Remote Working Approaches That Worked (And Some That Didn’t)

Abstract

During the pandemic many people experienced remote working for the first time, but they experienced it in a way that was, inevitably, rushed and forced.

As organisations, governments, and individuals continue to deal with the aftershocks and try to work out what the future of work looks like, I want to share practical tips drawing from nearly two decades of working remotely in multiple organisations.

We’ll look at topics including:

  • How to decide if remote working is right for you
  • Common pitfalls of remote working and how to mitigate against them
  • Specific techniques for managing remote teams
  • How companies can create a shared sense of purpose with an all-remote workforce

Whilst primarily aimed at remote workers and managers, I hope the talk will also contain helpful advice for anyone in a management/leadership role, even those not dealing with an entirely remote team. Although I think that remote working amplifies some challenges, many of these exist in non-remote environments too.

Slides

Video

Doing remote work for the long-term is actually quite hard in weirdly unexpected ways you need to be aware of.


Writing For Nerds - Blogging For Fun and (Not Much) Profit

Abstract

I’m increasingly convinced that as an industry we need to get much better at sharing our knowledge with each other. Unfortunately many of us engineers suffer from a common affliction: fear of writing. It often starts at school where we were told we didn’t have a “gift for words”.

This is nonsense. Writing is a craft, and the principles of it can be learnt.

Over the last eight years, at both InfoQ and Container Solutions, I've helped hundreds of developers become better writers. With this talk I want to show you some of the parallels between programming and writing. I’ll also explain the process I use, explore some patterns that can help you to think about how to communicate your ideas, share some of the tips and tricks you can use to write well, and discuss how you get published.

By doing so I hope to inspire more engineers to get excited about sharing their knowledge.

Slides

Video

I like to think of drafting as exploring the problem domain by whatever means works for you.

Charles Humble

Techie, podcaster, editor, author and consultant

Charles is available to give these talks at conferences and events.