Greater Than Code

Greater Than Code

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Greater Than Code episodes

  • 104: Jellyfish Signaling with Sam Livingston-Gray

    01:33 – Is Sam a Jellyfish?

    03:14 – Sam’s Superpower: Making Connections Between Weird Things

    05:17 – Driving Evolution

    08:19 – “Fitness Landscape” and “Fitness Function”

    aiweirdness.com

    21:17 – How Humans Make Decisions

    Sam Livingston-Gray: Cognitive Shortcuts: Models, Visualizations, Metaphors, and Other Lies

    Saccade

    Blindsight by Peter Watts  

    33:43 – Completion Bias

    40:52 – The Importance of Clarity of Communication in Code

    45:49 – Mimicry and The Theory of Mind

    52:18 – Scaling, Optimizing, and Thriving as Individuals and Communities

    57:38 – Rhetoric and Interacting with People

    Everything's an Argument

    This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.

    To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

    Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

    Sponsored By:

    • The Local Maximum: Check out this new podcast called The Local Maximum. It's hosted by Max Sklar who is a Machine Learning Engineer at Foursquare. He covers a lot of fascinating topics: AI, building better products, and the latest technology news from his unique perspective. Max interviews a wide diversity of guests, including Engineers, Entrepreneurs, and Creators of all types. You can see their bios at localmaxradio.com, and subscribe to The Local Maximum podcast wherever you listen!

    Support Greater Than Code

    1 hr 4 min
  • 103: The Org You Were Born Into with Marcus Blankenship

    01:12 – Marcus’ Superpower: Helping Engineers Become Good Bosses

    02:30 – Bosses Who Don’t Wanna Boss: Ending Up in Management

    The Peter Principle

    10:37 – Are there people who just aren’t cut out for management or leadership?

    14:20 – Applying Rationality to Organizations

    20:23 – Alignment Not Agreement

    24:52 – Is there a safe way to try and fail at management? Trying on Hats

    Ruby For Good

    31:16 – What does “BOSS” mean?

    Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

    36:03 – The Up/Down of the Hierarchy

    Metaphors We Live By

    Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling by Edgar H. Schein

    36:03 – What are the skills that good managers have? How do you know if you’re doing a good job?

    Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager by Michael Lopp

    Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams by Mickey W. Mantle and Ron Lichty

    53:26 – Giving and Receiving Feedback and Support, Reinforcing Behavior, and Focusing Attention

    Reflections:

    Jamey: Management vs. leadership.

    Sam: “I need this from you,” vs. “Why didn’t you do this?”

    Jess: When we react to something, it’s rarely about the thing we think we’re reacting to.

    Career narratives by Will Larson

    Additionally, management is like being on stage and you can be uncomfortable in your own role.

    Marcus: Listening to others is critical and impactful. Also, letting people taste and see what it’s like to be in management and leadership without the commitment.

    This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.

    To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

    Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

    Special Guest: Marcus Blankenship.

    Support Greater Than Code

    1 hr 8 min
  • 102: Sticky in the Flow with Katrina Owen

    Greater Than Code Episode Episode 008: 99 Bottles of OOP with Sandi Metz and Katrina Owen

    01:29 – Katrina’s Superpower: Organizing and Systematizing

    09:44 – Motivation by Success

    The 5 Second Rule | Mel Robbins

    Procrastination | Mel Robbins

    18:04 – Trust and Code Review

    27:04 – Systematizing and Refactoring

    30:54 – Training for Circus and its Parallels with Software Development and Mentorship and Working with Others

    Sarah Mei: How We Make Software: A new theory of teams

    43:12 – Deliberate Practice and the Appearance of Expertise

    Reflections:

    John: Short iterations and early feedback as a way of creating and maintaining motivation.

    Coraline: How to create a sense of psychological safety in code reviews, in particular.

    Sam: The five-second window in which you can change your behavior and increase motivation.

    Janelle: Feedback loops as spirals that are reinforcing towards the positive or negative.

    This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.

    To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

    Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

    Special Guest: Katrina Owen.

    Support Greater Than Code

    56 min
  • 101: A Difficult Conversation with Sonia Gupta

    02:02 – Sonia’s Superpower: Talking about white supremacy and dealing with the fallout.

    05:27 – Feeling Rightness and Motivation to Stand Up for Your Beliefs

    10:15 – Seeing Your Advocacy and Efforts Make a Difference

    12:17 – When People Disagree

    16:26 – Ingroup vs Outgroup Empathy

    21:17 – Intersectionality

    White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

    26:07 – Navigating Situations with Empathy

    28:25 – Staying In Your Own Lane While Advocating For and Amplifying Others

    35:39 – Educating Yourself About Race

    So You Want to Talk About Race

    Other Resources from Sonia:

    • Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race
    • The History of White People   
    • Damon Jones on racism
    • Adrian Jackson on "not all white  people"  
    • 38:39 – Doing The Work

      Reflections:

      Jessica: The place for these conversations is not Twitter!

      Coraline: Personalizing advocacy.

      Jamey: Our advocacy is powerful because it comes from a place of passion.

      John: The fixed vs growth mindset in regards to racism.

      Sonia: We can all be advocates and we can all be actors.

      This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.

      To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

      Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

      Special Guest: Sonia Gupta.

      Support Greater Than Code

      54 min
    • 100: The Business of Documentation with Jaime Slutzky

      01:12 – Jaime’s Superpower: Taking complex ideas and figuring out the fastest way from here to there. (i.e.: logistics!)

      Zapier

      05:41 – Tech as a Roadblock

      19:44 – Handing Off Responsibilities to Business Owners

      Process Street

      The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

      Bullet Journals

      18:09 – Identifying Ideal Clients and Attitudes Towards Technology

      24:40 – Documentation

      36:53 – What do clients need to know about technology?

      Reflections:

      John: Documentation is important.

      Jamey: Getting tech recommendations from people you trust, pick one, and do it. Don’t be paralyzed by indecision.

      Jaime: Document in isolation.

      This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.

      To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

      Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

      Special Guest: Jaime Slutzky.

      Support Greater Than Code

      44 min
    • 099: The Knowledge You Possess with Stephanie Morillo

      02:40 – Stephanie’s Superpower: Intellectual Curiosity

      13:06 – On Being a Content PM, Technical Writer, and Ruby Together Core Team Member

      @azureadvocates

      Ruby Together

      19:44 – Validating Open Source Software Contribution

      Write the Docs Slack Community

      24:27 – Filtering Feedback

      28:14 – The Importance of Content Strategy

      Greater Than Code Episode 088: The Safety 2 Dance with Steven Shorrock

      43:24 – Don’t Minimize Yourself! (Psst: You’re awesome!)

      One of the best (and worst) things about working in tech is how easy it is to get excited by something and wanting to learn it—right up until your brain tells you you're not doing enough, work harder, leading you to get overwhelmed with just how much there is to learn. 🙃

      — Stephanie Morillo (@radiomorillo) September 24, 2018

      Coraline's low-friction task management system (lftm)

      Reflections:

      John: Understanding the teams you’re working with better.

      Coraline: The power of dreams.

      Jamey: The value of being able to know when people in your life are interacting with you in good faith.

      Stephanie: Figuring out the “why”.

      RubyMe

      This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.

      To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

      Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

      Special Guest: Stephanie Morillo.

      Support Greater Than Code

      1 hr 2 min
    • 098: Designing For Inclusion with Jenny Shen

      01:51 – Jenny’s Superpower: Not Giving a F*ck and Sticking Up For Others

      The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

      05:00 – Living a Remote Lifestyle and Cross-Cultural Communication

      08:34 – Design and UX For International Users / Research for Local Users

      18:08 – Designing to Include All People: Is it possible?

      27:07 – Paid Mentorship

      Sunk Cost Fallacy

      34:32 – Offering Mentorship Scholarships

      37:15 – Privilege and Open Source

      Ruby Together

      40:22 – Advice for People Looking to Freelance and Work Remotely

      Reflections:

      Jamey:  Weaponizing the sunk cost fallacy for themself.

      Sam: The importance of humans in tech and tech culture.

      Jessica: The difference between internationalization and localization.

      Jenny: Scholarships as a way to signal and inform other people what she values and what she wants to promote.

      This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.

      To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

      Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

      Special Guest: Jenny Shen.

      Support Greater Than Code

      52 min
    • 097: The Job of a Manager with Brandon Hays

      00:43 – Brandon’s Superpower: Helping Other People Discover Their Own Superpower

      02:04 – Maintaining Relationships When People Change Jobs So Frequently

      04:31 – Climbing The Corporate Tech Ladder and Strategizing Career Growth

      10:25 – Mentorship and Power Disparity

      19:00 – Management and Leadership Skills

      The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

      10 Traits of a Great Manager, According to Google's Internal Research (Project Oxygen)

      23:22 – Solving Problems Regardless of Job Title

      27:50 – Preservation of Context

      31:01 – Becoming a Manager…and Being Bad at it!

      32:58 – The New Manager’s Toolkit

      Radical Candor  

      35:08 – Techniques for Managing From Below to Influence Your Manager

      38:19 – Engineers and Business-level Input

      Reflections:

      John: The deeply ingrained thread in “nerd” and “geek” culture how terrible managers are.

      Astrid: The power dynamics that exist that are untapped in engineering.

      Coraline: What kind of technical contribution do I want to leave as my legacy?

      Brandon: Translating skills from previous careers to new careers.

      Not Applicable: What Your Job Post is Really Saying

      This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.

      To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

      Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

      Special Guest: Brandon Hays.

      Support Greater Than Code

      48 min
    • 096: Resilience Engineering with John Allspaw

      John Allspaw: Etsy’s Debriefing Facilitation Guide for Blameless Postmortems

      01:32 – John’s Superpower: Seeing connections across domains.

      05:45 – All Technical Communities Run Small, the Intersection of People, Technology, and Work, and the Resilience Engineering Community

      09:07 – Variety and Complexity

      Requisite Variety

      The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer

      The Great Courses

      Understanding Complexity

      17:51 – Understanding Cognitive Work

      25:34 – Heuristics and Biases

      31:01 – Strategies for Generating Context-Specific Questions

      Debriefing Facilitation Guide (Morgan Evans)

      35:01 – Asking “Why?” Over “What?” Questions

      The PreAccident Podcast

      Todd Conklin: People screw up – and it happens all the time

      Ten challenges for making automation a “team player” in joint human-agent activity

      49:33 – Analyzing and Aggregating

      Rational Choice Theory

      Reflections:

      Rein: How do we deal with the objective/subjective dialectic?

      Janelle: The thing we focus on and pay attention to is a clear signal of what matters.

      Jessica: Looking up the Knowledge Elicitation Methods.

      Rein: It takes variety to match variety.

      John A.: Guiding dialogue data.

      This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.

      To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

      Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

      Special Guest: John Allspaw.

      Support Greater Than Code

      1 hr 10 min
    • 095: Cleaning House with Heidi Waterhouse

      01:20 – Heidi’s Superpower: Being Able to Remember Where Other People Set Things Down

      03:53 – Where will software be in three years?

      Greater Than Code Episode 084: Federation Is Bad with Aurynn Shaw

      08:28 – Resilience in People and Software

      Bob Marshall / @flowchainsensei

      12:00 – Developer Relations

      Heidi’s Lady Conference Speaker Blog Posts

      19:24 – Measuring Success in Developer Relations

      23:43 – Fostering Relationships

      29:13 – Life Hacks for ADD and Claiming Personal Space

      41:37 – Housekeeping and Code Review; Clean Fights

      The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts

      Reflections:

      Astrid: The things you say can be heard by someone else a different way.

      John: If you think about what you need out of your household or codebase as being your preference, it allows you to work with people who have other preferences more easily.

      Jamey: There’s always somebody that is going to care about something.

      Jessica: Spreading enthusiasm without judging people who aren’t enthusiastic about the same things as you are.

      Heidi: Being able to discuss the emotional needs of having your own needs and space while having to compromise both in code and life.

      This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode.

      To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

      Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

      Special Guest: Heidi Waterhouse.

      Support Greater Than Code

      1 hr 3 min

    About Greater Than Code

    From the publisher's feed

    For a long time, tech culture has focused too narrowly on technical skills; this has resulted in a tech community that too often puts companies and code over people. Greater Than Code is a podcast that invites the voices of people who are not heard from enough in tech: women, people of color, trans and/or queer folks, to talk about the human side of software development and technology. Greater Than Code is providing a vital platform for these conversations, and developing new ideas of what it means to be a technologist beyond just the code.