Pantheon Community

Work Out Loud: November 16-22, 2020

Let's Talk WebOps General Discussion
#1

Hi, all!

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Work Out Loud. :tada:

This weekly thread is a great place to share what you’re working on, learning and building. Let’s cheer each other on, help each other out, and generally have a good time.

Three dancing dinosaurs

Welcome!
Welcome to our newest community members: @rjsamuel, @ajv009, @samxu, @eojthebrave, @jeingham, @mmcachran, @jillbinder, @dnbonneville, @origamistudios, @daddison, @lcatlett and @singularo! We’re so excited to have you here & invite you to participate in this thread with some insight into what you’re working on this week. :slight_smile:

This week, I am…

  • Attending and speaking at Lesbians Who Tech Debug Summit 2020. Super excited to see a conversation between Alicia Garza & Angelica Ross. :microphone:
  • Keeping the Gift of Open Source momentum up as we approach December! :gift:
  • Working on a couple blog posts: one about the history of diversity in tech, and one about a really cool customer project…more on that soon, I hope!
  • Teaching the basics of WebOps to our newest Pantheors (that’s what we call Pantheon employees)
  • New Mexico is going back to full lockdown, so maybe I’ll join the bread baking train. :bread: Any easy recipes for a newbie baker?

I recently read a powerful article from Lara Hogan about how to respond when a teammate shares their grief. She shares some powerful tips for listening and making space, and I think in 2020 we could all use a little more emotional support.

Your turn! Here are a few questions to get you started:

  • What are you working on this week?
  • What is motivating (or demotivating) you this week?
  • What are you learning?
  • Any good videos/podcasts/articles you can recommend?

I nominate @dgorton, @McKennaR, @mmlc & @JohnRichardsII!

p.s. Credit for this idea goes to the folks at the Community Roundtable!

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#2

Welcome new community friends! :wave: We are super excited to have you here!!

This week I am…

  • Working on all things Gift of Open Source :gift: :christmas_tree: If you haven’t heard about it, you can read all about it here! Quick teaser: it’s our very first, free community event!
  • I am also working on building out community personas alongside @katie.richards :clap: We are super excited about this project because this means we get to know each and everyone of you that much better! So we can truly create a community where you feel included and welcome to participate.
  • On a personal note, I have been shopping for my very first home! :houses: I am buying nearly 3K miles away from where I live right now. So if you have any first time home buyer tips, please send them my way!

What I have learned…

  • Mental health is important! I tend to be the person who shuts down when things become too overwhelming so I am working on mindfulness & putting my phone down more often to enjoy all my surroundings :peace_symbol:
  • The last couple of weeks we have been learning all about DE&I here at Pantheon. It has definitely made me realize where I can do better to stop everyday biases & discrimination and just how often these kinds of things happen in my everyday life.

What is motivating me…

  • All of you! I am so thankful for this community! 2020 is has been a weird year–a lonely one at that. But the friendships I have made here truly do keep me going on some days.

I nominate @katy.gray & @elishafeliciano to share some of their highlights! :heavy_heart_exclamation:

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#3

Motivating:
Had a great staycation and feel rejuvenated. I know it was refreshing because I woke up excited about the projects I’m working on.

Projects:
I love when my projects have a shared theme so learnings on one helps with the others. That’s happening this week as at least three of my goals are around expanding on WebOps, especially on the keys of iteration and automation.

Learnings
I’ve been combing through stories and case studies around WebOps and I’m seeing a lot of consistent ideas. For instance, there is a ton of work that goes into maintaining a site. Being freed from that overhead opens up the opportunity to focus on the parts of a website that drive impact. These are a few of the quotes that made me happy to see validation for the WebOps model.

Rather than helping people keep their sites running, we’ll be able to concentrate on helping them make effective websites.

If we had to keep up with DevOps, we wouldn’t have time to focus on the challenges of this new political environment.

While we were busy taking care of our people, Pantheon took care of it [maintaining infrastructure]

Exciting non-work thing
This week @JQTNguyen and I will be going up against the final baddie in The Rise of Red Skull.

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#4

A good realtor can be so helpful when moving to a new area. I got an amazing realtor when moving to St. Louis and she helped me avoid so many pitfalls while looking for a house.

I kept a bad realtor for way too long before too. So my second piece of advice, change realtors if they don’t seem to be advocating for you. This is an important decision; your priority is finding the right place not making the realtor happy.

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#5

your priority is finding the right place not making the realtor happy.

+1 to that! Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and don’t be afraid to change realtors if you aren’t getting the support you need.

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#6

Thank you @sparklingrobots & @JohnRichardsII for that awesome feedback! I am incredibly lucky to have a wonderful realtor and close friend by my side. But I do catch myself from time to time being flexible on things instead of being truthful. So this is always a great reminder to put my feelings first.

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#7

@JohnRichardsII I am really intrigued to know more. What case studies have you found really helpful in hitting home this idea of #webops

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#8

The ones that stand out to me are ones where people are able to leverage Pantheon in such away that they are then freed up to make an impact somewhere else.

Early adopter Tableau is a great example: https://pantheon.io/resources/tableau-finds-faster-iteration-leads-innovation-pantheon-case-study
Elisa Fink’s quote encapsulates it well.

I’m writing a blog related to the recent OIST one. I use his quote from the HiEd summit up above: https://pantheon.io/resources/oist-scales-team-with-managed-updates-and-developer-tools

If you want more, there is a helpful–internal only–page that @carolyn has started building in Confluence that pulls together resources from the weekly WebOps kickoff talks. https://getpantheon.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/VULCAN/pages/1381761354/WebOps+Reference+Guide

@sparklingrobots has also been working to help categorize our existing case studies to the keys so that will soon make finding resources easier :raised_hands:

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#9

What a great idea! At my work, we keep a OneNote document that we update every week with similar questions about the past week and it really helps to show your progress over time.

  • What are you working on this week?

A fun project! I’m writing some custom code to generate SVG QR codes based on a URL with a random code, sort of like a URL shorter service but with some extra added goodies.

  • What is motivating (or demotivating) you this week?

Motivating - That Thanksgiving is coming up and I love to cook. I’m planning on making an old-world style pumpkin pie that isn’t a custard-style, but instead more like a mincemeat pie of sorts.

  • What are you learning?

Drupal internationalization and translations. I must say, I’m pretty impressed with how D8 handles translations. Well done!

  • Any good videos/podcasts/articles you can recommend?

Currently, I’m listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz all about history of sounds, music origins, etc. It’s very informative.

@sparklingrobots - In terms of easy starting baking, I love this whole wheat loaf from King Arthur Flour - I make it for my family regularly and it’s very simple and makes great toast!

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#10

That sounds delicious! You will have to share the final product of your masterpiece with us all! I am also super excited for Thanksgiving. I have decided to take on the task of cooking my very first turkey :turkey: I need all the tips if you have any!

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#11

a) Thanks for joining in ! That SVG QR code generator project sounds fun!

b) I had no idea there were mincemeat-style pumpkin pies! AND I think I have a new favorite YouTube channel – Tasting History!? Sounds amazing. Also, paging @katie.richards for food + history content

c) Thank you for the recipe!! I just added whole wheat flour to my grocery delivery.

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#12

Taste of History is my JAM! I think we forget as we age how effective using a multi-sensory learning approach can be to help us remember things. Food is such a good way to get in the head space of someone from long ago

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