Some of the Things #23
Where I share some of the things I've been thinking about, learning about, and exploring across work, tech, wellness, and life.
Dear Friends,
Welcome to the 23rd ____ ? I still don’t know what to call these things. Newsletter feels wrong. Is it a post? An edition? A piece? A letter? A substack? A blog? All feels wrong. This is my public journal, a mechanism I’m using to develop a writing habit.
Next time I write it will mark the one year anniversary of starting this substack. I started as an experiment, and the purpose of experimentation is to learn; so you can expect the next _____ (piece?) to be full of reflections about one year of writing.
Until then, this week’s ______ (writing) is a bulleted list of some of the things I’ve been up to since the last time I wrote on November 10.
I wrote an article about getting started with Digital Transformation, inspired by recent events at work. The main purpose is to warn organizations about treating digital transformations the same way they treated technology projects in the past. I wrote how the Project Triangle - the triple constraints of Time, Scope and Resources - is stuck in our subconscious and doing harm. And I give some advice - dos and don’ts - for organizations just getting started. If you’re interested in Digital Transformation, I’d love feedback if you have time to read it.
I’ve written in previous posts about my passion for DevOps and how the DevOps Enterprise Summit has become my favorite tech conference. But one thing I don’t love is having to explain what I mean by DevOps when I talk about the conference or the community. Most people think of DevOps as a role, the person in their company maintaining the build pipelines to deploy code. That definition is maybe 0.01% of what DevOps means to me. So, you can imagine how thrilled I was when I saw Gene Kim’s announcement that they changed the name of the conference to the Enterprise Tech Leadership Summit, to more accurately reflect what the conference is about and who should attend.
I have 2 pieces of exciting news about GM Farcaster, the 21 minute morning news show I’ve been co-hosting with Nounish Prof since September. First, in addition to the livestream on Unlonely and the recordings on Zora, it’s now available as a podcast on Spotify, Apple and Podchaser, to make it easier for more people to listen. And second, we got 56 votes and won a 1 ETH retro-grant from Purple! Receiving the grant felt great - I’m so grateful to all the listeners for the love and support and all the purple holders who voted. We’re 30 episodes in and we have no plans on stopping.
I ordered a physical copy of the DAMA DMBOK, the data management book of knowledge, to assist in some consulting work I have coming up about Master Data Management, Data Governance and Data Stewardship. I’m looking to network with people in the enterprise data space who are experimenting with modern ways of working (i.e. agile, team topologies, data mesh, data lake, communities of practice etc.) - if that’s you or you know anyone, I’d love an introduction.
How well-traveled are you through the United States and Europe? Here’s a cute little game to track the US States and EU countries you’ve visited. My score is 142 for the US; what’s yours?
I’m a regular listener of The All-In podcast but was going to skip the episode with Dean Phillips because I saw the words presidential candidate in the title (🤮). But I was alone on a hike recently and gave it a chance and I’m glad I did because I found him surprisingly refreshing - pro-capitalist, pro-democracy, anti-tribal (bi-partisan) and pro-progress (looks to future, not the past). He’s the only politician I’ve heard recently that gave me an ounce of optimism.
Speaking of podcasts, I really enjoyed this interview Kaloh did with artists Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, who were the first artists to create an NFT, even before there was a word for it.
I’m continuing my role as channel lead for FarcastHER, the women focused channel and community within Farcaster. I hosted a virtual meetup where we had guest speakers talk about women’s health facts (of the WHAT, WTF? variety) and lead a 10 minute guided meditation.
Episode 5 of Four Old College Friends is out. We also have a new logo which I paid 0.025ETH for and sourced through bountybot, a new bounty app that’s still in early beta.
Steph Ango, AKA kepano, shared 40 questions to ask yourself every year. What a wonderful tool for self-reflection as the year is closing. I’m somewhat inclined to answer them all, but to at least get started, I’ll answer the first few and maybe pick up the list in future posts until they’re all answered.
What did you do this year that you’d never done before? Produced and hosted a podcast.
Did you keep your new year’s resolutions? I’ve never been one to make resolutions, but a few years ago I started with More/Less intentions and found them incredibly useful. My 2023 intentions were the same as 2022, and I’ve done a good job at staying true to them.
Did anyone close to you give birth? I had to think about this one for a minute, but didn’t come up with anyone.
Did anyone close to you die? Regular readers of this substack will know my mom died this year.
What cities/states/countries did you visit? - Aspen CO, Los Angeles CA, Tokyo, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Boston MA, Rochester NY, Philadelphia PA, Florida, Utah.
A note to my subscribers:
I started this substack in December 2022 as an experiment to see if developing a writing habit would help clarify my thinking and/or provide any other benefits. You can read about my original intentions in my first post here.
I plan to continue to write about twice a month and will be sharing musings, meditations, and links to things I’m finding interesting as I build out my consulting company, raise my kids, and have fun creating and learning in the worlds of crypto, tech, finance, science and wellness.
Thank you for supporting my writing and journey. If you’d like to get in touch you can reply to me here, or find me on twitter and farcaster.
Until next time, keep putting good into the world. —adrienne🌏❤️