Tag Archives: Margaux amie

17191: Maddie: the 8-old Entrepreneur – Part 1

April 4, 2017 HWMS Production

When you are trying to explain the subtleties of organizational politics or the nature of corporate governance, or the difficulty of making strategic decisions, nothing is more useful than an 8-year old entrepreneur.

Little did we know that she would become so central to podcast but she was the product of a need, a talented actor and a moment of inspiration.

Maddie was an afterthought, a character invented to fill an episode but quickly she became the way of exploring the mind of young CEOs. She had no fear. She did things because she could.She had a hard time shaking a minor grudge and yet would be distracted by a puppy. Underneath all of that was a leader who was trying to find her way.

In this episode, we have assembled and re-editted some of the first stories, so that you can appreciate how she thinks and how we all become leaders.

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Cast:

Maddie: Zoe Anastasiou

Penelope Othmar, Principal: Debbon Ayer

Vinny the CTO: Geoffrey Grier

Evelyne the Business Manager: Margaux Amie

Airport Official: Josh LaForce

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series, Tech Governance, Uncategorized

17145: Building a Staff for a Tech Company – Bits & People

March 29, 2017 HWMS Production

It’s like a blind date. Only worse. With a date you have the presence of hope shackled only by the vaguest of required qualifications. But like a date, a tech company staff has to be created today with the changing future ever in mind. And the results are not always pretty.

Maddie is hiring the staff for her startup with Vinny receiving, but not approving, her ideas. Steps are tentative. Plans are in process. Perhaps the worse part of it is that she is trying to launch a new service and isn’t completely clear about how that service will organize her customers – or her community, if you wish to take an idealist view of things.

In the process, Maddie has to face her old nemesis and ask “How does a real CEO behave?”

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Cast:

Maddie: Zoe Anastasiou

Penelope Othmar, Principal: Debbon Ayer

Vinny the CTO: Geoffrey Grier

Evelyn the Business Manager: Margaux Amie

Sean with a Resume: Margaux Amie

Sullivan from PR: Josh LaForce

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Agile Management

17135: The Agile Board

February 28, 2017 HWMS Production

Agility begins at home. Or more to the point, it begins with the board. Too often, companies are organized conventionally and then the CEO tries to make the Agile by applying various tricks and procedures. As Vinny argues in today’s episode, you really need to start at the top, think of the company as a whole, and start by understanding the claims and obligations of all parties.

It is a little crazy, we do admit, to build a company for an 8-year-old Entrepreneur. But it is not crazy to ask how your CEO will grow into the leadership demands of the organization.

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Cast:

Evelyn-the-Business-Manager: Margaux Amie

Sully-from-Poliy & PR: Josh LaForce

Vinny-the-CTO: Geoffrey Grier

Penelope-the-Principal: Debbon Ayer

Maddie-the-8-year-old-Entrepreneur: Zoe Anastassiou

Delores Payne-Perkins: Margaux Amie

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individual, Uncategorized

16440: Why do we Stand & Why do we Scrum?

December 6, 2016 HWMS Production

We stand at our morning meeting and listen to a guy named a scrum master. What do these things tell us about organizations? And what do they tell us about technology? (Perhaps that it has much in common with more humble work?) A sketch of our morning standup meeting and an introduction not our new Master Scrummaster, Bix

Featuring:

Geoffrey Grier as Vinny the CTO
Josh La Force as Sulley from PR
Margaux Amie as Evelyn the Business Manager
Noah Masur as Rohit from IT
Sarah Corbyn Woolf as Anna-the-Intern

Introducing John C Havens as Bix the Master Scrum Master

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How To Talk About Difficult Things, individual

16920: Talking About Difficult Things: Saying “No”

October 25, 2016 HWMS Production

It is not enough to make good technology. You have to talk about it. You have to talk about it when it is good and when it is bad. The first is easy, to a point. The second is hard. How do you tell someone that their ideas are not working, that their plans have failed, that their vision of the world is incorrect? Evelyn and Sully give their lesson on the subject.

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individual

16915: How to Talk about Difficulty Topics

September 26, 2016 David Alan Grier

We all have to bear bad news. It is what we have to do. Tell your box that he is wrong, your neighbor that she is disturbing the piece, your employee that he is fired. How do you do it? How Do you do it other than starting with the horribly awkward “I don’t bring bad news but…” Our cast members Evelyne and Sulley explore this question and propose an answer, an answer that comes following a bit of a skirmish in this new series that is part of “How We Manage Stuff.”

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individual, series

16405: Seattle & the Problems of an Innovative Organization

September 20, 2016 David Alan Grier

This fall, the podcast moves to Seattle. Such moves keep us flexible, agile, ready to face any task. Well, perhaps any task. There is this problem with slugs. However, we’re in Seattle to consider the attributes of an innovative organization. In the process, we’re looking at four attributes: Vision, Refinement, Socialization, and Decision-making. But to do that, we have to settle into our office. A local property manager is some help (though not much) and our hardworking intern puts down her box of material to deliver the lyrical speech “Rohit that Slug had a mother.”

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Drama that knows tech. Drama that means business.