Compute Midwest – 2016 – CK Hicks – Heartful Technologist (@ckhicks)

These are a few of the notes I took at the Compute Midwest Conference in Kansas City, Missouri on November 2, 2016:

“Crowdstorm” your ideas. Ask for everyone’s submissions to solve something, and do so on a regular basis.

Build the simplest solution to solve the problem, then add and/or layer other solutions on top of that first one.
FOCACA is king! “Freedom Of Choice Among Competing Alternatives” drives the status quo down and breeds innovation.

Being mission-driven and focused on big ideas keeps employees involved at multiple levels.
“Open” means more information, more security via a wealth of knowledge, and more ideas to draw from at any given time.
“Security” does not mean locking things down and regulating every aspect of your business, product, workforce, etc.

With the rise of computers, we have traded accuracy for speed in our communication.
Stories are just information disguised as entertainment. (The lasting value is the information itself.)

Sometimes incremental storage (cacheing) is more effective than long-term storage, because at least some of the data survives and can be used to shape future missions if something goes wrong. Take time to store things incrementally.
NASA looks for: Intellectual curiosity, big picture thinking, the ability to make system-side connections, good communicators, leaders, being comfortable with change, having technical skills, appreciation for process, “proper paranoia” (appropriate to the larger goal), and high self-confidence…just short of arrogance.

You can’t improve what you don’t measure! Teamwork means the best idea wins, no stone should be left unturned, and failing fast while iterating faster.
Products and services need to have customer data to improve. Make your entire team participate in that information gathering.