Holly Boothroyd – HerHelloWorld

How to Improve your Resume in Less than an Hour

Holly Boothroyd — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 12:47:00 +0000

Your resume is the first impression that a recruiter or scanning software has of you. To make it stand out, you need to demonstrate why you would be a good candidate as quickly as possible. Here are some tips on how to improve your resume in less than an hour.

Impact Words

A resume is essentially a sales pitch for yourself and your skills. Using strong, descriptive words to describe your competencies is a quick way to elevate your resume with little effort.

A competency is a specific skill or behavior that is necessary for success at a company. Some common examples are customer focus, adaptability, and problem solving.

You can find the competencies that a company is seeking on their website or on websites like Indeed, Glassdoor, or GeeksForGeeks.

Some online tools, like Rezi, will scan your resume and the job description to tell you how much your resume fulfils the job description. You can use this information to choose impact words that highlight the competencies that the company is seeking.

Let’s look at a use case – to demonstrate critical thinking and engineering skills, try using words like engineered, investigated, analysed, pioneered, crafted, and innovated. In practice, instead of saying that you “Fixed bugs”, you can say that you “Investigated logging data and engineered a solution to fix app errors, reducing product crashes by X percentage”.

XYZ Method

The XYZ method is a format recommended by Google recruiters to help you share your experience in the most effective and efficient way by focusing on the, ideally quantitative, results and impact. It is described as “Accomplished X as measured by Y, by doing Z” or otherwise known as XYZ.

Instead of saying that you “Helped run events for the computer science university club”, you can say that you “Enhanced leadership and teamwork skills through creating successful events, such as career lectures, hackathons, and social gatherings, and driving toward short and long-term visions in the computer science club, receiving recognition by club members and advisors.”

Or, instead of saying that you “won 2nd place in a hackathon”, you can say that you “won the 2nd place out of 100 teams by ideating and collaborating on a project to use data to track ocean plastics for removal”.

To find out more about improving your resume, head to SheCanCode for the full article!

3 Things you Should do Before Finding a Mentor

Holly Boothroyd — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 13:27:00 +0000

Finding a mentor is often spoken about as being one of the best things you could do for your career. Mentors can help you find your direction, overcome new challenges, provide you with a fresh perspective, and so much more.

But before you run to go find yourself a mentor, pause to reflect on these three areas to ensure the career relationship you initiate is as productive and impactful as possible.

Understand the Different types of Career Relationships

Mentor. Coach. Sponsor – Do you know the difference? People often seek out mentorship, without fully understanding the variety of career development relationships and who drives them. Confirm that a mentorship relationship, vs having a coach or sponsor, is most applicable to your needs.

"A coach talks to you, a mentor talks with you, and a sponsor talks about you"

A mentor, whether its formal, informal, or ad hoc, helps you navigate your career and gives advice about career direction, handling situations, and meeting goals. The mentee, you, drive the relationship and the mentor plays a reactive role in response to your career or interest areas.

A coach is much more proactive than a mentor and is possibly a short-term relationship. They enable you to learn new skills (typically soft skills), overcome challenges, and/or improve your performance. The relationship is driven by both parties. You’ll find that companies will hire coaches for their leadership team.

Finally, a sponsor is senior leader or someone with influence who helps you get high-visibility opportunities, promotions, or new jobs. The sponsor drives the relationship by advocating about you to others in different settings. They champion your work to important people.

Ask yourself "what do you want to learn" and remember to be prepared for each session

As we have established, a mentorship relationship is supposed to be driven by the mentee where the mentor is responding/reacting to the needs of the mentee.

To help your mentor support you in the most effective way, be clear about what it is you want to learn or takeaway from the relationship and how they can help you. Of course, life will throw new opportunities and obstacles your way over time but knowing what you want to initially learn puts you on the right track from the get-go.

As each session goes on, preparedness continues to be important. Be sure to at least have a theme or a couple questions to chat about in each meeting. Or if you have nothing specific to talk about in a session, make it clear to your mentor that you just want to chat and connect – there is still value in building positive relationships.

Being prepared for meetings demonstrates that you respect your mentors time and will help your mentor support you in the most efficient way possible.

Some possible themes that you may want to talk to a mentor about are:

What are different career paths I could explore?
What skills, both hard and soft skills, are valuable in different roles and how can I build them?
What opportunities do you know are available to network with different people in the spaces I am interested in?
How can I position myself for a promotion?
How to I have a productive difficult conversation?

To learn how to see if your values align with your mentor, head to SheCanCode for the full article!

How to Make the Most of Your Online Course

Holly Boothroyd — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 21:00:00 +0000

The tech world requires almost constant learning – there are always new technologies, language updates, and sector-specific knowledge to acquire, regardless of whether you are new to the industry or have been in it for many years.

It is almost inevitable you will eventually turn to an online course as a tool to upskill in pursuit of breaking into the industry, career advancement, or the simple desire to learn and build. They are great, affordable, and often free, learning resources that can give you the foundation to use these new skills and extend them more easily through experience and further research.

To gain the most value from your course, follow these three tips:

Find a course that teaches theory and practical content

The combination of theory and practical knowledge is powerful. Learning both gives you the skills to execute, but also the depth of knowledge to understand why something works and, importantly, figure out how to solve more complex problems using that underlying knowledge.

Look for courses that have explanations of topics and then dive into project work. Courses that have projects to complete that can go onto your portfolio are a double win that you should seek out.

Practicing along is crucial to absorbing the knowledge and being able to independently create using that knowledge. Just watching is often not enough to cement what you learned in your brain in a meaningful way.

Build high quality notes

While you learn and practice along with your course, take the opportunity to build your own “Wikipedia” as a memorisation technique and an ongoing resource to take away with you.

Studies show taking notes helps improve your memory of new topics. By putting concepts into your own words and spending thinking time digesting your learning, you can better recall what you have learned.

You can later refer to your personal “Wikipedia” to refresh your memory on concepts or techniques. As you continue to learn from other sources and experience, your “Wikipedia” can continue to grow as a comprehensive guide.

Check out tools like Notion.io and OneNote to take digital notes that are cloud connected so can be accessed and edited from anywhere. Notion is handy for its structuring elements, templates, and special programmatically updatable elements. OneNote benefits from the ability to handwrite notes using a pen or touch screen, along with integration with other Microsoft products.

Share your progress

Sharing your progress is motivated by three things – building in accountability, finding community, and boosting your visibility in industry.

Putting your goals out into the world can build in accountability to your process. If you are doing a coding course, many people do the 100 Days of Code challenge (there are also 30 and 50 day challenges). As part of the challenge, you are supposed to share your daily progress. It gives people a way to celebrate their daily wins and meet like-minded people.

There are a loads of tech communities online that are passionate and interested in the same things you are. Connecting with them with help you find resources to learn from and hear about the latest changes in the industry. They also help establish a feeling of belonging for those who may be new to the space.

For daily reminders to share you progress, check out my 100 Day of Code Journal! Use it to help you formulate your goals, track your progress, and celebrate your wins!

To find out more about the ways it can help your industry visibility, head to SheCanCode for the full article!

5 Things You Should Know Before Applying to Your First Internship

Holly Boothroyd — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 21:45:00 +0000

Internships are gamechangers! Regardless of your path into tech – university, bootcamp, and/or self-taught – internships are an immensely valuable opportunity to get a soft landing into the industry and professional working. Plus, there’s a pretty general consensus that you learn more on the job than in formal studies, so expect to walk away with lots of new skills.

One of the best rewards is that internships often lead to grad roles – in many ways they can be considered an extended interview. I consider them to often be the easiest way to get into a Big Tech company as they hire for potential.

That being said, here are some tips for prepping for and landing an internship:

Pay attention to application timelines

One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to get an internship is missing the application deadlines! Or even if they make the official deadline, roles are often filled on a rolling bases – meaning they interview sooner than the final deadline – so there are still no open spaces left by the time you apply.  

The easiest way to combat this is to follow a timeline that lines you up to apply as soon as applications open. The timeline below does just that:  

Summer – 1 Year Before Internship: Yes, you want to start a year in advance! This is when you should do your groundwork. Research the companies you want to apply to, create/update your CV and start building relationships with those who can help you. The key is to stay organized – track each application in a document eg. Excel.

Autumn – 9 Months Before Internship: Internship applications open at the start of the university year around September-October. You want to apply as soon as you can – of course, taking time to complete the application thoughtfully.

Winter – 6 Months Before Internship: Many internship applications close around December. Ideally by now you will have received an offer. If that is not the case, then no worries because there are still options. Keep applying, attend career events, and be sure to tailor your CV to each application.

For those attending universities with a placement year, you may be able to do up to 15 months work experience. If you start a 12-month internship in June, then you can squeeze in another internship before the next university year starts. That gives you double the chances for a grad offer, a bigger network, and, of course, more experience.

You don't need to know everything!

For full-time roles, you don’t need to know everything on the job spec to apply – that is even more true for internships! Companies expect to train you. In fact, training you is part of the career development given by your colleagues.

All you need is the confidence to believe that regardless of what the challenge is, you will be able to learn what you need and complete the task. There is always help on the team! Ultimately, just don’t let “imposter syndrome” hold you back from applying to an internship.

Seek out external advice and career services

A second pair of eyes is always helpful! At the most basic level, have someone else read and provide feedback on your CV. On a deeper level, seek out formal career services to help you prep- universities usually provide these services for free.

In particular, informational sessions on phone, video or 1:1, as well as assessment centre interviews can all teach you about the structure of that style of interview, what interviewers are looking for, and tips on how to be successful. This additional training helps you be more confident, relaxed, and ultimately more prepared for the real interview which translates well to your interviewer.

Understand what work you will actually be doing

During conversations with the recruiters and interviewers on the team you are applying to, be sure to ask for details on what the role entails. Other options are to speak to past interns and read reviews on sites like Glassdoor.

Your network can open doors

The saying “your network is your net worth” has some truth to it! Your network can help get your foot in the door and elevate your application. While it likely won’t get you the job outright (and it shouldn’t), it may mean you can skip some interview steps and raise your application’s visibility.

The key stakeholders you want to connect with are the recruiters, team members, and most importantly the hiring manager (they are the final decision maker). Think about who in your network you can pull on to connect you to one of these people or refer you for an open role – use every “in” you can!

If you don’t have a super strong network yet, events run by recruiters are a great way to get an “in” if you don’t have one in your network. Connect with company recruiters on LinkedIn to watch out for information events on internships. They review the CVs of those who attend these events and will boost your application, particularly if you are engaging, ask questions, and make yourself known. You can also reach out to key stakeholders directly on LinkedIn if you want to make your name known – express your interest and share what you can bring to the team.

For a bonus tips all about money, head to SheCanCode for the full article!

Personal Branding 101

Holly Boothroyd — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 17:38:00 +0000

You’ve probably heard the term Personal Brand being thrown around with increasing frequency in the last few years – but what is it and how do you build your own?

What is it and why should you care?

A personal brand boils down to what you are known for and how you are perceived. In our highly competitive world, a personal brand helps to differentiate you from the pack and communicate your value in a more effective, concise, and consistent manner.

This differentiation and resulting visibility crucially leads to new opportunities that elevate you closer to your goals and builds trust with those around you.

Your career is your business where one of the most important roles you have is as head marketer for your brand.

What makes up a personal brand

Personal brand should reflect YOU. You can break it down into four key components: Your strengths, unique selling point (USP), values, and vision. These are grounded by your purpose.

Let’s start identifying what makes up each of your brand components.

When I looked to build my personal brand and the HerHelloWorld platform, I went through this same exercise. To give you some ideas as you work through this, I have included my responses.

First, focus on what makes you great:

Strengths

Your strengths are what you do well. Your brand is going to emphasize these strengths to others. Make your life easier by building a brand around things that you enjoy doing – you don’t want to trap yourself into building a brand around strengths that don’t spark joy.

To identify your strengths, reflect on these situations:

Things you are good at + why

Skills you fall back onto in challenging situations
Strengths others have recognized in you
Skills you use during successful projects

With those in mind, it’s time to select the key strengths that are going to provide you the most value. Ask yourself:

What strengths repeat themselves?

What strengths + skills will be most helpful to me personally, professionally, and others?

For an example, my key strengths are organization and planning, key-subject matter knowledge on the tech industry and building a career, leadership and decisiveness , and public speaking

Unique Selling Point

Your unique selling point is a term typically used in business to describe what differentiates your product, services, and experience from your competitors. It is what you offer that people won’t get elsewhere.

In the context of a personal brand, it is what makes you as an individual different. This can present itself as having a different background, a unique perspective, an uncommon strength or skill, a rare accomplishment, an approach to solving problems, etc.

Consider traits that are not commonly found in your industry.

If you are unsure of what unique value you have to offer – remember this:

“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are” - Malcolm Forbes

Some examples of my USPs are:

Being a woman in tech (Unique perspective)
Moving from the USA to the UK to study and work (Different background)
Having strong people and professional/soft skills (Uncommon industry skill)
Working at a big tech company and winning awards for my industry work (Challenging accomplishment)

Next, it’s time to consider the things that matter to you.

Values

Your values are what underpin who you are and what is truly important to you. For a personal brand, it is what you represent and stand for. Values evolve as we and the circumstance of our lives change. When it comes to identifying your values, often it is easier to consider different experiences that are impacted by your values.

Ask yourself why each experience was important and memorable so you can hone in on what value underpinned that feeling.

Some questions to get you started:

When are you the happiest?
When are you the proudest?

When are you most fulfilled?

For example, my core values are:

Independence (in life, financially, etc)
Community
Altruism
Equality
Continuous growth

Vision

Your vision is your mission or the larger goal you hope to achieve through your efforts. This is frequently the area where people need to do the most reflection. Your vision should drive the direction you take your life and career. I urge you to consider what you can do for others – it is when we give back and help others that we grow the most, find happiness, and ultimately reach our versions of success.

For you personally, professionally, and those around you:

What can you offer to the world?
What does a well-lived life mean to you?
What legacy do you want to leave behind?

For me, my vision is to create multi-generational change and ultimately a world designed with everyone in mind by championing for the success of underrepresented communities in high-impact, high-paying careers in tech.

To find out how to define your brands purpose and put your personal brand into action, head to SheCanCode for the full article!

How YOU Can Help Make Tech More Diverse and Inclusive

Holly Boothroyd — Tue, 17 May 2022 20:01:00 +0000

Technology is pervasive – it’s influenced commerce, social interaction, entertainment, medicine, city planning, transportation… the list goes on. Plus, it seemingly knows more about us than we do ourselves. Every industry on the planet has been impacted by technology in one way or another.  

The importance of technology created with everyone in mind becomes increases as its influence on people and the planet continues to grow. If we are to build technology that is conscious of different people’s needs, abilities, and cultures, then we need teams with people who come from different backgrounds and experiences.  

When it comes to establishing these teams, it’s not just about creating them – it’s also about how we foster an environment where everyone can thrive.  

There is a great phrase coined by Vema Myers that perfectly illustrates the point:  

“Diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance.”

 Here are 6 ways you can be part of the change to make tech more diverse and inclusive:

Promoting Diversity

We need to be dismantling barriers and supporting the development of underrepresented communities along the entire education and career pipeline. Doing so takes concerted efforts from many different players – educational institutions, companies, governments, etc. – but for now we are going to focus on what you can do!

Mentor Someone

Mentorship is a wildly powerful relationship that has the potential to change someone’s life. You are a trusted ally there to guide them along their journey and introduce them to relevant network connections. But alongside that, you are also there to help them feel like they belong.  

Before you claim you don’t have anything to share with someone else, think back to every step that has taken you to where you are now. There is someone out there a step or two behind you who would love to hear about what helped you and the lessons you learnt.  

There are established mentorship scheme programs for different community groups that you can join where you are paired with a mentee and optionally follow a mentorship structure over the course of the program. For girls in STEM, a good one is the Student to STEMettes mentorship scheme.

Share your Time and Talent

Every Day Inclusivity

Inclusion is the real key – it unlocks the potential of diverse teams by enabling people to bring their unique ideas to the table.  

Inclusion isn’t something that we only pay attention to during special periods like International Women’s Day or Black History month, it is practiced every day.  

What that means to your everyday encounters will differ based on your circumstance, but there are a few inclusive actions worth highlighting:

Lead by Example

A company culture is born out of the sum of its parts, the people. Each of us has an opportunity to influence those around us. When we demonstrate inclusive practices, others often follow which establishes an inclusive standard practice. You have real power.  

We should all start by taking time to listen, learn, and research about the experiences of others and the inequities that people face. It is a part of allyship, but more importantly it is a stepping stone to being able to create informed, impactful change.

Spot and Fix Issues in Your Institution

Building a more diverse and inclusive industry takes each and every one of us. What are you going to commit to doing? How are you going to be part of the change? 

To find out more ways to make a more diverse and inclusive industry, head to SheCanCode for the full article!

So, You Want to Be an Engineer, but Don’t Know How

Holly Boothroyd — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 18:21:00 +0000

Diving into the tech industry can feel a bit overwhelming at times. The vast expansion of the tech industry in recent years and the historical lack of diversity means not enough people are getting the information and mentorship they need to make strategic choices about getting into tech. Let’s change that by giving you a basic framework to focus your efforts and land you a role you will thrive in!

Working Backwards

The joy of tech is that it impacts basically every industry, in every part of the world. You want to find the intersections between what you love and your work. Finding the intersections helps boost your motivation, increases how quickly you learn, and ultimately leads to finding greater success. Allow yourself to think boldly – anything is possible!  

The first place to start when finding your tech pathway is by looking at what you truly want to do and working backwards!

Ask yourself questions like:

What am I passionate about?
What are my strengths? Consider both technical + professional skills (eg. Communication + collaboration).

What impact do I want to make?
What products or companies align with my goals and/or passions?

With a better idea of what you want to do, it’s now time for a bit of research:  

Take a look at Job Postings:
Look for ones at the companies that speak to your mission or are building the tech that you want to work on. This is the clearest indicator of what skills you should be gaining. However, don’t let job descriptions prevent you from applying to certain roles if you don’t have all the skills – not everything is a must-have to land the job.

Use Online Social Platforms:
Find people on LinkedIn, Twitter, and/or reach out to people in your network who are doing similar things to what you want to do. Look at their journey and focus on the skills they learnt that led them to where they are now. Make note of the things that stand out to you.

And that’s it – a data-driven, personalized process to inform what skills and experiences to gain to reach the life that YOU want. By planning backwards, your moves are more strategic, and you can feel confident that you’re always heading in the right direction.  

Education Paths

With this in mind, you now know what to learn, but the question remains how should you learn it? Again, your choice depends on what works best for you. Tech is a special industry because it does not require you to follow a certain educational path to gain the necessary skills. This means you can choose your path based on how you learn best and your individual life + financial circumstances. Let’s go over some of the common educational paths:

University

Apprenticeships

These are quickly becoming a popular approach and one of the best ways to get the best of all the different paths into tech. You will learn on-the-job (so is ideal for people who don’t enjoy a traditional classroom learning environment), get paid for your work, and, depending on the apprenticeship scheme, earn your degree with a partner university absolutely FREE! Plus, you will likely get a post-apprenticeship job offer. Apprenticeships that include completing your degree are generally as long, or possibly longer than a traditional 4-year degree, but you end up with multiple years’ experience and no debt. I highly recommend looking into apprenticeships if the university path doesn’t appeal to you.

Bootcamps

This is a much shorter, highly focused learning path that will teach you the fundemental skills you need to get a job in tech. Many bootcamps focus on a particular tech stack (eg. web development or data science), so you will not get as much technical breadth as a university degree, but you will complete it in a fraction of the time. Good bootcamps will teach a mix of theoretical and practical content, will require you to create projects to demonstrate your skills and have something to put on your GitHub . They will also provide career resources to help you get a job after completing the course, and have clear metrics on how successfully their students went from doing their bootcamp to having a job in the relevant industry. Bootcamps are fairly pricey – they can easily be several thousand pounds, but there are often scholarships available for those needing financial aid or if you are part of an underrepresented community in tech.

Self-Teaching

Regardless of if you are trying to get into tech or are already in it, you will have to self-teach at some point to stay on top of the latest changes in the industry. This path requires the most amount of self-motivation and drive. You are solely responsible for your learning and how quickly it takes. However, you also have the flexibility to learn whatever you want at a far lower price than through a university or bootcamp. This is generally the hardest path with which to get into an entry level role but is entirely possible and is quickly becoming a common path as tech resources become more widely available and the need for technical people continues to rapidly increase.

The choice is yours! Getting into tech does not require following a single path. You can choose the path that best aligns with you and your circumstances.

To find out about which languages to learn, head to SheCanCode for the full article!

2021 Techie Gift Guide!

Holly Boothroyd — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 21:51:49 +0000

Techie treats for everyone in your life – or maybe even a treat for yourself!

(Contains affiliate links)

Clothes + Accessories

ScienceScribbles

Coding Crystals

MNCO

Books

100 Days of Code Journal

Invisible Women

The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google

Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine

Coding + Electronics Kits

Geek Club 3D Electronics Kits

Raspberry Pi

Kano Harry Potter Coding Kit

Tech

FitBit Versa 3 SmartWatch (Android + iPhone compatible)

Hue Starter Kit

Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones

Birdie Saftey Alarm (Currently 30% off)

Xbox Favorites

Xbox Game Pass + Xbox Live

Xbox Gear Shop – Gaming Apparel + Accessories

Xbox Custom Controller

Xbox Controller to PC Adapter

5 Things I’ve Learnt Developing Software

Holly Boothroyd — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 19:06:00 +0000

Releasing my first product to the public was, to put it into Xbox terms, an “Achievement Unlocked” moment. During my first internship at Microsoft on Paint 3D, I worked on the project from prototype to release.

It was a very unique year and an opportunity that interns don’t often get.

Since then, I have released features for the Xbox app, developed the new Cortana in Windows app, created new components for the Edge browser new tab page, and am currently working on a project set to be used by millions daily.

I’ve learnt a lot about user feedback, building + shipping products, working within a big corporate, the evolution of products, and even about myself.

Here are the top 5 things I’ve learnt developing software:

About Development

Engage User Research and pivot based on user feedback. A developer, designer, and project/product manager are going to get tunnel vision. They are going to know the quirks of the project and come with bias on how easy it is to use and the value it is providing.

Get your product in front of real people – you’ll likely find it wasn’t as intuitive as you thought. Use this feedback to make a product people want to use.

About Building Projects

Being critical of your product or company isn’t a bad thing when it is constructive. I drank the Microsoft Kool-Aid from a very young age and my passion for its products led me to my role as a software engineer.

Growing up, I struggled to say anything negative about Microsoft – it felt disloyal. When I joined my first Microsoft team, I was shocked at how critical the team was of everything.

I’d soon learn it was their superpower.

They didn’t get stuck in the corporate bubble of “we make the best products”. They came from a mix of companies so could say “this isn’t great” and “here’s how we can do better”. They were obsessed with building a product people loved to use. Calling out what was bad and being entirely customer focused was how they kept quality up.

It worked! Press attention was enormously positive and now Paint 3D has a really loyal base of users. Use a constructively critical eye on your product – it will be better off because of it.

About Working in a Big Corporate

Plan for a long-term vision and build the minimum lovable product (MLP) – not the minimum viable product (MVP).

A minimum viable product is generally understood to be the version of the product that has the minimum number of features to solve their problem – the golden path through your main user journey.

A minimum lovable product is similar to an MVP, but it goes beyond just solving the customers’ problem. A MLP has greater consideration for the look, feel, and delight of the user’s experience when using your product.

Building the MLP helps your first-round product hit the shelves, delighting users as well as building external and internal buy in for the next set of updates.

Long-term visions can be hard to achieve when leads, particularly in large corporates, change roles – bringing new agendas and shifts in company direction. This will help bring longevity amongst change to your project by building a quality product where the metrics speak volumes.

Invest in your telemetry and data pipeline. Data will help drive important decisions about product focus, assist in product health improvements, and demonstrates quantitatively that you are reaching your key performance metrics (KPIs).

About the Evolution of Products

Not all software is released or sticks around forever. As hard as it is to see something you built not survive the test of time, your contributions can still be very valuable. These products help prove a concept, inform future decisions, or may be repurposed into something new.

A great example is the innovative Microsoft Kinect, which shipped with the Xbox 360. The Kinect enabled users to play games with their whole body thanks to advanced motion and room tracking.

Unfortunately, the Kinect didn’t get the public buy in it needed to be continued at scale. However, its technology was later transformed into the HoloLens.

The HoloLens is a world-leading MR headset that companies and individuals use around the world. The technology wasn’t lost – it was repurposed into something even better. Plus, the Kinect itself is still quite popular with developers for AI/ML projects and research

To find out what I learnt about myself, head to SheCanCode for the full article!

Is Instagram Being Facebooked?

Holly Boothroyd — Sun, 21 Feb 2021 10:36:24 +0000

An opinion piece | Views are my own

Remember when Instagram was just a 1:1 aspect ratio photo-sharing app that came with a few good filters? This simple platform quickly grew to be the platform of choice for many creatives and young people. It prioritized craft and quality, and felt more genuine than its competitor Facebook. Instagram is, of course, a tech business, so I won’t over hype them, but there was something that drew us first in.

When I started HerHelloWorld in 2018, I very specifically chose Instagram as a platform over other social platforms like Twitter or YouTube for two main reasons: 1. I was looking for a mix of photo and text content creation 2. I wanted to be on the platform where my target audience, people early to middle of their education + careers, particularly women and less represented communities, spent their time.

Two years on, Instagram is a battleground of features and algorithm changes. It has a very different feel to what it once did. If we look back two years in Instagram’s history (and amusingly just two weeks before I started HerHelloWorld), one very big thing happened: the founders of Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, stepped down from the company. At the time, it was seen as the end of pseudo-independence from Facebook. I had my suspicions at the time on how Instagram would transform and now looking at what Instagram has become, those suspicions have been confirmed.

Instagram is showing strong signs of following Facebook’s trajectory: as a user, the content is becoming a series of ads; as a creator, it is an endless endurance race + obstacle course to simply be seen; and as a software engineer, there are signs of rushed development pushed by executives to hit KPIs and keep up with competitors by any means necessary. Take a look at some of the other moves they’ve made to keep up with competitors over the years.

All of this culminates in people becoming disinterested and moving onto the next platform. It is being Facebooked.

This isn’t to say that there isn’t still a healthy community of creators and users, but it does mean that competitors like TikTok have an opportunity to fill the role in the social market that Instagram once filled for Facebook by becoming the cooler, more genuine platform for users. Plus, as a creator, it is amazing to see TikTok recognize and support some creators through the Creators Fund.

Forced to Use a Competitor

Despite this, I watched the rise of TikTok as an outsider for a long time. I felt attached to Instagram and the community I had fostered there. Plus, I didn’t want to get distracted by another platform (especially one I had been warned was quite addictive by friends ).

It wasn’t until Instagram came out with Reels that I finally HAD to get a TikTok.

Why was I forced to go onto a competitor’s platform? Quite simply because the feature was laden with bugs on Android. It became basically unusable to the point where I had zero trust that I would be able to successfully create a Reel.

I gave it my best shot, but it took me 3 Reels before I gave up and downloaded TikTok. A 30 second Reel would take me, no joke, multiple hours to make. It wasn’t because I was doing anything spectacular in the videos, it was because at almost every step there was a bug.

Here are just a few examples I ran across:

- If you resized the text element after completing the initial entry then the text became distorted and skewed. It is only after you post it that you saw this bug, so it is too late to fix and you have to start over.
- Saving to a draft didn’t work, so that time invested to create it ahead of time to share it at the “optimum time” was wasted and your content is delayed because you have to start over.
- Instagram crashed several times at random stages of creation which meant that all work was lost.
- Instagram even managed to crash my entire phone. My phone got progressively slower until the phone was forced to restart.

Reels felt rushed – I find it hard to believe that it was shipped without Facebook knowing about these bugs. At the same time, they altered the algorithm to shift engagement to Reels thereby heavily encouraging people to use their not-quite-ready tech to compete for their existing audience.

Their decision to ship like this puts an unnecessary strain on creators who are providing their platform free content to show their ads amongst.

So, I started using TikTok to create my Reels – the software was just better and easier to use. Given I was creating the content on TikTok, it made sense to post it publicly and build a TikTok account simultaneously. Plus, with it becoming an increasingly popular platform for my target audience, there was a big benefit in creating an account.

It took me 9 videos to create one that took me from 50 followers to 1000 in one day with over 43k views at the time of writing. On TikTok that is just a common jump. Conversely, that level of discoverability and reach is hard to produce on Instagram, especially as a new account.

I started seeing videos on TikTok and even discussions on LinkedIn about how to grow your audience on Instagram, Reels hacks, tips for the ever-changing algorithm, and jokes about the endless struggle to reach anyone and get engagement despite trying all these things. The common advice to get growth you need to post at least 3 feed posts and 3 Reels a week, plus 10 stories a day.

A platform demanding that much content creation using a feature that increases creation time for such little returns leads to creator burnout. You lose genuine, quality content in a rush to produce anything to stay relevant to the algorithm.

The Scaled Impact

The control Instagram has over the world can be scary, and one of the ways it exercises its control is through the powerful, yet elusive algorithm. It manipulates weightings on engagement to reach those KPIs while sacrificing the very craft and art that made the platform popular. Each time they bring out new features, the demands to even reach those already following you increases. These algorithm changes have real world impacts on the content and the creators.

Instagram isn’t alone in this. You can see similar examples on YouTube as a result to changes in their monetization policy. Initially they restricted mid-roll ads to videos that are at least 10 minutes long which led to a massive increase in videos being 10 minutes long, and at times having content stretched out, to hit the threshold.

More recently, YouTube changed this policy allowing videos of 8 minutes to enable mid-roll ads and will automatically enable them for existing eligible videos, even those that previously opted out of ads (they can be turned off later).

As you can read here, the reason behind this move could be due to their advertising rates dropping nearly “50% since the beginning of February”. YouTube is looking to regain ground by increasing their content inventory to insert ads within and attract creators who bring viewers to the platform.

Music streaming platforms have even explicitly recognized the massive impact they have on the industry – Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said:

“Some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape, where you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough. The artists today that are making it realize that it’s about creating a continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous dialogue with your fans.”

Some creators find success in this high-volume strategy, but many others find that it isn’t a sustainable model for their sector. This is especially true when streaming services pay such low royalties per stream, or in Instagram’s case, supply engagement per post.

Are we okay having platforms who chase after KPIs and ad revenue define and control what quality and success mean for other industries? Is “continuous engagement” really the key metric we should be aspiring to - and what gems would we lose if we were to retroactively apply this gate?

Watching the evolution of Instagram through the lens of a user, creator, and software engineer has been an interesting use case. It is another reminder of the massive sway that technology and a few well-placed decision makers can have on industries and people’s lives. We should be asking ourselves how an algorithm change is going to affect everybody and whether that change is for the better.

And please, stop shipping code that isn’t ready. Ty

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