Hey all,
I’m not going to lie, the last few weeks have been a whirlwind and my focus has been scattered. Very little of it has to do w/software. Instead, my energy is on:
Understanding my place in the most recent race awakening
Navigating the world with an omnipresent coronavirus
Supporting friends who are going through their own turbulent times
Celebrating Dad (and last month, Mom), while I’m here at home
If you’ve seen my Twitter feed, you’ll notice that I don’t really talk about all of this, instead trying to focus on #30DaysOfShipping. But the fact of the matter is that my headspace has been elsewhere.
And I want to own that, because it’s affected my presence on our Discord, the energy that I bring to the SoS Showcase project (where I’m leading the team and trying to be a role model), and the lack of milestones that I should have set, but haven’t, for groups and mentors.
There is so much that I could be doing better.
Despite my shortcomings, I’m extremely energized by everyone who’s buckling down and getting to work. Project groups are finding their rhythm, collaborating with mentors, and we’re learning and shipping!
(In case you missed it, here’s the recording from last week, which featured 7 demos)
But let’s address the elephant in the room - our society is broken and oppressive, and the oppressed are sick of this s**t. This has been the root of my lowered focus on SoS these last few weeks and I suspect the same is true for many others as well. It demands that we ask questions, one of which might be “What can we do right now as technologists?”
I believe the answer is that we should be doing the same thing that all people should be doing right now: listening to black voices, and listening to women. They are (and have been) trying to wake all of us up.
At some point, we’ll come together and talk about actions we can take, but just like in an engineering project, the first step is to understand and gather requirements. It requires us to listen, research, and become far more knowledgeable.
People first. Software second.
Announcements
Last Friday, I made a couple announcements and I want to reiterate them here (along with some updates).
🏢 Interview Prep - if you’re interested in preparing for Product Management, Data Structures/Algorithms, or System Design interviews, check out the #interview-prep channel on Discord. First meeting will be at 5PM PDT tomorrow, June 23! More details in Discord.
🏗 Project Check ins - We’ll be contacting team leads every Monday to get a pulse on your projects (and helping with any way we can). Look out for Discord DMs from your project liaison!
🧫 Breakout Sessions - For a while, I’ve known that breakout sessions have limited value after the first one. I’m changing them completely. From now on, breakout sessions will be focused on learning, not networking. Think of them as investigative group projects. Here are some of my ideas of what we’ll do next:
Conclusion
If you’ve been feeling low-energy like me, take some time and regroup. Process all the information that you need.
We’re at a very important point in history - possibly even a tipping point - so if you feel like you need it, dedicate some of your time to things that are bigger than software.
SoS will be here for you. We’ll be rocking every Thursday and Friday. We’ll continue to encourage you to Work in Public and Ship Daily. But we also know where we fit in to the bigger picture. We’ll continue to help you ship something you can be proud of this summer, but 100% understand if you’ve got other things on your mind right now.
Alright, see you Thursday (or Friday)
✊🚢
Phil