Industry News

Catch up on interesting new discussion and industry news.

    Link roundup for March 10, 2023

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Mar 10, 2023
    The World Nature Photography Awards 2022 winners have been announced.

    What Does Workplace TikTok Look Like During Layoffs? It Gets Weird. Always Be Contenting, I guess. “It’s uncanny to watch clips of boisterous lunch buffets next to teary videos about being exiled from them—sometimes from the very same creators just months apart. You come to see how workday and layoff TikToks are mutually intelligible, odd sides of the same coin. No matter what happens, they say, workers will post...

    Leaders, don’t be late for meetings

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Mar 9, 2023
    Some fairly standard advice here from Peter Yang on How to Run Meetings That Don’t Suck, but this point in particular is so important:

    Try not to cancel or move 1-on-1s. If you’re a manager, it’s easy to move or cancel your 1-on-1s for other “important” meetings. This is disrespectful to your direct reports. Even if you see them everyday, nothing beats a private half-hour conversation where they can be open about real issues.

    How we show up in meetings as leaders is very telling...

    Hypervigilance is not a sustainable lifestyle for leaders

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Mar 9, 2023
    In This will only take a minute the Raw Signal team shares some much-needed advice for leaders who feel like they never have time to think and reflect. This state of constant hypervigilance is not a sustainable lifestyle because:

    On one level, you’re a human being. Regardless of your title or role, you are worthy of work that doesn’t wreck your health, or your happiness, or your ability to enjoy lunch away from your webcam. On another, if you’re a manager, you’re responsible for the...

    Google February 2023 Product Reviews Update Done Rolling Out

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Mar 8, 2023
    The Google February 2023 product reviews update finished rolling out yesterday afternoon on March 7, 2023. It took 14 days to rollout this expanded language version of the product reviews update that kicked off on February 21, 2023.

    Using “steel threads” to reduce product delivery risk

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Mar 7, 2023
    Jade Rubick resurrects an old engineering concept (and dead Wikipedia page!) in Steel threads are a technique that will make you a better engineer:

    A steel thread is a very thin slice of functionality that threads through a software system. They are called a “thread” because they weave through the various parts of the software system and implement an important use case. They are called “steel” because the thread becomes a solid foundation for later improvements.

    With a Steel...

    Product team principles for focusing on short-term growth

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Mar 6, 2023
    We’re shipping rafts this year, not boats is a sobering read from Nate Jones that covers 8 principles for product teams who had to make a shift to short-term growth projects in 2023. An example:

    It’s long-term if it’s short-term. That’s two principles for the price of one. First, realize that building to keep the business going today is long-term. That can help product teams recognize they have a long-term role to play. Second, any product plays with long-term payoff have to also...

    The 4-subfunctions of growth marketing, and a good Figma example

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Mar 6, 2023
    In How to organize your B2B growth marketing team Emily Kramer explains growth marketing in a way that I think I finally understand:

    To support full-funnel marketing, multiple GTM motions, and all of the data and tools available, 4 sub-functions of growth-marketing are needed: Demand Gen, Inbound & Web, Lifecycle Marketing, and Ops & Analytics.



    Emily also touches on the many ways that this team ideally works with Product and Engineering. It’s a highly recommended overview of...

    Google Search Ranking Fluctuations Continue Through The Past Weekend

    rustybrick
    by rustybrick
    Mar 6, 2023
    Since the Google February 2023 product reviews update on February 21st, we've been seeing some pretty big swings in the search results - a lot of volatility, more than the norm. And that continued through the past weekend.

    Don’t blame outages on human error and technical debt; improve the system instead

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Mar 4, 2023
    The FAA outage in January that caused the first nationwide ground stop of all flights in the US since 9/11 is kind of old news now, but there’s one detail that I can’t stop thinking about. In the aftermath of the incident the cause was determined to be a database sync issue:

    The F.A.A. said in a statement that the workers had been trying to “correct synchronization” between the main database for the Notice to Air Missions alerts and a backup database when the files were mistakenly...

    Link roundup for March 3, 2023

    by Rian van der Merwe
    Mar 3, 2023
    The African Bricks 3. Mosaic artworks inspired by the culture and beauty of Africa, by Charis Tsevis.

    The Cello in Soho Square. I like this description by Michael Lopp of the difference between “dabblers” and “S-tier” people (who are the absolute best at something): “There is an infinite list of exciting things to learn, but the Dabbler knows they have finite time, so they dabble. They get 80% of the juice, and they move on. Respect. S-Tier knows the last 10% of the challenge is the...