Welcome to The Manager's Playbook, a recurring newsletter series on management and leadership skills. As leaders and managers, we should be aware of how our emotions and expressions impact others when we communicate. When we give feedback, do 1:1s, or make decisions in team meetings, our body
Welcome back to my Monday Musings: a random collection of thoughts, musings and ideas. The scene is set. A warm cup of tea. My favourite Disney jumper. Music from the parks in the background. A stack of books on Disney, storytelling and theme park design next to me. Even my
Welcome back to The Story Toolbox, your regular dose of storytelling inspiration! Every two weeks, I’ll share practical steps to help you become a better storyteller. In each issue, I’ll give you a question or prompt to make you reflect on what you know, getting you to brainstorm
Welcome to the first edition of Shortcut Keys, your regular dose of productivity hacks. Every two weeks, I’ll share a tip, trick or recommendation to make your (work) life easier and more efficient. Ever find yourself typing out the same links, email addresses, or phrases over and over again?
Welcome to the first edition of The Manager's Playbook, a recurring newsletter series on management and leadership skills. I started managing engineers in the summer of 2015. I had just been promoted to manage a few engineers on my team after going through an internal interview process. Up
Welcome to the first edition of Monday Musings: a random collection of thoughts, musings and ideas. “So how many programming languages do you know?” Let me set the scene: I’m at a networking event at an art gallery. In small clusters, local business owners are sharing what they do
I've been wondering how to reboot this newsletter/blog and share more useful content with you all. So, over the next few weeks, I'll be starting a few new recurring series. Starting with this one! Welcome to the first edition of The Story Toolbox, your regular
Oops. I did it again. It’s been 3 months since I last wrote something here. Time flies when you’re busy, and writing is an easy task to get the backseat. I can’t complain, though; it’s been a perfect storm of being busy with client work, as
As we approach the end of the year, it’s the perfect time to slow down, reflect, and consider what’s working for you. I’ve always been a fan of taking time for personal retrospectives: those moments when you stop, think, and get deliberate about what you’ve been
Last month, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Øredev conference in Sweden, where I gave a talk called Refactor Yourself! If you weren’t able to attend, you can catch the full talk here: In this talk, I explored how we can refactor our own behaviours, just like
People are often surprised to learn that I used to consider myself an introvert. I speak at conferences, interact with many people, and am rarely the quietest person in the room. I don’t fit the usual image of an introvert. For me, introversion and extraversion are all about energy:
Hello again. It's been a while. I didn't mean to not blog for 2 months, but it's been a busy and challenging few months. I always knew October would be extra busy cause of the amount I was travelling for conferences and having to
The most important lesson I learnt from web design that I apply to my talks? Understanding white space. Here's why it matters: In web design, white space isn’t just empty space for the sake of it. It’s the breathing room between elements: it’s the margins
Who do you design for? And what do you want them to achieve? I've ask myself those questions all the time, throughout the various stages and roles of my career. And for anything that I’m intentionally building. As an engineer: Who am I designing this feature for?
When I first started with conference speaking, I wasn't really sure which places I should apply to. There were the conferences that I had attended myself already and that I knew I liked, but I also saw so many others pop up on Twitter and LinkedIn. I was
Monthly Roundup
Goodbye August. Hello September. Goodbye Summer. Hello Autumn. Despite not having gone to school for over 15 years now (university still counts as school in my eyes), September always feels like the start of the new “year” to me. Summer is over, the weather is turning colder, and it’s
You’ve been asked to present your recent work at the latest company all-hands meeting. “Ugh, do I have to?” might be your initial response. The reasons behind your response could come from various reasons. Maybe it’s cause you don’t feel comfortable giving presentations. Maybe you think as
Monthly Roundup
It's the first week of August here in London, and despite the cloudy skies, it is annoyingly warm. It always feels like most of London just goes on a summer break in July and August. It's not that people are not working at all and taking
What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me on stage? I got asked this question last month in a Q&A I did for new speakers with Aspiring Women Speakers. And it gave me flashbacks to when I was just getting into speaking and was so
Monthly Roundup
I find it surprising that the end of the month always seems to sneak up on me, even though I shouldn't be surprised. It's hard to believe that we're already halfway through the year and that I've been freelancing for 6 months
Figuring out what energises you can be such an eye-opener! Last month, I had an amazing but extremely busy week with 4 events: the LeadDev London speaker mixer, then 2 days at the LeadDev London conference, followed by a fourth day of LeadingEng London. Now I used to consider myself
One of the questions I get asked most at conferences? “Where did you get that bag?” It's not what you'd expect, right? It happened to me again at LeadDevLondon and LeadingEng last week. For the past 6 years, I’ve been addicted to the wonderful bag
It was 11pm when I got the phone call. “We’ve had a speaker dropout for tomorrow. I know it’s last minute, but would you be up for giving your talk?” It was the evening before LeadDev London in 2019, and I was being asked if I wanted to
Monthly Roundup
And just like that, it's June! It's only 3 weeks since I did the last monthly roundup post, and that time has gone by quickly. I'd love to know which parts of this post you find most intriguing, or if there's anything