Chris Blackwell, Author at Chris Blackwell

Slack: Where Annoyance Happens

I’ve been struggling with my communication with my co-workers for several months now. It seems I am always in one of two states. I am either bugging people on Slack, or I am the one being bugged. Slack did replace email for us, but it created a whole new problem in its place.

Eric Barnes seems to have the same problem. I love that his company has Slack free hours, and I think I’ve going to implement that in my company. I want people to get work done, as well as communicate their work. Unfortunately for some, the latter sometimes overrides the former.

A Tribute to Roy Halladay

Opinion

Roy Halladay was one of the greatest pitchers I ever got to see. For almost a decade he was the absolute best pitcher in baseball.

Doc Halladay was also one of my idols. First for his tireless work ethic and demeanor. Second for his absolute skill on the field. Third for what an amazing overall human being he was.

Many people have written about Roy Halladay this past week. I wanted to share my favourite, which is from Ian Hunter of Blue Jay Hunter. Ian writes more from a fan’s perspective, which is exactly how I experienced Halladay’s tenure.

RIP Roy Halladay

Courage

Quotes

Courage is not being fearless but rather acting in spite of the existence of fear!

Why Profit Matters

Business

I’ve been seeing an increasing number of founders discussing metrics like users, conversion rate, MRR (monthly recurring revenue). Missing from these metrics is profitability. A business’s goal is to make a profit. You may run the business for lifestyle reasons, financial reasons. However, if your business is not turning a profit, you won’t be in business for very long.

Some large startups like Shopify can survive for years without turning a profit (they still haven’t yet). Eventually even Shopify must turn a profit, or the company will inevitably fail. Justin Jackson has done a great quick presentation here to show you why profitability matters, and how to calculate your profitability percentage.

Work Rewards

Quotes

If you work for the rewards, the rewards will not be good. If you do good work, the rewards will be good.

In Response to #NoTDD

Opinion

I follow people online who write in a variety of different languages, using a wide variety of platforms. One of the blogs I follow is the MSDN blog. This can be a great source of information of upcoming web standards, or even new platforms Microsoft is trying out. I don’t always agree with everything I read, but I always take the time to reflect on a different viewpoint.

The viewpoint I’ve been reflecting on lately is the #NoTDD article that Eric Gunnerson wrote a few weeks ago. It’s very easy for one to throw up their arms in disagreement with such a bold statement. Let’s instead take a minute to reflect on the points Eric makes. [Read more…] about In Response to #NoTDD