ohjeez

My sister is one of those people. She got polio in the 1950s, when she was 5 years old. Fortunately it was a mild case, and she was cured with physical therapy. But it always made me sensitive to anything related to polio.

I've always found that if you trust people, and you communicate openly with them (such as explaining what you want), you are rarely disappointed.

As detaro wrote: Measure results, not behavior.

Are deadlines missed? Products sub-standard? Then you have something to worry about (and remote work is not a factor).

Are team members regularly having one-on-one meetings with their managers? Are the employees comfortable enough that they can be open with the manager about any blocks or problems encountered? That's a good sign. If you want to count anything, keep track of one-on-ones.

This may be of some use (free reg required). https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/the-remote-wo...

I don't agree with all of these guidelines. I think "guys" is gender-neutral, for instance. And if it's relevant to mention the attribute, "a blind man" is as good as "a man who is blind" (the latter is just wordy; brevity still matters).

But it's a good starting point for consciousness-raising.

I'm impressed that any marketing person would bet his life on, well, anything marketing-related.

I think there's evidence that it _can_ be learned, with Steve Jobs as example #1.

On the other hand, it may not be _easily_ learned. Jobs went through a lot of changes in his life; perhaps this was one of the happier (or at least more useful) outcomes.

Interesting idea, but who defines "what's trending"?

I'd look for a balance of "tools I need to understand today" skills (e.g. advanced training in whatever programming language you use), "forward-looking stuff" (e.g. MIT futurology conference), and something for the intersection of your spiritual/creative self (such as the Grace Hopper Conference or the Business Innovation Factory).

That'd use up $5000, depending on travel costs.

I wrote a book about speech recognition -- and I _wrote_ it, I didn't speak it. I discovered that speaking uses different mental muscles than writing does. That's fine, because some people are more comfortable with one than another (such as doctors who are happy dictating but don't want to type).

Also I remember when computer mice were new, and plenty of people said, "I can't imagine using that."

I think that's true of other types of user interface as well, from haptics to whatever comes next. Sometimes you have to envision what _could_ be, and discover from experience what reaches people... or a subset thereof.

And it isn't usually that hard to do: https://insights.hpe.com/articles/what-to-tell-that-it-job-a... .

I would LOVE to know what the other people in the conversation had to say! I'm entertaining myself mightily by imagining it.

("_That_, not _which_!" I shout at the screen.)

Writing good code comments is a lost art.

Oh yes, that too!

The key element is moderators who knew what they were doing.

Aw, hell just bring back CompuServe.

I'm serious. Moderated communities with clear rules (usually "no advertising, no personal attacks") and organized sections.

And sysops could clean up after the community, by putting messages where they belonged and pruning threads.

Damn, I miss it.

I had bitter flame wars on CompuServe about whether I should sell ARCnet to my customers. And I still own the hardware for cutting cable and fastening those stupid connectors.

So not quite in the PARC realm, but not too far from it.

Nothing makes me feel so old as reading something and thinking, "I was there for this."

I cannot imagine how anyone could possibly adapt that tale and have it work.

I would love to be wrong though.

I'm a freelancer who works at home, but I bought my own monitor a long time ago. As well as the chair, keyboard, and other peripherals I wanted.

Actually I got the monitor during a time I was an employee. But I knew that such gigs don't last forever and I sure didn't want to cope with packing it up and sending it back.

I think you can ask about the team's demographics and diversity, not from the viewpoint of color or gender, but rather from the sense of "How does the team ensure that all viewpoints are included?"

I've spoken with plenty of women who look at a team of mostly/all men and wonder why they see no other women. Sometimes it's just because "That's who applied for these jobs" (which is fine) but it can also be a sign that the environment is not good for a woman's career. How do you find out which it is, when you're interviewing at the company?

(And you could say the same for other diversity categories. I just pick on the gender issue because I'm a techie grrrrl myself.)

It's more in "enterprise computing," especially outside the tech industry. Think banks and big manufacturing companies, where the HR department doesn't know much.

Relevant, too: Programmers who defined the technology industry: Where are they now? (2010) http://www.itworld.com/article/2826737/development/programme....

Damned hard to find nowadays.

There are some usenet groups I miss desperately.

This gives me such hope for journalism!

Twenty years ago, I wrote a story that explained something then-current in the news, and I included the viewpoints of both IBM and Microsoft.

I went into two CompuServe forums, both of which had people worked up over the story. In one forum, I was accused of being biased towards IBM. In another unrelated forum, someone said I must have been bought-off by Microsoft. The same day, the same story, the same reported facts.

That was the day that I knew I'd become a success as a journalist.

I remember going to Yahoo to manually type in URLs. "Hey if we want our computer user group to get noticed, we should make sure they list our website!"

A combination of old school and new tech: TV news shows (which are usually playing at my fitness club while I'm on the treadmill) and Twitter feeds.

First we'd have to imagine what "even better intangible contributors" would be. I'm hard put to think what those might be (for him... my own would be quite different).

This is pretty much his dream job. Yeah, it'd be nice to have more money, but he'd have a hard time trusting any offer of better intangibles.

Truly, you think that money is all that matters? I strongly disagree.

My husband has a job at a small company. There is no doubt whatsoever that he could get a 40% raise by moving elsewhere. He has no interest in doing so, and I would discourage him from even entertaining the idea. Among the reasons:

* He works on products that he feels make the world better.

* Everyone, from CEO to colleagues, say _Thank You_. Regularly. And they mean it.

* He spends minimal time in meetings. When a meeting is held, it's for a good reason. Nor, as an introvert, is he encouraged to interact with the public.

* If he wants to go to a tech conference for anything even vaguely relevant, he never gets an argument about it. Nor do they suggest he do it on the cheap. They see education as an investment in staff.

* Like a lot of businesses, his company says, "We're a family." Unlike a lot of businesses, they mean it. When the spouse of one employee got cancer, the employees created a fund (that the CEO decided to match) to raise money for one of those "make food in advance" freezer-meals companies. This way the employee and spouse could focus on her healing, not on coping with dinner.

Nor is this a matter of treating a star player in a special manner. Of the 70 people in the company, about 40 have been at the firm for 10+ years. They have extremely little turnover.

Money? Feh. The point is to be happy at what you do. And he is.

Reddit, because it's not a single community; it's hundreds of them.

And I can't resist a community that encourages people to contribute GIFs of /r/startledcats.