“beads of sensation in a mundane world”
Programming Note
Never mind about that WordPress newsletter thing. I need to stick to a normal one, so here we are back here. If you are annoyed by thrashing about, I apologize. You should be able to unsubscribe here.
Notebook
This week’s dad advice: if you’re going through a door that locks behind you, be sure to bring the key.
This is a simple eggplant recipe. I think I need some better tahini and fresher olive oil, some herbs to put on-top, and then it’ll be an easy one. This humus one is OK; I can’t figure out humus. Roasting stuff is always the best. And if you want some inscrutable ones, see here.
With the kids home at school for summer, I am starting to think about working in the office - going to the office! First, I need to finally get my VMware badge. Then it’s a 30 minute bike ride each way. That part is an excellent side-effect. I love biking in Amsterdam, and having it be a routine enables that “gym of life” habit.
“beads of sensation in a mundane world” - I was in Vienna this weekend, I’d never been, it was great. There several (many?) old cinemas playing older films. Just up the street from my hotel they are playing a James Bond fest. That night it was The Man With the Golden Gun. Among many other things, it reminded me of a time when travel - any travel - was exotic and exciting: fun locations, undiscovered and only seen in airplane posters. It go me thinking: how would I do that now?
Read this paper in developer toil and how to find it that I helped write. There’s also a teaser/summary published.
Platform as a Product
This year I’ve ended up talking about platform as a product a lot. As I usually cover, I think this is because so many people are building out kubernetes setups and finding that they need to build a whole bunch of new layers on-top of kubernetes to make it useful for developer.
Unplanned, I’ve done two things in this topic this week: a webinar and an interview. The interview with Bryan Ross is great - he worked at Sky UK and so has first hand experience with putting the concept in place. As a bonus, we also discuss what the mismatch between finance and agile-think is.
Also, coincidently, there’s a a Gartner blog post on the concept.
This concept has been around for a while now - it’s been one of the key parts of Pivotal, now VMware Tanzu thinking. This means there are several examples from large organizations to learn from, and to prove out that it works. For example, check out this overview of how JP Morgan Chase does it.
What it looks like to work on a new-ish talk
I’m giving the first keynote at DevOpsDays Dallas (August 24th and 25th). Here’s what it looks like when I plan a new-ish talk (same as just “new”).
Relevant to Your Interests
Gartner on aligning buy-side people for big sales - Big sales deals require aligning all the different people at the buyer. With IT stuff, there’s always conflicting priorities and desires across different groups. When they don’t align, it drives 6+ months of delay to the sale. Worse, post-sale you’ll have trouble showing value (leading to renewal, buying again, expansion) as those teams battle it out when it comes to using your stuff.
Making fun of Millennials online - “The way the quintessential Millennial behaves online is basically a bunch of silly little nuances strung together to create a personality that is very giddy and excitable about the normal or mundane.”
“The sourball of every revolution…”, for example: clean your desk, wash the dishes, clean the floor, change the baby’s diaper, fix the fence, keep the customer happy, throw out the stinking garbage, watch out don’t put things in your nose, what shall I wear, I have no sox, pay your bills, change sheets, go to the store… background.