Welcome to my journey!

Something Tim Ferriss shared recently and deeply resonated in me. “Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy” It is a big issue in corporates about Ego and politics. What does this mean? When developing software, there is a big push on the speed and “develop it faster” mentality. I have seen this in some QA Team Leads who seem to execute tests without fully understanding the context and putting a lot of pressure on the dev team to prove them wrong in the end. Speed up the test preparation leads to a waste of time for the entire development team. This is true for developers and features dev. There are sometimes issues with the prioritizations and the right things are delivered at the wrong time, or wrong features are developed and prioritized in the worst time. What needs to happen is to have experienced lead/manager who can create a process where it is not about the ego and the individual needs to push things further, but it is about the team to get together and to prioritize the a...

Exciting presentation by  Gerrit Grunwald  from  #azul  yesterday! We talked about  #Cloud  and  #JVMs  and how to make the starting time faster. I am interested in  #amazon  and  #Azure  and this technology seems promising for micro service use cases. Also, a new thing I find out is in Bulgaria there is a very active and cool  #JUG  community! Kudos! You can check out the link: https://openjdk.org/projects/crac/  

I am thrilled that we are moving a project to Java 11. I know there are even latests versions out there, but for me it seems good achievement already. I am working with the team to have good coverage for critical components and security is a big focus. The challenge in software development when you start from an already established product is how to balance between security and usability. There are many things to consider, including the GDPR regulations. What you need to do is: 1️⃣​ Identify critical users and if you can, please present them solution in advance to get their feedback. 2️⃣​ Identify critical customer data and how long you must keep it and how to store it securely 3️⃣​ Identify the attack surface of your application and how you can mitigate any potential attacker’s attempt. 4️⃣​ Priorities all the user stories you had identified. Remember, there won’t be enough time for everything, so work incrementally.

How does mobile first affect the branding nowadays? I love the explanation made by this video. There is a cycle in the branding for the companies. In the beginning, they were almost cartoonish. Then they become more complex and detailed. The current phase for the brands is to go back to a simple design. Think about your company’s brand and how important it is in this current stage of the company development? If you are a startup, you can benefit from this simplified trend and spend less time on branding and more on client acquisition.

Interesting how big and small organizations and corporations are focused on digital ID. In terms of Web3.0, people who choose to be anonymous on the internet and don’t be tracked. This is essential. But of course, governments have different priorities. To enable security, they need to recognize the person and validate their level of risk. In this link ,you will find an article how the DigitalID in governments enables easier government to citizens services.    

Another gathering on the topic of Web3.0, privacy and the upcoming PoS Ethereum change. Main ideas and topics were about privacy. Web2.0 gave connectivity, which enabled monitoring and tracking. Web3.0 could give more privacy to the people who choose to embody it. In the spirit of the meeting, the picture is very nerdy and you can’t tell who was one of the participants 😉 One interesting topic I had was about how do you invest or support a project you have no idea who are the founders behind it. For some people it was okay, but for me it is still a paradigm shift to look at projects where the authors choose to be anonymous. How about you? Would you trust an amazing project which you have no idea who is the team behind it?

New research claims that  Apple  Pay has surpassed  Mastercard  in the dollar value of transactions annually, with its $6 trillion total meaning it’s over halfway to equaling  Visa . Since its launch in 2013, Apple Pay has seen rising adoption by users, banks, and retailers, until in 2021 it accounted for 92% of all mobile wallet debit transactions. Now, according to comparison site Trading Platforms, Apple Pay is the second most popular digital payment system, beaten only by Visa. The top-ranking Visa processes approximately $10 trillion worth of transactions per year, with Apple Pay on over $6 trillion. This is how innovation overtakes traditional companies and their role in the transactional world. I wonder what will this means for the future of money transfer? Will Apply or other IT company introduce a new technology which would make MasterCard and Visa obsolete?

Another amazing Web3 meetup organized by  STRV The meetup was opened by their CEO  Lubo Smid  who shared an exciting story about his tenure in the company. There was an eye-opening interview about AR, VR and Tesla suit with the CEO of  Somnium Space  –  Artur Sychov What amazing take aways: 🚀 He attended a conference in 2016 – 2017 which inspired him to learn about NFT and crypto. This inspired him later to build a VR world which is fully interconnected and seamless. Note: if you are a new in any field, visit conferences where the gurus are going and only then you can immerse and see how future technologies can be used. Metaverse according to him 3 pillars 1⃣ Immersive – VR 2⃣ Decentralize – you need to control your stuffs 3⃣ Persistence – you should experience the same thing as the other person next to you, ex sunset and selfie. Like every new technology, there are gatekeepers. Example: phone producers, there are only a few who are in this business. Artur...

Managerial skills crisis is real. The entire point to have this level of communication is to delegate some challenges with the effectiveness of other teams so they can be solved. I see a lot of managers who had been to a training and two and react in a very text book way. This is not a natural conversation and they actually show they can’t handle the topic. It is like talking to robots. This is why managers need to learn to be empathetic and, instead of over-promising, they need to first start assessing the situation. Once they made changes, they can reach out with more promises. But this is not learned in the textbooks, the skills needed to be a good manager and a good leader are hard to develop. Some people can do it easier and faster than others. As manager, try to reflect on your style and not only ask for an honest feedback, but self assessment is sometimes the best tool. You can also look at the book the situational leadership .    

Web3.0 – what do you think about this new exciting chapter of the Web evolution? I attend a discussion on funding and web3.0 investments. Here are some insights from the panel discussions. Game based on crypto economy will become big next year. Another interesting thing which will happen is interactive comics on NFTs. Regarding investments in startups, If you want to pitch your startup to investors, here are some things they will look for: 1) The team must be in place(there are funds who, by seeing the team and founders, could trust their experience that they will pivot the idea and make it successful) 2) The Idea must be there. (Better validate your idea first and have a plan on how it can scale) 3) Good impression is if the team are expert in the issue and have very good insights(long lost are the days you come with an idea, the new norm is having a solid insight to impress investors in order to secure funding)