DjangoCon US 2024 has officially kicked off again in Durham, NC. This is one of the best, most welcoming communities out there and I’ve been lucky enough to work with the organizing team since 2018—that’s a lot of cartoon crabs. The only exception was, of course, the initial COVID years.

This past summer was my first time raising black swallowtail butterflies, from eggs to the final release. Having only raised monarchs until this point, I was feeling a little out of my element and didn’t have high hopes. I started by planting parsley, one of several host plants adult butterflies will lay their eggs on, and waiting patiently.

Part of me wanted to entitle this post “Branding is Ugly”, but research and data can be quite beautiful. Also, the collaboration and breakthrough moments involved are quite beautiful as well, so I decided against it for these nerdy reasons. Essentially, though, I’ve realized that the perception of branding is that it encompasses logos, colors, swag, and websites—lots of pretty things. I think this has to do with how we talk about it and what we show as proof of work completed—the tangible, tip of the iceberg deliverables.

Months ago, at Wiggle Work, we were inspired by Sarah Gebauer’s months-long daily blog publishing. So impressed and energized by this work that we decided in a whiteboard session it might be fun to attempt this ourselves. We planned in January and aimed for a February kickoff. And so, happy February, and welcome to the Wiggle Work Winter Writing Workshop.

Inspired by Matt Stein’s sharing of Rafał Pastuszak’s work, I’m now offering more easily available video call chats. Part of the preparations involved generating a list of example topics. So, while I’m open to chatting about whatever’s stuck on your mind, there are some things I get especially energetic about, and perhaps we have that in common–what a beautiful thing when that happens.

The people at Wiggle Work, aka Wigglers, are what make it so special. Our cozy little Discord community is currently at 62 members. 60% are developers or engineers, 17% are designers, and the remaining professions are around marketing, content creation, project management, executive roles, operations, and leadership coaching. There’s an overwhelming amount of remote work experience here, with most folks fitting in the over ten-year range.