Travel during the Pandemic

Travelling during the pandemic is a tricky proposition.  Airports are said to be transmission hot-spots.  Airplanes are potentially also super spreading sites.  Trains and buses are likely as risky as flying.  Driving your own car is likely safer, except when you stop for food, gas, rest, etc...

A simpler solution is to just not travel physically, but instead travel virtually !  With Youtube and other sites hosting free videos of people travelling all kinds of exotic locations, you can just travel virtually from your own home.

My process for virtual travel is:

1. Pick a place

2. Go to youtube and search for “Virtual Travel <place_name>”

3. Pick up to 5 videos and watch them.

I also have another screen with:

• Google maps and 

• Browser

to look at maps and the history of monuments and places featured in the video.

Here is a link to the places I have visited virtually

Let me know if you find other great videos for virtual travel !

McCarthy TeamWork BootCamp

(Picture from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_McCarthy_(author) )

A few years ago, I came across the "23 1/2" rules of software development from Jim McCarthy.  I found the rules to be full of wisdom and started to use them.  I recently came across a later list of 54 rules.

I enrolled in a mailing list related to the rules, and heard about a TeamWork BootCamp that Jim and Michele McCarthy ran.  The purpose of the camp is to create a team that ships great products starting from a group of individuals; in a relatively short time.  The full in-person boot-camp is ~ 5 days.

If you want to create a great product (or service), I highly recommend the BootCamp.

The theoretical basis for the program is described in their book – Software For Your Head.

McCarthy TeamWork BootCamp main site is http://www.mccarthyshow.com/

Tom DeMarco wrote a review of the BootCamp, and here are some other useful references:

• Blog on Boot Camp by Adam Feurer
• Core Protocols google site
• Core Protocols for Shared Vision site
• Blog on Team Tips by Paul Reeves
• An approach to build great (agile) teams by Hannes Horn
• Emotional Intelligence — the secret ingredient behind high performing teams by KD Singh Arneja
• Better meetings with the Core Protocols by Peter Antman
• Richard Kasperowki’s site has lots of resources, including:
• Positive Bias: the Foundation for High-performance Teams