fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
What I Would Like From My Medium Readers.
By: Gal Mux
Tags: Writers On Medium, Ｍedium, Followership, Feedback Management, Feedback

Photo by geralt on Pixabay

Point out my mistakes

We all try to ensure our stories are the best they could be, but sometimes, one or two mistakes escape us. They may be grammatical, factual or any other mistake. Point them out to me.

Ego is the enemy here.

I usually point out some mistakes to stories I read and the writers are very appreciative. I don’t point them out to criticise but to help then correct them so that future readers will find them error free.

2. Share what you feel about my strong opinions

Tell me so in the responses if you disagree with what I wrote. I will not take any offense. I also point out these to some stories that I read.

We can always agree to disagree. Like I said, ego is the enemy. I do not believe my opinions are the best opinions and I am always looking to hear a different perspective and to learn from it.

3. Follow me back

If I read your story and I like it, I must follow you to be updated more on your stories.

I will also follow you anyway whether I liked your story or not. Who knows I might like the next one.

If you follow me, I must follow you back. Follow for follow is my motto.

I follow 3k profiles so far on Medium. Here is why I follow so many.

Photo by athree23 on Pixabay

What do you want from your Medium readers?
Who am I? And why now?
By: Akshayaa Govindan
Tags: Writing, Feedback, Product Management, Personal Development

I’m Akshayaa — a Product Manager @ Scotiabank.

I aspire to one day lead my own product division and maybe even a business venture of my own. My goal as a PM is to understand user/business problems and work alongside a diverse group of individuals to deliver meaningful digital solutions that enhance the user experience. I’m passionate about technology, people & problems, especially a combination of the three!

But let’s get back to right now…

As PMs we know well to get feedback our product’s performance and iterate to get to the best version of it. Now, why not do the same for your own skillset? That’s exactly what I’m trying to do with with this.

I’m using Medium as an avenue for improving my writing skills & keep my curiosity satiated. While in the product realm, I’m focussing on adding new skills to my ever-growing PM Toolbox. With this, I hope to gain skills to effectively cultivate, lead and empower a team.

Thus far in my career, I’ve been able to hone my technical skills (Agile product delivery, data analysis, story-telling skills) while at the same time growing my Business Acumen. In 2021, I hope to:

Keep growing my business acumen

Build up my confidence in public writing

Learn to communicate in an engaging & concise manner

Understand how to empower others

And I’m going to do it by:
Dealing With Negative Feedback is Never Easy, No Matter How Far You Advance in Your Career
By: Flex Mauto
Tags: Beyourself, Criticism, Hurt, Work, Feedback

Dealing With Negative Feedback is Never Easy, No Matter How Far You Advance in Your Career

Photo by Efren Barahona on Unsplash

I am well aware of the merits of feedback and also understand why some people prefer to call it by better sounding names such as corrective or constructive criticism. Despite all that, feedback still sucks initially.

To be perplexed by this reality, it to not understand why a child fights the prospect of having broccoli as part of their dinner.

I confess not always to have understood my struggles with negative feedback; in fact, I questioned my suitability for leadership in my organization due to my poor reaction to feedback. Unlike others, I have a terrible poker face, meaning people can quickly tell when feedback is making me uncomfortable.

I have not mastered the art of smilingly saying “thank you for the feedback, I will work on those helpful suggestions”.
Have you ever vented about a change to the Medium homepage?
By: Jl Matthews
Tags: Writing, Reading, Médium, Feedback, Freelancing

Have you ever vented about a change to the Medium homepage? What about the new profile pages? Do the recent alterations to publication layouts keep you up at night?

Well, if so, there’s a way to have your voice heard. And better still, you can get paid for it.

The Medium design team is looking for volunteers to participate in a series of research panels. You can get all the details and sign up here.

Tagging a few folks who might be interested (if they’re not already involved): Roz Warren, Mark Starlin, J.A. Taylor, Bill Adler Editor, Quy Ma, Grant Piper, Giulia Montanari, Megan Holstein
Quick, meaningful, and useful feedback on your ideas with two simple questions.
By: Martin Majling
Tags: UX Research, Startup, UX, UX Design, Feedback

Here’s an example of getting quick, meaningful, and useful feedback on your ideas with two simple questions.

Understanding your idea is the key to getting the right feedback from people. My recommendation is to visualize the idea of using a simple sketch, flowchart, or lo-fi wireframes.

Find three to five people, ask each for a few minutes. Show each of them your visualization, and explain your idea. Ask the next two questions.

What do you like most about this solution?

What should I yet change or think about this solution?

When you ask your two questions, shut up your mouth, and listen. I highly recommend writing notes or recording audio. It’s quick, it’s dirty, and it’s work!

The next step is fixing problems in your idea and find anther people and repeat the process. After internal feedback, it’s time to validate your idea on the market with real customers.

What would be the question you would ask that helps you better understand the User Experience field? Write it in the comments section down below.
I’m Busy, Therefore I Am
By: Ryszard Skarbek
Tags: Busy, Inner Peace, Feedback, Time, Self

I’m Busy, Therefore I Am

Image by B_Me on Pixabay

We have created times that are chronically short on time (sic!). Everyone is chasing somewhere, in a hurry. We rush from one call to another, we even go to the bathroom with our headphones on. When we are dealing with one issue, we feel as we should be doing something else.

Isn’t it a paradox that technological inventions have caught us in this trap? But did they catch us or did we ourselves?

The technology was to help us simplify many routine activities, free us from what is tedious and less important. Car, washing machine, microwave, mobile phone, vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, finally e-mail and Internet.

What happened to the time they were going to save us?

Today lack of time almost determines the importance of a person. Your inaccessibility determines your rank, especially at work. If you are not busy, you are not someone to be reckoned with. If your cell phone is not ringing or texting constantly, you hardly exist.

We complain about the constant lack of time as if this lack were an inherent feature of Nature. Yet time has been following the same rhythm since the dawn of time.

Hence, what causes a constant lack of time? Our choices, unfortunately.

We decide what we fill this time with. In fact, we choose. At the core of these decisions is what is internally important to us. If we are clear about this, it is easier to make these choices. What’s more, then we are aware that we are making this decision.

And, unfortunately, this responsibility for our choices has to be faced. It is hard. Because to swim against the tide we need independence and courage. Otherwise, we will live our lives without realizing that our main purpose was to make a good impression on others.

We don’t live our lives-we act them out. We move among other people who are equally busy, and with the same reverence, we all play the art of making the best possible impression on each other. It is the appearance that counts, the outside, not the inside.

What’s more, the more what’s inside silently screams empty, the more we try to fill it with even more activities. But what is internal cannot be replaced by what is external.

Today our value is determined by what we do. Not who we are. We delude ourselves that by doing more, acting more, achieving more, getting more, accumulating more, acting, acting, acting — we will become Something, we will be Something. And I think the direction is the opposite. First, you need to be Someone or Something to act in a certain way.
Melanie-
Tags: Gratefulness, Grateful, Gratefulness Everyday, Inspiration, Feedback

Melanie-

Thanks for taking time to read, highlight, and reply!

I am #Grateful

KR helped me remember how much fun I had writing this article. It was a valuable lesson.

So is your feedback. Thank you!
Dan-
Tags: Grateful, Grateful Heart, Gratefulness Everyday, Feedback, Gratitude

Really like the analogy that we're all the same eggs in one big basket. This was both entertaining and enlightening.

The year 2020: I'm home every day, and someone in the house is making me an egg breakfast of some…
KR-
Tags: Fun, Energy, Collaboration, Feedback, Gratitude

KR-

Thanks so much for the feedback. What I’m reflecting on from your comments is remembering how much fun I had writing this article.

It’s a reminder for me to have fun while writing. I remember my energy being very high when I wrote this and will now be more aware of my energy as I write.

I am also grateful this article won today’s lottery.

Please feel free to keep all the articles I submit for the next day or weeks contest. If I feel the need to pull an article back I know how to do that.

Thanks again for creating this publication. It feels to me like a writers co-op and I really like that.

In Gratitude,

Bobby-
It’s All About the Conversation, Mostly
By: Mike Gilronan
Tags: Feedback

This article was originally posted on April 02, 2009.

Not exactly the bi-directional web we’ve come to know and love, but forgivable based on sheer cheekiness.It’s hard to stay annoyed when you’re laughing out loud.
Why It’s Crucial To Share Your Ideas?
By: Timur Taepov
Tags: Valuable, Sharing, Mindset, Ideas, Feedback

We are afraid to share our ideas because of two main reasons. We think that somebody will steal them. The truth is ideas worth nothing, implementation matters. Another reason, we are afraid to seem dumb.

When we consider our thoughts in mind, we see a clear logic and reasonability. It happens due to a complete picture and scale of facts and takes in our minds.

Sharing an idea requires the transformation of thoughts into structured words and sentences. Most probably, there is no entire picture and scale of knowledge in the mindset of your listener, like in your mind about an idea. Thus it is crucial to provide a clear structure. It is an amazing exercise that allows us to find weak points in our takes. Moreover, there is a chance to consider something new when we share an idea with a listener. It is possible due to a new angle of our thoughts in a conversation with somebody.

Also, there is an opportunity to get valuable feedback from a listener. Everybody has a personal unique experience and mindset. It can be helpful because we can hear completely different questions and takes that will lead us to new considerations about an idea. Share your ideas and have fun!
Of course.
By: Holly Jahangiri
Tags: Research, Ｍedium, Suggestion Box, Feedback, Improvement

Of course. You knew I would be, though, didn't you? I imagine Laura Carroll knows it, too. :D Thanks for the heads' up, Sharon!
A Request for Your Feedback
By: Michelle Loucadoux
Tags: Surveys, Feedback, Publication

A Request for Your Feedback

Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet on Unsplash

Dear readers of The Innovation,

We have created a survey so that we can work to deliver the best quality publication to fit your needs and interests. We truly want to hear what you have to say! If you have two minutes to fill this out, we would greatly appreciate your time. (There are only eight questions!) Thank you very much.

Best,

Esat and Michelle
Design Thinking Journey Blog
By: Bikash Jaiswal
Tags: Creativity, Design Thinking, Prototyping, Innovation, Feedback

From the very first day, our teachers asked us what does design thinking means and we say its all about design. Teachers said design but its creativity and innovation types of design. On our first class teachers asked how much you are creative lets check all of you. He gave us many creativity problem to solve. one of the is this 9 dots problem and say connect these dots with 3 straight lines without lifting the pen from the paper. It was our first day we enjoy a lot and also learn some creative and innovative tricks and know how creative we are.

Design thinking, this subject has been very special, interesting, creative and innovative for me. The main reason that I like this subjects is that this subjects is totally different and special from other subjects is that it has been very practical and contains knowledge that can be applied on field. As straight as a die, in the first day of the session I personally felt that this subjects is very interesting for me and it also helps in the working of any business that we started in future.

In design Thinking we learn about the how to users need and insights, taking proper feedback, sympathy and empathy, and mainly the prototype of the product which we make to show our ideas to the consumer or user how it look like and how to use it. Design thinking we make any product that meet the needs, wants and insight of the user. In this we not just jumping to the solution of the problem but understanding the consumers and getting proper feedback on the prototype and then keep on enhancing the prototype until it get an end-product. Sometimes we put ourselves on their shoes.

After some week we were divided into different groups and where we are asked to solve problem relating to the mobility due to the COVID-19. So we decided to do work in it and thinking and knowing what ours users problem is and what they need. We began to research and analyze what can we do for them to fulfill their need. So we interview 3–4 people who are affected of this and asked them what are the problems they are facing so we know that what are they facing due to COVID-19.We as a group, we wanted to solve the problems of our user by knowing their needs and wants and make a solution that meet their expectations. we make a bus and taxi for our user which fulfill all the needs and wants. We make this bus by using the ideas that taught us in design thinking and we follow all the steps and came up with our solution i.e. bus and taxi. So the drivers who are facing the problem they can drive the vehicles and fulfill their needs that they want.

At the End, Personally, I wanna say that Design Thinking is very interesting subject and it has been very effective and productive and made us creative, innovative and enthusiastic.

Bikash Jaiswal
The Claps on Medium
By: Klaus Wagner
Tags: Writing, Ｍedium, Claps On Medium, Claps Medium, Feedback

After a while, I noticed that I had more claps than fans for my stories. My first thought of course was that I misunderstood the relation between claps and fans. But then I saw that some fans had given some claps. I was surprised and asked myself what does that mean? For instance the following story

The results of my second month on Medium | by Klaus Wagner | The Innovation | Oct, 2020 | Medium

has 90 claps and 6 fans. And these six fans gave 3, 5, 8, 10, 14, and 50 claps. Don´t get me wrong I love every clap but that was a little bit too much for me. I couldn´t handle it. What is the difference between 3, 5 and 8 claps? Is there a system or a rule for clapping? And can I make mistakes by clapping although I want to give positive feedback?

The Medium Help Center says:

To clap for a post, click the clap button on the post page. You can clap up to 50 times per post, and you can use it to show the author how much you liked the story. When ranking stories, our system will evaluate claps users give out on an individual basis, assessing their applause for a particular post relative to the number of claps they typically give. Clapping for a story will notify the author that you applauded.

Okay, clapping for a story on Medium allows you to distinguish between different levels of “like”. But which are the different levels? What are the criteria? Is there a general rule or something like that?

As I mentioned above I have read a lot of articles about how Medium works. But I have never read anything about the “way of clapping”. Hmm, what to do?

First I thought, I don´t care, I clap once and that´s it. I give positive feedback, I tell the author with my clap that I like the article and sometimes I leave a comment to express my opinion about that article. Isn´t it enough???

But more and more I am convinced that actually there are differences between stories. Recently I read the following story by Breana Wallace:

My 2nd Month on Medium — Full Stats Breakdown | by Breana Wallace | The Innovation | Dec, 2020 | Medium

I liked this story very much and I left a comment to tell her about my enthusiasm for it. And because of this article, I decided to think about my one-clap-habit. I concluded that there are stories that deserve a better valuation. From now on I will make difference in giving feedback.
Reacting to user feedback in a pet-project. Fast.
By: Yury Dombaev
Tags: Trello, Firebase, Feedback, Realtime Database, Telegram Bot

Getting the Environment Variables

To make this all work you need to specify the environment variables in the .env file in the project’s root folder.

Firebase Service Key

To work with Firebase Realtime Database using the script you’ll need a Firebase service key. I won’t go into the details and just link the official documentation here. After receiving service key .json — put it into the project root folder.

Realtime Database setup

If you are reading this article, you probably already have the Firebase project and Realtime Database or Firestore set up.

For FIREBASE_DATABASE_URL you’ll need your database base URL. It looks something like this: https://<project-id>.firebaseio.com/ . For FIREBASE_FEEDBACK_REFERENCE and FIREBASE_USERS_REFERENCE you’ll need your feedback and users reference inside the database. In my case, it was feedback_v1 and users .

FIREBASE_DATABASE_URL='Realtime Database base url'

FIREBASE_FEEDBACK_REFERENCE='Feedback List Reference'

FIREBASE_USERS_REFERENCE='User List Reference'

Trello setup

For Trello to work you’ll first need the token and the API key. You can get the key on the Trello API key page. You can get the token on the same page.

Getting the list and assignee id is a bit trickier. The easiest way to get them is to:

Create a card in your Trello board Open the card Add .json to the page URL Get the idList and the first element of idMembers list.

That's how your URL should look like

TRELLO_TOKEN='Trello token'

TRELLO_API_KEY='Trello API key'

FEEDBACK_LIST_ID='List Id to add feedback card'

ASSIGNEE_ID='User Id of the assignee'

Telegram setup

First, you need to set up a bot, that will send feedback messages to the channel. I won’t go through all the steps required to create a bot and will just link official documentation.

After creating a bot, the BotFather will send you an API key of the bot. That one will go to TELEGRAM_BOT_API_KEY .

Next, you’ll need to create a channel, make the bot its admin, and get the channel id. There are multiple ways to get the channel id. I'll go through the easiest one. Copy the link to any of the channel’s messages, for example, https://t.me/c/1/20. The 1 in the link is the channel’s id and 20 is the message’s id. Specify your id in TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID .

You can also use this method either for channels or chats.

TELEGRAM_BOT_API_KEY='Telegram bot API key'

TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID=-'Telegram channel or group id'

Conclusion

In the end, this solution helped me decrease the response time to new feedback to less than 5 minutes. Users get their questions answered faster and I, create tasks from their feedback and quickly implement them.

Of course, you can change the technical stack I am using to your own solutions. Firebase can be replaced with your own backend, Trello can be replaced with your own task tracking system, and Telegram can be replaced with any messenger of your liking.

Check out and star the source code on Github:

And don’t forget to give claps and leave comments :)

Cheers.
電子學(一) - 交大修課心得
Tags: Nctu, Electronics Engineering, Course, 交大, Feedback

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How Product Managers Can Create a Culture of Continuous Feedback
By: Becca Vibert
Tags: Mindfulness, Feedback, Product Management, Productivity

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Feedback is an integral part of being a product manager. It can also be a powerful way to develop our product teams so that together, we can achieve more. But with each product team made up of different personalities and roles, product managers need to be mindful of these individuals and be sure to set the foundations for positive and productive conversations.

Here are 4 ways product managers can create a continuous feedback culture that empowers their product teams to grow.

1. Prioritise the individual

When your team knows everyone at the individual level, they’ll understand how to address certain topics with them so they can have open and productive conversations. Make sure each member of your product team can answer these questions about one another:

What kind of person are they?

What makes them proud of their work?

What is their role in the team and business?

How do they prefer to receive feedback?

2. Encourage empathy

Product managers spend years perfecting this skill and it’s important to encourage the wider product team to empathise with people they work with both directly (within the product team) and indirectly (stakeholders or third parties). This helps people to consider individual actions and behaviour within the context of the situation and helps to manage tension or conflict during the product development process. A good way to encourage empathy is by getting your team to think about:

What internal and external pressures individuals could be facing

How they would feel if someone gave them this feedback

Whether they are holding on to any bias

3. Champion good intent

Teams can get frustrated when projects don’t go to plan and people can become emotional. It’s important that we as product managers champion good intent within our teams to ensure a positive and continuous flow of communication between different members. To make this happen, product managers can challenge their team to think about:

Why someone might have behaved in a specific way

Whether they have listened objectively to both sides of the story

What they can do to help

4. Perfect the format

Regular retrospectives are a great place to reflect on the things that have gone well and the things that the team can do better. This reinforces the mindset that we are ‘better together’ and encourages the team to be honest and constructive so that everyone can improve. Getting this format right ensures peers will feel less personally attacked and less defensive when feedback is given. For this to happen, format is important and it can be useful to use the following:
As a leader, it can be easy to forget that you can’t manage someone’s performance; you can only…
By: Alex Jones
Tags: Careers, Leadership, Performance, Feedback, Management

As a leader, it can be easy to forget that you can’t manage someone’s performance; you can only help them manage it themselves. Telling people to work harder, faster, or better isn’t an effective tactic. Instead, what we can do is provide clear feedback in a timely manner and support the team members responsible for meeting, if not surpassing, our expectations.

Check this out if you’re looking to level up your leadership game:

After all, our job is to build and grow the best team possible and you can’t do that without using the right tools consistently.
The Power of Feedback! & why you should leave one!
By: Rahul Jaiswal
Tags: Customer Service, Customer Experience, Feedback, Constructive Feedback, Power Of Feedback

The story: So, in my city there is a pet shop, where I go, to buy fish food and stuff related to that, and this store where I go, its a really good reasonably priced shop, but the only thing I found lacking was the non-livelyness of the owner in the store, so I went to google and simply left a review.

Reviews have the power the change people. because it gives them a chance to see what people think of them and their service. which customers would never tell on their faces.

A suggestion box isn't as anonymous, keep this in mind that we live in a world where people would rather change the shop they go to than to give their feedback and get even remote hate from the owners. google’s reviews give users a level of anonymity as well.

Continuing the story: So, ever since I went there (after I posted that feedback review) I found the owner to be completely changed, now that person is like, more open, smiling, and treating everyone really nice. Back then he carried a poker face.

Now I am not telling you to leave a review of a product you bought from a store, generally, the only kind of review or feedback people leave are related to a product they bought, they hardly leave feedback of their experience in the store and the treatment they got. This kind of feedback makes the most impact because unlike a product they are just selling from their store, feedback about them is something they can work on and improve.

🤔 The Bigger Picture

if my one review changed how one of a popular shop owner treats his customers, imagine if people started leaving constructive feedback for stores and places, the customer’s shopping & services experience will improve and people will come home much happier because the store or service they went to treat them really nicely.
Why feedback shouldn’t be hard
By: Paula Filizola
Tags: Self Improvement, Honesty, Feedback, Workplace, Journey Of Life

Why feedback shouldn’t be hard

I don’t know if you have ever asked for feedback during your professional life. I know this wasn’t something I usually liked.

The thing about feedback is that we put all these negative expectations just thinking about it. Normally because we understand them as something bad.

But should it be bad? Should a comment about how you work and what to improve necessarily be a bad thing? Not at all.

Yes, being in the spot isn’t always a good thing. But unfamiliar situations are a good learning experience.

And also, professionals that are willing to give honest feedback are those whO believe you can get better.

This is called potencial. With that said, let’s embrace honest feedback and grow.

Recently, I had a feedback moment with someone I work with. And he is someone I respect deeply, especially because he can be super honest. But in a good, attentive, I believe in you way.

He said that in past work situations when I made mistakes, I would always justify saying something like: I am only human and mistakes happen.

That is obviously true, but it doesn’t make me smarter or safer using this as an excuse. The best way to solve errors is acknowledging them and reviewing processes.

But I always believed that I needed to quickly justify myself. Not as a honest I made a mistake move. More like I can’t handle criticism.

When both sides are open to feedback, there are wonderful opoortunities to learn, grow and especially improve yourself.

My way of seeing is that we don’t like to hear bad things about us, but isn’t one of the main points in life to actually evolve?

Honest feedback is a good way to move forward.
My Journey Blog- Design Thinking
By: Harshit Agarwal
Tags: Design Thinking, Prototyping, User Research, Product, Feedback

From the starting of the semester till the end of the session of Design Thinking class, this subject has been very unique and innovative on its own. The main reason of being unique from other subjects is that it has been very practical and contains knowledge that can be applied on field. To be very honest, in the starting of the session I personally felt that what this subject is for but gradually I started feeling that after all subjects this is also the core subject as it tells us about the behind the scene work of any business. How the product is built through the consent of the targeted users, taking the required feedback and improving each time.

Identifying users, taking proper feedback, sympathy and empathy, and mainly the prototype of the product which is a rough sketch of how the product will look like and used. Design thinking is the simplest form of thinking creatively and designing such a product that fulfils the need and want of the users. No business is successful if it does not satisfy its users, thus this subject let us identify their problem and be user oriented rather than business oriented.

Initially we learnt how to identify user’s problem and how to convert it into a compact statement that explains the gist of what user is struggling. Empathizing the users which means keeping ourselves in their shoe is what we came to know when we came across this subject. Considering their problem, establishing a prototype so that the product can be roughly known is the main job of the creators. Then the significant component includes the testing and feedback of the product which is necessary for any business to know so that it can improve itself in further updates. Then the final task is to launch the product or a service in the market and forecasting the expected vs actual image. In a nutshell, usually we see what happens at the front end meaning we usually tend to see only the front side of the business that is through a product or a service or an application. But this subject taught us the backend work regarding how the users are identified and how the product or a service is built and then launched. Behind the scene work is well explained by design thinking class.

Not only had this but we even built up a business canvas model which is the structure of the business that tells the business activity from the source of funds till the revenue stream platforms.

Ultimately we all in a team built up a presentation on various issues that exist in the market due to COVID-19 which refreshed and recharged us as it included all the components that we learnt in this 4 months period.

Therefore, this subject has personally taught me a lot.

~Harshit Agarwal
You Said We Did!
Tags: Feedback, Decoded, Quality, Learner Experience Design

You Said We Did!

At Decoded, we are constantly working to improve our training courses and products and we regularly use your feedback to make those changes.

Your most recent feedback has shown us that we need to a better job of showing you how much we value your voice and input, and how we put it to use.

Our bi-monthly You Said We Did has been created to address this. Each newsletter will now have a devoted section to collecting this feedback, and we will share reports on a quarterly basis of how we’ve addressed it, with the intention of improving your apprenticeship experience.

At Decoded, we are all about transparency, excellence and integrity. That’s why we thought you would like to take a peek under the hood, and see how we use learner feedback.

We regularly analyse feedback we receive from you via post-workshop surveys to understand what we can do better to support your learning journey.

We regularly meet with your Mentor team and stream feedback in real-time for the whole company to see. Each Module has a specific channel where feedback to your mentor is shared and addressed by the module owner.
A Few Ways Medium Can Help Writers.
By: Natalie Frank
Tags: Ｍedium, Advice, Short Read, Collaboration, Feedback

A Few Ways Medium Can Help Writers.

As changes continue to be made on the medium platform leading to some more confusion among the writers, here are just a few things that came to mind in response to my experience on Medium now. I think in part some of these things I’ve seen on other platforms and they work or at least provide writers with a sense of possibility. This could be a problem, as Medium writers are flocking to these other sites. So, it wouldn’t hurt to adapt some of Mediums features or model to keep writers there.

First, I think if it’s possible, identifying some other ways that writers can earn since this seems to be the biggest concern. Maybe a tip button at the bottom of each persons stories and profile, this would be another way that our readers could engage with our writers and would be a way to help offset the static monthly earning pot. Or maybe a contest every now and again. Hold competitions limiting them to paying members only. (Not to beat a dead horse, but if you want to earn, especially contest money, you really should join).

The other thing that would help writers has to do with all the changes that seem to be rolling out quickly but not always for everyone if they are being beta tested. Please be sure to update us on these changes.

For example, a number of us have noticed when trying to embed a link box at the bottom of our article it doesn’t seem to work anymore. Is that because you don’t want us doing it? Because you would rather, we embed hyperlinks inside the stories? (which I would argue don’t get the same response as the boxes) or is it some kind of snafu vs. a policy change? Writers are much happier when you let us know what’s going on. We have enough stress and uncertainty in our lives as it is.

Consider adding other options that could be embedded into an article to increase it’s worth. Since Medium is a tight knit community for the most part, I would think a polling option would be fun to add to articles, make them more interesting and even inspire new ideas for the writers.

Please be aware that other platforms are opening up options for writers and while there are so many of us who love Medium and have felt we’ve been given a home here, most of us need to spend our time where the money and opportunities are. Just don’t forget to put us into the equation when you considering making changes or coming up with new tools and features. What may seem second nature and a great fit to you from where you are in your roles, may not come across the same way to us.

I know that I don’t say it enough, but thanks, Medium, for all that you do for us and here’s to great collaborations in the future!
Experimenting With Medium’s Short Form.
By: Natalie Frank
Tags: Experiment, Ｍedium, Content, Short Read, Feedback

Experimenting With Medium’s Short Form.

Content is king and longform is how it’s been expressing itself recently. I understand some of this in terms of search engines and what not, but on the other hand, especially in regards to Medium where we don’t live or die by SEO, I feel torn. I may be projecting here, but I don’t think that people have the time or patience to sit through a long article when more often they’re looking for a quick answer to a question or perhaps a short inspirational story to start their day off with.

Almost anything else, unless maybe a gripping personal story that’s well written isn’t likely to get my attention these days. I want to know exactly what I’m going to read from the title, and then have the piece play out as succinctly as possible with take-aways. Yeah, I’m high maintenance.

Medium’s short reads are ideal for this and it seems like something right up my alley. There are days I just can’t write because putting together a lengthy article is more than I can face. But these little guys I can bang out relatively quickly, making me feel like I got something done. Thinking about what short reads might be good for, here’s some of what I’ve come up with so far.

Quick update on breaking edge research

News item

Quick op-ed/opinion piece

Response to other’s writing on and/or off Medium

Reviews of a writing resource

Series of related posts that link to each other maybe a series of related poetry or a longer fiction piece broken into segments

Exploring the beginning thoughts for a longer piece perhaps for a different platform

Quick product (book?) reviews

Announcements for the rest of the community about calls for submission, opportunities, funding etc.

Anything time-sensitive that because it’s not “evergreen” you don’t want to spend hours writing

I’m not 100 percent certain what Medium has in mind for this tool. I’ve read the post they wrote about it but think they may still be experimenting a bit with it also. It seems like it could possibly fill the serial role as a nice supplemental feature to all the other pieces which are expected to be stand-alone.

I haven’t given it too much thought yet, but as opposed to using a short read to introduce a long read like others have, I’m going to use one short read to introduce a related short read about other things Medium might consider doing to make their writers happier. It probably doesn’t need to be done this way since this piece will come after the other one but as I said — I’m experimenting. I imagine it works best when you use a short to link to something that doesn’t immediately follow or precede it.

Anyway here goes!

P.S. I’d love to hear other ideas about how this feature can be used in the comments.

A Few Ways Medium Can Help Writers. | by Natalie Frank, Ph.D. | Dec, 2020 | Medium

(Okay, Medium — What is up with these links turned into that instead of the nice, attractive link boxes? Can we have them back please? Otherwise, I think these will get skipped right over!)
360-degree feedback
By: Aleksej Klebanskij
Tags: Company Culture, 360 Feedback, Feedback Culture, Feedback, Engineering Mangement

As an engineering manager, one of my duties is to do learning and development talks every 6 months for every engineer in my team. In order to assess how the person was developing within the last 6 months, we have many tools in place and one of them is running a small and anonymous survey and asking the circle of person colleagues a round of questions.

We would usually ask a person to rate his peer on 4 different competencies:

Self-awareness: Please rate the person on self-awareness relative to peers;

Please rate the person on self-awareness relative to peers; Drive for results: Please rate the person in terms of the drive for results relative to peers;

Please rate the person in terms of the drive for results relative to peers; Leadership : Please rate the person proficiency in leadership relative to peers;

: Please rate the person proficiency in leadership relative to peers; Communication: Please rate the person ability with interpersonal communication;

Also, we would throw a couple of open questions: Share a concrete example of something the person could improve or Share a concrete example of something the person does well.

We would send out these surveys using Slack (or/and) email to 5–7 persons direct colleagues with the following message:

Hi there! I’m planning a feedback talk with X. To give him holistic feedback, I’m using the standardized 360° feedback survey approach. Use this link to participate: link_to_a_google_forms_survey

Everything is anonymous even to me. So feel free to be as open as you can. Thanks!

Once the results arrive, we usually compile them into a summary (never directly present the results), and send to a person via an email before the actual L&D talks, so that:

The person is aware of what the L&D talk will be about and there are more or less no surprises

The person has a document he can go back to and reflect on later

I can’t stress enough how these survey results have been helping me. It’s a great way to remove the bias from the evaluation as well as a great source of argument/point of reference during the talk.

From my past experience, for some, it’s a warm bath and for some, it’s a cold shower to read these results, but it’s a great way of getting a reality checked/understand how people perceive you.

Moreover, we, of course, do not base our evaluation solely on this document, it’s rather a complementary tool to many others we have in place.
The positive attitude of a team player
By: Apsar F
Tags: Team Building, Teamwork, Co Worker Journey, Feedback, Team

Struggling to build an effective team? Here are some tips to make your life easy.

An individual performer is expected only to be an expert in his/her work field with no call to be with the team. This kind of persona is a perfect match for executing work from start to end or one job one person.

The need for team player skills

Now that the technology is growing and people’s contribution towards sharing knowledge has increased a lot with the kind of requirements we get in our day to day life makes it almost impossible for a person to know everything and execute all the work by themselves. Being a team player will help get from you and your team.

I believe being a good team player is all in your hands, we have already been there at least once in life may be in your childhood sports team, school/college projects let it be even being part of family events and making it successful. The only key point we missout is workplace is no different from your family while working as a team.

5 simple things you can do to start with to be a team player

Communicate outside of your work: Ask your co-worker how they are doing? Be part of their joy and failure. Yes everyone may not open up to you on day one it is a day-to-day silent team-building activity.

Accept your co-worker's failure: It is very common for us to get frustrated when one of your team members has not performed well and the entire team pays for it. Success and Failure belongs to the team welcome it with an open mind and it gets into the root cause of failure uplift your team member and let them know how it is done

Gratitude: How beautiful it would turn if you can thank your team member for all the things they do in day to day life for you and the team

Feedback: Timely feedback is much in need to build a successful team. You can be frank and at the same time not rude expressing your feeling on how you left rather how it must be. Remember always your feedback is how you felt!! Maybe what is right to you is not right for the other person. If your team member expresses their stand on your feedback and doesn’t accept it is ok. Maybe a time to introspect the situation

Have Trust: Well it was supposed to be the first point but I would love to mention it last as trust can’t be built in one day nor there is one perfect handpicked way to build trust. Hopefully, if you can work on all the above four points trust can make its place to grow.
Feeling all the feels
Tags: Depression, Sadness

Habitat | 01.22.20 @ 12:21pm

Went to Kroger and bought myself ice cream because I cried too much today. And my husband encouraged me to buy ice cream lol. It was my motivation to leave the house.

Sometimes I don’t leave my room because I know my roommate will be in the living room. So I’ll only come out when I know she’s sleeping or working. But its weird cause I like my roommate and its not like she’ll talk to me if I pass by to the kitchen. But somehow, I just don’t want to even see people. Its weird. So I’ll be locked in my room all day and come out at night…aka after 2 am cause she sleeps late too.

My husband and I had a deep conversation because I always feel like I’m disappointing people. Like I seem irresponsible and unreliable. And that’s the worst feeling. Like my whole life I’ve tried to make sure that I don’t come across as those things, but I can’t help but realize that that’s who I am these past couple years. And a lot of it has to do with being around people who don’t understand depression and anxiety and how debilitating it is for me a lot of the times. Things like getting mad because I don’t tell them ahead of time that I’m gonna be missing something. And I’m like, its not like I wake up and say “today I’m gonna miss ____ ”. I don’t know ahead of time that I’m gonna miss stuff. And sometimes I sleep through things so how am I supposed to let them know ahead of time?

But its like a toxic environment for me. Like this is FAR from easy for me. Like honestly too hard for me. And I am surrounded by ______ people. I have no friends…its been 3 years and I legit only have ONE friend; the rest are co-workers/colleagues. I have a stupid ass ____ who is toxic.

I’m sad all the time. I’m tired of trying to be strong all the time. I just want to not have to be strong and for it to be okay. Like I’m so tired of all of it. I constantly ask myself if I will ever get through this with the outcome I want.

I’m just exhausted man. And I’m only half way through. And my mental health is SHIT and my biggest downfall/weakness/deterrent. And I’ve tried sooo many combinations of medicines + therapy. Like 3 yrs of different combos and still not being ‘stable’.

I am just feeling all the feels. Like I need to make a change … a serious one but idk what that is.
Archived Thought #2
By: Bernadette Molleda
Tags: Unrequited Love, Flowers, Love, Sadness, Garden

You’ve always seen me like a flower in a garden, radiating a mesmerizing color that eases your pain, sometimes lightens up the weight of the boulder you carry on your shoulders. You never fail to tell how you appreciate my existence and that with me, your horrible thoughts seem to subside. Your mornings are never complete without a sight of me. You made me grow — blossom. And when I thought this will remain for eternity, well, fools on me.

You got used to the healing scent I give off. For you, I am no longer an effective source of relief. In your two brown hazel eyes, my beauty is no longer captivating.

And then there’s another flower that grew unanticipated. There’s something about her that’s quite intriguing, maybe bizarre. When you gazed at her, you felt something.

You felt the adrenaline rush of seeing something peculiar but blinding in beauty, just like the feeling you felt when you first laid your eyes on me. You felt a lot of butterflies in your stomach, like they’ve finally awaken in their hibernation inside you. You get ecstatic on the thought of scrutinizing her, knowing more exquisite features about her. You watered her everyday, gave her all the necessities she needs to grow more enticing.

All these, you did all of these to me before. You felt the same way on me before. But look at me now. I’m withering. I’m starting to look awful. But what can I do? I can only look at you with wistful eyes.

I believed for a long time that I will be your sole favorite flower. But then again, I remembered that I am in a garden — in your garden. And I wasn’t the only flower in here.