Snow Tubing with Team Magnet – Weekly Article Dump

Snow Tubing with Team Magnet - Weekly Article Dump

Snow Tubing

First off… If you haven’t ever gone snow tubing, get off your computer and get to your nearest snow tubing park.

Now that you’re back from that, we’re all on the same page. Friday was another one of Magnet Forensics‘ staff events and we were fortunate enough to go tubing at Chicopee Tube Park. I hadn’t been snow tubing before–only water tubing–and I haven’t even been on a ski hill or anything for years. To be honest, snow tubing to me seemed like a bit of a glorified crazy-carpet experience which would be fun, but get boring after a couple of runs.

I’ll be the first to admit I was dead wrong. Snow tubing was probably the most awesome way for the entire Magnet family to cut loose this quarter. Most people either love or hate the snow, so finding a big group activity for a company to participate in outside in the Canadian winter can be tricky. Snow tubing was perfect though. It wasn’t too intense that people had to shy away from it and it was exciting enough to keep us entertained for the few hours we were there.

Kelly, you did a great job coordinating the staff event! It was great to see everyone come out and have a blast. Thanks for being awesome, Team Magnet.

Articles

  • The Difference Between Managers and Leaders: In this article by Ilya Pozin, he touches on some of the differences between managing and leading. In my opinion, there’s often the idea that managing people is terrible and leading people is the best thing you can ever do. I get that kind of vibe from this article, so I wanted to point it out right at the beginning. I think that a good way to look at it is like this: Being a manager does not make you a leader, but being a good leader sets you up to be a great manager. Leading and managing are different things, and the better you get at leading the better you can become at managing. With that said, I think the article touches on a lot of great leadership points.
  • 5 Ways to Finish What You Start (and Why You Often Don’t)Susan Perry writes about something that a lot of us likely experience pretty regularly. You pick up something new only to end up abandoning it not too much later. Starting a new project or hobby is exciting and it can be really easy to dive head first into something for this very reason. However, if you find that you always start things and never finish them, it might be worth paying attention to some of Susan’s suggestions.
  • 15 Benefits Of Being An Intelligent Misfit: Isaiah Hankel talks to us about what an “intelligent misfit” is in this article. The idea is that swarm thinking is more about just reacting to things, and that’s not overly beneficial. By being unique and standing out, you actually attract others that are unique like yourself with shared interests. As a result, you end up building a network of people that are truly like you instead of conforming to a group. Isaiah goes on to list 15 benefits to standing out in his article and it’s certainly worth the read.
  • Build the perfect teamPeter Mitchell talks about what ingredients you need to build your perfect team. Establishing a common culture and attitude are things that are definitely among the top. Creating clear goals and objectives for your team will also help pave the way for success. One of the most important parts of creating a team is coming up with complementary skill sets. This can be difficult because you want to create a team with people that think alike but have different skills–and often this is hard for people to separate.
  • Fire, Being Tired.: John Hope Bryant gives us a different perspective on what it means to be tired. He says that it’s not just about lacking energy to do something or not getting enough sleep. Being tired is more about losing interest in something. Why? Well even when you’re run down or low on sleep the things that you’re truly interested in can get you excited. John’s suggestion is stick to things that truly interest you–be honest with yourself. Don’t stay in a job where you’re watching the clock for the end of the day. Find your drive and your motivation.

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Nick Cosentino Principal Software Engineering Manager
Principal Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft. Views are my own.

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