Final newsletter before ramping back up to regular work from the vacation lifestyle. Some work conversations have started up about new things and I'm mid-project with a major client. So there will definitely be things to do. Looking forward to picking it back up.

The streaming continues on the YouTube channel. 15.00 CEST this afternoon I'll be building more of that photo sharing site. I think I'm mostly done with authentication (figuring out who a user is) and ready to move forward with authorization (figuring out what a user is allowed to do). Check it out.

I'm building this prototype with the PETAL stack which a lot of people seem interested in. There is a playlist of previous streams for this project.

A new episode of BEAM Radio is out which centers on learning and teaching code. Steven ran the thing, lots of fun.

Enjoyable meetings?

I've had four people that were my bosses in some shape or form that all knew how to make meetings, gatherings of people and events into something that felt meaningful and powerful. I think that's an unusually strong number as I haven't had a long series of bosses. Some of them overlapped in time as well in a number of weird ways.

The entrepreneur that got me my first paid programming work was mostly a freelance project manager and he was a close friend of two of the other eventual bosses. They worked together on things like meetings, event and something called "experience-based learning" which I think fed back into how they did things. Essentially, a lot of their work was about showing that things didn't have to and shouldn't be boring to be learning/teaching. They dogfooded this approach.

I would say they were all good at wielding things like icebreakers, having prepared ideas of what a meeting or outing should focus on and having an agenda for the meeting or the day that let you settle into whatever the plan was. They were all good at drumming up enthusiasm and were all fairly charismatic leaders in their own right with their own set of peculiarities.

The entrepreneur was kind, personable and fun. Great at pitching anything and super fun to work with. He had done a lot of sales and that came out not as sleeze but rather as being good with people.

One was ex-military I believe and had a bit more of an authoritive side to him, he enjoyed asking hard questions. As I worked more with him his best contribution to my work was challenging my first effort on pretty much anything. Super annoying and completely valid in my case. I don't think that's a good blanket rule but it did a pretty good job of pushing me to do better at that time.

The third one of that group was very rarely my direct superior but he has the enthusiasm of Adam Savage (current Adam, he was never as edgy as Adam on Mythbusters). Absolutely infectious. Kind, curious and great at keeping things light.

The experience-based learning thing absolutely worked for me. Along with being a fairly free organisation, not very tightly regimented and then having the monday-morning meeting be a thing where there would always be some new exercise to put a new perspective on what we were doing. It was great.

I went on to start an agency with the entrepreneur and he ran a lot of interesting meetings and team-days during that time. There was always a plan, always a considered group, we didn't have a lot of meetings for the team that were without reason. Sometimes the reason was to solve something particular, sometimes it was strategic and making sure we were on the same page for the next leg of the journey.

Later I went on to work at a company with the ex-military guy. That's where my fourth boss shows up. He was a founder and he was the spine of the culture of that company. He was kind, enthusiastic and considered everything possible. He wanted to see things happen and he expected everyone to be enthusiastic about making things happen. The company did well and he would spoil us for any other employers really. I went into self-employ after leaving there. He spent lots of  time, effort and money making sure the office was a great place to be. He made sure we had things to be proud of. If the others bosses knew how to make events and meetings special. He knew how to put that feeling deep into the everyday.

When the company was doing well the kick-off events we had were ridiculous. Probably not extreme by Wall Street-standards. They were both luxurious compared to your typical "let's go bowling" and well put together for team-building. Attention to detail. Intentionality. It was obvious care was put into it.

I left after he sold the company and as that culture started to collapse without the champion and as new incentives came pushing.

All of these leaders that I've taken influence from and respect also had flaws which I'll try no to also adopt. We're all people. I'll have my own flaws. However, the way they collected the right people and then put interesting combinations of those people in the right room with the right incentives is fascinating to me. I often try to replicate it.

It makes me think of what I've heard from Priya Parker on podcasts. Particularly "How to Have Transformative Gatherings" on Hurry Slowly. The Business of Authority also had an episode on it where they go over her stuff after screwing up an interview recording (ouch!). The gist of her thing seems to be, sweat the details, make intentional choices about who, what and where and take a lot of ownership as the host to make the things you set out to do happen. Not a low-touch approach. Rather the  opposite. There is a big difference in being invited to an event as

Yeah, don't sweat it if you can't make it but there's a bunch of developers I'm inviting to talk about some stuff.

and

I'm pulling together a gathering of independent developers for a plan I want to discuss, you're the best Android dev I know, can you make it?

I haven't read the book yet. The Art of Gathering, it is high on my list.

Day-to-day work meetings are a microcosm of larger meetings and larger events. You shouldn't run icebreakers on your daily stand-up. If you run a stand-up it needs to be fast or it is usually hell. Someone needs to mind the clock, respect everyone's time, mediate what should be taken on later and so on. While some other meetings can be loose in nature, typically they benefit from clarity of purpose. This also goes for remote, just because it is easy to call a meeting, be clear on what is needed. Should we have video? How many really need to attend? What can be prepared? How do you make it the most useful?

As the world opens up I want to have more physical gatherings as well, personal and professional. I've missed those connections. Especially with friends. Anyone with hobbies that involve others know the value of a well-focused gathering. A soccer practice doesn't lack clarity of purpose, a board-game convention can have multiple purposes but the people are quite self-selected to make the event something particular. And if you've ever gone to an event where you were supposed to play video games and it turns out everyone just wants to talk, I bet some people will be frustrated. Expectations are important.

Making time for other people, inviting them in, setting a good frame, being the host. I want to do more of it. Want to get better at it. It is a special thing and it shouldn't be underestimated.

Good meetings matter. Good events matter.

What has been your best gatherings? You can reach me at lars@underjord.io or Twitter where I'm @lawik.

Thank you for reading, I appreciate your attention.

- Lars Wikman