This is a little embarrassing. The last time I sat down to write one of these “quarterly” updates was in April 2019.
That was definitely more than a quarter ago.
To put it mildly: A lot has happened since then.
The last two-thirds of 2019 went mostly as expected, personally and professionally. Highlights included a trip to Bali/Singapore/Tokyo in May, another awesome World Domination Summit in June, going to Montréal for the first time in September, visiting Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto in November, releasing my Skillshare course, maintaining a core base of clients, and continuing to be involved with the Oakland chapter of CreativeMornings.
The first quarter of 2020 was shaping up to be great—I visited some friends in Florida, attended Alt Summit in Palm Springs, and was getting excited about upcoming trips and new ideas for business.
And then COVID-19 happened.
The turning point for me was in mid-March when the shelter-in-place order went into effect in California.
Professionally, the early stages of quarantine/lockdown led to a lot of work since many of my clients wanted to produce resources to help their customers adapt to working from home (I share many of those below). And it didn’t feel like a huge change since I’d already been working this way for over two years.
But it soon became clear that this wasn’t just a two-week phase and we’d be living this way for the foreseeable future.
And then, the highly publicized murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd brought awareness of America’s systemic racism into the national conversation. On a personal level, I realized I’d been ignorant about what it means to be Black in this country. I think my reactions are typical: It hurts to admit this and it’s scary to talk about these topics for fear of “getting it wrong.” This is an ongoing process—I’m still trying to learn more and expand my awareness.
So yes, there’s been a lot happening since I last sat down to reflect on my recent work. But if you’ve made it this far and you’d still like to see what I’ve been up to, I certainly don’t want to disappoint you.
Greenhouse
My recent contributions to Greenhouse focused on employer branding topics and adapting to distributed work.
Get Inspired by These 15 Awesome Career Pages
What Hiring Looks Like Right Now: Best Practices from Hipcamp, Sonder and Greenhouse
When Hiring Slows Down, You Don’t Have to: A Recruiter’s Guide to Adapting
Writing Your Equal Opportunity Employer Statement? Here’s Some Inspiration
Distributed Hiring and Remote Working: The Ultimate Guide (eBook)
Udemy for Business
At Udemy for Business, my recent work has been focused on workplace wellness and boosting productivity. I also wrote a two-part series on supporting recent graduates and interns in a remote environment.
Beat Procrastination and Boost Productivity with These 6 Courses
Workplace Wellness Tips for Employees and Managers
How to Help Recent Graduates Succeed at Remote Work: Part 1
How to Help Recent Graduates Succeed at Remote Work: Part 2
Bringing Out the Best—Connecting Workplace Wellness to Business Outcomes (eBook)
Product Talk
I continue to talk with forward-thinking product teams and share their approach to continuous discovery in the Product in Practice series on the Product Talk blog.
Product in Practice: How 2-Way Door Decisions Helped Simply Business Learn Fast
Product in Practice: Tackling Big Hairy Product Challenges with Continuous Discovery
productboard
I started working with productboard since my last Recent Projects Round-up post and have helped with a few articles in the Age of Product Excellence series.
Sachin Rekhi Explains How Continuous Feedback Loops Lead to Better Products
Kate O’Neill on Bringing a Human-Centered Approach to Product Management
The Essential Guide to Product Discovery (eBook)
For the time being I don’t have any travel plans or big projects of my own under way. My main goal at the moment is to take each day as it comes and focus on the present. But I do hope to be back in the next quarter (give or take) with more updates on what I’ve been up to!
I do have a little extra availability in my schedule at the moment, so if you happen to need any writing/editing/content marketing help, please feel free to get in touch to discuss how we might work together!