The 5 Minute Tech Break : Feb 15
Hey Everyone

It's that Friday feeling again.

Here in London, the weather seems to have turned springlike so we've got a spring in our step as we approach the weekend.

Before then, we give you another weekly smorgasbord of items to consider during your '5 Minute Tech Break'

Andrew
https://cto.academy

What We Want From Our CEOs

Our main blog article this week looked at the relationship between CEO and CTO, specifically what a CTO needs from their CEO.

Extract below ....

"How do you get the CEO-ying, to combine effectively with the CTO-yang?

Let’s face it, they’re like chalk and cheese.  The Stargazer vs. The Shoegazer.

Personalities as diametrically opposed to each other, as to question the sanity of them trying to form a relationship, let alone mould one under the white heat of a fast growth environment.

But there is no relationship more crucial to modern business success than the CEO:CTO partnership.

So what does a CEO need to provide their techie colleague, to ensure an effective and successful union?"

Stop Meeting Like This


Another day, another debate at CTO Academy HQ.

This time about meetings and more specifically, the required duration of effective meetings.

We have the extremist in our midst - face to face meetings should only ever happen out of necessity.  Most can be easily avoided.  Mind you, having a remote team helps!

Then we have the more traditional view that face to face is still important, particularly during early stage companies where relationships are still forming, whilst the landscape is quickly changing.

Lots of literature on the topic, though not sure how.  Seems like the kind of topic that Blinkist was made for.

This article looks at the issue in more detail and asks "why we love to hate meetings".

[BTW: I'm the extremist.  Rarely attend a meeting that can't be halved in time, as a minimum]

Book To Consider

 

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

OK, let's fess up immediately.  This book is about marketing.

Before you run for the hills, I was reminded recently at a talk I gave that this is probably the one marketing book that techies should consider reading.

(1) It's very short

(2) It's rapid fire and not tedious marketing speak

(3) It's about building something 'remarkable' ... which at the end of the day, is as much an issue for the tech team, as the marketing team.

Even if you break out in a rash at the thought of touching a marketing book, if you have ambitions to be a highly effective senior tech manager then you could do worse than dive into this very short book.

Cool Tool Of The Week

Stumbled across Readwise this week.

As described by them ... "Grow wiser and retain books better. Readwise sends you a daily email resurfacing your best highlights from Kindle, Instapaper, iBooks"

It sends you a digest every day with a batch of your recent highlights from different books.  Also integrates with other apps so you can grab text from the web.  Really simple but effective tool.

From their homepage ... "What's the point of highlighting, if you're never going to see any of those highlights again?"

Talk about a pitch that drilled straight into my own inefficiencies ...
 

Quote to Motivate


“Every day of our lives, we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference.”
- Mignon McLaughlin
 

There we have it ... another tech break done.

Hope you enjoyed.  Have a great weekend.

For you insatiable types who can't get enough of our '5 minute tech breaks', go visit our archives.
 
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