Beginning of the month I visited Shenzhen. This was my first return to China after the pandemic and a chance to meet my team there. I love it there. The friendliness and hospitality of the people there is unmatched. It was my first time in the area north of Hongkong since 2017 and I was surprised how much had changed. Lots of cars are going electric now and it is sometimes stunning how quiet the streets are.
Other than that, there was a lot of insightful and inspiring content found this month. By the way, based on a story by Derek Sivers I have a now page. These pages are meant to remind you of your goals and your focus from time to time.
Inspiration & tools
- I loved Rick Rubin's book The Creative Act. And I love how Doug visualises and captures the essence of the book in his sketch notes. Watch out for more on his YouTube channel.
- Vitaly Friedman shares some inspiring icon design resources on LinkedIn including the wonderful icon design library on streamlinehq.
- Nils Richert shares a lot of workshop tipps, tricks and hacks on LinkedIn.
The Internet
Did you know? The internet is 35 years old now. I can't say it has moved out of puberty yet.
- Here's Tim Berners-Lee on the state of the web in its 35th year.
- Maho gives a tutorial how to integrate ActivityPub into your website.
- Maurice lists some website directories (you know, the Yahoo! type). If you have your own website, maybe you should list your website there.
- These are some beautiful and dead simple websites. /via Bruce Lawson.
- Bookmarklets are like bookmarks but contain a little bit of JavaScript to give you some handy functions in your browsers bookmark bar. Jeremy Keith lists a few very helpful ones.
- If you have your own website, you should consider a /now page. I like the concept. Here is some now-page inspiration by Derek Sivers.
Roleplaying, D&D & Co.
- Sly Flourish explains how to prepare a one-page campaign for any roleplaying game. This could be helpful for your next workshop or pitch presentation, too.
Software Development
- Here is why you should not sacrifice quality to build stakeholder trust in software development.
- Uwe Friedrichsen currently writes about some misconceptions on software and software development and it is already part 6 of a 7 article series. Be sure to follow up on it.
- The Engineering Kiosk is a great podcast in German language. In episode 116 they talk about what's behind software development with so-called A.I. tools with Birgitta Böckeler. (German language)
- And in episode 115 they talk about shift left and what it means and how software development and technology work is affected by it.
- There is lots to learn about language models and A.I. helping you to generate software. Why not start learning with this great article on how these tools work and how you can get them prompted perfectly at martinfowler.com.
Organizational Development
- There is a Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies. And here is Todd Porter's 2012 article on Sustainable Organizing: A Multiparadigm Perspective of Organizational
Development and Permaculture Gardening - It is kind of a sad story, but layoffs.fyi does what it sounds like: Keeping track of layoff waves by tech companies.
Product Strategy & Development
- Roman Pichler again with a gold piece on the strategy stack in most organizations.
- Marty Cagan and Richard Russell write about the product model at Amazon.