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)
086: Culture Is A Community Growing Together with Jesse Oliver Sanford
01:18 – Oliver’s Superpower: The Ability to Read
01:54 – Cognitive Science and Emotional Cognition
The effects of BOTOX injections on emotional experience.
11:24 – How People Think When They Code and the Intersection Between Mind and Body
fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging)
15:38 – The Importance of Cultural Capital
14:42 – Flow
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: All About Flow & Positive Psychology
The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance by Steven Kotler
21:33 – Ritual in Developer and Engineer Culture
29:24 – Achieving Flow During Pair Programming / Hedonic Balance
Dr. John Gottman: Bids for Connection
42:29 – Emotional Intelligence and Progress
Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy by Bruno Latour
57:00 – Culture. What is Culture?
*More from Oliver: *
- Debunking Three Myths About How We Think When We Code
Reflections:
Sam: One’s ability to solve problems as a technical person depends as much on one’s social network and social skills as it does on technical knowledge.
Jamey: You can affect things about yourself by being mindful of facts about your body.
John: Teams and effectiveness: People you work with are important.
Rein: In the future, we’ll realize that the code we wrote was a very small and unimportant artifact of what we’re doing as communities and cultures.
Oliver: Engaging with others who think about these things and who realize how high the stakes are.
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Special Guest: Jesse Oliver Sanford.