Articles for category: Initiative

November 5, 2021

Greg Thomas

Avoiding Video

I’m not a fanatical advocate for video in our remote life – using it when necessary is my primary motto. When I am on a call and people are not using I don’t mind as long as their focus is on the call, as long as they are listening to what everyone is saying, as long as they are engaged. Video shouldn’t be the stick that makes sure you are listening to meetings. If it is, you don’t have a video problem, you have an attention problem, and that is a bigger problem to solve that will not be addressed

October 29, 2021

Greg Thomas

Code Control

Can you make your code better? Can you stop it from being so unwieldy? Can you code for the one problem that is in front of you or do you need to look at all the problems around you before you can decide? Controlling your code, what you write, and not letting it spiral out of control is one of the most difficult tasks developers have to perform. Our innate desire is to solve all the problems and make the world a better place. But sometimes (most in fact) we instead need to focus on the one that is in

October 26, 2021

Greg Thomas

What goes into a Meeting

If you want to have good results from a meeting, you need to put the good preparation into one to make it a success. And this goes for everyone in the meeting – presenter, attendees, listeners – if any of those people don’t come prepared for the meeting – there is no point in them attending. What’s the first ingredient that goes into a good meeting? People.

The Team Bridge

Teams don’t just work and they don’t just magically come together. It takes work and time. As soon as I see an email that ends with “let’s do this as a team” – I know there is something wrong, that the bridge isn’t there and this is a half-hearted attempt to deal with the problem. Building bridges between teams is not easy but if you’re writing your team announcements or motivation quotes in an email. You’re not even close to starting to build that bridge.