Leading Geeks

If you’ve ever managed people and (like me) are somewhat empathic, you’ve had this experience: you walk into the office, and you can feel the waves of disgruntlement radiating from your staff. You’re not sure why or what happened, but they’re grumpy.  If it were just one or two of them, you could easily brush [...]

Some of you have read this blog for a while might already know that I have some experience with technology disasters. Specifically, two back-to-back disasters involving many gallons of water and a server room, thereby earning me the nickname “Waterfall Girl” a few years back. (Which didn’t really stick, luckily.) Here are some lessons I’ve learned: [...]

If you’re a geek leader, are you gagging your geeks?  (No, I don’t mean with your lack of showering.  That’s probably a different post.) What I’m asking is whether saying certain things is verboten in your department/team/company.  Are you so paranoid that a user or customer will hear someone venting and get offended–I used to [...]

I keep contemplating the recent statistics that indicate some huge percentage of workers will be fleeing their jobs once the economy bounces back. I find I’m more interested in the other side; the people who want to stay in their jobs. What makes them want to stay? Aren’t they under the same pressures as the [...]

I’m not (usually) horrifically rude, but I happened to glance at the page of the woman next to me on the bus this morning and saw the words “crisis fatigue” at the top of one of her lists. Then I stopped reading and started typing this (honest!) because it got me thinking about the impact [...]

To continue my omphaloskepsis on transparency, I find myself asking the question, “Why bother if they don’t even look for the information?” A comment on my last post pointed out that the meeting wasn’t the point–the availability of the information was. While I certainly agree, I should mention that nearly all the information was already [...]