I consult, write, and speak on running better technology businesses (tech firms and IT captives) and the things that make it possible: good governance behaviors (activist investing in IT), what matters most (results, not effort), how we organize (restructure from the technologically abstract to the business concrete), how we execute and manage (replacing industrial with professional), how we plan (debunking the myth of control), and how we pay the bills (capital-intensive financing and budgeting in an agile world). I am increasingly interested in robustness over optimization.

I work for ThoughtWorks, the global leader in software delivery and consulting.

Thursday, March 11, 2021

Canoecopia 2021 Is This Weekend

Cheryl and I are presenting a session we titled People, Paddling and Food at Canoecopia this year. Our presentation is about how food affects behaviors in the backcountry. Well, more accurately, how you can get in front of those behaviors, to prevent food from having a negative impact on how a group functions when paddling in the backcountry, as well as how food can have a positive effect on group dynamics. We hope you find the subject interesting enough that you will attend.

Even if you do not find this subject compelling, please give Canoecopia a look. It is the largest paddling conference in North America. It was canceled last year as pandemic lockdown policies took effect hours before the conference was to begin. It is a virtual conference this year.

A lot of people have worked really hard to create a virtual outdoors conference, from creating the conference infrastructure, to making compelling vendor interactions, to recording and staging pre-recorded presentations, to coordinating all of this, to the presenters making work for the coordinators (we mostly got it right on our third submission...), as well as many others doing hundreds of other behind-the-scenes tasks.

Registration is $15. For $15 you get access to amazing, thoughtful people in the paddling community spanning a complete spectrum of topics.

2020 was a difficult year for backcountry trips - overcrowding, closed borders, etc. 2021 will probably not be much different. Regardless the circumstances, we all have the opportunity to improve our thoughtfulness of and tradecraft in the backcountry. Canoecopia is the premier forum in which we can learn how to do that.

I do hope you will attend.