Panel: “How we work” featuring Lance Wiggs, Dale Clareburt, Robyn Kamira, Amie Holman – Moderated by Nat Torkington
- Flipside of Startups given by Nat
- Amie – UX and Services Designer for the Govt, thinks her job is pretty cool. Puts services online.
- Lance – Works for NZTE better by capital programme. Also runs an early stage fund. Multiple starts and fails
- Dale – Founded of Weirdly. Worked her way up to top of recruitment company (small to big). Decided to found something for herself.
- Robyn – Started business 25 years ago. IT consultant, musician, writer.
- Nat – Look at what you are getting from the new job. Transition to new phase in life. Want ot be positive.
- Types of jobs: Working for someone else, work for yourself, hire other people, investor. Each has own perks, rewards and downsides.
- Self employed
- Big risk around income, peaks and troughs. Robyn always lived at the bottom of the trough level of income. Some people have big fear where next job is coming from.
- Robyn – Charged Govt as much as possible. Later on charged just below what the really big boys charged. Also has lower rates for community orgs. Sniffed around to find out the rates. Sometimes asked the client. Often RFPs don’t explicityly say so you have to ask.
- Pricing – You should be embarrassed about how much you charge for services.
- Robyn – Self promotion is really hard. Found that contracts came out of Wellington. Book meetings in cafes back to back. Chat to people, don’t sell directly.
- Working for others
- Amie – Working in a new area of government. But it an area that is growing. Fairly permissive area, lots of gaps that they can fill.
- Dale – Great experience as an employee. In environment with lot of autonomy in a fast growing company.
- Lance – Worked from Mobile – Lots of training courses, overseas 6 months after hired. 4 years 4 different cities, steep learning curve, subsidized housing etc. “Learning curve stopped after 4 years and then I left”.
- Big companies downside: Multiple stakeholders, Lots of rules
- Big company upside: Can do startup on the side, eg a Family . Secure income. Get to play with big money and big toys.
- Startup
- Everything on steroids
- Really exciting
- Starting all parts of a company at once
- Responsibility for business and people in it
- Crazy ups and downs. Brutal emotional roller-coaster
- Lance lists 5 businesses off the top of his head that failed that he was at. 3 of which he was the founder
- Worst that can happen is that you can lose your house
- Is this life for everyone? – Dale “yes it can be, need to go in with your eyes open”. “Starting a business can be for everyone. I’m the poorest I’ve ever been now but I’m the happiest I’ve ever been”
- At a startup you are not working for yourself, you are working for everybody else. Dale says she trys to avoid that.
- Robyn – “If you life is gone when you are in a business then you are doing it wrong.”
- If you are working from home you can get isolated, get some peer support and have a drink, coffee with some others.
- Robyn – Recomends “How to make friends and influence People”
- Dale
- Jobhunters – Look for companies 1st and specific job 2nd
- Startup – Meet everyone that you know and ask their opinion on your pitch
- Young People going to Uni – You have to get work experience, as a recruiter she looks at experience 1st and pure academic history second.
- Lance
- Balance between creating income, creating wealth, learning
- Know what you are passionate about and good at
- It is part of our jobs to support everyone around us. Promote other people
- Amie
- Find the thing that is your passion
- When you are deliverying your passion then you are delivering sometime relevant
Pick and Mix
- Random Flag generator – @polemic
- See Wikipedia page for parts of a flag
- 3 hex numbers are palet
- 4 numbers represent the pattern
- Next number will be the location
- next number which color will be assigned
- Last number will be a tweak number
- Up to 8 or 9 of the above
- Took python pyevolve and run evolution on them.
- Alex @4lexNZ , @overtime
- E-sports corporate gaming league
- untested in NZ
- Someone suggested cold calling CEOs or writing them letter
- Simon @slyall (yes me)
- Low volume site for announcements
- Mutate testing
- Tweak test values of code, to reverse fuzzing
- Landway learning – @kiwimrdee
- Looking for computers to borrow for class
- They teach lots of stuff
- Poetry for computers – @kiwimrdee
- Hire somebody english/arts background who understand language rather than somebody from a CS background who understand machines
- the.dosprompt.com
- Lossless image compression for the web
- Tools vary across the platform
- Glen – Make computers learn to play Starcraft 1
- Takes replays of humans playing starcraft
- Getting computer to learn to play from that DB
- It is struggling
- Emergent political structures in tabletops games
Never check in a bag – How to pack
- 48 hour bag
- Laptop and power
- Always – Zip up pouch, tissues , hand sanitizer, universal phone charger, breath mints, the littlest power plug (check will work in multiple voltages), Food bar, chocolate.
- If more than 48 hours – notebook, miso soup, headphones, pen, laptop charger, apple plugs ( See “world travel kit” on apple site)
- Get smallest power plug that will charge your laptop
- Bag 3 – Every video adapter in the world, universal power adapter, airport express.
- TP-link battery powered wifi adapters
- If going away just moves laptop etc to this bag
- Packing Cell
- Enough clothes to get me through 48 hours
- 2 * rolled tshirts (ranger rolling)
- 2 pairs of underwear
- 2 pairs of socks
- Toileties. Ziplock back that complies with TSA rules for gels etc.
- Other toiletries in different bag
- Rip off stuff from hotels, also Kmart and local stores.
- Put toiletries ziplock near door to other bag so easy to get out for security.
- Leave packing cell in Hotel when you go out
- Learn to Ranger roll socks and shirts etc.
- 6 weeks worth of stuff
- In the US you can have huge carry-on
- Packs 2 weeks worth of clothes
- Minaal Bag (expensive but cool).
- Schnozzel bag – Vacuum pack clothing bag
- Airlines allow 1 carryon bag up to 7 kgs + 1 bag for other items (heavy stuff can go into that)
- Pick multi-color packing sell so you can color-code them.
- Elizabeth Holmes and Matilda Kahl and Steve Jobs all wear same stuff every day.
- Wear Ballet Heals on the plane
- Woman no more than 2 pairs of shoes every, One of which must be good for walking long distances
- Always be charging
Show us your stack
- I was running this session so didn’t take any notes.
- We had people from about 5 compnies give a quick overview of some stuff they are running.
- A bit of chat beforehand
- Next year if I do this I probably need to do 5 minutes time limits for everyone
Close from Rochelle
- Thanks to Sponsors
- Thanks to Panellists
- Thanks to catering and volunteer teams
- Will be back in 2016
