I wrote an op-ed for this weekend’s Seattle Times about Seattle’s worsening traffic, and one very simple idea for cutting the number of cars on the road each day:
Let’s work from home.
Telecommuting is an inexpensive way to get single-occupancy vehicles off the freeways, but it’s going to take city, county, and state leadership to convince companies and CEOs to commit to it. (I would suggest federal, too, but well, you know.) Continue reading “Seattle: Remote Work City”
My site is now using a simple and fast-loading new theme called Independent Publisher 2. It was designed by Raam Dev, Kjell Reigstad, Caroline Moore, and John Maeda. Read more on their work here.
It’s shortly after 5 am PT. In the other room, my daughters, already awake, are writing a letter to Hillary Clinton, thanking her for inspiring them and millions of others. I am in the dining room, staring at apoplectic headlines from publications that I trust, knowing that millions of Americans in other cities don’t read or believe the same words.
I live in a city that’s booming economically, and nearly everyone in my peer group — both in my city and in my industry — supported Hillary Clinton. We fretted about the disastrous consequences of a Trump victory, but perhaps I still did not take it seriously, with polls putting the odds of victory at 70%. I shared Facebook posts and tweets and expected that everything would work out okay. The polls favored Hillary, and so did common sense.
As it turns out, not even common sense is guaranteed in America. Continue reading “A Letter From My Daughters, and a Letter to Myself”
I gave a brief talk about Slack at our company meetup this year, but I thought it would be helpful to expand on this problem and share it publicly.
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Slack (their open letter strategy notwithstanding) is one of the truly great work tools we’ve embraced inside Automattic. We’re a distributed company, which means there is no office and everyone works “remote” (we hate that word) from spots all around the world — 500+ employees across more than 50 countries.
Having real-time chat adds an important level of intimacy and energy to our daily work, and it makes it easier than ever for our teams to quickly discuss projects and ideas. Slack also adds some very smart layers of fun (GIFs, emoji, thoughtful messaging and copy) to differentiate itself from the cold, sterile world of work productivity.
Despite what its marketing campaign suggests, Slack is not a replacement for email. Its usefulness hinges on employees knowing the difference between what’s appropriate for real-time chat, and what needs to be communicated in a more timeless forum. Slack can’t do everything, and teams should discuss best practices for using it. Continue reading “‘Slack Creep’ Is Real. Here’s How Your Company Can Avoid It”
