Don't Be Frupid
selix.net
Don't Be Frupid
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Re: Don't Be Frupid
#2[deleted]
Re: Don't Be Frupid
#3> Conference Austerity
> Conferences get nuked because someone upstairs sees them as a “nice to have.” The irony? That conference could’ve been where your engineers learned about a new technique that would’ve saved you a million bucks in infrastructure costs. Instead, they’re stuck reinventing the wheel – badly.
I agree with the thesis in general but this point is not resonating strongly with me.
Conferences are expensive.
AWS reinvent for example requires you to spend 2000 dollars on a conference ticket and travel to Las Vegas and pay for expensive hotels etc.
Most of the content from the sessions and talks there is posted online on YouTube ... in recent memory they posted them online within a day (full credit to them).
The added benefit of attending conferences in person is very hard to justify IMO. Yes there is networking and yes there are some hands on workshops etc.
Instead of the justification offered in the blog post ... I would say, sponsoring your employees' visits to conferences shows that you treat them well, care about their personal learning and growth, and inturn motivates them to look for synergies between their interests and work. They might end up learning that technique from a free youtube video anyway, but only the motivated ones care about applying it at work.
Re: Don't Be Frupid
#4Fairly sure this term originated at Amazon.
Re: Don't Be Frupid
#5> Conference Austerity > Conferences get nuked because someone upstairs sees them as a “nice to have.” The irony? That conference could’ve been where your engineers learned about a new technique that would’ve saved you a million bucks in infrastructure costs. Instead, they’re stuck reinventing the wheel – badly. I agree with the thesis in general but this point is not resonating strongly with me. Conferences are expe…
I would also add that people shouldn't overlook regional or local conferences. The big ones are a lot of fun and have a lot of benefits, but local or regional ones can often be way cheaper and also still have some great content and networking.
Re: Don't Be Frupid
#6This is why my favourite HTTP error code is 429.
If you didn't have to look that up then chances are you've been somewhere that's frupid. :D
Re: Don't Be Frupid
#7This article supports spending money quickly to do things right. I am fully on board with this. I've been in a small constant all my life, and we can spend money quickly, effectively, and in some cases wasteful.
Now obviously it'll vary by amount, but mostly we don't overthink it. We need x, we get x. Often we then use x, but occasionally it turns out we didn't need it. It's easy to look around the office and see a bunch of things we bought, but never used.
The point is, we can do this because it's basically "our" money. We aren't beholden to shareholders or (worse) an electorate.
We're seeing the flip-side of this in govt now. USaid is "on hold" because of wasteful spending. Yay, we dont won't waste. But that's like killing a business completely because you don't like the pens they chose.
Of course there's waste. It's impossible to spend money without it. Yes, it should be a small %. Yes not every purchase benefits everyone. But just killing it doesn't kill waste, it kills people. Lots of political points are earned because some payment in there is wasteful. No mention of the vaccine studies that are now useless, or the people half-way through a study who may be getting adverse effects (now with no support.)
In a business we call it Frupid. In politics it makes for z good sound bite.
Re: Don't Be Frupid
#8Guilty as charged. Running a home-brew NAS which was fun to build and a spaghetti wire mess which has to be replaced before I die, or my non tech partner loses the entire family archive.
I'd add 'sending work staff on long flights in economy expecting them to hit the ground running and work straight away' but I have sympathies with companies facing 30%+ rises in travel costs.
Re: Don't Be Frupid
#9> Conference Austerity > Conferences get nuked because someone upstairs sees them as a “nice to have.” The irony? That conference could’ve been where your engineers learned about a new technique that would’ve saved you a million bucks in infrastructure costs. Instead, they’re stuck reinventing the wheel – badly. I agree with the thesis in general but this point is not resonating strongly with me. Conferences are expe…
re:Invent sessions aside from chalk talks are useless. It's definitely a fun experience though.
Re: Don't Be Frupid
#10> Conference Austerity > Conferences get nuked because someone upstairs sees them as a “nice to have.” The irony? That conference could’ve been where your engineers learned about a new technique that would’ve saved you a million bucks in infrastructure costs. Instead, they’re stuck reinventing the wheel – badly. I agree with the thesis in general but this point is not resonating strongly with me. Conferences are expe…
I would also add that people shouldn't overlook regional or local conferences. The big ones are a lot of fun and have a lot of benefits, but local or regional ones can often be way cheaper and also still have some great content and networking.
Conferences are often great places to receive better offers at other firms too. =3