Want a smart team? Make sure it gets the recommended daily allowance of estrogen

By Hillary Louise Johnson | Published: May 2, 2012
A team without a woman is like a bicycle with… some fish? So it would seem, according to Grace Nasri, who writes in the HuffPo about the gender gap in tech from an interesting perspective. She got my attention with a 2011 HBR story profiling research by Anita Wooley and Thomas Malone showing that the [...]
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Hello Chase, Goodbye David: A change at Agile Learning Labs

By Hillary Louise Johnson | Published: April 18, 2012
Our friend and colleague David Parker is leaving Agile Learning Labs’ staff. He has received a much better offer–and one we can’t possibly counter–that of stay at home dad to Chase Kamran Parker-Katiraee, who assumed his post of infant-in-chief earlier this week. We predict a fair bit of wrangling over just who is the customer [...]
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My First Week at Geekaplex: Integrating a New Hire

By Chris Sims | Published: November 11, 2007
My friend Peter started working at EvilEmpireSoft on the same Monday that I started at Geekaplex. That Friday, over beers, he told me that he had spent most of his first week waiting for his laptop to show up. When it finally showed up, it had an outdated version of the development environment installed which [...]
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Engineering Managers Support Group – Tonight

By Chris Sims | Published: October 24, 2007
The October 2007 Engineering Managers Support Group meeting is just a few hours away! Where: Round Table Pizza (event room) 61 43rd Ave San Mateo, CA Schedule: 7:00 PM Socializing and free pizza 7:30 PM Getting a New Hire Up and Running You have found an ideal candidate; made them an offer, and they start [...]
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Getting a New Hire Up and Running – October Engineering Managers Support Group

By Chris Sims | Published: October 10, 2007
You have found an ideal candidate, made him an offer, and he starts in two weeks. Now what? At this month’s Engineering Managers Support Group meeting I will share an approach that worked well for me, and some lessons learned as well. Please bring your experiences to share, and together we will unearth best practices [...]
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Voted Off the Vegetable Island!

By Chris Sims | Published: April 6, 2007
While walking this morning, I listened to the HBR Ideacast #35, What it Means to Work Here. In it they mention a hiring practice used by Whole Foods, that I really like. New hires are on probation for the first 4 weeks. At the end of that time, their coworkers vote to keep them or [...]
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Hire Fast and Die

By Hillary Louise Johnson | Published: March 12, 2007
There are two emergent schools of thought (at least) about technical team hiring:  hire fast, fire fast (a play on the "hire slow, fire fast" adage), and no false positives.  FeedBurner founder Dick Costolo has this to say: I buy the hire fast, fire fast line of thinking for Sales Reps or VP Sales roles [...]
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