Heading in the right direction!
Wayne
Self reflection and cancelled flights...Two months in and the year and I feel like 2023 has really been kick-started.
Mythos Consulting have started work with us, to deliver our commercial growth strategy over the next 18 months. During our first session we got right to the bottom of any potential hurdles which are to be addressed before we set out to deliver accelerated growth. This exercise was like looking in the mirror to see what may hold us back, which so far has been the amount of time I’ve spent working “in” the business and not “on” the business. We identified that some of the things I’ve been involved with are not the best use of my time. The first session could not have gone better in terms of getting things onto the table, and it’s put a real spring in my step as I have much more clarity on everyone’s role within the business. A few months of dedicated work ahead will follow to ensure that everyone knows their position within the business, and to make the cultural changes we want to apply to move into what feels the next chapter for Twilo.
February being a short month means we’ve had little over three working weeks since our last monthly review, but it doesn’t seem like five minutes have passed! I did get to do a little design work in February, which is rare these days, and for our former employee, Kiri, no less! Kiri is doing great with a private courier company, and they’ve asked us to provide a new website which offers real-time pricing for their clients. This may be something we’re all familiar with due to using services such as Royal Mail, but we were surprised with how few same-day couriers offer a real-time price. This unique functionality will give them something different to promote when we carry out their online marketing campaigns.
During February I had a city break which was a lot of fun… eventually. Having booked to go to Munich and organising our excursions and restaurant bookings for the weekend, our flight was cancelled with less than 48 hours notice due to strikes! We only had a couple of hours the night before to cancel everything we had booked and rearrange a trip elsewhere – around our airport parking and time off work. Fortunately, a flight to Pisa left at a similar time so we had a few days doing the touristy bits there, as well as day trips to Livorno and Florence. Florence is a beautiful city, like a miniature Rome, and I also got to live out a childhood dream! For those who remember Football Italia in the 90’s, I used to watch that religiously, and Fiorentina were my team due to players like Batistuta and Rui Costa. I was in full on nostalgia mode and although Fiorentina only managed a 1-1 draw, it was a great experience to visit their 100-year-old stadium and see their Ultras chant non-stop for 90+ minutes. I can now add Artemio Franchi Stadium to my visits to Stadio Olimpico and San Siro. Allianz Stadium in Turin is next on the list.
Click the images below for an enlarged view 👇
Finally, I would like to say thank you and farewell to Matt, who leaves us after almost five years. Matt has contributed to a lot projects during his time here, particularly with the quality of his website design. On behalf of everyone at Twilo I wish Matt all the best in his next chapter.
Andrew
Fighting smart...Being a big fan of the Company of Heroes franchise, this month has been very exciting for me with the release of Company of Heroes 3. This is a game I previously mentioned I was excited about during the end of year blog; it has met my expectations with incredible gameplay, graphics, animation, and storytelling. The single player provides a great challenge and this combined with the multiplayer gameplay is going to provide me countless hours of fun in this game.
This month has also provided a great lesson in SQL performance and presents a reminder to be careful about how we handle database interactions in our applications. As web developers, we can often dismiss thinking about how the way we interact with data sets can impact performance and focus solely on making sure the application works. It is very important for us not to dismiss this as it can seriously slow down servers if we do not code smartly.
It all comes down to knowing how many queries are performed in a single request and how those queries are processed on a server. The reason I’m bringing this up is this month I saw some outstanding results achieved, simply by coding smarter. We were able to make a very slow piece of software a massive 800 times faster simply by optimising the code!
