Since I’m about to join the team at SoundCloud, I’ve been thinking a lot about the audio I create in my life. It goes way beyond music: as much as I love recording the occasional emoji jingle, the vast majority of the audio I create comes in the form of…talking. ENTER THE RØDE SMARTLAV MICROPHONE. It’s a lavalier mic that plugs into your iPhone!! (And some other smartphones.) Over the past two weeks, I’ve used my new smartLav mic to record three different talks. It goes like this: Wear something with a lapel. Clip on smartLav and plug it into my phone a few minutes before my talk is scheduled to begin. Load up the SoundCloud app and hit “Record” before I go on stage. If I’m using slides, open the Keynote Remote app to swipe from one to the next. (SoundCloud will keep recording in the background). Otherwise, slip the phone into my back pocket. Give the talk! Once offstage, stop the recording. Crop the extra audio at the beginning and end using the SoundCloud app’s Trim feature. Name the track and upload it right then and there. After I gave my talk at Dev Bootcamp in Chicago a few weeks ago, I trimmed and uploaded the audio on my walk back to the train. Uploading it right away is, for me, the most important part. Immediacy over flawlessness seems like a fair trade. Done is better than perfect, and making a habit of sharing my talks right after I give them increases the chances that I’ll share them at all. The Røde smartLav mic is sold out pretty much everywhere online, but you can order one here with an estimated ship date of “end of July 2013.” I’ve loved mine, and I can’t help but hope that this is a habit more people will take up, too. I want to hear your imperfect words.

Since I’m about to join the team at SoundCloud, I’ve been thinking a lot about the audio I create in my life. It goes way beyond music: as much as I love recording the occasional emoji jingle, the vast majority of the audio I create comes in the form of…talking.

ENTER THE RØDE SMARTLAV MICROPHONE.

It’s a lavalier mic that plugs into your iPhone!! (And some other smartphones.)

Over the past two weeks, I’ve used my new smartLav mic to record three different talks. It goes like this:

  1. Wear something with a lapel.
  2. Clip on smartLav and plug it into my phone a few minutes before my talk is scheduled to begin.
  3. Load up the SoundCloud app and hit “Record” before I go on stage.
  4. If I’m using slides, open the Keynote Remote app to swipe from one to the next. (SoundCloud will keep recording in the background). Otherwise, slip the phone into my back pocket.
  5. Give the talk!
  6. Once offstage, stop the recording. Crop the extra audio at the beginning and end using the SoundCloud app’s Trim feature.
  7. Name the track and upload it right then and there. After I gave my talk at Dev Bootcamp in Chicago a few weeks ago, I trimmed and uploaded the audio on my walk back to the train.

Uploading it right away is, for me, the most important part. Immediacy over flawlessness seems like a fair trade. Done is better than perfect, and making a habit of sharing my talks right after I give them increases the chances that I’ll share them at all.

The Røde smartLav mic is sold out pretty much everywhere online, but you can order one here with an estimated ship date of “end of July 2013.” I’ve loved mine, and I can’t help but hope that this is a habit more people will take up, too. I want to hear your imperfect words.

I can’t believe I got to do this: I gave the inaugural Friday Night Talk at Max Temkin’s studio space in Chicago last week. The title of the talk was “Big Breaks and Breakthroughs.” In it, I shared revelations and surprises from my past two years of mentoring, including: the importance of noticing, the power of open invitations, the perils of being held to unspoken expectations, and what it means to do the hard work of finding new voices.

Now that the talk is up, I hope you’ll take a look!

I spent today reading These Days, a new novel by Jack Cheng. Since I backed the book on Kickstarter, I had my heart set on reading the hardcover instead of a digital copy. This meant that every time I felt my thumb twitch, itching to highlight a luminous passage, I had to subdue the impulse; the book was no glassy device. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to scribble in the book, either—I think because only so many hardcovers were made, and this was one of them. Eventually, I settled on taking photos of the parts I loved. There were many.

There was always something wonderful about a clean new desk, a desk free of coffee rings and loose scraps of paper, free of postcards and dead pens and blister packs of allergy medicine. A clean new desk was like an unformed block of ice, gleaming with possibility, not yet corrupted by the blaring twin suns of distraction and crude habits.

These Days by Jack Cheng

I’m reading These Days today for 24-Hour Bookclub, and this passage jumped out at me—probably because I’m on the verge of starting a new job. The belief that “everything will be perfect from now on” is irrepressible, even when I know from past experience that clean new desks always become real, messy workspaces in spite of themselves.

thejogging: Straightened Out ‘@’ Symbol, 2013 Digital image ✍ The long tail was there all along.

thejogging:

Straightened Out ‘@’ Symbol, 2013

Digital image

✍

The long tail was there all along.

(via murketing)

What Happens Next

Every now and then, I write a letter about what I’ve learned lately. Today’s letter was a little different.

Over the past year, people have often wondered out loud: what will you do next? What happens after you graduate? For a while now, I’ve had a hunch. But now that it’s official, I wanted to share the news with all of you.

What’s happening next is this: I’m moving to Berlin to work at SoundCloud.

!!!

The most amazing part? Erik is, too. After two years of long distance, we’re reuniting on the other side of the world. I’ll be joining SoundCloud as a Community Manager focused on scaling up their community engagement efforts; Erik will be joining as a Developer Evangelist. I am pretty much over the moon.

I’ve been on the lookout for a way to work with David Noël ever since our first conversation. The day we met, I tweeted in awe: “Too energized to sleep after dinner & ideas with @David, thanks to @eqx1979’s introduction. Future history, left turns & leading by example.” Over the next two years, we talked all the time; every conversation blew my mind. But SoundCloud was still in Berlin, and the rest of my life was still in San Francisco, and neither city would budge. The impasse was undeniable, but so was the draw.

The first turning point came when David invited me to Berlin last November to meet with the rest of the team—just to see. What I wasn’t prepared for was that every conversation would leave me in awe. Back in my teal and orange hotel room after a day of those conversations, I remember telling Erik in disbelief: I think I need to work here. I returned to Boston exhilarated, but perplexed. I stayed that way for weeks.

The second turning point came in December. Erik and I were on FaceTime, just catching up on each other’s lives, when suddenly he brought up an idea: what if I worked at SoundCloud, too? My eyes went wide as the idea sank in; I tried my hardest not to explode with excitement. That would be AMAZING. The next time David and I talked, I mentioned the idea and he broke out one of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen.

The rest is history…except for what happens next.

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Where is this from? The song tingled like déjà vu. I hunted through my memory, grasped at keywords for clues. And found it: this scene and what it’s like to be fourteen.

elleluna: Keep moving, she said. And I did. Floored by Elle’s art, always.

elleluna:

Keep moving, she said. And I did.

Floored by Elle’s art, always.

I got absolutely lost in Lorde’s music this weekend, thanks to David’s strong recommendations. Tracked down this interview:

So tell me, you go by Lorde. How did that come about?

I just made it up really. I really like the way it looks, the way it sounds. I like the way it’s kind of feminine, but it’s a Lord—it’s a male position of power you know? The e softens it too, it’s a combination of things. I mean, I like to read a lot. I’m really into how words look and sound, so that was important to me.

Can’t wait to hear more from Ella. Extraordinary.

A Day of Dev Bootcamp

I was supposed to spend yesterday in an airplane, hurtling from San Francisco back to Boston. Instead, I ended up in a fifteenth-floor conference room in Chicago with 30 aspiring web developers, getting them excited about coding.

What? How? Rewind:

It’s April 2011, and Jesse Farmer and I meet for breakfast at Stacks in San Francisco. We’ve reached a critical mass of friends in common, and so we decide to connect two more dots. Our conversation ranges from Chicago to Tumblr to fashion, but the part that sticks with me is the moment when Jesse asks: “but how do we get more women into coding?”

May 2012, and an email from Dave Hoover shows up in my inbox. We have a lot in common, not least our shared interest in mentoring and apprenticeship. It takes a while for us to hop on Skype, but once we do, it’s evident that our wavelengths are even closer than we thought. We resolve to stay in touch.

January 2013 finds me sending out my latest letter about what I’ve learned lately. In the letter, I write:

I’ve heard from a handful of people that my posts about programming have inspired them to give it a shot, or to get back in the saddle. And yes yes yes, that’s half the reason I’m doing this at all! I want more people to know what it feels like to make it to the edge. But the writing has gone about as far as it’s going to go on its own. If this work is to travel further and mean more, I need help. Will you tell people it exists?

The letter lands in Dave’s inbox; he’s been reading along. I receive a note from him in return: 

If you ever find yourself in Chicago, I hope you’ll come spend some time with us at Dev Bootcamp. We push people to the edge every day and try to instill in them the ability to remain comfortable with confusion.

“Dev Bootcamp” rings a bell, and loudly: Jesse is one of its founders! Dev Bootcamp is a 9-week intensive intro to web development, and Dave is starting up the Chicago campus. Two more dots, connected in a surprising way.

Two weeks after Dave’s note about the letter, another note shows up. He’s wondering, too: how do we get more women into coding? Not just in, but into. We set up a Skype call for the afternoon of Wednesday, February 13.

On the call, I learn that Dave’s made significant progress: he and Elliott Garms and Jen Meyers have organized a day-long introduction to the Dev Bootcamp way. Through careful planning and the efforts of a supportive developer community, over 50% of those who’ve signed up for the workshop are women. But there’s still the question of how to make the most of the momentum, and how to keep it going.

This is something I think about all the time, so we dig into brainstorming. I float the idea of bringing in speakers who will tell their stories. “If I were to give a talk, it would be about how it took forever for coding to click for me…but once it did, I was hooked for good.”

“Wait. Do you want to give a talk?”

“Wait. Yes!”

“Are you free this Monday?” Monday is the day of the event.

We both laugh. The absurdity of the proposition is self-evident. It’s too soon! Unless…

“Actually, maybe. I’m supposed to be in an airplane all day. But if you can get me from San Francisco to Chicago on Sunday and from Chicago to Boston on Monday…I’m there.”

It’s getting real. We start looking up flights. “Could you stay and mentor the students all day?” I’d love nothing more. Okay! Lunch talk plus mentoring. “I have to run to a meeting,” I say, “but let me know what you think. I want to make this happen.”

By 9pm, the flights are booked. This is really happening.

Yesterday, it happened.

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This one’s for you, Marie:

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How do we get more women into coding? This is the answer that took me to Chicago yesterday: by telling our stories, and by seizing every opportunity to share what we’ve learned. 

Thank you, Dev Bootcamp. And thank you to Dave, Jesse, Jen, and Elliott for building the momentum that made yesterday possible.