Global Nerdy link backlog (February 5, 2019 edition)

Over the past few years, I’ve managed to accumulate a ridiculously large backlog of links that I’d been meaning to blog about here on Global Nerdy. It’s time for me to do some spring cleaning, so from time to time, you’ll see these posts where I unload the links that are still good, both in the sense of still being online and still being valid and useful. Enjoy!

• An open letter to app developers: It’s from 2013, but most of these suggestions to app developers on how to make apps better for everyone still apply.
• 80% of your culture is your founder. That’s the first of three lessons that this articles tries to impart. The other two are about taking that first lesson and applying it.

Coming soon: Portable computers! (1994)

• How I became the most hated person in San Francisco for a day: Before the current tech backlash against Facebook, there was this guy. Long story short: techie creates app to “disrupt” another, less prestigious, worse paying industry and wonders why people are mad at him.
• Why women leave tech: What the research says. Sue Gardner put together this Google doc a few years back, based on information from more than 200 academic studies, surveys and industry white papers, as well as roughly 25 books and about 100 news stories and analysis and opinion pieces. As we’ve seen from the likes of James Damore and by the necessity of #MeToo, not much has changed.

• Habit stacking: 17 small productivity habits. These 17 mini-habits all come from S.J. Scott’s book, Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes That Take Five Minutes or Less. Most are common sense, but that’s pretty uncommon.
• How incredibly lazy people can form productive habits: It’s all about designing for laziness — making situations where it’s easier to do the right thing.
• Leading a team into the unknown: This HBR article suggests that when you’re leading a team on a project where you’re in unfamiliar territory or with a lot of unknowns, you should:
  • Set a grand challenge rather than dictating a vision
  • Design experiments rather than make decisions.
  • Don’t just ignite ideas, but prepare the organization to accept them.
  • Educate the wider organization.
  • Build expertise.
  • Don’t just give people time, but provide them with the resources to act quickly.
• The company you work for is not your friend: Yes, there are companies out there that do look out for their people. I work for one (Sourcetoad). But in most cases, while you may find a team or a manager that are your friend, to the company for whom you work, “You are a resource. That means the only one you can trust, really, is you. Here’s how to keep a cool head and stay in control of your career.”