CTO Think Podcast

CTO Think Podcast

A pragmatic podcast about leadership, product dev, and tech decisions between two recovering Chief Technology Officers.

Episodes

Vue, Vuex, Auth, and State Management

June 23, 2020 • 40 mins
None
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BLM, White Privilege, Accountability, Guilt, Responsibilities, and Helping

June 9, 2020 • 55 mins
The world feels like a different place from just a couple weeks ago, but it's not. The United States is still in the same place it has been for a long time, if you're a minority. Randy and Don discuss the Black Lives Matter movement, police accountability, racism, privilege, guilt, and where they might fit in to not being part of the problem.
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From Manager/Dev to Non-coding Manager

May 19, 2020 • 31 mins
Right before the COVID pandemic hit, Randy was asked to take on the management of two new teams, which changed his typical role of manager-developer to strictly people management, meetings, and project tracking. Don and Randy discuss the change as it affected Randy and what he thinks is the most important factors for folks in the same boat.
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Big Ideas Getting Planned, Part 2

May 12, 2020 • 51 mins
Don and Randy continue their discussion about the business plans in the Big Idea Gator Business Plan Competition, this time about the best entries and how the competition played out. Coconuts!
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Big Ideas Getting Planned, Part 1

May 5, 2020 • 50 mins
Don brings in a few examples from an upcoming Big Idea Gator Business Plan Competition in which he's playing the role of a judge. We discuss the importance of good writing, identifying the problem, and setting reasonable goals and metrics to give folks the notion you have some idea what you're doing. In Part 1, we discuss the weakest entries before tackling the better ones in Part 2.
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Difficult Choices and Hard Conversations

March 31, 2020 • 43 mins
Don and Randy talk about what's been going on with the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has affected their firms, jobs, and side projects. What does it mean to talk to folks under your wing? What kind of leadership does it take when the real world seems out of your control?
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Growing Up and Losing the Fun Parts of App Development

March 3, 2020 • 34 mins
Don asked Randy about what he's working on, lately, and Randy exclaimed, "nothing fun," which actually turns out not to be true. Randy details the additional mix of people, communication, and risk management around mature application development and it becomes the setting for a larger-picture discussion on how things change with app dev as you age.
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Improving Visual Communication for Remote Management

February 25, 2020 • 29 mins
Randy is making efforts to improve the communication of visual examples via remote video meetings. We discuss his first attempt to achieve online whiteboarding using a Macbook Pro, a Wacom One tablet, and a Google Jamboard.
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Security Concerns Keep Coming

February 11, 2020 • 34 mins
In Don's role as CTO for AspirEDU, he has a number of security audits posed by potential customers and increasing complexity around third-party hosts. Randy keeps wanting to talk about the XFL (Part 2).
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Proposed Project Approach and the Wonders of Sous Vide Cooking

January 28, 2020 • 31 mins
Randy pitches to Don an approach for a CMS project and then rifs on the cool new toy he recently purchased for the kitchen: A sous vide cooking device.
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Viable or crap? Discussing Blockchain, VR, Autonomous Cars, and Drone Delivery

January 21, 2020 • 51 mins
This week we take a look at the state of a few hyped technologies and see where they really are in terms of usefulness, adoption, and long-term viability. Don thinks VR will never go mainstream and Randy wants a drone to bring him something, ANYTHING, right now.
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Modern Content Management Options

January 7, 2020 • 44 mins
Don and Randy discuss content management options from the old-school Full Stack apps, WYSIWYG SaaS, and Headless + Static Site Generator options
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A Deeper Dive into Building Power Apps

December 31, 2019 • 45 mins
Don takes Randy along for the ride of his latest applications using Microsoft's Power App platform. They discuss building an application that uses Twilio, Trello, Flow, Power Apps, OneDrive, Adaptive Cards, and Microsoft Teams without much code, if any.
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Automation vs Programming

December 17, 2019 • 41 mins
Don describes his work on moving his company to Microsoft and his use of Power Apps. This leads to a discussion of the automation vs programming strategies and how this might be the future for all non-coding employment.
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Headless CMS + Static Site Generators

December 10, 2019 • 24 mins
Randy's been approached, both at his job and from an external firm, about the need for a CMS. The old stalwarts of Wordpress and Drupal don't seem to work, but the idea of a Static Site Generator and persisted content does. Randy and Don discuss the new products out there that can potentially serve both needs.
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Twilio Segments, Pricing, and Proxy

November 19, 2019 • 21 mins
Randy has been working on Twilio a bit since the team last worked on the Chasms project and updates Don on some of the interesting features Twilio has brought to market. In addition, they discuss a few gotchas about SMS pricing that might needlessly cost developers a few extra bucks.
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Switching to Services

November 12, 2019 • 33 mins
Randy is part of a team focused on building a Service Oriented Architecture with Go. Don figures out he has always been using services, but the SOA acronym seemed to involve more than simply work. Randy explains further the use of messages, queues, and other approaches to request buffering.
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Power Apps for the People

November 5, 2019 • 40 mins
Don has been hearing Randy tell him to quit coding so much and finally does something about it: He decides to build an app without writing a line of code (but not delegating it to someone else) by using Microsoft's Power Apps platform. This week, we discuss everything about PowerApps and how this might be THE FUTURE!
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Is Accessibility a Worthwhile Focus?

October 29, 2019 • 33 mins
Domino's Pizza recently lost a lawsuit regarding the lack of accessibility features for their online ordering platform. Don and Randy discuss the ramifications of the decision and whether accessibility is worth the time and effort product managers might put into making their products more inclusive.
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A Front-End Dev That Can't Build a Website?

October 15, 2019 • 27 mins
Chris Coyier recently posted a tweet regarding a front-end developer he knew that "could not build a website." Is this strange? Shouldn't every developer that claims front-end skills be able to prop up a basic site?
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