New Year New Theme: Back Around the Fire

It’s been a year since I’ve worked on my site. I’ve looked at it a little, and maybe poked at a few of the logs burning in the fire, but like any campsite it’s time for a little cleanup. It’s time to rake the leaves, collect up the ashes of an over used pit and stack some more lumber for the next fire.

I need to do this because I’ve broken my own rule. This site is meant to be a place for telling stories, trying new things and keeping my skills fresh. It’s not like there hasn’t been good ideas in the last year just my focus has been different.

Where has my Focus been

My last post was around starting a new role for Hims and Hers. I am still there, and greatly enjoying the work. I was hired to form a platform team dedicated to rebuilding their approach to a CMS with the goal to making everything self serve. It’s been a successful year, just look at the stock. Let’s just say that our teams work is responsible for half that growth.* *disclaimer. I am not making a real claim about being directly responsible for the stock of Hims & Hers. This statement is a gesture of enjoyment and happiness for my team and the entire companies hard work and success. 

What Have I learned

I have been pleased to help build out a new team, some people new to the company, and some people who had been there already. Some of those individuals are new to their career and some people who are well established. However, what has been new for me, and not knowing the domain more than those people that I worked with.

At Angi, I had been there for almost 12 years. In that time I had gotten a chance to hear almost every ‘new Idea’ that people had to reshape the company. That meant that a lot of time I played a story teller, sometimes trying to warn against ideas that were proven to be bad, and other times someone who tried to steer the idea in a direction previously untraveled.

At Hims & Hers I get to play one of my more favorite roles, one who gets to ask a lot of questions. I get to learn new terms, and learn about tests already run. I get to suggest new ideas and learn who is the historian with a campfire tail of their own to learn from. It’s fun being on the other side of the fire trying to see what the flames may tell you.

It’s time

I last rebuilt this site a year ago. It was built on next.js as a way to get some practice for all of the code challenges of interviews. It was a sample for integrating into a small scale lightweight CMS, sanity. I built a quick theme to use, and tested some tools.

It still looks nice enough, but it doesn’t fit the goal of the site. It’s also time to dust it off and practice a few skills. After all, as a manager, how often do you really get to deep dive into the fun realm of coding? Those that do. I’m proud of you. Those that don’t I imagine that you are like me and one who has to wear many hats.

I’m not going to burn it all down. It’s not a bad site after all. It’s about cleaning things up. Rearranging the logs and perhaps even adding a few more stools for others to sit and join.

So check in soon, bring your collaborative spirit and lets see if we can get some more innovations going.