Many years ago, when I was younger and more foolish, I worked for an advertising startup. Things seemed to be going pretty well! The office was expanding, the sales team was screaming into phones, the budget for servers was rising. Growth had been healthy, but now looked to be plateauing. One day we were summoned into a large conference room. Our CEO was on the speakerphone (I told you this was a long time ago) with an important update on our financial situation. I think every arsehole in the …
Continue reading →
Just before I graduated from University, I went to a careers fair to help me decide what I wanted to do with my life. At one of the stalls was our local Police force - advertising the exciting new world of digital forensics. Here is - almost verbatim - the conversation I had with the recruiter. Me: "Hello! What do I need to do in order to use my computer science degree to catch criminals?" Them: "Well, after the physical, first you'll need to spend several years as a beat copper working on…
Continue reading →
I recently signed up for a hackathon. Part of the deal these days is that sponsors get to send promotional messages to the attendees. Fair enough. The only problem is, most of these messages are rubbish! Here's the verbatim message I received - there were no links other than to Twitter. See if you can work out what this startup does... Just a quick heads up to let you know that we'll be attending $conference 2017 – and we’re pretty excited about it! Hopefully you’ll be plugging in along…
Continue reading →
I want to stop someone from following me on social media. In this case, it's not a stalker or harasser - just someone who's presence I don't need in my life. This could be worse - they could be a lot more malicious and I could be in a more vulnerable position. I am positively festooned with privilege - so I don't have to worry about my physical safety, but it's annoying and distressing having to constantly filter them from my life. Other people aren't so lucky. I thought I had successfully…
Continue reading →
I get to visit a fair few start-ups. Some are hopelessly idealistic (my favourites!) some are hopelessly cynical. Recently, I got to spend a few hours with a new "Quantified Self" start-up. For the sake of protecting the guilty - let's call them "Fronk." Fronk have decided that women are under-served in the wearables market. Their (male) CEO, (male) chief designer, (male) head of strategy, and (male) CTO have the secret to getting women to wear fitness trackers - gold plate them, cover…
Continue reading →
