Six months in…here’s what’s been going on.
I can hardly believe that this little company is already officially six months old. Now, technically I started things on February 28, with some work going toward it during the shutdown in December and January. In reality I didn’t get things going until April. So it’s around six months, and it’s time for a pulse […]
An old article gets me thinking about language again
Over the weekend, a few of my Pittsburgh friends posted an old article on Facebook that exclaimed that “Jagoff” is now in the Oxford English Dictionary. I didn’t even realize it was an old article, and I gleefully shared it. I am certain that the Me of August 1990, who arrived for college in Pittsburgh […]
In which many of us meet in person
Since starting this business, there have been a large number of people who have given of their time, worked unrealistic hours, and just been there with a resume and a promise of “you can bid me on a contract when it comes up.” I thought it was time to say thank you and allow many […]
On communicating through social media
We have all heard it: what you say in your social media posts reflects on you. It paints a picture of who you are, and that picture is usually a close but not quite the picture of who you really are. Your kids aren’t always that cute. You probably exaggerate a bit. Or a lot. […]
We make assumptions about our children’s tech knowledge
As part of my Cybersecurity Best Practices course, I talk about kids. For example, I suggest that you don’t log into work on the same computer that your kids use to play Fortnite. I suggest that no matter how savvy you think your kids are, they have likely introduced a large amount of malware into […]
On telecommuting while collaborating
It seems everyone has their own Very Clear Opinion on telecommuting, and I am no exception. My own background contributes to it, of course–not just because I enjoy working from my comfortable sofa in front of a big window (though we have established that it is my favorite place to work)–but also because I have […]
On company culture, what it really means, and inviting courageous input.
Note: this essay wanders. I’m leaving it as is, because I found I had a lot to say. I hope that my beloved departed essay instructor Hillary Masters would be ok with it. When I was younger, I truly believed that small companies had better company culture than large ones, that no large company could […]
When smart people make cybersecurity mistakes
There is a slide that I use in my Cybersecurity Best Practices for PII training that causes people to question me. No one would ever be that irresponsible, they say. No one would ever make that many mistakes at once. Here it is. Now, I took this photo myself, and I staged a coffee shop […]
Week 2: it’s a real thing now
Not that it wasn’t a real thing before, but the end of last week saw me doing more registrations, more paperwork, and generally more getting everything in gear to run a full-on business. We have two more writers/instructional designers excited to join in when we have our first contract, and we are looking to subcontract […]
101 Pieces of Paper…
and we’re not done yet. Something has got to be done about the order in which everything must be done in order to start up a business around here. There are plenty of guides out there that tell you what to do, but the order is the problem. For example, there are some registrations that, […]