Indecorous
Assorted writing and projects by Ian Malpass, most recently:
On Sabbaticals
Sabbaticals - a long(er) term paid break from work - used to be the preserve of academia. But, more and more companies are choosing to offer sabbaticals to their longer-serving employees. It’s a tremendous benefit for employees (and, as I’ll argue below, a great benefit for employers too). »»
Failure Is An Option
This is a transcript of a talk I gave at the Velocity Conference in Santa Clara on 28 May 2015. It’s transcribed from the video recording, but edited slightly for clarity. »»
Imperfect allies
Acting as an ally is hard, and mistakes are costly. This shouldn’t deter allies, but merely change how they approach their work. »»
The fireworks of karma
We’ve had trouble lately with people nearby setting off fireworks in the evening. I like fireworks—don’t get me wrong, one of the reasons I studied chemistry was because of them—but the attraction begins to pall after so many nights of dealing with kids who can’t sleep and a dog who thinks the world is ending but that it might stop if he can only fit all 100lb of him into your lap. »»
Putting the Ops in DevOps
I was recently made aware of The Road To DevOps, a piece on the ActiveState blog, which reminded me that I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, and finally got me to write it. »»
How I write talks
I recently delivered a talk called Fallible Humans at DevOps Days Minneapolis, which was well received. Although I’ve spoken in front of audiences before—internally at Etsy, at local meetups, student groups, etc.—this was my first “proper” conference delivering a prepared talk. »»
Fallible Humans
This is a transcript of a talk I gave at DevOps Days Minneapolis on 18 July 2014. It’s transcribed from memory, but should be a close approximation to what I said at the time. »»
An accidental Argentinian
So, sometimes I’m mistaken for an Argentinian government agency. »»
A/B testing complexity
We tend to think of A/B testing as a tool for testing the validity of product decisions, or for empirically determining them. Should this button be blue, or red? Does moving more pictures above the fold increase conversion? These are good and useful questions that A/B testing can help answer. »»
Random acts of leadership
One of the things I like best about working for Etsy is how easy it is to enthuse about the people I work with. There are various anecdotes I can tell about “business as unusual”, but one of my favourites came from when I was only a few months into my new job. »»