Cont’d) * Sponsorship vs Mentorship * Having a Solid Community / Network * R-Ladies (https://rladies.org/) * Capital * Smaller Acts of Mentorship * Trey Causey's Do you have time for a quick chat? Post (https://medium.com/@treycausey/do-you-have-time-for-a-quick-chat-c3f7e46de89d) * Sponsorship and Mentorship Work Best When There's a Concrete, Stated Goal * Data Helpers (https://www.datahelpers.org/) * Mentorship Should Be Part of Our Formal Career Ladder 36:20 - Themes Learned From Writing Build a Career in Data Science (https://www.manning.com/books/build-a-career-in-data-science?query=Emily%20Robinson) * Communication Skills * Proactivity * Community (Network is Important) 40:02 - Companies Should Train People to be Mentors * What does a tech lead do? (https://www.bitlog.com/2017/10/12/what-does-a-tech-lead-do/) 43:07 - Measuring Productivity * Thinking Fast and Slow (https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555) * How to Measure Anything (https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles-Business-ebook/dp/B00INUYS2U/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=How+to+Measure+Anything&qid=1586805526&s=books&sr=1-1) * The Tyranny of Metrics (https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Metrics-Jerry-Z-Muller-ebook/dp/B07K458MZG/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Tyranny+of+Metrics&qid=1586805544&s=books&sr=1-1) * Engineering Career Development at Etsy (https://codeascraft.com/2019/10/02/engineering-career-development-at-etsy/) 45:48 - External vs Internal Data Science * People Scientists 47:18 - Women and Diverse Representation in Data Science * Groups & Resources * AI Inclusive (https://www.ai-inclusive.org/) * PyLadies (https://www.pyladies.com/) * Data Umbrella: NYC URGs and Allies in Data Science (https://www.meetup.com/nyc-data-umbrella/) * Black in AI (https://blackinai.github.io/) * Harvey Mudd (https://www.hmc.edu/) * Rice University (https://www.rice.edu/) * Why Women Are Flourishing In R Community But Lagging In Python (https://reshamas.github.io/why-women-are-flourishing-in-r-community-but-lagging-in-python/) Reflections: Avdi: Mentorship does not have to be a huge commitment to be useful and sponsorship is often as important -- or more important than mentorship. Chanté: What are the things that we’re willing to do for people who need an extra boost or push or support? Jacob: Mentorship is possible without the mentors knowing they’re even doing it. Rein: If you’re a mentor and your mentees aren’t coming to you with well-formed questions, it’s your job to coach them into that as a mentor. Emily: There aren’t enough resources for senior engineers on the non-technical side of things. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Emily Robinson.

Content warnings for discussion of pandemic and sickness, American politics, and mental health issues. In this special episode of Greater Than Code, several of our panelists have a candid conversation about the current COVID-19 situation, how it has been affecting them personally, and how they believe it will affect the tech industry as a whole. Discussion topics include how it feels both to be working and unemployed during the pandemic, productivity while quarantined, the effect on WFH and conference culture, the current political climate, and human resiliency in the face of the unknown. Links Mentioned: I Want to Know What Day It Is - Foreigner Parody (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH4TVYT1OYQ) Becoming More Fully Human with Virginia Satir (https://www.awaken.com/2017/03/becoming-more-fully-human-with-virginia-satir/) Additional show notes: Jamey wanted to report that after recording was finished, they called their favorite restaurant back and was able to successfully order takeout after all. . . . . This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

00:56 - Chris’ Superpower: Not Knowing In Public * Asking Questions 02:53 - Source Documents and Their Relation To People * Grace Hopper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper) * Maintaining Code to Give People Context (Writing Code For People) * Critical Complexity * Indu Alagarsamy (https://indu.dev/) 06:44 - Encouraging Others To Write Code For People * Modeling Behavior * Event Storming * ECO Mapping (Ego, Command, Outcome) (http://chrisstead.net/2020/01/17/ECO-mapping.html) * Creating Culture * Arlo Belshee: Naming is a Process (http://arlobelshee.com/tag/naming-is-a-process/) 12:39 - Naming Things in Code / Narratives in Software and Business 18:53 - Asking the Right Questions * Google-Fu (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Google-fu) * Mobbing Interviews 22:38 - Interviewing for the Benefit of the Interviewee * The Problem with Being Transactional * It’s People All The Way Down * Empathetic Interviewing 33:44 - Treating People as People; Making Things More Humane * Peopleware (https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Tom-DeMarco/dp/0932633439) * Books by Gerald Weinburg (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Gerald+Weinburg&ref=nb_sb_noss) * The Mythical Man-Month (https://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Anniversary-Software-Engineering-ebook/dp/B00B8USS14/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1L37LXA2PI79D&dchild=1&keywords=mythical+man+month&qid=1586297658&sprefix=mythical+man%2Caps%2C164&sr=8-2) * The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings On Linux And Open Source By An Accidental Revolutionary (https://www.amazon.com/Cathedral-Bazaar-Musings-Accidental-Revolutionary/dp/0596001088) * Willem Larsen (https://twitter.com/techgreatness) 38:23 - Code Stores Emotion * Measuring Progression * The Valley of Despair 45:19 - Deciding: “Will this be helpful for someone else?” Reflections: Jessica: The idea that code can convey emotions. Even code can be Greater Than Code. John: Structuring interviews with goals around comfort and familiarity so people can perform at their best. Jamey: Imbuing things with the feeling when you wrote it. Chris: If you’re feeling frustrated, kind is great. Also, everything is a systemic whole. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Chris Stead.

01:44 - Ruben’s Superpower: Believing in people more than they believe in themselves and helping people to meet their potential. 03:00 - How Ruben Developed His Superpower * Natural Belief In Self * Father and Mother’s Example 06:35 - Benefits Of Being Underestimated * Conquering Challenges * Career Karma Coaches And Squads 11:15 - Career Karma Success Story 13:50 - Fires Lit Inside 15:03 - Origin Of Career Karma * App Launched January 2019 * CareerKarma.com/schools (http://www.careerkarma.com/schools) * Learn And Experience The Companies * Breaking into Startups (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/breaking-startups-ruben-harris-1?articleId=5964022070152015872#comments-5964022070152015872&trk=public_profile_article_view) * The Reality of Breaking Into Startups: The First Product You Build Is Yourself (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reality-breaking-startups-first-product-you-build-yourself-harris?articleId=6121165669871411200#comments-6121165669871411200&trk=public_profile_article_view) 18:10 - How Career Karma Secured Funding 23:38 - What Makes The Success Of Career Karma Different * Culture of Experimentation 25:25 - What It Feels Like To Know You Are Doing What You Are Meant To Be Doing * Pay Attention To The Patterns In Your Life 31:21 - Impact of Coronavirus 36:15 - Who Will Benefit From Remote Work 38:00 - The Career Karma Team * Pay It Forward 42:30 - If You Want To Be A Master In Life, You Have To Submit To A Master 44:30 - What’s On The Horizon For Career Karma 48:20 - The Biggest Lesson Ruben Has Learned Thus Far LINKS: State of the Bootcamp Market Report 2020 (https://careerkarma.com/blog/bootcamp-market-report-2020/) Remote Working Tips and Complete Guide to Telecommuting in 2020 (https://careerkarma.com/blog/remote-working-guide/) How to Pay for Coding Bootcamp: The Ultimate Guide (https://careerkarma.com/blog/how-to-pay-for-coding-bootcamp-ultimate-guide/) Income Share Agreements: State of the Market 2019 (https://careerkarma.com/blog/income-share-agreement-market-report-2019/) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Ruben Harris.

00:57 - Eric’s Superpower: The Ability To Explain Things In A Way That Makes Sense To Most People 02:37 - Legacy Capability Of The Web * Web Technologies Are Long Term * Frameworks * Lynx (https://lynx.browser.org) * Y2K 11:30 - Creating Long Term Within Frameworks * Static Can Be Good 15:50 - Ethical Dimensions * RAINN (https://www.rainn.org) * Information Accessible As Widely As Possible * Long Term vs. Short Term Code 20:50 - Longevity Of The Web 23:11 - Edge Cases - Stress Cases * Evan Hensleigh @futuraprime (https://twitter.com/futuraprime) * Design For Real Life (https://abookapart.com/products/design-for-real-life) 25:44 - Make Everything Accessible To The Most People * Diverse Teams Are Stronger * Making Assumptions * Write People Off Explicitly 44:00 - Design For Real Life * Challenging Team Assumptions * The Designated Dissenter * Sarah Parmenter @sazzy (https://twitter.com/sazzy) Reflections: John: The designated dissenter idea. Doing a pre-mortem on a project - planning ahead. Carina: A whole other conversation could come of the philosophy of agile and move fast and break things. Jacob: How the dissenter could be a challenging position to be in. Eric: The dissenter is stress testing, not criticizing. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Eric A. Meyer.

01:38 - What Does Resilience Mean To The Panelists? * John - [It’s] Like A Flexible Tree That Can Bend With The Wind Or Environment - It Does Not Resist Or Break * Chanté - Tenacity And Grit And Being Able To Cope Or Withstand Something That You Didn’t Foresee - It Doesn’t Break You, It Makes You Stronger * Antifragile (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile) * Rein - [It’s] About Unforeseen Surprises 03:36 - Thoughts On David Woods - Four Concepts for Resilience (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276139783_Four_concepts_for_resilience_and_the_implications_for_the_future_of_resilience_engineering) * Resilience As Rebound * Resilience As Robustness * Resilience As The Opposite Of Brittleness * Resilience As Sustained Adaptability 04:49 - Applying Resilience To Leadership * High Performance Organization - HPO (https://www.hpocenter.com) * People Make Up Companies 14:40 - The Difference Between Sustainability And Resilience 17:20 - Welcoming The Resilient Mindset 18:30 - Creating And Acknowledging Resilience 21:54 - Organization Resilience And Adaptive Capacity * Richard Cook’s REdeploy 2019 Talk On The Resilience Of Bone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LbePBiOvZ4&t=3s) * Convincing Employers To Become More Resilient To Reduce Harm To Employees 27:15 - Resilience Related To Diversity And Inclusion * Families And Communities 31:00 - Resilience Within Software Development * Software Being Made Robust, Not Resilient * Rejection Proof (https://www.amazon.com/Rejection-Proof-Became-Invincible-Through/dp/080414138X#ace-g8881249860) - A Parallel Between People And Software * Casey Rosenthal REdeploy2019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSLBKoFi1jk) 36:27 - What Price Do We Pay For Not Prioritizing Resiliency * Existential Risk 39:00 - Rein’s Wrap-Up On Resilience This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

02:22 - Coraline Talks About Her Work With The Open Source Movement * Seth Vargo: @sethvargo (https://twitter.com/sethvargo) * The Open Source License - The Hippocratic License (https://github.com/EthicalSource/hippocratic-license) * Bruce Perens (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Perens) 08:14 - Who Wrote The Open Source License * The Libertarian Platform * Balancing Our Individual Freedoms With Societal Good 10:26 - The Open Source Initiative (https://opensource.org/) 11:25 - Licensing And The Evolution Of Open Source * Realizing The Impact Of Open Source On Human Society * The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scientific-Revolutions-Thomas-Kuhn/dp/0226458083) - Thomas Kuhn * Procrastination * Assimilation * Revolution 18:43 - Litigation Thoughts * Promoting Arbitration Over Litigation * Advantages Of Adopting The License * Putting The Power In The Hands Of The Creators 23:31 - Creators’ Rights * Corporations Are Benefiting From The Free Labor Of The Community 26:00 - Tying The Hippocratic License To Open Source * The Declaration of Human Rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights) * Matt Boehm: @bigolewannabe (https://twitter.com/bigolewannabe) * Accepting Critique * The Ethical Source Working Group (https://ethicalsource.dev/) 28:48 - Other Prongs Of Approach Other Than The License * Scholarship 30:50 - Coraline’s Candidacy For The OSI Board * Tobie Langel: @tobie (https://twitter.com/tobie) 34:00 - What Open Source Means To The Panelists 38:50 - The Concept Of Community * How Maintainers Have Changed Their Relationships With Communities * Writing Values And Aspirations In Codes Of Conduct ethicalsource.dev (https://ethicalsource.dev/) firstdonoharm.dev (https://firstdonoharm.dev/) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

02:12 - Miko’s Superpower: Not Knowing Things. 03:30 - Coming To Your Senses * Breaking Out Of Thinking * Detecting - Venture Capitalism * Pattern Making And Pattern Matching 06:45 - Understand The Limits Of What You Can Know And What You Do Know * Knowing People * Knowing Industries * Most Humans Don’t Know A Lot Of Things * Impermanence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence) 11:45 - Human Decision Making Is An Embodied Process * The Gut Feeling * Enteric Nervous System (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system) * Sympathetic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_nervous_system) And Parasympathetic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasympathetic_nervous_system) Nervous Systems * Central Nervous System (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_nervous_system) * The Heart Feelings * Feelings Are Emotions 18:30 - Interviews As Coachable And Teachable Moments * The Gig Economy (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gig-economy.asp) * Prioritizing The Development Of Relationships * Exhibited Behaviors That Match Patterns Are Coachable And Teachable 25:33 - Problems With The Interview Framework 29:23 - Human Action Is Connected To Emotion * The Human Brain 34:30 - Not Knowing As A Superpower * Action Potential (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential) 39:56 - Small Mind, Big Mind * Losing Your Mind And Coming To Your Senses 45:50 - Being Over Reliant On The Posture Of Knowing * Andrew Yang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Yang) * Peter Thiel - Zero to One (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_to_One) * Human Advantage Over Machines 50:16 - The Notion Of Marriage * Dr. John Gottman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gottman) * The Idea Of Magic Reflections: Jessica: Favorite part is the idea that if we think we know something, that leads to despair sometimes. The release of admitting we don’t know everything is a source of hope. Jacob: Feeling like I’m known personally and professionally is important to me, but being known in a deterministic way resonated with me. Artemis: The Bob Marley principle that was mentioned. Thinking about that philosophy connects with the ideas we talked about. When you realize all the intelligence that is out there, thinking of how small you are. If we can lose our mind and come back to our senses and see that we are part of this fabric, we’re not really all that different. Miko: “You can’t fool all the people all the time.” It is a way of connecting with the world of limitation. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Miko Matsumura.

01:14 - Chris’s Superpower: His Ability to Sleep. 01:50 - Why Chris Wants To Talk About Web Accessibility * Top 3 Priorities When Building on the Web * Accessibility * Performance * Security 02:45 - Whose Responsibility Is It To Build An Accessible Web? * Anyone Building On The Web * Dominos’ Lawsuit (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-dominos-pizza/u-s-supreme-court-rejects-dominos-bid-to-avoid-disabilities-suit-idUSKBN1WM1P1) * WCAG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Content_Accessibility_Guidelines) 07:38 - How To Inform And Get Colleagues On Board With Accessibility * Understanding The Clientele * Have Numbers To Back It Up 11:45 - Image Descriptions * Alt Attributes * Twitter Adds Alt Text For .gifs 16:34 - Companies Deal With Accessibility Lawsuits 19:07 - Where To Start Making Changes * Only Shipping One Experience That Works For Everybody * Make Sure You Are Using Semantic Markup * Color Contrast * Make Sure There Are Alt Attributes On Your Images 27:50 - What Can Developers Do Today To Make Changes * Start With An Audit * Compare To Competitors 31:06 - Work Collaboratively With The Designers 34:15 - How To Be Accessible For Various Disabilities * Hearing * Cognitive * Physical 37:10 - Accessibility Can Benefit Everyone Reflections: Chris: Accessibility is not a requirement, it is a must. From Marcy Sutton: Every little bit of accessibility you contribute is so necessary and so needed. Carina: The concrete useful examples such as audits are beneficial to business people. Jacob: Wants to get better at using a screen reader to gain empathy about what the right thing is to do. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Chris DeMars.

00:53 - Chris’s Superpower: Derailing conversations and having a knack for taking complex tasks and breaking them down into smaller, simpler parts that people find easy to understand. 01:44 - The Pitch for Vanilla JavaScript 03:06 - Peoples’ Biggest Challenge as a Developer * Having Trouble Keeping Up * Adding Processes and Tools Make it More Difficult to Get Started * “The Right Way To Do It” 05:50 - The Problem With The Way We Do Things Today * Front-End Development * Back-End Developers Move to Front-End 08:30 - Modern Web Development * The Use of Frameworks * Package Managers * “The Cascade is Bad” - Using More JavaScript 11:42 - A Better Approach To Web Development * Sometimes Old Is Better * Don’t Ditch The Old Just Because Something New Came Out * Embrace The Platform * Think Smaller And More Modular * Remember That The Web Is For Everyone 17:15 - CSS and JavaScript * Web Bloat That Affects The End User * Accessibility - Being Able To Work On Improvement * Accessibility Audit On Gutenberg (https://wpcampus.org/2019/05/gutenberg-audit-results/) * Being Too Heavily Focused On One Programming Language 25:05 - The Notion of Development At Scale * The Google Hiring Process And Frameworks 27:45 - Silos Of Technology 31:10 - Complexity And/Or Simplicity * Focusing On Quality Over Volume * Factoring For Growth 37:20 - Advocating For Vanilla JavaScript * Documentation * Unexpected Incidentals 44:10 - Gradual Movement Of The Code Base 45:30 - Using The Word “Just” 49:30 - The Concept Of State 52:45 - Use Of Static HTML 53:40 - Do Companies Actually Build For The Web Like This * Netflix Page Loads With Vanilla JS * Happy Middle Ground 58:05 - Summation Of Positives Of Vanilla JavaScript * Ease Of Beginner Developer Onboarding * Allowing Non-JavaScript Developers To Participate More Meaningfully In Your Process * Overall Resilience And Performance For The End User Reflections: Rein: Pick the thing that reduces your suffering the most. Jacob: If you are just starting to learn JavaScript, it is ok to not learn a framework immediately. It is also ok to dive into something else and come back to learn vanilla JS. Also, Noel Rappin - Modern Front-End Development for Rails (https://pragprog.com/book/nrclient/modern-front-end-development-for-rails), takes a great approach to using differing technologies and what they can bring to your project. Chris: Thinking about the instances where it does make sense to use some of these tools as opposed to reasons why you shouldn’t use them. Liked the talk about minimizing your pain. If you feel like there are too many moving parts to JavaScript, you are not alone, it’s not you, and you’ve totally got this. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Chris Ferdinandi.

01:49 - Rein Talks About His Recent Career Transition From Being a Consultant to a Full-Time Employee 03:52 - Jamey Talks About the Decision to Leave Their Job * Making The Decision To Leave Your Comfort Zone 05:34 - Pros and Cons of Staying for Job Stability and Comfort * Learned Helplessness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness) * Being a Part of a System * Don’t Be The Smartest Person in The Room * Shared Space (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space) 13:20 - Resilience and Regulatory Mechanisms * Dr. Richard Cook - REdeploy 2019 Talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LbePBiOvZ4) 15:59 - Interviews * Watching Interviewers’ Reactions to Challenging Their Questions * Gerald Weinberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Weinberg) - Secrets of Consulting (https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Consulting-Giving-Getting-Successfully/dp/0932633013) * Most of the Things We Do Have No Effect Whatsoever in the Larger System 20:20 - Job Success and Effort 22:22 - Safety and Resilience * Aviation and Tech * Kubernetes * David Woods - Resilience is a Verb (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329035477_Resilience_is_a_Verb) 26:05 - Interview Anxiety * Who You Know * Group Bias 30:25 - Team Creating/Building * Assuming Competence * Consideration of New Team Members * Dealing With Change After Being Comfortable * Sidney Dekker - Understanding Human Error (https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error/dp/0754648257) 38:04 - Feeling Comfortable in Tech * Privileges of Being in the Field * Switching Career Paths 47:20 - Visualize How You Will Feel Working Somewhere * Analytical vs. Emotional Decision Making 50:08 - No One in Tech is an Expert in Human Performance - Interviewing * Ask Questions of the Interviewer * Being the One That Gets to Make the Decision * Avdi on the Interview Process - We Should be Able to Speak Up 58:25 - Discovering How to Make Better Systems * Tell More Stories This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

01:06 - Kortney’s Superpower: Being a visionary. Seeing things that aren’t necessarily there. 01:50 - How Appolition (https://appolition.us/) Came to Be * Grassroots Company Crowdfunding Money for Incarcerated Black Mothers * Tweeted About Using the Change Round Up Model * Educating Those in Tech About What Bail Is * Gaining Trust 07:20 - Kortney’s Professional Background * Building Things in Technological Space * PhD in 2011 - difficulty finding substantial employment * Filmmaker, Scholar * Encountered a lot of discrimination in professional career * Became Entrepreneur in 2012/2013 * Attended Filmmakers Hackathon * Launched Trans*H4CK (http://www.transhack.org/) * Appolition (https://appolition.us/) 13:10 - Appolition Specifics * Bail is Predatory * Educate Yourself About Bail * Partnered With Outside Team * 2000 Users, Waitlist of 8000 * Then Brought In House * Unlimited Users * Web App - No Download Required 19:45 - Partnering With Others To Provide Education 21:00 - Surprises/Ah-Ha Moments * The Expenses * Humbling to Recognize the Work That Goes Into It * Naming of the App Traveling in Media Convos 25:10 - The Goal of Appolition * How We Can Leverage Technology That Exists 30:00 - Lessons From A Hackathon * Went As Award Winning Filmmaker * Engineers Not Willing to Hear Ideas of Creators * Led to Creating Trans*H4CK (http://www.transhack.org/) * Refuge Restroom 35:19 - Changes Seen At Tech Events Since Trans*H4CK * Great Conversations and Events Happened * Startups Can Shift Rules, They Haven’t been As Inclusive As the Discourse Surrounding Them Was Encouraging Them To Be * Some Things Were Good, Some Things Were Bad, Some Things Need Improvement 43:08 - Plans After Leaving Tech * Getting Back to Creative Side * Filmmaking * Self-Improvement 45:49 - Fatigue 50:00 - Future Endeavors Follow @Appolition (https://twitter.com/Appolition) #AppolitionBookList Reflections: Jamey: Appolition being a webapp so that it is accessible to those who don’t have smartphones. Chanté: Going back into self improvement and self reflection is being tucked into the back of my mind. Jacob: What are conversations I can have that I have access to about diversity and inclusion before the professional gets called in. Kortney: Moved by the idea of finding community in tech. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Dr. Kortney Ziegler.

01:20 - Ted’s Superpower: Translating things for people to understand better. 02:49 - Coding on a Live Stream * Curiosity is Useful and Dangerous * Comparing Coding to Puzzles 07:13 - Research is a Drug * Finding Answers is Gratifying * Current Reading Infects Daily Thought * Anders Ericsson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Anders_Ericsson) 10:45 - Connecting the Academic Idea of Expertise to Everyday Context * Worked Examples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worked-example_effect) * Memory Limits * Gaining a Solid Foundation for Training Purposes * The Path of Decision-making 16:50 - Code Reviews * Learning About Decisions Made Along the Way * Pair Programming and Mob Programming * Externalizing Your Thinking * Curse of Knowledge 19:41 - Recording Yourself Coding/Learning Something New * Gaining Empathy * Improving Documentation and Communication 21:56 - Live Streaming as an Introvert * What Other People Get Out of It * Seeing People Struggle and Being Able to Help * We All Get Lost * Building Community * Being Comfortable Showing Frustration 29:41 - The Difference Between Training and Live Coding * Suz Hinton (https://medium.com/@suzhinton) * Accountability in Live Coding * Privilege 35:35 - Applying Research to TDD Teaching Technique * James Shore (https://twitter.com/jamesshore?lang=en) * The Thinking Part and the Predictive Aspect * It’s Not About the Test Failing, It’s About Validating Your Mental Model * Retrieval Practice * Formative and Summative Assessments (https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/formative-summative.html) * Spaced Repetition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition) * AnkiApp (https://www.ankiapp.com) * The Purpose of Patterns 48:27 - Human Learning * Stop Teaching People What They Know and Find Out What They Don’t Know Reflections: Jamey: ‘Predictions’ in TDD - Having more succinct language for things in your head strengthens understanding. Artemis: The concept of strengthening and muscle. If we can work deliberately on strengthening these muscles then in the moments of our everyday work we can improve the quality of our day to day decisions. Ted: An aspect of expertise is you start connecting more things. We have to find a place for the ‘why.’ This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Ted M. Young.

01:10 - Phil’s Superpower: Putting Himself in Others’ Shoes. 02:03/09:14 From Software Engineer to Management * Empathy Through The Career Shift * The Learning Curve * Making a Conscious Choice To Switch * Gaining Leadership Skills * Making Your Own Opportunities 03:34 - How Phil Came Into The Greater Than Code Community * Found Through Twitter * Codemania (https://codemania.io/) 05:54 - Commonalities Between Issues Between USA and NZ * Inclusion, Equality in Technology 07:05 - Life Science Software Experience * Cloud Based, LT * Awareness of Accessibility 16:45 - To Get Into Management or Not * It’s Not For Everyone * Impostor Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome) 18:55 - The Parallels Of Management And Parenting 26:17 - Working From Home Or The Office * Setting The Right Examples For The Team * Encouraging People To Take Leave, Learning And Development Opportunities, Health Reasons Without Repercussions 31:47 - Living In A College/University Town 32:54 - Overcoming Impostor Syndrome * Exists In The Technology Sector * Exists In Other Disciplines * Turn The Ship Around! (https://www.davidmarquet.com/turn-the-ship-around-a-true-story-of-turning-followers-into-leaders-by-david-marquet/) * The Manager’s Path (https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Growth/dp/1491973897) 35:58 - Empathy For Managers And Employees * Leadership Development * Self-Reflection/Self-Awareness * Journaling/Note Taking * Becoming A Technical Leader (https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Technical-Leader-Problem-Solving-Approach/dp/0932633021) 51:11 - Phil’s Thoughts For The Future * Citizens Before Consumers * What Can We Do Better? * The Global Digital Citizen Foundation (https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/) Reflections: Jacob: Happy being an individual contributor but contributing to the art of management by being a better employee and having empathy for managers. Phil: Self-Awareness and empathy. Wanting to push his people in a certain direction but taking that step back and determining where that motivation is coming from. Chanté: Impostor syndrome: at some point in time we’re all impostors. Doing reading about leadership can help whether you are taking that path or not. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Phil Wheeler.

Please enjoy this mini-episode of Greater Than Code featuring guest Penelope Phippen (https://twitter.com/penelope_zone) as we begin to pivot to our new podcast theme, the Fast & Furious (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_%26_Furious). * ( * Just kidding, we are still a tech podcast.) But we do hope you enjoy this set of outtakes where we grill Penelope on her Fast & Furious knowledge and speculate about the future of the franchise.) This is the kind of content we normally release exclusively to our Patreon subscribers, but we didn't want to hoard such joy, so it's a gift to all of you. But if you want more content like this, an invite to our Slack group, AND an invite to the Fast & Furious party at Jamey's house, please support us on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) * ( * That is also a joke, if you're a Patron, thank you for your support, but please don't show up to Jamey's house unannounced.) Special Guest: Penelope Phippen.

01:37 - Penelope’s Superpower: An extremely cursed knowledge of the Ruby programming language’s grammar. 03:09 - Writing Ruby Programming 05:50 - Why Penelope is Doing This the Way She Is * Were Any Bugs Found in the Ruby Grammar * There is No Spec * There is No Written Standard for How Ruby is Supposed to Work 07:32 - Inability to Extract Parse.y Out * Penelope’s Ideas 12:02 - What Problem Penelope is Trying to Solve With This Program * Rubocop Doesn’t Well Solve This Problem 18:30 - Hierarchy of Nitpicking 20:35 - Opportunities for Collaboration 22:44 - Major Challenges Faced * Finding Time * No Major Challenges * Community Overwhelmingly Welcoming * This is Not a Gem 25:58 - What Others Will Do With Rubyfmt (https://github.com/penelopezone/rubyfmt) 28:08 - Finding Time and Motivation to Work on Rubyfmt (https://github.com/penelopezone/rubyfmt) 30:00 - Why Penelope Hasn’t Got Pushback * There Isn’t Another Tool in This Class for Ruby 34:25 - Heretically Creating An Ergonomic Way To Work With ASTs 37:00 - The Fate of Regional Ruby Conferences * Regional Conferences Are Valuable For Other People * Speakers Can Get Their Start * Local Conferences Can Benefit Local Speakers * Struggling to Get Speakers * Organizers Burnout and No One Takes Over * $$ - Hard to Break Even This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Penelope Phippen.

01:14 - Mireille’s Superpower: Being just herself. The sense of respect around the individuality of every person. 02:30 - Being Different From Others is a Good Thing * Nature vs. Nurture * Epigenetics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics) 05:59 - Our Brains and Empathy * Mirror Neurons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron) * Dr. Dan Siegel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Siegel) * The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon/Frequency Illusion 11:15 - The Brain vs. The Mind * Extended Cognition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_cognition) * Sensation and Perception * Survival Rules - Virginia Satir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir) 19:22 - Three Brains in One (https://psycheducation.org/brain-tours/3-brains-in-one-brain/) 21:51 - HPA Axis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothalamic%E2%80%93pituitary%E2%80%93adrenal_axis) * Dr. John Briere (http://s1097954.instanturl.net/) 23:06 - Overcoming Unconscious Impulses * Fight or Flight * Collateral Data * Brené Brown (https://brenebrown.com/) * Grounding 26:56 - Affective Prosody (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics/Prosody) * Gavin de Becker - The Gift of Fear (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gift_of_Fear) * Incongruence 33:26 - Balancing Transparency at Work * Humanity in Tech * Codeswitching * Arianna Huffington (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianna_Huffington) * Relationships at Work * Psychological Safety * Shame * Learned Helplessness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness) 48:41 - Effort Over Outcome 56:15 - Using the Word “While” 59:25 - Decoding Your Anger * Using Energy 01:05:28 - “Plays” or Neural Routes 01:09:20 - Correlation vs. Causation Reflections: Rein: Bringing our whole self to work without thinking about punishment or reprisal. Finding psychological safety. Jacob: How he thinks one of the biggest problems in the tech industry is that there is this brick wall around feelings and how feelings and work don’t mix. Rather than a brick wall, what kind of filter can we put in front of our emotional lives that is appropriate for the professional world? Mireille: It really is around being able to see other people as people and when we do that most of the time people are not trying to make our lives more difficult. Check out Mireille’s podcast Brain Science here (https://changelog.com/brainscience). This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Dr. Mireille Reece.

01:24 - Kim’s Superpower: Being a Black Woman in Tech with a Strategy and a Platform. 02:21 - Continuously Validating Your Space as a Black Woman * Technical vs. Technology * Kamala Harris (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris) Suspending Her Campaign * Inclusion, Diversity, and Business Strategy 08:10 - The System was Built to Harm and Oppress Black Women * Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_Every_Voice_and_Sing) * Stacey Abrams (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacey_Abrams) * F*ck Civility * White People are on a Spectrum of Racist * Ibram Kendi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibram_X._Kendi): How To Be an Antiracist * Black People Cannot be Racist 15:42 - The Only Power Black People Have is the Power Whiteness Has Given Them * Capitalism, Communism, Marxism, Socialism are Theories Rooted in White Supremacy 21:24 - White Feminism is Bullsh*t * White Women are Now the Default Diversity in Tech 25:50 - Being a Strategist * Influencing Small to Medium Sized Business * Making Meaningful Impactful Change in Tech 33:15 - #causeascene (https://hashtagcauseascene.com/) 35:41 - Price Asymmetry 36:48 - Kim’s Six-Step Process 40:15 - Stop Looking for Simple Solutions to Complex Problems * Defining Racism Beyond the Dictionary Definition 44:29 - Future of Jobs Report from World Economic Forum (https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2018) 45:55 - Strategies for Developing Your Other Technical Skills 48:15 - Bounded Rationality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality) * Facts Change, Truth Remains the Same * Collaboration Over Competition 52:10 - Can We Have Antiracist Capitalism? 01:00:59 - Defining Racism This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Kim Crayton.

00:58 - Denise’s Superpower: She is a classically trained musician and is good at transcribing music in her head. 03:30 - Glue Work (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19846720) * Tanya Reilly (https://twitter.com/whereistanya) * Doing Tasks That Are Adjacent to Coding * Scheduling * Making Sure Meetings Have Agendas * Who Tends to do Glue Work * Emotional Labor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor) 13:07 - What Denise Has Done to Improve the Glue Work Situation * Having the Terminology Helps A Lot 17:31 - How to Address Changing the Structure of Glue Work * Thinking Globally and Acting Locally * Burnout * Writing More Feedback Than Managers Expect * Writing Feedback About Glue Work * Virginia Satir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor) 31:40 - Offboarding Yourself 37:10 - Release Engineering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Release_engineering) 39:45 - Being a Product Manager 46:39 - Being Back in the Development Role * Working With Teams Reflections: John: The distinction between glue work that is just work that you are doing and glue work that you are enjoying and getting satisfaction out of. See what he can do to add glue work tasks into evaluations and part of everyone’s job. Rein: Burnout isn’t just working long hours. Burnout becomes a real danger when those things combine with acute alienation. Jacob: If product managers tried to be more transparent with their day to day tasks, and trying to listen more himself to what the PMs are saying. Denise: Thinking globally but solving locally. Always be offboarding yourself. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Denise Yu.

01:48 - Bärí’s Superpower: Being a Black Woman 05:20/22:50 - Admitting and Knowing What You Don’t Know * Intersectionality and Culture 10:00 - Born and Raised in Oakland * Gentrification * What is the Deficit of the City * Being Connected to Your Roots 19:30 - Unintended Consequences * Building Algorithms That Fact Check * You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know * Facts Are Not Facts Anymore * Tutorial to Boy Scouts About Getting Stopped by Police * Keeping the Kids Alive 33:15 - Where is the Light (In the Technology) * Technology is the Mirror of the People Creating It * Creating an Open Space * Prioritizing Important Events 42:34 - Getting Organizations to Buy Into the Open Space Concept 48:50 - Who’s Job is it to Educate the Children About Bias * Allyship * Seeing White Podcast (https://www.sceneonradio.org/) 58:47 - Diversity or Inclusion * Lagging Metric or Leading Metric * Draw People In With Inclusion 01:03:59 - Taking Space and Making Space Reflections: Arty: Multigenerational roots, becoming your own being, being raised to be proud of yourself and say what you think. Be the roots for the people around you. There has been a loss of grounding. Chanté: Bärí is the real deal. It takes only a few to change history. Being real is valuable. Jacob: Wants his son to know that he won’t have to worry when being pulled over, and he should be troubled by that fact. Bärí: What do you connect to, who do you connect to? What and who are you thankful for? Think about that. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Bärí A. Williams.

01:50 - Getting Sucked into Twitter Vortexes 03:06 - Dynamics of Human Emotion * Willem Larsen Episode (https://www.greaterthancode.com/reinventing-education) * Prometheus Rising (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Rising) 05:36 - Creating Safe Spaces for Emotionally Charged Conversations 07:57 - Radical Inclusion * Shared Conversation About Humanity 09:49 - Overidentification/Over Attachment to Tribalism * Race and Ethnicity are Socially Constructed (yes!) 12:15 - Digital Activism * Retweeting What We Agree With, Not What We Disagree With (How it’s Taken) * Encouraging Good Faith Disagreements 15:22 - Tribal Dynamics 16:45 - People From Oppressed Groups Have the Right to Rage * Being an Advocate * Making Space 24:30 - The Changing Frequencies of People 26:58 - Call-Out Culture * Calling In * Invisibilia (https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510307/invisibilia) * Wanting to See People Make Right/Not Shunning Them 32:20 - We Are All Human! Reflections: Arty: How much our connectivity is an opportunity to see our diversity and the strength and power and creative coolness of one another and if we can come together in shared space, what is the vision we can craft together. Chanté: Synchronicity and thinking about the way things happen. Glad to have this conversation. Jacob: How to make a community of people that can have difficult conversations, certain boundaries need to be respected. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

On this day in Paris in 1948, the United Nations issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/), a milestone document that sets out the fundamental rights and privileges of all people and all nations. In honor of the anniversary of this document, the panelists of Greater Than Code have come together to share their reading of the document with all of you.

02:26 - Lauren’s Superpower: Remembering Useful Yet Sentimental Facts About People 03:57 - Lauren’s Professional Background 07:35 - Bias in the Downsides of AI * Automation vs. Augmentation * Meredith Broussard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Broussard) 11:15 - Media and AI/How the Media Affects People’s Perception of AI 14:32 - Concerns of Small and Midsize Businesses Pertaining to AI 18:37 - How to Mitigate Bias in AI 22:23 - Ethics in AI * Loomis v. Wisconsin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loomis_v._Wisconsin) 25:39 - Defining Bias in AI * Georgetown University Law Center (https://www.law.georgetown.edu/) * Unconscious Bias * Harvard Implicit Bias Test (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html) 32:04 - Fairness vs. Accuracy in Algorithms 38:30 - Preventing Bias in AI Resources * Gartner (https://www.gartner.com/en) * Towards Data Science Blog (https://towardsdatascience.com/) * Github (https://github.com/) 41:00 - Working Remotely * Proactively Communicating * Setting Boundaries 50:45 - Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace * Slack (https://slack.com/) * Aubrey Blanche, Atlassian (https://www.atlassian.com/) Reflections: John: Lauren talking about the work she’s doing to pre-educate people so they can prevent themselves from getting in trouble even before they build their models. Chanté: It’s not enough to just be doing this internally. Bias happens in all shapes, sizes, and forms and it’s important to recognize that. Jacob: In a biased society we can’t expect completely unbiased data; therefore we can’t train an algorithm on the theoretical equitable world that we want to create. There will always be a trace of the bias we have now. Lauren: The first step is acknowledging the bias exists in the first place. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps,LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Lauren Maffeo.

01:22 - Ariel’s Superpower: Extreme Irritability * How to Address What is Irritating You 07:30 - Accessibility Needs - Learning What Irritates Others * Disability Simulation in the Workplace * Hot-Keys vs. Mouse Use 16:05 - Rabbinical School * Learning to Ask Complex Questions * Edge Cases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_case) 20:30 - Developing Company/Corporate Values * Purpose of Company Values * Revisiting the Values * When to Remove a Value * Wording of Values * Aspirational Values * The Right Time to Put Values into Writing Reflections: John: Using the process of establishing and/or revising values as a way of pulling in the experience of marginalized people in the company. Jamey: Think about who your values put pressure on. Jacob: Balance between whether values should be aspirational or should they be a reflection of things that people in the company have already internalized. Ariel: Aspirational vs. Reflective values and when is the right time for each. Also, there is a point of giving too much weight to the values. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Ariel Caplan.

01:12 - Willem’s Superpower: Meta 02:20 - Accelerated Community Learning * Self-Sustaining Communities 12:45 - Reimagining the Education System * Unschooling * Open-Space (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology) * Systems of Privilege * Jordan Fink @buildsoil (https://twitter.com/buildsoil?lang=en) 24:20 - Stages of Human Life * Age Segregation in School * Storytelling of Culture 41:10 - The Thermodynamics of Emotion Symposium (https://thermodynamicsofemotion.com) 57:01 - Listening to What the Community Needs The Fall of Civilizations Podcast (https://fallofcivilizationspodcast.com/) Reflections: Jacob: Local communities can surely agree on and find really innovative ways they can provide for each other. Arty: The magic can only happen with the existing system being out of the way and space being created for the people with the spaces and the people with the programs to work together around the shared interest. Willem: Our culture has all these impediments to navigating complex systems in wise ways. We should get out of the way of people we have more power than and listen to the system and provide resources to the system. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Willem Larsen.

01:30 - James’ Superpower: Spending time chasing his daughter and her robots around. Helping with her robotics club at school. 02:37 - “Just Be Yourself” is Terrible Advice 03:50 - What Are You Trying to Accomplish in the Interview 06:00 - Be Authentic: Which Parts of Yourself to Show Be a Strong Communicator Be an Avid Learner Don’t be a Jerk 07:25 - Turn Your Interviewers into Your Advocates 12:42 - Technical Interviews Saying “I Don’t Know” is OK 16:00 Interviewee as the Interviewer Make Sure You Want to Work Here Answer Questions Honestly 18:53 - Prepare for Common Interview Questions Rephrasing Weakness 23:34 - Intrinsic Motivation Mastery by Robert Greene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastery_(book)) 29:29 - Storytelling in the Interview Being Confident in Your Accomplishments Interviewers Explain Why You Are Asking the Question 37:15 - Management Techniques Richard Cook (https://www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com/richard-cook/) Herbert Simon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_A._Simon) 45:00 - Why Technical Interviews are Challenging Cracking the Coding Interview (http://www.crackingthecodinginterview.com/) Reflections: John: Setting the context for being approachable as an interviewer is important. Rein: Some of this advice works all the time, and some of this advice only works when you have been able to develop a personal connection with the interviewer/interviewee. James: Think about if this is a place you want to work while interviewing. Avdi: Turning your interviewer into your advocate can help them also be able to tell you if this place will be a good fit for you. Jessica: It’s not just about being able to interview well as the interviewee, but we need to choose a company that can interview well too. Ask your personal contacts about what it is like to work at a certain company. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: James Edward Gray.

01:10 - Don’s Superpower: He is a generalist. He has lots of skills he can bring together in one place. 02:25 - Ethics and Open Source Open Source is Broken (https://medium.com/@degoodmanwilson/open-source-is-broken-d836efbceb4f) OSI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Initiative) How Can we Make Sure Our Code isn’t Weaponized 08:34 - Consequentialism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism) vs Contractualism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contractualism) OSI FAQ (https://opensource.org/faq) Free Software Foundation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation) 18:15 - The Paradox of Tolerance/Paradox of Openness 19:15 - Is Licensing the Right Mechanism for Bringing Ethics into Open Source 23:40 - Enforceability of Open Source Licenses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_license) 28:40 - Compensation as an Ethical Consideration 34:30 - Quantifying the Value the Open Source Software Gives 38:24 - Empowering People Who Participate in Open Source It’s OK to Question Authority Not Everyone Has the Privilege to Participate in Open Source Ethics in Open Source Licenses 48:31 Tierney Cyren @bitandbang (https://twitter.com/bitandbang) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Don Goodman-Wilson.

01:12 - Ambreen’s Non-Technical Superpower: She is Very Good at Zoning People Out Learning necessary information from conversations 03:20 - Ambreen’s Technical Superpower: Any Challenge She is Given She Will Try to Just Do It Comfort with Uncertainty 06:03 - Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset It’s OK to Not Know Everything Using Resources to Your Advantage 08:40 - Ambreen’s Hobbies Outside of Software 10:10 - Thinking About Things in a Molecular Way Taking Chunks at a Time When Learning Something New Breaking Down Big Concepts into Small Things You Can Learn Being Comfortable Being Uncomfortable 13:45 - Ambreen’s Journey to Software Engineering C++ Turning a Love Into a Career Ruby, Rails, Go, Docker 20:30 - Self-Advocating for New Work Experience 22:00 - Empathy in Engineering Auditory Fatigue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_fatigue) Pair Programming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_programming) vs Mob Programming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming) Reflections: John: Intentionally recognizing uncomfortable learning situations and be okay with it. Jacob: Your emotional state does matter at work and we as professionals need to recognize that this has relevance to one’s ability to do work. Arty: It is important to help others to be able to come out of their comfort zone and be ok with not knowing everything. Ambreen: Likes Jacob’s idea of being productively lost, but there is progress being made. There are many different styles of learning. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Ambreen Hasan.

01:16 - Mannah’s Superpower: He is Comfortable in His Own Skin Being Yourself 02:17 - Assessing Identity and Evaluating Sense of Self in New Culture What a Philosopher is 03:42 - Quoting Beyoncé and Using the B Word Who Takes Offense? Is Everyone Given the Same Consideration? 06:25 - Moments of Self Doubt When Someone Doesn’t Believe You Simone de Beauvoir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir) Addressing Terms of Identity with Conversation Botham Jean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Botham_Jean), Forgiveness, and Role Reversal 09:14 - Empathy Who is Your Favorite Philosopher Having the Ability to Consider and Alternative Viewpoint 11:22 - Retaliation is a Thing Impeachment Whistleblower (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Ukraine_controversy) Kavanaugh Investigation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Kavanaugh) Rowena Chiu (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-harvey-weinstein-accuser-rape-rowena-chiu_n_5d767361e4b0fde50c2ac3c9) Colin Kaepernick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Kaepernick) 16:33 - How to Deal With Coming Across a Viewpoint You Don’t Think Has Merit It is Healthy to Have a Level of Empathy for Your Enemies Assigning Value to Situations 18:56 - The Supreme Court Voting on Protections Systemic Hatred Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_Liberty_and_the_pursuit_of_Happiness) 23:23 - Origins of Thoughts and Root Causes 28:57 - Recognizing Privilege Rowena Chiu: Opinion | 'Harvey Weinstein Told Me He Liked Chinese Girls … (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/opinion/sunday/harvey-weinstein-rowena-chiu.html) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Mannah Kallon.

02:35 - Philip’s Superpower: Being Not Afraid of Mathematics 04:07 - Programming Language Foundations in Agda (https://plfa.github.io/) Propositions as Types (https://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/propositions-as-types/propositions-as-types.pdf) Isomorphism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphism) Software Foundations by Benjamin C. Pierce (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13413455-software-foundations) The Coq Proof Assistant (https://coq.inria.fr/) 15:32 - Using a Proof Assistant 22:57 - Human Creativity + Insight QuickCheck (http://hackage.haskell.org/package/QuickCheck) CompCert (http://compcert.inria.fr/) 30:02 - Specifications Use of Formal Methods at Amazon Web Services (https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/formal-methods-amazon.pdf) The Evolution of Testing Methodology at AWS: From Status Quo to Formal Methods with TLA+ (https://www.infoq.com/presentations/aws-testing-tla/) How Amazon web services uses formal methods (https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2699417) 35:25 - How To Translate Abstract Concepts So Practitioners Can Use Them Reflections: Rein: The way we are taught math makes us hate it. Jess: There’s a difference between learning the foundations of programming and learning the skills of programming Chanté: How do we make conversations like this more accessible? Jacob: Ways of getting quick and seamless feedback as you are writing a program. Joint Cognitive Systems: Foundations of Cognitive Systems Engineering (https://www.amazon.com/Joint-Cognitive-Systems-Foundations-Engineering/dp/0849328217) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Philip Wadler.

There's a point in life, somewhere around the halfway mark, where the reality check hits -- you're going to die. There's a future without you in it. There's a new generation of children growing up, learning their way through the world, and humanity will keep moving forward without you. On one hand, this is depressing. Everyday, we go through the motions. Everyday, we play the game. And suddenly, it all seems so meaningless. The characteristic period of "mid-life crisis" starts with falling into a pit of nihilistic despair, and a quest to answer the most basic existential questions. Does anything really matter? Who am I? What do I live for? On the other side of these questions, something magical happens. The finiteness of Life is also what gives it meaning. Every breath is something to cherish. Every joyful memory is a gift. And right now, in this moment, we have the opportunity to live and be, whoever it is we want to be. Who are your heroes? Who do you admire? What character do you want to play? How can you use your special gifts to lift the people around you? Like a cacoon-shattering phase change, a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, we become an Elder, a steward, and a leader that works on behalf of the children of our future. This audio clip is a conversation between Claire Lew (https://twitter.com/clairejlew), CEO of Know Your Team (https://knowyourteam.com/) & Arty Starr (https://twitter.com/janellekz) about the journey of becoming an Elder, and why Arty decided to change her name. If you want a bit more backstory, you can also check out this thread:

this is great stuff! Artemis is a badass.

— Miko Matsumura ㋡ (@mikojava) October 13, 2019

02:27 - Amir’s Superpower: Sensitivity to Development Pain A Picture of Amir’s Keyboard and Battlestation (https://twitter.com/amirrajan/status/1172565179806224384) Eye Tracker (https://www.tobii.com/) 06:59 - Developer Productivity and Breaking Constraints Magic Leap (https://www.magicleap.com/) 16:58 - Idea Flow 21:00 - Building an Environment That Enables You File Watching Automating Leverage 28:18 - Optimizing Local Maxima Bret Victor: The Future of Programming (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4) Delta Time 41:01 - Questioning Fundamental Assumptions Continuity of Design™️ Gradual Stiffening 46:55 - Game Development Unity (https://unity.com/) 56:05 - Extremeness and Pushing Boundaries: Being a Weirdo/Being an Outlier/Thinking Differently Off Meta, Super Smash Brothers Melee Gods (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJrEhy4ya74) Meta and Off Meta DragonRuby Game Toolkit Sandbox (http://fiddle.dragonruby.org) Reflections: Jess: “A pin on my upkeeps.” Avdi: Meta and off meta. John: Continuity of design. Rein: Continuity and discreteness. Janelle: Process-oriented thinking. Amir: Being consistent with philosophies. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Amir Rajan.

01:34 - Brian’s Superpower: Communicating and Listening 02:36 - The Role of Empathy in Teaching/Communicating * Process Empathy * Empathetic Report 04:11 - Learning and Teaching Functional Programming * Lawful Composition Thinking Functionally with Haskell (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1107452643/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1107452643&linkId=b8c8bcf8f27165517d6b53a2b87fedd6) Compositional Thinking Category Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_theory) 11:13 - Compositional Programming in JavaScript 16:02 - Problems That Can Be Solved by Learning Functional Programming Livable Code by Sarah Mei (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI77oMKr5EY) Scalable program architectures (http://www.haskellforall.com/2014/04/scalable-program-architectures.html) 25:03 - Category Theory Categories for the Working Mathematician (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387984038/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0387984038&linkId=0aa85e8a54efad0135dbd75f39abe43c) Reading Papers Finding Applications for Concepts 32:41 - Machine Learning and AI Generative AI L-Systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-system) Do be do be do (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.09259.pdf) 53:54 - Discrete Representations of Continuous Phenomena 56:17 - Making Teaching Fun, Engaging, and Interesting Learning as a Conversation Reflections: Brian: Looking into L-systems further and thinking in terms of ranges. Rein: Dimensionality is imperative. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Brian Lonsdorf.

01:49 - Jesse’s Superpower: Empathy by Learning to be Empathetic * Taking a Step Back * Mental Triggers * Neurodiversity and Empathy 07:51 - Culture * What is culture? * Culture Fit * Creating/Building/Forcing Culture * Culture as a Descriptor * Affecting Culture * Culture as an Ongoing Process * Agile Methodologies for Culture * Culture Facilitators * Improving Heuristics * Meta Heuristics * Cultures Evolve Rapidly * Alienation * Survival Rules * Problematic Performance Reviews * Derision of Management * Manager Contribution Reflections: Jacob: Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1523095563/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1523095563&linkId=0b9c9b297df4c215fa20049e47bdde89): Community isn’t defined ahead of time. They define themselves. Rein: The more important aspect of any organization is the structure of the relationships between the people in that organization, including and especially, power relationships. Jesse: Personally taking effort in taking effort in finding third-party resources and sharing them with others. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jesse James.

00:43 - Jacob’s Superpower: Being Obsessive Re: Specificity; Allergic to Ambiguity on Teams 02:09 - Talking About Neurodiversity in Workspaces * Self-diagnosis * “Masking” * Jacob’s Background and Intro to Software Development 13:49 - Driving Desire to Learn About Things 22:04 - Automating Boring Work * Personal Automation * Cognitive Outsourcing 34:41 - “Floober Feature” 36:07 - Passing On Strategies and Data Organization CodeStream (https://www.codestream.com/) 47:37 - Storycrafting and Succession Planning Reflections: Jessica: Consult a human when you don’t know, but often from the context of what directory you’re in and what branch you’re on the computer CAN figure it out. Chanté: Sociotechnical systems and thinking about personal automation. Jacob: What can I do to better organize to be a positive legacy? Arty: What are the ingredients to light your spark and your fire about software? This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

00:52 - Jennifer’s Superpower: Seeing Inefficiencies in Processes 02:56 - Coaching Clients to Reorganize Their Organizations Due to Growth Jean Hsu: Re-structuring a growing team (https://medium.com/better-programming/re-structuring-a-growing-team-3ac30d93b637) Communicating Change and Values Encouraging Thoughtfulness Asking Questions + Questions as a Form of Communication Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication by Oren Jay Sofer (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/161180583X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=161180583X&linkId=404f89e44474ffefe366cb2dc0990ec8) Jennifer’s Podcast: Storytime with Managers (https://www.wecohere.com/podcast-storytime-with-managers/) 25:24 - Deleting Old Code; Being Emotional Over Code 30:34 - Avoiding Non-Consensual Teaching and Assumptions 40:50 - Learning Sucks Fixed Vs Growth Mindset (https://www.developgoodhabits.com/fixed-mindset-vs-growth-mindset/) Reflections: John: Questions and what they reveal about the question-asker. Jacob: Hiring for a growth mindset could be difficult. Jamey: The people who have the most control over the situation are also the people who are going to have the least anxiety. Jennifer: Learning to ask better questions isn’t something that you can do easily in a vacuum. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jennifer Tu.

00:50 - Amber’s Superpower: Adaptability 01:48 - Self.conference (https://selfconference.org/) -- Coming again next year in early June! * Background/Origin * Evolution of Diversity * Transparency of Metrics (https://selfconference.org/metrics) * Partnering with Organizations * Focusing on the Detroit Area 10:29 - The Detroit Tech Community * tech[inclusive] (https://www.meetup.com/Tech-Inclusive/) * Detroit Speaker Group (https://www.meetup.com/Detroit-Speakers-in-Tech/) 12:50 - The Future of Self. * Self.learn * Self.work * Conf Conf 14:35 - title of conf (https://selfconference.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e629a43dedc6cbed53830761c&id=c4bf6bba5c) - An Upcoming Musical Conference! * Aisha Blake (https://twitter.com/aishablake) 15:48 - Navigating the Conference Organization World * Advice * Cost 19:41 - Attending the Conference * Sponsor Support 23:13 - Human Potential + Emerging Technology + The Future of Work + Radical Inclusion * The Darkest Horse (https://www.thedarkesthorse.com/the-darkest-horse-podcast) (Chanté’s Podcast) 26:56 - Conference Highlights * ahmed jalloh (https://twitter.com/AhmedJalloh614): Coding out the Clink * The Sense of Community This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Amber Conville.

01:17 - Brandy’s Superpower: Adaptability 02:22 - Codes of Ethics Facial Recognition Technology Fear Detection Software / Emotion Recognition AI "emotion recognition" can't be trusted. (https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/25/8929793/emotion-recognition-analysis-ai-machine-learning-facial-expression-review) Royal Oak police stop Black man for 'looking suspiciously' at white woman (https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2019/08/14/royal-oak-police-stop-black-man-for-looking-suspiciously-at-white-woman?fbclid=IwAR37U926wxDEFSTCqkngkIyLVAThpCI0oX_OY5hnMoUHaW8wHXdpRwoB38g) The Fear Response to African Americans: A Summary of an fMRI Study on Amygdala Activation and Race (https://nccc.georgetown.edu/bias/docs/FINAL%20PHELPS%20ET%20AL.,%20STUDY%20SUMMARY%2011.1.12.pdf) 11:09 - The Role of Diversity and Inclusion in Solving These Problems Unintended Consequences The diversity and inclusion revolution: Eight powerful truths (https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/deloitte-review/issue-22/diversity-and-inclusion-at-work-eight-powerful-truths.html) The Truth About Diverse Teams (https://www.inc.com/greg-satell/science-says-diversity-can-make-your-team-more-productive-but-not-without-effort.html) 24:18 - Balancing Hierarchies and Equity in Organizations The Spoken Value System Vs The Lived Value System Doing Meaningful Work / Showing Appreciation Founder and Executive Support Ethical HR Owning Up To Mistakes Treating Trauma of the System 50:27 - Racism and Unlearning How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525509283/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0525509283&linkId=cf704b0b3583a5f32409b4a389abf769) Reflections: Jamey: If you know there’s spots on your team with missing demographics, seek out those people. John: The culture of a company comes from the top. Rein: Helping teams work better together. Brandy: Improving manager boards to ensure that there is accountability when moving people up in hierarchical organizations. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Brandy Foster.

01:53 - Jamison’s Superpower: Moving swiftly between layers. 03:59 - Being An Engineering Manager * Context Switching * lftm (https://github.com/CoralineAda/lftm) * Career Advancement as an Engineer * Title Inflation * Providing Team Members with Growth Opportunities * Psychological Safety (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_safety) * Challenging People with Goals * Comradery via Video Conferencing * Latent Learning 23:44 - Starting the Soft Skills Engineering (https://softskills.audio/) Podcast My Brother, My Brother and Me Podcast (https://www.maximumfun.org/shows/my-brother-my-brother-and-me) Engaging with People of All Backgrounds All Over The World The Emphasis of Soft Skills 35:42 - The Evolution of Tech Culture and Bootcamp Practices 39:54 - Conference Organization Balancing Technical and Interpersonal Talks Making Connections and Friendships Encouraging Speaker Choice Reflections: Jamison: Zone of Proximal Development (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development). This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jamison Dance.

01:20 - Keoni’s Background and Superpower: Building things quickly. 03:57 - Respect for Indiginous Cultures + Community + People 08:55 - Ownership of Data 14:52 - Learning Māori 18:59 - Indigenous Data Sovereignty Data as a Strategic Resource: Self-determination, Governance, and the Data Challenge for Indigenous Nations in the United States (https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/iipj/vol8/iss2/1/?referer=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252F) Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward an agenda (Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR)) (Volume 38) (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1760460303/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1760460303&linkId=9cd9195683e4d4bc43a30e4b0c1bf156) 31:16 - History: The U.S. Occupation of The Kingdom of Hawaii 36:58 - Creating a License to Protect Data Sovereignty 41:45 - Sharing Data Responsibly 47:37 - Building and Having A Sense of Community 54:38 - Mauna Kea Protests (https://www.civilbeat.org/tag/mauna-kea/?gclid=CjwKCAjw1rnqBRAAEiwAr29II8k8G97yzuG50Sod4wuOAw_8xR0kpN8GmkurMpMFhGG8riW7_-vzkhoCLPgQAvD_BwE); Cultural Fit Reflections: Rein: If we want to organize successfully in our communities, shared culture and deep connection of people enables solidarity. Amy: Look back through history for examples of groups of people sharing skills and industry knowledge. Keoni: Go to and experience Mauna Kea if you have the chance. Also, connecting to community. What enables to do the right thing? What is the right thing? Do the right thing. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: Amy Newell and Keoni Mahelona.

00:48 - Will’s Superpower: 1) The ability to take something complicated and to find simple ways to think about it that work most of the time. 2) A rigorous love of structure. Thinking in Systems: A Primer (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1603580557/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1603580557&linkId=2f955f8b81a88700bdf8f1cd379e0c70) 02:30 - Systems Thinking/Theory Stella (https://www.iseesystems.com/store/products/stella-architect.aspx) 08:48 - How do you know when to stop modeling? 10:12 - How do you figure out what your team’s rate of change is? Organizational Changes Process Changes Changes to the Software Systems You’re Managing Virginia Satir’s Change Model (https://expertprogrammanagement.com/2018/10/satir-change-model/) 19:30 - Focusing Attention Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061339202/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0061339202&linkId=e9faa7b9d66edbae1e2c610f55ebde4c) 20:31 - Impacting Systems 24:47 - Patterns of Dysfunction The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Updated and Expanded (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1422188612/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1422188612&linkId=70478b6c58e8a4a81afa96d2fa80fe1e) 32:13 - Sharing Ideas and Contributing with Systems Thinking The Portal Podcast (https://podtail.com/en/podcast/the-portal/) 38:59 - Having Adaptive Capacity 44:30 - Taking Bets (Risks): Cheap vs Expensive 48:10 - Systems Having Properties and Behaviors and Building Useful Missing Tools Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307886239/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0307886239&linkId=6e73e7f9b9bd877daeb787de395da471) Reflections: Jessica: The difference in reasoning about properties vs reasoning about behavior. Will: It’s easy to look at yourself sometimes as the lone practitioner trying to pull the industry forward. But, it’s exciting to have conversations like these to know there are other people out there trying to do the same thing. Arty: Systems thinking as a way to think about how to optimize the quality of decisions. Rein: A problem is a reduction of the system. One of the most important skills for a systems thinker and a problem solver is the ability for form a problem with a complete understanding of the complete mess that we’re choosing to not think about right now. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Will Larson.

02:37 - Interpersonal Neurobiology (https://insightcenter.org/somatics/interpersonal-neurobiology/) and Emotionally Meaningful Experiences + Feelings Working on Software Code Smells (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_smell) 05:42 - Postmortems and Incident Reviews 09:05 - Blaming People / Blamelessness From Safety-I to Safety-II: A White Paper (https://www.england.nhs.uk/signuptosafety/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2015/10/safety-1-safety-2-whte-papr.pdf) 15:25 - Systems Are Benign: Equalizing Humans and What They Can Do to What Our Systems and Machines Can Do 22:47 - Survival Rules 27:37 - Perspectives on Blame The Agile Prime Directive 35:44 - Survival Rules (Cont’d) Personal Iceberg Metaphor of the Satir Model (http://www.healingplace.info/resources/virginia_satir/208.pdf) 37:48 - Gaining EQ and Inward Exploration Reflections: John: Handling blame in a healthy way and not blaming people for blaming people. Chanté: Read The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1878424319/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1878424319&linkId=cca2a854e8ef0a97eae346428eab999d). Jessica: Software teams are sometimes able to push back against the system because it can point to something tangibly not working. Also, as an individual, it is not your job to change your whole company. Astrid: The importance of having these conversations with your team. Rein: Dealing with a manager who blames through solidarity with coworkers. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

01:29 - Running a Mail Server qmail (https://cr.yp.to/qmail.html) Sendmail (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sendmail) Postfix (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postfix_(software)) Daemon-tools (https://cr.yp.to/daemontools.html) Istio.io (https://istio.io/) 08:49 - Amitai’s Superpower: Squirrel Power! and Orienting Himself in a New Problem Space (And Helping Others to Orient Them in Their Own Problem Spaces) 15:03 - Refactoring 23:15 - Managing Developer Time Global Day of Coderetreat (https://www.coderetreat.org/) Brooklyn November 2018: Global Day of Coderetreat (https://schmonz.com/2018/11/18/brooklyn-november-2018-global-day-of-coderetreat/) Conway’s Game of Life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life) 28:57 - Feedback and Systems 33:38 - Email Servers 35:46 - Predictability WeCamp (http://we-camp.us) 40:39 - Quality and Collaboration 45:47 - Orienting and Problem Space Reflections: Jessica: Having useful questions. John: The bounded perfectionism concept and the tests as questions. Rein: What are the minimum possible criteria for progress? Amitai: “Make hidden things visible. Make abstract things concrete. Make implicit things explicit.” ~ Virginia Satir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Amitai Schleier.

02:43 - First Conference Experiences 08:31 - The Importance of Networking + Stickers!! 14:56 - Conference Fashion 16:51 - Approaching Speakers After Talks and Tricks to Remembering Names + Faces 18:49 - Speaking At Conferences Handling Anxiety Lightning Talks Toastmasters (https://www.toastmasters.org/) Practice at Company Lunch and Learns and Meetups 31:38 - Conveying Information in a Talk 34:59 - Crafting Proposals, What Selection Committees Look For, and Writing Talks The Purpose of Outlines OmniOutliner (https://www.omnigroup.com/omnioutliner) Narrative Structure Bad/Cliche Talk Titles Shitposting 52:03 - Gathering Conference Talk Topic Inspiration Reflections: Coraline: Join our Greater Than Code Slack Community for friendly talk feedback! Sam: Being a conference speaker is an awesome introvert hack. It gives people a reason to come talk to you! Rein: You shouldn’t feel like you have to attend conferences or give talks at conference to have a career in the industry. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

02:13 - What is Job Satisfaction? 03:25 - Predictors of Job Satisfaction Mission Alignment Psychological Safety 14:02 - Evaluating Job Satisfaction: Questions to Ask During Interviews What should I know that I didn’t ask? In six months, how will you know if hiring me was the right choice? 18:02 - Maintaining Positive Company Culture Hire to Forge Signals Meeting Potential Co-Workers 25:14 - Managers: What should you do if you know your team is unhappy? 27:42 - Positive Interactions with Coworkers + Feeling Needed / Relevant + Making Progress Everything Is Broken, and It's OK - John Sawers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5TjSyXR0jw) The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/142219857X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=142219857X&linkId=6760c478abf206e354d6f1c1ea7419fd) Rock Stars, Builders, and Janitors: You're Doing it Wrong (https://dockercon.docker.com/watch/ams9ztREHRBU8bHpvZ6fr6) 34:55 - When Jobs Respect Your Life

01:32 - Clare’s Superpower: Collecting and Sharing Useful Information 04:31 - Llewellyn’s Superpower: The Ability to Collaborate with Others 08:01 - Pairing Together: C++ Version of ApprovalTests (https://github.com/approvals/ApprovalTests.cpp) 12:15 - Pairing Retrospectives: What emotions did you feel? MindMup (https://www.mindmup.com/) 16:21 - Kinship Formed Through Working Together 18:55 - Working Asynchronously vs Live Pairing 20:15 - Writing Documentation for Pairing Sessions and Working to Improve the C++ Community Culture #include (https://www.includecpp.org/) 30:44 - Safeguarding: Harnessing Pain For Good Safeguarding: A step-by-step guide (http://llewellynfalco.blogspot.com/2018/12/safeguarding-step-by-step-guide.html) MarkdownSnippets (https://github.com/simonCropp/MarkdownSnippets) 35:04 - Documentation Cont’d Turning “Error Messages” Into “Help Messages” Healthy Abstractions Testing Communication 45:08 - Asking “Why” Questions vs “What” Questions: Observability Reflections: John: The idea of using a retrospective in such a small scale. Also, the difference in the level of community while pairing: building kinship. Clare: Read more about the paradigm framing effect. Llewellyn: Being appreciative of the people you pair with. Arty: Taking the time to think about what you’re doing from the perspective of sharing affects what you do. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: Clare Macrae and Llewellyn Falco.

The Twitter thread:

All I can say here is that I try to lead by example. If there’s a clear path to “make the change easy, then make the easy change,” make sure the commit history shows that explicitly, then ask for a code review even if your process doesn’t require it. 1/ https://t.co/VDxDbEQUf3

— Sam Livingston-Gray (@geeksam) June 9, 2019

Sam Livingston-Gray - F̶l̶u̶e̶n̶t̶ Refactoring (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3vflogQCLc) Talk: Sam talks about refactoring a gnarly Rails controller method. This is a lightly edited version of a talk Sam gave in 2013. Resources: github.com/geeksam/fluent-refactoring (https://github.com/geeksam/fluent-refactoring) Introduction to the Technical Debt Concept (https://www.agilealliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/IntroductiontotheTechnicalDebtConcept-V-02.pdf) Status Quo Bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias) The Well Traveled Road Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_travelled_road_effect) 21:47 - Refactoring Resistance: Who are you trying to convince? * Product Owner (Goal Donor) * Funder (Gold Owner) * Crusty Teammate * Newbie Teammate github.com/danmayer/coverband (https://github.com/danmayer/coverband) 28:57 - The Risks of Refactoring Rice’s Theorem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice%27s_theorem) Idealized Design: * Technically Viable * Organizationally Viable * A System Capable of Improvement Over Time 3 Different Kinds of Technical Debt: * Intentional Debt * Evolutionary Debt * Bit Rot Churn Tool (https://github.com/danmayer/churn) 35:08 - Documentation and Decision Records 36:59 - Code Value Judgement 42:00 - Convincing Coworkers Re: Refactoring a Codebase Adaptive Capacity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_capacity) Reflections: Coraline: Adaptive Capacity. Rein: Viability. Sam: It’s about dealing with people and effectively working with and for them. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

01:24 - Saron’s Superpower: Being able to figure out what people need + read people. 02:26 - Codeland Conference (http://codelandconf.com/) July 22nd, 2019 in New York City! Episode 026: Codeland, Capitalism, and Creating Inclusive Spaces with Saron Yitbarek (https://www.greaterthancode.com/codeland-capitalism-and-creating-inclusive-spaces) 03:23 - Offering Free Onsite Childcare at Conferences 07:02 - CodeNewbie (https://www.codenewbie.org/) Base.cs Podcast (https://www.codenewbie.org/basecs) The CodeNewbie Podcast (https://www.codenewbie.org/podcast) 08:18 - Expertise in Newbie-ism 14:55 - Learning and Teaching Conversation Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_theory) Virtual Reality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality) Oculus (https://www.oculus.com/?locale=en_US) 22:27 - Encouraging Asking, Psychological Safety (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_safety), and Being Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable 29:48 - Building a Supportive Community and Advice for Code Newbies Dev.to (https://dev.to/) 34:12 - Dealing with Bad Actors Episode 038: Category Theory for Normal Humans with Dr. Eugenia Cheng (Congressive/Ingressive Behavior Conversation) (https://www.greaterthancode.com/category-theory-for-normal-humans) 42:35 - Coding as a Reflection of People 49:23 - Lexicon and Creating a Shared Language Mitigated Speech (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitigated_speech) Reflections: Chanté: Everyone is a Newbie, and the living room metaphor. Rein: How much ego investment in our work is appropriate? Arty: Growing the magical living room. Saron: Thinking about mitigation speech. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316017930/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0316017930&linkId=7d8a44b649d1a6249361310db4c2a8ac) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Saron Yitbarek.

01:43 - Halleemah’s Superpower: Cultural Fluency: Operating authentically and being who you are in any space you are in. Code-switching (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching) 07:37 - Existing in Other Spaces; Active Listening 10:31 - Building Bridges to Change the Complexion of the Workforce Generation Z (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z) 15:01 - Identifying Potential Talent, Engaging Underrepresented Populations, and Doing Intentional Work to Diversify Relationships 21:17 - Change, Evolution, and Reinvention 33:25 - Resilience and Acknowledging Privilege 40:10 - Shortening the Distance for Young People; “Urban Authenticity” Reflections: Sam: A door metaphor: Things that you can do with something that you originally think of as just being just a static part of the landscape around you that you can interact with and that you can change. Rein: Maximizing the potential to shine within each person and maximizing their ability to shine throughout the world. Arty: The concept of “Cultural Fluency”. Halleemah: Radical professionalism. Rein: Bonus Reflection: Light bulbs have the ability to shine but only with their connections with others. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Halleemah Nash.

01:56 - Chanté’s Superpower: Spotting Talent (Dark Horses) 05:33 - Perceiving Talent/Potential Essentialism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism) 09:15 - Confronting Biases and Societal Categorization/Division/Labeling 18:54 - Identity as a Feedback Loop 25:04 - Health and Wellness and Human Potential 27:00 - Privilege vs Potential Actuality, Capability, Potentiality (https://www.iridiumconsulting.co.uk/2011/10/actuality-capability-potentiality/) Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/047194839X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=047194839X&linkId=b2d73f4e73d7e73161087f83fbe7dd9d) Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity) 36:31 - Framing; Framing as Related to Coaching Matt Ringel: Whiteboarding 101 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkILuL-2Dz0) Functional Fixedness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_fixedness) RailsConf 2019 - Keynote: The Stories We Tell Our Children by Ariel Caplan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKqvtAxGQOs&list=PLE7tQUdRKcyaOq3HlRm9h_Q_WhWKqm5xc&index=3&t=0s) 49:39 - Working with Organizations to Improve Diversity and Inclusion (Using Metrics) Campbell’s Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law) Reflections: John: When you pay attention to the margins, the marginalized, etc., and optimize for those getting better, you also optimize for the happiness of the rest of the people inside those margins. Jessica: Letting go of your goal allows emergence of outcomes you didn’t expect. Rein: Having values that we can use to determine whether we are moving in the direction we want to move in, and to continue to move in the direction that is towards our values. Chanté: It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality conversation. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Chanté Thurmond.

02:06 - Claire’s Superpower: The Ability to Distill Things and Catching Pellets 05:21 - Janelle’s Superpower: Seeing the Gifts of Others and Bringing Them to Surface 08:19 - Sam’s Superpower: Being Able to Make Connections Between the Shapes of Things Even if They Don’t Look the Same on the Surface 09:13 - Bad Bosses Panelist Experiences, Symptoms of Poor Leadership and Management Are We Bad Bosses?! Okay Fine Whatever: The Year I Went from Being Afraid of Everything to Only Being Afraid of Most Things by Courtenay Hameister (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316395706/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0316395706&linkId=2ea38ee8c980c0bc28c894b768c5b572) Command and Control Leadership (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_control) 26:18 - Talent vs Skill Questions to ask yourself if you’re an aspiring manager: How much do you enjoy being in Flow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology))? How much do you enjoy repeating yourself? Do you like to play detective about people? Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being by Brian R Little (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1610396383/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1610396383&linkId=a4d39d490502f94089460a5a28cb97f1) Reflections: Sam: “Do we ever think about ourselves, that we me be someone else’s worst boss?” Arty: Claire asking the panelists questions was different! (In a lovely way!) Claire: The different forms and threads that real leadership can take. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Claire Lew.

01:40 - Cat’s Superpower: Knowing What Other People’s Superpowers Are (before they do!) 03:32 - Managing a Platform with Ancient Value 07:54 - Telling Stories Within Code: History Matters 10:11 - Cat’s Journey from Finance to Tech 13:47 - Exploring Systems 17:24 - Wardley Mapping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardley_map) 31:52 - The Penguin Story: Looking For Poo-Covered Rocks 37:53 - The Power of Observation and Reflection Reflections: John: Maintaining the history of an application. Jessica: So much of the world is what we can’t see. There is value in those poo-covered rocks! Avdi: When you see a bunch of people trying to get somewhere that you don’t understand, look for the poo-covered rock. Cat: What would it look like if we had a platform bard? Janelle: Scheduling specific time to stop, reflect, and observe as teams. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Cat Swetel.

01:54 - Britni’s Superpower: Resilience; Also: Failure as an Opportunity, Wallowing, and Acceptance Is failure a “No, but…” or “Yes, and…” ? Acknowledging Emotions Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385249373/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0385249373&linkId=bdd64cd816f350b9da893433109e34c1) 10:55 - Building Support Networks and Spiritual Communities 13:16 - Facing Work Problems and Failures 16:11 - Lies Developers Tell Who is a programmer? What it’s like to be a programmer. What is or isn’t the right way to write code. Programming is easy/hard. Interpersonal skills aren’t important. Measuring success by output lines of code. Once you have x numbers of experience… You have to love the code. Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590593898/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1590593898&linkId=749568972050f1998654a90fadf7e699) Reflections: Sam: Resilience and not wallowing. Coraline: How we respond to failures and the impact it can have on other people. Britni: Naming acceptance as a step of resilience. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Britni Alexander.

Use the coupon code GREATER20OFF to get 20% off on any WNDX School course in May! 01:23 - Lori’s Superpower: Mapping 03:56 - “Positive Mania” and Getting Into Game Programming Dragon Ruby Game Toolkit (https://dragonruby.itch.io/) Galaga (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaga) 07:42 - Fun, Learning New Stuff, and Abandoning Old Stuff The WNDX Group Inc (https://www.wndx.com/) 12:42 - Cultural Differences Between Programming Language Communities 23:18 - Thoughts on Platformification Kubernetes (https://kubernetes.io/) 27:44 - Maintenance; The Evolution of Home Automation X10 Home Automation (https://www.x10.com/x10-home-automation.html) 32:13 - Mentoring Novices and Beginners Canada Learning Code (https://www.canadalearningcode.ca/) “Suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.” -- Jake the Dog (Adventure Time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time)) 37:34 - Creating Tutorials for the WNDX School (https://wndx.school/) and Getting People Excited About Programming Via Game Programming A Dark Room (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dark_Room) Since this interview: A Dark Room pulled from Switch eShop for including code editor (https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-04-29-a-dark-room-pulled-from-switch-eshop-for-including-code-editor) :’( Reflections: Jamey: “When I’m learning something new, I’m starting at the beginning, and it’s hard for me too.” Janelle: Bringing the fun back to the corporate world. Lori: We have to bring the fun to the job ourselves. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Lori Olson.

00:48 - Ben’s Superpower: Making Arancini (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arancini) and Reading A Lot of Books 02:00 - Starting Local Welcome (https://www.localwelcome.org/) and Helping Refugees Death of Alan Kurdi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Alan_Kurdi) 09:37 - Humanization, Cognitive Biases, and Heuristics Contact Hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_hypothesis) Social Constructionism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism) Social Conformity - Brain Games (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BkzvP19v4) In-group Bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism) Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374533555/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0374533555&linkId=8d08e4ff6f8ed87bf7b29239465ef9da) Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679721134/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0679721134&linkId=fa86d3e8a610bb665e32c57e718190e1) 21:25 - Empathy and Compassion; Humans Thriving Together The Compassionate Mind Foundation (https://compassionatemind.co.uk/) The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525576703/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0525576703&linkId=64c8492e8856e0c450e2570ffe8b6353) Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1603587969/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1603587969&linkId=74466c30ad41ea179c4b86feb49665af) The 36 Questions That Lead to Love (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/no-37-big-wedding-or-small.html) 31:26 - Measuring Success Conversion Financial Resilience Social Contact Hours Net Promoter Score (NPS) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter) Language Ability 41:56 - Getting People to Connect with Refugees in a Personal Way Lump of Labour Fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy) “We come together through our sameness and we grow through our differences.” ~ Virginia Satir Reflections: Rein: The idea of communicative praxis. The Self after Postmodernity by Calvin O. Schrag (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300078765/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0300078765&linkId=5527025502716e825c8a9e183aeaf558) Sam: The commodification of trust. Also, The Tyranny of Structureless (https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm): In any organization there are both explicit and implicit power structures. Changing the implicit ones. Ben: Having a safe space to reflect and have conversations. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Ben Pollard.

01:47 - Amy’s Superpower: Sustaining hope and faith in the face of what feels like no hope and no faith. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin E. P. Seligman (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400078393/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1400078393&linkId=ff6561c5b085aff3ea8027c0a0ce9cf2) 07:40 - Amy’s talk on “Suffering in the Workplace”: Genesis and Overview 13:40 - Living a Valuable Life vs a Happy Life Examining Causes Feeling The Pain Relieving Suffering by Seeking a Mindset of Innovation 24:02 - Bringing Your “Whole Self” to the Workplace; Alleviating Suffering in the Workplace 41:15 - Changing Culture in Organizations Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375714499/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0375714499&linkId=284e05bc84d39f993cf460ee90108511) 54:40 - Bipolar Disorder Reflections: Jessica: A framework for dealing with suffering. A separation of concerns between observing feelings and deciding what to do about them. Janelle: By supporting people, we can end up with a better, healthier, and more productive organization. Avdi: Kindness in the workplace and power structures. Rein: How do you convince people to care about other people? Also, work implies suffering. The obligation to reduce suffering is shared -- but not equally. Amy: Disparities amongst different types of engineers and between engineering and other departments in tech companies. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Amy Newell.

01:04 - Suzan’s Superpower: Asking Powerful Questions The Compassionate Coder (https://compassionatecoder.com/) 07:30 - Blending Technology and Coaching 10:32 - Blending Technology and Humans; Working Distributed/Remotely 15:32 - Creating Organizational Divides (Intentional and Unintentional) 20:24 - Company Cultures That Lend Themselves Well to Remote Work Theory X and Theory Y (Douglas McGregor) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y) 25:19 - Autocratic vs Autonomy 26:23 - Becoming a Coach and Learning Coaching Skills Emotional API (https://emotionalapi.com/) 30:46 - Listening to Yourself and Intuition “Good decisions get better; bad decisions get worse.” 33:28 - Management vs Leadership / Developing Leadership Skills: Deliberation and Introspection Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages (https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/) Reflections: Coraline: Powerful questions. Coaching by asking powerful questions. Suzan: The word “autonomy”. John: Asking questions to illicit insight, movement, and motivation. Ask Powerful Questions: Create Conversations That Matter by Will Wise (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1545322996/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1545322996&linkId=0e95cb5b59005b62e0cdd8b7e430b78f) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Suzan Bond.

01:42 - Sam’s Superpower: Staring at the same problem for days -- Patience and Delayed Gratification 03:42 - Effective Communication: What is fluid? 08:54 - Logging Honeycomb (https://www.honeycomb.io/) Open Sound Control (http://opensoundcontrol.org/) 12:55 - Sonic Pi (https://sonic-pi.net/) Raspberry Pi (https://www.raspberrypi.org/) Jeff Rose (@rosejn) (https://twitter.com/rosejn) overtone (https://github.com/rosejn/overtone) 22:41 - Fixed Tempo, Clocks, and Time 35:38 - Live Coding and Performance 40:58 - Teaching Kids and “Promoting Cheating” 49:21 - The Difference Between Music and Code 58:44 - Sam’s Latest Performance Experience Reflections: Jessica: Checking for understanding. Avdi: The remix culture piece of this conversation. Janelle: Everything is conversation. Sam: Thinking about programming rhythmically. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Sam Aaron.

01:45 - Helen’s Superpower: Taking Abstract Information Seeing Things Others Don’t See 05:26 - Decoding People: Asking Contextual Questions and Listening For Motivation 11:52 - The Intersection of Empathy and Neurodiversity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity) 15:14 - Being Deliberate as a Survival/Coping Skill 16:41 - Being Different, Understanding Yourself, and Discovering Your Unique Capabilities 23:22 - Interfacing with the Neurodivergent Community and Actively and Openly Talking About Neurodiversity 30:55 - Paying Attention to EQ: Emotional Intelligence 37:01 - Becoming Self-Aware Helen Needham: My guide to working with me (an autistic adult) (https://www.medecoded.com/workingwithme/) 41:05 - MeDecoded: Personal stories from the Neurodivergent & allies, in the pursuit of decoding Neurodiversity (https://www.medecoded.com/) Reflections: Jamey: Possibly implementing how to work with guides at their workplace. Jessica: Making a deliberate process out of decoding people. Avdi: It’s not about changing who you are, it’s about working with the world while you still are who you are. Janelle: Owning your own special skills and talents and taking in the hurricane. Helen: The importance of support and understanding. The world needs more silent heroes. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Helen Needham.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Persig (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060589469/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0060589469&linkId=0fccb8a5811c09d35f439ba3e559bc29) 05:21 - Persig’s Two Paradigms: Classical and Romantic 11:50 - What is beautiful? 15:49 - Quality 33:44 - Emotional Motivation 41:13 - Balancing Objective and Subjective Measures of Quality Reflections: Janelle: A shared definition of quality and creating bridges. Bryan: When you recognize you have two different categories of measures of quality, the team starts to need guardrails to push the group towards just a couple of agreed upon things. John: Taking the different value systems, and fusing them together in some degree that can help unify groups into single directions and sets of values. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Bryan Karlovitz.

01:45 - Autopoiesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis), Smell, and Passing Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9027710163/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=9027710163&linkId=e65685ed3da6564ab707b3dc29f25f5f) Thud!: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062334980/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0062334980&linkId=fa03481025e628340eef66222ce9b64f) 11:15 - The Channels in Your Head (Noise) 12:15 - GeePaw’s Superpower: Having an enormous capacity for doubt -- especially self-doubt; The Cost of Certainty 18:25 - Doubt vs Narrowing Déformation Professionnelle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9formation_professionnelle) 23:31 - Refactoring; Easiest, Nearest, Owie, First 25:53 - Defining “Better” and “Done” 30:55 - Thin vs Thick Culture 42:34 - FACT: Geeks Are Paid Extremely Well -- Why are we still not happy? 48:02 - Occupational Game Playing The System You Are Building The Game of Your Team The Game of Your Career The Game of Living Reflections: Jessica: When you act, you then see what happens. Sam: Any metric can be gamed and will be gamed. The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error' by Sidney Dekker (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1472439058/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1472439058&linkId=7bb5789c7a1859a2ceb1b9c9dd14f565) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) Special Guest: Michael "GeePaw" Hill.

01:26 - Resilience Engineering and Closed-loop Communication 06:55 - Acknowledging Burnout in the Developer Community 09:31 - Professionalization and Formal Training Nancy Leveson (http://sunnyday.mit.edu/) 17:41 - Reliability vs Resilience 20:40 - Resilience in the EMT Context 22:21 - Scene Size-up in Software 25:20 - Thai’s Superpower: The ability to remain calm in emergencies;Tech => EMT => Tech + Missing Seeing People You’re Helping The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error' (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1472439058/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1472439058&linkId=17b50ab528afd657993551046c316883) 32:11 - Incident Response + Studying Incident Response; Normalization of Deviance SNAFUcatchers (https://www.snafucatchers.com/) 40:16 - Asking Questions Cognitive Interviewing Techniques (https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-interview.html) The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312430000/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0312430000&linkId=6ede6ebee21d370699f88962dfe8877f) Reflections: Jessica: Part of resilience is how do you know where to get help? When to ask for help and who to ask. John: Following up with the cognitive interview idea. Sam: Being explicit and deliberate about thinking about process and communication as a thing that you can get better at, that you can work on, and that you can talk about. Check out with the “Working With Other Humans” track (https://railsconf.com/program/sessions#track-working-with-other-humans) that Sam is running at RailsConf 2019 (https://railsconf.com/) from April 29 - May 1 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Thai: Cognitive interviewing Pokémon. Plus emotions as a state machine. John’s Hacking Your Emotional API Talk (https://emotionalapi.com/) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Thai Wood.

01:55 - Andy’s Superpower: Explaining blindingly obvious things to people that they don’t see. The Boiled Frog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog) 08:13 - Iterative Development and Continuous Learning: Becoming Comfortable with Uncertainty 14:23 - Doing Things Differently The Black Swan Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory) 20:41 - Writing and Timeboxing Conglommora (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075T7TNH8/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B075T7TNH8&linkId=0eac3b95e2373a4f54f3e1011f32ed1a) Conglommora Found (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GTDSBFJ/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B07GTDSBFJ&linkId=c052c5c72ba109d2c8fd33a68d95febf) (Sequel) Feedback, Context, and Learning 27:39 - Why should continuous be the goal? 34:24 - Adaptability 39:28 - Making Groups More Effective 45:13 - Andy’s Software Development Journey Reflections: Janelle: Shifting from a place of complaining about the constraints of the world, to figuring out strategies for solving these problems and figuring out templates for alternatives: Setting up alternative markets and economic systems that can support alternative ways of working. Jessica: We can’t predict the future. We can’t know everything. We can’t give an accurate estimate of a number. But we can know something: we can know propensities to some degree, we can estimate in a range, and then we can choose whether to spend time researching to narrow that range. Avdi: The importance of slack time in teams and organizations. Andy: Experimentation. Learning. Context. Feedback. Rinse and repeat. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Andy Hunt.

01:55 - Bianca’s Superpower: Being a Cultural Broker 06:36 - Code-Switching (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching) and Identity As An Asset Keynote: Who and What We're Leaving Behind by Bianca Escalante @ RubyConf 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2TdaLwTnKk) Open Source for ...Bad? by Bianca Escalante @ Codeland 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8H7zfQ_rA4) 12:55 - Normalizing Conversations, Speaking About Race Openly, and the Concept of Distance Travelled 21:17 - Reconciling Failure, Repressing Feelings, and The Importance of Human Connection 34:02 - D&I: Who is responsible? Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451493249/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0451493249&linkId=27e08e824b23564bf1cde73b7962fa81) Shine Theory (https://www.annfriedman.com/shine-theory) Reflections: Bianca: Talking openly about the loneliness. John: Having to develop superpowers as coping strategies. Jamey: When times are tough, you (sometimes) get to see the best of human connection. _This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Bianca Escalante.

01:50 - Jess’s Superpower: Being a Property of a Situation Karl Popper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper) 04:25 - The Interpretation of Luck and the Psychology of Scarcity 08:17 - Physics; Physics and Software 12:06 - Conference Speaking 15:53 - Undervaluing Code 22:13 - Defining ‘Done’ in Software Development

We don’t want to define “done.” In an ongoing system, a symmathesy, there is no “done” except death.
Instead, define “better.” Then you can know you accomplished something.

— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) February 6, 2019

Email is like laundry. There is no such thing as "done."
My job is not to do the laundry, it is to keep the laundry moving.
Nor to answer all the email, but to keep some correspondence flowing.

— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) February 11, 2019

25:51 - TDD, the notion that “Coding is easy!”, and Resilience to Failure Smart Kid Syndrome (https://www.theodysseyonline.com/smart-kid-syndrome) Pairing with Bunny (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrlq1XOiSijrMGWbBlKo2Eg) 42:04 - Learning While Teaching Others Programming Avdi and Jess stumble through modern web development (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8yWDfDip1o) JessiTRONica on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/jessitronica/videos) Aikido (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido) Reflections: Jamey: Things never being “the end”. Finite and Infinite Games (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476731713/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1476731713&linkId=44899b02c0c5d4e52df176aa684e6138) (print) Finite and Infinite Games (http://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf) (pdf) Sam: There might be an ending for you, specifically, but it’s not really an ending for anyone else. Jacob: Figuring out problems by vocalizing them. Jessica: Check out recent works from Karl Popper. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jacob Stoebel.

Virginia Satir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir) The Personal Iceberg Metaphor:

Google Image Result for https://laveldanaylor.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/iceberg-ljn1.jpg

null

Hierarchical Organization of Constructs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherence_therapy#Hierarchical_organization_of_constructs) Becoming More Fully Human with Virginia Satir (http://www.intuitionnetwork.org/txt/satir2.htm)

Matty’s Talk, Fight, Flight, or Freeze — Releasing Organizational Trauma @ REdeploy 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ITD-l8fuo) 02:59 – Matt’s Superpower: Taking metaphors and ideas around self-help and turning them into allegories and analogies of how we could be better at technology The Five Love Languages of DevOps (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGCfwvjHKGI) The Four Agreements of Incident Response (https://noti.st/mattstratton/F827sZ) 03:58 – What does healing organizational trauma mean? 05:50 – Incident Response Communication 16:00 – Trust, Hyperarousal, and Hypoarousal; Stuck On or Stuck Off 23:32 – Leading By Example, Not Being in a Rush to Solve Problems, Seeking to Understand, and Encouraging Safety 29:23 – Handling Postmortems: How to do them well and how to do them effectively 39:17 – The Hero’s Story vs The Story of the People; Crafting Our Narratives John Allspaw: In the Center of the Cyclone: Finding Sources of Resilience (https://re-deploy.io/videos/11-allspaw.html) Reflections: Coraline: The metaphors of storytelling. Matty: Creating a forum of discussion around postmortems. Janelle: Thinking about Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226468011/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226468011&linkId=73f5c4c2470b0803b490491e0c0355e2) and how, at the foundation of our mind is essentially a system of shapes that we see the world through, that we reason about through, that we feel emotions through, and that creates the sense of gut. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Matt Stratton.

01:30 – Sam’s Superpower: Persistence AgileVentures Blog (https://nonprofits.agileventures.org/blog/) 08:07 – Mindfulness and Relaxation; Nonviolent Communication Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication by Shambhala (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/161180583X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=161180583X&linkId=e07f8a3564afa6fa389e061585e6fdda) 17:23 – Collaborative Communication and Learning 26:17 – The Tension Between Code/Architectural Beauty and Delivering Working Solutions That Meet End-Users Needs The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465050654/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0465050654&linkId=dc5c167dfb19d97b69d75273e29d9b75) 38:49 – Being “Used to Things” and Getting Things Done via Incremental Changes Technology Strategy: Leaky Boats and Rocket Ships (https://podtail.com/podcast/cancer-research-uk-tech-team-podcast/technology-strategy-leaky-boats-and-rocket-ships/) Reflections: John: 1) Thinking about relaxation as something you do as opposed to things you don’t do. 2) Learning how communication works and communicate better with other people more authentically. Jamey: Reading people cues is hard and beating yourself up over missed communication is not productive. Sam: Sometimes it’s okay to not have emotional energy to make changes. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Sam Joseph.

02:41 – JF’s Superpower: Systems Thinking 06:58 – Robots and Elixir (https://elixir-lang.org/) Marvin Minsky's Society of Mind (http://www.acad.bg/ebook/ml/Society%20of%20Mind.pdf) Inside Out (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/) Rodney Brooks -- Robots, AI, and other stuff (https://rodneybrooks.com/) The Brains Blog (http://philosophyofbrains.com/) 17:10 – Reapproaching Robotics, Predictive Processing, and Calibration of Attention 33:26 – Thinking and Talking About Object-Oriented Programming 43:51 – Intuition and Emergent Properties 54:02 – Unpacking Fractals “Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.” (https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/)   59:08 – The Ineffability of Smalltalk Reflections: Avdi: Trying not to do work, but sometimes finding ways to be pulled into doing work. Sam: 1) Generating predictions and then correcting your model when those predictions turn out not to be confirmed by sensory data. 2) Object-Oriented Programming should be called Message-Oriented Programming. 3) Computer science as a field really wants to be math and the people who teach computer science want to be mathematicians. Jessica: Smalltalk feeling like a cathedral where you can get a sense of the architectural beauty. Eric Evans - Good Design is Imperfect Design (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY54TmmEllY&feature=youtu.be) Jean-Francois: Aikido. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jean-Francois Cloutier.

Amr Abdelwahab - An empathy exercise: contextualising the question of privilege (EuRuKo 2018 Video) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CqmGYvFwAQ) 01:53 – Amr’s Superpower: Seeing the bigger picture. 04:24 – It’s Not Just Code 11:18 – Privilege 17:37 – Strategies For People with Privilege Who Are Open to Learning 22:57 – Why Diversity Matters and Avoiding Burnout 27:24 – Biases, Allyship, and Calling Out Others Implicit Bias Test (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html) Reflections: John: The metaphor of sexism and racism and cultural baggage being legacy code. Christina: Listen and learn. Also, pushing organizations to contribute to bigger things, but making sure they understand why they are doing it, and not doing it blindly. Coraline: We are currently living in an “unnatural state”. Equality is the natural state and we need to return to that. Amr: The ability to have a politics-free life is a privilege of its own. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Amr.

00:53 – Marcel’s Superpower: An Explosive Relationship with Laughter 01:45 – The Intersection of Public Health and Art 06:36 – Authenticity and Vulnerability; Bringing Your Whole Self While Remaining Professional 14:59 – Reading a Room and Determining Safety for Being Vulnerable & Making it Safe for People Around You While Being Vulnerable 19:41 – The Beauty of Dance 30:58 – Seeing and Being Outside The Box 38:57 – Gaining Confidence While Retaining Humility Reflections: Astrid: The feedback loop can’t be, “I’m only going to keep doing this if I’m positively affirmed.” Coraline: Vulnerability is scalable. Avdi: Being the person on the dance floor not necessarily nailing their moves perfectly, but that has a big smile on their face regardless. Jessica: Imagination is paramount to creating a better world. Marcel: Articulating the importance of art, creativity, and vulnerability. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Marcel Byrd.

01:30 – Tom’s Superpower: Hot Toddies, Eccentricity, and Talking to Animals! 04:42 – Observing Animal vs Humans Behavior and Organizational Restructuring Participant Observation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participant_observation) 10:25 – Looking For Genuine Change, Empowering Workers, and the Conflation of the terms Boss and Manager The Toyota Way (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071392319/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0071392319&linkId=2e20f648aa9ed8ef7a4b700f9bdae9c9) Adrian Bejan: The Constructal Law (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2871904/) Your Dog Is Your Mirror: The Emotional Capacity of Our Dogs and Ourselves by Kevin Behan (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608680886/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1608680886&linkId=1c385c4888e53b0dd8d1ef15cee57ec8)   Brandt Stickley (https://www.brandtstickley.com/bio/) 23:20 – Flow and How it Moves Through Systems Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organizations by Adrian Bejan (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307744345/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0307744345&linkId=51291ba0ed5aaad7adcc1aea46b9f5fb) 33:45 – Predictive and Explanatory Power The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226458121/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226458121&linkId=f7ce4eb54025fb4887e2a4046f88f70d) 37:40 – Breaking Things Down 43:37 – Alignment in Appetite and Emotion Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060589469/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0060589469&linkId=a71bd57d26eb8fccfb369abad8b5c974) 52:08 – Defining Quality 01:02:21 – Emotional Metaphors and Sensory Inputs DevOpsDays Boston 2017- Your Emotional API by John Sawers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc5HJSsYB7A) Reflections: Jessica: When the language gets woo-ey, the ideas might be new-y. Rein: Quality is individual and personal. It is subjective and intersubjective. Thomas: The best ideas are often found in uncomfortable places. John: Systems of living things are living systems. Janelle: Don’t assume you understand anything immediately when you walk into a room. Let that understanding be emergent through the process of observation. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Thomas Perry.

RubyConf 2018 - Retrospectives for Humans by Courtney Eckhardt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7R7V5wC0wA) 01:16 – Courtney’s Superpower: Explaining things. 06:50 – Incident Response: How we talk to people how are are affected by incidents Other Great Incident Response GTC Episodes! * 088: The Safety 2 Dance with Steven Shorrock (https://www.greaterthancode.com/2018/07/11/088-the-safety-2-dance-with-steven-shorrock/) * 096: Resilience Engineering with John Allspaw (http://www.greaterthancode.com/2018/09/05/096-resilience-engineering-with-john-allspaw/) 13:52 – Disabilities in the Workplace and Professional Spaces 20:25 – The Tension Between Accessibility and Security 23:20 – Developing Coping Skills in Response to a Troubled Childhood / Combatting the Feeling of Being Othered 29:16 – Incident Retrospectives and Defensiveness as a Natural Instinct to Feedback 35:29 – Showing Vulnerability "In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of." - George Armitage Miller 43:56 – Emotional Response Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465061710/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0465061710&linkId=b3f61caa5c87c1f98f62945ec2d4a75c) Mental Health First Aid (https://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/) Reflections: John: Trauma doesn’t stay in the past. Trauma has a continuous effect on our lives. Coraline: Thinking about therapy and frame it as a blameless retrospective. Sam: Referring to “post mortems” as “retrospectives” and buying the book Agile Retrospectives. (Future book club episode?!) Jamey: Even if you’re not changing things in a higher level, you can still help on a direct level. Courtney: Group therapy and handling retrospectives. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Courtney Eckhardt.

01:11 – Jaya’s Superpower: Changing situations for the better. 02:54 – What does it take to change things? 99 Percent Invisible - Pockets: Articles of Interest #3 (https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/pockets-articles-of-interest-3/) 06:37 – The Lack of Science and Technology-Themed Clothing (Especially for Children) 08:30 – How Personal of a Choice Clothing Is -- The Importance of Expressing Yourself and Shattering Stereotypes and Social Norms 25:07 – Breaking Existing Customer Feedback Systems in Order to Expand 30:06 – Starting a Business like Svaha Svaha Kickstarter Campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/svaha/svaha-clothing-to-empower-children-0) 39:03 – Coming in 2019.... 41:34 – Business Challenges Reflections: John: How important it is to have clothing that can really express who you are and validate the parts of your identity that you want socially validated. Rein: All opportunities are unique to everyone. Jaya: The first time you fail does not mean you will fail every time. Never give up. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jaya Iyer.

00:57 – Kayte’s Superpower: Taking Something That Doesn’t Exist & Making It Real 02:12 – Having Confidence 06:45 – Paying Closer Attention to Your Accomplishments lftm (https://github.com/CoralineAda/lftm) 08:30 – Dress Code at a Tactical Level 11:43 – The Intersection of Fashion and Coding 10 Cloverfield Lane (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179933/) 15:52 – Wearable Technology and Biotechnology 17:09 – Creation and Paving The Way For Women in Tech 23:17 – In-Home Coding Parties/Pop Up Shops 26:37 – Program and Course Feedback 29:57 – Debunking The Myth That Technology, Science, and STEM is For Boys 34:53 – Sign up to be find out about Holiday Promotions! 37:00 – The Gift of Innovation: Tech for Marginalized People and Communities 39:55 – Coming in 2019.... Reflections: John: Framing coding as an in-home, fun, party activity vs a classroom activity. Coraline: Focusing on your accomplishments and building confidence through positive self-talk. Kayte: Fashion tech and retail tech is exciting! This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Kayte Malik.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: Adarsh Pandit, André Arko, Jonan Scheffler, and Valerie Woolard Srinivasan.

The Ruby Central Opportunity Scholarship/Guide Program (https://rubyconf.org/scholarships) 02:13 – Superpowers: Flying, Changing Diapers, and Empathy! 03:21 – Scholars’ Favorite Parts of the Conference 06:58 – Conferencing as an Introvert: Having Conference Buddies! 08:06 – Meeting New People 10:15 – Challenges of Conferencing 11:55 – Navigating Conference Parties and the General Hubbub 17:35 – Overcoming Pressure 21:09 – Lightning Talks 26:31 – Live Mob Programming Event 30:07 – Advice For Future Scholars 34:50 – Coming to Tech From Different Backgrounds and All Walks of Life This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: Christine Seeman, Jennifer Tran, and Jeremy Schuurmans.

01:20 – Laurie’s Superpower: Being a Timesuck Impostor Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome) 08:44 – Interviewing and Hiring Developers Effectively 12:24 – Creating False Negatives: Turning Down Candidates Prematurely 18:11 – Interviewing: Working With Existing Codebases and Asking Questions About Values RailsConf 2018: The Code-Free Developer Interview by Pete Holiday (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3XRE0HvzJ8) 22:59 – How ^^ Advice Pertains to Different Sized Companies 25:54 – Getting the Entire Team Involved in Hiring Processes: People First, Technology Second 29:05 – YOU CAN USE GOOGLE!!! (It’s Not Cheating!) 33:55 – Coding: Smartness vs Patience; Coming From Non-Coding Backgrounds (and why it’s a good thing!) Set Design: Putting the "Art" in "Architecture" by Betsy Haibel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6TDVWSE9L8) 45:14 – Learning: Skill or Mindset? / Overcoming Demoralization and Overwhelm Everything Is Broken, and It's OK - John Sawers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5TjSyXR0jw) 49:43 – Keeping a Developer Journal and Dealing with Past Development Baggage Reflections: Laurie: Check out the talks we’ve linked to! Also, working together to make our industry not just accessible, but livable, enjoyable, and exciting. Jamey: Refining the interviewing and hiring process and thinking about how we evaluate the people we talk to. John: Take up space and demand the attention that you need. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

01:49 – Maurice’s Superpower: Extreme Empathy Function Podcast w/ Anil Dash (https://glitch.com/culture/function/) 04:06 – Code Switching 13:21 – Creating and Fostering Safe Conference Environments 19:34 – Overcoming Feelings of Discomfort 22:16 – Human Decisions in Software: Why We Should Care 31:57 – Trust: How We’ve Lost It and How Should We Re-establish It? A Developer Relations Bill of Rights (https://medium.com/glitch/a-developer-relations-bill-of-rights-21381920e273) AngelList (https://angel.co/) 41:24 – Establishing Trust in a Company From the Ground Up: Glitch 47:03 – Diversity in Design and Shifting Your Mindset From a Creator to a Chronicler Kim Goulbourne (https://medium.com/@kimgoulbourne) Ekpemi Anni (https://revisionpath.com/ekpemi-anni/) Senongo Akpem (https://revisionpath.com/senongo-akpem/)   Reflections: John: It’s useful to think about code switching in context of my own behavior and using it as a practice for increasing empathy by trying to determine if other people are code switching in a certain situation. Janelle: Putting myself in an outsider situation. Jess: Storytelling and experience creating. Astrid: Parents encouraging young creators. Maurice: We all have more work to do and we all have privileges we are blind to. Are you Greater Than Code? This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Maurice Cherry.

01:33 – Is Sam a Jellyfish? 03:14 – Sam’s Superpower: Making Connections Between Weird Things 05:17 – Driving Evolution 08:19 – “Fitness Landscape” and “Fitness Function” aiweirdness.com (http://aiweirdness.com/) 21:17 – How Humans Make Decisions Sam Livingston-Gray: Cognitive Shortcuts: Models, Visualizations, Metaphors, and Other Lies (http://confreaks.tv/videos/railsconf2014-cognitive-shortcuts-models-visualizations-metaphors-and-other-lies) Saccade (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade) Blindsight by Peter Watts (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765319640/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0765319640&linkId=a345cf876b10a133836d41a040601f54)   33:43 – Completion Bias 40:52 – The Importance of Clarity of Communication in Code 45:49 – Mimicry and The Theory of Mind 52:18 – Scaling, Optimizing, and Thriving as Individuals and Communities 57:38 – Rhetoric and Interacting with People Everything's an Argument (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/131908575X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=131908575X&linkId=c155c10bde6a1ad960239abaccffee75) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

01:12 – Marcus’ Superpower: Helping Engineers Become Good Bosses 02:30 – Bosses Who Don’t Wanna Boss: Ending Up in Management The Peter Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle) 10:37 – Are there people who just aren’t cut out for management or leadership? 14:20 – Applying Rationality to Organizations 20:23 – Alignment Not Agreement 24:52 – Is there a safe way to try and fail at management? Trying on Hats Ruby For Good (https://rubyforgood.org/) 31:16 – What does “BOSS” mean? Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316017930/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0316017930&linkId=0e148f2c493dbfd36e294137d6ba6651) 36:03 – The Up/Down of the Hierarchy Metaphors We Live By (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226468011/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226468011&linkId=fe51e9159155a6387c1d742001413d5f) Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling by Edgar H. Schein (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1609949811/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1609949811&linkId=35044b8aa35b0f47b24a48915323ceca) 36:03 – What are the skills that good managers have? How do you know if you’re doing a good job? Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager by Michael Lopp (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1484221575/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1484221575&linkId=ea061ab737b69a99cce64192a3f874b0) Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams by Mickey W. Mantle and Ron Lichty (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/032182203X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=032182203X&linkId=0257878e2a490afedc2e7518787a93a1) 53:26 – Giving and Receiving Feedback and Support, Reinforcing Behavior, and Focusing Attention Reflections: Jamey: Management vs. leadership. Sam: “I need this from you,” vs. “Why didn’t you do this?” Jess: When we react to something, it’s rarely about the thing we think we’re reacting to. Career narratives by Will Larson (https://lethain.com/career-narratives/) Additionally, management is like being on stage and you can be uncomfortable in your own role. Marcus: Listening to others is critical and impactful. Also, letting people taste and see what it’s like to be in management and leadership without the commitment. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Marcus Blankenship.

Greater Than Code Episode Episode 008: 99 Bottles of OOP with Sandi Metz and Katrina Owen (https://www.greaterthancode.com/2016/11/21/008-sandi-metz-and-katrina-owen/) 01:29 – Katrina’s Superpower: Organizing and Systematizing 09:44 – Motivation by Success The 5 Second Rule | Mel Robbins (https://melrobbins.com/blog/5-second-rule-everyday-courage/) Procrastination | Mel Robbins (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFOUrb-Jyq0) 18:04 – Trust and Code Review 27:04 – Systematizing and Refactoring 30:54 – Training for Circus and its Parallels with Software Development and Mentorship and Working with Others Sarah Mei: How We Make Software: A new theory of teams (https://vimeo.com/178469403) 43:12 – Deliberate Practice and the Appearance of Expertise Reflections: John: Short iterations and early feedback as a way of creating and maintaining motivation. Coraline: How to create a sense of psychological safety in code reviews, in particular. Sam: The five-second window in which you can change your behavior and increase motivation. Janelle: Feedback loops as spirals that are reinforcing towards the positive or negative. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Katrina Owen.

02:02 – Sonia’s Superpower: Talking about white supremacy and dealing with the fallout. 05:27 – Feeling Rightness and Motivation to Stand Up for Your Beliefs 10:15 – Seeing Your Advocacy and Efforts Make a Difference 12:17 – When People Disagree 16:26 – Ingroup vs Outgroup Empathy 21:17 – Intersectionality White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807047414/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0807047414&linkId=11669bcc107fb90c70c479ff4caf4b9c) 26:07 – Navigating Situations with Empathy 28:25 – Staying In Your Own Lane While Advocating For and Amplifying Others 35:39 – Educating Yourself About Race So You Want to Talk About Race (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580056776/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1580056776&linkId=df799d6b81c91ab00af441644f2ed2ff) Other Resources from Sonia: Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1408870584/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1408870584&linkId=c3274db99d9126b3cf376131a17fa6ea) The History of White People (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393339742/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0393339742&linkId=ec71e76ba6fc58ae008c0d5155fd3335)   Damon Jones on racism (https://twitter.com/nomadj1s/status/1026145187356188673?s=19) Adrian Jackson on "not all white  people" (https://twitter.com/AdrianCJax/status/900182099675811844?s=19)   38:39 – Doing The Work Reflections: Jessica: The place for these conversations is not Twitter! Coraline: Personalizing advocacy. Jamey: Our advocacy is powerful because it comes from a place of passion. John: The fixed vs growth mindset in regards to racism. Sonia: We can all be advocates and we can all be actors. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Sonia Gupta.

01:12 – Jaime’s Superpower: Taking complex ideas and figuring out the fastest way from here to there. (i.e.: logistics!) Zapier (https://zapier.com/app/home) 05:41 – Tech as a Roadblock 19:44 – Handing Off Responsibilities to Business Owners Process Street (https://www.process.st/) The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312430000/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0312430000&linkId=6e597d9265972959598d021084c9e77f) Bullet Journals (https://bulletjournal.com/) 18:09 – Identifying Ideal Clients and Attitudes Towards Technology 24:40 – Documentation 36:53 – What do clients need to know about technology? Reflections: John: Documentation is important. Jamey: Getting tech recommendations from people you trust, pick one, and do it. Don’t be paralyzed by indecision. Jaime: Document in isolation. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jaime Slutzky.

02:40 – Stephanie’s Superpower: Intellectual Curiosity 13:06 – On Being a Content PM, Technical Writer, and Ruby Together Core Team Member @azureadvocates (https://twitter.com/azureadvocates) Ruby Together (https://rubytogether.org/) 19:44 – Validating Open Source Software Contribution Write the Docs Slack Community (https://www.writethedocs.org/slack/) 24:27 – Filtering Feedback 28:14 – The Importance of Content Strategy Greater Than Code Episode 088: The Safety 2 Dance with Steven Shorrock (https://www.greaterthancode.com/2018/07/11/088-the-safety-2-dance-with-steven-shorrock/) 43:24 – Don’t Minimize Yourself! (Psst: You’re awesome!) One of the best (and worst) things about working in tech is how easy it is to get excited by something and wanting to learn it—right up until your brain tells you you're not doing enough, work harder, leading you to get overwhelmed with just how much there is to learn.

01:51 – Jenny’s Superpower: Not Giving a F*ck and Sticking Up For Others The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062457713/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0062457713&linkId=238a6a46e541fc5fec0ac8cbf0c402ce) 05:00 – Living a Remote Lifestyle and Cross-Cultural Communication 08:34 – Design and UX For International Users / Research for Local Users 18:08 – Designing to Include All People: Is it possible? 27:07 – Paid Mentorship Sunk Cost Fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost) 34:32 – Offering Mentorship Scholarships 37:15 – Privilege and Open Source Ruby Together (https://rubytogether.org/) 40:22 – Advice for People Looking to Freelance and Work Remotely Reflections: Jamey:  Weaponizing the sunk cost fallacy for themself. Sam: The importance of humans in tech and tech culture. Jessica: The difference between internationalization and localization. Jenny: Scholarships as a way to signal and inform other people what she values and what she wants to promote. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jenny Shen.

00:43 – Brandon’s Superpower: Helping Other People Discover Their Own Superpower 02:04 – Maintaining Relationships When People Change Jobs So Frequently 04:31 – Climbing The Corporate Tech Ladder and Strategizing Career Growth 10:25 – Mentorship and Power Disparity 19:00 – Management and Leadership Skills The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491973897/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1491973897&linkId=67d3f69e2e9cfebeeddc7fdcd471fe21) 10 Traits of a Great Manager, According to Google's Internal Research (Project Oxygen) (https://www.themuse.com/advice/10-behaviors-make-great-google-manager) 23:22 – Solving Problems Regardless of Job Title 27:50 – Preservation of Context 31:01 – Becoming a Manager…and Being Bad at it! 32:58 – The New Manager’s Toolkit Radical Candor   (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250103509/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1250103509&linkId=0e1d172687c583463ef71f373f8701e1) 35:08 – Techniques for Managing From Below to Influence Your Manager 38:19 – Engineers and Business-level Input Reflections: John: The deeply ingrained thread in “nerd” and “geek” culture how terrible managers are. Astrid: The power dynamics that exist that are untapped in engineering. Coraline: What kind of technical contribution do I want to leave as my legacy? Brandon: Translating skills from previous careers to new careers. Not Applicable: What Your Job Post is Really Saying This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Brandon Hays.

John Allspaw: Etsy’s Debriefing Facilitation Guide for Blameless Postmortems (https://codeascraft.com/2016/11/17/debriefing-facilitation-guide/) 01:32 – John’s Superpower: Seeing connections across domains. 05:45 – All Technical Communities Run Small, the Intersection of People, Technology, and Work, and the Resilience Engineering Community 09:07 – Variety and Complexity Requisite Variety (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics)) The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071392319/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0071392319&linkId=7ce8452504e8dd06d876719e2898eb3f) The Great Courses (https://www.thegreatcourses.com/learning) Understanding Complexity (https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/understanding-complexity.html) 17:51 – Understanding Cognitive Work 25:34 – Heuristics and Biases 31:01 – Strategies for Generating Context-Specific Questions Debriefing Facilitation Guide (Morgan Evans) (https://extfiles.etsy.com/DebriefingFacilitationGuide.pdf) 35:01 – Asking “Why?” Over “What?” Questions The PreAccident Podcast (https://preaccidentpodcast.podbean.com/) Todd Conklin: People screw up – and it happens all the time (https://conferences.oreilly.com/velocity/devops-web-performance-ny-2015/public/schedule/detail/44275) Ten challenges for making automation a “team player” in joint human-agent activity (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1363742/?reload=true) 49:33 – Analyzing and Aggregating Rational Choice Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory) Reflections: Rein: How do we deal with the objective/subjective dialectic? Janelle: The thing we focus on and pay attention to is a clear signal of what matters. Jessica: Looking up the Knowledge Elicitation Methods. Rein: It takes variety to match variety. John A.: Guiding dialogue data. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: John Allspaw.

01:20 – Heidi’s Superpower: Being Able to Remember Where Other People Set Things Down 03:53 – Where will software be in three years? Greater Than Code Episode 084: Federation Is Bad with Aurynn Shaw (https://www.greaterthancode.com/2018/06/13/084-federation-is-bad-with-aurynn-shaw/) 08:28 – Resilience in People and Software Bob Marshall / @flowchainsensei (https://twitter.com/flowchainsensei) 12:00 – Developer Relations Heidi’s Lady Conference Speaker Blog Posts (http://www.heidiwaterhouse.com/category/lady-conference-speaker/) 19:24 – Measuring Success in Developer Relations 23:43 – Fostering Relationships 29:13 – Life Hacks for ADD and Claiming Personal Space 41:37 – Housekeeping and Code Review; Clean Fights The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080241270X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=080241270X&linkId=f2f4f5d266d29e3b7514a344967b23e2) Reflections: Astrid: The things you say can be heard by someone else a different way. John: If you think about what you need out of your household or codebase as being your preference, it allows you to work with people who have other preferences more easily. Jamey: There’s always somebody that is going to care about something. Jessica: Spreading enthusiasm without judging people who aren’t enthusiastic about the same things as you are. Heidi: Being able to discuss the emotional needs of having your own needs and space while having to compromise both in code and life. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Heidi Waterhouse.

01:07 – April’s Superpower: Synthesizing Seemingly Unrelated Concepts to Create Something New 02:30 – Tension Between Code and Compassion 05:47 – Living According to Your Values 11:33 – Team Values and Feedback Loops 17:23 – Changing Social Makeups of Teams 22:22 – Conscious Business 32:51 – Self-Compassion and Forgiveness 40:34 – Alleviating Pain and Suffering 43:51 – Being Kind vs Being Nice 47:16 – Having Hard Conversations 51:15 – “Clever” Code Reflections: Sam: Capturing how zero-sum thinking works and holding compassion for yourself and other people. John: Putting values evaluations into regular retrospectives. April: You don’t just apply compassion in isolation. True compassion is unconditional. Janelle: Helping to relieve quiet suffering. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: April Wensel.

Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile (Print Version) (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262525968/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0262525968&linkId=e09a1ed21dc65f0235d273fa6e30db5b) 01:57 – Eden’s Superpower: Being a Patient Learner 06:51 – Determining Your Ability/Eligibility to Speak as an Expert 08:55 – Electrical Engineering => Law => PhD Work 12:47 – The History of Cybernetics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics) 15:51 – American vs British Cybernetics The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future by Andrew Pickering (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226667901/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226667901&linkId=442c315bcdda3e32db2428df1dfab243) Grey Walter’s Tortoises (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLULRlmXkKo) 17:37 – The Many Definitions of Cybernetics The Cybernetics Moment: Or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age (New Studies in American Intellectual and Cultural History) by Ronald R. Kline (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/142142424X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=142142424X&linkId=446c68cf5c6674b14e216d1099f09f05) 25:03 – Project Cybersyn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn) 45:56 – Sociotechnical Engineering 53:24 – Creating Ethically Sound Tools Reflections: Astrid: The power dynamics that are already baked into our tools and the history of computing is global. Jessica: Looking into second-order cybernetics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-order_cybernetics). Rein: The importance of learning about history, culture, and how people work as being necessary for a technical career. Eden: Making connections throughout the show. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Eden Medina.

01:09 – Rob’s Superpower: Ambition 05:00 – Designing and Testing for Accessibility Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview (https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/) World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Standards (https://www.w3.org/standards/) Your Emotional API (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc5HJSsYB7A) 16:36 – Hard Problems and “Squishy Problems” 19:49 – Rob’s Getting Involved with and Caring About Accessibility Story 31:03 – The Accessibility World on the Web has an Accessible Problem 38:04 – Moving From a Developer Role to a Business-y Role Within a Company Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott (Book) (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250103509/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1250103509&linkId=c16b028f19c15b6e55d044f558d23f99) Radical Candor — The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss (Talk) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yODalLQ2lM) “We are investing in Rob the person, not Rob the developer.” ~ Brandon Hays (https://twitter.com/tehviking) Reflections: John: Thinking about people problems as engineering problems. Jessica: The Frontside as a human company that cares about the people in it. Rob: The Human API. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Rob DeLuca.

02:03 – Kim’s Superpower: Being able to solve puzzles and problems and teaching others to do the same. 05:39 – Speaking and Teaching Math 11:44 – Using Technology to Visualize Math: Quilting, Sewing, Playdough, Boxes 13:53 – Incorporating Programming Into Math Classes Processing (https://processing.org/) 16:01 – Specialization and Efficiency 23:38 – The Cinderella Dress in Action (https://twitter.com/kvdspek/status/929783888527937538) 27:06 – Talking About Process, Mistakes, and Failures 34:56 –Teaching Problem Solving and Failure 39:08 – Perseverance Over Content Reflections: Coraline: Show your work. lftm (https://github.com/CoralineAda/lftm) Sam: The value of perspective. Jessica: To be perfect, it has to be repeatable for particular people in a particular context. John: Obstacles parallelisms. Fail first, learn from the failure, get better. But planning for that is integral. Kim: Productive failure, trial and error, and doing beautiful things. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Kim Vanderspek.

02:03 – Chelsea’s Superpower: Pushing through and enduring discomfort to accomplish things 06:24 – The Act of Writing and Reflection: Journaling as a Tool for Learning; Commit Tracing Coxswain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coxswain) 14:27 – Getting and Dealing with Feedback 17:44 – Measuring Participation in Meetings Why are there always technical problems in remote meetings? (https://chelseatroy.com/2018/03/22/why-are-there-always-technical-problems-in-remote-meetings/) Why do remote meetings suck so much? (caucus checklist) (https://chelseatroy.com/2018/03/29/why-do-remote-meetings-suck-so-much/) How do we make remote meetings not suck? (follow-up post) (https://chelseatroy.com/2018/04/05/how-do-we-make-remote-meetings-not-suck/) 23:51 – Implementing Structure in Meetings Valerie Aurora: Meeting Skills (https://frameshiftconsulting.com/meeting-skills/) 31:58 – Cultivating Questions Kindly Without Assumption or Judgement No Feigning Surprise: The Recurse Center User’s Manual (https://www.recurse.com/manual) xkcd: Ten Thousand (https://www.xkcd.com/1053/) SOAP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP) 39:03 – The Problem with Claiming “Self-Taught” “The common industry accepted term to describe how I learned programming is “self-taught” but I’ve always found that so strange, considering all of the resources and communities that have helped me along the way.” – Jacob Stoebel Reflections: Jamey: Extending empathy to other people. Chelsea: The story of where things come from and the people they come from can make them both much more interesting and much more accessible. Coraline: The value of history. Sam: One of the best ways to understand a tool is to understand the context that existed before the tool existed. The nature of a caucus penalizes people for listening. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Chelsea Troy.

Greater Than Code Episode 001: Taking Payments on the Web with Noel Rappin (https://www.greaterthancode.com/2016/09/28/episode-001-noel-rappin-2/) 02:58 – Noel’s Superpower: Extrapolating and Explaining Consequences of Tech Decisions to Others 06:24 – Cultural Patterns of How Organizations Develop Software; Should this process be standardized? 16:07 – Agile Adoption: Pros and Cons The Leprechauns of Software Engineering: How folklore turns into fact and what to do about it by Laurent Bossavit (https://leanpub.com/leprechauns) The Journal of Irreproducible Results (http://www.jir.com/) 26:40 – Making Decisions Without No Scientific Evidence 32:05 – Metaphors for Software Engineering and Legitimizing the Profession 38:33 – Trust-Driven Development 44:12 – Decision Making Among Teams Reflections: Rein: We are working with systems that we can’t fully define and the idea that we’re acting on systems that we’re a part of. Therefore, it changes the observer effect. Jessica: Getting the ships to all go in the same direction. Coraline: The understanding of our place in a given context. Noel: Aligning process, values, culture, and goals, and doing that to make teams work better. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Noel Rappin.

01:46 – Steven’s Superpower: Being a Super-Recognizer and Empathy Steven Shorrock on the myth of human error (Courtney Nash & O’Reilly Radar) (https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/steven-shorrock-on-the-myth-of-human-error) 04:21 – Steven’s Occupational History, Background, and Mission: System Performance and Human Wellbeing 08:19 – Critical Incident Stress Management 10:40 – Social Capital (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital), Bonds Within Groups, and Connectors Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset-based_community_development) Appreciative Inquiry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appreciative_inquiry) ABCD: Gifts, Skills, Passions 29:37 – Cognitive Empathy vs Emotional Empathy, and Creating Serendipity 36:33 – Safety-I and Safety-II 55:11 – Work-As-Imagined & Work-As-Done (https://www.eurocontrol.int/sites/default/files/publication/files/hindsight-25.pdf); Work-As-Prescribed, Work-As-Disclosed Reflections: John: ABCD and thinking about ways to incorporate into everyday life. Jamey: People who are connectors vs networkers vs gappers; differences are subtle but there. Jessica: When you start at a small company, you know everyone in the organization; so then as the company grows, you continue to know someone in every part of the organization. In people’s assets there are gifts, skills, and passion, and we tend to hire only for skills, which is also the only one of these things that is easy to change. Steven: What do the people closest to you say your gifts are? This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Steven Shorrock.

02:17 – Chad’s Superpower: Empathy! 07:47 – Using Introspection For a Means to Recover from and Deal with Bipolar Disorder 10:51 – Modeling Yourself 16:35 – The Importance of Self-Care 19:22 – Practicing Empathy and Compassion The Compassionate Coder (https://compassionatecoder.com/) Your most important skill: Empathy (http://chadfowler.com/2014/01/19/empathy.html) 36:25 – Expressing Your Unique Voice 40:34 – Merit-based Rewards Systems The Post-Meritocracy Manifesto (https://postmeritocracy.org/) OKR: Objectives and Key Results (https://weekdone.com/resources/objectives-key-results) 55:11 – Management and Leadership Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders by L. David Marquet (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591846404/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1591846404&linkId=d5e83b9d78528f89464e16cd79edacc0) Goodhart’s Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law) Reflections: Coraline: Freeing yourself from “supposed to”. John: Focusing on self as a gateway to understanding other people. Jessica: Our duty in the world in order to help other people emotionally is to take care of ourselves. Rein: Cybernetics of Human Learning and Performance by Gordon Pask (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0844808210/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0844808210&linkId=ffdc522918ebafc6aff68e0e41126733) Chad: Running internal dialogues that you have with yourself constantly through a bunch of other people who are thinking about the same things. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Chad Fowler.

01:18 – Oliver’s Superpower: The Ability to Read 01:54 – Cognitive Science (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science) and Emotional Cognition George Lakehoff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff) Restylane Injections (https://www.restylaneusa.com/) The effects of BOTOX injections on emotional experience. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20515231) 11:24 – How People Think When They Code and the Intersection Between Mind and Body fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_magnetic_resonance_imaging) Brodmann Area (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brodmann_area) 15:38 – The Importance of Cultural Capital (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_capital) 14:42 – Flow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: All About Flow & Positive Psychology (https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-father-of-flow/) Flow Genome Project (https://www.flowgenomeproject.com/) The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance by Steven Kotler (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477800832/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1477800832&linkId=7aeefc6fa631ba4bc8664ac3703eb20b) Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062429663/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0062429663&linkId=a87586ac3f9f3402d058767e7d5d6398) How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594204225/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1594204225&linkId=d426bb0e62f7b08c8eef59c7ea1dd1f6) 21:33 – Ritual in Developer and Engineer Culture 29:24 – Achieving Flow During Pair Programming / Hedonic Balance Dr. John Gottman: Bids for Connection (https://www.improveyoursocialskills.com/gottman-bids-for-connection) 42:29 – Emotional Intelligence and Progress Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy by Bruno Latour (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674013476/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0674013476&linkId=02ed1da7ed21e221c052ba8a0ec2637d) 57:00 – Culture. What is Culture? *More from Oliver: * Debunking Three Myths About How We Think When We Code Reflections: Sam: One’s ability to solve problems as a technical person depends as much on one’s social network and social skills as it does on technical knowledge. Jamey: You can affect things about yourself by being mindful of facts about your body. John: Teams and effectiveness: People you work with are important. Rein: In the future, we’ll realize that the code we wrote was a very small and unimportant artifact of what we’re doing as communities and cultures. Oliver: Engaging with others who think about these things and who realize how high the stakes are. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jesse Oliver Sanford.

Buy the book! Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393634639/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0393634639&linkId=50c978567df28c98caf843e36cce54c1) 01:02 – Sara’s Superpower: Communication and Connecting the Dots 03:43 – The Process of Writing, Editing, and Communicating the Book 06:17 – A Summary of Technically Wrong 11:13 – The Harms and Risk of Data Sharing on Social Media 14:42 – Bias and Algorithms Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Umoja Noble (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1479837245/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1479837245&linkId=893aaee0ae5d1c2134528f60421b2b66) 23:50 – Machine Learning and Image Recognition 28:48 – Ethics Training and Responsibility RubyConf 2017: Finding Responsibility by Caleb Thompson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBdBoWAtLNI) 35:45 – Paternalizm (https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalizm) / Parochialism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parochialism) Reflections: Astrid: How we can get people to start making changes based off what we basically know. John: Stress cases: Thinking about the ideal user and what are the qualities of other users that may be affected by the way something is presented? Jamey: The importance of having cultures in tech and workplaces that are not homogenized. Sara: We don’t get better at anything if we don’t talk about it and practice it. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Sara Wachter-Boettcher.

01:30 – Federation and Your Internet Identity Mastodon (https://joinmastodon.org/) Stayin’ Alive in Technology: Who Are You? Coraline Ada Ehmke and Identity on the Internet (https://player.fm/series/stayin-alive-in-technology/who-are-you-coraline-ada-ehmke-and-identity-on-the-internet) 05:59 – Flaws of Federated Identity Usenet (https://www.usenet.org/en) 10:18 – Onboarding Eternal September (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September) 28:51 – All Technology is Political & Speech At All Costs The Californian Ideology (http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/17/the-californian-ideology-2/) Survivor Bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias) 15:45 – Mastodon Vs. Twitter and The Social Cost of Running an Instance 21:56 – When People React: Internet Backlash and Defensiveness The Post-Meritocracy Manifesto (https://postmeritocracy.org/) Poe’s Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law) 30:58 – Service Lock-in 37:48 – Losing Your Identity: The Failure of witches.town 39:32 – Creating Sub/Micro Federations/Communities Metcalfe’s Law This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Aurynn Shaw.

01:10 – Tim’s Superpower: Keeping Himself From Laughing / Improv 04:19 – Tim’s Journey as a Programmer 09:12 – The Collision of Values Within the Programming Industry and The Meaning and Measurement of “Intelligence” 22:39 – Using Programming to Satisfy Emotional Needs and Form Identity 37:30 – Merit and Identity as a Zero-Sum Game 40:49 – The Struggle of Giving Up / Embracing Labels 49:34 – Collectively Creating an Emotionally Healthy Atmosphere Within the Software Industry Reflections: Coraline: What are the countervalues that go against meritocracy? The Post-Meritocracy Manifesto (https://postmeritocracy.org/) Jessica: Read Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse. John: The emotional need for people to belong to various groups and things we can do to help people get into healthier spaces. Tim: Listen to Darkness on the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen. Also, how to talk about the inner struggle people have to belong in a positive way. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Tim Chevalier.

01:44 – Contempt Culture: An Overview Aurynn Shaw: Contempt Culture (https://blog.aurynn.com/tagged/contempt-culture) 12:40 – Calling Others Out For Things and Distributing That Labor 17:16 – Technical Superiority (Technology is political) 21:24 – The Cultural Impact of DevOps 28:51 – Introducing Organizational Changes in DevOps 32:11 – Outcome Focus Vs Procedural Focus 35:02 – Siloing and Process: “How does this help you?” Jenny Bramble: Risk Based Testing: Creating a Language Around Risk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfs1JT_Hcaw&feature=youtu.be) 47:56 – Context Reflections: John: Smuggling ideas into spaces without bringing historical baggage along. Coraline: Knowing that technolgy choices are political, paving the way for making the right technology choices. Sam: Understanding your own context so you can explain it to others. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Aurynn Shaw.

02:14 – John’s Superpower: Talking About Feelings in Public 04:57 – Programmers and Feelings Coraline Ada Ehmke: Emotions as State Machines (https://www.greaterthancode.com/2017/07/12/emotions-as-state-machines/) 09:39 – Being Educated About Your Emotions https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcSyorTUwAA5UOx.jpg image via https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcSyorTUwAA5UOx.jpg 16:12 – Feelings As Addictions, Comparing Your Experiences to Others’ Experiences, and Setting Boundaries 24:05 – Emotional API 28:53 – Cognitive Deficits of Not Handling Emotions and Cognitive Benefits of Developing Fluency with Emotions Analysis Paralysis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis) 34:02 – Doing Work to Understand Your Emotions “Practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent.” ~ Katrina Owen 36:34 – Getting Paid/Getting Further for Having and Learning About Emotional Intelligence 41:18 – Negative Effects on Teams When Individuals Refuse to Acknowledge Emotions 43:59 – Influencing Emotions and Emotional Responses Dialectical Behavior Therapy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy) TIP: Temperature Change, Intense Exercise, Progressive Relaxation (https://peerguideddbtlessons.weebly.com/tip-skills.html) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

02:05 – Knitting and Computing Software Art Thou: Knit One, Compute One with Kris Howard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEn4Izv0DW8) Ravelry (https://www.ravelry.com/account/login) 06:17 – The Knitting Community Vs The Software Community 09:38 – Moderation and Clear Communication of Expectations 12:50 – Welcoming New People 14:45 – Muscle Memory and Workflow; Teaching Others 19:09 – Information Exchange and Spreading Knowledge knitml (https://github.com/fiddlerpianist/knitml) freesewing.org (https://freesewing.org/) 25:16 – User Focus Vs Creator Focus 27:07 – Kris’ Superpower: Being a Social Extrovert 35:39 – Hard Work Vs Reframing 40:51 – Gender Differences in “Crafting” "Read a comment this morning stating that Maker culture is 80% male and had to laugh. Only if you discount the millions of women sewing, knitting, weaving, and more. But oh right, they're just "crafters." That artificial distinction enrages me.

02:05 – Schneems’ Superpower: Not being grossed out by baby poop! And, debugging. 06:03 – The Skill and The Art of Troubleshooting 18:12 – Interviewing and Evaluating People 32:07 – Working in Open Source 37:17 – The Tension Between Structure and Agency 40:32 – The Role of Empathy in Open Source 50:52 – Bringing Open Source Values Into Companies 57:33 – Putting Machines in the Middle of People Reflections: Jamey: Gut feelings vs objective data. John: Dealing with unfriendly support cases and still having empathy. Rein: Being able to stay centered when things pull you off balance. Janelle: Respect as currency. Richard: Leaving emotions behind in pull requests. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Richard Schneeman.

02:01 – Superpowers: Kenzi = Consensus Building; Laurie: Confuging Apache Quickly Conversation Context (https://twitter.com/seldo/status/937772610997313536) 03:35 – Trans-Inclusive Policy at npm and Cloud City Kaiser (https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/) TriNet (https://www.trinet.com/) 12:41 – Determining Whether Insurance is Trans-Friendly “Transgender insurance benefits employer guide” Google Search (https://www.google.com/search?q=transgender+insurance+employer&oq=transgender+insurance+employer&aqs=chrome..69i57.12196j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) The Transgender Law Center (https://transgenderlawcenter.org/) 15:16 – Biases Exist in Healthcare Broken Arm Syndrome (https://www.dailydot.com/irl/trans-broken-arm-syndrome-healthcare/) 20:54 – The Problem with Primary Care Physicians and Care 26:44 – Feedback from Doctors 32:00 – Why This Topic is Becoming More Commonplace and Important in Society 37:39 – Trans-Inclusive Healthcare as a Business Advantage for Companies 42:22 – How To Be an Ally in the Fight for Trans-Inclusive Healthcare 46:37 – What can primary care doctors do to signal they care about these issues? Reflections: Laurie: Do the legwork for your trans employees. John: Once you cover the edge cases, it makes the happy path even happier. Coraline: The additional challenges of non binary people. Kenzi: We have a responsibility as tech workers when we are building the system to be better about it. Carina C. Zona: Schemas for the Real World Jessica: You can’t come out as something you don’t know exists. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: Kenzi Connor and Laurie Voss.

RubyConf 2017: Lending Privilege by Anjuan Simmons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd4PsSk_0iQ) 01:18 – Anjuan’s Superpower: Flexibility 04:55 – Cultivating Variety on Teams 08:22 – What makes a great team? 13:46 – Empowering Others 19:21 – Culture Fit 21:24 – The Tension Between Structure and Agency 24:35 – Creating Space for People to Shine 33:46 – Responses to “Weirdness” 38:27 – Building Constructive and Authentic Relationships with People 41:12 – Having Visible Differences on Teams 43:53 – “Othering” 49:29 – Earning Trust by Listening to People Reflections: Sam: Safety can improve teams and lead to wonderful harmonies. Rein: Building caring and genuine relationships with other people and valuing them for who they are. Janelle: Getting to know people and giving them space to take off their masks to be their unique selves. Anjuan: Safety is a foundational aspect of life. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Anjuan Simmons.

In this special episode of Greater Than Code, the panelists and guest panelists talk to an audience live from RailsConf 2018 about our relationship with our code, and the ways we have emotional ties with what we do, but also how there’s more to it than that. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: Dinah Shi, Nick Quaranto, and Vaidehi Joshi.

This episode touches on the topics of privilege and having tough conversations when not feeling it’s your place to have those conversations. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

02:40 – Coraline’s Superpower: Boundless Energy 06:16 – Practicing Self-Care and Outsourcing 12:20 – Being a “Code Witch” and Perceiving the Construct of Reality 17:25 – Evocation (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/evocation) and Invocation (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/invocation) 20:52 – Being Deliberate: Refactoring Your Code and Refactoring Your Life 32:13 – Documentation and Naming Things 38:48 – Writing Magic and Writing Code; Thoughtforms Drood by Dan Simmons (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031600703X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=031600703X&linkId=d0f51d85194e87b83637277f5c6dccbb) 43:20 – Impressions and Personas; Sympathy and Empathy Brené Brown on Empathy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw) 51:58 – Acquiring Boundless Energy and Badassery This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

01:41 – Astrid’s Superpower: Being Analytical and Logical 04:33 – Social Scientists and Technology 12:47 – Professionalization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professionalization) The Code of Ethics Project: Data For Democracy (https://www.datafordemocracy.org/projects/ethics.html) 20:00 – A Day in the Life of a Social Scientist 25:39 – Social Science and Design 32:13 – Working in Numbers-based Environments Obliquity: Why Our Goals Are Best Achieved Indirectly (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143120557/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0143120557&linkId=cbbebebf974e18281676e2fe51693b88) 46:41 – Influence and Control 55:05 – Social Media 58:59 – Work/Life Balance and Prioritization This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

01:41 – Dan’s Superpower: Optimization 03:26 – Are “Improve” and “Optimize” the same thing? Kaizen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen) Kaikaku (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaikaku) Cost Accounting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_accounting) 17:20 – How is cost accounting affected by demographics and privilege? 33:34 – Team Alignment, Collectiveness, and Camaraderie 37:42 – Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior-driven_development) vs Test-Driven Development (TDD) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development) Write the executable specifications to guide development. Then, delete most of them to optimize for documentation. Don’t pretend that the code is tested; that’s quite different. from @tastapod (https://twitter.com/tastapod?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) on @greaterthancode (https://twitter.com/greaterthancode?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) — Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) March 14, 2018 (https://twitter.com/jessitron/status/973987032094728192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) 58:00 – Customer Empathy Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321503627/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0321503627&linkId=4a035427b40d7639d3ce1d4431eb7c49) Reflections: Jessica: Meeting a customer need = congressive. Dan: Collaboration is how you get work done. Jamey: Replacing “responsibility” with “duty of care”. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Dan North.

01:53 – Kerri’s Superpower: Looking ahead to the future. 08:33 – Community Gatekeeping and Contempt Culture Liz Baillie: The Illustrated Adventure Survival Guide for New Rustaceans @ RustConf 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce6ppwgF4SA) Slides ^^ (https://www.slideshare.net/LizBaillie/rustconf-2016-illustrated-adventure-guide-65894363) Sam Livingston-Gray: Cognitive Shortcuts: Models, Visualizations, Metaphors, and Other Lies @ RailsConf2014 (http://confreaks.tv/videos/railsconf2014-cognitive-shortcuts-models-visualizations-metaphors-and-other-lies) Slides ^^ (https://www.slideshare.net/geeksam/cognitive-shortcuts-models-visualizations-metaphors-and-other-lies) 16:03 – The Contextual Framing of Storytelling Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262510871/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0262510871&linkId=9568bc985aaaabdcf2e7be1e9d99bd85) Ada Developers Academy (https://www.adadevelopersacademy.org/) Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1512212938/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1512212938&linkId=a64e456d870048a8cbec54caf4a2d794) 31:50 – Retaining Information and Explaining Things to Others 44:05 – Technical Jargon: Tactical and Strategic 47:39 – Storytelling is Everywhere Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250061539/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1250061539&linkId=c44d2647a340ce0a4ca596ae7056cd7e) 52:50 – Telling Stories Over and Over and Over and Over and Over … 55:53 – Crafting the Elements of a Story Avdi Grimm: Confident Code at Cascadia Ruby 2011 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfXEwvmCWvc) 01:01:39 – What the heck is a Lackwit Gadabout? Reflections: Sam: The distinction between behavior and identity. Christina: Storytelling is super important. Jamey: It’s helpful to care about something before you learn it. Kerri: Next time you do a Git commit, don’t do -m. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Kerri Miller.

02:41 – Rein’s Superpower: Perceiving and Being Aware of Connections Between Things and People 03:49 – Power Dynamics in Companies 05:41 – Inherent Value and Self-Esteem; Recovering From Failure Virginia Satir: Communication and Congruence (http://www.thinkingallowed.com/2vsatir.html) 11:35 – Modeling Behavior and Controlling Outcomes as a Person in a Position of Power The Virginia Satir Model of Family Therapy (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0831400781/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0831400781&linkId=418b629f47a7ce552315ec0680cf7a5a) 17:58 – Hierarchical Organization vs Growth-Oriented Organization Kanban (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban) The Toyota System (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System) 24:33 – The Problem with Labeling Teams as “Family” 32:04 – Making Choices That Are Right for Yourself; Experimentation Anomie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie) Ikigai (Ikigai) 39:01 – Haskell and Strategies for Learning and Reading Papers 44:51 – Being Present and Truly Seeing Others; Being OK with Not Being OK The Satir Interaction Model (http://stevenmsmith.com/AONW/Satir%20Interaction%20Model.pdf) What Do You Do With the Mad You Feel? Mr. Rogers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=xTs73qO5ehk) 48:20 – Intentions Matter 50:31 – Advice for Perceiving and Being Aware of Connections Between Things and People Cognitive Dissonance “You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all.” ~ Maya Angelou This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

02:10 – Kale’s Origin Story 05:10 – Connecting Through Story and Voice The Law of Raspberry Jam (http://jimhighsmith.com/the-law-of-raspberry-jam-reflecting-on-agile-progress/) 08:17 – Communicating Through Text vs Communicating Through Speech Daniel Quinn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Quinn) Ishmael by Daniel Quinn (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553375407/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0553375407&linkId=fa6024b1c5c310297ac46931087ccfba) 12:43 – Kale’s Superpower: Facilitating the Voices of Other People Hudson Valley Tech Meetup (https://www.meetup.com/hvtech/) Catskills Conf (https://catskillsconf.com/) 17:28 – Running Unconventional Events and Conferences; Trust and Taking Risks 25:10 – Creating Opportunities and Accepting Offerings 27:49 – Encouraging Diverse Attendance and Making People Feel Welcome Virtue Signalling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling) 38:45 – Interpreting Intentions, Actions, and Reactions; Centering Yourself and Being Vulnerable Reflections: Kale: People matter. Jamey: Helping people be heard both physically and metaphorically. Astrid: Trust fall into the universe. Rein: Building the stage so that other people can speak from it makes a great ally. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Kale Kaposhilin.

Greater Than Code Episode 002: Neutralizing Impostor Syndrome with Avdi Grimm 01:52 – Avdi’s Superpower: The Power of Inspiration, RubyConf India (https://www.rubyconfindia.org/), and International Conferences vs Domestic 04:28 – The Pursuit of a Fixed Life: Achieving or Avoiding Stasis Blog Post: I was trying to end my life (http://journal.avdi.org/2017/12/31/i-was-trying-to-end-my-life/) 08:40 – Living in the Future and Having Goals 16:36 – Hitting Career Stasis vs Identity Stasis 25:23 – Becoming a Visible Person in Tech 31:27 – Encouraging and Inspiring People to Find Their Potential and Value 44:23 – Being Authentic and Transparent to the World Reflections: Coraline: Identity matters. Rein: How identity and society interact: Symbolic Interactionism. Also, having therapeutic relationships. Jessica: Two energies, internally, of being ‘grounded’ and ‘inspired’ and those feeding into ‘connection’, together. Also, we have identity in the now and in the future. The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin Janelle: Being present and listening, connecting, and internalizing to form new thoughts you wouldn’t have had otherwise. Avdi: Identity in the now and identity in the future forms an arrow. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

01:28 – Gerry’s Superpower: Building Resilience 02:51 – What is Resilience? 08:59 – Creating an Atmosphere of Psychological Safety 11:04 – Having Tough Conversations: Resilience on the Societal Level 18:41 – Moving Other People Forward and Leading Others as a Senior Dev 27:07 – Code Chitakwas 33:10 – Devaluing the Notion of Intellect Reflections: Gerry: What is “smart”, really and how are we smart enough to make the room of smart people bigger? Coraline: Thinking of myself as a leader in my company and think about it can use the influence that I have to make sure that we’re creating and fostering a culture where we do face down the big problems. Jamey: Being right, being new, and making process. Also, valuing intellect and having uncomfortable conversations. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Gerry Valentine.

01:09 – Ashanti’s Superpower: People say they’re funny on Twitter! 02:37 – Having Dialogue and Engaging with Others on Twitter 07:42 – Finding Safe Online Community Networks via Social Media Platforms 16:13 – Making Platforms Safer 18:06 – Perspectives on Blocking https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/listentoyourself.png 25:05 – Perspectives on Real Name Policies 29:59 – Gender Identity Education 36:57 – Transitioning in While Working in Tech Reflections: Rein: Listening and learning about trans experiences. Coraline: Taking care of how we are presenting ourselves to the world. Jamey: The act of sharing and receiving information as a give and take. Ashanti: Conversation flows much more freely when people are in safe spaces. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Ashanti-Mutinta.

01:15 – Allison’s Superpower: Making Unplanned and Hectic Situations Work Out The Stockdale Paradox (https://www.ndoherty.com/stockdale-paradox/) 06:43 – Getting Into Agriculture 08:54 – Building a Company Culture 13:19 – Transmitting Culture and Core Values When Hiring New People 20:02 – Disagreeing Respectfully and Maintaining Strong Opinions 25:19 – Clear Boundaries Between Work and Home Life 32:34 – What Tech Look Looks Like in the Context of a Working Farm 40:27 – Writing Code for Non-Technical People Reflections: Coraline: Practicing empathy for the user when writing software. Jamey: Consciously make space for people who don’t speak as loudly as other people. Sam: Learn something new every day. Allison: How different people want to work remotely and how we can create an open way to actually do that. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Allison Kopf.

Software Design Decoded: 66 Ways Experts Think (The MIT Press) by Marian Petre and André van der Hoek (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262035189/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0262035189&linkId=df177ad25f96058d8857b79d30b6cf2e) 01:39 – Marian’s Superpower: Picking Brains Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking by Douglas Hofstadter (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465018475/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0465018475&linkId=b4167a63b9987f095980f513ab736f3f) 03:28 – André’s Superpower: Identifying Patterns 04:23 – Design Thinking Within Companies and The Error by Proxy Phenomenon 09:19 – The Notion that Design Has Gone Away 12:18 – Radical vs Normal Design: What drives the need for radical design? When does normal design stop being effective? 19:55 – The Democratization of Software Development 24:45 – Software Design Decoded: 66 Ways Experts Think 27:45 – The Disconnect Between Academic Research and Actual Practice 29:25 – Why “Decoded”? 32:59 – How People Deal with Systems That Are Too Big 39:19 – Problem Solving and Problem Solving in the Context of Complex Software Systems 44:29 – The Notion of the Toolbox and Breaking Down Big Problems Into Smaller Problems Reflections: Coraline: There are two types of gurus. Rein: The democratization of software development and steering organizations. Jessica: Studying the bug rather than squashing the bug and experts are in the room twice. Jamey: Designers saying that, “My job IS hard!” and being kind to themselves. André and Marian: Having these conversations and interacting with people in this industry. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: André van der Hoek and Marian Petre .

00:58 – Aditya’s Superpower: Parking Karma 03:18 – Algorithmic Decision Making in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence 09:06 – Recognizing the Effects of Bias The Bias Blind Spot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_blind_spot) The Babadook (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2321549/) 18:07 – Health and Technology: How can technology have a meaningful impact on care delivery? 23:54 – Why are people frightened of automation? 33:33 – Storytelling in Software and Engineering Reflections: Sam: Be a little bit more aware of how stories are told. Aditya: Thinking of yourself as an editor for the story. Jamey: The difference between can we build this and should we build this? This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Aditya Mukerjee.

01:22 – Rehema’s Superpower: Empathy 02:53 – Rehema’s “Untypical” Origin Story 07:20 – Enjoying Coding Because of the Complexity Behind It 11:21 – Creating a “Culture of Saving” 14:52 – “Diversity of Thought” and Seeing the World Through Others’ Eyes 22:20 – Being Creators and Makers Indie Hackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/) 30:28 – How Technology Empowers People 38:27 – The Distribution of Brilliance and Opportunity 47:01 – Freedom of Creative Expression Reflections: Astrid: Having to unlearn the need of being perfect. Jessica: We want to speak to more guests on a global level! Please reach out! Sam: Fixed vs growth mindset. Rein: Diversity is not just good for ethical reasons, it also makes your organization more competent. Janelle: Celebrating beautiful. Rehema: A fundamental right to freedom. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Rehema Wachira.

01:22 – Jamey’s Superpower: “The Fharlanghn Sense” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fharlanghn) 02:40 – Working in Agriculture 04:03 – Theories on Automation 05:56 – Pivoting Into Computer Science and Software Development 10:35 – Feeling Like You Need to Know Everything Stella Report from the SNAFUcatchers Workshop on Coping With Complexity (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7kFkt5WxLeDTml5cTFsWXFCb1U/view) 15:47 – ‘Zines and Being a ‘Zine Librarian 27:50 – The Beauty of Art and Technology and Forming Emotional Connections to Things Floppy Music DUO – Imperial March (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHJOz_y9rZE) 35:26 – The Death Star => Ethics in Technology and Taking Responsibility/Being Accountable for your Code Malcolm Gladwell: The strange tale of the Norden bombsite (https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell) @greaterthancode: (https://twitter.com/greaterthancode/status/950415458385186816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E950415458385186816&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.greaterthancode.com%2F2018%2F01%2F10%2F062-the-beauty-of-art-and-technology-with-jamey-hampton%2F) “I think the more powerful a tool is, the more respect you have to have for it.” ~ @jameybash on Greater Than Code 49:42 – Brilliance and Learning From Others Without Consent 54:49 – Advice for Channeling Your Own Inner Fharlanghn Sense This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

00:53 – Safia’s Superpower: Sight 03:04 – Learning Languages — Both Human and Programming The Sapir Whorf Hypothesis (http://www.blutner.de/color/Sapir-Whorf.pdf) 07:56 – Being Empathetic in an International Perspective and Building Universal and Approachable Tech 11:19 – What does success look like for minorities in the Silicon Valley monoculture?; Being Tokenized Admiral Grace Hopper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper) 21:59 – Accepting Speaking Engagements Because of Who You Are (i.e. as a woman, minority, etc.) 24:07 – Writing Things Down to Balance Prioritizing Decisions 30:46 – Defining “Happy” and Always Feeling the Need to Do More 37:02 – Destruction-Focused Development @jessitron (https://twitter.com/jessitron/status/943551570591002624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E943551570591002624&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.greaterthancode.com%2F2018%2F01%2F03%2F061-destruction-focused-development-with-safia-abdalla%2F) Destruction-Focused Development: write it, delete it, repeat. "I don't become obsessed with the code. I think it's more important to be obsessed with the problem." @captainsafia on @greaterthancode. 43:58 – Safia’s Early Coding “Shenanigans” Reflections: Coraline: Being thoughtful about planning finite energy and labor. Also being content vs being happy. @jessitron (https://twitter.com/jessitron/status/943551732671500289?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E943551732671500289&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.greaterthancode.com%2F2018%2F01%2F03%2F061-destruction-focused-development-with-safia-abdalla%2F) "I often feel like I don't do enough and I haven't defined what 'enough' is." @CoralineAda on @greaterthancode Jasmine: Exploring feelings about being represented at events. Jessica: Broadening perspectives that most of us were born into. Safia: Talking about the Silicon Valley monoculture, being content vs happy, and tokenism. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Safia Abdalla.

01:19 – Kent’s Superpower: Putting Things Together That Don’t Necessarily Go Together Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465018475/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0465018475&linkId=6b695b9a8370a14771836fb3671d11e5) 04:01 – Metaphors in Software Development 07:32 – Writing Tests and Keeping a Journal @jessitron (https://twitter.com/jessitron/status/938122417548881920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E938122417548881920&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.greaterthancode.com%2F2017%2F12%2F27%2F060-coping-with-complexity-with-kent-beck%2F) The unit/integration distinction confuses me. I test at the level of, “Here’s a thought I need to capture.” @KentBeck on @greaterthancode 10:58 – Complexity Partitioning One Bite At A Time: Partitioning Complexity (https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/one-bite-at-a-time-partitioning-complexity/1716882961677894/) Kent’s musings on the topic of unit versus integration testing after the show. (https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/unit-tests/1726369154062608/) 21:59 – The Way Systems Change Over Time as an Important Part of How We Design Software 27:20 – Changing Culture Vs Code and Storytelling and Succession Reflections: Jamey: Thinking about the reasons why we do things. Rein: How computer systems are beginning to take on the complexity of biological systems. Coraline: The concept of lumpers vs splitters. Sam: How strategies for dealing with complexity don’t just have to be about the problem itself, they can be about the emotional response of the programmer who has to get some work done. Jessica: The for-allers vs the for-eachers; universalist vs existentialist. Kent: Not being bothered by culture change and helping people feel the same. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Kent Beck.

01:13 – Pamela Podcasting, Since…well, FOREVER! Astronomy Cast (http://www.astronomycast.com/) 365 Days of Astronomy (https://cosmoquest.org/x/365daysofastronomy/) Adam Curry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curry) 02:19 – Pamela’s Superpower: Solving Random Problems with Software 05:19 – Becoming a “Reluctant Coder” i.e. Coding Out of Necessity 10:58 – Battlestar Galactica (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica) => Greek Mythology => Space => Astrophysics 14:52 – Doing What You Have To Do vs Doing What You Love To Do 20:27 – The Goal of Podcasting and Target Audience 23:57 – Understanding and Knowing Everything: Good? Bad? 26:03 – Outsourcing Work as a Personal Loss and The Internet’s Graveyard of Abandoned Projects 32:06 – Open Sourcing Work Yourself for the Benefit of Others 36:58 – Writing Software to Engage People CosmoQuest Citizen Science (https://cosmoquest.org/x/) 44:22 – Crowdsourcing Requires Trust but Garners Better Results 48:02 – The Motivation of Citizen Scientists @cosmoquestx (https://twitter.com/cosmoquestx) Reflections: Jessica: The layers of people in software and people in software and how we’re all learning. It gets hard to separate the people from the technology. Also, having goals you DON’T want to achieve. Coraline: Seeing crowdsourcing being successful. Jamey: Curiosity isn’t necessarily about finding out the answer. It’s the pursuit of the magic. The tenuous path we all take in life, and what decisions cause us to be on the right path to the right here, right now. Pamela: If we collaborate with the technology, maybe we won’t get silenced. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Pamela Gay.

00:16 – Welcome to Episode 111010 of the Greater Than Code Podcast! 02:09 – Tara’s Superpower and Origin Story: Patience 04:56 – Conflating Patience with Kindness 07:39 – Is writing code making us less thoughtful? AKA Patience in the Workplace The Economic Value of Rapid Response Time (The Doherty Threshold) (https://jlelliotton.blogspot.com/p/the-economic-value-of-rapid-response.html) 16:22 – Warning Signs that a Company’s Culture is Not a Good One; Also, is it the company or is it individuals within a company? 22:59 – Looking for and Interviewing for a Job at a Less Toxic Environment 33:20 – What does it mean to be a developer? 36:33 – Interviewing and Privilege 39:35 – Advice for Early Career Developers 44:10 – Remote Work Culture Reflections: Coraline: Being patient and kind. Astrid: Software development is always something you can continue to improve at. Tara: People don’t have to be exactly like us to be a person that we want to work with. Being different can be an asset. Sam: Interviewing somebody should be able finding out how they think and not about what they necessary know at the moment. Special Guest: Tara Scherner de la Fuente.

01:08 – Christina’s Background and Superpower: Multitasking and Automation See Also: GTC 056: Systematize Your Hustle with Kronda Adair 04:42 – Automation Processes: Discovery and Reconnaissance, and When Human Judgement and Input is Necessary 10:03 – Multitasking Timescales and Context Switching 16:39 – Decision-making Functions 23:28 – Being Kind to Your Busy Self and Choosing What NOT To Do We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True by Gabrielle Union (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062693980/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0062693980&linkId=36d5c466dd58a3659f9dc2c31e7c8554) 32:03 – Making Accomplishments Visible to Yourself and Having a Culture of Acknowledgement For more discussion on congressive/ingressive behavior, see also: GTC Episode 038: Category Theory for Normal Humans with Dr. Eugenia Cheng Operant Conditioning Chamber (Skinner Box) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber) Reflections: Rein: Being self-aware of how much is on your plate, how you’re feeling about it, and then being able to say no, which is really saying yes to what YOU want to do, what YOU want to spend time on, and how YOU want to live YOUR life. Janelle: Taking the time to remember and that remembering takes time. Jessica: Choosing the group that you’re being generative with. Christina: UX is everything and everywhere. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

01:26 – SYSTEMS! Implementing Repeatable Processes Via Automation Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less by Sam Carpenter (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/160832253X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=160832253X&linkId=f57a3d32a89bacda9cd41b76756a0de2) 09:28 – Strategies for Implementation 12:18 – Reclaiming Your Time and Cheap is Always Expensive Work the System (Online) (https://www.workthesystem.com/) Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936661837/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1936661837&linkId=9ff8a84f2eba0bc21a1d6739ee254949) Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) (https://www.eosworldwide.com/)

Google Image Result for http://www.pyragraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/GOOD-FAST-CHEAP.jpg

null

@jessitron (https://twitter.com/jessitron/status/928323310416486400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E928323310416486400&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.greaterthancode.com%2F2017%2F11%2F22%2F056-systematize-your-hustle-with-kronda-adair%2F) Solopreneurship: "It's never just you. There's present-you and future-you" @kronda on @greaterthancode 23:20 – Choosing Successful Customers and Avoiding Perfection Paralysis @jessitron (https://twitter.com/jessitron/status/928327947030851584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E928327947030851584&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.greaterthancode.com%2F2017%2F11%2F22%2F056-systematize-your-hustle-with-kronda-adair%2F) If you don't have a system, your system is, think really hard about it every time. @geeksam on @greaterthancode with @kronda me: or worse, don't 28:44 – Successful Use Cases Active Campaign (https://www.activecampaign.com/) systemHUB (https://www.systemhub.com/) 35:33 – Iterating and Changing Processes 42:31 – Kronda’s Superpowers Reflections: Jessica: As developers, and as we’re writing automation for other people, we can also think at a meta level, and automate the parts of our jobs so then we can spend more thinking time thinking about the interesting part of code, like how to achieve the results that we want. Kronda: Things that are easy vs things that are effective. Sam: Executive Dysfunction and the idea of making decision rules. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Kronda Adair.

00:16 – Welcome to “Metamours United For Frequent Dialogue” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:47 – Keith’s Background and Superpower 10:03 – Conflict Resolution Open Spaces session on Conflict Resolution this summer at DevOpsDays D.C. (and the precursor to this conversation) (https://www.dropbox.com/s/jug4qxduj15u84i/Conflict%20Resolution%20Open%20Space%20Session%20from%20DevOpsDays%20DC%202017.mp3?dl=0) Difficult Conversations: How To Discuss What Matters Most (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143118447/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0143118447&linkId=693c6377e3aba2669f78354de86f0543) 12:01 – Opinions on Mediators/Mediation 14:21 – Approaching Conflict News Story Re: Portland Murders (https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2017/05/police_responding_to_ne_portla.html) 17:31 – Radical Helpfulness/Kindness Keith Bennett: Kaizen and Radical Helpfulness (https://medium.com/@keithrbennett/kaizen-and-radical-helpfulness-a207077cd7e7) The Smoke Filled Room (https://www.dowellwebtools.com/tools/lp/Bo/psyched/16/Smoke-Filled-Room) 20:49 – Being Okay with Being Different and Speaking Up Triumph Over Fear: A Book of Help and Hope for People with Anxiety, Panic Attacks and Phobias (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553374443/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0553374443&linkId=93d748861b4e04886f5d4d56bab0bebc) Congressive/Ingressive Chat with Dr. Eugenia Cheng (https://www.greaterthancode.com/2017/07/05/episode-038-category-theory-for-normal-humans-with-eugenia-cheng/) 31:17 – Fire Alarms and Radical Helpfulness (Cont’d) 35:50 – Knowing When to Step Back or to Step Forward Reflections: Astrid: The way to change ourselves a lot is to change ourselves a little, many times. Sam: Decide that you’re okay with being different and training yourself to be bold. Jasmine: Be mindful of yourself and your actions. Jessica: There’s a lot of conscious thought and choice in both being helpful and resolving conflict. Keith: Working together to create a safer and happier world. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Keith Bennett.

01:19 – Nadia’s Superpower 02:01 – Code Hospitality and Being a Good Host Nadia Odunayo: The Guest: A Guide To Code Hospitality @ GORUCO 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUuAp6c1ylM) Daniel Dennett’s “Intuition Pump” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition_pump) 10:22 – People and Habits and Having Expertise in a Particular Realm 17:00 – Asking Questions/Waiting for Explanation Rather Than Passing Judgement 22:16 – Codebases Are Constantly Changing: Use the README to Give Context Code Hospitality Guide App (https://gist.github.com/nodunayo/c919477906aab6c1af6065ff8e868d3e) 27:27 – Making Diagrams Whilst Coding/Pairing Rapoport’s Rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapoport%27s_rule) 32:27 – Thinking About the “Why” 36:44 – Giving and Receiving Feedback in a Nonviolent Way 39:09 – Host Responsibilities for Hospitality Reflections: Jamey: Breaking down the power dynamic of learning. Jacob: Unspoken rules and normalized behavior based on location and telling stories to make people feel more at home. Rein: Recognizing emotional labor. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: Jacob Stoebel and Nadia Odunayo.

01:33 – Superpowers and Acquisition 02:50 – Reflective Listening 05:27 – The Responsible Communication Style Guide (https://rcstyleguide.com/) 11:54 – Asking Content-Related Questions 15:10 – Who is the target audience for this book? 17:45 – The Evolution of Writing the Book 19:39 – People-first Language (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People-first_language) Kronda Adair: Five Stages of Unlearning Racism (https://kronda.com/five-stages-of-unlearning-racism/) 23:40 – What if you get it wrong? @kronda (https://twitter.com/kronda/status/546727506850496512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E546727506850496512&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.greaterthancode.com%2F2017%2F11%2F01%2F053-book-club-the-responsible-communication-style-guide%2F) 1. Try to do good. 2. Fuck it up. 3. Apologize 4. Try not to make the same mistake again. That’s the job.

Google Image Result for https://ecdn.teacherspayteachers.com/thumbitem/Character-Building-Four-Part-Apology-1397830518/original-1018935-1.jpg

null

29:40 – Fearing Shame 34:22 – Political Correctness and Language Evolution 44:11 – “Use with Caution” Words Reflections: Astrid: The less that something is happening the way I want it to, probably the less that I know. Sam: Learning something from a joke! Jamey: People who don’t want to learn new things are boring. Also, not being self-reflective. Audrey: It’s amazing to pay people for their work. Thursday: Pride for the contributors of this project. The Recompiler: Year 3 Kickstarter This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: Audrey Eschright and Thursday Bram.

01:06 – Emily’s Background and Superpower 02:49 – Having a Master’s Degree: Was it worth it? 08:08 – Struggles After Retaining a Master’s 10:31 – Role Model: Emily’s Mom and Her Story 12:11 – “The Double Bind” 14:47 – Experiences Working at a Gaming Company Shipping Out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise by David Foster Wallace (https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf) 18:33 – Transitioning to Upside and Building a Healthy Culture 21:50 – Engineering Vs Management 29:09 – Data Science 32:50 – Self-Selecting for Privilege 36:38 – Data Science and Security/Privacy Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O’Neil (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553418831/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0553418831&linkId=c1f1ddfeccb618a067410f6a11670af3) 46:55 – Having a Background in Actual Science; Conquering Biases 51:35 – The Importance of Mentorship and Internships from the Beginning Reflections: Coraline: Having a biases towards hiring people like yourself and other hiring biases. Sam: Research cognitive biases. Jamey: Computers aren’t people. Emily: I really do enjoy teaching. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Emily Dresner.

00:16 – Welcome to “The Venn Diagram Podcast. It’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but it’s definitely not that other thing.” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:09 – Soo’s Background at NASA and Superpower 06:01 – Wanting Attending Conferences and Speaking and then When Speaking at Conferences Goes Wrong Soo Choi: Changing Diversity Constructs: My Journey as a Woman in DevOps @ DevOpsDays D.C. 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRDZIMKJwUg&t=7s) 16:10 – Creating Safe Spaces: From Conferences to Workspaces 21:29 – Allies and Advocacy; Talking Salary 24:12 – Safe Spaces vs Safer Spaces 28:16 – Forgiving People Without Labeling Them (i.e. Sexist, Racist, etc.) 38:28 – Having “Fierce Conversations” and Collecting Better Tools Aja Hammerly: We Don’t Do That Here (http://www.thagomizer.com/blog/2017/09/29/we-don-t-do-that-here.html) Reflections: Soo: Sharing experiences in open and safer spaces. Sam: Listening to each other’s experiences. Sit with cognitive dissonance, be okay with it, and see what it has to teach us. Jessica: Learning from other’s experiences. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Soo Choi.

00:16 – Welcome to “Greater Than Crabmeat” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:02 – Steve’s Background, Origin Story, and Superpowers! Skrillex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skrillex) 06:00 – Contributing to Open Source why the lucky stiff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff) Hackety Hack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackety_Hack) Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby (https://poignant.guide/) 11:07 – Succession Planning The Meme Hustler (https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler) 20:12 – Organizing Groups of People in a Non-Authoritarian Way Mikhail Bakunin: What is Authority? (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/authrty.htm) The RFC Process in Rust (https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs) Syndicalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicalism) 36:23 – Avoiding Using Language with Political Connotation Want to help keep us a weekly show, buy and ship you swag, and bring us to conferences near you? Support us via Patreon! Sponsors Needed: Please download our Sponsorship Prospectus and share it with your employers! 39:46 – Is anarchy equally accessible to everyone or is it only accessible/available to a privileged class? 43:11 – Problems with One-upmanship and “Shittalking” in Communities Aurynn Shaw: Contempt Culture (https://blog.aurynn.com/2015/12/16-contempt-culture) 50:39 – Seeking Out Different Environments and Building Environments People Want Reflections: Jamey: Leadership and how important it is to not put too much power in the hands of a few people. Rein: How do you build systems of governance that don’t depend for their success on the goodness of the rulers? Lorena: How do we learn to speak with others in ways that are inviting and create a safe space for us all? Coraline: The notion of intentionality. Steve: Jargon and exclusion. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Steve Klabnik.

Guest Starring: Reyn Aubrey: @ReynAubrey | PocketChange | reyn@pocketchange.social 00:16 – Welcome to “For Good or For Awesome?” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:18 – Reyn Aubrey’s Background, Origin Story, and Superpower! 06:04 – Culture of a Company and Tolerance Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591842336/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1591842336&linkId=d86ed2c7e657e11ade2384e415053c25) 08:12 – Becoming an Entrepreneur at 19-years-old and PocketChange 10:40 – Charity Evaluation Criteria; “Wicked Problems” pocketchange.social/charities (http://pocketchange.social/charities/) 14:33 – Habitizing Donation 16:22 – Analyzing and Collecting Charity Data GuideStar Charity Navigator (https://www.guidestar.org/Home.aspx) CharityWatch (https://www.charitywatch.org/home) 19:02 – How PocketChange is Structured 20:34 – The Ideation of “Technology For the Greater Good” 24:28 – Reyn’s Path Into Business and Entrepreneurship Start It Up: The Complete Teen Business Guide to Turning Your Passions into Pay by Kenrya Rankin (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014ICFYNS/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B014ICFYNS&linkId=dcbce35af1882a89f041061b386407b0) 28:33 – Good Business Beliefs, Virtues, and Values 34:00 – Bringing Anarchist Organizing Principles Into Business Colin Ward: Anarchism as a Theory of Organization (https://www.panarchy.org/ward/organization.1966.html) The ‘Two Pizza Rule’ Is Jeff Bezos’ Secret To Productive Meetings (https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-two-pizza-rule-for-productive-meetings-2013-10) 37:23 – Advice For Others Interested in Social Entrepreneurship 42:00 – Launching PocketChange and Reserve Your Launch Day Invite (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pocketchange/kdildeljmcpiaaedbmlcloikhlfeodom) 44:51 – Gathering and Raising Venture Capital 47:35 – Advice For Others Interested in Social Entrepreneurship (Cont’d) Reflections: Rein: Check out Stafford Beer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Beer). Coraline: A culture being defined by the least of something you’ll tolerate and entrepreneurs should solve for “Wicked Problems” — not pain points. Jamey: All charities are not created equal. Reyn: A value that isn’t acted on is at best an inspiration and at worst a pretense. Also, non-dominance based work relationships. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Reyn Aubrey.

00:16 – Welcome to “Greater Than Code: Like Uber, But For Not Being Shitty” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 02:04 – Background and Superpower 03:03 – Being Outspoken and Dealing with Pushback on Twitter 04:41 – “Staying in Your Lane” 11:12 – To Engage, or Not to Engage? 16:10 – Mixing Social Justice and a Tech Career 20:49 – Having Conversations Re: Diversity and Inclusion 23:16 – Making Workplaces Inclusive and Changing the Culture 35:56 – Educating Others — But Not on Demand 38:28 – What is the right way to be an ally? Reading Spaces 43:59 – Starting/Organizing Working Groups 45:34 – Advocating for D&I as Leaders Reflections: Jessica: Diversity and inclusion is hard because it’s more than just one thing. Sam: Don’t have conversations or be in them to not just be wrong. Janelle: Training, teaching, and educating, versus putting together a working group to get things done. Jamey: It’s okay to be wrong and sincerely apologizing. Astrid: It’s hard to be who you want to be in a world where people are constantly picking sides. Marco: How dynamics pay out for people who aren’t fully engaged in the D&I conversation yet. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Marco Rogers.

00:16 – Welcome to “I Rolled a Natural 20 For My Agility Check” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:31 – Background and Superpower; Empathy 09:08 – Cross-Cultural Communication Dynamics Women in Agile (https://www.agilealliance.org/events/women-in-agile-2018/) 15:48 – Biases, Understanding Dynamics, and Facilitating as an Ally @jessitron (https://twitter.com/jessitron/status/902935755533807616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E902935755533807616&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.greaterthancode.com%2F2017%2F09%2F20%2F047-communicating-across-boundaries-with-declan-whelan%2F) "To have biases is to be human. It's not a bad thing." @dwhelan @greaterthancode 21:02 – Being Authentic 25:31 – Is Agile something that you are or something that you do? 35:37 – Adopting Practices Across Teams “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson @jessitron (https://twitter.com/jessitron/status/902949956889313280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E902949956889313280&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.greaterthancode.com%2F2017%2F09%2F20%2F047-communicating-across-boundaries-with-declan-whelan%2F) People love consistency. Ask, what are the benefits? then strive for common outcomes, not common practices. @dwhelan@greaterthancode 41:57 – Technical Debt and Technical Health: How do we amplify what we want? Code Climate (https://codeclimate.com/) Reflections: Jessica: Strive for common outcomes; not common practices. Coraline: Some situations should be taken as a promise for a conversation. Janelle: Ask for permission. Sam: Identifying and clarifying outcomes that we want. Declan: Figure out how you can have effective conversations with your teams. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Declan Whelan.

00:16 – Welcome to “The World is Upside Down. Can DevOps save us?” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:07 – Background and Superpowers 09:22 – Diagnostic Troubleshooting: “Expert Intuition Effect” 14:23 – Understanding Entire Systems vs Specializing in One Area 17:15 – Isolation Leading to Contempt 28:42 – The DevOps Movement and Culture Change 34:45 – Contempt Towards Processes Janelle Klein: A Programmer’s Guide to Humans @ SeleniumConf UK (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a5gUS649t0) Reflections: Astrid: Having a holistic approach towards Software Development. Coraline: Why specialization leads to contemptuous behavior between teams and how to solve it for early career developers. Janelle: Inside of us, we all have a soul. Aria: Start telling new stories about the people who build fantastic products and tools. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Aria Stewart.

This episode stars, Jeff Reichman, who talks about how the Houston tech community came together to help people through Hurricane Harvey and the aftermath, the technology opportunities in disaster response, the harvey-api that they developed, and how tech devs need to be side-by-side with relief efforts, while responding to tech needs right away. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jeff Reichman.

Content/Trigger Warning: This episode discusses sexual assault. 00:16 – Welcome to “Fullstack Activism” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:22 – Lynn’s Background Story and Superpowers FIRST LEGO League (http://www.firstlegoleague.org/) 11:34 – Project Callisto (https://www.projectcallisto.org/): Reporting Sexual Assault and Dealing with The System 17:57 – Institutional Betrayal and Keeping Information Private 20:49 – The Chain of Command: How Project Callisto Works 22:17 – Reticence When it Comes to Talking About Sexual Assault 26:04 – “Staying in Your Lane” 27:56 – Matching Reports 29:33 – The Technology Behind the App 34:14 – Evaluating Features 38:16 – Contributing to Project Callisto Fund Club (http://joinfundclub.com/) Donate to Project Callisto (https://www.projectcallisto.org/donate.html) 41:54 – Open Sourcing the Project 44:00 – Code Sharing Reflections: Coraline: Empathy and developers putting the psychological safety of their users first. Brené Brown on Empathy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw) Astrid: Building technology for the greater good. Jamey: If you don’t like what someone else is doing, you can do your own thing and make it happen. Sam: Believe survivors. Ashe Dryden: The Risk In Speaking Up (https://www.ashedryden.com/the-risk-in-speaking-up) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Lynn Cyrin.

Come to Catskills Conf (https://catskillsconf.com/) and meet Mandy & Jamey! Stay for the experience. Shanise Barona: @shanisebarona | shanisebarona.com 00:16 – Welcome to “Plant Parenthood!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 02:19 – Shanise’s Background Story and Superpower Girl Develop It (https://www.girldevelopit.com/) 03:08 – “Lazy Perfectionism”, “The Explosion of Dissonance”, and “The Moment of Click” The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062457713/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0062457713&linkId=4bc21e549783a89e20985c17591cc368) You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0762447699/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0762447699&linkId=39b7be7a61c4d68c133d091413272aee) 12:49 – Improving Self-Directed Learning 100 Days of Code (https://github.com/Kallaway/100-days-of-code) 15:35 – Having Tunnel Vision Past the Point of Where You Should and Moving Beyond a Comfort Zone “I understood lazy perfectionism differently, more as the tendency to refactor, polish, and improve the various “-ilities” of your code long past the point when you should have moved on to something else. It’s like . . . tunnel vision on things that are important but not all-important. Finding the right balance there is super hard for me.” – Nathaniel Knight Thank you to our latest $50 Patron, Josh Schmelzle! 21:50 – “Performative Diversity” and Community Building Ela Conf (http://elaconf.com/) 28:33 – Words and Actions: Influencing Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) 34:25 – Being Angry on Social Media But Feeling the Need to be Perceived as Positive (All the Time) Reflections: Sam: Lazy perfection is a thing with a label and something to pay attention to. Janelle: How shallow efforts can be to create change (i.e. conference diversity). Mandy: Stop giving lip service! Step up and prove that you care about diversity and inclusion by supporting groups and missions like Greater Than Code. Jamey: Having connections with people to prove to yourself you’re not alone. Jessica: If you want to have diverse attendees, get a diverse leadership team. Shanise: 1. Seeking a balance between wanting and not wanting explosions of dissonance. Find opportunities to highlight people that wouldn’t normally get opportunities to be highlighted. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Shanise Barona.

James Edward Gray: @JEG2 "Purchase" links are affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! 00:16 – Welcome to “Paneldome!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:58 – Backgrounds and Superpowers Hilary Stohs-Krause: We’ve Always Been Here: Women Changemakers in Tech @ RailsConf 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3ojRN4CT7I) 04:44 – Examples of Accessibility Challenges in Board Games 07:00 – Games and Challenges Escape: The Curse of the Temple (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/113294/escape-curse-temple) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00720I7TC/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00720I7TC&linkId=68e011bda94e857e4b22dad236dcf6ba)) Millennium Blades (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/113294/escape-curse-temple) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936920573/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1936920573&linkId=7d3b7e9a8d786ba1e4ae2d233bc51a36)) 11:49 – The Power of House Rules RoboRally (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18/roborally) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N8T7ACD/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B01N8T7ACD&linkId=e3267f057c2b4e90ce3b6fe38096d3b0)) Small World (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40692/small-world) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0024H7OF6/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B0024H7OF6&linkId=7c13ce13055a0d5cd2a795467cc185f6)) 14:41 – German-style/Eurogames vs American Games Ticket to Ride (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9209/ticket-ride) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0975277324/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0975277324&linkId=8195297768939e58262a884aaba03b90)) Puerto Rico (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3076/puerto-rico) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008URUT/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00008URUT&linkId=fbc944006019689d603d89785f915dcb)) Settlers of Catan (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/38821/settlers-catan-gallery-edition) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000W7JWUA/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B000W7JWUA&linkId=fd5a4dc6e87428c9c3efb1132d9d789a) Great Western Trail (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/193738/great-western-trail) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M8GAOBX/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B01M8GAOBX&linkId=17545f3f708d1a4cfca27aab29e70c42)) 16:45 – Video Games; Real-time vs Turn Based Games Master of Orion (http://masteroforion.com/intro) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N0SHEU3/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B01N0SHEU3&linkId=84e76a7e204600942df99206490ca851)) Don’t Starve Together (https://store.steampowered.com/app/322330/Dont_Starve_Together/) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D3TRMD8/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00D3TRMD8&linkId=2595cebb9bca2282504677c1d75d1441)) Rogue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(video_game)) 19:35 – Tabletop Role-Playing Games (RPGs) Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) (http://dnd.wizards.com/) 22:45 – Cooperative Games vs Competitive Games Space Cadets (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/123096/space-cadets) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009VIE3E6/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B009VIE3E6&linkId=91fa7f973a5837125291718f740ba1d4)) Deception: Murder in Hong Kong (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/156129/deception-murder-hong-kong) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019FPQZNG/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B019FPQZNG&linkId=6b0c7b9241ee4cec948c74793853cad8)) 22:45 – Bluffing Games, The Autism Spectrum, and Player Elimination Mascarade (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/139030/mascarade) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E97DWKA/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00E97DWKA&linkId=d5fa25f5d6a444599cd8ef556cb3faca)) Sheriff of Nottingham (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/157969/sheriff-nottingham) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007EZMABG/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B007EZMABG&linkId=67ddc7701a05369e6ef65f3b0cb7c96c)) Werewolf (https://www.playwerewolf.co/rules/) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MHWUJA0/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00MHWUJA0&linkId=86f185cccce97fc48926d0a77581b992)) One Night Werewolf (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/147949/one-night-ultimate-werewolf) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HS7GG5G/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00HS7GG5G&linkId=5708f5291d8637cdcea0d9d9069c1466)) Resistance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resistance_(game)) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009SAAV0C/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B009SAAV0C&linkId=77cd68476148f901349421efd0bd8dec)) Sentinels of the Universe (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/102652/sentinels-multiverse) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0095ZFA5Q/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B0095ZFA5Q&linkId=f783a82b5aaac33f229138ef1e411563)) Goblin Quest (https://gshowitt.itch.io/goblin-quest) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0756404002/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0756404002&linkId=ce6d7cba713e5b717e89c85b36caa003)) Shut Up & Sit Down (https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/podcastle/sean-bean-quest/): Sean Bean Quest 35:14 – The Cost of Board Games: Time and Money How to Build an Amazing Board Game Collection for $10! (https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/how-to-build-an-amazing-board-game-collection-for-10/) Pandemic Legacy (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161936/pandemic-legacy-season-1) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TQ5SEAI/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00TQ5SEAI&linkId=072e86e381a945e62671b23a3abf1cc6)) Gloomhaven (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174430/gloomhaven) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LZXVN4P/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B01LZXVN4P&linkId=b903a62ff26894ca65711205ea271049)) Cheapass Games (https://cheapass.com/) Fiasco (http://bullypulpitgames.com/games/fiasco/) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1934859397/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1934859397&linkId=8b742e57329605d85e6322877108a841)) The Open Game License (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Game_License) Spyfall (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/166384/spyfall) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Y4TYRT8/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00Y4TYRT8&linkId=eb562229ff9644c2a26872461e2da05b)) Mafia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_(party_game)) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LGYO398/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00LGYO398&linkId=a7d1a7b6ffca1872f6d7a2cf7021e6d1)) 43:02 – The History of Monopoly; Leftist Board Games Suffragetto (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/127685/suffragetto) Class Struggle (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1510/class-struggle) 45:56 – Resources Meeple Like Us (http://meeplelikeus.co.uk/) 64 Ounce Games (http://www.64ouncegames.com/) MaxiAids (https://www.maxiaids.com/) The Dice Tower (https://www.dicetower.com/) BoardGameGeek (https://boardgamegeek.com/) TableTop (https://geekandsundry.com/shows/tabletop/) Favorite Games: Sam: Repello (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/88464/repello) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004SOUM16/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B004SOUM16&linkId=827ef04f4cd2052d32c7b17f066cd254)) Coraline: Tales of the Arabian Nights (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34119/tales-arabian-nights) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002HU4YXA/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B002HU4YXA&linkId=99b75c7b2b09894752f3d20e090a2874)) Rein: Dungeons and Dragons: Second Edition and Lords of Waterdeep (http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/board-games/lords-waterdeep) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786959916/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0786959916&linkId=69a3440a31f92fe03c5437e93fce1b2d)) James: Exalted (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exalted) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1588466841/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1588466841&linkId=6b32cce890bdf974cbf7921c9bff53e4)) Jamey: Betrayal at House on the Hill (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10547/betrayal-house-hill) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003HC9734/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B003HC9734&linkId=4ddcdcaacf032fddf70b90f9eeda2036)) Mischa: Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2511/sherlock-holmes-consulting-detective-thames-murder) (Purchase (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/2370990023/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=2370990023&linkId=46e9a78f75a758e1ae584eba3aa462e6)) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: James Edward Gray and Mischa Lewis-Norelle.

00:16 – Welcome to “Life, The Universe, and Podcasts!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:13 – Carina’s Background and Superpower 02:58 – @CallbackWomen and The Naming Struggle to Make Sure Marginalized and Non-Binary People Know They Are Included Ashe Dryden: Increasing Diversity at Your Conference (https://www.ashedryden.com/blog/increasing-diversity-at-your-conference) 12:13 – Sending Signals and/or Indicators That Encourage People to Apply to Speak At Your Conference

I hate to say this, but conferences need to relocate out of the U.S. My country is making business travel to U.S. untenable for so many ppl. https://t.co/bMOfbe6VDP

— Carina C. Zona (@cczona) June 3, 2017

23:10 – Conference Outreach 27:56 – Accessibility at Conferences 34:19 – Conferences “Competing” for Speakers Call For Proposals (CFP) 40:26 – Financial Aid, Travel Stipends, and Reimbursement

This is now part of the US non-immigrant visa application. This is obnoxious, absurd and threatens freedom of speech. pic.twitter.com/lnpLmC5v4I

— Nima Fatemi (@mrphs) July 22, 2017

49:05 – Making a Difference with @CallbackWomen and Codes of Conduct #cocpledge (https://twitter.com/cocpledge) Ashe Dryden: Codes of Conduct 101 + FAQ (https://www.ashedryden.com/blog/codes-of-conduct-101-faq) Fund Club (http://joinfundclub.com/) Donate to @CallbackWomen! (http://www.callbackwomen.com/donate) Pledge via Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/cczona)

Google Image Result for http://quotespictures.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/never-doubt-that-a-small-group-of-thoughtful-committed-citizens-can-change-the-world-indeed-it-is-the-only-thing-that-ever-has-margaret-mead.png

null

Reflections: Jamey: Having travel and accommodation expenses covered is important for speakers. Sam: Flipping the paradigm. Coraline: Using influence to affect change. Carina: Having speaker mentors: both experienced and newbies. Rein: How conferences have evolved in a positive way around diversity and inclusion. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Carina C. Zona.

caseywatts.com/mindmanipulation (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTW1b3aErmPfUWmyj9_bARHW-Cl-7b6q7acmIdWOg5KhGhErYd5NDyZioXFqamTRMMdPlORCD4WOGu9/pub) A Neurobiologist’s Guide to Mind Manipulation [slides] (https://www.slideshare.net/CaseyWatts/neurobiologists-guide-to-mind-manipulation-010) 00:16 – Welcome to “CBT: Chunky Bacon Tacos and Psychological Safety” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:18 – Empathy Development 03:25 – Training for Customer Support Greater Than Code Episode 037: Failure Mode with Emily Gorcenski A Neurobiologist’s Guide to Mind Manipulation by Casey Watts @ EmberConf 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtefvXagutM) 06:53 – Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Coraline Ada Ehmke: Emotions as State Machines (from the GTC blog!) 10:48 – Acknowledging Emotion; Rationality 14:23 – Inner vs Outer Brain

via GIPHY

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374533555/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0374533555&linkId=84cece32e1ce829edf996c30821467bb) 16:22 – Empathetic vs Empathic; Empathy vs Sympathy Pavneet Singh Saund: Practical Empathy: Unlock the Super Power @ NDC Oslo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxeOo2jWoNM) 21:32 – The Earned Dogmatism Effect (https://www.coursera.org/lecture/intellectual-humility-science/the-earned-dogmatism-effect-MXL5p) [Video] 26:10 – Maladaptive Thought Patterns

Google Image Result for http://connfitzgibboncounselling.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/CBT-Dundrum.jpg

null

31:34 – The “Woop” State and Psychological Safety Amy Edmondson: Psychological Safety (https://www.google.com/search?q=Amy+Edmondson:+Psychological+Safety&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizna3E1KfVAhUJVT4KHZc4AqwQvwUIJSgA&biw=780&bih=588&dpr=2) Coraline Ada Ehmke: Antisocial Coding: My Year At GitHub (https://where.coraline.codes/blog/my-year-at-github/) 38:09 – Leading with Vulnerability Reflections: Janelle: Choose your presence. Jessica: Feel feelings in the moment, and then act on them. Sam: Rationality is a facade and state machines can be edited. Coraline: Understanding empathy over only performing empathy. Casey: Making responding with empathy a habit. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Casey Watts!.

Extra super disclaimer: This episode contains a lot curse words. 00:16 – Welcome to “The Upcoming Release of the iPhone 4!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:36 – The Tweetstorm that Started it All (https://twitter.com/jennschiffer/status/859473189902135296) 04:29 – Our Communication Skills and Curbing the Snobbery

“It’s just not good business to be a jerk.” - @jennschiffer

— Greater Than Code (@greaterthancode) July 15, 2017

Greater Than Code Episode Episode 039: The B-Side of Software Development with Scott Hanselman 11:33 – Arguing on the Internet Want to help make us a weekly show, buy and ship you swag, and bring us to conferences near you? Support us via Patreon! Or tell your organization to send sponsorship inquiries to mandy@greaterthancode.com. 16:55 – Dealing with the Jerks

psa: all of your code is ephemeral & will one day not even matter. it probably doesn't even matter now. how you treat your peers matters

00:16 – Welcome to “Hanselminutes! (https://hanselminutes.com/)” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 00:57 – Origin Story and Superpowers; Struggling and Prevailing “The struggle is part of the journey.” – Scott Hanselman 13:51 – Systems Thinking, Problem Solving, and Instilling Those Values on Kids 19:11 – There is Value in Suffering Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812979680/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0812979680&linkId=84982318e94004fe908eedbc62099b87) 21:39 – Being a Teacher Over a Programmer; Ideas of Mediocrity, 10x Engineering, and Comparison to Others We RISE Women in Tech Conference (https://werise.tech/) Jessica Kerr: Hyperproductive development (http://blog.jessitron.com/2017/06/the-most-productive-circumstances-for.html) Amanda Palmer: oh Lorde, deliver me from Fucking Joan. (https://medium.com/@amandapalmer/oh-lorde-deliver-me-from-fucking-joan-17ed0a1d83e8) 36:28 – Being Nice Online Scott’s “Nice” Twitter Exchange (1) (https://twitter.com/RoadmanAkhi/status/877658122957008896) Scott’s “Nice” Twitter Exchange (2) (https://twitter.com/RoadmanAkhi/status/877950677896617984) Scott’s “Nice” Twitter Exchange (3) (https://twitter.com/RoadmanAkhi/status/878244303021015040) Scott’s “Nice” Twitter Exchange (4) (https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/877950217550577664) 42:29 – Teaching (Cont’d) Scott Hanselman: The Social Developer @ NexTech Africa 2017 (https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/NexTech-Africa/2017/Brk21) Awesomely Luvvie (https://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/) Reflections: Scott: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812979680/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0812979680&linkId=84982318e94004fe908eedbc62099b87) Jessica: This show’s Slack community! This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Scott Hanselman.

00:16 – Welcome to “Shopping is Hard; Let’s Do Math!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!”; Eugenia’s Introduction Books: How to Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465097677/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0465097677&linkId=0d495c591e20d50802c3fa80ef30775d) Beyond Infinity: An Expedition to the Outer Limits of Mathematics (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465094813/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0465094813&linkId=1c8d256e9484319b7631615ccc857fd1) YouTube Channels: TheCatsters (https://www.youtube.com/user/TheCatsters/featured) TheMathsters Articles: Eugenia Cheng Makes Math a Piece of Cake (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/science/eugenia-cheng-math-how-to-bake-pi.html) Everyday Math (https://www.wsj.com/news/types/everyday-math) 01:54 – Getting Into Math: Is math useful? Is that the point? A Mathematician’s Lament by Paul Lockhart (https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf) 20:17 – Category Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_theory) Textbooks: Categories for the Working Mathematician (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387984038/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0387984038&linkId=fb86951beaddc97589ea491f060216ce) Category Theory (Oxford Logic Guides) (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199237182/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0199237182&linkId=770e13783e791421d55ca1d5fa69038e) Conceptual Mathematics: A First Introduction to Categories (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052171916X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=052171916X&linkId=522bb5da8da065199edb56d83edb1f8a) 38:17 – Changing the Terminology Around Gender to Focus on Character Traits Instead: Congressive and Ingressive Behavior The Prisoner’s Dilemma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Dr. Eugenia Cheng.

00:16 – Welcome to “Diamonds Are For Gender” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 00:56 – Origin Story, Superpowers, and Data Science 04:20 – Diversity and Career Paths in Data Science 10:51 – Ethical Debates Within the Data Science Field Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553418815/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0553418815&linkId=0ed7c081ef2baa2e5a6f33a076e2929b) Therac-25 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25) FMEA (Failure Mode Effects Analysis) (https://www.greaterthancode.com/2017/06/21/episode-037-failure-mode-with-emily-gorcenski/) 17:21 – Software Development and Engineering; Failure Modes in Software 21:44 – Failure Modes in Democracy; Voting Machine Software 33:37 – Working for a Government Contractor 36:21 – Data Patterns and Tampering 39:00 – Open Data and Open Science 45:59 – Falsifying Data Reflections: Coraline: Considering all the ways something can fail. Sam: The world that I live in and the kind of software development practices that I take for granted are extraordinary niche. Emily: Tech conferences and their decadence vs academic/corporate conferences. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Emily Gorcenski.

00:16 – Welcome to “Chinchilla Chat: Where It’s All Chinchillas…All The Time…” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 03:10 – Matt’s Origin Story in Software Development 09:04 – The Business of Consulting 16:24 – Empathy in Consulting 20:07 – Rigorous Communication and Shared Language; Microservices Ludwig Wittgenstein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein) Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) Metaphors We Live By (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226468011/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226468011&linkId=eb1e64309e20b18e5700df50e48890ae) 39:05 – Ubiquitous Language (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226468011/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0226468011&linkId=eb1e64309e20b18e5700df50e48890ae) Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking by Douglas Hofstadter (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465018475/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0465018475&linkId=acbb83bfae39114efe5369b300142f68) Coraline Ada Ehmke: Metaphors Are Similes. Similes Are Like Metaphors. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czvgHSYKkNU) Wittgenstein’s Ladder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein%27s_ladder) Performance of Genetic Algorithms For Data Classification by Matthew Stine (http://thesis.honors.olemiss.edu/230/1/mstine-senior-thesis.pdf) Reflections: Matt: Ludwig Wittgenstein and language games. Coraline: The shortcomings of pattern-matching. Astrid: Using evolution as a model. Rein: The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World Janelle: Language as a mechanism of control. Sam: Building a bridge of understanding with progressively less incorrect metaphors. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Matt Stine.

00:16 – Welcome to “Yes, SJWs Do Actually Code” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:22 – Superpower Origin Story 06:00 – “Real Programming” 08:45 – Being Gay in the Tech Industry; Micro Activism (http://www.microactivist.com/) 16:17 – Setting Workplace Culture 21:20 – Working in Open Source While Working in a Company like npm (https://www.npmjs.com/) 25:50 – Monetizing npm npm Enterprise (https://www.npm-enterprise.com/) 32:55 – npm@5 42:00 – The 10x Engineer 44:19 – Technical Hiring 49:53 – Why Whiteboarding and Code Exercises Don’t Work 51:51 – Organizing Engineers Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591846404/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1591846404&linkId=c494a8d5b6315f65af8e4f4a31c3f450) Reflections: Astrid: Not being concerned with how other people view you as a programmer. Coraline: Remembering good hiring practices to influence others. Sam: Making your interview process focus on having people talk to each other about software. Rein: Becoming a Change Artist by Gerald Weinberg (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004SCRVIK/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B004SCRVIK&linkId=841afede1e410cba5f9277716d97f581) Laurie: Organizing large groups of people to get stuff done. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Laurie Voss.

00:16 – Welcome to “Missives from the Future of Tech: Ladies’ Night Edition” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:20 – Where the Lines Cross; Social Responsibility of Engineers Tragedy of the Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons) 06:53 – Why We Do What We Do 09:03 – Surviving and Functioning For All Humans: Basic Social Support 16:20 – Preventing Infrastructure Decay and Advancing the Whole 19:54 – “The Cycle of Safety” The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553380966/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0553380966&linkId=057eda599b58fdadf1e06c52a9256018) 25:21 – Scarcity 30:15 – Where are we focusing? 33:25 – Reframing The Tragedy of the Commons; Gatekeeping The Broken Promise of Open Source by Coraline Ada Ehmke (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKpbejoneFs) 37:56 – Organizations as Business AND Schools The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385517254/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0385517254&linkId=7e9c7008b6f4237ac17119214b877a51) 40:25 – Abundance and Barter Systems Reflections: Coraline: Access to technology as a human right. Janelle: Where is all the knowledge in the world? Where does the knowledge flows? What are the gates that get in the way of knowledge flows? Astrid: What would you do if money wasn’t a factor? Jessica: Software has to hold the keys. It’s the closest thing to magic that we’ve ever had. The Open Mastery Community (http://www.openmastery.org/join-us/) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

00:16 – Welcome to “What is your favorite color?” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” How to teach your dog to take selfies… and text them to you (https://mashable.com/2016/07/26/teach-dog-text-selfie/) 01:34 – Superpower Origin Story; Mental Illness in College Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005GFII62/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B005GFII62&linkId=79bcb3acaec3579dbe20b56995fc6577) 10:13 – Disclaimer: We Are Not Doctors and a Message on Self-Diagnosis 13:03 – Panel Experiences with Mental Illness: Rock Bottom, Shame, Stigma, and Fear DBT Therapy (https://behavioraltech.org/resources/faqs/dialectical-behavior-therapy-dbt/) 25:54 – How Mental Illness Seems to Uniquely Affect the Tech Community 31:06 – Coping Mechanisms 34:17 – Creating an Environment That is Beneficial to People with Mental Health Issues; Work-Life Balance Open Sourcing Mental Illness (Open Sourcing Mental Illness) Mental Health First Aid (https://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/) Why Fidget Spinners Might Be Helpful for the Brain (https://archive.attn.com/stories/17143/why-fidget-spinners-might-be-helpful-brain?utm_source=22words&utm_medium=fbpost&utm_campaign=syndication) Reflections: Rein: Allie Brosh: Adventures in Depression (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html) Sam: Depression can feel like nothing. Mandy: Reach out: mandy@greaterthancode.com (mandy@greaterthancode.com); or @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) Greg: gb@twilio.com (gb@twilio.com); or @greggyb (https://twitter.com/greggyb/). Sharing your story is powerful. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Greg Baugues.

Amy Unger: @cdwort | Heroku 00:16 – Welcome to “JIRA Card Catalogs and The People Who Love Them” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:05 – Superpower Origin Story, Growing Up with a Computer in the Family, and Being a Teenager Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher (https://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-Press/dp/0262632691/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494455362&sr=8-1&keywords=Unlocking+The+Clubhouse+Women+in+Computer+Science) 08:30 – Humanities and History 10:39 – Access to and Preservation of Literacy (Who is writing our history?) 15:03 – Categorizing Information and Making it Accessible…But, Also Privacy? 17:21 – Reliance on Google as the “Defacto Archive”? 19:49 – Digital Records (Algorithms) vs Human Curation 24:10 – What can librarians and library science offer a company?: Information Architecture 27:32 – Algorithm Manipulation, Social Engineering, and Information Security 32:24 – Whose stories are we collecting, archiving, and making available to the public? Tragedy of the Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons) 41:09 – “Meme Hacking”, Getting Involved, and Owning Your Own Story Reflections: Rein: Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media Sam: How economics and politics rear their ugly heads unexpectedly. Coraline: Who is responsible for our history? Jessica: The vast amounts of data we have and what we choose to preserve. Amy: Consider the possibility of working in the public sector. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Amy Unger.

** This conversation stems from an earlier episode when Janelle joined the panel: Episode 028: Brains, Feedback Systems, Demons, and Goats. 02:03 – Retrospectives **

“Software work is learning work.” @DianaOfPortland

— Greater Than Code (@greaterthancode) May 3, 2017

OODA Loop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop) 11:07 – Documenting Feelings and Emotions 17:40 – Following Through With and Solving Action Plans 20:08 – Focusing, Lists of Action, and “Best Practices” 30:27 – What is value in the context of software development? / Measuring Waste 33:39 – Taking Things in Small, Bite-sized Pieces: Refactoring Mob Programming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming) 55:58 – Agile Fluency ** Your Path through Agile Fluency on Martin Fowler’s Blog (https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/agileFluency.html) Reflections: Janelle: Thinking about the focusing step and how much effort goes into those things versus the benefits of focusing on things from the recent past. Taking human emotions into consideration. Diana: Managing learning and collecting data, and issues around value. Sam: Different forms and cycles of feedback. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Diana Larsen.

00:16 – Welcome to “Cycles in Philosophy of Software, Common Principles with Different Names & Reference” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:47 – Superhero Origin Story BBC BASIC (http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcbasic.html) 04:45 – Nomenclature: “Junior” and “Senior” Developers; Differences Between “Early Career” Developers and “Experienced” Developers 13:56 – Solving the Skill Assessment Problem; Learning Methodically 20:55 – Software Development Now vs Then 29:51 – Do Programming Languages Create Certain Biases? 44:16 – Good Mentorship and Telling People What’s Next to Level Up 55:58 – Cohorting/Teaching Classes with Sandi Metz; Object-Oriented Design and Object-Oriented Programming Reflections: Janelle: Looking at things as multidimensional problems. Rein: An Introduction to General Systems Thinking by Gerald M. Weinberg Sam: The importance of the skill of metacognition. Tom: How the work as changed as being a developer. Nonviolent Communication: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships by Marshall B. Rosenberg PhD This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Tom Stuart.

00:16 – Welcome to “The Tale of Space Cat Burritos” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 02:26 – Space Technology and the Cultural Portrayal of Science NASA Explorers Program (https://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov/) 08:24 – The Influence of Science Fiction on the Current Developments in Science NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program (NIAC) (https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/index.html) The Comet Hitchhiker (https://www.nasa.gov/content/comet-hitchhiker-harvesting-kinetic-energy-from-small-bodies-to-enable-fast-and-low-cost) Supernatural Horror in Literature By H. P. Lovecraft 14:47 – What is sci-fi telling us about the world we live in now? The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/0765382032) The Expanse Series (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(novel_series)) 18:34 – “Hard” vs “Soft” Science Fiction; “Hard” Conference Talks vs “Soft” Talks Coraline Ada Ehmke: Metaphors Are Similes. Similes Are Like Metaphors @ Rubyfuza 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czvgHSYKkNU) 24:43 – Understanding How People Work to Build Better Technology; Fighting for Accessibility in Science Henrietta Lacks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (http://rebeccaskloot.com/the-immortal-life/) 33:11 – Machine Learning “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” – Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park 37:52 – Scarcity and Exploitation: Looking at Power Dynamics and Relationships Between Groups and People Conway’s Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law) 41:34 – Reasons We Prefer to Focus on Technology; Siloing and Specialization 50:16 – Control: Who is the manager? Treating People Equally 52:46 – Congruency and Being Congruent: It’s a People Problem! Gerald Weinberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Weinberg) [The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully by Gerald M. Weinberg]((https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Consulting-Giving-Getting-Successfully/dp/0932633013) “Emotions are valid inputs to every thought process.” – Coraline Ada Ehmke The Heart of Whiteness: Ijeoma Oluo Interviews Rachel Dolezal, the White Woman Who Identifies as Black (https://www.thestranger.com/features/2017/04/19/25082450/the-heart-of-whiteness-ijeoma-oluo-interviews-rachel-dolezal-the-white-woman-who-identifies-as-black) Ashe’s Tweets (https://twitter.com/ashedryden/status/854707674403012609) 01:01:44 – How do we know we are right? The Orange Juice Test (https://www.intercom.com/blog/the-orange-juice-test/) The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal by Seth Freeman (https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Art-of-Negotiating-the-Best-Deal-Audiobook/B00JLJI8AK) Reflections: Rein: These issues go straight up to the top in terms of the philosophical ladder we’re trying to climb of what do we value? How do we get other people to share our values? It doesn’t get easier by ignoring that the problem is that difficult and pretending that it’s just technical. Coraline: It’s the responsibility of technologists to think about the social impact of the technical solutions they are making, whether that means by being better informed and striving to be generalists, or by making sure we are being inclusive and giving voice to people with different perspectives and levels of expertise on our teams to make sure we are addressing problems deeply and not just from one particular silo. Ashe: Understanding how we are looking at a problem ethically, how we’re looking at it technically, and how we’re looking at it from a human point of view? What are the potential effects? Brad: The laws of nature still exist in the absence of humans. Humans are the reason things are messy and complicated. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: Ariel Waldman, Ashe Dryden, and Brad Grzesiak.

00:16 – Welcome to “Goats On Podcasts” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:19 – Origin Story 04:36 – The Development of Development 06:58 – Automated Tests and Mistake Detection 09:21 – Designing Releases and Best Practices 20:13 – “The Code is Better”

There is no "the code is better."
There is only "our experience is better." (users and developers)@greaterthancode with @janellekz

— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) April 12, 2017

15:08 – Measuring Effort, #CollaborativePain, and The Error Handling Process

abstraction: great when it works.
when something breaks it's like an egg cracking and all its guts spill out.@janellekz @greaterthancode

— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) April 12, 2017

Why Software Gets In Trouble by Gerald M. Weinberg (https://leanpub.com/whysoftwaregetsintrouble) 33:24 – Discovery and Documentation 37:44 – Agile Fluency Agile Fluency Project: Chart Your Agile Pathway (https://www.agilefluency.org/) Quality Management Maturity Grid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_Management_Maturity_Grid) 40:42 – Building a Conceptual Model of our Brains with Code Hindsight Bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias) 51:56 – Identifying Project Pain: Slicing and Dicing 57:23 – Change Sizing Reflections: Rein: Gerald M. Weinberg’s Quality Software Management Series Janelle: The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge (https://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Discipline-Practice-Learning-Organization/dp/0385517254) Sam: The pain that we experience in software development is really cognitive dissonance. Jessica: Programming is like summoning a demon. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

00:16 – Welcome to “Plotting the Rebellion” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:39 – Origin Story and Superpowers 03:05 – Getting Hooked on Hackathons 04:42 – Corporate Hackathons; Making Hackathons Accessible and Inclusive Greater Than Code Episode 015: Zuri Hunter as Queen of Hackathons DataHack4FI (http://datahack4fi.org/) 09:38 – Organizing Hackathons 12:21 – Non-programmers and Hackathons; Bringing in Diverse Perspectives “Some people, when confronted with a problem, think ‘I know, I’ll use regular expressions.’ Now they have two problems.” ~Jamie Zawinski Code: Debugging the Gender Gap (https://www.codedoc.co/) 22:46 – Building Things for Others, Leadership Roles, Group Dynamics, and Men vs Women Ctrl Alt Delete Hate Hackathon (https://www.hackathon.com/event/ctrl-alt-delete-hate-hackathon-32802882304) Lady Problems Hackathon (http://ladyproblemshackathon.com/) 35:28 – Overnight Hackathons vs Non-Overnight Hackathons 36:38 – The Value of Celebrating Glorious Failure and Responding to Stress and Pressure Benjamin Zander: The transformative power of classical music (https://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion) [TED Talk] Reflections: Astrid: Talking about hackathons is talking about all kinds of other issues. Sam: Make room and seek out non-developers. Rein: Benjamen Zander: Leadership on Display (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bJNw91QyyM) Rachel: Show up, contribute, and listen. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Rachel Katz.

00:16 – Welcome to “Unrepentant Cyborgs” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:28 – Codeland Conference (http://codelandconf.com/) 02:02 – Making Conferences Accessible, Affordable, and Unintimidating for People 13:00 – Ticket Prices and Structure 15:01 – Creating an Immersive Experience and Community With and For People You Care About 25:11 – Leading by Example and Maintaining a Positive Persona 29:49 – The Importance of Money and Financial Freedom Tech Done Right Episode 002: Career Development with Brandon Hays and Pete Brooks (https://www.techdoneright.io/002-career-development-with-brandon-hays) 39:52 – Ethics as Automatic Technology Scales and Capitalism Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam M. Grant (https://www.amazon.com/Give-Take-Helping-Others-Success/dp/0143124986) 49:45 – In summary: Codeland Conference Reflections: Sam: Thank you for the book recommendation for Give and Take. Astrid: People first. Rein: Support worker-owned cooperative organizations. Leadership is doing things, not being given a title. Saron: The principles and values that led to what people will experience as a really great conference. CodeNewbie References: @CodeNewbies (https://twitter.com/codenewbies) Twitter Chat (https://www.codenewbie.org/chat) Slack Community (https://codenewbie.typeform.com/to/uwsWlZ) Podcast (https://www.codenewbie.org/podcast) Episode 118: Truck Driver with George Moore (https://www.codenewbie.org/podcast/truck-driver) Codeland (http://codelandconf.com/) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Saron Yitbarek.

00:16 – Welcome to “Not Your Mother’s Podcast!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 00:55 – Origin Story and Getting Involved in Coding 03:17 – Programming Perspectives From People of Different Backgrounds; Teaching Adults vs Children 08:19 – Work/Life Balance 11:32 – Changing Culture Around Gender Roles and Caregiving “Culture is like water in that it flows from the top down.” Nev Schulman Wants to Erase Gender Stereotypes for Parents (http://www.mtv.com/news/2976598/nev-schulman-gender-stereotypes-parenting-catfish-laura-perlongo-cleo/) 18:18 – The MotherCoders Organization (http://www.mothercoders.org/) What to expect when you’re done expecting (https://medium.freecodecamp.org/what-to-expect-when-youre-done-expecting-25fb0c00393?gi=ac6aa83c6d74) 24:27 – Teaching Frontend Development and The Stereotype that Women are Better at Frontend than Backend Work We can teach women to code, but that just creates another problem (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/14/tech-women-code-workshops-developer-jobs) 30:00 – Silicon Valley Elitism, Sexism, and Defining Cultural Norms; “The Ideal Worker” The Motherhood Penalty (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ASw9OpvMg) 35:38 – Why do we not have many of women CEOs? 37:42 – Tactical Help for Cultural Changes Reflections: Mandy: Donate to MotherCoders and/or support them via AmazonSmile (https://smile.amazon.com/). Rein: The empowerment of women and the challenges they face are a global problem. @manwhohasitall (https://twitter.com/manwhohasitall) Coraline: Fostering entrepreneurship and empowering women worldwide. Also, thinking about role models and how to amplify voices. Tina: Including moms as a kind of marginalized group as well. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Tina Lee.

00:16 – Welcome to “The Netherlands Invented Gay Marriage, So We Should Be Scared of Them Now!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:28 – Origin Story 03:17 – Programming Perspectives From People of Different Backgrounds; Teaching Adults vs Children 06:12 – Teaching Programming as a Language; Aha! Moments Scratch Programming (https://scratch.mit.edu/) GoldieBlox (https://www.goldieblox.com/) 12:26 – Identity and why do we so often use the phrase “not real programming”? What do we define as software? Tooling Microsoft Excel (https://products.office.com/en-us/excel) Expector (http://www.felienne.com/Expector) 20:13 – Should everyone know programming? Why? What should they know/be able to do? (Digital Literacy) 28:27 – What is the programming equivalent of a library/librarian? 33:06 – Does STEM education make other forms of education obsolete? Why not? 35:15 – Things to Get Better at Programming Other Than Programming CodeKata (http://codekata.com/) 48:58 – Fighting Against “Real” Programming and Being Hesitant to Let in Newcomers 50:40 – What can we do to help spread the knowledge? Reflections: Felienne: If people say they are programming, they are. Limit belittling and surprise. Do not contaminate others with what your own idea of programming is. Jessica: Value on reading through code and forming a model of it. Astrid: Thinking about programming as in thinking about writing. Rein: Some programming does involved math, but it is not (for the most part) the math you hated in high school. A Mathematician’s Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form by Paul Lockhart Sam: You can be fluent at a very low level of proficiency and still be fluent. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Felienne Hermans.

00:16 – Welcome to “Hey! I Made a Bong Out of This Podcast!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:26 – Origin Story Obama For America Campaign (http://www.p2012.org/candidates/obamaorg.html) 05:46 – Politics and Software; Data Collection Danah Boyd: Be Careful What You Code For (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWBZNxPzoUY&feature=youtu.be) 16:43 – Working in Python for Data Collection Django Girls (https://djangogirls.org/) 19:46 – The Python Software Foundation (PSF) 23:55 – Communication and Organization Within Communities MINSWAN: Matz is Nice So We Are Nice (http://blog.steveklabnik.com/posts/2011-08-19-matz-is-nice-so-we-are-nice) Social Encounter Party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Encounter_Party) 33:49 – Power Structures and Forming Relationships 36:39 – PSF Funding Reflections: Jessica: Each of our languages has a metalanguage that people use to talk about the language. Sam: Needs more sleep Astrid: Code can and should touch everything: What is it not doing that it should be doing? Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy Coraline: Software is not neutral. Rein: Software is inherently political. It is made for people by people. There’s no way it can’t be political. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

00:16 – Welcome to “Mob Programming” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 02:39 – Origin Stories From All! Tim Ferriss and The 4-Hour Workweek (https://fourhourworkweek.com/) 12:37 – Work/Life Balance and Ideal Work Environments Stockholm Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome) 16:50 – Technical Interviews 20:41 – Computer Science Degrees: Are they worth it? 27:42 – Compulsions to Know: Contempt Culture Aurynn Shaw: Contempt Culture (https://blog.aurynn.com/2015/12/16-contempt-culture) The Zens of Python and Ruby (http://automation-excellence.com/blog/zens-python-and-ruby) 34:12 – Gatekeeping in Tech 37:11 – Technical Interviews (Cont’d) Pair Programming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_programming) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: Jacob Stoebel and Ryder Timberlake.

00:28 – Welcome to Greater Than Code: The SJW Takeover 00:53 – Origin Story, Superpowers, and Bike Messengering Build APIs You Won’t Hate (https://leanpub.com/build-apis-you-wont-hate) Instacart (https://www.instacart.com/)

Had pesto chicken pasta for dinner, in honor of @philsturgeon’s interview on @greaterthancode today.

00:16 – Welcome to “Neon Abstract Podcast Erotica!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:15 – Origin Story Bocoup (https://bocoup.com/) 03:05 – Art (http://jennmoney.biz/art/) 06:37 – Viewing Source and Learning How to Code 11:02 – Getting a Computer Science Degree 13:56 – Pixel Art, Sexuality in Tech, and Online Presence @aphyr (https://twitter.com/aphyr) (Kyle Kingsbury) Ashley Madison Data Breach (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Madison_data_breach) 26:54 – How do potential employers react to your satire? 28:41 – CSS Perverts (https://medium.com/cool-code-pal) 36:03 – Vetting Potential Employers and Company Culture; Dealing with Toxic People Takeaways: Jessica: Everyone has something that they keep quiet about because they aren’t sure of the consequences. Coraline: Being privileged enough to have the responsibility to be public and show people that it’s okay that they are who they are. Astrid: You don’t have to separate your passions. Jenn: We all need a space to feel uninhibited. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jenn Schiffer.

01:11 – What it means to be a Senior Engineer When You Don’t Want to Go Into Management 05:07 – Generativity: The difference between your team’s output with you on it and your team’s output without you. Gregor Hohpe: 37 Things One Architect Knows About IT Transformation (https://leanpub.com/37things) 13:46 – The Job of An Architect 22:09 – What are the managers doing? “It is too much to ask for your manager to be your career mentor?” Sam Gerstenzang: The Happy Demise of the 10X Engineer (https://a16z.com/2014/07/30/the-happy-demise-of-the-10x-engineer/) Everything's an Argument by Andrea A. Lunsford, et al. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/131908575X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=131908575X&linkCode=as2&tag=therubyrep-20&linkId=d08b37c3206978c7992ae8c263c1f1dd) Reflections: Astrid: From Jessica’s perspective, what a software architect actually is supposed to be doing. Sam: Everything's an Argument by Andrea A. Lunsford, et al. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/131908575X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=131908575X&linkCode=as2&tag=therubyrep-20&linkId=d08b37c3206978c7992ae8c263c1f1dd) Coraline: I’m going to read ^ book. Jessica: More surprise episodes! Darin: Think less about me and more about the team around me. And I’m looking for a mentor! Cheryl: Greater Than Code > Mission Taco This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!_T Special Guests: Cheryl Shaefer and Darin Wilson.

Posted another patrons-only outtake from today's precall with @CherylGSchaefer! https://t.co/g4GZA9LWle

— Greater Than Code (@greaterthancode) February 1, 2017

00:16 – Welcome to “Let’s Get this Ship on the Road!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:06 – Origin Story and Mentorship Cheryl Gore Schaefer: Grow Your Team In 90 Days @ RubyConf 2016 (https://confreaks.tv/videos/rubyconf2016-grow-your-team-in-90-days) Empowerment Through Mentorship (https://www.launchcode.org/blog/empowerment-through-mentorship/) 11:38 – Avoiding Burnout: “How can I show up better as a Mentee? How can you keep yourself from giving up and washing out? When you find your skills have atrophied, how do you find the resolve to try again?” ~ Ariel Spear Spot2Fish (http://www.spot2fish.com/) 23:41 – The Future of Tech Education Sarah Mei Computer Science Education Tweetstorm (https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/824831465745637376) Sarah Mei People Who Apply for Opportunity Scholarships Tweetstorm (https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/819575574129676288) Reflections: Cheryl: It’s valuable to have different viewpoints represented. Also, exposing people to fundamentals of tech is valuable as well. Astrid: The RubyConf/RailsConf Opportunity Scholarships exist! Also, advice for mentees and mentors is the same. Sam: Making a distinction between being a TA and being a mentor and giving the mentee ownership of their learning plan. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Cheryl Shaefer.

00:16 – Welcome to “Cyberpunk Dystopia” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:45 – Origin Stories Gay marriage: the database engineering perspective (https://qntm.org/gay) André Arko: Falsehoods programmers believe (https://andre.arko.net/2013/03/24/falsehoods-programmers-believe/) 11:38 – Ruby Together; Membership and Benefits 501(C)(6) (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopick03.pdf) 22:06 – Ensuring the Future of Ruby 27:39 – Fair Pay and Getting Developers/Companies to Pay for Stuff RethinkDB: why we failed (https://www.defmacro.org/2017/01/18/why-rethinkdb-failed.html) 39:46 – How Does Bundler Work, Anyway? [blog post] Andre Arko: How does Bundler work, anyway? @ RubyConf 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DqzaqeeMgY) 44:16 – Sharing and Reusing Code 52:26 – gemstash vs geminabox OpenSSL (https://www.openssl.org/) Heartbleed (http://heartbleed.com/) Reflections: Sam: Be a member-friend of Ruby Together! Jessica: Ruby Together is an advancement in the software industry as a whole to form a trade organization that is a business related to supporting all businesses and people and making our software infrastructure maintainable. Carina: OpenSSL is back to being insufficiently funded. Support other projects like Ruby Together too. See: Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure. André: Hope that devs and companies that listen to this show with join Ruby Together. Jay: It’s smart business for businesses to support organizations like Ruby Together. Software companies have large profit margins. Monies that would be spent on taxes can be put back into our community to support key infrastructure & tooling. My call to action is that our listeners support Ruby Together and get their companies to support Ruby Together and similar organizations. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: André Arko and Carina C. Zona.

Intro music by Rod Johnson (https://twitter.com/springrod): Prelude in C# minor, commonly known as The Bells of Moscow. 01:07 – Welcome to “Anarcho-Suyndicalist Tech!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 02:03 – Writing Blog Posts: “Blogging is shipping.” The Recurse Center (https://www.recurse.com/) Adam Perry: Baby Steps: Slowly Porting musl to Rust (https://blog.anp.lol/rust/2016/06/11/baby-steps-porting-musl-to-rust/) 07:17 – How to Ask Good Questions Eric Steven Raymond: How To Ask Questions The Smart Way (http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html) The Google Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_effect) 20:26 – Operations (Ops); Testing in Ops

"There's this exciting thing that happens when you run software, which is that stuff goes wrong in unexpected ways!" @b0rk @greaterthancode

— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) January 18, 2017

Ryan Kennedy: Fear Driven Development @ OSB 2015 Effective DevOps: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale by Jennifer Davis and Katherine Daniels (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920039846.do) Continuous Integration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_integration) 38:42 – Zines & Drawings (http://jvns.ca/blog/2016/11/14/why-cute-drawings/) Reflections: Sam: Having concrete strategies for asking question more effectively. Julia: If something is painful, then do it more often. Jessica: If asking questions is scary, put some work into the question and then you can ask it with confidence and know you’re not wasting someone’s time. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Julia Evans.

00:16 – Welcome to “Snowpocalypse!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:50 – Zuri’s Background and Origin Story 04:19 – Hackathons Meet Zuri. The Queen of Hackathons. (http://blog.codewithveni.com/meet-zuri-queen-hackathons/) Color Coded (https://www.voxmedia.com/a/go-deeper) 16:37 – Overcoming Shyness 20:47 – Navigating the Channels of Your Career Graphical User Interface (GUI) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_user_interface) 27:07 – Developing Skills and Keeping up with New Technologies AWS Certified Solutions Architect (https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-solutions-architect-associate/) 33:31 – Hiring Practices; Culture Fit Research: How Subtle Class Cues Can Backfire on Your Resume (https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-backfire-on-your-resume) (“No Silver Bullet” for D&I) Facebook’s Hiring Process Hinders Its Effort to Create a Diverse Workforce (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/facebook-s-hiring-process-hinders-its-effort-to-create-a-diverse-workforce) An Imbalance; Casting a Wider Net to Attract Computing Women (https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/technology/an-imbalance-casting-a-wider-net-to-attract-computing-women.html) (“Dave-to-Girl Ratio”) 50:23 – Leading While Learning Reflections: Jessica: Helping others in small ways. #Micromentoring!

#micromentoring https://t.co/D51s0HoA8m

— Greater Than Code (@greaterthancode) January 11, 2017

Coraline: Senior developers need to create opportunities for micromentorship. Zuri: Periodically check in with new developers. Astrid: Use hackathons as a way to try new things and to meet others who are already good at them. Sam: Hang out at hackathons and the power of post-its! This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Zuri Hunter.

00:16 – Welcome to “DevPunks!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 00:42 – Snuggs’ Background and Origin Story NYC.rb (https://www.meetup.com/NYC-rb/) Ruby on Rails Link Slack Community (https://www.rubyonrails.link/) Ra’Shaun Stovall: Why Is Open Source So Closed? @ RubyConf 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5ad52AogJ8) 04:41 – Getting Involved in Meetups and Building the Ruby Community 09:08 – Teaching/Mentoring New Developers

OH: In order to make Rails jobs be a thing in the future, you develop Rails people.

— Greater Than Code (@greaterthancode) January 4, 2017

12:13 – Hurdling the Massive Casm that is Between “Junior” and “Senior” Developers

Google Image Result for https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53c6bc90e4b050924635d114/t/59d7def4f5e231512a015838/1507319545508/marketoonist-content.png

null

In-person Mentorship Teaching from Jr. Dev Mistakes Incentivize Hiring Jr. Devs Pair Programming Nights and on Open Source Pull Request Review — Closely Closer Connections Between Junior and Senior Developers 33:09 – Teaching How to be a Developer: Are “seniors” really the “juniors”? Id, Ego and Super-ego (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego) Occam’s Razor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor) 38:11 – The Best Ways for Juniors and Seniors to Work Together C.A.N.: Cancel All Negativity 43:13 – What can hiring managers do? 48:34 – What can senior developers do? Reflections: Astrid: Being accountable is paying homage to those who helped you get where you are. Jessica: Your students can make you a good teacher by showing you the solutions you never would have thought of. Snuggs: Check out Ruby Together and grab yourself some Bitcoins! This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Ra’Shaun Stovall.

00:16 – Welcome to “Lucky Episode 13!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:10 – Audrey’s Background and Origin Story Stumptown Syndicate (http://stumptownsyndicate.org/) Citizen Code of Conduct (http://citizencodeofconduct.org/) Free Geek (https://www.freegeek.org/) 10:37 – The Recompiler The Responsible Communication Style Guide (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/961164339/the-responsible-communication-style-guide) 16:24 – Community Organization; Tech Community Biases Calagator (http://calagator.org/) The Agile Manifesto (http://agilemanifesto.org/) The Overton Window (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window) 25:55 – Accessibility in Community Spaces Open Source Bridge (http://opensourcebridge.org/) 28:49 – Religion and Social Justice in Tech Unitarianism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism) 34:37 – Labor Organization #talkpay (https://twitter.com/hashtag/talkpay?lang=en) by Lauren Voswinkel (https://twitter.com/laurenvoswinkel) Distributed Denial of Women (http://distributed-denial-of-women.org/) National General Strike (https://www.facebook.com/events/1122791464440715/) Fight for $15 (https://fightfor15.org/) Reflections: Astrid: Making space for others. Coraline: Tech workers face the same challenges that workers in other industries have. Sam: Importance of spiritual awareness in communities. Audrey: Go talk to a coworker. Ask a question about work environment and how things get done at your company. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Audrey Eschright.

00:16 – Welcome to “It’s Made of People!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 02:17 – Jerome’s Background and Origin Story General Assembly (https://generalassemb.ly/) 09:30 – Vets Who Code (https://vetswhocode.io/): Funding, Technology Stack, Curriculum, and Students 18:19 – Vets Who Code Student Experience 20:00 – Obstacles Veterans Face Getting Into Tech Location Network

“Your goal is to only get 1% better every day and the funny thing about 1% is that your 1% changes every day.” @JeromeHardaway

— Greater Than Code (@greaterthancode) December 21, 2016

Jacob Oakley: Learning Code with Kids (https://medium.com/vets-who-code/learning-code-with-kids-4ed8178f88c) 29:04 – Making the Tech Community More Welcoming to Veterans 33:37 – What should people in the tech community NOT do? Don’t Assume Recognize Women Veterans 36:55 – Getting Involved with Vets Who Code 38:09 – Evaluating Opportunities Reflections: Astrid: Addressing emotional intelligence and increasing 1% each day. Jessica: Using Ruby on Rails is a valuable resource for teaching people how to code. Coraline: Time is life and life is also time. Don’t be married to the tool, be married to the problem. Jerome: Be “Greater Than Code” and ask questions about people. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jerome Hardaway.

00:16 – Welcome to “Trapped in a BinarySort!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:21 – “STEAM” Education (http://stemtosteam.org/) 02:36 – Getting Involved in Technology and Being a Maker 05:33 – Making a Zine and Making it (and other things) Inclusive Books With Pictures (https://bookswithpictures.com/) [Kickstarter] BubbleSort Zines 2.0: moar computer science zines! (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sailorhg/bubblesort-zines-20-moar-computer-science-zines) 14:03 – Passion for Sailor Moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Moon) and How it Relates to Teams and Friendship 18:21 – Introducing Art Into STEM Amy Wibowo: Sweaters as a Service – Adventures in Machine Knitting @ Madison+ Ruby (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6071MRIzCA&spfreload=5) This Long-Lost Nintendo Knitting Machine Would Have Let You Make Sweaters With Your NES (https://kotaku.com/this-long-lost-nintendo-knitting-machine-would-have-let-5939210) 25:36 – Making Websites as a Full-time Career 28:22 – Human-computer Interaction (HCI) Research Reflections: Astrid: Pay more attention to the hobbies that you have. You might be able to build a career out of it! Sam: Seeking inspiration in other forms of art. Coraline: Art gives us empathy for other people’s experiences. Jessica: Art is not an alternative to technology. It is an integral part to doing technology well. Amy: Art as admitting you don’t know everything and wanting to create a little bit of alternate reality that other people can look into and understand. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Amy Wibowo.

00:16 – Welcome to “Who’s Line of Code is it Anywhere?…” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:37 – Getting Started with Computer-ing & Security PGP = Pretty Good Privacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy) Filippo Valsorda: I’m giving up on PGP (https://blog.filippo.io/giving-up-on-long-term-pgp/) 09:28 – Clef (https://rublon.com/) and Two-factor Authentication (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-factor_authentication) (2FA) 12:33 – Citizen Cybersecurity Due to the Rise of Mass Surveillance (https://medium.freecodecamp.org/tor-signal-and-beyond-a-law-abiding-citizens-guide-to-privacy-1a593f2104c3#.w4mg6gqku) Quincy Larson: How to encrypt your entire life in less than an hour (https://medium.freecodecamp.org/tor-signal-and-beyond-a-law-abiding-citizens-guide-to-privacy-1a593f2104c3#.w4mg6gqku) Signal by Whisper Systems (https://signal.org/) 17:27 – Evaluating Service Providers Tor (https://www.torproject.org/download/download)

As devs, we have the opportunity to make software and tools more secure and more private or less secure and less private.” - @jessepollak

— Greater Than Code (@greaterthancode) December 8, 2016

22:29 – Password Managers and Encrypting Data at Rest (Security by Default) 1Password (https://1password.com/) LastPass (https://www.lastpass.com/business-password-manager) Noah Zoschke: Encryption at Rest (Convox Article) (https://convox.com/blog/encryption-at-rest/) 25:30 – Tools and Resources NaCl: Networking and Cryptography library (“Salt”) (https://nacl.cr.yp.to/) Bouncy Castle (https://www.bouncycastle.org/) Amazon Web Services (AWS) (https://aws.amazon.com/) 28:20 – Two-factor Authentication, Yubico (https://www.yubico.com/setup/) 32:58 – Putting Trust in Security and the Organizations That Provide It; Centralization 38:06 – Developer Unions 42:58 – “Citizens are buying a lot of IoT devices that are being used for DDoS attacks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack). As citizens, are we responsible to some extent for them occurring regardless of our technical ability at the time of purchase?” – Yiorgos (George) Adamopoulos; What about retailers? 47:56 – “What are your thoughts on “benevolent” malware that looks for vulnerable devices and patches them without asking for permission from the device’s owner?” – Wesley Ellis (https://twitter.com/tahnok) Reflections: Jesse: We as a society have a responsibility to look after the people on the edges, and look after the people who don’t have the tools or don’t have the resources to do security themselves. Mandy: Learning about security is important, even for a newbie. Jay: We can’t just build the thing, we have to make sure that it’s usable and we have to make sure that beyond the fact that it works, that it’s going to be adopted by people and that it’s meaningful and helpful. Sam: “Stop calling me a consumer. I am neither a gaping a mouth nor an open wallet. I am a citizen interacting in a community.” – Jeme Brelin This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Jesse Pollak.

00:16 – Welcome to “Software Eats Human…” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:25 – Travis’ Superhero Origin Story Retinitis Pigmentosa (https://www.blindness.org/retinitis-pigmentosa) Achondroplasia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achondroplasia) 09:00 – Explaining a Disability and Limitations to Others The Spoon Theory by Christine Miserandino (https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/) 14:25 – Supporting Someone with a Disability 19:56 – “Are you noticing your disabilities misrepresenting you in some ways?” – James Edward Gray II (https://twitter.com/jeg2) / Accessibility

re: Accessibility “We need to have diverse people working for us so we can bring up, ‘Hey! This thing is an issue!’” @travisbhartwell

— Greater Than Code (@greaterthancode) November 30, 2016

Do they all look like me? Do they all think like me? If they do, you’re probably not getting the perspective that you need @travisbhartwell

— Greater Than Code (@greaterthancode) November 30, 2016

30:29 – “I have a Buddhist friend with Marfan syndrome who has told me that the knowledge he could die at any time has been tremendously beneficial to his practice, and I sometimes wonder if I wouldn’t be a shallow asshole if I didn’t have my own stuff I’m dealing with. On that note, I’d be curious if you have any thoughts on how your disability and health challenges have positively impacted your life?” – Ryder Timberlake (https://twitter.com/rydertimberlake) 32:10 – Coping Mechanisms and Defining Yourself By Your Work (Question from Craig Buchek (https://twitter.com/CraigBuchek)) 34:20 – “What’s a non-programming hobby you’re into?” – Ben Hamill (https://twitter.com/benhamill) 36:10 – “What’s one thing you wish unknown strangers you encounter in public knew about you?” – James Edward Gray II (https://twitter.com/jeg2) Stella Young: I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much (https://www.ted.com/talks/stella_young_i_m_not_your_inspiration_thank_you_very_much) Reflections: Astrid: Being cognizant if there’s a way to make your own code and applications more accessible to others. Coraline: Thinking about The Spoon Theory and how it’s been appropriated by the activist community. Mandy: Have empathy for both yourself and others, find your community, and disability is different for everyone. Travis: Gaining empathy for other people to help other people gain empathy for other people. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Travis B. Hartwell.

00:16 – Welcome to “99 Bottles of Podcasts!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 99 Bottles of OOP by Sandi Metz and Katrina Owen (https://www.greaterthancode.com/2016/11/21/008-sandi-metz-and-katrina-owen/) 01:31 – Collaboration on the Book Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby by Sandi Metz (https://www.poodr.com/https://www.poodr.com/)

People who like me call me disciplined & meticulous
People who don't call me anal & pedantic
It's the same thing. @kytrinyx @greaterthancode

— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) November 21, 2016

14:56 – Audience: Who is this book for? 99 Bottles of Beer Exercise (https://www.sandimetz.com/99bottles/sample#appendix-exercise) 21:06 – The DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_repeat_yourself); Duplication and Replication

DRYing too hard: "people encapsulate the pieces that are identical, though they don't represent a complete idea." @kytrinyx @greaterthancode

— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) November 21, 2016

29:21 – Code Review and Naming Things 30:40 – “In what ways is it 99 Bottles a richer kata than fizz buzz (http://wiki.c2.com/?FizzBuzzTest)?” – Benjamin Fleischer (https://twitter.com/hazula) 32:53 – “The 99 Bottles book seems to document all the trade-offs we’ve been implicitly making. Could this possibly be a first step in automating those decisions? i.e.: Might we take those now-explicit rules and partially automate the process of programming?” – Craig Buchek (https://twitter.com/CraigBuchek) 34:47 – Llewellyn Falco: “Sparrow Decks” (http://llewellynfalco.blogspot.com/p/sparrow-decks.html) Kathy Sierra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra) Philip Kellman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Kellman) 39:57 – “what non-Ruby technologies are you interested in right now?” – Darin Wilson (https://twitter.com/darinwilson)

The more people involved in a project
the less important the code becomes
and more important the interactions.@kytrinyx @greaterthancode

— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) November 21, 2016

“Code is easy; people are hard. If you want to get things done, you have to get good at people.” - @sandimetz

— Greater Than Code (@greaterthancode) November 21, 2016

45:00 – Sandi’s Unique Approach to Teaching 47:53 – Speaking at Conferences

Listening is not how people learn.
We learn by doing.
To help someone learn-by-doing, ask them questions.@sandimetz @greaterthancode

— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) November 21, 2016

Reflections: Coraline: Inspiration to return to work on her book about empathy. Also, exploring whether that visual interpretation of code is the shape of code in the abstract or the shape of the code that’s written on-screen. Sandi: Controversy around the notion that duplication is better than the wrong abstraction. Katrina: We are humans and we have ideas and sharing those ideas makes us visible to other humans. It is also incredibly important and impactful to speak. Jessica: Development of relationships and partnerships with someone who will push you. Sam: Helping people realize things on their own is greater than telling them the answer. Also, practicing better self-control in coding and mentoring. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guests: Katrina Owen and Sandi Metz.

00:16 – Welcome to Greater Than Code 02:02 – Neem Serra Introduction Neem Serra: “From Babies to Software Development” (http://neemserra.com/from-babies-to-software-development/) 03:23 – 2016 Election Thoughts, Fears, and Aspirations; Importance of Ally Support Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The Other America” (http://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlk-gp-speech.pdf) 14:51 – Overcoming Adversity and Getting Into Science Genomics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genomics) 26:27 – Switching from Science to Programming and Getting a Job Software Carpentry (https://software-carpentry.org/) National Society of Black Engineers (https://www.nsbe.org/home.aspx) HandsUp United (http://www.handsupunited.org/) Project Euler (https://projecteuler.net/) 33:53 – Volunteering and Being Empathetic and Inclusive

"I feel like most of my job some days is helping people try to be empathetic. Nobody gives me a raise for that."@TeamNeem @greaterthancode

— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) November 9, 2016

47:36 – Battling Unconscious Bias 55:17 – Programming in Swift Swift Playgrounds Demo with a Twist (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no12EfZUSQo) Reflections: Astrid: Push through. Jessica: Programming gives you power. Also, we love you, David Brady. Coraline: Individual actions matter. Be allies to people who are facing discrimination or oppression. Neem: Small acts of kindness matter. The Techies Project (https://techiesproject.com/) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Neem Serra.

00:17 – Welcome to “PC Principal Shit!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 00:35 – David Bock Introduction and “Smoked Pork” Discussion 04:56 – Teaching Kids Computer Science Concepts Watch D.O.G.S. (https://dadsofgreatstudents.com//) Code.org (https://code.org/) Hour of Code (https://code.org/learn) Blockly (https://developers.google.com/blockly/) Karel the Robot (http://karel.sourceforge.net/) TEALS: Computer Science in Every High School (https://www.tealsk12.org/) 12:50 – Being Scientifically Literate Neil deGrasse Tyson YouTube Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFLYe_YAQYQ) 14:13 – Gender and Peer Pressure Dynamics

On @greaterthancode with @bokmann. He had a student who realized "Oh! Computers aren't smart! They're just dumb, really really fast!" :D

— Sam Livingston-Gray (@geeksam) November 2, 2016

22:13 – Curriculum and Good Teaching Languages C.A.M.S: Coding at Middle School (https://www.lcps.org/domain/17131) Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/) 23:16 – Games as an Entry Point for Programming Minecraft (https://minecraft.net/en-us/) 34:00 – “K-12 is pretty broad age range. How do you tailor the curriculum for different ages? Do you find that there are things you can teach to older kids that definitely don’t work with younger kids?” — Darin Wilson (https://twitter.com/darinwilson) 36:17 – Understanding Abstract Thought What’s Going on in There? by Lise Eliot (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553378252/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0553378252&linkId=37388e60dbce1c4e681fe7fc19566b0a) 37:19 – “How do you handle multiple skill levels? Specifically, what can you do to set a culture where kids who know a little more won’t intimidate those who are completely new?” — Jacob Stoebel (https://twitter.com/jstoebel) Project Euler (https://projecteuler.net/) CodingBat (https://codingbat.com/java) 40:51 – Getting Equipment and Resources Into the Hands of Students; “How do you deal with equipment? Not every kid rolls up with Arch Linux installed on their Macbook Air, presumably.” — Ben Hamill (https://twitter.com/benhamill) Code Virginia (https://www.codevirginia.org/) 45:12 – Tablets vs Computer Learning and Resources; Computer Science vs Computational Thinking Robozzle (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/robozzle/id350729261?mt=8) ROBLOX (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/roblox/id431946152?mt=8) Move The Turtle (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/move-turtle.-programming-for/id509013878?mt=8) DragonBox (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragonbox-algebra-5+/id522069155?mt=8) 35:56 – Getting Involved with Teaching Kids Technology … but Taking Care to Avoid Burnout Reflections: Mandy: Sharing today’s resources with kids who are interested. If you’re in South Central Pennsylvania, please reach out! Sam: Resources for where to go and where to get started. Coraline: Reflecting on privilege and thinking about how to get equipment into underprivileged kids’ hands. Dave: One of the best ways to learn is to teach. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Dave Bock.

00:16 – Welcome to “PodcasTRON...” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:00 – James Edward Gray II’s Introduction 02:03 – #CastleGraySkull (https://twitter.com/hashtag/CastleGraySkull?src=hash) “It’s hard to find a castle in a good school district.” ~ David Brady 07:59 – Interviewing James Edward Gray II: Implementing the LHC on a Whiteboard @ RailsConf 2016 (https://confreaks.tv/videos/railsconf2016-implementing-the-lhc-on-a-whiteboard) (Slides) ^^ (https://speakerdeck.com/jeg2/implementing-the-lhc-on-a-whiteboard) Engineering Interviews: Grading Rubric (https://medium.engineering/engineering-interviews-grading-rubric-8b409bec021f?gi=bf8cc3917f0#.k3hy8btl4) 15:14 – Transparency; Giving Honest Feedback Joe Mastey: Hiring Developers, with Science! @ RailsConf 2016 (http://confreaks.tv/videos/railsconf2016-hiring-developers-with-science) 20:08 – Working with Elixir (https://elixir-lang.org/) James Edward Gray II: The Most Object-Oriented Language (https://blog.noredink.com/post/142689001488/the-most-object-oriented-language) 28:13 – Functional Programming vs Object-Oriented Programming 32:47 – Learning New Languages The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/020161622X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=020161622X&linkId=3b2cf57a2ede1d3259ee3654c980e7ce) 37:33 – “What is the best way to approach learning a new language?” ~ Nate Vick (https://twitter.com/natron99) exercism.io (https://exercism.io/) 41:39 – “What's going on with Codalyzed? Are any new videos on the way? Related: the first video discussed "less code"; has your focus on it changed as you've moved into new languages and their ecosystems?” ~ Trevor Bramble (https://twitter.com/TrevorBramble) Greg Young: The Art of Destroying Software (https://vimeo.com/108441214)   Reflections: David: Read the core documentation. (Module: Enumerable) (https://ruby-doc.org/core-2.1.0/Enumerable.html#method-i-minmax_by) Jay: Next steps for beginners: Barry Swartz: The Paradox of Choice TED Talk (https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en); Get social. Sam: It’s time to expand my brain again and learn a new language(s)! Coraline: Inspiration to go learn a new language as well. ^^ James: I am privileged to have the best friends on the Internet and have these discussions. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: James Edward Gray.

00:16 – Welcome to “The Hot Mess Podcast...” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 00:54 – Charity Majors’ Introduction / Listener Question: “What is your superhero origin story?” ~Donald Plummer (https://twitter.com/dplummer) 02:54 – Operations and Creativity 06:37 – Hiring People for Operations Commandos, Infantry, and Police (https://blog.codinghorror.com/commandos-infantry-and-police/) 07:35 – Looking Back on Chaos 10:00 – “Problems of Success” Jessica Kerr: Growing Your Tech Stack: When to Say No (Spectrum of Risk Article) (https://blog.codeship.com/growing-tech-stack-say-no/) 11:32 – Bootcamp Graduates and Startup Culture 15:44 – “Cult-y Companies” Dunbar's Number (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number) 19:19 – Microservices Conway’s Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law) 26:41 – “Serverless" 29:55 – What should software engineers should be doing to learn more about operations? “Put yourself in rotation...Expose yourself to the consequences!” ~ Charity Majors 39:01 – Misogyny in Tech Reflections: Astrid: It’s really important to understand operations. Sam: Actually understanding your dependencies still applies in a serverless architecture. Coraline: We are all trying to work to make tech better in our own ways. Dave: The system is the source of the power that we have to use to break the system because the system is broken. Charity: The intersection of tech and human issues. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Charity Majors.

00:16 – Welcome to “Well, Technically...” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:34 – LaToya Allen’s Introduction 03:18 – Dear Tech Companies: Focus on Diversity, Not Foosball (https://www.wired.com/2016/09/dear-tech-companies-focus-diversity-not-foosball/) 08:14 – How does “the team photo” reflect on you and your company? 10:33 – Article Backlash; Interviewing/Hiring People for Diversity

Mental health Bechdel test for women in male-dominated fields: Have *I* talked to another woman today about something related to my work?

— amy nguyen (@amyngyn) October 10, 2016

15:11 – The Talking-Over-People Culture Ruby DCamp (http://rubydcamp.org/) 17:37 – Improving Job Postings; How do you find a company to work for that’s good? “Save your ninja moves for the alley!” ~ Jessica Kerr 23:16 – What is something that your company or coworkers or someone at work did that made you feel included? 26:18 – “Signaling” 30:54 – The SheNomads Job Board and the Vetting Process Commitment to diversity inclusion Provide meaningful work Offer reasonable pay 33:33 – #talkpay (https://twitter.com/hashtag/talkpay) Salary Negotiation with Ashley Powell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQUSLEapSfY) Use Google / Indeed.com Talk to recruiters Talk to your peers 35:56 – SheNomads and Remote Work   Reflections: Dave: Thinking more about signaling. Astrid: I’m not the only person turned off by ninja-stuff. Coraline: Bringing marketing personas into the recruiting process. Sam: Recognizing the impulse to interrupt and taking a step back. LaToya: Thank you for Greater Than Code! Jessica: Gratitude for remote work and diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Listener Call to Action: If you are not a remote worker, talk to management and see if you can work from home one day per week to introduce the idea of remote work and prove that you are effective and efficient even if you are not present in the office. If you are in a management position, go work from home yourself at least one day per week, so you can build some empathy for what it’s like to be on the other side of those tools and that divide, so you can more effectively incorporate your more distributed teammates. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: LaToya Allen.

00:16 – Welcome to “The Meta Four!” …we mean, “Greater Than Code!” 01:30 – Chef Avdi Grimm’s Introduction 02:19 – RubyTapas (https://www.rubytapas.com/); Production, Typing, and Editing 10:52 – Real World Programming: Episode #346 (https://www.rubytapas.com/2015/10/01/episode-346-user-model/): User; LiveCoding.tv (https://www.education-ecosystem.com/) 12:24 – Neutralizing Impostor Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome) 13:32 – Break time and getting to know our new panelist, Astrid Countee!

"I've never met a junior who wasn't extremely senior in some area of life I know nothing about" @dbrady @greaterthancode

— Jessica Kerr (@jessitron) October 5, 2016

24:15 – Neutralizing Imposter Syndrome (Cont’d) 25:42 – Live Coding 28:29 – What non-Ruby technologies have you been exploring lately? ~ Darin Wilson (https://twitter.com/darinwilson) 29:05 – PHP (https://secure.php.net/) 35:56 – Should a screencast series like RubyTapas also go beyond code? Talk about topics like dealing with frustration when programming, for example? ~Lucas Dohman (https://twitter.com/moonbeamlabs) “Programming can be an incredibly judgmental culture and environments can be really poisonous.” ~ Avdi Grimm Bias in Computer Systems (https://nissenbaum.tech.cornell.edu/) Carina C. Zona: Schemas for the Real World @ SCNA 2013 (https://vimeo.com/80375707) Carina C. Zona: Consequences of an Insightful Algorithm @ JSConf EU 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znwWYR1mzzw) Reflections: Sam: You can use your ego and your attachment to the code, but make it not about yourself. Instead, try to focus on what your code is bringing to other people and maybe that can help you try to figure out how to make it better without getting stuck. Coraline: We got to see a glimpse into the whole person behind a persona. Even heroes are people with vulnerability, human flaws, anxieties, and weaknesses. Astrid: Bring your whole self to everything. Jessica: What we show matters. Jay: Don’t be too quick to compare yourself to others. David: Put your ideas out there and get them in front of other people. That is how you manufacture authority. Avdi: Hidden Figures This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

00:18 - Welcome to "Dread Coder Roberts!" ...we mean, "Greater Than Code!" 01:30 - Noel Rappin's Introduction (Spoiler alert! He's got a Ph.D.!) 04:31 - Take My Money: Accepting Payments on the Web (https://pragprog.com/book/nrwebpay/take-my-money) 08:30 - Code Paths and Tracking Failures 10:59 - What is the quickest path to accepting payments online? Are there drawbacks to getting something up fast? (~ David Bock) 13:17 - Testing Payment Issues 14:29 - Design Patterns and Missing Layers Between Controllers and Models 17:49 - Business Logic and Database Constraints (aka, "Why did he write the book?!") 20:14 - I Was A Developer Running HR For A Year: AMA by Noel Rappin at Madison+ Ruby: Epilogue 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOy1rWdL-HE) 24:02 - Practices, Problems, and Potential Solutions for Human Resources 29:34 - Team Diversity and Inclusion *Listener Call to Action: * Team retrospectives and demonstrating that it is safe to fail. Noel: The impact of our applications and how they work in real-world context. David: How can we help introverts feel comfortable? Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain (https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World-Talking/dp/0307352153) Coraline: Inspiration to look at teams, meetings, and discussions and see if they are leaving room for everyone to participate equally. Jessica: We started out talking about accepting payments on the web and we found something greater than code. Jay: If we want to try to work with the hard stuff, the hardest problems to solve are the things that are greater than code. Sam: Being, as Jay said, "not just allies, but accomplices." This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode). To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Noel Rappin.