https://sallylait.com/blog/ Recent blog posts from sallylait.com en-gb sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) All content is copyright Sally Lait Thu, 26 Mar 2026 01:00:00 +0000 https://sallylait.com/blog/2026/03/26/leading-through-challenging-times/ Thu, 26 Mar 2026 01:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2026/03/26/leading-through-challenging-times/ In my career I’ve seen a wide range of what could generically be considered “challenging times”: layoffs, a pandemic, complete C-suite overhauls, political instability and wars, reorgs and strategic U-turns, and more. As a manager and leader, one of the most difficult things to do can be supporting a team of others through a tough challenge, whilst you’re also processing and being affected by it yourself. Some examples that I’ve seen people struggle with are trying to lead both affected and unaffected folks through layoffs when your role is also at risk, or leading through a war when you and your reports are worried about family based in an affected country. https://sallylait.com/blog/2026/02/15/2025-into-2026/ Sun, 15 Feb 2026 01:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2026/02/15/2025-into-2026/ Another year has come to an end, and I’m back with my lengthy annual reflections. This was a more challenging year in many ways, and whilst I’d never have chosen the low points, I do have optimism for where I’ve got to for 2026. ℹ️ Note that this is (intentionally) being posted incredibly late and reads as a bit disjointed after being sat at 90% since the end of the year, and finally posted in February. https://sallylait.com/blog/2025/06/22/ldx3-crg/ Sun, 22 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2025/06/22/ldx3-crg/ After the first iteration at LeadDev last year, I was thrilled to be invited back as one of the co-facilitators of the "Connecting Leaders with Disabilities" community representation group (CRG) at this year's LDX3 event. The idea of the CRGs is pretty simple - dedicated space is created as part of the event for different communities to come together. They’re intended as relaxed drop-in sessions where attendees can connect with folks in leadership who might have backgrounds and experiences similar to them, and the role of the hosts is to help steer the discussion with attendees. https://sallylait.com/blog/2025/02/16/blog-questions-challenge/ Sun, 16 Feb 2025 10:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2025/02/16/blog-questions-challenge/ This chain letter-esque post has been doing the rounds, and in the spirit of trying to rebuild my blogging muscle I thought what better to blog about than blogging? This post is a bit of a love letter to having your own place on the web, no matter how simple. Why did you start blogging in the first place? When I first started answering this, my brain jumped to my first ‘proper’ blog, which I started in 2011. https://sallylait.com/blog/2025/02/08/2024-into-2025/ Sat, 08 Feb 2025 10:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2025/02/08/2024-into-2025/ A hugely belated ‘end of year’ post, but it’s here finally! 2024 was a game of two halves (well, 3 and 1 quarters). If it hadn’t ended with the single worst period of my life, this would have been a pretty good year. I managed a lot more travel than before, something that’s always a highlight for me and which creates lasting memories. Unbroken night sleep mostly settled down, I felt very settled at work, and there were lots of lovely moments with family and friends. https://sallylait.com/blog/2024/04/21/holidays-in-japan-with-a-toddler/ Sun, 21 Apr 2024 10:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2024/04/21/holidays-in-japan-with-a-toddler/ Despite growing up as a third culture kid used to travel, and having spent almost 20 years visiting various places around Japan, this spring brought a new experience: taking my kid on their first international holiday. I’ve written this post for friends considering a Japan trip, as well as for future me to look back on. We went primarily as a special trip with my Mum, so stuck to loads of the classic tourist spots and as such this is pretty big city-centric. https://sallylait.com/blog/2024/01/09/2023-into-2024/ Tue, 09 Jan 2024 10:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2024/01/09/2023-into-2024/ My annual, lengthy, round-up tradition continues into another year. 2023 brought a return to Japan, a return to work, a lot of fatigue and health challenges to navigate, but also a lot of lovely memories. This post is part of a yearly series dating back to 2011(!), of which the previous post can be found here. Overview Before I dive in, I haven’t been on social media nearly as much this year, which has been both intentional but also unexpected in how fast I’ve dropped away. https://sallylait.com/blog/2023/04/23/interviewing-caring-baby/ Sun, 23 Apr 2023 10:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2023/04/23/interviewing-caring-baby/ My job hunt experience this time around was very different to previous rounds. Being the day-to-day carer for a baby under a year old, I knew that juggling the two commitments would be tricky, but I hadn’t quite expected all of the ways that it turned out to be, especially around power dynamics. This isn’t a topic I’ve seen talked about a lot, yet it’s something I’ve been asked about quite a few times now, and I think it’s something companies can definitely improve so as not to exclude candidates in a similar situation. https://sallylait.com/blog/2023/02/22/tell-me-about-a-time-docs/ Wed, 22 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2023/02/22/tell-me-about-a-time-docs/ During my latest job search, I’ve found myself wishing I’d kept more detailed notes on situations encountered in previous roles. It’s led me to put together something I’m calling my ‘Tell me about a time’ document. I’ve been interviewing with a small number of companies lately, trying to see if I can find a role that better fits what I want from my life and career going forward now that I have a kid. https://sallylait.com/blog/2023/01/15/2022-into-2023/ Sun, 15 Jan 2023 12:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2023/01/15/2022-into-2023/ It’s time for another annual roundup, but this one’s been a notably very different year. Here’s some of the memorable bits… fashionably late this time around! The big one… having a baby I should probably start here! This has unsurprisingly been the main event that shaped the year. But before I jump in, I wrote about my thoughts on child-related sharing here, which hopefully gives a bit of context if you’re finding this post rather lacking in specifics about the baby themselves! https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/11/29/how-tech-can-influence-business/ Tue, 29 Nov 2022 01:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/11/29/how-tech-can-influence-business/ I was recently invited to be on Skiller Whale's Primarily Context-Based podcast to talk about the topic of how technology can influence business decisions. This is a big and nuanced topic, and as we only managed to cover a small slither of it in the original discussion I thought I’d share some of my thoughts in a long-form blog post form as well as whatever ends up making it into the show. https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/11/21/planning-a-new-chapter/ Mon, 21 Nov 2022 01:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/11/21/planning-a-new-chapter/ I’m not going to bury the lede… I’m making some life changes and am looking for a new role in 2023, and I’d love your help to find it! I’ve been on maternity leave since earlier this year, which has been the longest time I’ve been out of the tech bubble day-to-day since my career started. In between the chaos and sleep deprivation that comes with a newborn it’s also been a chance for me to spend a bit of time thinking about the life I want over the next few years, and revisit how my career fits into that. https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/09/25/learning-japanese-pt3/ Sun, 25 Sep 2022 01:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/09/25/learning-japanese-pt3/ After a very long, pandemic-tastic gap, I’m back with an update on my Japanese learning adventures. For those of you following along, I’ve got a part one and part two ready for your reading enjoyment, should you wish to get the full “previously on…” experience. But as a quick summary, I originally started to ‘learn’ Japanese back in 2008 for a trip, then in 2017 many more trips later I started taking it more seriously and essentially started from scratch. https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/09/16/dconstruct/ Fri, 16 Sep 2022 12:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/09/16/dconstruct/ According to the dConstruct archive, the previous iteration of the conference was in 2015. 2015! My digital footprint tells me that I wasn't able to make it as I was speaking at a small web event in some Kentish woods, and so my last attendance was in 2014, a year that I remember vividly for the content being exceedingly post-apocalyptic and even more brain-melting than usual. Poor, sweet, naive 2014 Sally had no idea what would eventually be coming down the line in the real world. https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/08/25/digital-shadow-inheritance/ Thu, 25 Aug 2022 10:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/08/25/digital-shadow-inheritance/ Earlier this year I had a big life moment: I had a child. As with all big life moments it’s come with a lot of introspection for me, and one of the things that I pondered a lot and felt most strongly about was around how much or little to post online about them; how much of a trail of their life I’d be creating for them to inherit in the future. https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/02/20/developer-satisfaction-surveys/ Sun, 20 Feb 2022 12:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/02/20/developer-satisfaction-surveys/ A recent tweet by Will Larson around developer productivity surveys caught my eye, as this is an area I find really interesting. Despite my interest, it hadn’t really clicked for me that this was a topic people don’t seem to write about too much. I thought I’d share out some of what my current engineering org at Farewill has been doing over the last year, in the hope that it may spark some thoughts for others. https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/01/25/finding-your-leadership-style/ Tue, 25 Jan 2022 12:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/01/25/finding-your-leadership-style/ When it comes to career advice, a common recommendation is you’ll need to work on your leadership to become more senior. In previous times “leadership skills” may have been code for “become a manager”, but nowadays even in hands-on/individual contributor roles leadership skills are becoming increasingly sought after. People are encouraged to know their leadership style, name and share it with others, as well as understand how to flex in different situations. https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/01/02/2021-into-2022/ Sun, 02 Jan 2022 12:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2022/01/02/2021-into-2022/ Another pandemic-tactic yearly round-up! As a reminder, I like to look back at the end of the year, write myself a reflection on how I’d found it, and curate some memories for future me. This is the 2021 edition. But before I start, a little aside is that I realised earlier I’ve been writing these for ten years now! Here’s the 2011 into 2012 post if you’re interested, which seems to be the first one I captured online. https://sallylait.com/blog/2021/06/17/advice-for-my-younger-dev-self/ Thu, 17 Jun 2021 10:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2021/06/17/advice-for-my-younger-dev-self/ Earlier today I saw a tweet from Jo Franchetti, asking what advice you'd give your junior developer self. It's a classic question and one that's ripe for a blog post, so here's my take. Hey Sally, You may have got into this web development malarkey because you liked having a way to put your emo photos and thoughts on your own slice of the web, but I’m here from the future to share some hard learned wisdom. https://sallylait.com/blog/2021/04/11/leadership-through-a-personal-crisis/ Sun, 11 Apr 2021 12:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2021/04/11/leadership-through-a-personal-crisis/ One of the hardest things about being in a leadership position is understanding that you’re so visible, and your actions or behaviour — whether intentional or not — can send ripples through a large sphere of influence. In this post I want to give some tips about how to handle times when you’re not in a good place, balancing taking care of yourself with your leadership responsibilities. I vividly remember Tom Blomfield — a person who’s been very open about his challenges — once telling a story in an All Hands about the moment he realised the influence he had on how others were feeling. https://sallylait.com/blog/2021/01/21/degrees-of-self-care/ Thu, 21 Jan 2021 17:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2021/01/21/degrees-of-self-care/ When it comes to looking after ourselves, sometimes we need to make sure we're practicing self care at the appropriate level. I was recently asked a couple of things which flipped a bit of a switch in my mind. 1️⃣ “What do you do for self care?" 2️⃣ “Do you have anyone else for support?" Now, these aren’t new questions. I’ve been asked them at various points before, and as a manager I often ask them to others. https://sallylait.com/blog/2021/01/03/2020-review/ Sun, 03 Jan 2021 17:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2021/01/03/2020-review/ I’ve written some form of annual summary most years since 2011, and every year I read them back. They act as a reminder of the good and bad, and help me see the threads in my life. 2020’s a tough one to write, and has turned out to be a bit of a monster post. Looking back, 2020 has been the hardest year of my life, and may well have been even without a pandemic. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/11/21/introducing-a-progression-framework/ Sat, 21 Nov 2020 09:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/11/21/introducing-a-progression-framework/ I’ve been involved in a couple of progression frameworks. In my last role I led a group where we redeveloped the Engineering framework, and now in my new role I’m building on some already great work done to help get our first Engineering version done, before I kick off our Enginering Manager framework in December. From both processes I’ve learnt a lot about dos and don’ts. In the rest of this post you’ll find some key lessons I’ve learnt to date, along with a set of questions to ask when you next think about creating or updating a framework. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/10/28/starting-a-new-manager-relationship/ Wed, 28 Oct 2020 09:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/10/28/starting-a-new-manager-relationship/ Starting a new management relationship can be a turbulent time on both sides, and we want to do our best to minimise disruption as much as possible. In this post I'll talk through some steps to help smooth over the process. Whether through someone joining a company and meeting their manager for the first time, or moving manager for other reasons, this period can be full of mixed emotions. Central to making this partnership a success are the non-trivial elements of building trust and a relationship, and establishing an effective working pattern. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/10/03/job-hunt-questions/ Sat, 03 Oct 2020 09:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/10/03/job-hunt-questions/ During my search for a new role, I kept a list of questions to use during the process. In case they're useful to me in the future (or anyone else for that matter!), I wanted to write a post with the key ones. The questions that I ask tend to be split into a few key areas: about the role and what people expect, about the company more broadly, the culture, and then practical specifics. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/09/11/focusing-your-learning-goals/ Fri, 11 Sep 2020 09:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/09/11/focusing-your-learning-goals/ “What should I learn? Technology moves so fast! There’s so many options! How will I ever get through everything?” In the coaching calls I’ve been doing recently it’s been interesting to see some themes come up multiple times. One of those topics is people who’re struggling with feeling like there’s too much they need to learn or improve, and not knowing where to start. A few examples: Someone who has imposter syndrome, another who’s low on confidence and feeling they’re not valued. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/09/06/new-role/ Sun, 06 Sep 2020 09:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/09/06/new-role/ As you may have seen from a few mentions, I'm soon going to be starting a new role. I’m very happy and excited to say that from October I’ll be working as Head of Engineering at Farewill! 🎉 2020 continues to be a year of shifting plans, and adapting when needed or when opportunities arise. Despite working with some absolutely fantastic people and really believing in the mission at Monzo, when the option came up to be able to take voluntary redundancy, after a lot of thought I decided that leaving was the best path forward for me. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/08/30/september-coaching-sessions/ Sun, 30 Aug 2020 09:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/08/30/september-coaching-sessions/ Throughout September I’m going to be holding some free coaching sessions aimed at supporting folks from groups that are under-represented in the tech industry. Here’s a bit more about what that looks like and how it’ll work. 📣 Update: I’ve closed the form for now as I’ve had quite a bit of interest and want to get these folks booked in first. If possible I’ll re-open afterwards for a few more. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/08/24/scaling-yourself/ Mon, 24 Aug 2020 10:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/08/24/scaling-yourself/ When you think about “scaling” in the context of engineering, does your mind jump to thinking about systems, or about growing your organisation? Or maybe both! These are topics that have had a lot written about them, but what I’d like to talk about in this post is from the perspective of you as an individual: how to scale yourself as a manager. Everyone’s situation will vary in different degrees from others, but let’s say you’ve started out on your management journey a little while ago. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/07/23/putting-your-company-on-a-pip/ Thu, 23 Jul 2020 08:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/07/23/putting-your-company-on-a-pip/ In this post I talk about flipping around a common management tactic – the PIP – to help people move through periods where they’re feeling unhappy at work PIPs, or Performance Improvement Plans, are a topic that come up frequently when talking about managing people. Some people swear by them, others less so. In a nutshell, the idea is that if an employee’s underperforming, they work with their manager to agree a plan for improvement over a set timescale. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/05/26/engineering-manager-career-stages/ Tue, 26 May 2020 19:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/05/26/engineering-manager-career-stages/ I’ve recently had conversations with some engineers who want to know more about what my day-to-day looks like, and what my path has been to get here. I thought I’d write a post in case it’s useful to others. If you want to get a good general understanding of what different roles entail at different levels (outside of my individual journey, which isn’t necessarily typical!) the best book I’ve read is the classic ‘The Manager’s Path’, by Camille Fournier. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/04/29/checking-in-on-yourself/ Wed, 29 Apr 2020 19:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/04/29/checking-in-on-yourself/ We’re collectively living through a very strange time at the moment. Sometimes it’s hard to answer the question “how are you?” honestly, because you don't actually know. To help break this down, I’ve put together a series of prompts that you may find useful, whether for asking yourself as an individual or used in a different capacity, like in 1:1s with reports. Getting a sense of how you are Very often we don’t stop enough to take stock of how we’re really doing. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/02/13/the-loneliness-of-management/ Thu, 13 Feb 2020 20:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/02/13/the-loneliness-of-management/ I’ve been reflecting on the last year and a bit of working back in engineering management, and have a few posts that I’d like to share. These are things that would have helped me to hear when I was starting out for the first time, so I’m writing particularly for people thinking about becoming a manager. The first one is about friendships and support as a manager. Returning to management was a change for me on a few fronts. https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/01/01/2019-into-2020/ Wed, 01 Jan 2020 18:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2020/01/01/2019-into-2020/ Happy new year! It’s that time again - the Christmas break is drawing to a close, and I’ve got some headspace to look back on what the year has held. This year I’ve decided to split my annual reflections into two posts: one looking back over the last 12 months, and another over the decade. This is the first, and it covers rare infections, work, and more. As always I’m writing to document everything for myself first and foremost, but if you’re interested grab a tea, it’s a long read. https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/09/18/exploring-web-monetization/ Wed, 18 Sep 2019 18:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/09/18/exploring-web-monetization/ It's not often that I hear about an emerging web standard and I find my mind wandering back to it over the next few days, but Web Monetization has done just that. In this post I'll go through what it is, and why I think it's particularly interesting. Last weekend I was speaking at State of the Browser, where the always delightful (and impeccably dressed) Bruce Lawson was on before me. https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/08/27/calendar-defrags/ Tue, 27 Aug 2019 09:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/08/27/calendar-defrags/ Life as a manager means that I go to a lot of meetings. Over time it's very easy for them to get a bit unruly, and for your calendar to start managing you rather than the other way round. Every now and again I've found it's good to take stock, to tip everything out and start again, in the form of a calendar defrag. Here's how I approach it, and a tool you can use if you'd like to join me. https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/04/28/five-months-at-monzo/ Sun, 28 Apr 2019 21:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/04/28/five-months-at-monzo/ Since joining Monzo as an engineering manager at the start of December I've experienced a huge amount. In this post I wanted to capture some of what I've been up to, and what I'm looking forward to next. I got an email from an old client recently, asking (amongst other things!) “Is Monzo working out?". My reply was the same as it always is – I honestly couldn’t be happier with my work than I am at the moment. https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/02/09/semantic-calendar-emoji/ Sat, 09 Feb 2019 12:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/02/09/semantic-calendar-emoji/ Since returning to employee status I've been thrown back into having an absolutely stacked calendar. Over the last couple of weeks I've been playing with an emoji-based system to help me work better. A lot of people have written a lot of things about ways to manage busy calendars, often using colour to help visually differentiate between types of tasks. Whilst I’ve found this useful, it helped me even more to have an additional visual classification system thrown into the mix: emoji. https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/01/27/learning-japanese-pt2/ Sun, 27 Jan 2019 17:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/01/27/learning-japanese-pt2/ This week I received the very happy news that I'd passed my second Japanese exam - the JLPT (otherwise known as 日本語能力試験) at level N4. In this post I'll outline my exam experiences and go through the resources I used. Since writing my first post on this subject, I’ve really enjoyed hearing from others who’d got in touch to let me know that they’d found it useful. Despite that post only being written last August I’ve found that quite a few of my habits have changed as I’ve levelled up, so passing the exam seemed like a good benchmark for documenting what I do now. https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/01/03/2018-into-2019/ Thu, 03 Jan 2019 17:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2019/01/03/2018-into-2019/ I really enjoy this time of year. Christmas is always a bit of a whirlwind due to numerous individual family gatherings and birthdays, but New Year is always a nice lull. As always I’m using a blog post as a prompt to look both back and ahead. My instagram top nine is an interesting take on my annual highlights! 2018 and health Let’s start with the rubbish stuff. This year was hard in a lot of ways that I hadn’t experienced before. https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/11/21/a-new-chapter/ Tue, 20 Nov 2018 10:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/11/21/a-new-chapter/ I’m so excited to announce that I’m soon going to be starting the next chapter in my professional life. I’m going back to employment, and joining Monzo on their mission to “build a bank with everyone, for everyone”. My role will be in Engineering Management, and I’ll be supporting the growth, progression, performance, and wellbeing of everyone I’ll be managing, even as they move onto different features or projects. 🔜👩🏻‍💻 https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/10/08/a-foundation-for-technical-investigations/ Mon, 08 Oct 2018 11:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/10/08/a-foundation-for-technical-investigations/ Most of the work that I do can be boiled down to trying to help people make better things with the web, in better ways. ‘Better’ is a nice vague term, isn’t it? In this case ‘better’ can mean things like faster, cheaper, or more effectively, but it can also mean cutting-edge, delightful, more ethical, or even simply happier. It’s a nice mix. I’ve spoken often about the importance of having a balanced view of change - of how simply swapping one technology for another won’t magically solve all of your problems - but this also goes hand in hand with another truth: in this day and age how you work with technology plays a huge part in the success of whatever you’re trying to do. https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/09/27/thinking-about-permissions/ Thu, 27 Sep 2018 14:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/09/27/thinking-about-permissions/ The other day I saw a call on social media from the lovely Jo Franchetti, asking for people’s views on web permissions to take into a W3C workshop. This is a subject that I think is really important. It’s a wonderful melting pot of technical aspects meeting user experience; of developer experience and browser capabilities merging with website creators’ visions. The web gaining ever-more functionality and exciting possibilities is something that benefits both the people that make it, and the people that use it. https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/08/24/learning-japanese/ Fri, 24 Aug 2018 14:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/08/24/learning-japanese/ Since the beginning of this year I've been taking my Japanese learning a lot more seriously. Having been asked about it by quite a few people, this post is intended to summarise my journey so far. My starting point(s) I first started to ‘learn’ Japanese in 2008 before my first trip, but that consisted of buying a phrasebook and copying a things into my omni-present notebook (these were the dark days before Google Translate). https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/02/09/evo-japan-2018/ Fri, 09 Feb 2018 12:50:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/02/09/evo-japan-2018/ This is the second post in a two-part series, capturing my latest trip over to Japan. You can find part one here, talking about more general aspects of the trip. In this post I'll be talking about the main reason for our visit - EVO. いっちょ！ARMS！ The Evolution Championship Series, or EVO for short is an esports, fighting game tournament series. This was the first time that it had come to Japan, and as such was a great opportunity for people to attend the event in a country where you can find an arcade almost everywhere (as we found in the basement of Atami Castle last year). https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/02/09/japan-january-2018/ Fri, 09 Feb 2018 12:00:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2018/02/09/japan-january-2018/ In January I headed back to Japan, jumping on the opportunity to spend more time in a country that I love. The trip was prompted by my husband competing at EVO Japan 2018, but ended up being so much more. In these two posts I'll talk about the trip in general, and the event itself. EVO Japan (an esports, fighting game tournament event within the EVO series) first came up last year, coincidentally when we were in Shinjuku on the final leg of our honeymoon. https://sallylait.com/blog/2017/12/30/2017-into-2018/ Sat, 30 Dec 2017 14:30:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2017/12/30/2017-into-2018/ Another end of a year means another time to look back, but also to look forward. As they usually do, 2017 has had both extreme highs and lows, as well as plenty in the middle. Life Let’s start with the important bit - life. My 2016 summary post talked about a shifting mentality to take a bit more control, and doing things that were important to me in both work and my personal life. https://sallylait.com/blog/2017/11/24/starting-out-with-neural-networks/ Fri, 24 Nov 2017 16:41:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2017/11/24/starting-out-with-neural-networks/ In this post I'll talk about the process I went through when starting to explore the strange and wonderful world of recurrent neural networks It all started with Dan Hon. You may know of Dan from his rather amusing posts, including “I trained an A.I. to generate British placenames”, “I trained an A.I. to generate ICD-10 codes”, English idioms, Ask MetaFilter, and more. On Monday I was coming home from London on the train, and Dan popped up on Twitter with his latest creation: “I trained an A. https://sallylait.com/blog/2017/11/01/improving-discoverability-and-usability/ Wed, 01 Nov 2017 17:13:23 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2017/11/01/improving-discoverability-and-usability/ I wrote recently about how we’re working towards redesigning and redeveloping the OpenActive website (our redesign/development tender is currently open). As part of this we’re looking at people’s experiences of using open opportunity data, and how we can better support this by improving the data’s discoverability and usability. Please note that this article was previously written for the OpenActive blog as part of my role on the project as an Open Data Institute Associate, and is recorded here for posterity. https://sallylait.com/blog/2017/10/13/redeveloping-the-openactive-website/ Fri, 13 Oct 2017 17:13:23 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2017/10/13/redeveloping-the-openactive-website/ We’ve started the process of redesigning and redeveloping the OpenActive website, and as part of trying to do this openly we’d like to ask for your initial thoughts. Please note that this article was previously written for the OpenActive blog as part of my role on the project as an Open Data Institute Associate, and is recorded here for posterity. For anyone reading this who may be new to the world of open opportunity data (or who needs a brief ‘previously on OpenActive’ refresher), here’s the story so far: https://sallylait.com/blog/2017/04/18/render-conference-being-a-keynote-speaker-and-mc/ Tue, 18 Apr 2017 17:13:23 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2017/04/18/render-conference-being-a-keynote-speaker-and-mc/ Render Conference is a two day, single track conference held in the beautiful city of Oxford, which is billed as a “conference for front-end developers” but actually manages to pack in so much more. Earlier this year, an email popped up on my screen, titled “Invitation to speak at Render Conference 2017 as our closing Keynote”. It was a lovely introduction, asking me to give a talk along the lines of one I’d done last year. https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/12/31/2016-in-review/ Sat, 31 Dec 2016 19:00:43 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/12/31/2016-in-review/ At the end of 2015 I’d been really struggling: the stress of living on a building site for a year and my sleep/sanity waning; desperately trying to move house to get away but the chain collapsing numerous times; brain tumours and subsequent travel uncertainty. It all led to a place where my work and health were suffering hugely. My summary blog post reflected this – it was very gloomy and full of frustration. https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/10/26/net-magazine-issue-286-exchange-part-two/ Wed, 26 Oct 2016 17:24:51 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/10/26/net-magazine-issue-286-exchange-part-two/ This post is the second in a series where I’ve been answering questions originally posed as part of a feature in net Magazine. You can find details of the printed questions, as well as being able to see part one’s answers over at the first post. How do you know when it’s time to hire your first employee? Asked by Sasha Endoh A good marker to start thinking about this may be when you’re regularly getting more enquiries than you can deal with alone (and want to scale – staying as you are is ok too if you’re happy! https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/10/17/net-magazine-issue-286-exchange-part-one/ Mon, 17 Oct 2016 14:56:34 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/10/17/net-magazine-issue-286-exchange-part-one/ For the November issue of net Magazine I was invited to contribute to the Exchange section, where each month four selected experts answer readers’ questions. As only three questions make it into the magazine I asked whether I’d be able to publish the answers that didn’t make the cut or were too long. This post is the first of two, in which I’ll be sharing my answers that weren’t in the mag. https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/09/14/pokemon-privilege/ Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:55:15 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/09/14/pokemon-privilege/ Earlier this year I was in London, discussing Pokémon Go with a colleague. The game wasn’t officially out in the UK but had already flooded our social media channels, and I was adamant that I wasn’t going to get involved. It wasn’t a good idea. I have certain compulsive tendencies around collecting within games, and after I’d finally weaned myself off the Lego series (smash everything, collect all the studs, 100% the games), I decided that I really, probably shouldn’t start trying to Catch ‘Em All. https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/03/29/tech-talk-at-west-thames-college/ Tue, 29 Mar 2016 13:14:56 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/03/29/tech-talk-at-west-thames-college/ 15 years ago, my personal school and Sixth Form experience of being taught anything related to computers (or ‘ICT’ as it was at the time) was at best a mixed experience. Like many my age, I fell into the gap of having an interest and knowing that there was more that could be done with these wonderful grey boxes that lined our classrooms, but being provided instead with a curriculum that wasn’t reflective of what was happening out in the ‘real’ world. https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/01/21/digitising-traditional-industries/ Thu, 21 Jan 2016 22:30:57 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/01/21/digitising-traditional-industries/ Over the past year and a bit, if you follow me anywhere online you’ll probably have seen some references to the torturous time I’ve been having trying to move house. Back in July 2015 I wrote about my experience of getting a mortgage whilst self-employed, and having finally exchanged I feel that I can now tell the tale of another aspect – using an ‘online’ estate agent. This digitisation of a much-berated industry has gathered immense speed over the last couple of years, coming with the major benefit of claiming to potentially save you thousands over traditional agency fees. https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/01/05/farewell-tea-tracker/ Tue, 05 Jan 2016 15:16:49 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/01/05/farewell-tea-tracker/ Throughout 2015 I did quite a few talks on data, or more specifically the concept of open data. During this time I was continuing to undertake a data project of my own – something that I had habitually woven into my daily routines – the act of logging all of my tea drinking using a side project called Tea Tracker that I made at the end of 2013. My original post on the subject explained the background of the project and how it was built. https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/01/01/goodbye-2015-hello-2016/ Fri, 01 Jan 2016 17:09:48 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2016/01/01/goodbye-2015-hello-2016/ I didn’t end up doing this last year, but it feels like 2015 has been an important year for me both personally and professionally and I’d like to document some of my learnings for my future reference. As such, here is my recap of the year. It’s been a bad year. A really bad year. I’ve read quite a few people’s year round-ups and it sounds like it has been for quite a lot of people actually. https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/11/05/using-spreadsheets-and-google-translate/ Thu, 05 Nov 2015 17:48:50 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/11/05/using-spreadsheets-and-google-translate/ In one of those ‘blog about it so I don’t forget later’ moments, today I happened to discover something that shouldn’t have surprised me, but which could be pretty useful in the right circumstances – the ability to introduce live Google translations into a spreadsheet. I’m currently working on a project which involves stakeholders from France and Germany as well as the UK. This afternoon I was sent over a spreadsheet of feedback in xslx format, all in German, and considered the best way to make this understandable to my teammates. https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/10/24/an-introduction-to-open-data/ Sat, 24 Oct 2015 17:34:29 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/10/24/an-introduction-to-open-data/ This is an altered-for-the-written-word version of a talk that I gave in several forms in 2015, including at Fronteers (Amsterdam), From the Front (Bologna), and Web In the Woods (UK). If you’d like to hear it in person, or if you’d like me to give a version at your event, please see my speaking page for further information or get in touch. This is a lengthy read and is quite image-heavy due to the nature of putting a talk into words. https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/10/16/conference-feedback/ Fri, 16 Oct 2015 15:57:16 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/10/16/conference-feedback/ Walking off stage, my body was processing the usual adrenaline rush and come down combo, I was sweating profusely, and my throat was sore from all of the previous days’ practice and the final delivery. It was 11:45 and I hadn’t eaten a thing all day – I usually try to make myself eat something but a combination of nerves and wanting one more run through had made me stay away from breakfast. https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/09/26/all-these-moments-will-be-lost-in-time/ Sat, 26 Sep 2015 16:27:51 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/09/26/all-these-moments-will-be-lost-in-time/ This is an altered-for-the-written-word version of a talk that I gave at Shropgeek (R)evolution in September 2015. If you’d like to hear it in person, or if you’d like me to give a version at your event, please see my speaking page for further information or get in touch. This is a fairly lengthy read and is quite image-heavy due to the nature of putting a talk into words, and will take around 30 minutes. https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/09/13/web-in-the-woods-2015/ Sun, 13 Sep 2015 19:12:54 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/09/13/web-in-the-woods-2015/ “I know that this is going to sound incredibly stupid, but I didn’t realise that it would be so… woody.” …I remarked foolishly to organiser Kris Jeary of Squiders as he showed me around our allocated area of Kentish woodland, to be our home for the weekend. In my brain, Web in the Woods, despite the clue being in the name, was going to be a collection of people gathering in a field or similar, perhaps with a marquee. https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/08/22/batman-the-killing-joke-shoes/ Sat, 22 Aug 2015 13:17:09 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/08/22/batman-the-killing-joke-shoes/ I spend a lot of time around screens, with my hands often either on a keyboard, a touch-screen, or a game pad. My digital hobbies are long-standing, and have even started to consume some more traditional habits – I’m more likely to be found reading a comic on my tablet nowadays, as I find it easier to keep up with the ever-growing list of titles that I follow. With this in mind, I’ve recently been looking for opportunities to spend more time away from the digital world, and to balance it by doing more things in my spare time that have links to the physical. https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/07/15/getting-a-mortgage-whilst-self-employed/ Wed, 15 Jul 2015 10:17:48 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/07/15/getting-a-mortgage-whilst-self-employed/ When I bought my current home I had been employed for many consecutive years, brought home a decent regular wage, and had the luxury of applying jointly with my boyfriend who was in a similar situation. Everything was rather straightforward, and we had our pick of lenders. Four years on, things have changed somewhat. I’m now self-employed – starting out as a sole trader and switching to a limited company just over a year in, and the process was much different. https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/07/06/good-for-nothing-colchester-summer-gig/ Mon, 06 Jul 2015 21:57:38 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/07/06/good-for-nothing-colchester-summer-gig/ Last weekend brought with it the second full gig for Colchester’s branch of Good For Nothing, which was an event that I had been looking forward to ever since the last one. Armed with a laptop and a notebook, I went along on Friday night and Saturday to help lend my skills to some good causes. Many people haven’t heard about Good For Nothing, so I wanted to share my experiences in the hope that it’d encourage more people to come to any future local gigs, or to think about what you could do locally. https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/05/28/web-apps-fight/ Thu, 28 May 2015 15:44:45 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/05/28/web-apps-fight/ It’s apparently Web Hunting Season again, as there has recently been a new flurry of ‘web vs apps’ viewpoints emerging; tweets sparking more tweets, blogs sparking more blogs. I have read and enjoyed many of the opinions, even if I don’t necessarily agree with them. Just now I happened to see a new post by Jeremy Keith – someone whose views I find myself nodding along to more often than not – who links to some of the best recent articles on this subject and provides his own thoughts. https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/05/12/speaking-the-same-language/ Tue, 12 May 2015 20:04:49 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/05/12/speaking-the-same-language/ In March this year I started a new transformation project working in the utilities sector for a rather large and well-known company. This has been very different for me in that it’s not strictly a digital project – digital is one small aspect, and I’m working as a specialist consultant to help to merge the worlds of systems and customer/staff experiences, but the transformation, architecture, and systems involved go way beyond just the web – spanning all sorts that I (sadly! https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/04/19/speaker-contracts/ Sun, 19 Apr 2015 11:56:09 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/04/19/speaker-contracts/ I’ve been speaking at events for four years now, with these spanning small, free, community events in the UK, to large corporate curated events in the USA. Whilst I was very comfortable presenting to clients and internally at my agency, my first ever public outings were under my role as an Adobe Community Professional at Adobe user groups in Paris and Brussels (which was a pretty terrifying baptism of fire!) and involved paid-for travel and accommodation – something that many user groups aren’t able to afford. https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/03/28/st4i-workshop/ Sat, 28 Mar 2015 17:19:45 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2015/03/28/st4i-workshop/ At the end of February I attended Seb Lee-Delisle’s latest workshop, all about the “Internet of Things”, or as Seb likes to put it: “Stuff that talks to the Interwebs” (ST4I). Having had the pleasure of speaking at The Web Is with Seb last year, his talk clearly showcased some of the amazing things that can be done once you start combining the physical and digital worlds. I had heard on the grapevine that he was planning a workshop on the topic, and after speaking to Seb about it one evening and watching the promo video I was incredibly keen to attend. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/10/04/net-magazine-dconstruct/ Sat, 04 Oct 2014 13:37:56 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/10/04/net-magazine-dconstruct/ I got my subscription copy of net Magazine in the post today, and during my usual initial flick through was pleased to see a miniature version of my own face looking back at me. Back in August I’d been asked to report on dConstruct for the magazine, so had headed down to Brighton armed with my trusty battered notebook and a camera, just in case ‘proper’ photos weren’t being taken by anyone. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/09/28/diversity-is-more-than-gender/ Sun, 28 Sep 2014 10:47:55 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/09/28/diversity-is-more-than-gender/ Last Friday I attended Generate conference in London, where I had the pleasure of being introduced to a lovely guy – Benjamin Hollway. Ben is a developer, is currently interning at a Brighton agency, and was recently shortlisted for a net magazine award. He’s also 16. I was never a 16 year old in the ‘industry’, because I was busy being a 16 year old listening to music in my bedroom whilst creating rather introspective personal sites with terrible graphics. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/09/25/from-the-front-2014/ Thu, 25 Sep 2014 15:40:14 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/09/25/from-the-front-2014/ Last week heralded my final speaking gig of the year, at From the Front, which took place in the beautiful city of Bologna in Italy. I didn’t know too much about From the Front initially, although after reading up on it I was very excited by the concept. Naturally the first thing that jumped out at me was that the theme is based around a classic film every year, with this year’s being Indiana Jones and the Temple of DOM (badum tsh! https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/08/13/speaking-at-the-digital-pond/ Wed, 13 Aug 2014 20:12:26 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/08/13/speaking-at-the-digital-pond/ Last week was a busy one. Amongst some work with the ODI that we’re doing for the BBC, I also spoke at an event called The Digital Pond one evening. The Digital Pond is a free meetup, and this one was titled ‘Responding To The Responsive Web: Insights On Reshaping User Experience‘. I had the pleasure of catching up with fellow Pond speaker Jeremy Keith, and was glad that unlike our first meeting back in June, this time around I was less of a nervous wreck about speaking and could actually process enough words to have a better chat. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/08/12/negative-client-feedback/ Tue, 12 Aug 2014 13:47:04 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/08/12/negative-client-feedback/ One of the things I’m very keen on is being open about the realities of freelancing. Even though I’m over a year and a half in, I’m always eager to read pieces that others have shared on the matter, whether they’re about the realities of business, how people work, or just general freelancer musings, because they really help me learn. I’m keen to share the details of my experiences with others for that reason. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/08/03/snow-crash/ Sun, 03 Aug 2014 11:21:42 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/08/03/snow-crash/ I’m reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson at the moment, and came across this passage that I particularly liked. “When I was fifteen years old, I missed a period. My boyfriend and I were using a diaphragm, but I knew it was fallible. I was good at math, I had the failure rate memorized, burnt into my subconscious. Or maybe it was my conscious, I can never keep them straight. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/07/27/wordpress-to-kirby/ Sun, 27 Jul 2014 17:16:29 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/07/27/wordpress-to-kirby/ The other week, my friend Paul Swain happened to mention that he was finally getting round to transferring some of his old blog posts over to his current site. Paul used to have a WordPress-based site, but switched over to Kirby when he redesigned it a while back. His situation struck a bit of a chord with me – my first blog-based site had been built using ColdFusion and the BlogCFC component, but at one point during a redesign I’d switched to WordPress. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/07/14/world-cup-dinners/ Mon, 14 Jul 2014 21:33:24 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/07/14/world-cup-dinners/ For anyone who has perhaps been at some kind of hipster wilderness retreat for the last couple of months, you may not have noticed that the 20th FIFA World Cup was held in Brazil recently. Last night not only marked the final match of the tournament, but also meant the conclusion of my run of ‘World Cup Dinners’. I have a love/hate relationship with football. Love, because it’s great. From playing barefoot in the garden, putting cross after cross in to my brother (or a tree if he wasn’t available), to playing at a fairly decent level during school, to now sporadic kick arounds in parks, I’ve always loved playing. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/07/10/watch-dogs/ Thu, 10 Jul 2014 21:25:10 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/07/10/watch-dogs/ Last week I finally finished the game Watch Dogs, at least to the point where the main story was done. I found the whole experience overall quite frustrating, and wanted to share some thoughts on the subject of attention to detail, and how little touches can make a huge difference to people’s enjoyment of using your product. What’s this Watch Dogs thing then? Watch Dogs is “an open world action-adventure stealth video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft” – thanks Wikipedia. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/06/29/responsive-day-out-review/ Sun, 29 Jun 2014 14:04:48 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/06/29/responsive-day-out-review/ After a thoroughly brilliant long weekend of conference fun, I was finally back on a train this morning, racing via inevitable delays and route alterations back to the land of Essex. It seemed like as good a time as any to take up Jeremy Keith’s closing call to arms, and to share my experiences of the wonderful Responsive Day Out 2, so here is the story of my time in Brighton. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/05/25/writing-and-self-publishing/ Sun, 25 May 2014 10:28:10 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/05/25/writing-and-self-publishing/ I’ve recently done something that I’ve been considering for a while, which is to write and publish an ebook. The result of this was Atomic Documentation, and I released it last week. As with a lot of things that I do, part of it was to overcome a fear. I frequently find myself being guilty of wanting to write something or make something, but then bail on actually putting it out there. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/05/18/light-level-demo/ Sun, 18 May 2014 22:33:53 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/05/18/light-level-demo/ As part of my fast-approaching presentation at Responsive Day Out 2 I’m (spoilers!) going to be talking very briefly about the upcoming light-level (formerly luminosity) media query, amongst other much more important things like Batman. The talk is only 15-20 minutes long so there’s only so much detail that I can go into with everything, and I wanted to put a bit more information and context in this post. Please note that since I started writing my talk this had all changed (as is the fun of draft specs). https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/04/27/the-kaiju-have-landed/ Sun, 27 Apr 2014 18:39:03 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/04/27/the-kaiju-have-landed/ I’ve been working from home a lot recently, and the primary reason (outside of my extreme train grumpiness) is that since the start of the year I’ve been trying to coordinate being here so that I can bring home some kittens. The hope is that by being here daily I can settle them in, and attempt to stop them from causing absolute carnage amongst the assortment of brightly coloured, kitten mouth-sized toys that adorn the shelves and surfaces throughout my house. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/04/24/digital-preservation/ Thu, 24 Apr 2014 15:22:55 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/04/24/digital-preservation/ Whilst skimming through my Twitter feed a while ago, I dropped out of the stream quickly to read a post that had been tweeted by Kotaku, the well-known gaming blog. The post caught my eye because it was about Mass Effect, one of my all-time favourite gaming series, but it ended up prompting a deeper thought. The blog post covered the story of some free DLC that had been released a couple of years ago for the final game in the series. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/04/17/from-the-front/ Thu, 17 Apr 2014 19:31:52 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/04/17/from-the-front/ More news! Unless anything else comes up that I can’t turn down, my speaking in 2014 looks like it will be rounded off nicely by a trip out to Bologna to talk at From the Front conference in September. I know I always say this (because it’s true), but I’m really looking forward to this one. It’s a completely different kind of excitement to Responsive Day Out 2, because: There’s an Indiana Jones theme, which presumably means I can walk the whole time wearing my Indy hat all week, quoting Indy quotes. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/04/15/introducing-tea-tracker/ Tue, 15 Apr 2014 15:43:41 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/04/15/introducing-tea-tracker/ Yes folks, it’s that time again. Every now and again I get the urge to make something (usually pretty pointless), and the latest in this series of wonderful distractions is Tea Tracker. This was actually born way back, in November last year. At the time I was hopping around on trains a lot, and it started as yet another way of keeping my brain from melting by doing something semi-productive. For quite some time I’d been meaning to create a project to keep track of my tea drinking, because it’s the kind of amazingly nerdy thing that fascinates me. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/04/06/ski-holiday-sites/ Sun, 06 Apr 2014 15:56:34 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/04/06/ski-holiday-sites/ Earlier this year I promised myself that I’d at least try to work with certain people that I was really interested in and was passionate about, either because of the subject matter or the nature of the work that they were doing. As a one-(wo)man-band it’s often quite hard to get a foot in the door with people who just don’t want to speak to anyone but full service agencies, or don’t publish lines of communication, but I’m a firm believer in things not happening unless you try. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/03/23/responsiveconf2/ Sun, 23 Mar 2014 11:18:20 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/03/23/responsiveconf2/ At the start of this year I was over in New York. It was a long weekend away, and despite it being an East Coast timezone rather than the West of my recent trips stateside, I was pretty horribly jetlagged. Waking up ridiculously early usually meant an hour lounging around in bed, finding local diner locations to hit up for breakfast, checking some emails and catching up on everything that had happened in the rest of the world whilst my time- travelling body had slept. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/03/17/going-limited/ Mon, 17 Mar 2014 11:46:17 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/03/17/going-limited/ I’ve been considering forming a limited company to operate under for quite a while now, and this weekend I finally went and did it. I thought I’d put together a quick post for anyone in a similar boat. Why go limited? As I’ve documented previously, I started out as a sole trader under the slight self-misbelief that I’d “freelance for a while until I found the right proper job”. Being a sole trader seemed to make sense in that mindset, although my accountant did mention right from the start that I may want to consider forming a company if things really took off. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/03/10/it-departments-legacy-systems-limitations/ Mon, 10 Mar 2014 16:37:14 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/03/10/it-departments-legacy-systems-limitations/ A friend and ex-colleague of mine, Paul Swain, recently wrote a quick little post called “You’re pissing in my pond now“, which was around his thoughts on the matter of the IT departments and legacy systems that frequently hamper him during his work as Head of User Experience at The Unit in Brighton. Paul and I have had many discussions over the years on this matter, and worked together on a particularly challenging project where the IT systems and teams were at the core of all decisions being made. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/02/20/choose-your-words/ Thu, 20 Feb 2014 14:12:02 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/02/20/choose-your-words/ Anyone who has hit a brick wall with their vocabulary and resorted to summoning a thesaurus, has probably experienced that picking an apparently synonymous word can actually result in a totally different message. For example, according to thesaurus.com, if searching for a new way to declare my love for someone, I could end up with the following: “I love you” “I lust you” “I fondness you” “I respect you” or even, if I’m in a particularly Gallagher-esque mood: https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/02/14/marvelytics/ Fri, 14 Feb 2014 20:39:28 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/02/14/marvelytics/ A couple of weeks ago I was very excited to find out that Marvel had released an API, exposing some of their data. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to have a play with it then as I was headed out to dinner (apparently dropping your other half to play with code isn’t acceptable), and a couple of busy weeks meant that I had to put it to one side for a bit. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/02/09/nerd-holiday-documentation/ Sun, 09 Feb 2014 13:54:31 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/02/09/nerd-holiday-documentation/ Quite possibly my favourite thing about freelancing is the ability to control my own ability to take time off. In the last couple of years of being an employee I did some notable 6-8 month stints without a day off, and unsurprisingly it was really not very good for me. Spending time in other parts of the world is something that I really love, and one of my aims has been to make the most of being in charge of my own schedule. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/02/06/the-final-countdown/ Thu, 06 Feb 2014 20:34:14 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/02/06/the-final-countdown/ Coming to the end of my full-time job at the end of 2012 was a sad but exciting time. It was the end of an era for me, and I was very sorry not to be working with some great people any more, but was also excited about what lay ahead. Working on a contract basis I now often have the same feeling, but in more regular bursts. As much as I may have enjoyed a particular project of working with a certain company, moving on always marks the start of something exciting for me, and is something that I really enjoy. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/01/28/freeagent-source-code/ Tue, 28 Jan 2014 19:09:55 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/01/28/freeagent-source-code/ When starting out with your own business, getting the accounting side of things right can be a big headache. I initially started out using some very basic spreadsheets and pretty InDesign invoices, but as I’ve documented in previous posts I eventually migrated to FreeAgent, which has been absolutely brilliant for me. Custom invoice templates FreeAgent, amongst being all-round useful, allows you to customise your invoices with very basic CSS skills. They offer several pre-built templates, but I wanted to be sending something which designed up nicely, and matched my brand a bit better than the defaults. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/01/27/expertise/ Mon, 27 Jan 2014 20:56:17 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/01/27/expertise/ Many years ago, one of my (now) friends had just started working at the same company as me. Unfortunately I didn’t make the best first impression. His boss had asked him to “speak to Sally about that” regarding a particular matter now lost in time, so not knowing any different he had emailed me very nicely about whatever it was, to which I sent back a short and strong email saying something along the lines of “THIS IS NOT WITHIN MY REMIT”. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/01/18/mindmapping-with-javascript/ Sat, 18 Jan 2014 18:38:55 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/01/18/mindmapping-with-javascript/ I’ve recently started thinking about a new talk I’m going to be doing later this year, and since it’s quite a short one I’ve got lots of ideas but need to settle on the strongest themes. When it comes to putting together a structure I tend to be quite visual, and usually end up covering the walls of my home office with a sea of post-its, as well as sketching out assorted diagrams in notebooks. https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/01/04/my-life-in-vinyl/ Sat, 04 Jan 2014 02:24:04 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2014/01/04/my-life-in-vinyl/ Earlier tonight, one of my fellow Colchestarians tweeted the following: Recommendations for splendid vinyl LPs please. — Oli (@oli) January 3, 2014 To which I replied “Splendid as in music, or as in artwork/vinyl itself as a beautiful entity?”. On receiving a response of “Ooh both”, I took this to mean that I should definitely sit in my kitchen at 11pm and start writing stories about selected pieces of my collection. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/12/26/the-pastry-box-project/ Thu, 26 Dec 2013 11:50:54 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/12/26/the-pastry-box-project/ I felt very lucky to have had a thought published on the wonderful Pastry Box Project earlier this year, so when I was sat thinking about a particular subject on my way to work a while ago, I tapped out some thoughts and wondered if the folks behind it would like to use my words again. Happily they did, and it was a lovely Boxing Day surprise to wake up to today to find out that it had gone live. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/12/24/year-one-part-four-be-the-speak-that-you-change-about/ Tue, 24 Dec 2013 08:57:02 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/12/24/year-one-part-four-be-the-speak-that-you-change-about/ This is continuation of part one, part two and part 3, a series of posts summarising what I have learnt from my first year of freelancing, in the hope that my experiences will help others considering something similar. This post discusses continuing your learning as a freelancer, and conferences. Learning Something that I believe in particularly strongly is that you need to be responsible for your own personal progress, and have the drive to better yourself. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/12/16/lwc-2013-session-recording/ Mon, 16 Dec 2013 21:56:32 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/12/16/lwc-2013-session-recording/ I’m really pleased that a video of my talk from LWC 2013 is now available online. Big thanks to Angie, Chris, and the folks at Mint Digital for the effort involved in making this happen. (Video originally available here from here http://vimeo.com/82001994 where you can download and share and stuff) The slides aren’t in shot, so if you’d like to follow along they’re here, and my write up of the day is here. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/12/14/year-one-part-3/ Sat, 14 Dec 2013 11:32:09 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/12/14/year-one-part-3/ This is continuation of part 1 and part 2, a series of posts summarising what I have learn from my first year of freelancing, in the hope that my experiences will help others considering something similar. This post discusses the importance of support around you, as well as the impact of travel. Support Last year stood out as a brilliant year, primarily through being characterised by having a great set of friends around me; people who I could have huge amounts of fun with, but also who supported and challenged me professionally. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/12/06/year-one-part-two-work/ Fri, 06 Dec 2013 16:33:41 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/12/06/year-one-part-two-work/ This is continuation of part one, a series of posts summarising what I have learnt from my first year of freelancing, in the hope that my experiences will help others considering something similar. This post discusses what I’ve actually worked on this year. It’s a bit of a lengthy one, so grab a cup of tea. Work and play they’re never ok to mix the way we do Work, on the whole, was good this year. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/11/28/year-one-part-one-business-time/ Thu, 28 Nov 2013 14:51:29 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/11/28/year-one-part-one-business-time/ Back in March this year I attended the Responsive Day Out, a conference curated by Clearleft in Brighton. One of the themes throughout the day, and a message which was summed up by Jeremy Keith in the closing moments, was that we need to share more. Sharing shouldn’t just be about our successes and the things we do right, but we should also ensure that we share our difficulties too, so that others can learn from them. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/11/26/good-for-nothing-colchester-november-2013/ Tue, 26 Nov 2013 09:56:30 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/11/26/good-for-nothing-colchester-november-2013/ Last Friday and Saturday I had the pleasure of getting involved with the Colchester branch of Good For Nothing, a scheme which aims to get people coming together and using their skills to help local causes. In their words, “Smart folk collaborating and experimenting to solve stuff that matters”. We met on the Friday evening to kick off a ’24 hour gig’ – a hackathon over the Friday night and Saturday daytime to help three local causes with everything from websites to social media to posters. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/11/16/gravity/ Sat, 16 Nov 2013 20:47:20 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/11/16/gravity/ I’m a big fan of film and of going to the cinema. I’ll grab a plastic glass of red wine from the snack counter, wait for the lights to dim, settle in, and most importantly hope to see a great bit of storytelling. I have just returned from seeing Gravity, a film which appears to be getting rave reviews everywhere. Ok, so in my world ‘everywhere’ spans Empire, conversations, and my twitter feed, but general consensus is that it’s pretty amazing. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/10/27/mini-hacks-big-difference-lwc-2013/ Sun, 27 Oct 2013 15:27:47 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/10/27/mini-hacks-big-difference-lwc-2013/ I had the great pleasure of speaking at LWC 2013 in Shoreditch, London yesterday for my last speaking gig of 2013. It was a fantastic day, full of absolutely lovely people and some brilliant talks. In a happy coincidence a lot of the talks had similar themes and messages, and I was very grateful to be amongst such great speakers. Big thanks to Mint Digital and all of the organisers for putting together something that ran so well, to the other speakers for being so interesting, and for everyone who attended for being so receptive and great to talk to. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/09/25/todays-pastry/ Wed, 25 Sep 2013 19:16:11 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/09/25/todays-pastry/ I’m incredibly pleased that something I wrote has been chosen to be featured on The Pastry Box Project as today’s post. When I heard that the site was being opened up to general submissions, I came home, sat on the sofa, and promptly emptied my head of some thoughts that had been swimming around inside it for a few days. As with all good musings it had started out as a pub chat, this one occurring with a friend during an incredibly bland England match, and I had originally intended to capture the sentiment in a blog post at some point. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/09/24/speaking-at-lwc-london-2013/ Tue, 24 Sep 2013 12:53:56 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/09/24/speaking-at-lwc-london-2013/ After speaking at Adobe MAX in May and Scotch on the Rocks in June earlier this year I needed a bit of a pause on the speaking front. I’d started a new contract, work was becoming incredibly busy, and I’d started getting lots of speaking doubts around the time of Scotch which had made for some sleepless nights. I was actually contacted about a brilliant opportunity shortly after, which part of me is still kicking myself for not going after, but I felt I needed to focus on the day job and come back to speaking later once I had some better formed ideas. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/09/09/dconstruct-2013-a-review/ Mon, 09 Sep 2013 13:41:50 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/09/09/dconstruct-2013-a-review/ This time last year I had my dConstruct ticket in my virtual mitts, the hotel was booked, and I was excited about the prospect of a day out at the seaside with several of my smartest colleagues and friends. On the Thursday before the event I was on a train back from a meeting in London, and received a phone call. A new project had come in, and I was needed to fly out to San Francisco that Saturday. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/08/31/weather-a-weekend-hack/ Sat, 31 Aug 2013 16:25:23 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/08/31/weather-a-weekend-hack/ Today I have been left to fend for myself whilst my other half is out doing virtuous deeds for others, and having spent the last week off in rural Norfolk doing everything but be on the internet, I wanted to spend some time putting together another quick hack to engage my brain before returning to work. I always carry a notebook with me in my bag no matter where I’m going, and I use it to write down all the germs of ideas which could some day make it into something resembling an end-result. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/08/15/job-titles-in-the-web-industry/ Thu, 15 Aug 2013 12:33:47 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/08/15/job-titles-in-the-web-industry/ Chris Coyier blogged an interesting take on job titles in the web industry yesterday, aiming to provide some standardised terms that we can all use to gain a common understanding, and to avoid the ridiculous “ninja” / “rockstar” terminology. Citing two primary issues of “The opinion on their usefulness range from harmful (i.e. leads to “not my job” syndrome) to vital (i.e. people change companies sometimes and need common language).“, this is something that I can relate to. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/08/13/train-bingo/ Tue, 13 Aug 2013 21:38:24 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/08/13/train-bingo/ I appear to be in the middle of a patch of particularly rubbish train journeys at the moment. Every day I find myself keeping a mental tally of things that happen, with the same issues kept coming up again and again. I lent some rather tongue-in-cheek thoughts to a friend of mine’s blog post recently on the delicate subject of train etiquette and snoozing, but I felt like there was more I could do with this subject. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/08/05/5-design-tips-for-non-designers/ Mon, 05 Aug 2013 12:55:28 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/08/05/5-design-tips-for-non-designers/ I am currently working on a side project for some family members outside of my main contract. It’s a simple site, with minimal CMS requirements, and once we’d pinned down the content requirements, defined the data types, and talked about what they wanted to manage, I went ahead and built the functional side of things pretty quickly. We’d always talked about getting a proper designer involved, but when it came down to it I was asked if I could “have a go, and see how it turns out”. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/07/10/instagram-life-ruiner/ Wed, 10 Jul 2013 13:29:01 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/07/10/instagram-life-ruiner/ Having been an Instagram user for a good while now (433 photos and counting), I have taken my fair share of banter over my usage of the service, primarily from my long-suffering boyfriend who frequently turns around to find I’ve scampered off out of sight after something has caught my eye. An article in my twitter feed, with the title bait of ‘How Instagram almost ruined my life‘ tempted me into reading it recently. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/06/25/scotch-on-the-rocks-2013-speaker/ Tue, 25 Jun 2013 14:55:28 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/06/25/scotch-on-the-rocks-2013-speaker/ This is incredibly belated as it’s now almost a month ago, but I wanted to share my experiences of speaking at the Scotch on the Rocks conference 2013, organised by Fuzzy Orange and held in Edinburgh. Speaking Speaking at Scotch was something that I’d wanted to do for a while. Back in 2011 I’d done a couple of user group talks, and remember having a few chats at the 2011 conference itself around whether I was the kind of person they’d ever give a slot to. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/06/02/npower-dev-challenge/ Sun, 02 Jun 2013 17:26:29 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/06/02/npower-dev-challenge/ I like to think that I’m generally a pretty laid back person, however as those who know me well will testify, every now and again something will come along that turns me temporarily into a ranty, wildly gesturing little ball of vitriol. For at least a couple of minutes anyway, until something else shiny catches my eye on the internet, or I become more interested in having a nap. One such thing happened earlier today, when a friend of mine tweeted “FAO: Nerds. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/05/10/adobe-max-2013-round-up/ Fri, 10 May 2013 23:04:36 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/05/10/adobe-max-2013-round-up/ This week I had the huge honour of speaking at Adobe MAX, Adobe’s annual conference for digital professionals, which was held this year in Los Angeles. As someone based in the UK, MAX isn’t always achievable, and even less so now I’m a humble freelancer. October 2011 was my previous MAX (and also my first), and I was absolutely thrilled to be able to attend this time. I’ve collected together some lengthy thoughts here – on my week’s highlights, on my session, and most importantly on the announcements themselves. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/04/26/curse-of-the-subdomain/ Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:00:07 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/04/26/curse-of-the-subdomain/ I started writing this post on my tablet. It’s a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, which of course you will turn your nose up at because you’re probably reading this on a shiny, new-fangled iPad 8 or whatever the rest of the world went and bought. Let’s not dwell on our differences. The simple fact is that we are all tablet brothers, bonded by a singular truth. And that truth is that most of the time it doesn’t matter whether you’re looking at an Android device or an iOS device (or a Microsoft Surfa… oh, who am I trying to kid? https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/04/16/battleblock-theatre-review/ Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:43:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/04/16/battleblock-theatre-review/ BattleBlock Theatre, the latest output by The Behemoth, is equal parts brilliant, cutesy platformer fun vs mind boggling frustration. Anyone who has been in close proximity to me whilst playing anything will tell you that I am a sweary gamer. I frequently talk out loud. I call collections of pixels all manner of obscenities, and my virtual demise is usually met with some very creative combinations of words. Considering that my deaths count on BBT currently stands at 1549 (and rapidly rising) you can imagine the sort of language that has been pouring out of my living room recently. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/04/12/speaking-at-adobe-max-2013/ Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:10:46 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/04/12/speaking-at-adobe-max-2013/ In less than a month I’ll be packing up a huge amount of wires, plug adapters, extension leads and devices (plus some clothes and stuff I guess), and flying on a giant time travelling silver bird to a land across the sea. Once there I’m very excited that I’m going to be attending Adobe MAX, but not only that, I will also be speaking. Me, me, me! My session is on “Effective technical strategy and planning for websites and mobile apps“, and I’ll be going through a process for getting to grips with a project before your fingertips start churning out code. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/03/17/skiline-data-love/ Sun, 17 Mar 2013 14:54:44 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/03/17/skiline-data-love/ Every once in a while something comes along where you kick yourself for not thinking of it first. On a recent ski holiday to Austria I encountered one of these equally frustrating and brilliant instances. The resort I was in, the ‘Skicircus’ of Saalbach, Hinterglemm and Leogang has recently introduced the Skiline system, essentially comprised of services which expose lift pass data to app and website interfaces. At the time of writing there is a ‘full’ site, a mobile site, and apps for Android and iOS. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/02/28/switching-to-freelance/ Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:06:56 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/02/28/switching-to-freelance/ Having been asked recently to contribute to a cover feature in .net magazine about tips for working freelance (issue 239, p43-44), I thought that I’d use my blog to elaborate on my answers a bit. I’m obviously a pretty recent ‘switcher’, so I by no means consider myself an expert on the wonderful and crazy world that is self-employment. I have however learnt an awful lot in the last few months, so if my anecdotes can be of help to anyone considering a similar leap then great. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/01/28/netmag-issue-238-fulham-fc-makeover/ Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:59:41 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/01/28/netmag-issue-238-fulham-fc-makeover/ .net magazine dropping through my door is always a highlight of the month. It’s a time to sit quietly away from a screen (rare time indeed) and read about what everyone else in the industry is doing. What’s especially nice is when you recognise people you know being able to show off their expertise and projects that they are proud of, and it’s even better when you were also a part of that. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/01/17/my-way-or-the-highway/ Thu, 17 Jan 2013 12:02:18 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/01/17/my-way-or-the-highway/ Over the Christmas holidays I took advantage of an Xbox Live Arcade deal where Episode One of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead series had been put up for free download. I was looking forward to this, as it had got some great reviews from friends who were playing through the series. I had however received a singular note of caution from another trusted reviewer, one which turned out to be entirely accurate. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/01/04/raspberry-pi-case/ Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:17:59 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/01/04/raspberry-pi-case/ Having got a Raspberry Pi for Christmas, up until today it had been sat in its original bag when it wasn’t being used. As such I decided to follow in the tradition of DIY cases and make an initial temporary case for the Pi out of Lego to give it a proper home and to hopefully reduce the likelihood of me mishandling it/getting tea on it/breaking it. Using the remains of a 1999 Sith Infiltrator, and what could only have been a Creator Prehistoric Power set along with other bricks in my spares box, I was able to come up with the above. https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/01/03/20122013/ Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:22:52 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2013/01/03/20122013/ So it’s this time of year again. It really doesn’t feel like another year has been and gone, but as with last year it also feels like an awful lot has changed in the last 12 months. So what happened in 2012? As in 2011, 2012 brought another role change, this time to Head of Technology. The change was in more than responsibilities. My focus shifted throughout the year as the importance of consultancy and strategy grew within the business. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/12/19/xbox-smartglass/ Wed, 19 Dec 2012 14:25:52 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/12/19/xbox-smartglass/ I downloaded the Xbox SmartGlass app for Android a while ago, but hadn’t got around to actually trying it until a couple of days ago. For those of you who don’t know what SmartGlass is, it “turns your mobile phone or tablet into a second screen that intelligently interacts with your Xbox 360 to elevate your entertainment experience” – http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/smartglass. I wanted to do something simple – sign in and check my messages – so I loaded up the app and after a rather nice, clean loading animation I was presented with the sign in screen. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/12/17/mayans-and-moving-on/ Mon, 17 Dec 2012 14:36:06 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/12/17/mayans-and-moving-on/ As I’m sure we’re all aware, there’s yet another End of the World prediction for the 21st December. Dear readers, I would like to put your minds at ease, and say that whilst the date of the prediction is indeed accurate, as with all of these things the meaning has been misinterpreted over time. I’d like to take this opportunity to clear everything up – the Mayans were right and the 21st will indeed mark the end of a great age, but it will mark the last time I am in the office as an employee of Lightmaker (*small print official last day 24th, working from home) rather than fiery deaths for us all. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/12/10/catching-up/ Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:39:19 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/12/10/catching-up/ It has been a quiet couple of months, for reasons that will become clear in a blog post I’ll release in a week or so. Before that happens I wanted to catch up on something which is always nice to be able to do – share some success stories around a recent project that I worked on. Fulham FC’s website was featured on Econsultancy as one of two Premiership clubs to be singled out for their digital presence. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/10/07/create-the-web-session-write-up/ Sun, 07 Oct 2012 14:41:53 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/10/07/create-the-web-session-write-up/ As announced previously on this blog, last Tuesday I was very pleased to be able to speak at the London leg of Adobe’s Create The Web tour. My session was ‘An introduction to the modern web for the creative professional’, a 45 minute talk which aimed to cover an overview of HTML5 and associated technologies, including some examples around its use within the industry. Despite the venue having some technical issues I had a great time on the day and really enjoyed giving the presentation and being part of the event. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/09/25/create-the-web/ Tue, 25 Sep 2012 14:46:44 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/09/25/create-the-web/ Last night Adobe showed off some of the new things they’ve been working on in the form of a live streamed session from their Create The Web keynote in San Francisco. Highlights of this for me was the work they are doing to progress CSS3 in the form of their CSS FilterLab, along with the evolution of tools I’m already using and love, such as Shadow, which has now joined the suite of ‘Edge’ tools and services. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/07/23/acp-2012/ Mon, 23 Jul 2012 14:54:12 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/07/23/acp-2012/ It’s with great pleasure that I’m able to announce that I have had my Adobe Community Professional status renewed for another term and will be an ACP for 2012-2013. Since joining the program in January 2011 a lot has changed for me. I’ve moved from a more development-focussed role at work into one which is more sprategic, and I spend a lot of time doing internal planning as well as technical consultancy. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/07/01/web-designer-issue-198/ Sun, 01 Jul 2012 14:56:04 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/07/01/web-designer-issue-198/ Nestled deep within the latest issue of Web Designer Magazine (issue 198) I’m very pleased to say that I’m included as an expert comment within Matt Gifford’s great Customise and Personalise Google Maps article. Like many, I’m a sucker for a good API so it was a pleasure to be asked to lend my views and a tiny version of my face to the article. As usual I’m always on the lookout for more writing opportunities, so if you’d like to discuss anything please get in touch. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/06/09/making-the-most-of-your-experiences/ Sat, 09 Jun 2012 15:00:33 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/06/09/making-the-most-of-your-experiences/ Several years ago, when headed to London alone one evening, I took with me a couple of headshots and scribbled notes about people that I was hoping to bump into that night. I wasn’t out on some kind of hitman mission (well, I would say that…), but instead was heading to an industry event which some interesting people I’d previously spoken to on twitter were happening to attend. Doing this took me back to my past, when I’d lived a mis-spent youth making friends with people that I knew off the internet. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/05/31/creative-bloq-article/ Thu, 31 May 2012 15:11:00 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/05/31/creative-bloq-article/ Having caught the writing bug recently I’m very pleased that I’ve had another article published, this time by CreativeBloQ, part of Future UK. Not writing about technology for once, this piece is instead about one of my other interests – the world of designer toys. Before I started working from home my Lightmaker desk was absolutely covered with vinyl figures, but due to the practicalities of a few too many desk moves and less time spent actually at my work desk over the last year these have now all been migrated to my home office. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/05/14/fourth-source-article/ Mon, 14 May 2012 15:12:49 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/05/14/fourth-source-article/ Seeing as it’s been officially released into the wild now, I’m pleased to say that I’ve written an article for Fourth Source, an independent online digital media marketing publication. The article is “Developing an effective mobile strategy“. Working with clients to identify the options available to them, and discussing why certain approaches may be more feasible than others should be an important part of all new projects. I’m lucky enough to work with a great Strategy team who keep me on my toes, and I look forward to being challenged by new developments in the future. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/04/29/internal-surveys-5-tips/ Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:14:23 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/04/29/internal-surveys-5-tips/ At Lightmaker, our strategic work often revolves around gathering the opinions of others and feeding these into our plans for projects. Whether stakeholders or users, asking the right questions and opening topics up to discussion can often help uncover views that would otherwise have been missed. When working on internal business strategy I think it’s important to bear the same principles in mind, and as such I recently carried out a survey of all UK studio staff in order to get their opinions on technical change. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/04/21/site-redesign/ Sat, 21 Apr 2012 15:16:32 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/04/21/site-redesign/ Regular readers (hi Mum), may notice that things are looking a bit different around here. After a long, drawn out process, I have finally put up the latest incarnation of my site. Those of you visiting on a mobile or tablet device will likely notice the most difference, as I’ve gone responsive. Responsive design is something that I really believe in, and it was important to me to start making some changes to reflect that. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/03/12/adobe-shadow/ Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:17:40 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/03/12/adobe-shadow/ Developers hate inefficiencies. We hate repetitive tasks. We hate having to re-type something we’ve not 30 seconds ago typed in on a different device, especially considering we’re likely surrounded by about 10 of the damn things. This is why I love Adobe Shadow. Adobe Shadow is a new inspection and preview tool which aims to remove some of the common pains of the present day development workflow. Mobile is a given for new projects nowadays, and since it’s preferable to view output on real devices rather than emulators it’s easy to end up in a situation where time and patience is wasted on frequently refreshing a sea of devices littering your desk. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/01/18/computer-science-ict/ Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:19:08 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/01/18/computer-science-ict/ It was announced last week that the UK government will be replacing the current Information and Communications Technology curriculum with that of a Computer Science focused course. In a move that has been strongly welcomed by the development community, it will mean a dramatic about turn from this time last year when the government were thenconsidering making ICT a non-compulsory part of the curriculum. As someone who studied ICT throughout my school life, taking qualifications at GCSE level (age 14-16), then IT at AS and A-Level (age 16-18) I think that this is a great move. https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/01/01/2011-2012/ Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:24:01 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2012/01/01/2011-2012/ 2011 was a tough year, but a very good year. Whenever New Year rolls around I inevitably tend to start thinking about where I was and what I was doing at the same point a year ago. Usually I can’t believe how much things have changed, and this year is no exception. This year has been incredibly busy, both personally and professionally, and has been unlike anything previous. There have been some amazing highlights, but it has all come after an awful lot of hard work, and I’ve learnt a lot of tough lessons about what not to do. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/12/19/reflections-of-a-part-time-remote-worker/ Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:26:26 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/12/19/reflections-of-a-part-time-remote-worker/ Earlier this year I made the tough decision to commit to moving out of Kent, and up to East Anglia. This obviously tied into decisions about my working life, which up until that point had revolved around heading in to the office in Tunbridge Wells every day for the last 6 years. After some very honest chats with the directors at Lightmaker, it was decided that both parties would give me working remotely a chance. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/12/08/featured-article-adobe-com-success-story/ Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:27:54 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/12/08/featured-article-adobe-com-success-story/ A while ago, before we were nominated for an Adobe MAX award, I did an interview regarding Lightmaker’s use of Adobe technologies for our work with The R&A and The Open Championship 2011. I’m pleased to say that this has been turned into a Success Story for the adobe.com site, and is now live. You can read the full story here: Adobe.com case study Lightmaker news story https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/10/17/adobe-max-2011-a-first-timers-perspective/ Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:31:24 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/10/17/adobe-max-2011-a-first-timers-perspective/ Adobe MAX is Adobe’s annual conference, which for 2011 was held in Los Angeles, USA. Every year 5000 conference attendees gather to share Adobe’s latest big reveals, attend sessions by industry leaders, and join in with community and ‘unconference’ events. This was my first MAX, and was something which I have been looking forward to for a long time. Having never been to a conference outside of the UK I was unsure what to expect from a lot of things. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/08/15/computer-arts-projects-issue-153/ Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:32:41 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/08/15/computer-arts-projects-issue-153/ Computer Arts Projects issue 153 has been released, and features a nice full page spread on some of the recent work that Lightmaker have been doing. Alongside some shots of the work you will find quotes from me speaking about our work for The Open, whilst our US Managing Director also talks about our work with Maria Sharapova. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/08/01/how-i-got-started-in-coldfusion/ Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:34:06 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/08/01/how-i-got-started-in-coldfusion/ A while ago Steve Bryant came up with the excellent idea of August 1st being designated How I Got Started In ColdFusion Day, for which ColdFusion users tell their origin story. As a big fan of encouraging others to take up coding, I thought I’d bring my story to the table. Let’s start right back at the beginning… We had computers in the house since I was young, and I’ve never felt any kind of fear or hesitation about jumping in and messing around using trial and error. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/07/07/google-one-week-in/ Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:35:22 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/07/07/google-one-week-in/ Like most people, hearing about Google+ last week caused me to immediately sign up to be invited to the Beta. Shortly after I was lucky enough to be sent an invite using a well known loophole, and took it upon myself to start shooting out invites to friends, colleagues and family members in an attempt to start filling my circles with fellow users. After using G+ (yeah, I’m on that naming convention bandwagon) for a week, I thought I’d write up some thoughts on the service now I’ve had some time for it to settle down. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/06/01/mobile-presentation-slides/ Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:55:04 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/06/01/mobile-presentation-slides/ I’m back in the UK after what I’m enjoying calling a mini European tour, and I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone that came to see me speak about mobile development in Paris and Brussels this week. As a first time speaker this was definitely somewhat in at the deep end, but I really hope that everyone felt that the sessions were interesting and came away having learnt something. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/05/04/upcoming-speaking-events/ Wed, 04 May 2011 15:53:10 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/05/04/upcoming-speaking-events/ I’m very pleased to announce that I will be a speaker on the Adobe ColdFusion User Groups tour at events in Paris on the 30th of May and Brussels on the 31st of May. The presentation I’ll be giving will be: Building dynamic mobile applications with ColdFusion The world of device development is one where rules and approaches can shift rapidly, but also one where excitement is high and there is huge potential for innovation. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/04/11/adobe-announce-creative-suite-5-5/ Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:49:13 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/04/11/adobe-announce-creative-suite-5-5/ Today brought the announcement of Adobe’s first mid-cycle release for Creative Suite 5.5. Instead of continuing with uninterrupted milestone releases, these will be moved to a two-year cycle, with mid-cycle releases keeping the product relevant and at the cutting edge of technology. There were two main sides to the announcement – functionality and licensing. Licensing So is this just a ploy by Adobe to take our money more regularly? Quite the opposite – one of Adobe’s big changes has been the introduction of a Subscription Edition in order to make upgrading more affordable and more suited to users’ fluctuating usage scenarios. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/03/27/book-review-driving-technical-change-terrence-ryan/ Sun, 27 Mar 2011 15:44:37 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/03/27/book-review-driving-technical-change-terrence-ryan/ As Solutions Architect some of the core elements of my job are to keep up-to-date with new developments within the industry, to advise my organisation and clients about technical strategy, and make recommendations, whether that be on a project basis or as part of more general business strategy. Because of this, I was very interested when I learned that Terrence Ryan had written a book on Driving Technical Change. The book’s subtitle is “Why People On Your Team Don’t Act on Good Ideas, and How to Convince Them They Should”, and is likely to strike a chord with many – on reading this simple statement alone several encounters came to mind, and I’m sure that others have experienced a similar reaction. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/03/08/scotch-on-the-rocks-2011/ Tue, 08 Mar 2011 15:35:52 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/03/08/scotch-on-the-rocks-2011/ After three non-stop days of travel, keynotes, sessions, and networking, Scotch on the Rocks is now over for another year. The quality of the speakers this year was first class, and that coupled with an excellent venue and a brilliant community made for what I consider to be the best Scotch yet. The conference was held at the Apex International Hotel in Edinburgh, and with the majority of attendees staying either in the International or its neighbouring sister hotel the Apex City it ensured that there was always a large contingent of people to chat to at any time of the day or night. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/02/25/preparation-for-conferences/ Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:19:55 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/02/25/preparation-for-conferences/ As I’ll be attending Scotch on the Rocks (Europe’s premier ColdFusion-based conference) next week, this weekend will be all about getting ready for the long voyage from the safety of Kent to the wilds of Edinburgh. If you’re anything like me, conferences will be booked up months in advance and will rapidly descend on you when you’re completely booked up with a sea of various other things to think about. For my own future reference, as well as for anyone travelling to conferences or other business-related gatherings, here’s my preparation checklist. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/02/17/adobe-community-professionals-2011/ Thu, 17 Feb 2011 15:09:02 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/02/17/adobe-community-professionals-2011/ I’m very proud to be able to say that I have been accepted as an Adobe Community Professional for 2011. It’s a big honour to be included into the ranks alongside people that I respect an incredible amount, so I’d like to say a massive thank you to Adobe, and to the individual that recommended me for inclusion in the first place. This year there are only 234 ACPs worldwide, with an additional 87 ACCs. https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/01/03/new-year-new-site-new-blog/ Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:49:20 +0000 sally@recordssoundthesame.com (Sally Lait) https://sallylait.com/blog/2011/01/03/new-year-new-site-new-blog/ So here we are – 2011, and starting it with no resolutions as such, but instead a list of things that I think would be good for me, or that I’d like to try. One such thing is starting a proper blog… and sticking to it! Firstly, on a serious note, the whole blogging thing is actually something I’ve had to put a lot of thought into in terms of balancing my voice as an individual against that of my employer.