Spherical Cow Consulting Uncategorized Category
The Power of the Outline
Posted on August 7, 2020 Leave a Comment
Congratulations! You’ve been asked to contribute some written material to a newsletter, blog, e-book, or how-to guide. Now that the initial excitement is wearing off (which usually takes me about 1-2 minutes), the existential dread of facing a blank page is setting in. As an editor, I can usually tell when someone has written their […]
Public Speaking Tips for Virtual Conferences
Posted on July 30, 2020 Leave a Comment
It’s common advice that you should watch and listen to yourself via a recording in order to improve your public speaking skills. There are few things more uncomfortable than doing that, but I had an opportunity this week to discover something even more uncomfortable: watching and listening to myself on a recording with 50 other […]
Succession Planning in Consulting
Posted on July 15, 2020 Leave a Comment
I recently read an article about how United Airlines developed strong succession planning for the changing of their CEOs. I remember the days when I could focus on succession planning! It was one of my KPIs as a traditional employee and it was quite rewarding.It gave me the opportunity to mentor someone (or someone’s) to […]
The Case of the Unclear Antecedent
Every once in a while, I’ll find myself hung up on a particular quirk of writing and develop a visceral twitch every time I see it in action. This post is about one of those twitches… If there’s one thing I see writers do with alarming frequency, it’s sprinkle their material with sentences like “This […]
Index: What’s it like to be a …?
Posted on June 3, 2020 Leave a Comment
The Internet requires so many different types of people and roles in order to function. As much as people tend to assume degrees in computer science or experience as a software developer, that’s just some of what you might find in the Internet ecosystem. To explore the roles that are out there now, I’ve been […]
A World of Only Carrots
Posted on May 14, 2020 Leave a Comment
There are a wealth of books, blogs, webinars, and even inspirational tweets about motivating a team. Most of the ones I’ve read, however, assume a rather traditional model of a manager motivating their employees. This motivation takes on an entirely different character, though, when you are working with volunteers. I’ve been coordinating technical projects entirely […]
Open-source Projects: Potentially the Best Potluck Experience Ever
Posted on May 12, 2020 Leave a Comment
Have you ever been to a neighborhood potluck that overwhelmed you with some of the best food you’d ever had? Where you tried to track down the recipe for the most amazing fried chicken – a food which had defeated all previous attempts in your household to create? Or when you’re planning it, and you […]
When Words Do Not Mean What You Think They Mean
Posted on May 7, 2020 Leave a Comment
I love getting to wear a variety of ‘hats,’ even if it means relearning the English language over and over and over. As someone who occasionally reads a dictionary for fun (yes, I might be a bit strange), I love drilling into the history of words. Connotations! Denotations! Let’s throw in some annotations just for […]
Bias, Meritocracy, and Human Nature
Posted on April 28, 2020 Leave a Comment
The reliance on meritocracy as a guiding principle for the tech industry makes for organizations that will ultimately drive away the diversity and skills that they need to succeed.
WFH – everything I hoped it would be (almost)
[Updated: 27 August 2020, now that #wfh has lasted for months, and will likely continue for many through to the middle of next year.] Someone asked on a call back in April when we all were digging into our #wfh experience, “Is everyone busier than ever with all this working from home? My response was, […]