Elisabeth Hendrickson

@[email protected]
2.1K Followers
588 Following
1.4K Posts

Experienced technology leader. Consultant. Interim VPE. Advisor. Coach. Founder Curious Duck Digital Laboratory, LLC. Author Explore It! She/Her.

I help software development organizations address the biggest pain points that interfere with delivering value at a sustainable pace. Could you or your team benefit from bringing me in as an advisor, coach, facilitator, or interim leader? If so, let's talk!

Websitehttps://curiousduck.io
Githubhttps://github.com/testobsessed
Show threadElisabeth Hendrickson2d ago
@francois I first encountered that slogan in 1990ish when I worked for Sybase. It was on a poster that hung above an Ops person's desk, and I LOVED it. That's how our character "Mark" ended up with it on his mug--hat tip former Sybase colleague (who's name I no longer remember but who's taste in office decor stuck with me). A reviewer felt the slogan was old and stale, and needed a refresh. But maybe everything that's old is new again?
Show threadElisabeth Hendrickson2d ago
@maaikees Do you have an alternate suggestion?
Elisabeth Hendrickson2d ago
@joeltosi & I are in the final stges of copy editing Signals & Levers. We need help. There's a fictional component to the book. A character, Mark, runs Ops & carries around a mug. Currently it says "Your lack of planning is not my emergency." A reviewer said we need a new slogan. Please help us decide by voting for your fav from our ideas or commenting with your own. We need to decide soon so please boost for reach. (If we pick yours we'll find an appropriate way to thank you / credit you.)
No Heroics, No SPOFs
3.4%
Hope is Not a Runbook
51.7%
Live Below Your Error Budget
27.6%
SLO and Steady
17.2%
Poll ended at .
Show threadElisabeth HendricksonMar 12
@RuthMalan @joeltosi My calendar claims Oct 6 is a Tuesday, but I think I could do Mon Oct 5 or Tue Oct 6. Hey @joeltosi?
Elisabeth HendricksonMar 11
Riley S. FaelanMar 11

The notion of a broken clock being sometimes right is based on a gross misunderstanding of what information is.

A clock that always shows the same time is never right, even in the moments of the day when the time happens to be what it shows, because you don't gain any information about what time it is by looking at the clock.

This reasoning also applies to chatbots. If you can't tell whether what you have been given is useful information unless you alreay know the information, then you haven't been given useful information.

Elisabeth HendricksonMar 9
Ruth — of systems & designFeb 1

And suddenly! The next (remote) Technical Leadership workshop is next month!

March 24 and 31, 2026, 12-3PM Eastern Time (US/Canada)

Early Bird discount 🎉 (until Feb 15, or discounted seats sell out)

More info and to enroll: https://ti.to/bredemeyer/technicalleadershipmar2026

Preview material: Decisions chapbook (pdf):
https://ruthmalan.com/Leadership/TechnicalDecisions.pdf

Elisabeth HendricksonMar 6

I've been known to say "whoopsadoodle" when talking about mistakes. Like "I accidentally knocked my tea off the desk. Whoopsadoodle!"

Currently working in Google docs, and finding that it makes mistakes on my behalf. Henceforth I shall refer to its mistakes as "whoopsagoogles."

Elisabeth HendricksonMar 5

So... Anthropic is refusing to back down on a couple pretty basic guardrails in their negotiations with the US: no mass surveillance, no autonomous killing. See: https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war

Yet the US Dept of War is threatening them because of course they are.

In response, Google and OpenAI employees released a letter standing with Anthropic. https://notdivided.org/

Seems like a good thing to me. Thanks to all who signed. If you're a past or present Google / OpenAI employee you can still sign.

Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War

A statement from our CEO on national security uses of AI

Show threadElisabeth HendricksonMar 4
@ascherbaum Zero. The vote on the motion to even have the debate in the Senate is happening right now and the unofficial tally shows 48-52. That's extremely unlikely to change before they close the vote, so the war powers resolution stays stuck in committee. And that means there won't be a veto to override...we're not even going to get that far. I'm gutted. I'd hoped that the America-first Republicans would break ranks. But no.
Elisabeth HendricksonMar 4
Listening to the Senate debate on the War Powers vote in the background while doing some routine work. This is, of course, a mistake. But hearing Republicans argue that the Constitution gives the power of war to the President (it doesn't) and talk about the need to bring down religious fanatics while supporting protesters is ... something. Still trying to figure out if they genuinely don't see the hypocrisy? Or think we are too stupid to see it? So confusing.