Personal Updates – Page 3 – Christopher Wink

Middle managers matter: remarks at TAB event

1 in 5 professionals in the United States now manages people — major growth since 2000, as our economy has shifted. Lots of them are there for the wrong reasons. The good ones do magic. I said something like this on behalf of Technical.ly next to honeygrow founder/CEO Justin Rosenberg and ORS Partners ops Leslie Hafter at this energizing breakfast conversation put on by Matthew Saline and Mike Krupit for the TAB CEO community. Thanks for the opportunity!

Technical.ly was honored with a DCRAC community service award

On Oct. 12, Technical.ly was awarded the James S. Angus Excellence in Community Service award from Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council (DCRAC).

Can we mourn men who have done terrible things?

How should men who have committed heinous acts be memorialized in death?

I was asked that after a video I posted about a friend’s murder, and I’d like to answer it with a different personal story. Years ago, one of my closest childhood friends was accused and convicted of one of the worst crimes we have in our society.

I hadn’t seen him in many years but it’s hard to learn something like that about someone you once knew so well. I thought a lot about his victims, people I never knew and how they’d have his scar for the rest of their lives. I looked back for signs, I considered what it said about me to have once been so close to someone who did a thing like that.

Wine making with Patrick

I’ve joined and toured distilling processes going back years, and taken an interest in commercial and homebound beer brewing. Yet outside a few winery tours over the years, I haven’t been as close to wine-making. That’s silly because one of my closest friends in the world has taken up his grandfather’s tradition.

What should your city be in 150 years?

Spinning out of the THRIVING reporting project I’ve led at Technical.ly, I’ve hosted a pair of sessions imagining Philadelphia in 150 years. I hope to do similar longterm future-thinking here and elsewhere.

I’ve found helpful several books on longtermism and other community engagement experience of my past. This week, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an op-ed I wrote with my friend and collaborator Mike O’Bryan on the topic. I wrote this summer on the concept after our first session. (photos below)

Kindnesses high school teachers extended to me

A treasured middle school teacher of mine retired into substituting for my small-town high school. I spent years with him, so when he passed this summer, I had a burst of nostalgia — going as far as making sure I visited his viewing.

That reminded of an old post I had here to remind myself of a few other particular kindnesses that teachers extended me back in high school. Looking back I was a challenging kid — one of those students who could be disruptive and disengaged. I needed quite a bit of help, so my academic performance ranged quite a bit depending on the teacher I had.

Featured speaker @ Sloss Tech in Birmingham, Alabama

I traveled to Birmingham, Alabama to be part of the revival of SlossTech, where I joined a panel discussing how different entrepreneurship ecosystems vary by geography.

Among my favorite pushes: Everyone has projections about why their city is special but spreadsheets are full of hopes and lies.

NRG Philadelphia media flag football tournament: Champions!

Hey that was fun: A goofy annual tradition raised $36k for regional charities last month. It was my second year, and this year we won the championship of the NRG Charity Philadelphia media flag football game.

Some pics and video below.

Technical.ly Builders conference keynote

I was proud of my keynote speech helping to kickoff Technical.ly Builders, the return of our retooled readers conference that welcomed 500 from nearly 20 US states during Philly Tech Week.

The outline of my speech was shared as written pieces in three parts:

How was your pandemic?

This month the U.S. government suspended the health emergency, effectively ending the pandemic.

That doesn’t mean covid-19 is gone (it isn’t); it doesn’t mean it won’t flare back up (it could); it doesn’t mean we won’t have another pandemic someday (we might). But it does mark the end of this nearly 3.5 year period.

Millions of lives were lost, and economic and psychological trauma was enacted, all of which we’re still confronting. As a coping mechanism, a friend and I were talking about the little behavior changes that took root, some of which we may reference for years to come. At the very beginning my Technical.ly newsroom was interested in what and how we would create.

I kept up my resolutions, and they were different than before covid-19. I’ll always reference these few simple behavior changes that now feel entrenched as part of me after so many life changes: