Ben Balter — Technology leadership, collaboration, and open source

Popular Posts

Why everything should have a URL

15 min read

When knowledge lives in people's heads and inboxes, it doesn't scale. Giving decisions and processes URLs makes context discoverable, async, and opt-in.

Why you should work asynchronously

7 min read

Async is what makes remote work actually work. It produces better outcomes, improves work-life balance, and unlocks flow beyond Cold War-era workflows.

Why open source

18 min read

Open source isn't a fad. Here are twenty-five economic, moral, and personal reasons your organization should embrace it.

Leaders show their work

12 min read

Great leaders don't just communicate decisions—they explain how and why. Without that context, every decision sounds like "because I said so."

Manage like an engineer

10 min read

If issues, pull requests, and project boards are the best way to develop software, should they not also be the best way to manage software development?

Cathedral vs Bazaar People Management

5 min read

What if we applied open source's cathedral vs. bazaar metaphor to management? Cathedral managers control; bazaar managers empower.

New book

Open & Async: The collaborative software development playbook for remote and distributed teams

Drawing on a decade at GitHub, these posts are becoming a playbook for thriving in distributed work. Sign up to get notified when it launches.

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Recent Posts

No agenda, no meeting

2 min read

Announcing noagendanomeeting.net — a single-page site advocating that every meeting deserves an agenda, and most meetings deserve to be a document instead.

Older Posts

How to run LanguageTool on macOS

6 min read

Set up LanguageTool as a free, open-source Grammarly alternative that runs locally on your Mac. No subscription required.

Cathedral vs Bazaar People Management

5 min read

What if we applied open source's cathedral vs. bazaar metaphor to management? Cathedral managers control; bazaar managers empower.

Pull requests are a form of documentation

3 min read

Pull requests capture not just what changed, but who, why, and what alternatives were considered. Treat every PR as a time capsule for future contributors.

Practice inclusive scheduling

2 min read

Small scheduling choices — writing dates unambiguously, including time zones, and building in breaks — make distributed teams feel included.

Intro to GitHub for non-technical roles

10 min read

GitHub isn't just for developers. A practical guide for non-technical roles to follow along, collaborate, and track work with confidence.

How to write a great extended leave document

6 min read

A battle-tested template for handing off your responsibilities before extended leave, so your team stays unblocked and nothing falls through the cracks.

Manage like an engineer

10 min read

If issues, pull requests, and project boards are the best way to develop software, should they not also be the best way to manage software development?

Helpful 404s for Jekyll (and GitHub Pages)

3 min read

How to build 404 pages for Jekyll and GitHub Pages that automatically suggest similar URLs to those requested, using Levenshtein distance and your sitemap.

Why you should work asynchronously

7 min read

Async is what makes remote work actually work. It produces better outcomes, improves work-life balance, and unlocks flow beyond Cold War-era workflows.

Leaders show their work

12 min read

Great leaders don't just communicate decisions—they explain how and why. Without that context, every decision sounds like "because I said so."

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