Wildfires threatened the Rands home this last week. We’re fine, but there were a couple of sketchy days where we had the go-bag packed and the keepsakes identified. Natural disasters bring folks together rapidly. I’m on a Messages group with a bunch of mountain folk. As word of the fire spread, this message group exploded.… more
Up at 7am. Check the outfit, the professional outfit, on the floor to make sure it still fits my mood. Adjust as necessary. Shower and put on the outfit. Consider wearing shoes, but don’t. My shoes are lonely. Upstairs. Coffee (black) and a glance at the view. Santa Cruz Mountains. No fog today. Walk into… more
It would appear there are not a lot of written words here recently. Appearances are deceiving. There are lots of words and they look like this: I’m winding up a three-week vacation which has been focused on getting the next book in shape. My definition of “in shape” is “I can kind’a sort’a see the… more
Awhile ago. I picked a font for a reason I’ve since forgotten. The typeface, Cyan, is unremarkable. Not a great body font and not a great headline font. I probably used it in a presentation once or twice, found it to be poorly kerned, and then moved on. However, the R, the lowercase R, somehow… more
Earlier this week, it was my distinct pleasure to invite the 5000th human to the Rands Leadership Slack. This endeavor has greatly exceeded my expectations while also continuing to teach me about community management and leadership. Started on June 1st, 2016, the Slack is now 5000+ members with roughly 1700 of those humans being weekly… more
The Rands Leadership Slack was created on May 17th, 2015 at 12:08pm. I would call this community “vibrant.” Let’s start with stats from this weekend: 1.08 million messages since creation. (67% public, 2% private, 31% DMs) 3882 users. Talking in last seven days: 319. Reading in the same period: 1,159. 285 live channel. 207 archived.… more
The world is full of bullshit right now. Perhaps it’s always been full of bullshit, but I’m sitting here right now, and I feel that we – as a species – have taken the bullshit to an entirely new level. Strongly held beliefs are based on the flimsy opinions delivered by totally unqualified sham journalists… more
Tinkering is a deceptively high-value activity. You don’t usually allocate much time to tinkering because the obvious value of tinkering is low. You don’t start tinkering with a goal in mind; you start with pure curiosity. I’ve heard about this thing, but I’ve never used it. How does this thing work? I’ve always wanted to… more
This year’s Christmas presents hide right behind the closet door. Several boxes are on shelves while other packages are lamely stuffed in a festive Ted Baker bag on the floor. If you walked in the closet, you would see the presents with zero effort. Ten years ago, my children would’ve paid cash money to know… more
Eagle-eyed readers noticed resting on the best couch ever that there was an orange octopus. His name and how he ended up there is a great story. When my daughter was in elementary school, we participated in a program called Indian Princesses that started in kindergarten with graduation in 5th grade. Each month there were… more
