I, like many of you, have experienced meeting fatigue. Most of the meetings my team have are useful — even needed. Sometimes, though, it feels like the time isn’t well spent. Maybe not everyone participates or maybe the meeting is too short to complete anything. Regardless, the problem seems to lie not with having the meetings themselves, but the effectiveness and the efficiency of each on an individual basis.

My team is new and we’re lucky enough to be relatively open with one another. As a result, we talked about this! Our meetings have improved. …

It’s not with great pride that I say TikTok knows me well. After feeding its algorithm for approximately one pandemic, it has a good read on what I like to do (and what I wish I did) in my spare time. It serves me hilarious videos, ranging from breath-through-my-nose funny to actual laughter. It knows I like coffee TikToks, but only through the eyes of a sarcastic, yet generous reviewer. Occasionally, it suggests cats.

TikTok is a giant. It avoided a ban from a previous administration, has thrived despite its competition reel-ing, and has provided many of us with an…

Apple announced their long-await AirTags this week. It’s an improved Tile clone that benefits from the absolutely huge network effects that Apple has in the smartphone market. With speakers built in, a replaceable battery, and a network of a few billion devices to go off of, they are poised to completely take over the lost-and-found market (if there is such a thing).

I’ll be that guy. I called it. Over two years ago, I wrote a “proposal” to Starbucks Coffee. You can read it here. In brief, I wrote a post describing a “Citi-bike for Coffee Cups” cup-sharing program that Starbucks could adopt to help mitigate their massive consumer waste problem. Participants could lease reusable cups and get extra stars as a result, but promise to pay a fee if they lost their cup. …

Rotational programs provide interesting opportunities for young employees.

Transitioning between teams and roles is built into the start of your career, giving participants a chance to experience something new every few months.

The upside to this is huge! Having the opportunity to try on a few different hats before “settling” down into a role is a wonderful way to explore what’s out there and figure out what you want to do.

Still, it can be jarring to transition from team to team. Just as one team starts to feel right as you get comfortable in your role, the time to…

Fortnite has exploded over the past few years, taking the world by storm, if you will. Epic has done an excellent job of changing the story over the past few Seasons, providing variety to players who probably would have stuck around anyway. I’ve found myself as an unlikely player over the past few months — it’s a great product that, as with all products, could benefit from a few experiments.

The First Problem

Spawn Island hasn’t changed much, season over season— and while I do not have access to the data, I imagine it’s the point in which players are the least engaged…

Being new to a job is a lot of fun.

Joining a team, getting to meet everyone, and becoming acclimated to your role are all accessible “challenges” to help you build confidence.

Has this ever happened though? Right when you start to become comfortable, you get assigned a task that you realize you don’t actually know how to do. All the confidence you’ve built up zips away and you have to meander back to your boss or coworker and display your somehow astounding lack of knowledge once more.

At least, I thought that was how it had to be. …

Samatha’s latest post is a great place to start before reading the following. She goes into some excellent communication advice that anyone pitching an idea would stand to benefit from — even well before the presentation.

“Know your place” sounds like a phrase meant for some coming-of-age story where our protagonist manages to break free of those words by the end of the tale.

That’s a good thing, most of the time.

When joining a new team, I think it’s important to recognize that while you’re new, you can still add value. The trick is knowing how to introduce new…