Continue iterating on backups
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David Eisinger
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ tags:
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- dispatch
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---
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March was great -- took a two night/one day work retreat, spent a weekend out in the woods with the family, had my annual trip to Las Vegas, and participated in Viget's [Pointless Week][1]. Also got to spend some quality time with Nevie; she's a great kid and it's amazing to see her personality come out.
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March was great -- took a two night/one day work retreat, spent a weekend out in the woods with the family, had my annual trip to Las Vegas, and participated in Viget's [Pointless Week][1][^1-backup]. Also got to spend some quality time with Nevie; she's a great kid and it's amazing to see her personality come out.
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<!--more-->
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@@ -52,5 +52,6 @@ Links:
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[10]: https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2023-03-14-how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/
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[11]: https://jeffhuang.com/designed_to_last/
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[^10-backup]: <a href="blog-testdouble-com-rtepba.txt">Backed up 2023-04-03 23:50:56 -0400</a>
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[^11-backup]: <a href="jeffhuang-com-arq78r.txt">Backed up 2023-04-03 23:51:02 -0400</a>
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[^10-backup]: "<a href="https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2023-03-14-how-to-tell-if-ai-threatens-your-job/">How to tell if AI threatens YOUR job: No, really, this post may give you a way to answer that</a>"; <a href="blog-testdouble-com-rtepba.txt">backed up 2023-04-04 15:39:36 UTC</a>
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[^11-backup]: "<a href="https://jeffhuang.com/designed_to_last/">This Page is Designed to Last: A Manifesto for Preserving Content on the Web</a>"; <a href="jeffhuang-com-arq78r.txt">backed up 2023-04-04 15:39:37 UTC</a>
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[^1-backup]: "<a href="https://www.viget.com/articles/the-enduring-point-of-pointless-corp/">The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp | Viget</a>"; <a href="www-viget-com-5w5oyj.txt">backed up 2023-04-04 15:52:27 UTC</a>
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content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/www-viget-com-5w5oyj.txt
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content/journal/dispatch-2-april-2023/www-viget-com-5w5oyj.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,284 @@
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Skip to Main Content
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Viget
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Read the Article: The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp
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Article
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The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp
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The Enduring Point of Pointless Corp
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[pointless-sticker-bear-article]
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Brian Williams
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Brian Williams, Co-Founder & CEO
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Article Categories: #News & Culture, #Employee Engagement
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Posted on March 24, 2023
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•
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Share
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•
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Share
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•
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Tweet
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Pointless Corp. is the innovation lab at Viget, where we step away from client
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work to make fun and useful things for everyone
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“Neither pointless, nor a corporation” is how we describe Pointless Corp. here
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at Viget. We founded Viget – an actual company – in 1999 during the original
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dot com bubble to build web products for clients. Serving clients has always
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been our purpose or … point, if you will. Over the decades, we’ve done just
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that, completing thousands of projects for hundreds of clients. Never
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forgetting that we exist to serve our clients has been key in our longevity.
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About a decade in, we felt the urge to build and launch our own projects.
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Pointless Corp became the internal brand we adopted to remind ourselves that
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these projects can be fun and useful but don’t replace the primary point of
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Viget. A line from Harry Nilsson’s The Point! referencing the Pointless Man
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serves as inspiration: “a point in every direction is the same as no point at
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all.” We wanted the freedom to experiment in every direction.
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So we did. Ideas and teams formed fairly randomly, and Pointless Projects began
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to fill the gaps between our client work. Projects like HeyCraig (2009), which
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sent you an email alert based on your Craigslist search (before Craigslist shut
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us down and added the feature). Or Tincan’d (2011), a simple video call
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platform before Zoom or Google Meet. Or BabyBookie, the baby due date office
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pool app over 500,000 people have used since launch in 2012.
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These projects allow our teams to work without the input (including, ahem,
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revenue) of clients, so we’re more free to experiment, wear different hats, and
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learn … a lot. We apply what we learn back into our client work. Along the way,
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we get to know each other better, scratch our entrepreneurial itches, and
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hopefully put some fun and/or useful things out in the world for others to
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enjoy.
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For many years, we organized an annual optional Pointless Weekend. We’d kick
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off hackathon-style on a Thursday evening and wrap on a Saturday evening with a
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functional product out in the wild, as I described back in 2012. It’s always
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been an intense, enjoyable, but rather exhausting 48 hours. Photos from 2011,
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2014, and 2016 bring back some great memories.
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Photos of Pointless Weekend 2014
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Pointless Weekend 2014 spanned three Viget offices
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A couple of years ago, we shifted the schedule to start on Wednesday and wrap
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on Friday. This made participation easier, allowing parents and others with
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weekend commitments to join. It also allowed projects to wrap up just in time
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for our Friday staff meeting. We awkwardly called it “Pointless Week” even
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though it was still only two days.
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New for 2023: Pointless Palooza
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Two things I like: alliteration and lollapalooza (specifically circa 1992, but
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that’s a story for another day). So Pointless Palooza was an obvious choice for
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what to call our little two day adventure. In addition to a new name, we’re
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trying a few other changes this year:
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Pointless Executives. Nothing injects new energy like new leadership. We handed
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over the Pointless reins to two trusty execs: Andrew (day job: developer) is
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our Pointless CEO and Aimee (day job: project manager) is our Pointless COO.
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They’ve done a phenomenal job setting a vision, planning, and leading the
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activities. Their enthusiasm helped inspire more than half the company to
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participate with a record number of projects and great results.
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Pitching & Team Formation. Previously, project ideas were “pitched” with a
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single slide and a tight 1-2 minute segment at a staff meeting. These were fun
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and lighthearted, but didn’t always capture the full vision, and teams often
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formed and morphed during the kickoff night. This year, project ideas were
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shared more gradually via collaboration in Slack and Notion. Project teams
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formed with more structure in advance, and team members had some time before
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the kickoff to marinate on the idea and get excited to build.
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Even More Remote Friendly. There’s something magical about kickoff-pizza,
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launch day donuts, and in-person collaboration. But there’s something even more
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magical about collaborating with dozens of teammates around the country
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(especially when it’s supplemented by sweet swag boxes and Divvy credits for
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remote treats). Hybrid teams work. We still had fun in-office connections, but
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most of our Pointless Projects this year are being worked on with distributed
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teams, much like our client work.
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Photo of Pointless Branded Stuff 2023
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Pointless Branded Stuff 2023 including a t-shirt and sticker pack -- very
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corporate
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Some things haven’t changed from prior years. Team members are still swapping
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roles – PMs writing code, designers running projects, the list goes on – which
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means steep and rapid learning curves. We’re still trying out new technologies
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and approaches to our work, which means unexpected blockers and great insights
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to share. New connections are being formed, especially since more than half of
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this year’s participants are in their first year at Viget and experiencing
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their first Pointless event. Forming authentic co-worker connections isn’t
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easy, and our culture is stronger today than it was at the start of the week.
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So what projects will launch? I won’t steal their thunder, but we just wrapped
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the presentation portion of six Pointless Project teams at our weekly staff
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meeting and it was the most we’ve laughed, cheered, and been inspired in a long
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time. I expect articles will be written and shared in the days and weeks ahead
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outlining the thrills (and mishaps) of the teams this year.
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Photos of Pointless Palooza 2023
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Pointless Palooza 2023 was a blast!
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Pointless Corp. is more than an annual palooza. We work on projects throughout
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the year in the gaps between client work, weaving the teamwork, learning, and
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teaching values of Viget into all that we do.
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If this is the kind of work and culture you might enjoy, learn more about our
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culture and job openings – perhaps you’ll be able to join next year’s Pointless
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Palooza. After all, inspiring people to join us is unapologetically part of the
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point.
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Brian Williams
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Brian is Viget's co-founder and CEO. He does everything from advising our
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clients to building our conference tables with his bare hands in our Falls
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Church, VA, HQ.
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More articles by Brian
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Related Articles
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•
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Article
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Our Pointless Logo
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Brian Williams
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•
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Article
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Introducing Pointless Corp.
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Brian Williams
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•
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What’s the Point of Pointless Weekend?
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Article
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What’s the Point of Pointless Weekend?
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Brian Williams
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The Viget Newsletter
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Nobody likes popups, so we waited until now to recommend our newsletter,
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featuring thoughts, opinions, and tools for building a better digital world.
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