Every organization gets ~3 "innovation tokens" for non-standard technology choices. Giving example from personal experience
Cost of a token: what is it solving? Is its complexity earning its keep? Are we falling for hype?
"Doing well at business is what gives you more innov tokens" - @charity.wtf
My hot take here is that going remote has not been, on the whole, a positive change for individual contributors.
Hierarchy for remote teams? Say more?
(Have been thinking more on this topic, getting closer to writing a long form piece on it...)
OMG lol
What if we just... fix it?
yay! <3
Finally moved the homelab to @honeycomb.io and the o11y 2.0 gains for agents hype is real. Game changer using it with an agent. Fixed a weird tracing issue with like 2 prompts with Claude (using the skill/MCP) to review, find and fix.
tempted to say "ship away" 🍿 😈
seriously tho, i'm done with all but the edits and the last chapter of prognostications. you'll start to see preview chapters dripping out via @honeycomb.io very soon!
pick the most recent essay and start working your way back. the archives aren't THAT deep. 😉
there is no easy solution to this problem, because it relies on
* emotional safety
* self-awareness
* the muscles of regular feedback
* people who care enough to take a risk
* organizational packet handling
so i would turn the question back on you. what are you trying to achieve in either case?
if you outsource the job to HR, they may get a more truthful answer, because people don't want to hurt your feelings or say hard things to your face.
on the other hand, HR may refuse to share that data with you verbatim, only aggregates or anonymized samples. which means you still won't hear it.
yes, many thoughts.
i ALWAYS want to know why people are leaving. it is some of the most valuable signal you can get.
however, people have to be willing to tell you the truth. which means no fear of reprisal, bad references, triggering an emotional response, and so on.
OH: "I turned off news alerts because alerts are only useful if they're actionable"
hard same
haha, thanks. :D
i would love to podcast! i'd like to write a followup in june-july on what has changed and what hasn't.
in the last year we've seen workflows emerge for fully generated durable code. i'm less convinced those workflows will replace ALL durable use cases.
@chadfowler.com i am supposed to be writing right now, but i've spent the last 2.5 hours reading the last few months of your writing. i can't believe i am just discovering it now! there is SO much good stuff here!
(yes, i've been under a rock since november ✍️📖☠️)
ooh? do tell! what are you seeing, what did you talk about?
i feel like that piece needs an update. maybe on its one year birthday i can find time to do that
“SaaS is dead. Everyone will just create what they need”
I think this underestimates what a PITA it is to create software.
Lots more short form video content is created today than ever before. The tools are now ubiquitous. The vast majority still just consume it.
it's almost time for SRECon26, which means it's been less than a year since @ferd.ca and i were delivering the closing keynote at SRECon25.
my perspective has changed A LOT since then, and the advice i would give has changed too. i wrote it up here.
charitydotwtf.substack.com/p/my-hypothe...
Agentic engineering is driving the cost of code to zero but the cost of good taste and product sense is going to go sky-high.
queued up, thanks for the rec!
grabbed it, thanks!
will i learn anything from this particular book, even if i'm fairly informed on this topic?
:hmmmyes:
omg.. i added that five days ago!
just ordered her new one from 2025, thanks for the rec!
oh my god, YES. the story about him designing those low overhanging bridges explicitly to keep buses out, because he associated bus-takers with Black people? OMG.
have you read the LBJ ones?? i put the third volume down at some point over the summer, but it's a "to return to" not "DNF".
*kelsey*.
have you read "Nuclear War: A Scenario", by Annie Jacobsen, or "Midnight in Chernobyl", Adam Higgenbotham? both are .. "good" seems like the wrong word, but "interesting"?
There was a whole rash of nuclear themed books that came out in 2025.
I have not!! adding to the list
ooooo, thank you!!! bookmarking
