Life
Lady Speaker Small Talk
Sometimes, I think the hardest part of going to conferences is the unstructured time – lunches and happy hours and sponsored parties. That’s the time I remember I’m surrounded by 2,445 total strangers. And I’m supposed to be networking with them. If I think too much about this, I end up at “what do I…
Wordstar 2000, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, and the moulding of a young mind
Musing about how software changes the way we think by offering us new concepts to integrate.
Post on Opensource.com: How to nail a tech writer job inteview
I was excited to write another post for opensource.com: How to nail a tech writer job interview It’s an extension of a twitter rant I went on a bit ago, about how important it is to know certain things about interviewing as a technical writer, but no one is teaching them, from what I can…
Hidden Figures, Shine Theory, and Being Friends with Women
I saw Hidden Figures this week, and I happy-cried at least three times during it. It is a blatantly heroic story about very feminine expressions of power. There is a trickster, a paladin, and a wizard, and although they each have their own missions and their own tribulations, they do it all in immaculate lipstick,…
Publish and pull managers
@kwugirl has done some great work around ask culture and guess culture (https://storify.com/kwugirl/ask-vs-guess-culture-communications-rubyconf-portu), and how frustrating it can be when you are framing communication the wrong way so that you are constantly rubbing on someone. Ask culture says that it’s ok for someone to make a direct request for a favor, and it’s equally ok…
Guest Post on OpenSource.com
I was supposed to be at SeaGL this weekend for an awesome conference with the opensource world. Sadly, I fell in the garage and dislocated my shoulder, so I can’t attend. On the bright side, the post I wrote to promote my talk at the conference is available! Four Steps to Better Documentation In it,…
Lady Speaker Party Education
I was at a conference party this fall, and I had an interesting conversation that I wanted to tell you about. First though, let me beg conference organizers — if we’re having an evening mixer, PLEASE explain to the DJ that people are going to be trying to talk to each other. The music was…
New year
Some people set their new year by the Gregorian calendar. I tend to do mine by my birthday, which is in a couple days. There’s something about fall that makes me ambitious and inspired. This year is a big milestone birthday for me, so I’m trying to be mindful about my goals, what I want…
Lady Speaker Clothes Crisis
There are about a jillionty articles on how it is difficult to dress as a woman while maintaining standards of professionalism, temperature control*, comfort, pockets, and compliance with the male gaze. This is a post on one specific form of dressing: Dressing to be speaking on stage. Personal style If it’s not something that you…
Upcoming appearances
Velocity Berlin
Minneapolis DevOps Meetup
DeliveryConf