Medium has acquired a “social digital book platform” called Glose. The platform “reaches more than one million readers in 200 countries. Boasting a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, Glose carries ebooks and audiobooks from all major publishers, including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster.”

The move seems to have been made to help Medium members discover (and therefore synthesize and share) more ideas. From Medium founder Ev:

Books are a means of exploring an idea, a way to go deeper. The vast majority of the world’s ideas are stored in books and journals, yet are hardly searchable nor shareable. …

Earlier this week, I signed up for David Hoang’s newsletter, and I’m sure glad that I did. In response to this week’s attack on the capital, David shares his views on the systems we are born into. He proffers how these systems come with their own unconscious biases and how they can play into the wrong hands, even in those cases when — looking in from the outside — it doesn’t make sense.

It turns out that because you experienced oppression, it does not make you immune from participating in other systems of oppression. Imagine how many unconscious bias decisions one might make a day. Think about when that’s multiplied by every human being for the last hundred years. Now, imagine when that bias is conscious, and someone made a deliberate decision to oppress. As Darien Boyd wrote, the system is working as designed. If you thought The Social Dilemma was enlightening around system design, wait till you read about systemic racism. Some of you might have similar upbringings of being raised in model minority families. They might not like a narcissistic president, in fact, they might despise him. However, he talks about communism, socialism, and the threat of it. …

I’ve always held the thought that, like a joke, if you have to explain what an award is then it doesn’t really matter. Having said that, I just learned that the book I co-authored with Ben Goldman and Abby Sinnott received a gold MarCom Award. Our book, Remote Work for Design Teams was conceived, written, and published in three weeks. We crammed to meet the immediate need of thousands of leaders who were struggling with leading teams remotely for the first time in their careers. It’s not a large book but we poured our heart and soul into each sentence. I have a happy memories of working closely with Aarron Walter and Susan Kaplow during the editing process. Both of them helped illuminate a path in my journey to become a better writer. …

Earlier this week my colleague Adam Fry-Pierce presented the following to attendees of Remote Design Week. Here are the top ten insights in design and business during COVID-19. All sourced from the top design leaders around the world during April 2020. A report sourced from Design Leadership Forum events and team research conducted earlier this month.

Disclaimer: This report has an inherent bias as the data source is employed, leaders. We should acknowledge that people have been laid off or worse. …

Adios Muchachos! And Thanks for all of the Sun Downs.

Not in any hurry to tell a story, I typically like to take my time to get to the point, but I think this news warrants the shorter path. Kitchen Storey and I are leaving Tejas and moving to the other side of the Continental Divide to Seattle.

In a few weeks we’ll head for the land of Pearl Jam, the finest of ocean foods, Patrick Dempsey (I know he just retired but I’m going to include him anyway since he’s the reason why we’re Sounders fans), Mac and Jacks African Amber Ale, a body of water called a “sound” with a ferry transit system, and weather that doesn’t melt your face off and incur instant melanoma. …

Show Notes

Season One of Sprints & Milestones was all about the principles of digital project management, taken from Brett’s book Project Management for Humans. We released seven episodes full of discussion and stories about our experiences leading projects. It was very much about us, but really it’s for you. In our final episode of the season, we respond to questions submitted by listeners.

Several questions about project leadership came in, so we sat down to share our two (sometimes different) perspectives. …

Kitchen Storey has Left the Airport

Yesterday morning Kitchen Storey came home from a two week gig in Des Moines, Iowa. American Airlines flight AA1326 to Austin arrived at 9:53AM, and with that, almost eight years of constant travel — life on the “road” — came to a welcome conclusion.

For those who don’t know the last eight out of ten years Kitchen Storey and I have lived mostly apart due to travel requirements for her job. She is a chemical engineer who compiles and facilitates hazard safety reviews for manufacturing and refining process that deal with hazardous chemicals. Name the worst chemicals on the planet and she’s dealt with it at places that make things like dynamite, frozen food, beer, food additives, oil, and natural gas. It’s her job to review processes around the use of these chemicals and try to kill people on paper so that she can work upstream and figure out how to ensure that particular event never happens (in simulation anyway, it’s up to the facility owners and operators to follow the recommendations derived from the facilitation work). …

I made an Internet radio program and it’s called Sprints & Milestones.

I’m pleased as punch to share that a friend and I have begun recording the first season of a podcast called Sprints and Milestones.

Brett Harned — one-time co-worker and a long time friend of mine — wrote a book last fall called Project Management for Humans. After reading the first draft, I asked about Brett’s plans to market the book and suggested that he start a podcast to help continue the lift that new books typically get when they launch.

Many, many months later we finally have a program that not only compliments the many messages in the book but should provide useful to anyone who has to manage projects whether it’s a part of their job or a full-time role. We had a lot of fun putting the show together, and we’ve already got a handful of ideas to keep things fun and informative in the future. …