Preface
Having resurrected this blog for the purpose of helping find myself a job (again), some things are going to be different.
The principle thing is a switch in focus, less on the technical and more on the people side, corresponding with how my career has evolved over the past decade. I probably will still dig into some technical topics, both out of interest and because it's easier to find opportunities to solve technical problems in the wilds of the internet, but it's important I also demonstrate, as best as I am able, that I have some understanding of organizational dynamics and human issues.
The secondary thing that's different is nearly a consequence of the first thing. In short, I will try to use this space to promote the efforts of those less well-represented in tech than myself. I will still surely include some of my own opinions, but my experience is that my opinion is much less likely to provide unique value than that of, say, a black woman.
Compared to the last 5-7 years, where in general I've sought to avoid injecting myself into discussions, I am going to use this space to highlight and discuss relevant events. Again, where I can I will populate those discussions by including quotes from and links to others thoughts on the subjects, but when I believe I can provide value by collating and commenting on these subjects, I will.
I will be writing about:
People - Process - Product
When I was working on my resume recently, I shrunk it down about 75%, and I wanted a pithy way to convey where my priorities were at this point. Both to put it out into the world, as an expression of what I was looking for, but also because it represented a clear shift in how I approached "work" over the past decade. While process has always been a significant part of the work I do in the tech world, it's generally been in service of the delivery of a particular product. Yes, I spent plenty of time optimizing processes for people, but that wasn't where the focus was. So a big part of resurrecting this blog is also about representing that shift to a focus on people.
People
Writing about people here is likely to be the most difficult, in some ways. I don't think there's a bug tracker for people problems, where I could just volunteer to try to help them, then write about it. But one of the ways that I think I can incorporate writing about people into my efforts here is through the relatively introspective manner that I tend to approach problems. That is, through documented analysis of my own process and behaviour in approaching problems, I can demonstrate at least some personal understanding of the dynamics involved.
Besides that, I will write about patterns and individual instances of workplace people problems that I encounter, primarily on Twitter. I will do my best to gather evidence demonstrating the harms that are occurring, and highlighting opportunities to mitigate those harms. I expect to lean heavily on the work of others here, and if I allow the focus of this type of writing to be on me, please call me out on it. That said, I will incorporate examples and stories from my own experience, as appropriate.
Process
Writing about process is something I generally enjoy, and while I'm used to doing that in a professional setting where I have long-term plans for the processes in question, I don't think I'll have a problem finding many, many relevant opportunities when writing about people or products.
Product
While definitely the lesser focus overall in how I'm approaching work, I will demonstrate delivery of high quality products throughout here. Both in the written work, and any accompanying projects, completeness and correctness will be held to a high standard.
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