Robo-dog vs Robo-unicorn, who will win?!
G’day!
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What’s been happening
We hope that January was a month of rest and rejuvenation for you and your family. For all our friends here in Melbourne and elsewhere, we hope lockdown is going without too much stress, and that it will not last much longer.
As parents, this year we have entered the years of following the “school holidays” flock. This means that we now have early school year kids who will require (a lot of) our attention during school holidays. And to keep them entertained, one of the things that we did was to take our girls to Girl Geek Academy of course!
So off we went to the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre in Melbourne with our laptops, iPads, and drink bottles, and attended the #MissMakesCode workshop. This program is held during school holidays and was created to build confidence and self-efficacy in algorithmic thinking, programming, and coding for young girls aged 5-8 years. The workshop started first coding concepts. Our girls were on the younger end of the age spectrum so Sarah Moran (CEO of Girl Geel Academy) adjusted the activities to match and engage our girls. Thank you Sarah! By mid morning, a session of yoga was in place for the girls to stretch their little limbs whilst the parents went to the kitchen for a cuppa. After our little break, a combination of online and offline activities were taught including key coding concepts so the girls could customise their own game using code blocks. At the end of the session, the girls got to play with robotics, and gave robo-dog and robo-unicorn instructions on how to go for a walk, do a wee, roll over, and dance. We finished off the morning workshop with a delicious session of dumplings at Hutong Dumplings 😋 Winning!
As some of you may already know, we are passionate about women in the tech industry so if you want to talk or learn more about this topic, please email us at gday@blackmill.co. Furthermore, if you wish to introduce your little one to coding, please check out code.org for their pre-school introduction to coding for pre-reading kids.
Tech Leadership Coaching
We have been busy with existing and new couching clients and are thoroughly enjoying the sessions. Coaching brings new insights into various problems. Questions and discussions can highlight deeper problems, and help our clients overcome them with more creative solutions. It encourages you (the leader) to see other perspectives, and broaden your thoughts on a specific topic. It can improve your communication skills, and add clarity to your messages. Coaching targets any aspects you could use help with to provide improvements in attitudes and abilities. Where leaders are coached, they will take those skills to their teams, resulting in a culture of coaching throughout their organisation.
Our Tech Leadership Coaching is delivered online, allowing for flexibility to meet your personal needs.
What are we reading?
A Tale Of Two Ecosystems: On Bandcamp, Spotify And The Wide-Open Future compares the two platforms and their approaches in the music industry. This can remind some of you of Rdio, which we miss dearly. If you have a solid replacement option to Spotify, please do share with us.
Last week, Elle wrote a blog post on how organisational culture can foster creativity and innovation. The short answer to this question is five elements: risk, safety, time, freedom, and autonomy. But if you wish to learn more, please do check the article.
This week, Sarah posted an article about focusing our attention, which is ever more relevant this time where our attention suffers because of high emotions of pandemics and lockdown, and the constant news of clusters, circuit breakers, and vaccine updates.
A cuppa with Lachlan
1. What do you do at Blackmill and how long have you been there?
Since 2017, I’ve helped Blackmill clients with organisational goal-setting, leadership training and coaching, workshops, and web development in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, and Node. My favourite part is definitely working with leaders to solve their problems. I don’t usually have the answers but together we find some to try.
2. What’s your background? Where were you before joining Blackmill?
My first startup was in 2001. I was the only dev so I did everything technical. My next job was a web agency where I had projects across all kinds of technologies. After that my roles focused on standards-based front-end technologies at places like News Digital Media, Atlassian, and BigpondTV. Since 2011 my career has centred on engineering management and I had to learn on the job. My last gig before Blackmill was building a product team specifically for the customer support organisation at GitHub.
3. What do you like about Blackmill?
The freedom to direct our work towards areas of industry we care about and do so within the constraints we set for ourselves. That other people care enough about the same things to join us is a perpetually uplifting revelation.
4. What are you passionate about?
I am passionate about doing good work but also cooking delicious foods. I don't post photos of my cooking as much anymore. However, during the lockdowns last year, I started a fried chicken project, where I cook a different recipe every weekend. When I got to 40 weeks and was about to run out of recipes, I asked Twitter to help me make it to a year. And promptly got 12 more recipes. One friend even dropped a fried chicken book at my doorstep. Just this book could keep me busy for another full year!
5. Tell us about a book or podcast you enjoyed recently
Our last book in 2020 for the Blackmill book club (everyone is welcome!) was Annie Duke’s Thinking in Bets. I find myself referencing ideas from it often, both with friends and in coaching sessions with clients. Ulysses contracts let one frame or even make a decision before the moment it is relevant; before the stress and emotions of the particular circumstance come into play.
Duke also proposes attaching certainty ratings to decisions and opinions. A decision you have 90% confidence in is very different to one you’re only 60% sure about! This takes the conversation away from being the right or wrong decision.
6. 2020 was a challenging year. Did you change anything last year because of Covid? Anything you were grateful for in 2020?
I got back into (almost) daily exercise for the first time in several years. I needed to for my mental health, although the physical health benefits were nice too! I slacked off over December and January so I’m trying to get back to those lockdown levels of exercise again now.
I was particularly grateful for the support of our clients who did things like paying upfront to reduce uncertainty for us or extending deadlines to allow for reduced capacity to work. Seeing my communities come together to help each other was marvelous, but I guess I hadn’t expected it in business and it was great.
7. What are your goals or aspirations for this year? Are there anything you look forward to?
This year my focus is on how to grow that coaching and teaching side of the business. I still love software development and I suspect I’ll always code but I get so much out of our interactions with everyone. Seeing people develop the confidence and capabilities to enact their plans for their team and company is incredibly rewarding.
What are we cooking?
Considering all this talk about fried chicken, one would assume this month's recipe would be on theme. Alas, Lachlan would like to share one of our favourite easy and quick "pantry" pasta recipes.
Aglio e olio
- 200g angel hair spaghetti
- 1/4 cup EVOO
- 5 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
- 1 tsp chilli flakes, to taste
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh herbs (parsley), optional
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the pasta to the water, and cook until it is tender but still a bit chewy. Reserve some of the pasta cooking water.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until aromatic but not brown, stirring occasionally, about 2-3 minutes. Add the chilli flakes.
Once the pasta is ready, transfer it to the pan with a bit of the pasta water. Increase the heat to high, and cook stirring until the sauce emulsifies, becomes creamy, and coats the pasta, 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in the herbs, serve immediately, and enjoy!
And… we’re out
Thank you for showing an interest to our newsletter and we hope that you enjoyed the read. Feel free to contact us if you have any feedback, a burning question or just a recipe that you would like to share 😊.
Until next time, keep learning!
Everyone at Blackmill