A summary of articles related to a particular topic. These could range from software development, leadership, and business.
Burn Out I had a lot of really positive feedback from my friends and family after writing about my experiences of going through burn out. If you haven't read the post, check it out here. I've done some article summaries on the topic of burn out before, but I feel like it's probably a good topic to bring up again in light of my recent post. For a bit of background, burn out is a process that can occur to an individual that's dedicating too much time to a particular activity. It leads to an imbalance in terms of what his or her time is put towards and can result in a person feeling depressed without any energy. Wikipedia does a pretty good job of summarizing it in one quick sentence: Burnout is a psychological term that refers to long-term…
Leadership Everyone has their own variation of what leadership means. For me, leadership means empowering others to accomplish their goals and providing assistance when they need it. There were a few articles that came up on LinkedIn this week that I wanted to share with everyone and discuss how they fit into my perspective on leadership. Articles Does Your Team Work With You Or For You?: Kwame Manu-Antwi opens up the article in an interesting fashion. When I read the title of the article, I figured this was going to be the typical leadership vs management debate. However, Kwame goes into describing a scenario where he had a humbling experience from one of his team that made some sacrifices for him. This was truly an example of working for him. The entire second half of the article shares a bunch of…
No More Silence. I've been pretty quiet over the past month and a bit, but that doesn't mean that nothing is going on behind the scenes. I've been busy (maybe a little bit too busy?) and I haven't really put in the time to create or share any content online. When I over commit, something has to give, unfortunately. Okay, so what's been happening? New Hires! We've brought on some amazing talent to help at work, and that's always incredibly exciting. We had Chris Sippel return to us after finishing up his final portion of school. Chris is a bit quirky (and that's really why we love him) and started with us in the early days. Pumped to have you back, buddy! We brought on board Jason Gregory and Matthew Beamer who bring a host of skills that are truly…
Happy St. Patty's Day! I hope everyone who was celebrating St. Patrick's Day was able to not only have fun but stay safe doing so. Of course, when there is drinking associated with a holiday it can be easy to get carried away. It's always a great idea to have driving arrangements or the option to sleep at a friend's place set up before you head out to celebrate. This year I was able to celebrate with a handful of my university friends that I don't get to see as often as I'd like. I haven't been drinking much at all now for nearly half a year, so I stuck to my one Irish coffee to meet my liquor allowance. We all had a blast discussing where our lives have taken us so far, and it's great to see everyone…
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,…
Article Dump #24 Welcome to the 24th issue of my (nearly) weekly article dumps. I don't have a theme or an update this week, so it's kept pretty short. I hope you find the following articles interesting though! Leave me a comment if you have any opinions on these Articles The 7 Values That Drive IDEO: In this article, the CEO of IDEO Tim Brown talks about the various values that his organization embraces to have a creative culture. Some of the ideas in the slides seem really high level or like generic fluff, but try thinking about what they would mean in your organization. It's one thing to glance at IDEO's list and say "Yeah, yeah... That's nice..." but when you actually think about how that fits in with your organization, you might actually realize you don't embody those values. Do…
Be a Better Programmer It's a new year and that means it's all about resolutions, right? Well, I'm not a huge fan of keeping around a resolution that needs to wait for a new year, but I am a fan of reflecting on your goals and your skills. If you're a programmer like me, then maybe this will be a great starting point. In my weekly article dumps I usually would just provide a couple of comments on a link like this, but I felt I should dive in a little bit more. You can find the original article by Amy Jollymore over here. Please have a look! I shared it with the whole dev team at Magnet Forensics because I felt there was a little bit of something for everyone. Number one on this list, and perhaps the one…
Happy Holidays The holiday season is upon us, so I'd like to start by extending my best wishes for you to have a safe and happy holiday. I've personally been pretty busy the past few weeks wrapping year-end stuff up at work, so I'm looking forward to a few days of being able to catch my breath a bit. If you have some time off from work, I'm hoping you'll get a chance to do the same over the holidays. I can't sit idle for too long though. I don't like not feeling productive, so once I've caught up a bit on some well deserved rest, I'll be right back at it! The holidays and end of the year are a great time to reflect on everything that's happened in the last 12 months. Did you have goals that set you…
Charity Water We have a lot of pretty awesome people at Magnet Forensics, and every day I'm reminded just how awesome. A colleague of mine, Danielle Braun, had what I thought was an incredible idea for her birthday. For Danielle's birthday, she's not asking for more new clothes, for her parents to get her a car, for help with paying off tuition, or for some new fancy tech gadgets. But she's not asking for nothing. Danielle is asking for your support with Charity: Water this year. Charity: Water is a non-profit organization with the goal of bringing clean water to people in developing nations that don't have access to it. Reading their mission page probably opens your eyes a fair bit about the lack of access to drinking water in other countries. They're not about some complex and elaborate plan…
Movember Wrap-up At the start of December, it's time for a lot of us to shave off our glorious Movember badges from our upper lips. This year, MoMagnets did an absolutely amazing job raising money for Movember. At the time of writing, we're sitting at just under $2400! An incredible effort by Magnet Forensics and all of those that helped with their generous contributions. My 'stache didn't quite get to where I wanted to this year. It was close, but it was another connector-less Movember for me. I was almost able to get some twisting done for some not-so-legitimate connectors. Oh well... Here's what I ended up rocking for most of the month: My final Movember creation: The Anti-Connector. Matt Chang definitely took the lead for raising the most of all the MoMagnets members at over $700! Mica Sadler is…
