EL Digest #21 - Gifs are dead, apparently
Hello in October,
The fall mood spreads in the tech industry. Apparently,?gifs are dead and cringe ?and we're not sure if we're ready for that revelation.?Facebook newsletters are also a thing of the past ?(if you noticed they were actually a thing).
To lift your spirits this month, we're writing about agile self-managing teams (they're actually really cool, just check it out). And we're sharing an interview with our HR Business Partner, Zuzanna Kowalska, who unveils the secrets of how we made our internal communication better, more effective, and actually pleasant for everyone involved.
As always, all the best,
EL Passion team
What's been happening in tech? Your TL;DR knowledge booth
Meet Fizz, the social app downloaded by '95% of Standford undergrads' ?(TechCrunch) Frizz is an anonymous, college-only, Reddit-like social app that has recently closed a $4.5 million seed round. They are planning on expanding to more than 1k campuses by the end of the year. Their biggest differentiator on the market of social apps is how they handle moderation. Fizz hires 15 moderators per school to supplement their standard AI-based content screening.
Who's going to save us from bad AI? (MIT Technology Review) The White House unveiled an AI Bill of Rights, which, in short, is supposed to limit AI harms and hold the AI sector accountable.
A former Facebook engineer wants to help you make your own cell network (The Verge) Ukama is selling boxes that let you broadcast your home internet connection as LTE. It envisions people using it to build a crowd-sourced cell network.
‘The future of the art market’: Christie’s to become first major auction house to sell a standalone NFT work of art ?(The Art Newspaper) The question now is how long before NFTs are traded rather than merely being bought and held on to. Only then will we be able to assess whether this market will thrive or not.
The good, the bad, the interesting Your AHA-moment stimulation
Long software investor has his doubts about web3 (TechCrunch) Antonio Rodriguez from Matrix (an early investor in Hubspot, Zendesk and Canva) talks about web3, the promises of a decentralized Internet, and why he doesn't put much stock in it.
Why retailers have a complicated relationship with self-checkout tech (Modern Retail) How retailers are struggling to fit self-checkout into a good retailing experience.
How online moderation became rebranded as censorship (The Washington Post) What people can and can’t say online — and the role of Big Tech in making those calls — has emerged as a critical fault line in American politics. The left cries for content moderation to tamp down disinformation, racism and misogyny. The right decries that as censorship and demands the right to free speech.
What is streaming doing to blockbusters? (Jeff Jarvis) Streaming is having an existential crisis, and viewers can tell.
A look into Apple's new framework: SKAdNetwork 4.0 (MobileDevMemo) Announced at WWDC in June, it's the next iteration of Apple's privacy-safe advertising measurement framework that is set to be released later this year.
The next century of computing (Bzogramming) 80 brief predictions for the future of computing and what will happen after the end of Moore's Law.
New patterns for amazing apps (Web.dev) See a collection of new patterns for amazing apps, including clipboard patterns, file patterns, and advanced app patterns.
Self-managing teams: why, what, and how we do it at EL Passion — PATRYCJA PATERSKA, Content Manager
WHY: YOUR PROJECT'S FOCAL POINT — THE KICKOFF:?The setup before the project’s kickoff is?a crucial element in your product development.?Every team goes through a set of stages before they can start performing to its full potential. And if a team hasn’t worked together before,?it can take them days or even months to understand and set up the project?to then synchronize effectively on a daily basis. With the already existing self-managing teams, however, this whole process is shortened significantly.
WHAT: WHAT SELF-MANAGING TEAMS ARE EXACTLY:?A self-managing team differs from a traditionally understood team in several aspects. The core differentiator is project ownership. In a self-managing team, everyone is involved in planning and organizing the project workflow and key processes. As a result, the whole team shares a collective responsibility for the product they deliver. Self-managing teams are smaller, so they have more interactions on the daily, tend to be more cohesive and invested, especially when compared to bigger and less specialized teams with no real common denominator. They are generally more driven by commitment and trust rather than hierarchy, allowing for better knowledge sharing, more efficient information flow, fewer delays, and more. See self-managing teams benefits.
How we improved internal and cross-team communication with Extended DISC —Interview with Zuzanna Kowalska, HR Business Partner
WHAT DISC IS EXACTLY:?DISC is a personal assessment tool that’s supposed to improve teamwork, communication in and outside the teams, and productivity in the workplace in general.
The key here is that every participant is able to generate their own personalized report unveiling not only their preferred styles and forms of communication, but also their motivators, strengths, and in what areas they might want to better themselves. It Is important to realize that those reports are not to judge you or others. They exist to help you understand how you and others communicate, make interactions more effective, and reduce confusion that might arise when different communication styles clash.
WHY ORGANIZATIONS NEED DISC ASSESSMENT:?When you’re a manager or a team leader you get to know what natural talents people possess, so you are able to better assign people to projects, working groups, and in certain cases, teams. You actually discover when they feel most comfortable, so task distribution is also significantly improved. Seems a bit idealistic when you talk about it, but it works well in practice.There are people who work well under pressure, and there are those who need to step back for a while to make the right call. Allowing them to use their natural inclinations makes them more confident and motivated, and simply happier at work. And this is also insanely important in today's job market where you have the Great Resignation happening around the corner, and people strive to work at a place that values them as humans, and not only filled vacancies. Read the full intervie w.
As always, if you have any feedback, write to us at [email protected].