I'm a Salesforce Technical Advisor. I live in New Boston, NH with my wife and three sons.

twitter.com/sjudd

www.linkedin.com/in/stephenjudd

Stephen Judd

Volunteering

1 min read

How Volunteer EMTs Became America’s Last Line of First Response

Volunteers need to stay healthy so they can keep those who depend on them safe, and that mission doesn’t change when budgets get tight or staff thins out. “We’re not in it for the money. There is no money,” said Humble. “We’re here for the community. We probably see people at one of the worst days of their life. It takes a special kind of person to do this.”

Stephen Judd

Rest

1 min read

The Lost Art of True Rest : zen habits

The lack of true rest creates a drainedness, where we’re never really fully energized, fully present, fully alive. It means that our relationships start to lack energy and connection. It means we sap the joy out of our lives. That might not be true for you, but you might relate to it somewhat.

I have caught myself taking breaks or finishing for the day, only to get on my phone or laptop for mindless stuff. It feels like the thing I want to do when I have rest time … but it’s not really rest. I don’t feel refreshed afterward, only more drained. It feels like I’m going to comfort, but not getting the rest I really need.

Stephen Judd

We create the difficulty

1 min read

A Guide to Dealing with the Growing Tiredness & Boredom of the New Normal : zen habits

Notice that a lot of those thoughts are about what you want or don’t want. What you like or don’t like. This is about us getting our way — and we always want our way.

What would it be like to not need to get our way, but to love things just as they are?

We create our own experience, in how we deal with and react to our environment. Simply changing circumstances is not the road to satisfaction, it requires a look inside.

Stephen Judd

Exploration, not journey

1 min read

Personal development is an expedition, not an exercise in perfection — Sam Spurlin

I don’t think personal development is an exercise in trying to reach some idealized state. Or at least, not some kind of universal idealized state that’s the same for everyone. I’m not interested in personal development because I’m trying to become more like somebody else who I think is admirable in some way. I’m interested in personal development because I’m trying to better understand and learn about myself. I believe that most of us only have visibility to a small sliver of our own personalities, capabilities, and general self-knowledge.

Stephen Judd

inputmode

1 min read

Why the GOV.UK Design System team changed the input type for numbers - Technology in government

we recently moved away from input type="number" to input pattern="[0-9]*" type="text"

Stephen Judd

BFR Mechanisms

1 min read

A Brief Overview of 3 Often Cited Mechanisms (And Why They Likely Are Not Unique To BFR Training) - THE BFR PROS

In summary, the mechanisms that most probably play the largest role in the beneficial adaptations seen in BFR resistance training are related to accelerating the time to volitional failure of the muscles distal to the cuff. Metabolite accumulation and cell swelling secondary to the restrictive cuff provide a window to replicate a similar local muscular environment as
heavier lifting protocols through the earlier recruitment of type 2 fibers at lighter (20-50% 1RM) loads. The other mechanisms – hormone production, cross-transfer effects and SC proliferation are likely secondary reactions to local metabolic stress or BFR application and play variable roles in the response to chronic BFR training (Takada, 2012). 

Stephen Judd

Build or Buy?

1 min read

When It Comes to Software, Should You Build or Buy?

Ultimately, whether your org should build or buy depends on a constellation of factors: how integral the solution is to your businesses’ core value, how much or little you will need to control and innovate, what your talent picture, timeline, and budget looks like, and what your post-launch maintenance plan is.

Stephen Judd

SNA Questions

1 min read

Asking the Right Questions: Collecting Meaningful Data About Your Network

To gather useful information, however, it’s important to ask the right questions. In particular, we work hard at Converge to make sure that our survey questions ask participants about tangible aspects of their relationships with one another and are therefore easy to answer.

Stephen Judd

Everyone is special

1 min read

"I would prefer to combat the ‘I’m special’ feeling not by the thought ‘I’m no more special than anyone else’ but by the feeling ‘Everyone is as special as me.’ In one way there is no difference, I grant, for both remove the speciality. But there is a difference in another way. The first might lead you to think, ‘I’m only one of the crowd like anyone else’. But the second leads to the truth that there isn’t any crowd. No one is like anyone else. All are ‘members’ (organs) in the Body of Christ [I Corinthians 12:27]. All different and all necessary to the whole and to one another: each loved by God individually, as if it were the only creature in existence. Otherwise you might get the idea that God is like the government which can only deal with the people as the mass."

C.S. Lewis

Stephen Judd

Othering

1 min read

The Problem of Othering: Towards Inclusiveness and Belonging - Othering and Belonging

“Othering” is a term that not only encompasses the many expressions of prejudice on the basis of group identities, but we argue that it provides a clarifying frame that reveals a set of common processes and conditions that propagate group-based inequality and marginality. Although particular expressions of othering, such as racism or ethnocentrism, are often well recognized and richly studied, this broader phenomenon is inadequately recognized as such.

While othering is natural, and likely evolutionary advantageous, it explains much about issues in the world, today and historically. It is always much easier to disrespect, revile, and marginalize those we see as others.

Think about your identity and who you think is "other" - how does that affect your perception and treatment of them?