I wrote a piece about a year ago called Workplace Motivation and Game Mechanics which summed up some of my ideas for bringing some of the compelling character of video games to the office. Since then, some much smarter people have been doing some thinking and experimenting with similar ideas. Jane McGonigal gave a terrific [...]
Over the past several years at the University, we’ve had to hire for a variety of programming and programming-related positions. One of the interviewing practices we’ve adopted is to give candidates a programming assignment which they can complete at home, at their own pace using any resources they can muster. Because these conditions approximate the [...]
Last October, a couple of my coworkers and I presented at [High Ed Web 2008]. The conference organizers have, at long last, posted the transcript and audio recording of our session. The quality of the transcript is fairly rough, and they didn’t include the visual aids (which, by the way, I put a good deal [...]
One of the things about writing software for a living is that customers are rarely happy when you tell them “It will be done when it’s done.” Even though development is fraught with uncertainty, it’s still incumbent upon us who practice this craft to be able to give people some idea of what kind of [...]
I manage a crew of about 5 programmers at work. During our performance reviews this year, I asked each of them how I could do my job as a manager better. One of them, in a bit of much-appreciated candor, said that motivation was one of his biggest challenges, and that he would be grateful [...]
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Posted 22 April 2009
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Games
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Several months ago, I noticed that one of the nearby offices was using a whiteboard mounted outside their office door to keep people informed of their comings and goings. “That’s good communication!” I thought to myself, “but my team is made up of geeks. Surely we can do something nerdier!” Thus was born an experiment [...]
And it’s not just my wife who says so. When I’m going to take a day off from work, I email our team to let them know I’ll be out. Here’s a recent missive: Hey y’all, I’m planning to take Friday off as a sanity day and to strip down, don the headdress of the [...]
I’m currently at the High Ed Web 2008 conference in Springfield, MO. The conference is geared to web professionals in Higher Education, and is an interesting combination of marketers, technical folk, and the occasional vendor. There’s lots of good information to be had (as well as an immense amount of equally good food — who [...]
Hi all! Hideo, our superb QA guy up at work, is heading back to Japan at the end of this month, and we need to find someone to fill his shoes. If you’re interested in web application development and/or software quality assurance, please check out the listing I’ve posted on Craig’s List. Thanks!
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Posted 22 September 2008
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Just back from the IT Staff Appreciation Breakfast. A few notable awards: Kathy won a scholarship again this year. Huzzah! Congratulations, my dear! My boss, Mike Farris, won an Excellent Leadership Award, which he richly deserved. Two of the project teams I serve on, TRACS and Gato, won Collaborative Team Excellence Awards. Great job, you [...]
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Posted 21 May 2008
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Family
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