I usually post about technology stuff, but since so much technology stuff happens (or, happened) in offices, and because I’m increasingly obsessed with urbanism, let’s talk about the “office apocalypse.”

It’s not really an apocalypse.

Elon taking over Twitter and the rise in subscription everything, paired with a renewed fear of surveillance capitalism has caused a ton of folks, myself included, to think a little harder about what services we use, or, maybe more accurately, depend on.

My buddy Chris and I even talked about subscription art programs on our podcast (with some surprising results).

But there is something else going on here, something beyond just “paid vs. free” or “monolithic vs. distributed.”

Could this be the rise of the indie web?

I’ve been a fairly enthusiastic Google Pixel owner since the beginning, in spite of the Pixel line’s drunkenly stumbling feature roadmap that makes every Pixel release feel like an episode of “Deal or No Deal.” Since the Nexus 5, I haven’t owned a non-Google phone.

I’ve been really lucky not to have broken any of those phones… Until now. If you are a Pixel owner with an intact, unbroken phone, take my advice: try not to break it.

Have you seen ads for Bright Cellars yet? If you haven’t, you must be one of the lucky ones, because I can’t seem to escape their ads. They’re in my Twitter feed, they’re in newsletters I subscribe to, they’re on LinkedIn for heaven’s sake.

The thing is… Bright Cellars is a grift at best. I’m not a lawyer, so I won’t use any legal terms for fear of committing accidental slander, but once you see what I’m about to show you, I think you’ll reconsider whether Bright Cellars deserves your money.

What does a successful sprint look like? I hope that everyone on your team can answer that question; if they can’t, that is something to talk about right now. Assuming that the team understands what success looks like, why are you, a manager, attending their sprint meetings?