John Poelstra

Bringing order to chaos and clarity to confusion

Page 17 of 33

Scaling Trust

Jonathan Fields interviews Seth Godin.  Godin talks about wanting to find ways to “scale trust” versus scaling a product or a company and the importance of getting clear on “what you want.” This is a revolution. And revolutions destroy the… Continue Reading →

Launch and Learn

Some people seem naturally successfully and fall into niches that fit them perfectly.  The rest of us get to do it less efficiently.  I’ve found parts that are a good match and others that aren’t. It really is all about setting on… Continue Reading →

Remote Worker Advantage

I work remotely for Red Hat.  This means I do not work in an official “office.”  I’ve done this far longer than I ever thought possible and I’ve gotten pretty good at it. The article titled Why Remote Workers Are… Continue Reading →

A Bigger Monitor Isn’t Necessarily Better

Ma.tt always links to interesting articles.  This post on screen size reminded me of the process I went through a couple of years ago when I needed a new monitor and I knew in advance I wasn’t looking for the biggest… Continue Reading →

Padding A Schedule Isn’t the Solution

If you are having issues generating reliable builds at the end of a release, pulling the deadline in so that there is more time to get to a reliable build isn’t solving the real problem.  It is true that you… Continue Reading →

Recovering From Mountain Lion with Time Machine

Time Machine really is an amazing application.  I had no idea it could be this easy to backup my entire system and restore it.  A friend of mine told me it was easy, but I had not idea it was… Continue Reading →

What’s Your Solution to Email Overload?

I love the story from Peter Bregman’s post Coping With Email Overload and how he dealt with an entire week’s worth of email in three hours and yet normally he spends an entire week doing email.  It is such an illusive… Continue Reading →

How to Have Good Retrospective Meetings

Great retrospectives are all about asking the right questions and collecting the right amount of information.  Retrospectives are a waste of time if the team conducting them is not committed to acting on what they uncover. Retrospectives are often used… Continue Reading →

How Old is Your Canoe?

Here’s some great advice from Charlie Gilkey’s post called Leave the Canoe Behind. What got you here won’t (necessarily) get you there. In some ways it parallels my post, How Old Are Your Tapes? and yet I think Gilkey reaches… Continue Reading →

Great Car Stereo Install Experience With Sparks Garage

If you live in or around Portland, Oregon, and want a great experience upgrading or fixing your car stereo, I recommend Sparks Garage–tell Jon that I sent you.  You can go to the shop or Jon provides a mobile service… Continue Reading →

How To Run Hamster Time Tracker on RHEL 6

I haven’t done time tracking in a while, but was looking to give it another try to reach some of my goals easier.  I’ve seen large benefits in the past from setting small time goals that build to a larger… Continue Reading →

When Will Phone Books Die?

In today’s world with so many ways to get information, is there any kind of return on investment to the companies creating and distributing phone books? Some people were sad earlier this year when the Encyclopedia Britannica went out of print.  I… Continue Reading →

Embrace The Present

How often do we lose out on the present moment by trying to preserve it for later?  I think we often lose twice–we miss out on the present moment by trying to preserve it, and then the quality of what… Continue Reading →

RHEL 6 USB Sound Too Low

Most laptops are getting to the point that you don’t need a USB headset or microphone to make audio calls.  Sometimes it just makes sense to use one. I had a new install of RHEL running on a new Lenovo… Continue Reading →

The Shocking Truth About Pie Charts

Pie charts are a horrible way to convey information, particularly when other formats are much more effective. Stephen Few has a compelling article explaining why this is true.  I also recommend his books. If you need a little convincing before… Continue Reading →

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