75 Days to Learn and Build With the INN Nerds

Phoenix, AZ
The view from my home office when I sign-in for scrum.

My first week with INN has me reflecting on how job circumstances influence our approach to work and how we think about it.

Working remotely

My colleagues Kaeti Hinck and Meredith Melragon have some great thoughts about making remote work work and starting a job with the INN Nerds team.

Remote work has a unique set of challenges compared to office environments, but it's made easier by terrific documentation, and a friendly and welcoming team. I'm using a co-working space in my neighborhood, but I get plenty of face time with my colleagues. I've even got my own emoticon!

Working with an end date

Every job I've ever worked has come with a finite end date either at the end of a summer or the end of a semester. It changes how you approach a job.

Whenever I start a job, I count the days I have to work. This isn't an act of counting down to escape, but instead adding up opportunities. With an end date, job security is irrelevant. I'm focused on making meaningful contributions and leaving things better than I found them.

I have 75 work days with the INN Nerds this summer (70 after today). Knowing that number helps me immensely. It dictates the kind of projects I’ll pitch to my team and budget time for meetings and bugs.

Working on iterative products instead of one-off products

Prior to joining INN, all of my design and development has been for one-off products used by a single organization. It’s much simpler. One brand. One group of users. Some corners can be cut and user experience decisions are simpler.

But iterative products are much more exciting and a better investment of development energies. Each enhancement made to an iterative project like Largo helps dozens of newsrooms, and has to be documented . Building tools intended for a wide range of skill levels and organizations forces design problems to be solved more completely. The risks and challenges are greater, but so are the rewards.

Fun stuff

I pushed an initial version of NewsPub Cookbook earlier this week, a roundup of data visualization and publishing-centric development tools. It's not quite complete -- pull requests welcome!

I’ve always liked good organization-branded desktop backgrounds (the name of the team is the INN Nerds). On my personal account I use photos, but particularly doing remote work I appreciate the reminder of “where” I am (at work, even if it is on my couch) and who I’m doing it for.

INN_BG
David's INN desktop background (h/t Kaeti Hinck). Download