Work Culture

Toxic Positivity and Whitewashing in Tech

What I’ve been noticing and disliking more and more lately:

All the whitewashing and toxic positivity!

In press releases, it’s okay to gush about superlative successes (we know how to read them anyway).

But even at conferences and events, presenters almost fall to their knees from their own pats on the back. Some of them must have hematomas all over their chests from having their suspenders snapped.

I’m not interested in what great guy is standing at the front of such presentations (I’m great enough myself cough). I’m interested in WHAT the really tough problems were and HOW they were solved.

And that should be a bit more specific than “The setup was difficult, but with a great team you can do anything”.

Love it, Change it or Leave it

The picture shows a CleanUpBag from LOWA GmbH that I once won in a promo from LOWA including the litter that I found (and collected) on a mountain hike. The reactions on social media were either “thank you” or anger at the people who leave the litter on the trails.

And I can understand those who feel anger! I used to feel the same way!

Audio and Video Quality in Online Meetings DOES matter

We’ve all been there – endless online meetings, squinting at grainy screens, wondering if our colleagues are even awake. Seriously, how many online meeting does it take to realize that audio and video quality matter more than we want to admit?

Why we need Feedback on the Feedback

“Feedback is important!” – We’ve all heard this before. It’s an old adage.

I guess we also agree that feedback without any following actions is not only useless but demotivating. People will learn very quickly that “giving Feedback” is obviously useless and thus will not give feedback anymore. – End of Feedback culture.

The most important things about dailies …

… and what you’ve never read about them:

So, one of the most important reasons (besides the buzzword stuff), for me, is that I hear my colleagues. Not just WHAT they say, but HOW they say it.

HomeOffice- vs Office-Discussion gone Wrong

I just read an article on t3n about reasons to be in the office and reasons to stay in the HomeOffice. It’s an interesting read, just at one point I could have screamed (maybe I even did)! 🤦‍♂️

The 3 pillars of transformation & change

You can talk a lot about agility and transformation etc. – I believe there are 3 basic pillars and EVERYONE can contribute to “change”:

People who dare to speak up
People who listen to it
People who are willing to change

Those three tings alone are already a turbo for many small things that are simply super boring in the masses.

But also the other way round: if one of the three points is missing, save the energy – it won’t be successful.

The bonus is public praise for everyone involved in the project (project participants != only project managers) – but let’s start with the basics 😉

The truth about (Gen)AI

(✅ clickbait title)
Recently I attended a GenAI event organized by <big company>. All professional, interesting, insightful. Really good. (Really! I mean it! No sarcasm.)

Until it hit me like a blow during a discussion:

I DO KNOW the whole plot already!

Making the Best of a Bad Presentation Experience

Recently, I attended a conference and sat through a particularly bad presentation. I was tempted to leave, but my colleague insisted we stay until the end. So I somehow had to make the best out of it. This gave me the opportunity to analyze what made the presentation so ineffective and “bad” for me (maybe it was interesting for other people, I just didn’t like it.

So I regarded it as a case study to probably improve my own presentations.

Good Conference Talks aren’t just Success Stories

Recently, my colleagues and I attended the World of Data conference. (The conference is an event in the data and analytics industry, where latest trends, technologies etc are presented in workshops and talks/presentations. It’s pretty nice to be honest!)