Blog

For years, I've read and seen articles about how "all kids need to know how to code!", and in many ways, I fundamentally disagree. Not everyone needs to know how to write javascript, or build a web app. It's not an essential skill. At the same time, there ARE tech skills which give you superpowers, even in a small dose. Basic database skills and skills understanding technical documentation are incredibly powerful, in so many areas, even if you don't grow up to be a software engineer. Recently, I...

This morning, I attended a 4 hour zoom workshop on systems thinking from Elisabeth Hendrickson. They did all the things right to a zoom workshop manageable - regular breaks, really interactive, and still, at the end, I was ready to lie down on the floor and be a log for a day or two. My brain and body felt pounded. (I do, by the way, recommend the workshop. I learned several new and useful tools for thinking about systemic challenges an organization faced. It was a great workshop. But it was sti...

CN: Fascism, US Politics I just got home from the Election Tech Debrief, meeting with 300 other folks who worked on the intersection of Democratic politics and tech this last election cycle. I will have several newsletters coming out of things I learned and thoughts spurred by fruitful conversations. This is the first of these. At the conference, I remembered what it was like working in tech under the first Trump administration. Somehow, I had forgotten what it was like. How much energy it took....

Why am I making coding flashcards? I was very inspired by Nat Bennett's recent article Career Advice for Engineers Who Aren't Supposed to Exist Nat quoted Charity Majors describing a misfit category of engineers who weren't supposed to exist as "People who were ranked at junior levels, but were better at translating business problems than at fixing bugs." and shared their career advice for those folks (being one themself). This was definitely me too, in the past. I was able to figure out the car...