Articles
- It’s official: Video games make your brain bigger: I don’t have much time for video games anymore, but this is still totally awesome news. It’s in. It’s official. Video games can actually make you smarter. How great is that? If you’re like me and you find you don’t have much time for games any more, it might be worth picking up a hobby game. It’s a great way to relax provided you don’t get too addicted to it and apparently it can make you smarter. Perfect combo!
- The myth of the brainstorming session: The best ideas don’t always come from meetings: I thought this article was pretty interesting because we do a lot of brain storming at our office. Sometimes I like to think the sessions go smoothly or that they’re productive. When I contrast them with particular cases that are a bit out of our ordinary approach, it seems like there are certainly some factors that improve the outcome.
We’ve been dabbling in some personality tests to understand team dynamics a little bit better. To the article’s point, extroverted personalities almost always overrun introverted personalities in a brainstorming meeting from my experience. It’s really unfortunate actually and clearly not really fair if everyone is supposed to be getting their ideas out. In order to get the best results, I think that everyone needs a way to get their thoughts out, and sometimes it’s not doable if you have certain people overrunning others.
The article also touches on a fear of judgement concept that I think certainly holds true. In a recent brainstorming style meeting, instead of having individuals put on the spot and discuss their opinions, we white boarded them all at once. There was anonymity aside from when the person right beside you writing could peek at what you were putting down. The results were much better than any of our previous meetings of this style. I can’t be entirely sure that the whiteboarding was the reasoning, but it’s definitely something I’d like to try again in the future. - Matt Chang – Team Magnet Recognition: This is a post I put out earlier this week. As part of my attempt to recognize the amazing team of people I work with at Magnet Forensics, I decided to write up about our superstar customer/tech support. I know I’d never survive in a tech support role, so I have even more respect for Matt Chang being able to do such a good job. He’s been a great addition to the team, and he makes our troubleshooting of customer issues infinitely easier. Thanks for all your amazing work, Matt.
- 6 Talent Management Lessons From the Silicon Valley: In this article by John Sullivan, he discusses talent management in the valley. The fundamental idea here is that it’s all driven by innovation. Some key take away points from the article is that innovation is actually a more important goal than productivity and the ability to move fast has a huge affect on this. Additionally, people who innovate want to have an impact. Sharing stories about how previous feats have proven to have a great impact can also be a great driving force.
- Quality & Agility in Software: Session With Paul Carvalho: This is another article I put out this week about Paul Carvalho who came to speak to our development team. Simply put, the time we had with Paul was packed with information and activities. Every second we spent with him felt like we were absorbing something new and useful. It was far too short. We had lots of great learnings to take away and bring to our own drawing board. We’re excited to be implementing some changes in the upcoming week.
- Rather than Whine, We Can Learn from the Boring Aspects of a Job: Mohamed El-Erian reminds us that even the most interesting and glamorous jobs have dull moments. We shouldn’t whine or avoid these situations–they’re vital stepping stones. It’s not realistic to assume you can cut every corner and take every shortcut to get exactly where you want in your career and in life. You have to work hard at what you do and embrace even the small things that can seem boring and monotonous.
- Fragments: Creating a Tabbed Android User Interface: This is yet another one of my posts that I shared this week. This is my first Android tutorial, and I’m pretty proud of it! It’s very basic, has lots of pictures, and all of the sample code is available to download. I’m confident that anyone interested in picking up Android programming would be able to follow along. Even experienced programmers looking for a way to get a tabbed user interface using fragments in their Android app should find some benefit too! I just found out today that my tutorial made it into the Android Weekly Issue #76, so that was pretty exciting. You can download the app too (it’s pretty basic) to see what the end result will be. Check it out and let me know what you think.
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