Attractors in the dating industry

We could approach dating as the problem of whittling down seven billion people to one we want to partner with. The rise of technology has produced new ways of finding this person - from swiping and 'liking' to artificial intelligence algorithms capable of matching based on similarities. In this posts I'm going to apply ideas … Continue reading Attractors in the dating industry →

Three terrible responses to the diversity question

Whenever I interview for a new role, I always make sure to quiz the company on it's level of diversity. The response gives great insight into what a company values beyond the work they deliver. Here I want to share the three worst responses I've hadt and why I think diversity in the workplace is … Continue reading Three terrible responses to the diversity question →

White paper on the secret sharing implementation in Hashicorp’s Vault

Securing a secret, whether it's a password, sensitive information or a cryptographic key, is hard to get right. Hashicorp's Vault attempts to remove the headaches by providing simple APIs no matter what form the storage back-end takes. I have just finished a report which looks into part of the implementation of Vault to show the mechanisms used to protect user's … Continue reading White paper on the secret sharing implementation in Hashicorp’s Vault →

Systems Thinking, Complexity Thinking and Anthro-Complexity

I had another trip to Amsterdam this month to attend Dave Snowden's course: Cynefin and Sense-Making. I'll be making a series of posts about what I learnt. I'll start by comparing systems thinking and complexity thinking and by giving an introduction to the field of study that Dave is calling Anthro-Complexity. In systems thinking, analysis of … Continue reading Systems Thinking, Complexity Thinking and Anthro-Complexity →

Velocity 2015, 2: System Design = Organisation Design

This is the second of a series of posts covering what I learnt at Velocity Amsterdam 2015. During the second day, Mike Amundsen of CA Technologies shared his insights into the works of Melvin Conway. While Conway's Law may be well known, it is only stated as the thesis of his article "How do committees invent?". Mike showed that … Continue reading Velocity 2015, 2: System Design = Organisation Design →

Velocity 2015, 1: Keeping Secrets Secret

I  was fortunate enough to attend Velocity in Amsterdam this year, which followed several major themes - one of which being security. This post was inspired by a presentation given by Alex Schoof entitled "Managing Secrets at Scale". Alex covered many areas, including how to control the use of secrets, how they can be made highly available … Continue reading Velocity 2015, 1: Keeping Secrets Secret →