Articles for category: Delivery

November 8, 2024

Greg Thomas

Dear FirstName

Another in my favourite emails that I receive… Dear FirstName, Wouldn’t that be horrible, but for real, there is a person writing this email… Then why not use my name?  If I went up to some random stranger and said – “What’s up FirstName?” – what do you think they would say? What do you think the response would be? Even if I was joking (and let’s be honest, “hey buddy”, sounds infinitely better). The problem with all these mails that I’ve referenced over the past few days is they are so lazy, it’s sad and depressing – just a

November 6, 2024

Greg Thomas

Unsolicited Seminars

I get emails from seminars I need to be attending. I’m not sure what drives this need. Many times I feel like responding, but then I worry that it’s going to trigger an upgrade in the mailing lists from “maybe a SPAM” to “attached to a human” and then I’m going to get flooded with even more solicitations for seminars I don’t want to attend. Hello, You have the wrong person, I’m doing great, and things are going well, apart from this random email that came out of the blue thinking I needed help. I’m good, you’re good, let’s call

November 5, 2024

Greg Thomas

Not what they Want, But Definitely What they Need

“I need access to the system to get access to all data.” No. What you need is an endpoint you can call whenever you want to get only the data you need. Customers come to us with needs, in the middle there are always wants and stretching towards what they want (ask for the ocean and get the lake you need). The goal is to separate what they want from what they need but also to give them what they haven’t asked for that they are going to need. Needs aren’t less than the wants, they are what is required

November 3, 2024

Greg Thomas

I never met a Thread, I didn’t want to Unlock

When someone asks “How do we solve this?” And the solution is a vintage, time-tested, battle-hardened approach that works. You know it’s going to be a good day. I haven’t written multi-threaded code in a long time, but man when the opportunity popped up I jumped to it. I never met a thread I didn’t like.

November 3, 2024

Greg Thomas

Find Your Reminder

Every now and again, we get overwhelmed with all we are doing and we need to find our reminder for why we are doing something. Is it our love for the work? Is it a particular aspect? What is it that makes you want to do this “thing” that right now is stressing you out? You might not be able to avoid everything, but sometimes we need a reminder as to why we’re there.