Podcasts about jamon holmgren

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 23, 2024 62:30

Jamon Holmgren talks with guest Chris Ferdinandi about the highs and lows of living with ADHD as a developer. They discuss creative problem-solving, the pros and cons of medication, and how to use ADHD to your advantage in coding and life.This episode is brought to you by Infinite Red! Infinite Red is an expert React Native consultancy located in the USA. With nearly a decade of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter, core React Native contributors, creators of Ignite and Reactotron, and much, much more), Infinite Red is the best choice for helping you build and deploy your next React Native app.Connect With Us!React Native Radio: @ReactNativeRdioChris Ferdinandi: @ChrisFerdinandiJamon: @jamonholmgrenInfinite Red Slack Community: https://community.infinite.red

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RNR 299 - What to Expect From React Native in 5 Years

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 7, 2024 31:25

Where will React Native be in 5 years? We're here to make bold predictions! Join our hosts, Jamon Holmgren and Robin Heinze, as they gather around a crystal ball with special guest Todd Werth. Not only is he CEO of Infinite Red, he's also the voice behind the wildly popular "brought to you by" jokes at the start of every episode. Show NotesTodd and Jamon predict the future of React NativeConnect With Us!React Native Radio: @ReactNativeRdioJamon - @jamonholmgrenRobin - @robin_heinzeTodd - @twerth

ceo technology software android ios react relaunch javascript mobile apps software development app development react native jamon infinite red jamon holmgren

The First Customer - Building a laser-focused business identity with Founder and CTO Jamon Holmgren

The First Customer

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 5, 2024 29:24 Transcription Available

In this episode, I was lucky enough to interview Jamon Holmgren, founder and CTO of Infinite Red.Jamon grew up in a small town in coastal Oregon and recounts his early experiences with coding, starting a business, and the influence of his father, who was an entrepreneur.Jamon shares insights into his first business endeavors, from coding projects for a friend's construction company to starting his own home design and remodeling business. He highlights his challenges during the 2008 housing crisis and his pivot towards web and mobile app development. Jamon discusses the impact of having a family and raising kids with potential entrepreneurial interests and touches on the significance of mentorship, the dynamics of co-founding a company, and the long-term focus that has contributed to the success of Infinite Red. Jamon also emphasizes authenticity, building genuine relationships, and the importance of a strong company culture.Let's drive out to the "City of Roses" and delve into Jamon Holmgren's inspiring entrepreneurial journey!Guest Info:Infinite Redhttp://infinite.redJamon Holmgren's LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jamonholmgren/Connect with Jay on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jayaigner/The First Customer Youtube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/@thefirstcustomerpodcastThe First Customer podcast websitehttps://www.firstcustomerpodcast.comFollow The First Customer on LinkedInhttp://www.linkedin.com/company/the-first-customer-podcast/

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499: Infinite Red with Jamon Holmgren

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 9, 2023 47:46

Jamon Holmgren is the founder of Infinite Red, a consultancy specializing in React Native. He discusses his journey and insights into technology and leadership and highlights how Infinite Red stands as a testament that businesses can be run ethically while still achieving success. The conversation shifts to leadership styles and the principle of "one-minute praise" from the book "One Minute Manager." Both Jamon and Will agree that acknowledging others' efforts openly can make a significant difference, enhancing leadership skills and building stronger relationships. Will points out how this simple principle has been a game-changer for him in various aspects of life, including his personal relationships. Towards the end, the focus turns to motivation and long-term strategy. Jamon is driven by his enthusiasm for learning and the thrill of tackling diverse challenges in his consultancy work. He also shares his philosophy of keeping the company "10 degrees above the horizon," emphasizing steady, sustainable growth rather than erratic leaps and bounds. Infinite Red (https://infinite.red/) Follow Infinite Red on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/infinitered/), X (https://twitter.com/infinite_red), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwpSzVt7QpLDbCnPXqR97-g), GitHub (https://github.com/infinitered), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/infiniteredinc/), or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/infinitered_designers/). Follow Jamon Holmgren on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamonholmgren/) or X (https://twitter.com/jamonholmgren). Visit his website at jamon.dev (https://jamon.dev/). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: WILL: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Will Larry. And with me today is Jamon Holmgren, Co-Founder and CTO of Infinite Red, a software consulting agency that specializes in React Native. Jamon, thank you for joining me. JAMON: Yeah. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. WILL: So, Jamon, what's going on in your life? How's everything going? JAMON: You know, things have been obviously very busy, like, I guess, pretty much everybody. You know, school has started. I have four kids, so that keeps me quite busy, going to various school events, going to volleyball, you know, bringing kids here and there, running the company. I have some side projects I'm doing. I am playing hockey. So, it just seems like every waking hour is filled with something. [laughter] WILL: I totally understand that. I have three kids of my own. So, they're a little bit younger than yours, so mine is 4, 3, and, like, 17 months, so... JAMON: Okay. Yeah, so you're just getting started. And you're doing all of the, like, physical labor associated with being a parent. WILL: Yes, yes, yes. So, I want to start there. Tell me a little bit about your kids. I know their ages are 10 to 18. JAMON: Yeah, so I have a boy, Cedric. He's actually a programmer as well. He's just starting his career. He is the oldest, and then we have three girls. We have a 15-year-old who's a sophomore in high school. And then we have a 12-year-old who's in middle school and a 10-year-old who is in fifth grade in elementary school. And it's a lot. My wife and I both came from very large families, so we're kind of used to it. And it's a lot of fun. A lot of challenges at this age, I mean, teenagers especially, you know, as they kind of all come into that same era, you know, it's more of a challenge. I guess the thing that I think about it is a lot of the skills that I learned as a young kid parent don't really translate super well to being a teenager parent. And I'm having to learn a lot of new skills. And I actually talked to a guy the other day. His kids are, I think, 32 and 28, or something like that. And he said, "Yeah, the learning never stops." [laughs] WILL: So, I'm going to ask you for the secret sauce because I'm still in the temper tantrums and those type of emotions and stuff. So, how is it different in the teenage years from the temper tantrums? JAMON: Well, I think that they can act like adults in a lot of cases, and you start thinking of them as adults, and you start developing a relationship there. But their brains are also not fully developed. And so, they will also do things that are very inexplicable, like, you'll just be like, why? Why would this be a thing? Like, I don't get it. Like, you act like an adult for half the time, and then the other half, you act like a kid. Navigating that, and the fact that they change all the time, and all the other challenges. And they're all different. Like, if we had only had one kid, you know, my boy was pretty easy. He was pretty straightforward. It would have been like, well, shoot, being a parent is pretty easy. Like, I don't know what everybody else is complaining about. Like, he never did tantrums. He was just a really quiet, you know, like, well-behaved kid and kind of went through life like that. But then, obviously, developing a relationship with him is more of the challenge because he's quieter, where with my girls, it's easier to develop the relationship, but then you [laughs] deal with a lot more volatility as well. So, they're all different. Every kid's different. It's hard to really apply that directly. I would say that the thing that I've learned the most in the last few years is just kind of continuing to be, like, even through some of the tougher times, continuing to be there, continuing to develop that relationship. A lot of times, it feels like you're not getting anywhere, but you are. It is actually happening. You just don't see it until later. WILL: I'm writing that down. That's great advice [laughter]. You mentioned hockey. Tell me about it. I've never played hockey. I grew up in the South, so we didn't have that. So, tell me about it. And you're a goalie also, correct? JAMON: Yeah, I play goalie. I didn't discover hockey...I played basketball in high school. I played four years of high school basketball. I even played a little bit at college. And I didn't really discover hockey until I moved to Southwest Washington, about an hour away from where I grew up in the coast of Oregon. When I got there, a lot of my friends that I made were playing hockey. And one friend, in particular, he was a goalie, and he had grown up in Upper Michigan. So, you know, like, he grew up playing hockey. He was a very good skater and things like that. But there was one weekend I was coming to watch him play just rec hockey. And he's like, "You know what? I can't make it. Would you want to jump in and, like, be my sub?" And it was just a pick-up game. So, it wasn't like there was anything on the line. And I was like, "All right, I'll give it a try." You know, put on the gear. He showed me what to do to put on the gear. He kind of gave me some tips. Like, in the living room where we were, he was, like, showing me how to play. We were, like, I would say, 19, I think. Nineteen years old, something like that. Anyway, I show up, and I put on the gear, and I go out there. And I actually had a decent game, considering I barely knew how to skate and barely knew how to do anything. But I'm kind of big; I'm six foot four, almost six foot five. And having all that gear and everything, I filled up a lot of the net. And it wasn't a very high-level game, so I did pretty well. And after that, the team was like, "Well, we'd love to have you back." And then my friend really was not interested in continuing, so he was like, "You can have it, like, just roll with it." I kept playing for about three years, and then, I don't know, I took over a decade off. The team dissolved. It wasn't even a league team. It was just, you know, pick-up hockey. And then a friend called me and was like, "Hey, I'm starting up a game. It's going to be Finnish Americans," because I'm half-Finnish myself. "So, it's going to be all Finnish Americans. We're going to call it the [Foreign language]," which is the Finnish boys in sort of Finnish. It's not exactly supposed to be like that in Finnish. Anybody listening who's Finnish is going to be like, "Yeah, that's bad Finnish." But it kind of means Finnish boys or Finland boys. And we put together the team, and I've been playing for the last three-plus years. It's been kind of, like, a rec league team. We've won the championship four times, which was really fun. This year, I'm actually playing in two leagues. I'm playing in rec league, and I'm also playing the next league up, so a little bit faster, better skaters, better shooters, things like that. And I just love it. It's so much fun. WILL: Wow, that's amazing that you started later and that you're still playing it. Because when I look at hockey, I'm like, that's really hard. I don't know if I could do that. I can skate. I can't stop. JAMON: [laughs] WILL: Like, I can get a lot of speed [laughs]. But it's just something about turning sideways and thinking I'm going to fly over the skates. JAMON: [laughs] WILL: And yeah, it's a whole thing [laughs]. Is goalie harder than playing any of the other positions? JAMON: I would say it's different. Like, I don't have to be as good of a skater, you know, things like hockey stops are still not supernatural for me. I don't skate backwards super-fast. You know, I'm not a fast skater in general. But the difference is, of course, you have to be reading the flow of the game. You have to know the body language of the players that are coming at you. You have to kind of see what's happening. At the end of the day, lots of things can happen, so you try to put yourself in the best position. It's a lot of, like, positional, like, where are you in the net? What does your position look like? And then, once they shoot, how do you react? Are you dropping down, or are you staying up? Are you using your glove? Are you using your blocker? Are you just trying to block with your body using your stick? Then, once the puck hits you, then what do you do? How do you control the rebound? Are you trying to cover it up and ice the puck so they do a face-off? Are you trying to kick it out to one of your skaters? And then, once that happens, you have a little bit of a rest, hopefully, while they're down on the other side. But you're continually alert and watching to see what's going to develop because it could be a breakaway. And then it's just you and the skater and trying to anticipate what they're doing and try to make it so that they have to make a play. Like, just be big, be in position. Don't get out of position. Don't make a mistake. And I've had really great games where I've, you know, had 45 shots on me, and I've only let one in or something like that. And I've had some bad games too. I know there's one game in a championship where they only had six shots on me. But we ended up losing because I let in two, so that was not a fun game. I only had six opportunities, and I failed on two of them. But that happens, and so you just have to be mentally tough. WILL: Wow, that's amazing. The limited knowledge of hockey...I'm going to assume here, so I hope it's right. With you being 6'4, 6'5, I'm guessing that the five-hole, if I'm correct, was probably your toughest position to defend. JAMON: You know, you would think so. And just for the audience, the five-hole is, like, between your legs, you know, the puck going between your legs underneath. But I play a style...a little bit older style of goalie because that's what I watched. You know, in, like, the early 2000s, I watched Patrick Roy of the Colorado Avalanche, one of the greatest goalies of all time, and he played what's called a butterfly style. So, as the play develops, you're standing, but then you go down fairly early, and you're protecting the bottom. You have your stick in front of you protecting the five-hole, and you have your legs, you know, spread out. So, I used my height really more for blocking as I'm down rather than standing because when I'm standing, I'm above the net. It's better for me to get down. And I think that that's worked out pretty well. You know, Patrick Roy was a pretty big goalie as well. Most modern goalies play a more hybrid style. But, you know, we could get into all that. I'm a big kind of hockey nerd in this way. But that's what I do. I play butterfly, so most of the time, people don't beat me five-hole; when they do, it's usually they're picking a corner. WILL: Wow. Now that you've painted the picture, I can see how that's smart because you do have the goal, I mean, the gloves plus the stick and then your height. Yeah, I can see how...that's smart. That's very smart [laughs]. JAMON: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's kind of the goal. And also, because I wasn't a great skater, it sort of played into it as well, playing down on the ice where I was just more comfortable that way. It's worked out. I've had a pretty decent record over my career here [laughs]. WILL: That's awesome. Well, let's transition a little bit into consultant agencies. You've been doing it for 18 years. Tell me about that. How did you get started? JAMON: Well, when I started, I was working in construction. I was working for a home builder. And, you know, everybody I knew pretty much worked in construction, including my dad, who owned a business. And I went on my own. I had always dreamed of owning my own business, but I didn't start really thinking about websites. I was coding. I loved coding, and I was coding since I was 12. So, when I got to 23 years old, I thought, I'll start a business, and I'll do home design because that's what I was doing for the builder was, I was drawing homes. I was designing homes and remodels and things like that. And so, I started it doing that. But I also needed a little bit extra work. I didn't have enough work. Like, I had people, you know, sending me work, you know, home design and whatnot, but I didn't have quite enough. So, I would also build websites on the side, PHP and HTML, MySQL, and JavaScript. And I just sort of continued to do that. But in 2008, there was the housing crisis, and all of the design work for homes just dried up. There wasn't much there. In fact, it actually really dried up in 2007 because things kind of started a little early for designers. And so, I was like; I got to do something to stay busy. I've got a wife. I've got a young kid (Actually, at that point, I had two kids.), and I need to make sure that I'm staying busy. And so, I really ramped up trying to find work, you know, as a programmer, as a web developer. And there were plenty of companies at that time that were really trying to drum up business. So, they were putting money into their websites trying to get new projects, and they were all construction companies. And so, that's how I started. And I started doing more things like internal web apps for managing orders and managing sales leads, and that sort of thing. And that led me into web apps and eventually to Ruby on Rails, which became sort of my bread and butter for a while. As I was doing Ruby on Rails, you know, obviously, the iPhone was out, but the iPad came out. And I was more of an Android guy at that point. But I bought an iPad because it looked really cool, and my dad had one. When I started playing around with it, I'm like, I need to build apps for this. This is super cool. So, I took some Stanford courses online, which you could do back in those days, iTunes U, and learned how to use Objective-C. This was previous to Automatic Reference Counting and stuff. So, you had to manage your own memory, and this was a lot of manual work; very different environment than JavaScript, and PHP, and Ruby. But I actually enjoyed it quite a bit and then eventually transitioned into React Native later. But really, getting over to mobile and that sort of thing was...once I found mobile, I really didn't want to do web anymore. Mobile is what I really enjoy doing. WILL: Wow, I love that. If I'm following you correctly, you said in 2007, that's kind of when everything dried up. So, you were almost forced to find something different, correct? JAMON: Yeah, that's right. I mean, I kind of sat around feeling sorry for myself for a while. And then I was like, well, it's my business. I got to figure out what to do. It's not anybody else's fault. Like, you know, it doesn't matter that this is forces out of my control. I do have control. I have the ability to go in there and figure out, okay, what do I do next? Well, I know how to program, and it seems like people want me to program. So, let's lean into that. WILL: Wow. I love that. Because it's funny, that's how I got started in programming. I lost my job. And I was working at Buckle, the clothing store. If you know me, that is not me at all, like, at all [laughter]. I love gym shorts and athletic clothes. Like, fashion is not my thing. It's just not. So [laughs], I got into programming because I was just struggling. And it was a very pivotal moment in my life. And I'm thankful that I lost my job. Losing your job is just hard, and I think it makes you rethink things. JAMON: Yeah, absolutely. It was a growth moment for me as well, one of many. But that was definitely a point that I look back on and say, I mean because I can actually point at almost the day when it all dried up. It was, like, April 2007. And my uncle had been sending me a lot of work, you know, he had extra work. He didn't have barely enough for himself anymore at that point. And I finished up my last project, and he's like, "I don't have anything else." And I had some other clients as well and called them up, and they were like, "No, we don't have anything. Like, nobody is buying right now." And it just kept going like that. And it was weird because 2005, 2006, most of 2007, it felt like things were really rolling, but it just dried up all at once. And so, I was really lucky that I did end up getting a bunch of web work to do in 2008. I was still doing home design till probably late 2008, 2009. But then I eventually just hung that up and was like, okay, this is over. I'm definitely focusing on programming. WILL: Wow, how was the initial traction when you moved into ramping up the web development? JAMON: It was really good because it didn't take much to keep me busy. And I ended up getting some big contracts from, like, a cabinet manufacturer was a big one. I did some other things as well. And I ended up hiring my first employees in 2009. So, really, less than two years later, I was starting to hire employees. And I just hired, like, junior developers who had barely learned to code and taught them to code. So, I hired probably, over the years, next few years, like, ten programmers, many of whom are actually still with me today, and I taught them to code back in the day. And as time went on, they became senior and really high-level programmers who are now leading projects for big companies that you've heard of. But they started with me building, you know, PHP and MySQL and whatnot for small, like, regional construction companies. And we learned together. So, it was definitely a progression you can go look back and see. WILL: Yeah, I saw a tweet that you tweeted, and I loved it because I totally understand. JAMON: [laughs] WILL: And so, I'm glad you mentioned the junior devs and stuff. The tweet that I'm talking about was, "I got into this industry to code; ended up becoming a founder because I was the only person who would hire me." JAMON: [laughs] WILL: I want to ask you about that. [laughter] JAMON: Yeah, it's really that I grew up in a small logging town, like, very tiny logging town in Northwest Oregon. I didn't know...I knew one programmer, and the guy was, like, an incredible genius. And I just thought that that was the only way that you could professionally be a programmer was to be an incredible genius. I was coding, but I was, like, coding games, you know, in QBasic. And so, for me, every time I looked around, it was just, like, construction, or logging or, you know, blue collar, like, working at a mill. Like, these were the things that I saw around me. And so, that was the path I went. And I didn't really think of using this passion that I had for coding to turn it into, like, actual money. And when I did start thinking about it, I was like, I don't know anybody who does software. Like, even when I moved to Southwest Washington, I was closer to Portland. But I thought you had to have a CS degree, and I didn't have a CS degree. So, I was like, okay, well, I'll start my own business then, and that will be the thing that kind of leads me into tech. And that's what ended up happening. And it's kind of funny because I did go to, you know, one semester of community college for basketball and for...until I got cut. And then I studied some things there. But I never finished for the community college. What's kind of cool, though, is today, I'm actually on their, like, tech advisory committee. Like, they actually have me advising their professors on the current state of tech, which is kind of cool. WILL: Wow, that is really cool. It is interesting because I remember when I first started out and that feeling of probably over 300 applications just trying to get a job. And it was just hard. And my first job, to be honest, I think it was because of networking is why I got the job. If I didn't know the person that introduced me to the company, I probably wouldn't have gotten the job, if I'm being honest. But I am very sympathetic for junior devs anytime. If a junior dev asks me a question, I will take time, help them out. Because I remember...it's very hard as a junior dev trying to get that first job. So, when you said that, I was like, yeah, I can see your heart towards junior devs. JAMON: Absolutely. That's where I started. You know, the first developers that I hired were all juniors. We don't hire juniors anymore because of the style of business that we are. But I miss that. I miss that to some degree. We really can't. And we've looked at it from just about every angle. But I did my time [laughs]. I spent a lot of hours teaching junior developers when I could have done it quicker myself. WILL: Definitely. Like, you end up losing some money when you do a junior dev and you're hiring for the future. So, like, in a consultant agency, I totally understand that, yeah. JAMON: Yeah, absolutely. MID-ROLL AD: Now that you have funding, it's time to design, build, and ship the most impactful MVP that wows customers now and can scale in the future. thoughtbot Liftoff brings you the most reliable cross-functional team of product experts to mitigate risk and set you up for long-term success. As your trusted, experienced technical partner, we'll help launch your new product and guide you into a future-forward business that takes advantage of today's new technologies and agile best practices. Make the right decisions for tomorrow today. Get in touch at thoughtbot.com/liftoff. WILL: So, I want to ask you about the transition from ClearSight Studio to Infinite Red. How did that happen? JAMON: ClearSight was my first company. And it sort of evolved from being a, you know, a home design/website company to just a website and web app company, and then mobile apps. And, at a certain time, we had, I think, around 12 employees, something like that. I had a design department. We were building websites and whatnot. And I was really interested in iOS development. That was really my passion. And so I actually ended up working on some open source with iOS developers across the globe and then got invited to a conference down in San Francisco in 2014. And I went and gave a talk there. It was my first tech conference that I'd ever been to, much less given a talk, and I was the first talk [laughs]. So, that was kind of an interesting little anecdote there. And as I did it, I got to know some other developers. I had one in particular, Todd Werth, who I really hit it off with, and we ended up chatting a lot after the conference. And it felt like he and I had a very similar outlook. And he had an iOS agency. That's all they did. Well, 2015 rolls around, and I had had some rough times toward the end of 2014 in terms of the business, and I was kind of complaining to Todd. He had had some issues as well, and we started commiserating. And he's like, you know, he just started joking. I still have this conversation in Slack way back if I go look. And he's like, "Well, maybe we should just merge our businesses together," because it felt like we had maybe complementary skills. And we had a similar outlook on what we wanted from our businesses. And so, we ended up eventually solidifying that. I flew down there, talked to him and his business partner, Ken, at the time. We ended up making that happen later that year. So, just a few days ago, October 1st was our eighth anniversary running the companies, running the new company, the merged company, which is Infinite Red. So, that was kind of how that all came together. Eventually, Ken left, and we had a new business partner who was our top employee buy-in; that's Gant Laborde. And so, there are still three owners. We have three directors and then the rest of the team. We're about 30 people altogether, and we focus entirely on React Native. WILL: Wow, congratulations on eight years. That's a lot. That's amazing. JAMON: Yeah, thank you. I was just thinking the other day that I ran ClearSight for ten years. Infinite Red is getting close to how long I ran my first business. And, like, my youngest is, like I said, 10. So she was only two years old when I merged the company. She does not remember my old company, which is weird to me. [laughter] WILL: Wow. So, can you walk me through your decision to go here with React Native and specialize in that? Because it sounds like right around the time when React Native was created, and people started using it in production. JAMON: That's right. The iOS technology that we had sort of bonded over at that conference was called RubyMotion. But in 2015, the founder ended up going to work for Microsoft for a while and then went back to Apple. He had been from Apple before. So, it was sort of going down. And we were looking for a different technology, both of our companies were, and then, of course, the merged company. React Native looked interesting, but it didn't have an Android version yet. But then, in September of 2015, Android came out, so it was iOS and Android. So, we were able to take a look at that one month before we ended up solidifying the actual merger. So, basically, day one, October 1st, 2015, we were, like, we are now doing React Native for mobile, but we kept doing web. We kept doing Ruby on Rails. We did some Elixir. We did some Elm. We did some...I think we had some old Ember stuff going on. We had all kinds of things going on. But over time, we got more and more traction with React Native because that's really where our interest was. And so, we ended up saying, okay, well, this is where we really want to be. It took us a few years. It took us probably five years, six years, something like that, to really develop the confidence to say, "Hey, this is all we want to do," because it's a risk. Like, you put yourself on one technology. We had that before with the other technology that went down. But we had the confidence that we knew we could step off of a sinking ship onto another one if we needed to. So, we said, "You know what? Let's do this." And I got to give my co-founder, Todd, a lot of credit because he was the first one to say, "Let's go all React Native. Anywhere that React Native is, React Native is on a lot of different platforms. You can do tvOS. You can do Mac. You can do Windows. You can do web with React Native web, all kinds of things. So, let's just focus on React Native. Our team will just focus on that. We will only hire React Native developers. All of our marketing is going to be around React Native. Let's just focus on that." And it ended up being a great call. We did that. We made that happen. And for probably the last, I would say, three, four years, something like that, that's all we've been doing. WILL: So, what's your opinion on, I guess, the argument that's being held right now with native iOS and Android, even the Flutter, and I think Ionic is the other one that I've heard of, versus React Native? What's your pitch on React Native over those? JAMON: There's definitely reasons to use any of those. But I wrote this article a while back. It was specifically about Flutter, but I think it applies to a lot of the other competitors as well. The title of the article was provocatively titled, "Flutter Is Better Than React Native in All the Ways That Don't Matter." And the idea behind this is that, yes, Flutter gets a lot of things very right. A lot of their developer experience is actually better than React Native; some is worse, but, you know, some is better. But really, when it comes down to it, the things that matter are more business level. React Native is good enough. It's like native views. So, you have the native performance. With Hermes, you have really good performance in JavaScript. So, you know that you can get really high-level JavaScript performance. You can ship JavaScript, which really helps because then you can bring in JavaScript developers, and specifically React developers. So, a lot of companies already use React. It's a no-brainer to then use React Native if you're already using React Web. It doesn't really make sense to go to Flutter. It makes maybe some sense to write it in native, but then you have to write it twice. And you have three teams. You have a web team. You have an iOS team, and you have an Android team. And you also have three codebases, and one's always lagging behind. That's always what's happening. Marketing is like, "Okay, when can we announce this?" "Well, iOS isn't done," or "Android is not done," or "Web is not done." Where if you can combine all of those things and combine just the culture of your team, then it becomes more tight-knit because everybody's working on all aspects at one time. You can take a feature, and you can build it in web, and you can build it in iOS, and you can build it Android with all the same skills. Now, there are some deeper parts of React Native. It goes really deep. But in terms of just being productive out of the gate, a React developer can be productive in week one, and that's, I think, a huge deal. So, it really comes down to is the performance and developer experience good enough? And the answer is absolutely yes. And then, secondly, like, what's the business case for React Native? Well, you can have the same developers doing iOS, Android, and web, and even if you don't, you can share techniques. You can be like, "Hey, here's this cool JavaScript thing," and the Kotlin developers aren't just like, "Ugh, you know, JavaScript." Or you can be like, "Hey, here's our TypeScript configuration across the whole codebase." You can even have a monorepo with everything in it. It just makes a lot of sense that way. And especially now with Expo, it makes it even more that way because Expo removes a lot of the barriers for web developers that they would have coming into native. So, with that in mind, I still see React Native dominating the apps that are at the top of the App Store. One of the Expo developers, Evan Bacon, has put out a bunch of tweets about, you know, like, 24 out of the top 100 food and drink apps are written in React Native, as opposed to 8 in all the other options combined other than native, you know. So, it gives a good sense that React Native is still growing and continuing to. It has a lot of steam behind it. WILL: Yeah, I totally agree with you. I'm a big React Native fan, and I do a lot of React Native work here. So, yes, totally agree with you. And one of the most frustrating things that I've come across is, I'm a big researcher, and so I'll research things, and I'm like, oh, there's an app for this. And I'm a big Android fan, so when I go to them, it's like, oh yes, I can use this app. And then it's like, no, I can't. It's only for iOS. Okay, like, you lost me as a customer. JAMON: [laughs] WILL: I was willing to pay whatever on this because I've been looking for it. So yeah, I like how you said that. JAMON: Yeah. It treats all of the platforms as first-class citizens. WILL: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Totally agree. How does your company handle the backend? Do y'all do any of the backend, or how is that handled at Infinite Red? JAMON: We used to do that, like I mentioned. But a few years ago...we had a very, very small back-end team by then. Most of the time, and now pretty much 100% of the time, when someone comes to us, they already have a back-end team, so we work directly with them. A lot of our developers were back-end developers, and so they understand the backend really well, but they're obviously React Native specialists now. So, you know, I came from that. I did PHP. I did Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Elixir, Node, all kinds of back-end technology. So, I understand it really well as well. But yeah, we lean on our clients for that. We might partner with an agency like you folks over there at thoughtbot and have them do the backend, or just have the client, you know, come up with their own solution. WILL: Yeah, I love that, yeah. And we've done that with numerous agencies, so yeah, that's awesome. What does success look like for Infinite Red now versus, you know, six months or five years from now? Do y'all have any goals in mind that you're trying to hit? JAMON: In the Infinite Red leadership, we are currently reading John Maxwell's 21 indisputable Laws of Leadership, which is a good book. And we had this really great conversation at our first book club meeting in leadership, which John Maxwell defines success in a very different way than we do. You know, he measured it as, like, McDonald's, or Starbucks, or something like that, like, giant, becoming huge, becoming big, making tons of money. And it was sort of just implicit in the book that that was the case. We had this great talk internally. Why didn't this resonate with us? And that's because we don't really measure success that way. So, I love that question, Will, because measuring success is you really have to start there. Like, you have to start there and say, "What do we want from this?" So, ultimately, we want to build cool things with our friends. I'm a coding nerd. I want to code. I want to be in the code. That's why we're an agency. Like, if we were a product company, if we were building, I don't know, podcasting software or something, we'd have to become experts in podcasting rather than experts in React Native, or experts in TypeScript, or whatever we want to do. So, we really love code. We want to build that. We want to have an amazing family-first environment. We want to treat everybody super well. We want to have really low turnover, which we've been able to achieve. Hardly anybody leaves Infinite Red. Maybe every other year, we might lose one person. And even with those people, they tend to come back [laughs], which is a great sign. They go out and find out that, yeah, actually, Infinite Red is pretty awesome, and they come back. So, we really look for that. We really focus on that. We want that to happen. And it's really less about making the most money we can. Obviously, everybody wants to be well paid. And so, we're going to try to make sure we have a successful business in that way and that we want to be around for a long time. But, really, measuring success is less about business success and it's more about life success. It's really more about family success, being with my four kids, being there for them when they need me to be. That's why we're remote, you know, as another example. So, everything really hinges off of that. It's around happiness. It's around fulfillment. It's not around financial success. WILL: I'm a huge John Maxwell fan, by the way. JAMON: [laughs] There you go. WILL: So, yes, I love it. And I love how you explained, you know, because one of my questions I was going to ask you is about the core values, but I'm going to switch it up a little bit. So, I'm just going to say, in my opinion, I feel like there's almost leadership talk void at times, especially in the tech space. Like, we don't talk about leadership a lot. But it plays a huge part in what we do day to day. Like, you named a couple of core values and principles that you're following because of the leadership. So, for you, why is the leadership so important and I guess you can say have a seat at the table at Infinite Red? JAMON: I'm a strong believer, and I've become more of a strong believer over time, that it all starts at the top. If you don't have buy-in from your top leadership, it does not really matter what happens otherwise because they will continually undermine, and they have the power to continually undermine that. So, these core values have to apply to the top leaders. They have to be held accountable to that. And these leaders also need to be developed. So, we have three owners. We have three directors. And the three directors who are underneath us were not directors when we hired them; you know, they started out as developers. They started out as designers. They started out as project managers. But they became Director of Operations, Director of Engineering, Director of Communications. And we developed them. We poured a lot of time into them, and we continue to do that. In fact, even reading this book with them and going through that exercise is continuing to invest in them. Not that we as owners don't have growth to do; we also do. And so, we learn from them, and we learn from our team. So, you have to start there. And on that same vein, we do have some core values. We call them our foundation and our pillars. We have three foundational things, and we have four pillars. So, the three foundations are: one, we control our own destiny. We are not going to be beholden to some other company. We're not going to ride someone else's coattails. We're not going to be in a situation where someone else can kill us. And it can be easily done that way where we're in a position where, you know, we're too reliant on one whale client or something like that. We just won't do it. The second foundational thing is that we have...it's a word bonitas, which means kindness, friendliness, benevolence, blamelessness. And it's basically just being a good person to everybody and doing the right thing. And the third one is having a significant positive impact. That's why we do so much media. That's why we try to have an impact outside. And we're only 30 people, but people think we're way bigger because of how we kind of present ourselves in the world. And then our pillars all support those things, so high personal support. We support each other. We have high expectations, but we also support each other not just at work but also as a whole person. Long-term viewpoint, we think way beyond this year. We think about what is Infinite Red going to be when I retire? You know, I'm 41; that's a ways out, hopefully. But what's that going to look like? The next one is collaborative creativity. Creativity by yourself is just a solo thing. We're a team, so it has to be collaborative. We have to do it together. All our creative work, whether it's our conference, Chain React, or our work, it's all collaborative, and we love being creative. And the last thing is being pioneers, pioneering spirit. We like to be pioneers in technology. We put out a lot of open source. And we try to bring that pioneering spirit everywhere we go. And then, there's a lot of different things that kind of come out of that. For example, we have this internal saying, which is, "Don't do hard things alone." So, you have a hard thing coming up? And it could be hard in various ways. It could be a technically challenging thing. It could just be hard because of the mood you're in that day. But don't do it alone. Ask someone to help you, you know, jump in with you, pair with you. Do it together. And we love that. That's part of the high personal support and the bonitas. So, all these things come out of the foundation and pillars that we have. WILL: Wow, I love all those. I want to pick one of them out and ask you a question around it. So, you're talking about having an impact. I'm loving this conversation just talking to you. It's just been amazing. So, for you, what do you want the impact on the world to be from your perspective? JAMON: That's a hard question to answer, and it tends to be something that I think about a lot. I'm more of an opportunistic person. I react more than I plan ahead, that sort of thing. But with that said, I think that we have had significant positive impact through a lot of different ways. So, on Twitter, for example, I try to present a...and this is authentically who I am. But I try to present a positive force out there, someone who's excited and enthusiastic about the technology, who supports other people, even who you might consider competitors, for example. I just retweeted recently a Callstack thing. I mean, you might consider them a competitor. They're another React Native agency. But I love Callstack. They're great people. And I retweeted one of their really amazing resources, which is the ultimate guide to React Native performance, which, by the way, is really good. And if you do React Native, you should check it out. So, I think what goes around comes around, and I really want to have that positive impact out there. I want to give talks that inspire people. You know, I'm a nerd, and I'm going to nerd out about stuff. And I feel like that has an impact all of its own. So, that's kind of my personal side of it. And then Infinite Red is a showcase that you can run a company the right way. You can treat people the right way. And the company can be successful along our own metrics of success. WILL: So, one of my biggest principles that I've learned in life that's changed my leadership 100,000% is from this book called One Minute Manager. And I think it's called one-minute praise. And, essentially, the background behind it is, if you think something, just tell the person because so many times...and I get in my head, and I think amazing things about people, but I never say it. JAMON: [laughs] WILL: So, I want to just tell you, like, you said, the impact that you're making. You are doing that. Like, one of the reasons why I invited you on the show was because of your impact that I see that you're having on Twitter and LinkedIn and just everything that you're doing at Infinite Red. So, keep going. I want you to know that you are making a difference. I see you, and it's making a big difference in my life. JAMON: I love that, and it makes me feel great. And I appreciate you sharing that one-minute praise there. It is something that sometimes you put it out there, and you don't really know what the impact is, you know, it's sort of hidden in maybe the likes, or the replies, or whatever. As an example, I just reached out to my friend Aaron Francis last night, and I told him, "Hey, I love your videos." I don't even do the tech that he does. But I watch his videos on YouTube because I just love the vibe that he has. And I told him that. I was like, "You're doing a great job. You're being a very good advocate for your company." And I agree with you; I think that just taking the moment to reach out and say, "Hey, I think you're doing good work," it encourages people to do more of it. So, I appreciate it a lot, Will. That's really nice of you to say. WILL: Yeah, definitely. If you can go back, what is some advice that you would give yourself? We could do both at the beginning when you did ClearSight and whenever you merged and did Infinite Red. Was there any advice that you're like, wow, I learned these lessons, and they were game changers for me? JAMON: [laughs] Boy, this could be a whole nother podcast, to be honest. There are so many different things that I've kind of learned over the years. I feel like, you know, there's value in, you know, there was actually...I forget exactly where I heard this, but it was about Cloudflare, the company. And a long time ago, as they were sort of launching, one of the people that worked on the...I think it was their founder, actually. One of their investors told him, "Hey, running a company is sort of like flying an airplane. You want to make sure that it's well-maintained at all times. And then, when you're flying, you keep the wheel steady and the nose 10 degrees above the horizon so you continue to rise. And you don't need to shoot for the moon. We're not a rocket here. Just continue to execute well, make sure that it's well maintained, make sure that you're continually rising." And Cloudflare is a good example of this, and I think that Infinite Red is as well. Every year, we try to do something where we're continuing to keep that nose 10% above the horizon. That doesn't always mean growing. Like, we don't hire all that often. We don't grow in terms of headcount, but we grow in other ways. And you can see that looking back over the years. Every year, there was something that we continued to, you know, improve, keeping that nose 10 degrees above the horizon. And so, that's a big one. And you can just go do all the little things really well and continue to think long term and where are you headed. And if you do the right things long enough, good things happen. WILL: I love that because, especially when I'm working out, I try to shoot for the moon. JAMON: [laughs] WILL: I go all out. So, that was some amazing advice. I don't even remember who told me, but when I first started programming, I tried to shoot for the moon. And, oh, I crashed and burned so many times [laughs] because it's just something you can't just master it, and just like, I got it, da da da. And I love that advice. That's amazing advice. So, that's perfect. JAMON: Yeah, it really stuck with me, and I have so many more lessons. I have actually kept a notebook of profound things that I've heard over the years, and I actually really enjoy that minute praising you said. And I'm going to look up the quote after this, and I'm going to put it in my notebook. [laughter] WILL: Yeah, yeah. It's been a game-changer because I'm a very straightforward person. And so, a lot of times, like, I don't mind addressing an issue just head-on. But what I found is I'm just always doing that. And I never had equity in the bank at times. This is when I was a very young leader. I didn't have equity. And so, it was just hard to tell people, "Hey, can we tweak this? Can we do that?" And then I had to sit back and say, okay, what can I change to be a better leader? And it's like, I can connect better. And I see so many things. Like, I'm very observant, I think. To be honest, it's helped me in every area, even with my spouse, with my kids, with friends. It's just saying, "Hey, I see what you did. I see that you made breakfast." Or "My kids, I see that you made this beautiful mud pie for me. And it's amazing. So, thank you. Thank you." And so, yeah, it's been a game changer for me. JAMON: Yeah, one of my friends, his goal was...and he's a leader. And he said that his goal with everyone on one was to give them one thing to change and highlight one thing they did well like you said, equity in the bank. He was talking about when he was a leader of, like, a call bank. And he said, "No matter how bad the call was, I wouldn't give them more than two things to improve because there was no way that they could take ten critiques and improve. They would just be defeated." And then, he would review and see if they could improve one more thing, avoided negative language, things like that. So, that's a really interesting concept. WILL: Yeah, definitely, definitely. So, I have one other question for you. What motivates you? What's your wind in your sails? What keeps you going? Because I know running a consultant agency is not easy. What keeps you going? JAMON: For me, motivation tends to be enthusiasm for learning, really more than anything, like going into something new and, like, exploring. I see it more as exploring even than learning. With a consultancy, there's always so many different...it's never the same, you know, there's always some other challenge. And that's one of the reasons I've loved being, you know, a consultancy owner for so many years. You're never dealing with just the same stuff over and over. So, I would say it's really about the exploration that happens, and just loving code, and talking shop, and being around great people. To me, that continues to motivate me. WILL: I love that. Do you have anything that you would like to promote — personally, Infinite Red, anything? JAMON: Well, Infinite Red, of course. If you're looking for React Native, we are all senior-level React Native developers. We've been working together for a long time. So, big companies, the biggest ones you can think of, many of them have hired us to, you know, be the experts with their team. We usually put 2 or 3 people on a project, and then the client will come in with 2 to 10 people or whatever they have on their side. And we work with them side by side, teaching them as well as delivering code. So, that's really our bread and butter. We also put on the biggest and, I think, only U.S.-based React Native conference, and it's called Chain React. It's in Portland. Next year, it's going to be in July. So, go check it out: chainreactconf.com. We'd love to see you all there. I'd love to see you there, Will. And network with all these different React Native developers. There's people from Meta, and Microsoft, Amazon, all over the world, really. And they're some of the best React Native programmers you're going to ever meet, and some great talks, and great food, and a great city. WILL: Yeah, I would love to be there. Let me ask you this: how is Portland in July? JAMON: Portland is amazing in July. Sometimes, it can get hot, but for the most part, it's just beautiful. It'll be like 85 degrees, not really any humidity, nice, little breeze. It's just a beautiful weather pattern around Julyish. That's why we chose that time of year. So, definitely, if you're going to be coming to Oregon, Portland, you know, West Coast, July is a great time to come. It's not going to be super, super hot, usually. Sometimes, I mean, we get over 100 sometimes, but no worries, you know, there's AC as well. But for the most part, it's beautiful. WILL: You sold me already. JAMON: [laughs] WILL: So, I live in South Florida, so...[laughs] JAMON: Yeah, it's going to be different in South Florida in July. [laughter] WILL: Awesome. Well, this has been an amazing chat, and just great getting to know you and learning more about Infinite Red. Thank you for being a part of the podcast. JAMON: Yeah. Thanks for inviting me, Will. It was a lot of fun, and you're a great host. I appreciate it. WILL: I appreciate it. JAMON: You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on Twitter @will23larry. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions. Special Guest: Jamon Holmgren.

React Native news, insights & gossip with React Native Radio | The React Native Show Podcast #27

The React Native Show Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 27, 2023 37:22

In this special crossover episode of The React Native Show Podcast, we join forces with React Native Radio to bring you a lively discussion on all things React Native. Following two intense days of React Native EU 2023, Łukasz Chludziński (@loginlukasza) from Callstack and Jamon Holmgren (@jamonholmgren) from Infinite Red got together to delve into the gossip and current events surrounding React Native, providing valuable insights from their experiences working with clients and contributing to the community. Here's what you can expect from this information-packed episode: ➡️ Core Contributor Summit 2023: Insights into how the people and businesses contributing to React Native are shaping the ecosystem. ➡️ New Debugger: Explore the transition from Flipper to the new debugger and how it benefits the developer experience. ➡️ React Native 1.0: Learn about the journey towards a stable, shared architecture and potential productization. ➡️ Evolution of Expo: Discover the latest features and perspectives on Expo from a tech & business standpoint. ➡️ Static Hermes: Delve into the limitations and opportunities of static Hermes. ➡️ New Architecture: Uncover the transition to an interop layer and compatibility in React Native. Tune in now to stay up-to-date with the latest happenings and get all the juicy details! Check out other episodes of our podcast

evolution gossip expo hermes flipper react native infinite red react native radio jamon holmgren callstack

067 - Pros and cons of running a boutique agency, with Jamon Holmgren (CTO @ Infinite Red)

Life on Mars - A podcast from MarsBased

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 4, 2023 59:55

One of the downsides of running an agency, or a services-based company per se, is that you don't get media coverage. Only the biggest ones get some coverage but for us, small agencies, it's nearly impossible: we don't do B2C, we don't have products consumed by large chunks of population, most of our work is behind NDAs and also we don't raise funds.The reality is that agencies are largely profitable and enjoyable businesses to run, even more so if you focus on value not on scale. Hence, we invited Jamon Holmgren (CTO and co-founder of Infinite Red) to jam on running a boutique agency like theirs.We riff for about an hour, discussing NDAs, how to run boutique agencies, team crafting, React Native, lifestyle businesses and much more.

technology running entrepreneurship podcasting startups agency cto pros and cons b2c boutique agencies life on mars bootstrapping ndas mike holmgren react native mobile development infinite red jamon holmgren

Episode 183 - Step by Step on How to Hire w/Jamon Holmgren, Founder & CTO at Infinite Red, Inc.

Guidance Counselor 2.0

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 21, 2022 34:33

I am joined by Jamon Holmgren, Founder & CTO at Infinite Red, Inc. We are going to dive into his hiring processes because Jamon really understands being intentional! Like what you hear? Connect with me - Website: www.vaco.com/taylor LinkedIn: Taylor Desseyn Tweet me: @tdesseyn Pics of the life, wife, daughter & dog: @tdesseyn

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Episode -- Luther's Small Catechism -- The Sacrament of the Altar

God's Peace

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 14, 2022 123:40

In this episode Nicholas is joined by Pastor Jay Weidner and Jamon Holmgren. Join them as they visit and discuss the sacrament of the altar. There's even some discussion on the civil war!This episode of the podcast is sponsored by the Eastern Mission of the ALC. Find out what they are all about here: http://alcem.org You can find out more about the Apostolic Lutheran Church of America here: http://apostoliclutheran.org/ Jay is the pastor of the Laurium Shining Light Apostolic Lutheran Church. Their recent sermons can be found here: https://lauriumshininglight.church/Sermon-Archive.htm Jay is also the President of the Inter-Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hancock Michigan. If you're interested in finding out more about the seminary and taking classes go to https://ilseminary.org/Nicholas is the pastor of the New York Mills Apostolic Lutheran Church. Their service is live streamed every morning at 10:30 AM CST. They also have an extensive sermon archive. http://www.nymalc.org/ Our goal is for this podcast to eventually be listener supported. You can support us here. https://www.patreon.com/Godspeace?fan_landing=true

america president theology communion altar luther sacrament alc small catechism jamon holmgren

The React Native Show Podcast: Coffee Talk #2 - Top Resources for Developers

The React Native Show Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 17, 2022 27:54

In this Coffee Talk Aleksandra Desmurs-Linczewska (https://www.callstack.com/team/aleksandra-desmurs-linczewska) and Łukasz Chludziński (https://www.callstack.com/team/lukasz-chludzinski) provide a lot of ideas for staying up to date with the community news. They discuss the most valuable resources such as newsletters, top Twitter accounts, blogs, podcasts, conferences, GitHub and release notes: Newsletters: The React Native Newsletter, Tyler's (ui.dev) newsletter, JavaScript Weekly, Cassidy Williams's newsletter Twitter accounts: official React and React Native accounts Callstack, Remix, Next, Vercel accounts of people who are well-known in the community: Angie Jones (@techgirl1908), Sara Vieira (@NikkitaFTW), Kadi Kraman (@kadikraman), Evan Bacon (@Baconbrix), Dan Abramov (@dan_abramov), Lorenzo Sciandra (@Kelset), Rick Hanloni (@rickhanlonii), Ryan Cavanaugh (@SeaRyanC), Cassidy Williams (@cassidoo), Michal Pierzchala (@thymikee), Wes Bos (@wesbos), Jamon Holmgren (@jamonholmgren), Kent C Dodds (@kentcdodds), Michael Jackson (@mjackson), Ryan Florence (@ryanflorence), Sebastien Lorber (@sebastienlorber) Conferences: React Native EU https://hubs.li/Q01bt5WQ0 React Summit https://reactsummit.com/ Chain React https://cr.infinite.red/ Podcasts: The React Native Show https://hubs.li/Q01bt7gK0 React Native Radio https://reactnativeradio.com/ DevSpresso JS News https://bit.ly/3LnLYmC YouTube channels: Ben Awad https://www.youtube.com/c/BenAwad97 William Candilion https://www.youtube.com/c/wcandillon Fireship.io https://www.youtube.com/c/Fireship The overview of resources will come in handy for every React Native developer regardless of whether you have much experience or you are new to the React Native world.

michael jackson remix developers react github coffee talk react native kent c dodds wes bos dan abramov angie jones cassidy williams ryan florence jamon holmgren chain react

React Native - Flying High with Flutter #26

Flying High with Flutter

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 29, 2021 64:42

Hi everyone! We had a great time with Jamon Holmgren. In this episode, Jamon talked about React Native. Please check out this episode!Resources:jamonholmgren.comhttps://infinite.red/https://github.com/infinitered/ignitehttps://github.com/infinitered/thesis-phoenixhttps://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/https://reactnative.dev/blog/2018/06/14/state-of-react-native-2018https://yogalayout.com/https://github.com/GantMan/ReactStateMuseumhttps://mobx-state-tree.js.org/intro/welcomehttps://github.com/infinitered/reactotronhttps://fbflipper.com/docs/features/react-native/https://microsoft.github.io/code-push/https://docs.expo.dev/https://twitter.com/eli_white/status/14227905256 94844928https://www.twitch.tv/jamonholmgrenhttps://reactnativeradio.com/Credits:

flying high flutter react native jamon jamon holmgren

Overcoming adversity using “Sisu” with Jamon Holmgren

Frontend Greatness

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2021 53:54

Jamon Holmgren, the co-founder Infinite Red and the maintainer of mobx-state-tree, joins A-P Koponen on the Frontend Greatness podcast to talk about "Overcoming adversity using “Sisu”." In this episode: - What is "Sisu"? - What kind of adversities can you face as a developer? - How can you learn to better deal with adversity? - Learning to know what motivates you. - Learning to ask for help from others. --- Episode Notes Social - Jamon's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamonholmgren - A-P's Twitter: https://twitter.com/apkoponen Show Notes - Infinite Red: https://infinite.red/ - Jamon's tractor: https://twitter.com/jamonholmgren/status/1366201301244149762 - Lasse Virén in Münich Olympics 1972: https://www.riemurasia.net/video/10000-metrin-finaali-Munchenin-kesaolympialaisissa-1972/208200 - 16 Basic Desires: https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/16_basic_desires_theory_of_motivation - Self-determination theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory Jamon's Recommendations - "The Culture Code" by Daniel Coyle: http://danielcoyle.com/the-culture-code/

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Jamon Holmgren CTO & Founder + Open Source Leadership

The Unicorn Finders

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 18, 2020 41:34

Hey Blessing! In this episode we catch up with Jamon Holmgren on what is 'open source leadership'. We dive into open source development as well as learning to lead within an open source enviornment. If you are passionate about leadership and code then this is your episode! If you need to reach out, email info@theunicornfinders.com If you want to follow us on social media: Head to our LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theunicornfinders Or follow us on Twitter! Jake Shepherd (sirjakeshep) Dan Thompson (dk_thompson) Taylor Desseyn (tdesseyn)

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E-015 Guest from the West - Jamon Holmgren from Infinite Red

React Native Nerds

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 27, 2020 67:00

This week we're joined by Jamon Holmgren to talk about React Native Community, the Lean Core initiative, Ignite, Reactotron and more. 0:00 Intro0:53 - Pronunciation apologies2:22 - Jamon's week of small, annoying, don't have a good answer for it issues7:22 - Spencer's week9:09 - Mobile News / Epic Battle17:26 - Pentagon's UFO Taskforce19:49 - Getting to know Jamon24:00 - Why Infinite Red chose React Native33:06 - Podcasts33:43 - Managing with 3 partners41:55 - WebView47:13 - What is the React Native Community49:22 - Ignite54:17 - Breaking Changes and Maintaining Ignite57:09 - Continued use of Ignite in your projects59:24 - Ignite with Expo support1:02:23 - Reactotron1:03:27 - Keep in touch with newsletters1:04:41 - Chain React1:05:56 - Finding Jamon Links:How to find Jamonhttps://twitter.com/jamonholmgrenhttps://jamonholmgren.com/Infinite Redhttps://infinite.red/Ignitehttps://github.com/infinitered/igniteIR Academyhttps://academy.infinite.red/Apple / Epic Battlehttps://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/17/apple-terminate-epic-developer-accounts-august-28/?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4198Fort-nite Videohttps://youtu.be/euiSHuaw6Q4The original 1984 Apple Videohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I10,000 phone for salehttps://www.businessinsider.com/iphones-with-fortnite-selling-on-ebay-for-thousands-2020-8Pentagon Announces Task Force to Study UFOshttps://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3e8pw/pentagon-announces-task-force-to-study-ufosReact Native Fundamentals Workshophttps://github.com/ReactNativeSchool/react-native-fundamentalsReact Native Communityhttps://github.com/react-native-communityReact Native EU 2019: Jamon Holmgrenhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx9slbOTD6Q React Native Schoolhttps://reactnativeschool.com FastLane Cheat Codes (Sign Up Now)https://fastlanecheatcodes.com

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#114 Jamon Holmgren made his own independent way

Software Developer's Journey

Play Episode Play 55 sec Highlight Listen Later Aug 18, 2020 50:27

Jamon first told us about his first experience with the C64 command prompt, and then with a 286, and finally a 486 computer. He told us how a math teacher had an impromptu but forming role in his life. We then talked about learning to create websites and create a business. We talked about coding alone, and learning to accept other ideas. Jamon finally told us the story of his new business, how networking played a BIG role into it, and how it was meant to be.Here are the links of the show:https://www.twitter.com/jamonholmgrenReact Conference https://cr.infinite.redSlack Community http://community.infinite.redJamon's talk at Inspect 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgkKd3nbyk0Other sites and projectshttps://speaking.iohttps://github.com/infinitered/ProMotionhttps://github.com/infinitered/reactotronhttps://github.com/infinitered/igniteCreditsMusic Aye by Yung Kartz is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.Your host is Timothée (Tim) Bourguignon, more about him at timbourguignon.fr.Gift the podcast a rating on one of the major platforms https://devjourney.info/subscribe.htmlSupport the podcast, support us on Patreon: https://bit.ly/devjpatreonSupport the show (http://bit.ly/2yBfySB)

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Why you should use React Native with Jamon Holmgren

Tech Jr

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 4, 2020 70:53

React Native is a powerful tool that lets you write JavaScript/React to create Mobile apps. RN expert Jamon Holmgren joins us to explain how to learn React Native.

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AI is going to change everything; let us explain

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 25, 2020 37:53

Connect with the owners on Twitter!• Todd Werth: @twerth• Jamon Holmgren: @jamonholmgren• Gant Laborde: @gantlaborde

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RNR 156: Progressive Web Apps versus React Native

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 25, 2020 48:47

The panel dives into the pros and cons of writing PWAs versus writing React Native applications. We work out the definition (sort of) of a PWA and having a web application that works well on mobile and the availability and complexity tradeoffs between the two solutions. Panelists Jamon Holmgren Josh Justice Charles Max Wood Sponsors G2i Infinite Red CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________ Links Google - Progressive Web Apps Progressive Web Apps: Escaping Tabs Without Losing Our Soul Apple's Refusal to Support PWA's Alexander Pope: ServiceWorkers Outbreak Why Was Service Worker Merged into Create React App? EmberConf 2016: Opening Keynote by Yehuda Katz & Tom Dale Picks Josh Justice: Sleeping Queens Sushi Go! Jamon Holmgren: Learn to code in 2020, get hired, and have fun along the way Charles Max Wood: Hiss King of Tokyo

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RNR 156: Progressive Web Apps versus React Native

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 25, 2020 48:47

The panel dives into the pros and cons of writing PWAs versus writing React Native applications. We work out the definition (sort of) of a PWA and having a web application that works well on mobile and the availability and complexity tradeoffs between the two solutions. Panelists Jamon Holmgren Josh Justice Charles Max Wood Sponsors G2i Infinite Red CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________ Links Google - Progressive Web Apps Progressive Web Apps: Escaping Tabs Without Losing Our Soul Apple's Refusal to Support PWA's Alexander Pope: ServiceWorkers Outbreak Why Was Service Worker Merged into Create React App? EmberConf 2016: Opening Keynote by Yehuda Katz & Tom Dale Picks Josh Justice: Sleeping Queens Sushi Go! Jamon Holmgren: Learn to code in 2020, get hired, and have fun along the way Charles Max Wood: Hiss King of Tokyo

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Getting Paid: Why is it so hard sometimes?

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2020 43:17

Connect with the owners on Twitter!• Todd Werth: @twerth• Jamon Holmgren: @jamonholmgren• Gant Laborde: @gantlaborde

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RNR 155: React Native Drax and Open Source with Joe Lafiosca

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2020 68:32

Joe Lafiosca gave a lightning talk at Chain React 2019 and wrote a library that allows you to drag and drop views in React Native. If you need to move, re-order, or manage elements or lists in your React Native app, you should check out Drax. Joe walks us through the capabilities of the library and how it came together. Panelists Jamon Holmgren Charles Max Wood Guest Joe Lafiosca Sponsors G2i Infinite Red CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________ Links [Drax the Destroyer](00:35:47 Charles Wood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drax_the_Destroyer) Chain React 2019 - Joe Lafiosca - Lightning Talk - 3rd Party Nightmares GitHub Nuclearpasta react-native-drax Facebook.github React Native Docs Haxe Twitter Joe Lafiosca Proxi Coach Picks Jamon Holmgren: Slack Minder Charles Max Wood: Generation Z Unfiltered Joe Lafiosca: TypeScript 8-Bit Show And Tell

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RNR 155: React Native Drax and Open Source with Joe Lafiosca

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2020 68:32

Joe Lafiosca gave a lightning talk at Chain React 2019 and wrote a library that allows you to drag and drop views in React Native. If you need to move, re-order, or manage elements or lists in your React Native app, you should check out Drax. Joe walks us through the capabilities of the library and how it came together. Panelists Jamon Holmgren Charles Max Wood Guest Joe Lafiosca Sponsors G2i Infinite Red CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________ Links [Drax the Destroyer](00:35:47 Charles Wood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drax_the_Destroyer) Chain React 2019 - Joe Lafiosca - Lightning Talk - 3rd Party Nightmares GitHub Nuclearpasta react-native-drax Facebook.github React Native Docs Haxe Twitter Joe Lafiosca Proxi Coach Picks Jamon Holmgren: Slack Minder Charles Max Wood: Generation Z Unfiltered Joe Lafiosca: TypeScript 8-Bit Show And Tell

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RNR 154: React Native at Scale at Wix with Omri Bruchim

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 11, 2020 59:28

Omri explains how to build React Native apps that will be used by thousands and thousands of users across a large website infrastructure. He explains the architecture and modules used and how they approach native code for Wix's applications. Panelists Josh Justice Jamon Holmgren Christopher Reyes Guest Omri Bruchim Sponsors G2i Infinite Red CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________ Links Chain React 2018: Detox: A year in. Building it, Testing with it by Rotem Mizrachi-Meidan Detox: Github Detox Instruments Chain React 2019 - Lorenzo Sciandra - All Hands on Deck - The React Native Community Experience Github Remx Picks Josh Justice: Pitch Meetings Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Online Course Christopher Reyes: The Millionaire Next Door Jamon Holmgren: War Stories

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RNR 154: React Native at Scale at Wix with Omri Bruchim

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 11, 2020 59:28

Omri explains how to build React Native apps that will be used by thousands and thousands of users across a large website infrastructure. He explains the architecture and modules used and how they approach native code for Wix's applications. Panelists Josh Justice Jamon Holmgren Christopher Reyes Guest Omri Bruchim Sponsors G2i Infinite Red CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________ Links Chain React 2018: Detox: A year in. Building it, Testing with it by Rotem Mizrachi-Meidan Detox: Github Detox Instruments Chain React 2019 - Lorenzo Sciandra - All Hands on Deck - The React Native Community Experience Github Remx Picks Josh Justice: Pitch Meetings Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Online Course Christopher Reyes: The Millionaire Next Door Jamon Holmgren: War Stories

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Helping Clients From Zero To One

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 11, 2020 37:36

Episode Links• Startup Package blog post.• Interested in learning more about our Startup Package? Head over here!Connect with the owners on Twitter!• Todd Werth: @twerth• Jamon Holmgren: @jamonholmgren• Gant Laborde: @gantlaborde

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RNR 153: Getting Down with Native Code

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 4, 2020 56:21

In this episode of React Native Radio the panel dives deep into native code. They discuss how it works and shares their experiences using it. They start by discussing why native code is useful and why would anyone choose to use it. The panel defines the bridge and what it means for native code. They consider why React Native developers coming from a web development background are intimidated by the native side. The panel shares use cases for native code, when native SDKs need to be integrated and building UI components, two specific examples from their jobs. They discuss, Java, Kotlin, Swift, and Objective C. They compare these different languages and explain which one is the best for certain situations. The panel shares learning resources and discusses native code for iOS and Android. Panelists Josh Justice Jamon Holmgren Christopher Reyes Sponsors G2i Infinite Red CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________ Links Chain React Conf workshop on native coding Turbo Modules RFC RNR 133 with Eric Lewis on Turbo Modules https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/native-modules-android.html https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/native-modules-ios Native UI Components - iOS Native UI Components - Android React Native Fabric RFC React-native-webview Draftbit https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Josh Justice: Pitch Meetings Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Online Course Christopher Reyes: https://fourhourworkweek.com/ Jamon Holmgren: https://www.spaceengineersgame.com

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RNR 153: Getting Down with Native Code

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 4, 2020 56:21

In this episode of React Native Radio the panel dives deep into native code. They discuss how it works and shares their experiences using it. They start by discussing why native code is useful and why would anyone choose to use it. The panel defines the bridge and what it means for native code. They consider why React Native developers coming from a web development background are intimidated by the native side. The panel shares use cases for native code, when native SDKs need to be integrated and building UI components, two specific examples from their jobs. They discuss, Java, Kotlin, Swift, and Objective C. They compare these different languages and explain which one is the best for certain situations. The panel shares learning resources and discusses native code for iOS and Android. Panelists Josh Justice Jamon Holmgren Christopher Reyes Sponsors G2i Infinite Red CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________ Links Chain React Conf workshop on native coding Turbo Modules RFC RNR 133 with Eric Lewis on Turbo Modules https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/native-modules-android.html https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/native-modules-ios Native UI Components - iOS Native UI Components - Android React Native Fabric RFC React-native-webview Draftbit https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Josh Justice: Pitch Meetings Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Online Course Christopher Reyes: https://fourhourworkweek.com/ Jamon Holmgren: https://www.spaceengineersgame.com

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Foundations and Pillars

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 4, 2020 54:23

Connect with the owners on Twitter!• Todd Werth: @twerth• Jamon Holmgren: @jamonholmgren• Gant Laborde: @gantlaborde

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Ch-ch-changes

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 28, 2020 54:50

Connect with the owners on Twitter!• Todd Werth: @twerth• Jamon Holmgren: @jamonholmgren• Gant Laborde: @gantlaborde

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RNR 151: JavaScript Language Features

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2020 67:23

In this episode of React Native Radio the panel discusses JavaScript Language Features. They discuss their uses, which ones they prefer and how they shape the language. Josh Justice starts the discussion with Babel, a transpiling tool. They explain what it is and invite listeners to donate to the project. Josh also explains what ECMAScript is. Next, they discuss arrow functions, explaining what they are used for. Arrow functions clean up code and encourage clean programming. They also help with “this” keyword binding. The panel discusses the class keyword, and how it made its way into JavaScript. They discuss class features, class properties, and private fields. Though it is a bit of a controversial topic right now the panel discusses the keywords for declaring a variable, var, let, and const. They share thoughts on the controversy and their preferences. ESLint and Prettier are recommended. They compare promise and async-await. Jamon Holmgren shares his experiences from the time before promise and async-await. The panel discusses destructuring and shares experiences from their own work. They discuss property value shorthand, a feature they use every day. Rest and spread are considered. Jamon brings up string literals, proxies, and decorators. They end by discussing the value of learning new languages. Panelists Josh Justice Jamon Holmgren Sponsors G2i Infinite Red CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________ Links https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode https://dank.sh/ JS Private Fields and OO Design On let vs const Promises for asynchronous programming Feature watch: ECMAScript 2020 Gluegun Property value shorthands https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Josh Justice: Donate to Babel https://overreacted.io/ Jamon Holmgren: https://academy.infinite.red/ Beginning Machine Learning with TensorFlow.js

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RNR 151: JavaScript Language Features

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2020 67:23

In this episode of React Native Radio the panel discusses JavaScript Language Features. They discuss their uses, which ones they prefer and how they shape the language. Josh Justice starts the discussion with Babel, a transpiling tool. They explain what it is and invite listeners to donate to the project. Josh also explains what ECMAScript is. Next, they discuss arrow functions, explaining what they are used for. Arrow functions clean up code and encourage clean programming. They also help with “this” keyword binding. The panel discusses the class keyword, and how it made its way into JavaScript. They discuss class features, class properties, and private fields. Though it is a bit of a controversial topic right now the panel discusses the keywords for declaring a variable, var, let, and const. They share thoughts on the controversy and their preferences. ESLint and Prettier are recommended. They compare promise and async-await. Jamon Holmgren shares his experiences from the time before promise and async-await. The panel discusses destructuring and shares experiences from their own work. They discuss property value shorthand, a feature they use every day. Rest and spread are considered. Jamon brings up string literals, proxies, and decorators. They end by discussing the value of learning new languages. Panelists Josh Justice Jamon Holmgren Sponsors G2i Infinite Red CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________ Links https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode https://dank.sh/ JS Private Fields and OO Design On let vs const Promises for asynchronous programming Feature watch: ECMAScript 2020 Gluegun Property value shorthands https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Josh Justice: Donate to Babel https://overreacted.io/ Jamon Holmgren: https://academy.infinite.red/ Beginning Machine Learning with TensorFlow.js

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RNR 148: What's in My Stack?

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 31, 2019 63:08

In this episode of React Native Radio the panel overviews the libraries and tools they choose for their stack and explain why they choose them. Christopher Reyes starts by discussing his favorite notes app, Bear Notes. He shares the features from the app that makes him love it so much. The panel also discusses Notion as a good resource for organizing teams. Next, Chris outlines the stack he would recommend for someone new to development and React Native. He recommends React Native CLI, React Native Navigation, Native Base, and Async Storage. Chris explains why he recommends these tools. The panel also discusses the importance of going back to your source to make sure you are using the most up to date product. The panel considers what version five of React Navigation with the component-based API will change in their everyday work. They all express their excitement to try it. Jamon Holmgren is the next panelist to outline his stack. He builds with Ignite and uses the stack that it provides. Jamon explains how Ignite works and what it has in its stack. He likes React Navigation, MobX and, React Native Screens. Jamon goes over the pros and cons of a Native navigation stack compared to a JavaScript one. He also explains why he prefers MobX and goes over the differences over their various tools. He also discusses the boilerplates built by Infinite Red and what to expect in their upcoming boilerplates. Next, Charles Max Wood shares his troubles with his current DevchatTV app and the panel tries to help. Josh Justice is the last to overview his stack, he discusses one of his hobby apps, building a todo app. He is using Orbitjs, ESLint, Prettier, React Native Elements, and React Native Paper. Josh emphasizes the need to test even in hobby projects, for that he uses Dependabot, React Native testing library, and Detox. Panelists Josh Justice Charles Max Wood Christopher Reyes Jamon Holmgren Sponsors Infinite Red G2i CacheFly Links Bear Notes Notion NativeBase AsyncStorage React Native CLI React Navigation React Navigation v5 preview Ignite React Native screens MobX State Tree React Native EU 2019: Jamon Holmgren MobX Jamon Holmgren - Build an iOS and Android app in 15 minutes using React Native Orbit JS nativeup Dependabot Material UI guidelines iOS Human Interface Guidelines Appium https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Charles Max Wood: The MaxCoders Guide To Finding Your Dream Developer Job Buy DevchatTV a coffee Josh Justice: Editor Snippets Christopher Reyes: MacBook Pro Web Developer Setup — From clean slate to dev machine Jamon Holmgren: Software Libraries Are Terrifying

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RNR 148: What's in My Stack?

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 31, 2019 63:08

In this episode of React Native Radio the panel overviews the libraries and tools they choose for their stack and explain why they choose them. Christopher Reyes starts by discussing his favorite notes app, Bear Notes. He shares the features from the app that makes him love it so much. The panel also discusses Notion as a good resource for organizing teams. Next, Chris outlines the stack he would recommend for someone new to development and React Native. He recommends React Native CLI, React Native Navigation, Native Base, and Async Storage. Chris explains why he recommends these tools. The panel also discusses the importance of going back to your source to make sure you are using the most up to date product. The panel considers what version five of React Navigation with the component-based API will change in their everyday work. They all express their excitement to try it. Jamon Holmgren is the next panelist to outline his stack. He builds with Ignite and uses the stack that it provides. Jamon explains how Ignite works and what it has in its stack. He likes React Navigation, MobX and, React Native Screens. Jamon goes over the pros and cons of a Native navigation stack compared to a JavaScript one. He also explains why he prefers MobX and goes over the differences over their various tools. He also discusses the boilerplates built by Infinite Red and what to expect in their upcoming boilerplates. Next, Charles Max Wood shares his troubles with his current DevchatTV app and the panel tries to help. Josh Justice is the last to overview his stack, he discusses one of his hobby apps, building a todo app. He is using Orbitjs, ESLint, Prettier, React Native Elements, and React Native Paper. Josh emphasizes the need to test even in hobby projects, for that he uses Dependabot, React Native testing library, and Detox. Panelists Josh Justice Charles Max Wood Christopher Reyes Jamon Holmgren Sponsors Infinite Red G2i CacheFly Links Bear Notes Notion NativeBase AsyncStorage React Native CLI React Navigation React Navigation v5 preview Ignite React Native screens MobX State Tree React Native EU 2019: Jamon Holmgren MobX Jamon Holmgren - Build an iOS and Android app in 15 minutes using React Native Orbit JS nativeup Dependabot Material UI guidelines iOS Human Interface Guidelines Appium https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Charles Max Wood: The MaxCoders Guide To Finding Your Dream Developer Job Buy DevchatTV a coffee Josh Justice: Editor Snippets Christopher Reyes: MacBook Pro Web Developer Setup — From clean slate to dev machine Jamon Holmgren: Software Libraries Are Terrifying

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RRU 076: Ignite and the React Community with Jamon Holmgren

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 27, 2019 54:21

Sponsors React Native Radio Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan GitLab | Get 30% off tickets with the promo code: DEVCHATCOMMIT Panel David Ceddia Lucas Reis With special guest: Jamon Holmgren Episode Summary Today’s guest is Jamon Holmgren from Oregon. Jamon is the the CTO for Infinite Red, a consultancy that designs and builds mobile apps. The show starts with Jamon talking about his background in coding, which goes all the way back to when he was 12 years old. The panel brings up his React Finland presentation on building a community around Ignite. Ignite is a plugins and boilerplate maker for React that can speed up app creation. Jamon talks about how it works and how it came about. The panel believes this to be an excellent product that will contribute to code quality and doesn’t contribute to the jumble of boilerplates out there. Since Infinite Red engineers work on both web and mobile applications, Jamon talks about how they navigate the differences between the two platforms. Their primary tool for doing this is MobX, and Jamon expounds on how it works. The panel discusses situations where using React Hooks and React Context are too low level for a state management solution for a big application, and thus where tools like MobX become necessary. The conversation turns to the React Core team and how they view the community coming up with their own solutions. The panel discusses the lack of executive decisions in React and compare it to other languages like Ruby, and how it affects the longevity of a language. They weigh the benefits of a core team that makes executive decisions and causes conflict versus one that doesn’t and the chaos that ensues. They discuss the benefits of standardization, but ultimately agree that collaboration almost always comes up with the best solution. Links Infinite Red Building a Community Around Ignite Ignite Boilerplate MobX State Tree MobX React MobX Emer React Redux React Context React Hooks Apollo Elm Prettier @jevakallio Tweet Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter Picks David Ceddia: Devurls.com Reducing Motion to Improve Accessibility Lucas Reis: CSS Grid like you are Jan Tschichold Jamon Holmgren: React Node GUI

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RRU 076: Ignite and the React Community with Jamon Holmgren

React Round Up

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 27, 2019 54:21

Sponsors React Native Radio Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan GitLab | Get 30% off tickets with the promo code: DEVCHATCOMMIT Panel David Ceddia Lucas Reis With special guest: Jamon Holmgren Episode Summary Today’s guest is Jamon Holmgren from Oregon. Jamon is the the CTO for Infinite Red, a consultancy that designs and builds mobile apps. The show starts with Jamon talking about his background in coding, which goes all the way back to when he was 12 years old. The panel brings up his React Finland presentation on building a community around Ignite. Ignite is a plugins and boilerplate maker for React that can speed up app creation. Jamon talks about how it works and how it came about. The panel believes this to be an excellent product that will contribute to code quality and doesn’t contribute to the jumble of boilerplates out there. Since Infinite Red engineers work on both web and mobile applications, Jamon talks about how they navigate the differences between the two platforms. Their primary tool for doing this is MobX, and Jamon expounds on how it works. The panel discusses situations where using React Hooks and React Context are too low level for a state management solution for a big application, and thus where tools like MobX become necessary. The conversation turns to the React Core team and how they view the community coming up with their own solutions. The panel discusses the lack of executive decisions in React and compare it to other languages like Ruby, and how it affects the longevity of a language. They weigh the benefits of a core team that makes executive decisions and causes conflict versus one that doesn’t and the chaos that ensues. They discuss the benefits of standardization, but ultimately agree that collaboration almost always comes up with the best solution. Links Infinite Red Building a Community Around Ignite Ignite Boilerplate MobX State Tree MobX React MobX Emer React Redux React Context React Hooks Apollo Elm Prettier @jevakallio Tweet Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter Picks David Ceddia: Devurls.com Reducing Motion to Improve Accessibility Lucas Reis: CSS Grid like you are Jan Tschichold Jamon Holmgren: React Node GUI

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RNR 128: Chain React with Jamon Holmgren

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 30, 2019 43:38

Sponsors Radio Infinite Red TripleByte offers a $1000 signing bonus CacheFly Panel Josh Justice Charles Max Wood Joined by Special Guest: Jamon Holmgren Summary Jamon Holmgren, one of the owners of Infinite Red, join the panel to discuss the recent Chain React in Portland, Oregon. Jamon shares how Chain React got started. The panel, who both attended chain react, share their experiences. They admire the small conference and the close-knit, family atmosphere. The Hermes Javascript announcement and Facebook’s coordination with Chain Reacts are considered. Jamon shares the types of companies that sponsor Chain React and how they are chosen. The panel considers the topics and speakers; Jamon explains how they have narrowed in on React Native this year and the success that brought to the conference. Jamon invites listeners to reach out with talks about sharing components between React Native and React Web. The episode ends with bumps and funny stories from the conferences. Links Chain React 2019: Hermes Engine Announcement Chain React 2018: Organizing Code for Cross-Platform Web and Mobile Development by Robert Scarano https://twitter.com/jamonholmgren https://github.com/jamonholmgren http://community.infinite.red https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Josh Justice: Yes silver bullet The Tyranny of Metrics Charles Max Wood: The Lion King https://hopeinsource.com/ Jamon Holmgren: https://podcast.babeljs.io/

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RNR 128: Chain React with Jamon Holmgren

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 30, 2019 43:38

Sponsors Radio Infinite Red TripleByte offers a $1000 signing bonus CacheFly Panel Josh Justice Charles Max Wood Joined by Special Guest: Jamon Holmgren Summary Jamon Holmgren, one of the owners of Infinite Red, join the panel to discuss the recent Chain React in Portland, Oregon. Jamon shares how Chain React got started. The panel, who both attended chain react, share their experiences. They admire the small conference and the close-knit, family atmosphere. The Hermes Javascript announcement and Facebook’s coordination with Chain Reacts are considered. Jamon shares the types of companies that sponsor Chain React and how they are chosen. The panel considers the topics and speakers; Jamon explains how they have narrowed in on React Native this year and the success that brought to the conference. Jamon invites listeners to reach out with talks about sharing components between React Native and React Web. The episode ends with bumps and funny stories from the conferences. Links Chain React 2019: Hermes Engine Announcement Chain React 2018: Organizing Code for Cross-Platform Web and Mobile Development by Robert Scarano https://twitter.com/jamonholmgren https://github.com/jamonholmgren http://community.infinite.red https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Josh Justice: Yes silver bullet The Tyranny of Metrics Charles Max Wood: The Lion King https://hopeinsource.com/ Jamon Holmgren: https://podcast.babeljs.io/

oregon portland panel lion king metrics tyranny mike holmgren react native jamon mobile development cachefly charles max wood triplebyte infinite red jamon holmgren chain react

EP36: Leading a Fully Remote Team with Jamon Holmgren

DistantJob Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 28, 2019 51:43

Jamon Holmgren is the Co-Founder and CTO at Infinite Red, a consultancy where they design, develop, launch, and support mobile and web apps. He's a software developer, husband, and father of four. His life-long obsession with coding has taken him from running large excavation equipment to framing houses to 3D CAD design, until he eventually landed on a career in software. In this episode, we talk about a wide variety of topics, but fundamentally: leading a fully remote team. What is it like to lead remotely? What are the downsides? How do you manage your time efficiently? And, how do you measure your team's performance?

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43: Dive In with Jamon Holmgren. On Career, Consultancy, Conference Organization, Open Source, and Courageous Entrepreneurship

React Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 11, 2019 51:06

Jamon Holmgren is CTO and cofounder of Infinite Red, a consultancy that specializes in React Native. Chantastic asks about Jamon's start in programming and entrepreneurship, why consultancies have an edge in Open Source, and how the Chain React conference plays into their business strategy. They discuss the team benefits of TypeScript, humble PHP beginnings, and the big differences between consultancy and product.

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Episode 40: Infinitely Jamon

Dads In Development

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 19, 2019 46:49

David and Andrew talk with Infinite Red co-founder Jamon Holmgren about running a remote-first business, prioritizing family, staying fit, react native, and open source.

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011 - Jamon Holmgren - Construction Worker, Home Designer to Software Engineer and Business Owner

Second Career Devs

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2018 45:14

In this episode of Second Career Devs, I chat with Jamon Holmgren, CTO and co-owner of Infinite Red, a consultancy specializing in React and React Native Apps. Jamon shares his story of going from construction worker and home designer to software engineer and business owner. Hear about how he got the opportunity to design a home for the general manager of the Portland Trailblazers, and how he started landing web development gigs before he had ever even made a website. Building Infinite Red Podcast - https://building.infinite.red/ House Jamon Designed for General Manager of the Portland Trailblazers - https://twitter.com/jamonholmgren/status/1048104464874258433 Gant and Jason Build a Facial Recognition App - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNEDvkKcXf0&feature=youtu.be ProMotion Open Source Library - https://github.com/infinitered/ProMotion

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Episode 355 | Jamon Holmgren - Context, Effort, Feedback

Developer On Fire

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 12, 2018 48:46

Guest: Jamon Holmgren @jamonholmgren Full show notes are at https://developeronfire.com/podcast/episode-355-jamon-holmgren-context-effort-feedback

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Remote Work Tools

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 7, 2018 56:54

In this episode we are talking about our remote work tools that enable our distributed team across the world to collaborate, design, and build software. Throughout the episode, Todd, Ken, and Jamon touch on their favorite tools—from Slack, Zoom, and Google Sheets—why they chose them, and the ways they have added custom features to really make the remote experience special. Show Links & Resources Slack Zoom G Suite BlueJeans Screenhero RealtimeBoard InVision Trello Airtable Shush Dropbox Bigscreen VR Taking the Pain Out of Video Conferences by Ken Miller Episode Transcript CHRIS MARTIN: The topic at hand today is remote tools, and all of the different ways that you have built a remote company. Where do you even start when you're thinking about what tools to pick when you're going remote? KEN MILLER: This is Ken Miller, by the way. It happened very organically for us. To be honest, I don't know that we could've done this company this way before Slack. Because the tools that came before, Hipchat and IRC and Yammer, even though I worked there. Sorry, Yam-fam. They just didn't quite do it. Right? They didn't quite create the online atmosphere that we need to work the way that we do. Does that sound accurate to you, Todd? I feel like once we found Slack, we were like, "Holy crap, this is epic!" TODD WERTH: I think there's a few alternatives. Hipchat, at the time, wasn't good enough. There were a few alternatives we investigated. I would like to mention at the beginning of this ... This is Todd Werth, by the way. I would like to mention at the beginning, I imagine that a lot of companies in this podcast will need to be paying us an advertising fee. Like Slack. JAMON HOLMGREN: We actually adopted Slack before we were remote. We had ... I think we were using Google Hangouts or something. Or whatever of the myriad Google chats there are out there. They have like 12 apps. We were using something else in person, and then we started using Slack organically right when it first came out. TODD: Sorry about that noise you all heard. That was me throwing up a little bit in my mouth when you said "Google Hangouts". (laughter) KEN: We'll talk about video-chat in a minute. JAMON: By the way, this is Jamon Holmgren. It was ... Initially, we jumped onboard. They did a really good job marketing themselves. We had used Hipchat a little bit, but it just wasn't what we expected. We started using Slack. That was in early 2014, I think it was? I don't think it's a coincidence that within a year and a half we ended up going remote. I think that was one of the enabling tools. We got used to it in the office, but it enabled remote work. TODD: To talk about chat apps or chat services is important, but on a more general standpoint, I would say how you approach it is actually try 'em and do it. A lot of companies seem to just use whatever is available and not look for optimum solutions. If trying three or four different chat systems is too onerous for you, that's probably the wrong attitude, in my opinion. KEN: You think, "don't settle". Don't assume that the first thing that you try is the only thing, and then conclude that remote isn't gonna work because the tool that you tried sucks. JAMON: We tried a lot of tools at ClearSight, before the merger. We tried ... I can't even name them all, to be honest. Part of it is because I like ... I'm a gadget guy, I like to try new things and see how it goes. There was actually a lot of skepticism around Slack because they're just yet another tool that they had to log into and pay attention to. "We already had the email, so do we really need this." It was kinda funny, when I went back and looked at our inner-company email, just tracked ... I think I used the "everyone@clearsightstudio.com" or something email address to track how often we were using it for company communications. It just dropped off a cliff after Slack. The amount of email, the volume of email that was flying around went way, way, way down. In fact, I remember we used to send GIFs in the email threads, and stuff. There were elements of the culture that we have today in Slack going on in email threads. Slack was just so much more well-suited to that. That actually came about very organically. We had tried a bunch of different things. We tried Slack, and it just picked up steam, picked up steam, picked up steam. TODD: I don't ... I'm not even exaggerating, I don't believe I've ever sent an email to anyone at Infinite Red internally. I don't think so. KEN: Unless it's a forward from someone external. TODD: Correct. I think there's people on our team who probably don't check their email very often because they don't have a lot of -- KEN: Yeah, if you don't do sales or any kind of external outreach -- TODD: Yeah. That was a sticking point a few times, when people were sending out the emails, and we had to ... They were wondering why people weren't responding, it's because the variety of people never check their email. JAMON: It is funny, because email does still, it is still a tool that we use for remote communication with outside clients, especially people first coming to us. But as soon as we can, we get them onto Slack because we've found that that level of communication is the least friction, it's very seamless. Slack is definitely featuring very centrally in our remote-tool story, for sure. TODD: Rather than just ... I'm sure a lot of people out there use Slack. If you don't, give it a try. But rather than just gushing on Slack, I do wanna say that the important part here is we did go through a lot of different chat services. You have to give 'em some time. At first, for example ... We do love Slack, but at first it didn't seem that different. There wasn't a bullet list that's like, "Oh, this has feature X", it was a bunch of little, subtle things that made it work especially well for us. KEN: Part of the meta-point there, is you have to treat your tools really seriously. Right? Google and Amazon and all these big companies, any well-funded start-up, whatever, they're gonna lavish a lot of attention on making an office that works for them. Right? TODD: Mm-hmm (affirmative). KEN: They're gonna create an office environment very thoughtfully. I've been to a lot of these offices. A lot of them are very thoughtfully considered. Right? They're designed to create a certain atmosphere. For example, I was at the Square offices once. Huge, cavernous room designed to create a sense of energy. That's the open-office mantra, that sense of energy. They had these little cubicle ... nicely designed cubicle things where you could go if you wanted quiet. Clearly, noise was the default. That architecture creates a culture. At least it reinforces a culture. As a remote company, your tools are your architecture. You either need to buy them from people who design them in a way that works for you, and Slack seems to work for a lot of people, or you build things that work for you, or you create norms about how they're used that do the same thing. We've done some things on Slack, we've done some things on Zoom, to create that sense of being together. Todd? TODD: I would like to add emphasis to what Ken just said. Imagine a time that someone puts into an office: architecture, the layout, the furniture. Rearranging it multiple times, placing stuff. Now think about the time that companies you've worked for put into remote tools. Anyone out there with their hands up saying they spent about 30 minutes on their remote tools -- KEN: Ever! TODD: Yeah. It's not surprising that one is superior to other in those organizations. I would pile on, like Ken said, and take the same amount of effort and consideration of your tools as a remote company as you did with everything else in the physical space if you're a commuter company. CHRIS: I'm interested, too, because as you're talking, you're talking about the difference between physical architecture and the architecture of your tools that allow you to do remote work, and if everyone's using Slack, and it looks and functions the same way, what brings the sense of uniqueness to a company that's using the same tools? TODD: Me. Just me being around makes everything unique, wonderful, and amazing. To answer the real question, you have to take Slack ... One of the great things about Slack, 'cause it's highly customizable, you can add plug-ins, you can add all sorts of integrations. We're gonna talk about other tools than Slack. They literally just pay us a crapload of money just to talk about this. JAMON: I wish. KEN: I wish. TODD: You don't take the vanilla. The point of a tool like that is you take it and you make it your own. JAMON: I did see someone tweeting about switching remote companies. They quit one company and they got hired by another. They did mention, actually, how similar it was. You go into the same place; you sit down at the same chair; you have the same computer in front of you; you log in to a different Slack, and you start working. Right? There is some level of consistency there. In a way, that's a very good thing. You can be comfortable very, very, very soon. There are plenty of things to learn about a new company without having to also learn new office layout, new office norms, policies about who can put their lunch in the fridge and who can't. I don't know what else. It's been so long since I've been in an office, I don't even know. I think there is some level of normalcy there because people do use similar tools. Like Todd said, you can customize Slack to work the way that your company needs to, and you can customize other tools as well. Since we're programmers, since our team has a lot of programming capability on it, we do actually build a lot of glue code in the scripts and things that will help tie all the tools together. KEN: In most organizations that have adopted chat tools, whether it's Slack or something else, they are usually billed as an internal supplement replacement for email. It is great at that, don't get me wrong, but I think something that gets lost in the way people talk about in the way we communicate now is that ... Let me tell a little story. I used to be a big fan of Roger Ebert. Rest in peace. Brilliant writer, right? Super enthusiastic. He was very critical of the way people write online. Very critical of things like emojis and emoticons. I think, while I respect him a lot, I think he completely missed the point on that. The point of that is, although, yes, we type to communicate online, it's not really writing. Not in the way our English teachers taught us. Right? It's typed speech, really. Right? It's a register of communication that's closer to the way that we talk than it is to the way that we would write if we're writing an essay or a blog post. One of the things that I really like about, Slack for example, is the rich way that you can communicate without it looking junky. It doesn't look like something awful or 4chan or some of the other really junky-looking message boards that have that level of expressiveness. It gives you the level of expressiveness so that you can substitute for the lack of facial expressions and body-language, but it's not writing. You don't write ... you don't type into Slack the same way you do. It's much closer to the way that you talk. For a remote organization, where we're not on Zoom all the time, although we are a lot, it's super important that you have that level of human expressiveness in your medium, in the medium that you're using to replace spoken word. TODD: Three comments. One: Zoom is the video conferencing tool we use, and we'll talk about that in a second. Two: I don't spend much time on 4chan, Ken, so I'll take your word on that one. (laughter) Three: just to give an example, talking about customization and you might be asking yourself, "Okay, Todd, I've used Slack. I've used chat. What're you talking about?" Just give you a few flavors. The simplest is creating your own channels that have some sort of cultural significance to your organization. One of ours is called "Rollcall", where we ... It's the digital equivalency of walking in and out of the office. "I'm here this morning." "I'm gonna go get my car worked on." "I'm back." It's not just status, it's also ... not just whether you're working or not, but it's a way to communicate basic, little life things in a short way. We have another one called "Kudos", where we give kudos to people. Which, at first, I thought, probably, wouldn't take off, but it actually did. It's where you give kudos to people for things that they did well, and I'm really shocked how many people give kudos and how many people respond. That's obviously just using the base tool and choosing what content to put on there, and how to organize. There's other things, too. Obviously there's things like code-repository integration, a code bug-reporting integration. We integrate with other companies' Slacks. They have a Slack channel, we have a Slack channel, and they connect so that we can do that with our clients. All the way to we have a custom Bot we wrote for Slack. Her name is Ava. She does a variety of internal processes for us. She's kind of ... In the old days, you'd have a database and you'd have a Windows app written to connect your database for your company, you'd do things in there. We have a lot of internet SaaS-tools. And then we have Ava that integrates a lot of them together. JAMON: Todd, can you give an example of something that Ava does for us? TODD: Yes. There's some basic things that a chatbot might do. For instance, you might wanna ask her where Jamon is, and she'll tell you the information she knows about Jamon. It's a lot of operational stuff. For instance, our Project Manager, Jed, has to produce weekly reports for clients. Ava produces those for him. Stuff like that. Stuff that you would normally do, like I said, in the old days, in a desktop app personally. JAMON: Todd came up with Ava quite a while ago, actually. It was sort of a toy to start with, just playing around with it. He had some ideas where it might go, but over time we've actually invested more and more resources into this internal chatbot and it's proven to be quite valuable. It's saved a lot of time, reduced the amount of overhead that we have to have tracking things because it's able to do a lot of process things. KEN: So far, she has not escaped and murdered us. (laughter) TODD: Not so far. I'm working on that. JAMON: That's a win. TODD: There's some tiny things. She's just a way for us, if we need to program something that we have a sticking point like, here's a very simple thing that took me five minutes to ruin. We do a lot of things on Mondays, and constantly wanna know what last Monday was, or Monday three weeks ago. You can literally just say, "Ava, what was Monday two weeks ago," and she'll tell you. That's a very tiny thing. Generating project PDFs or generating project reports is a bigger thing, obviously. JAMON: Another tool we use to communicate, non-verbally in Slack, is "Reactions". Someone'll post something and we react to it. I think this is pretty common in Slack teams and this is something that Slack did a good job of coming up with a cool idea. Usually you think of up-voting and down-voting, but when you have the whole range of emojis, including custom ones and animated ones and things like that, it can be a very cool thing. One interesting example of this: we have an integration with ... Ken, what's the service we use for Chain React tickets? KEN: Zapier. JAMON: Zavier. Zapier, yeah, and it connects with Eventbrite, and that basically will post any time someone buys a ticket to Chain React, which is our React Native conference, of course, happening in Portland in July. You should buy a ticket. (laughter) We get a notification, and it pops in there, says who's coming. When we're getting down there ... We were getting down to the last few advanced workshops that were available, someone started putting a number emoji underneath it. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, like that. You can see then, at a glance, how many were left. It was very cool how we were all collaborating on that. When someone would buy the advanced workshop, Kevin VanGelder, who's our resident Windows guy, he would put a little Windows emoji on there because that's part of the advanced workshop. It was just a cool way to communicate and collaborate without even using words. TODD: I think the important part of using reactions or emojis or Slack Responses ... Reactions, if you're not familiar, Slack is ... It's simply, someone posts a message, and instead of responding to it, you can post a little image on it, like heart, or a thumbs up, or a vote-up, or whatever. Slack Response is an automatic system that, when you say X, it outputs Y into it. One Slack Response that Jamon hates is that when you say "I'm not a big fan", it posts this picture of this really, really small fan. It's hilarious. I love it. (laughter) JAMON: Really hilarious. TODD: Every time someone put ... We had some that we had to remove, 'cause they just came up too much. Every time you'd say "founders" it would show the Three Stooges, which is "Accurate", but... KEN: It was "founders' meeting". TODD: Oh, whatever. KEN: But still, yeah. TODD: It was accurate but a little too much noise. The point is, it's very important. We've probably added a huge number of Slack Responses, a huge number of our own emojis, and the emojis you can use for Responses. A lot of them have become very cultural. Just to give you a few examples: my cat, Calle, that's short for Calle Berry, I took a picture of her paw. And, of course, cats, if you just do the front part of their paw, it looks like they have four fingers instead of five because their fifth one's back further. We came with this emoji and this thing where, if someone does a really great job, they get a "high-four", instead of high-five, and that's Calle's Response. JAMON: I didn't actually know that was Calle's paw. TODD: Oh, yeah, that's Calle's paw. JAMON: That's cool. TODD: So that's a cultural thing that I created one day, and it just kinda stuck. It became a "high-four"; it is an Infinite Red thing, you get a "high-four". We have other things like that, too, that are very specific to our culture, where you have to explain to people who come in what that means. I would definitely customize it, make it fun. We don't worry too much if clients see it. We're not doing anything inappropriate. At first, there was discussion, "Is it professional if they accidentally trigger one of the Slack Responses?" "No, but does that really matter?" "No," in my opinion. KEN: It depends on the Response. (laughter) TODD: Of course. KEN: There were some that were a little over the line and that, without context, could be a little startling. We removed those. TODD: Yeah, that's true. KEN: But for the most part, yeah, just something that's quirky. Hopefully, we all have clients that, at least the people who are in the Slack room are able to appreciate that. TODD: Another one that's totally part of our culture is, there was this early picture of me looking into the camera with a stern face. That became the "shame" emoji. That's been used ever since. Every time someone wants to throw shame upon someone, my face is there. I don't know if that's good or bad. JAMON: There's another one that's quite disturbing, of you, Todd. TODD: Oh! When you say yes "yis", Y, I, S, yes that is disturbing. JAMON: "Yis dream." TODD: You have to work here to ... KEN: You had to be there. KEN: Some of the things that came from my experience at Yammer, where a lot of the company was run internally on Yammer, there's a couple of really big advantages to that. Especially, at an all-remote company, where the vast majority of conversations happen there. One is that there's very much less pressure to include people in meetings just because, just in case they might have something to say about it. Because if you've having a conversation in Slack, you just pull 'em in. Right? After the fact, and they can catch up. But the other was, there was an ethos at Yammer that was, there was this pat question which was, "Why is this private?" "Why did you make this group private?" "Why is this in a private chat?" Making closed conversations justify themselves, rather than being the default. Particularly when we invite other people into Slack, I notice there's a little period of training, where people will instinctively start DMing, 'cause it's like "Well, I need to ask Ken this question." Say we brought our bookkeeper in, right? They would ask me 'cause I was the contact. I'm like, "Ask this question in Finance." Right? "Ask this question in the Finance channel." Which happens to be one of the private ones, for a variety of fairly obvious reasons. By asking in the channel, then the other people who might be interested can just observe. That's one of the ways that you compensate for the lack of that serendipitous, overheard conversation that people are so fond of in a office. CHRIS: In Episode Two, we talked about the philosophy of remote work. Todd, you actually made a comment that was really interesting to me. You said, "When the leadership uses the remote tools, they immediately get better." Why do you think that's the case? TODD: Human nature. I'll answer your question with a little story. I worked for company ... This is circa 1999. I don't know. I didn't work for 'em; they were a client of ours. For many, many years they were very much a Microsoft shop. They had no interest in testing anything on other platforms like Mac or whatever. We worked for them for nine years, something like that. So this is all through the 2000s. It was frustrating for people who wanted to produce websites that were universal. If someone opened 'em on a Mac, it would actually look good and not look horrible. One day, one of the VPs who was above the software group bought an iPad. I think, about a year later, he bought a MacBook. Once he had that iPad, all of a sudden, it'd become very important that things look good on his iPad, which is funny and horrible at the same time. It is just human nature. If you use something, it's much more front of mind than if you don't. Even the best of people suffer this. If you have a mixed company, meaning you're part remote, part commuter, one of those groups is gonna be a second-class citizen. Period. If 10 people are in a meeting, and eight are remote and two are in the office, the two in the office are gonna be the second-class citizens. More often, it's the vice versa, right? Getting everyone on the same page gets rid of second-class citizens. If you wanna make the best remote environment, either getting the majority or getting the people who have more power in the remote situation will increase your tools' quality big time. JAMON: That's for sure. We've seen that internally at Infinite Red, as well. When we use the tools, which we do, leadership team is probably the heaviest user of the remote tools in a lot of ways. There are situations where they're just not good enough, and we make sure that they get changed, for sure. Zoom is a good ... Zoom, the video chat, video call system, is really an interesting one because it has worked the best for us in terms of video calls. We've used a whole bunch of them. We've used everything from Google Hangouts, Skype, Appear.in, which is pretty decent. Pretty frictionless, actually. I like Appear.in for how fast it is to jump into it, but the quality is still a little bit sub-optimal. A few others as well. The nice thing about Zoom is that it allows you to put everybody into a grid pattern. It has a gallery view, which is really cool because then you feel like you're having a meeting and not doing a presentation. That's something that came out of us doing sales calls and internal meetings where we kinda felt like, "I don't wanna be the person on the big screen," right? Feel like your giving a presentation. "I wanna feel like this is a meeting with everybody in an equal place." It makes people feel more comfortable. That was a situation where we were using the tools for various things and found the one that, I think, has worked the best 'cause, as a leadership team, we needed it. TODD: Yes, as far as video chat or video calls ... We actually need a name for that. What do you say if ... It's not really video chatting. JAMON: Video conferencing? TODD: I don't like ... KEN: It's not exactly "conferencing". TODD: I don't like the term. JAMON: Video meeting? KEN: Video meeting. TODD: Yeah, there needs to be a term for that. We need to coin a term for that, at least internally. CHRIS: Zooming. TODD: Zooming. Well that's ... That's not tool-specific. KEN: Slack as a tool is much stickier, in the long term, probably, than Zoom is. At the moment, Zoom is, by far, in our experience, the best quality. JAMON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). KEN: But that could change. Slack ... there's a lot we've invested in customizing and it would be harder, but ... Although, we have invested some in Zoom, which we can talk about a bit. TODD: I would say Zoom is our favorite for our situation. One of our clients is BlueJeans.net, which is not really a competitor, but they do video conferencing. BlueJeans is really great for many things. One thing is they do every platform well. KEN: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yep. TODD: Which, Zoom, and a lot of the other ones don't necessarily do. Now, we're all mostly on Macs, and it works really well on that, so that works out well. Also, BlueJeans.net has a lot of additional features. Where we basically just need video conferencing; Zoom is so superior. Google Hangouts is horrible. Please, please stop using Google Hangouts. KEN: Don't use Skype. Don't use Google Hangouts. TODD: Well, Skype -- KEN: Skype has gotten better, but -- TODD: Skype's quality is great, but it does a max of six people. We have 26 people. KEN: I disagree that they're quality is great. TODD: I was being ni -- KEN: Even domestically, I've had problems with it. (laughter) JAMON: We have Microsoft people listening. TODD: I was being nice, Ken. JAMON: It crashes a lot on Mac. KEN: The point is, here, you should demand rock-solid video 99% of the time. TODD: Yeah. KEN: If that's not what you're getting, look at another tool. JAMON: This extends to the internet bandwidth that you have available at your place of work, too. Some people that were really scraping by on 20Mb or something connections, and it was impacting video quality, and -- TODD: On what tool? KEN: No, their connection. JAMON: Their internet connection, yeah. That was something that we, overtime, got everybody to upgrade to faster and faster internet. I think that was a success for, pretty much, everybody. They have pretty acceptable internet, now, at this point. TODD: Some aren't as much. We have a person who's a nomad and travels around. We have someone who's in extremely rural Canada, up above Toronto, Tor-on-toe, I'm told is the proper way to say that. Zoom does very well in bandwidth, so the people that do have limited bandwidth, that works very well. We actually have meetings, 26 people in Zoom, which before would have been crazy. Skype limits you to six, which I'm not sure how useful that is for most meetings, but good for you, Skype. KEN: The only thing it's not so great on is battery-life, if you're using a mobile device. JAMON: It sort of trades CPU time for bandwidth. KEN: It does, yeah. JAMON: One of the things that Zoom doesn't do, that we've sort of built a system on top of, is permanent conference rooms. We've found this to be very useful to say, "Hey, let's jump into this 'conference room A', or 'conference room B'." We have better names for it. We name them after rooms in the boardgame Clue. TODD: Trademark Milton Bradley. (laughter) JAMON: There's a billiard room, there's a conservatory, there's a study, kitchen, et cetera. We have different uses for those different rooms. Some are for sales calls; some are for ... One is called Kitchen, which we use for the kitchen table, it's basically where people just jump in there, and work together in relative quiet. It's a cool little concept. We actually built an online, like a website, as well as a desktop app that shows a Clue board with the different rooms that light up when people are in them, and then it puts avatars of who's in that room, including guests, which is very cool because I can go in there and say, "Hey, look! Chris and Todd are having a meeting over there. I'm gonna jump in and see what's going on." I can just click in there, and it opens a Zoom window, and I'm in their meeting. TODD: For example, currently, Chris, Jamon, Ken and I are in Study. We have Kevin and Ryan in Library, and we have Jed in the Billiard Room by himself. I'm not sure what that's about. Maybe playing a little pool. KEN: This goes back to the notion of tools as architecture. Consider the experience of being in an office, and you want a meeting. You say, "Hey, let's meet in Fisherman's Wharf." I was in an office where they named things after San Francisco neighborhoods. "Let's meet in Fisherman's Wharf." Everybody, after they've been oriented into the office, knows where that is and they just go. That's it, right? That's the experience, right? Furthermore, if you wanna know where somebody is, you walk around the building, look into the rooms, and see that so-and-so is in Fisherman's Wharf, so they're in a meeting, they're busy. Now let's look at what it's like to be remote, without a tool like this. "Where's the meeting? Okay, I gotta ask somebody. Oh, okay. Oh, did someone start the meeting? Oh, no, no, okay, somebody needs to start the meeting. Alright, gimme a second, I'm gonna start the meeting. Here's the Zoom URL." TODD: Oh, God! KEN: "Okay, you gotta invite somebody." "Do you remember the Zoom URL?" "I don't remember the Zoom URL." "Okay, hang on. Okay, I got it. Here you go." That's the UX, right now. JAMON: Yes. KEN: Of the base ... TODD: Oh, jeez. KEN: ... video conferencing tool, and it's no wonder people hate that! JAMON: Yep. KEN: Right? TODD: Can you imagine? KEN: Yeah. It turns out ... We've had to increase the number of rooms over the years, right? But how many do we have now? Eight? TODD: Eight. KEN: So we have eight rooms now? TODD: Eight current rooms. KEN: That's pretty much fine. TODD: Mm-hmm (affirmative). For a team our size, that works well. JAMON: We usually don't fill all of ... I think, yesterday, I looked in there and there were six in use, which was kind of a anomaly, but ... KEN: In an office, we can keep adding those as long as we need to. JAMON: That's right. KEN: This is a case where I think we've created something that is actually better than what people who have an office have. JAMON: Yeah. KEN: Right? Because you can, just at a glance, see where people are. Nobody has to even tell you what room they're in. They just say, "Hey, we're meeting." You go look at the Clue board, and you see where the people that you're meeting with are, and you join the room. JAMON: Yeah. KEN: It's just one more little piece of constant friction that we've eliminated. I love it. I think it's a fantastic tool. TODD: Yeah, I keep the Clue desktop app open all day long while I'm at work. It's also cool to see the little avatars and stuff. Makes me feel like I'm at work. When we first started, you did have to push ... This is a very common interaction. "Hey, Todd, I need your help with X." And I'm like, "Let's have a meeting" or "Let's jump in Zoom" or whatever. "Which one?" "I'm already there. I joined a room as soon as you said it." "Which one?" "Open Clue. (laughter) Look for my name. Click on it." JAMON: Yeah. TODD: That only took a few weeks, to be honest, of constantly just needling that to the point where, when someone says, "Hey, I wanna jump in a room," they look and they see where you jumped in. KEN: That brings back the importance of having the leadership on the tool. TODD: Yes. JAMON: That's right. This tool actually came out of a side-project. I think Gant and AJ, two of our engineers, came up with the idea and built a prototype, and put it out there. It was ... I remember being, initially, a little bit skeptical that it'd be useful and it's turned out to be a really key part of our remote experience. TODD: That's actually an important point. No one asked anyone to make that tool. No one asked for permission to make that tool. They made it. They turned it on. Now, we've had tools that people've made. For instance, my tool Ava, which, now, is very useful, originally was Dolores, which is from HBO's great TV show, "Westworld". Dolores never caught on. She didn't do enough important stuff, and so she just kinda died. Later I resurrected her as Ava, which is from the movie "Ex Machina". Excellent movie, by the way. KEN: It's still kind of a disturbing allusion, though. TODD: It is, but it's ... It's a great movie. And then the next movie he did, which was "Annihilation", was fantastic as well. Anyways, not important, obviously. The point is, no one needs to ask for permission. They can make tools. They do. They put 'em out there, and they live or die based on whether or not they're actually used. We do sunset things that just never really took off. CHRIS: You're mentioning a lot of tools that enable remote work, that enable productive work. What are some tools that you're thinking about or are in place that help with focus and eliminating distractions? 'Cause sometimes, people new to these environments can look at these tools going, "Man there's so many distractions. How do I work?" JAMON: I actually think that's one of the biggest benefits of working remotely, which is kind of counter-intuitive. You think, "Oh, there's so many distractions when you're working remotely." Actually, you can turn off Slack. You can turn your screen to "do not disturb". You can shut off Zoom. You can turn off you're email. You can close all of those applications and just have the app that you're doing the work in, you're writing a blog post, you're writing code, you can just have that open. You can turn on a "do not disturb" mode in Slack that'll actually tell people that you're currently away. If you use the tools that are available, remote work can actually be much better, because what happens in an office? Someone can't get a hold of you on email or Slack, so what do they do? They hop up and they walk over to your office, and they're like, "Hey, did you get my email?" (laughter) "Okay, I will check my email, eventually, here. Is this really important?" One of the things that we do is ... This is kind of funny, but we'll actually say "I'm going offline for three hours, 'cause I'm gonna focus on this thing. If it's really important, text me." Our phone numbers are there, right? Nobody's gonna text you, 'cause that just feels like a complete intrusion. Right? KEN: It does happen. Like, if it's a genuine emergency. JAMON: It does happen if it's like an emergency. But that is so rare. That is awesome, because you're adding a ton of friction, but you're still giving them some way to get to you. I think that's a good property of remote work, that you can actually focus more in those situations than you can in an office. TODD: Yeah, try to turn off all the noise in an open-concept office. Good luck! KEN: Yeah, an office is distracting by default. You have to use technology to get some focus. I can't think of any tool that we use just for focus. Right? It's about human habits around how they use the tools that are already there. TODD: I think there are some, Ken. I don't personally use them. KEN: Yeah, yeah. I mean there are things, but there's nothing we use as a company. TODD: No, but there are people here that use, for one thing, they'll use the various timer apps that tell them to stand up, or if they set a timer for focus -- KEN: I've used the Pomodoro timer. TODD: Yeah, there are things. What's cool about remote work as opposed to depressing cubicle work (laughter), is you can set up the environment -- KEN: Soul-crushing commute work. (laughter) TODD: Soul-crushing commute work, SCCW, I like it. In those situations, you have to go to the lowest common denominator. If 50% of the people are very productive and get focused with music, and 50 can't at all, you're gonna have no music. When you're sitting in your own environment, whatever that environment is, whether it's your home, or a café, or co-working space, or whatever it is that you've chosen to be most efficient in, when you're sitting in that environment, you can control and make it perfect for you to be able to focus. Personally, if I'm doing design work or visual work, I play music. It gets me in the groove. If I'm programming, I cannot have any music. Or if I do have music, it can't have any lyrics in it. That's a focus thing. I tend to like to work more in the dark, strangely. I love light and I live in a very sunny place, and a very sunny house, but I have noticed that I tend to get more in the zone in dark and often late at night, for me personally. CHRIS: I'm the same way, Todd. I have to fake my brain into thinking it's late at night by closing all the blinds and turning the lights off. And it actually helps productivity. TODD: Yeah, that's interesting. I used to have this problem at every company I worked at. Even, say, I shared a room with four other people. One office, and four. I would wanna have all the lights off and have a desk lamp so I could see. No one liked this. Having the fluorescent lights on ... I didn't take cyanide, but I do believe I shopped online for cyanide, just saying. (laughter) KEN: So this is in your browser history, now, forever, man. (laughter) There's a FBI file on you. TODD: Oh, there's been a FBI file. Come on. If you don't have a FBI file on you, what are you doing with your life? (laughter) JAMON: At the old ClearSight office, we had some fluorescent lights, and one by one they would burn out. Nobody would tell the maintenance guy because they just liked that they were burning out. (laughter) Eventually it got quite dark in there and everybody, they just wouldn't even turn on the light. TODD: I would like to make a confession. I have purposely broke some lights in offices. KEN: "True Confessions with Todd Werth." (laughter) TODD: You don't want true ones. No, that actually -- CHRIS: That's Season Two of the podcast. (laughter) TODD: That actually is very true. Sometimes you just have to ... KEN: Civil disobedience? TODD: Yes, I like the way you phrased that. Makes things more noble and less selfish. (laughter) KEN: Yeah, right. Guerilla productivity. JAMON: We have some other tools to talk about, too, right? TODD: Oh, yeah, we have other tools to talk about. JAMON: Should we talk about some of them, or ... TODD: Yes. KEN: But enough about Todd. (laughter) TODD: I'll be here all week. Do not eat the veal. JAMON: One of the tools that has been really helpful for us is Google Sheets. Obviously, that's the spreadsheet program in Google Apps. We ... We're having trouble ... Again, this is pre-merger. We're having trouble figuring out how to schedule people. It was just a real pain. Eventually, my Project Manager at the time, came up with a system that involved sticky notes on a board that were, across the top were weeks, and down the left side were the names of people. We could just put sticky notes. My wife went out and bought a whole bunch of different colored sticky notes. We'd put the same project as the same color across the board. You could, at a glance, see who was working on the same project. You could see how long it was going to be, as far as number of weeks, and every week we'd move 'em over to the left and add another column. That eventually migrated onto Google Sheets, 'cause, of course, that doesn't work so well when you're remote. The collaboration tools on Google Sheets are extremely good. It's very, very responsive to having multiple people on it. When we do our Friday scheduling meeting for the next week, and beyond, we'll all pull open the sheet, and we look at it, and we can all update it ... If we see something that's wrong, we can update it. We can change colors of the backgrounds. It's worked really well for, now, two and a half years. I think that's a remote tool that has actually been quite useful for us for quite some time. Not only does it give us forward-looking data, but it also gives us backward-looking. We can look at previous years and see what projects were we working on at the time, who was working on what, all the way throughout. It's been a very cool tool. We're just repurposing Google Sheets to use as a scheduling tool. TODD: Another tool we used to use ... Jeez, I can't remember what it's called. What was the [inaudible 00:43:17] tool we used to use? JAMON: Screenhero. KEN: Screenhero? TODD: Screenhero, yes, of course. I remember when Screenhero was ... It was eventually bought by Slack and is being integrated into Slack. We used to use that a lot, but truthfully, the tools in Zoom for screensharing stuff became superior and so I think almost everyone pairs with each other Zooming. TODD: Another tool we use is RealtimeBoard, which is a sticky board analogist tool; the designers -- KEN: Designers love it. TODD: The designers used it a lot, but we also use it in leadership and the developers, I think, are starting to look into it. It's great for brainstorming. It's a real-time tool, kinda like Google Docs or Google Sheets, where everyone can use it at the same time, and you see everyone using it. That's been really great. The designers use the heck out of InVision, which is a wonderful tool for showing designs, getting notes, and collaborating with clients, collaborating with the rest of the team, and that kind of stuff. Another tool we use for project management a lot is Trello. If you're not familiar, with it, it's a great project management tool. It's a Kanban board, if you're familiar with those. Not only do we use Trello, we also integrated ... Ava connects to Trello, produces reports from ... Ava connects to Airtable, which is another interesting mix between a database and a spreadsheet. We use Airtable and Trello. Those are some other tools we use. KEN: Something to mention, also, is that between Slack and Zoom we have some redundancy, because Zoom has rudimentary chat and Slack has video conferencing. It's not as good as Zoom's, but it's there, and we already have it. For example, when Slack is down, we have Zoom channels that we can all do basic communication in. That provides a certain amount of resiliency for the work environment, and that's very helpful. TODD: Yeah, it does go down every so often. It's funny because our company comes to a screeching halt when Slack goes down. KEN: Yeah, and that's a valid criticism, I think, of remote working. We do have the redundancy so that people can at least, basically, keep going. TODD: We all know now, if Slack's down ... It was, actually yesterday, coincidentally. JAMON: Yeah. TODD: If Slack is down, we go into Zoom chat. That took a while to get people ... It's funny 'cause we don't use email and stuff, and we use that so much. We could jump into a meeting. We've done that in the past, before we had this redundancy we would just jump into a meeting room and kinda like, "Hey, what do we do?" It was like the lights went out and everyone was confused at what to do. It's actually kind of amusing if you think about that. A bunch of virtual people wandering around in the dark wondering what to do. JAMON: We have a lot of redundancy of internet connection. Someone might be having internet issues, but not everybody is having internet issues. That's a pretty big deal. I remember the office internet would stop working and, even though we were all in the same place, yes we could collaborate, no we couldn't work 'cause we couldn't access -- KEN: Couldn't get to GitHub, can't get to... JAMON: ... Dropbox, whatever. Which, we do use GitHub, we use Dropbox. There's a little tool that I use that, I would say, about a third of the company also uses. We're on video calls a lot. When you're on a video call, sometimes it's nice to have a cough button: you hit a button and it mutes you for just a second, so you can cough or whatever. This one's called Shush. It's a Mac app. You can buy it for three bucks or something. It turns your function key into a mute button, so you just hit that button and it will mute you for a short amount of time. Or you can double-tap it and it turns into a push to talk button, which is nice when you're in a big group. TODD: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I don't use Shush, because I use a hardware version of that. I have quite a lot of audio equipment and video stuff. Pretty sure, in the remote podcast, we talked about the importance of having good equipment and spending a little money on good equipment. You cheap managers out there, stop doing that; you're horrible people. (laughter) JAMON: Also the background of your video call is really important. That was actually something Todd really emphasized when we first started. I will point out that he has the messiest background of all of us, right now. TODD: Well, to be clear, I have two cameras. One is a wide angle which I use for the team so I can move around and stuff; and I have a tighter angle I use for clients, in which case, what's behind me is very specifically chosen to be a background, and I keep that incredibly clean. JAMON: I just say that to tweak Todd, because he's the biggest champion of having a good background. TODD: Yes. Jamon's horizon, right now, is extremely tilted, and it's been driving me crazy the whole time, but I'll get over it. (laughter) KEN: I know. I can't unsee that. TODD: In my 46 years on this planet, I've learned not to mention that, even though I really, really want him to straighten his camera. KEN: It doesn't help, Jamon, you've still got a vertical line that is -- TODD: I'll tell you a funny story about backgrounds. Poor Ken. Ken had this very nice ... I don't know what it was. What was it, Ken? KEN: It's a bookcase, right, (laughter) but it's IKEA furniture, so it looks -- TODD: It's IKEA? KEN: It looks like a dresser. Yeah. TODD: This whole time it was IKEA? We thought it was important. We felt bad for making fun of it. 'Cause it looks like a dresser. It was right behind him, and it looked like Ken was sitting in bed (laughter) with his dresser behind him. KEN: Yes, reinforcing every stereotype about remote workers. (laughter) TODD: Right. We kept on bugging him, and he said, "It's a really nice bookcase." I didn't realize it was IKEA. KEN: I didn't say it was a really nice bookcase. I said it was a bookcase. (laughter) TODD: It looked like a dresser. JAMON: It really did, in fact. KEN: That's because it's IKEA furniture, so it's looks like that. TODD: I guess the point is, how things appear is more important than what they actually are. This is something a lot of people aren't familiar with. We have different people with different levels of quality of what they produce as far as visually or audio. I think the general takeaway is take some time. You are almost doing a mini-television broadcast, and you wanna be ... I wouldn't say the word "professional", because it's not stuffy, it's fine if you're wearing your tie-dye and your shorts, but you should make it a pleasant experience for the viewers. KEN: Yeah. You should look inviting, and it should look intentional. TODD: Mm-hmm (affirmative). KEN: And kept. JAMON: We have some other tips for remote video meetings that, I think, are on a blog post that we created. Was that you, Ken, that wrote that post? KEN: Yeah. We could do a whole podcast, frankly, on how to have a good video meeting. JAMON: We can link to that in the show notes. KEN: We can link to that for now. TODD: That is a podcast I wanna do. I do wanna point out to the audience who can't see us now, we're recording this for your listening pleasure, and I put pleasure in quotation marks 'cause I don't wanna oversell it. But, we are actually on Zoom, so we can see each other. Jamon, thankfully moved his camera so we can't see the horizon any more, which is crooked, but right over his left shoulder is a door-line that's incredibly crooked. I appreciate the effort, Jamon, but come on. Have some dignity. JAMON: I will point out that I'm moving out of this rental in a week because I had a house fire, Todd. (laughter) TODD: Oh, jeez. You can't pull a house fire out every time there's a criticism. KEN: The only thing in my background is my Harvard diploma (laughter) because it's all that anyone cares about. JAMON: Yes, exactly. Over my shoulder, I'm thinking about putting my not-Harvard diploma. KEN: "Narvard". JAMON: It'll just say, "Not Harvard." TODD: Sometimes we just invite Ken's Harvard diploma, instead of Ken, to meetings. (laughter) KEN: Yeah, I just put it in frame and then I walk out. (laughter) I'm like, "I'm just the janitor." CHRIS: I do have one final question, as we bring this episode to a close: Is there any tool that you use outside of remote work or in your daily life that you wish existed as a remote tool. KEN: Blow torch. (laughter) CHRIS: Elon's got that for ya. TODD: Not a tool, completely, but here's something ... I have ideas for tools that'd be cool in the future. We have the concept of "kitchen table". This is a real quick story; please, bear with me. The three of us ... I don't know if Ken was, but there was multiple of us of the company who were speaking at a conference in Paris. We rented a large Airbnb apartment in Paris, and a bunch of us were staying there. It had a very large kitchen table. When we weren't doing stuff individually, we'd all sit around the kitchen table, and we'd work together. We would just sit there, like you would at a library in a university or something like that, and work. We wanted to recreate that in ... virtually. The simple solution is we dedicated one of our Zoom rooms, the "Kitchen", to the "kitchen table" and you can't use that for anything else. If you just wanna be around people, but you're working, you're not really saying anything, as if you're in a library ... I guess we should do the library, but whatever ... you'd go in the kitchen table and just be around people. Sometimes people say things and have little conversations, like you would in an office, but typically you're just sitting there working together. That's cool. It's missing a few features which I'd love to see. For one is, if you're not ... Say there was a group of people working in an open office, and they're in the center and you're on the perimeter of the office. You see them working together there, the "kitchen table", now we have that, with our tool, we can see who's in the "kitchen table" and they're there. Great. But you can also, even if you're far away and they're dim enough ... not dim, but the volume's low enough that it's not disturbing, you can still hear them, and sometimes you'll pick up on little words that may interest you. They'll mention a project you're on, or they'll mention a personal interest that you're interested in or whatever, and you can choose then to go walk over and join them, because of that kind of low-noise but informational thing you're getting by being in the perimeter. I would love to somehow integrate that into our tool, where you could have a low-murmur of people in the background of the meetings that you're not in, and listen for things that might be interesting, something like that. KEN: I don't really know how to think about that question. TODD: I find it very interesting that none of us can really come up with a tool that we wish we had. That's a fantastic answer. KEN: I mean ... JAMON: I think there's probably tools that, eventually, we'll get that will be like, "How did we live without this?" But I don't ... I can't think of one. KEN: I can imagine in the future, basically a VR setup. JAMON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yes. KEN: If VR gets to the point where it feels natural; it's comfortable to wear the equipment, it's not a burden just to have the stuff on your head, and the resolution is to the point where you could have a virtual monitor in space, and you can have that feeling of actually being next to people. Then you could, in theory, have the best of both worlds, where you can drop out and leave the space if you want to. You can also be in the space and be available for that. JAMON: Yeah. KEN: I think that would be pretty nice, but ... JAMON: There is a tool out there that's ... I think they're, maybe, in beta right now. It's called Bigscreen VR, it's by a guy that I know, Darshan Shankar, who's on Twitter. I met him on Twitter. He's doing this Bigscreen VR system. It's very much what you described, Ken. Right now, it's only on Windows, and of course the VR headsets are still evolving. But apparently the new Oculus Go or Oculus Now, or something, is apparently quite good -- KEN: Yeah, they're getting better. JAMON: It's also likely, they said that within the next year, that it'll come to Mac 'cause they're working on it. KEN: I think another threshold, though, is the quote-unquote "retina" threshold, to where the resolution of the headsets is such that you can't, in terms of resolution, anyway, you can't tell the difference between that and something that you're looking at. JAMON: Yep. KEN: You could actually make a projected display without any compromise. JAMON: Yes. TODD: I agree, in the future that's gonna be wonderful. I do have some current ideas on how to add spacial stuff to our tools to give us proximity information of each other, virtually. Kind of what you would get if you were in a VR situation, but without having VR. Anyways, there's some interesting things there. KEN: Yeah, we've talked about making an ambient audio device, something like that, that can just sit there and ... Kind of like "kitchen table", but without the video. There's a bunch of things we've talked about, but not of them are things that exist today. They're just things that we've thought about creating or ... yeah.

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