Published
Weekend Reading — 🧼🤲 What's the wellest an email has ever found you?
This week we design the perfect unsubscribe button, build an anti-face-touching machine, send mom to hack a prison, and kittens!
Nicole Sanchez “Lest we forget, the Patron Saint of Remote Work is Marion the Great 🙏🏾🕯️”
Has your company asked you to work from home due to coronavirus? Like it? Hate it? What’s the most challenging for you?
For years, I alternated between working from home and working in an office, here’s some advise on what to do/expect on your first week:
Hate the commute, but it’s giving your workday a structure. Find your substitute. Dress up for work, even if you’re just changing from pajamas to trainers. Have a designated work space that’s not the place you sleep at, watch TV, etc. Make a clear distinction between work and non-work time.
The time you save by not having to commute? Use it to exercise and overall wellness. Go for a walk, a run, yoga, whatever.
Miss the casual socializing of the office? You have to make a conscious effort here. Use video and chat liberally. Keep it running in the background. Schedule coffee or lunch with your co-workers. Find some excuse to leave the house every day.
Could be your manager is struggling with both the personal transition to work from home, and running a distributed team for the very first time. Be patient while they figure things out.
Did you know, it’s healthy to take short breaks throughout the day? Also, did you know you can use these short breaks to do laundry, dishes, etc.
And don’t forget, even if you are home along, wash your hands regularly. 🧼🤲
Design Objective
humphrey obuobi “this is why ux writers matter”
Scott Berkun Which designer are you?
Every designer that uses grey for text is:
a) under 35 with good vision, and/or
b) doesn't care if people their parents age can actually read what's in their designs, or
c) doesn't believe anyone reads anything anywhere anyway.
Maia Bittner “who knew we needed so much security to opt-out of the email marketing list you didn't want to be on of a restaurant you went to once”
Neal Agarwal “😈”
Tools of the Trade
Terkel “MacOS Catalina tip: You don't need a window manager anymore, just hold down option 👍”
R. Alex Anderson Thanks, this is exactly what I wanted to feel right now …
Want to feel old? ReactJS was released May 29, 2013, or 2468 days ago.
JQuery was released August 26, 2006, or 2468 days before React was released.
That’s right. React has been around as long as JQuery was when React came out. 🤯
Yusuf 👇 Thread for anyone launching a product:
I am a nobody on the internet; not an influencer, not a VC, and not a serial entrepreneur. But my product, @OneProfile_HQ, was recently awarded #1 Product of the Day on @ProductHunt and that has changed my life.
Sharing here how I did it. Maybe it'll help change yours too.
🧵
How a 2 person startup already uses 28 other tools Software is built on software which is built on … If you look at human history, you'll notice a correlation between population size and the speed at which new technology gets invented. And that new technology — from early argiculture through medicine to information sharing — increases the speed at which population can grow. It's a flywheel affect. The software world is a microcosm of that, played in high speed.
Isaac Blankensmith “I recently learned that as a chronic face toucher, I might be more likely to get Coronavirus.😬So I made the ANTI-FACE-TOUCHING MACHINE™ to train myself to touch my face less. (sound on) Made with http://g.co/teachablemachine #CoronaOutbreak”
If you die in Jira you die in real life.
Remote work starts out fun, then instantly turns into the hunger games once you and your spouse have conflicting video calls and only one "professional" space.
Lines of Code
Jules Glegg “Boiled this out of some observations of code reviews across multiple orgs and teams. Lower right is my home quadrant but I can flex into enabler/mathematician depending on my stress level”
Peopleware
at work, i made a writeup on how to install a certain app. it involves the terminal, so i was worried the non-technical folks would struggle.
so far... the non-techies have installed it perfectly, but the techies skipped instructions and had to ask for help. check your biases!
Are Entrepreneurs “Touched with Fire”? Interesting study, though it's self-reported and the sample size is ~300, and we all know about the replication crisis. But it gets me thinking. In this study, founders report that they are 2x more likely to have depressesion, 6x ADHD, and 10x bipolar relative to non-founders. And founders that haven't experienced any of these, are still more likely to have it run in the family. However, founders report the same rate of anxiety disorder as non-founders, which is not what I was expecting.
Startup Life
Coronavirus: The Black Swan of 2020 Sequoia's letter to founders and CEOs about what to expect and how to prepare. This is about keeping the business healthy, and surviving through a financial crunch, shortage of customers, and slower funding:
Having weathered every business downturn for nearly fifty years, we’ve learned an important lesson — nobody ever regrets making fast and decisive adjustments to changing circumstances. In downturns, revenue and cash levels always fall faster than expenses. In some ways, business mirrors biology. As Darwin surmised, those who survive “are not the strongest or the most intelligent, but the most adaptable to change.”
Funding in the Time of Coronavirus In the same vein. We've seen financial dips before, except this time there is more capital on the line (and zero interest rate, see below) waiting once the storm passes.
Today in Business Models
ZIRP explains the world How zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) explains why venture capital is chasing matresses and office spaces:
So all these dollar-organisms all start swimming towards riskier waters. Treasury investors shift to corporate debt. Public equity hedge funds shift to late-stage private equity. Late-stage private equity shifts to mid-stage, mid-stage to early stage. Seed rounds become bigger. Angel investors become a thing. Unicorns, unicorns, and more unicorns. Ashton Kutcher.
The Business Equation - Venture Desktop What's the equation that underlines your business?
The most effective business equations feed directly into a company’s advantage flywheel by serving as the push that gets the wheel spinning in the first place. Often, as we might expect, these flywheel accelerants come from engagement.
Locked Doors
How a Hacker’s Mom Broke Into a South Dakota Prison This story is so good … “Security analyst John Strand had a contract to test a correctional facility’s defenses. He sent the best person for the job: his mother.”
Troy Hunt: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its Ongoing Independence Troy Hunt tried to sell Have I Been Pwned, and it didn't go as expected, and I enjoyed reading and learned a thing or two.
🧼🤲 Wash Your Hands
WHO: How to handwash? With soap and water “Hand hygiene is an easy, inexpensive, and effective mean to prevent the spread of germs and keep everyone healthy.”
Robert Quigley “Checkmate, digital journalism.”
CNN: An Australian newspaper has printed an extra eight pages to be used as toilet paper after coronavirus fears prompted customers to bulk buy supplies, leaving some supermarket shelves bare.
Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE Johns Hopkins updates their global pandemic dashboard twice a day.
Jenny Jaffe “WERE MEN NOT WASHING THEIR FUCKING HANDS?!”
None of the Above
Dominic Holden “seems like two separate stories but okay”
What's the wellest an email has ever found you?
Alex Fitzpatrick “Ask your doctor if Lyriq and Celestiq are right for you. Do not take Lyriq or Celestiq if you have a history of high blood pressure or depression”
Car and Driver :New @Cadillac EVs include Lyriq SUV coming in April, Celestiq flagship later
We’ve seen physical fitness and mental fitness become mainstream concepts in western society.
The next wave will be social fitness: how we build and maintain relationships.
There will be books, exercises, apps, classes, coaches, and events all to help you stay socially fit.
Dexter “This may happen if you try to scare a bear away with a waterhose...”
Cats of Instagram “Stop laughing, I'm a big scary kitty, see?”