Jan 7The art of asking for helpA lot of people, if not most people, take care to project an online persona of success and continuous improvement, but shy away from talking about unsolved problems and failures. …6 min read6 min read
Jul 12, 2021How to decide what to write about?I write several articles every year, some here on Medium, some internal to IBM. People whom I mentor often ask me “do you find writing is important for your work and your career?” to which the answer is “absolutely, yes.” …5 min read5 min read
Sep 12, 2020Notes on Sarter and Woods’ “Autonomy, Authority, and Observability: Properties of Advanced Automation and Their Impact on Human-Machine Coordination”For background on the purpose of these notes, and other notes (eventually), see my entry “Learning in public.” About Media: Paper Availability: free, electronically How I came to study this I’ve been interested in the topics of software engineering and the development of software-centric systems since my first year of undergrad at Penn State University in 1996…Observability9 min readObservability9 min read
Sep 12, 2020Learning in publicI study often, both out of personal interest but also to support my work at IBM. …1 min read1 min read
Feb 14, 2020AI for developersEnterprises today are working hard to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) to compete. The greatest challenge they face is that AI represents a true paradigm shift for how we solve problems using software and data. Not only must your organization acquire or build new skills, but it must also unlearn patterns…AI12 min readAI12 min read
May 10, 2018The intrinsic motivation exerciseFor me, the best thing about being a manager is bringing together remarkable individuals and, through coaching and experimentation, molding them into remarkable teams. For an employee to do their best work, their work and role must be well aligned with their intrinsic motivations. …Motivation5 min readMotivation5 min read
Mar 24, 2018Avengers assemble!Background: My oldest son and daughter go to the same North Carolina middle school. The middle school Vice Principle asked me to give a talk to a group of top students and their parents on the topic of superpowers (strengths) and Kryptonite (weaknesses). …Marvel9 min readMarvel9 min read
Apr 9, 2017Tools as a catalyst for culture changeOver the past two and a half years, I’ve led a project at IBM that deployed a new set of tools to help improve the company’s product development efforts. What is the benefit of providing better tools to employees? A first answer is that it helps increase employee productivity. While…Dev Ops11 min readDev Ops11 min read
Published in IBM Design·Feb 1, 2017Listen to the wild ducks: How IBM adopted SlackToday Slack announced its long-awaited Enterprise product: Slack Enterprise Grid. During the announcement, IBM’s CIO Jeff Smith (my boss’s boss) talked about IBM’s use of Slack. …IBM5 min readIBM5 min read
