Sometimes we make commitments to things — people, projects, good habits, new thought patterns or styles of relating, and somewhere down the line it becomes much harder than we expected. We no longer have the belief that we can do this thing, yet we have the commitment. It’s easy to want to hide, procrastinate, focus on … Continued
Sometimes, we end up put on the spot to deliver something that we didn’t know we needed to deliver or quite how to deliver it. There’s an urge to run away, or procrastinate, or just plain say no. This week when those unexpected questions or requests come at you, improvise! Instead of panicking, take a … Continued
Welcoming the stranger. It’s a topic and commandment found in nearly every faith tradition—including the Abrahamic traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. (We don’t often talk about our faith on this blog, but I’m proud to say we’re a diverse bunch at Software for Good, from staunch atheists to deeply reflective Christians). Historically, the United … Continued
There is a moment that I think everyone has shared, though it’s not often spoken of in our day-to-day work. There is a moment that can come, sometimes quite unexpectedly, when one is radically honest. (Not brutally honest, for true honesty has nothing to do with brutality, but only to do with vulnerability.) It can … Continued
Sometimes we get so attached to what we are working on, that we miss the easy wins that are there for the taking. In life and in code, sometimes cleaning and fixing a few things while you are already working on something else can be a good present to your future self. Oh, I already … Continued
Any good maker or hacker knows the best way to figure out how something works is to take it apart! As developers, we rely on a lot of tools others have built. This is great, because there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. But there’s also a lot to learn there. This week, take a … Continued
One theme, two ideas: 1. There’s only one you. So bring your whole self to work. The separation of your “work persona” from your “home persona” is a particularly pernicious part of our economic system, encouraging us to be professional robots instead of vulnerable human beings. If we are building a better place to work, we … Continued
We’ve updated our World Cup API to be live for the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada. All endpoints and data remain the same. Near realtime events (substitutions, goals, cards), as well as results by team and group. During the 2014 World Cup, the API was called over 13 million times and over 240 files … Continued
Before I became a programmer, I spent about a decade doing racial justice as both a policy researcher and working in inner-city communities of color running programs for youth. Doing this work, I often found myself pushing back against (well-meaning) dominant frameworks of thought that understood racism to be only about overt acts done with … Continued
I love soccer. I especially love the World Cup. Despite the well founded concerns over corruption in FIFA and the social costs of spending so much on a sporting event, it’s truly the largest event in the world. During the 2010 World Cup, 3.2 billion people watched at least one of the games from home. … Continued
Two of the great things about working at Software for Good: We have unlimited time off to do what we want, and it’s a culture that really values self-directed learning. So when I, after approximately 1 month on the job, asked if I could take off the better part of a week to go to … Continued
As a relatively new developer here at Software for Good, I’m pretty much like a giant sponge. Almost every day, I learn something that I didn’t know I didn’t know. In order to document some of my learning and hopefully help some other junior developers, I’ve decided to write about it. Presenting the .try method … Continued