For a long time, tech culture has focused too narrowly on technical skills; this has resulted in a tech community that too often puts companies and code over people. Greater Than Code is a podcast that invites the voices of people who are not heard from enough in tech: women, people of color, trans and/or queer folks, to talk about the human side of software development and technology. Greater Than Code is providing a vital platform for these conversations, and developing new ideas of what it means to be a technologist beyond just the code. Featuring an ongoing panel of racially and gender diverse tech panelists, the majority of podcast guests so far have been women in tech! We’ve covered topics including imposter syndrome, mental illness, sexuality, unconscious bias and social justice. We also have a major focus on skill sets that tech too often devalues, like team-building, hiring, community organizing, mentorship and empathy. Each episode also includes a transcript. We have an active Slack community that members can join by pledging as little as $1 per month via Patreon. (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode)
183: How We Learn with Vaidehi Joshi
01:47 - Vaidehi’s Superpower: Learning new things and teaching them to other people
- Teaching Things Helps YOU Learn
- Deciding on Things to Learn
05:01 - Approaching Learning
- Reading
- Relating Things to Things Already Known
- Ask Yourself, “Why do I need to know this?”
- Tricks for Reading Papers
- Read the Abstract & Conclusion
- Pick Fights with the Paper
- Using Tutorials
- Accountability & Motivation
- Learning with Others
- Unraveled
- Hermeneutic Circle
20:15 - Having Aha! Moments & Epiphanies: Brain Percolation
- Russell Ackoff
- Absolution
- Resolution
- Solution
- Dissolution
- Paradoxes
32:02 - Technologists Are Good Storytellers
39:03 - Improving Over Time and Doing Your Best
- Hindsight Bias
- Blameless Retrospectives: Accountability
47:55 - Creating Spaces for People to Succeed
- Manager Training
- “Managing Up”: The Phrase – meh
52:58 - Effective Mentorship
- Mentorship vs Sponsorship
- Trust
- Lara Hogan
Reflections:
Jamey: Incremental learning and progress – biting off small chunks and not beating ourselves up while learning. It’s not a waste of time to just do a little at a time.
Rein: Soft skills are technical skills.
Vaidehi: It’s hard to measure and quantify these things.
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Special Guest: Vaidehi Joshi.
Sponsored By:
- BrightonRuby: Alt::BrightonRuby: A slightly odd, quasi-conference for strange times by Andy Croll. There's no in-person BrightonRuby this year, but Andy is still trying to bring Ruby-ists and other software folk together. It will be recorded talks, a physical book, and a podcast. Delivered throughout June/July 2020. Plus a donation to Shelter's Coronavirus appeal. On sale now. 29Euros + tax (which works out to a very affordable about $36.50 + tax in U.S. dollars!) https://alt.brightonruby.com P.S.: A trusted source tells us that the book is a beautifully typeset copy of Why's Poignant Guide.