Eiffel's tower - Nickolas Means |  

I could listen to Nickolas speak all day on this stuff. Just finished his SR-71 talk and a few of the others. What a guy.

You missed the best story about one of Eiffel's biggest critics. Guy de Maupassant had opposed it and when it was complete he was just as critical calling it an eyesore. When Maupassant was regularly seen eating lunch at the base of the Eiffel Tower he was asked about it. He said it was the only place in Paris where he could not see the tower. LOL.

Am sitting in through the CV lockdown on a binge of Nick's talks one after the other. I'm an engineer and an aviation guy so love those references. I also speak French and would give him a passing grade on his pronunciation of Eiffel's document. His pronunciation of "Dassault Mystere" in the Concorde talk is another thing... That triviality aside, these stories are well done Nick. Thanks for sharing your insights in such an engaging way.

21:00 the bigger reason for HOT rivetting is that as the rivet cools it contracts, squeezing the parts together much more tightly than they can be bolted (if you had millions of decent threaded bolts, of course, haha at that time).

These are great. I come for the topic and stay for the work lessons.

Nick Means is super inspiring!! Love his talks, they always bring an important fact to light that hasn't been viewed by us in all its importance or detail. Keep it up Nick, your work is truly informative and open-minded! :)

Summary: Make Friends: take people out for coffee. Tell stories: tell the story of what you have worked on . Read: How to win friends and influence people. Negotiation: is Cooperation, understanding where the other person comes from and find a solution. Things are not necessarily a Zero Sum scenario. ask probing open ended questions. empathy and compassion. look to see if there is a smaller piece of functionality you can deliver early that will meet whatever need is driving the push. Read: You can negotiate anything. figure out your needs. find mutually beneficial ways to fulfill needs. Politics: there might be a way to deal with the politics that you dislike. Heat Shield 🔥🛡 allow team to know what is happening . DO NOT make them feel frustrated about it. as leader you have to teach other people how to navigate the politics of the company. You could build an Eiffel tower by learning to participate in Organization politics in a way that remains true to you.

Nickolas's talks are Gold. 🙏👏 Thank you for the amazing storytelling you do and really makes us scratch our heads. These are powerful and really moves you.

OK, who is the Brisket Artist? I'm guessing Aaron Franklin. (Just looked it up, it IS Aaron.) steve

Technically the Prussians baited Napoleon III into picking the fight. Otto von Bismark wanted a defensive war to solidify the emerging unified Germany that he envisioned (led, of course, by Prussia) so he engineered the situation into the outcome he wanted.

If the tower never was, and now someone would present the plan to me, I would probably say that it's ugly and doesn't suit Paris.

When I was at the University, 30 years ago, my professor used the Effeil tower as an example of good design that require low maintenance (at that time, about 100 years later, the tower had been repainted only 17 times I think, not bad for a piece made of steel).

Incredible storyteller and a pleasure to listen to!

Did I miss hear or did this guy flip between metric and English measure?

I've learned so much from watching his videos.

It's really amazing to see the Eiffel in real life. I climbed to the very top, looking at all of that riveted metal.

I too could listen to Nickolas all day this one on Eiffel Tower was brilliant and just like Nickolas I’m an aviation enthusiast

FANTASTIC and very relevant videos. Well presented and tied to interesting history worth knowing. Well done, Sir.

Forget the lesson in office politics, I want to know how the flip they accurately calculated the deflection of a truss viaduct down to 8mm in the 19th century, and what was the process and the actual calculations they used...

Great presentation, good storytelling, and analogies

21:44 no they didnt lol

Very nice, thank you Interesting historical stuff and shorter, but still good insights

It's an impressive feat. I read the tower was firșt proposed in Spain. They did T like it, so it went to Paris. Man, you can do better with the French. At least try to get the accent right. It's the parameters of politics that makes the difference. If politics sucks, change the system so it is empowering. Start with a neutral currency.

Louis Brandeis - former Supreme Court Justice - and arguably the father of our legal education system- preferred to be “counsel to the situation” rather than advocating the position of a particular client. Same kind of thing. On a different note - being a lead/assistant manager was one of the most difficult but most rewarding jobs I ever had. Kudos !!

The brisket reference is for Arron Franklin in 2015. See:austin.eater.com/2015/5/5/8548325/aaron-franklin-best-chef-southwest-james-beard-2015

"You can do it. I know you can." I love this! it's the principal pillar that all of his discussions come to. It is such a great motivator! words have power, and some times this is just the thing you need to keep you going. Success and failure balance on a knifes edge, and Often times it's the encouragement of a man like this, who has no obligation to anyone other than his own sense of honor, to share his wisdom that can push you beyond that edge into the path of success. " It is the fool who will take is own counsel, and reject the experience of his fellows." I don't work in the field of software development, but anyone should be able to apply this wisdom to his/her on circumstance.

Absolutely amazing researcher and speaker & leader

So I’m incredible, great

I really appreciate Nicolas Means' speeches.

Another great modern parable. The real lesson is in the end ! The being " Political" at the job was great. Reminds me of my 20 something year old Son, working at an Investment Co. in Boston, ma. Up for promotion he derailed his competition, he felt he was technically more competent, but the other guy, went fishing, golfing and attended barbeques at the Boss's home. I crushed my Son's ego, on purpose, by telling him, he didn't stand a chance. And I was correct. Having spent by then, 20 years in corporate jobs, and some in the Union, POLITICS IS EVERYTHING ! Now at 41, I think he's got the message. But I love how Nicholas explains it.

apology accepted

It’s wild that people hated the eiffel tower’s design. It’s really interesting honestly. It makes me wonder whether it’s just jealously back then as you see today, (in the sense of “why couldn’t I think of that??”) or if the Eiffel tower has been around long enough for people to just accept it as it is

What a great story! I am wondering how Nickolas prepares his material. Does he just pick out an interesting historic event and extracts some useful ideas for engineers, or does he formulate some engineering/management idea and searches for a matching story? I would probably go #1

His French is actually reasonably good for an American.

I find what this guy has to say is important not just for developers and not even just for managers but maybe for all of us. I just watched his talk on "The Building Built On Stilts" [or something, might have paraphrased there] and his general points would make us all better and more considerate people. We're humans after all and we need to learn how to be the best Ourselves we can be. Nickolas talks about taking the time to understand people a lot and to react accordingly and in my opinion that's what everyone needs at the end of the day - keeping their heads up instead of to their own sheets of papers when it comes to other people, in work or just in general.

I took in this video to learn more of the tower. Got my money's worth in information I previously never knew. The bonus information on politics... I wish I had when at the start of my career, rather than after, being in retirement. If only enough young leaders of tomorrow watch & glean... the future will be awesome to live and work in !

C'est Si Bon ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This talk has great potential for anyone looking to grow spiritually.

"1000 feet each month"?

Ha I know people call Americans arrogant but damn late 19th century France takes the cake. If only they saw what lay ahead for them.... maybe then they'd forgive our less tasteful architecture.

I started using a tape recorder, my manager at the time told me to turn it off and I told him to either let me work or let me record the conversation. It greatly cut down on the amount of incompetence I was exposed to and gave me a weekly accounting of how much of my time was used up by pointless situational updates and job-justification by my manager. It also let me all but ignore them while I kept what I was doing fresh in my mind until I was done. I don't know why this twit refused to use e-mails, but if I'm losing nearly 3 hours a week to interruptions and ideas that aren't on-topic of my work I'm certainly not going to let them jostle my elbow. There is an important difference between politics and conjoined time management. Politics are something that should be defined before the work starts, anything else is lost time. The manager quickly learned to start using a recorder himself, I got a lot of hate for starting the practice but in the end it became a benefit since the lime lost to the pointless little meetings wasn't lost twice by being dumped from people's brains when they turned back to work *and* the other people working other shifts working on the same thing as I would leave verbal notes. Its been a long time since then, but nothing conveys communication like voice. If your team only meets by text app you need to fix that.

There is a small problem with the subtitles: they stop at 30:07

I needed this. Thank you for making the video.

Excellent talks until he tacks on the tenuous workplace links. He, and most of us, are clearly here for the history. I appreciate 'The Lead Developer' for providing a platform for interesting talks, but it says a lot about your subject that you need to hijack a completely unrelated historical one to make it interesting.

2.5 million rivets... holy shit!

Great storytelling. I could listen to him for hours.

Accent fort correct pour sûr.

This is excellent.

22:13 was the "photo" taken from a nearby balloon? :P

Eiffel went to prison after, being accused of swindling the government money given to him to build the tower.

A little magical bit of hindsight: the best curing condition for concrete is specifically under water, you don't have to empty a void for it and pump it with pressurised air. You might however have a little trouble pouring it under water, so there's that, but it's possible to do with a water displacement method, with no air in sight. And there are differences in preparation, so i can fully appreciate their decision not to risk an untested technology.

I'd say "building a consensus" rather than networking.

"Office politics" and "politics" are completely different things. We need different terms for these things :\ Office politics are expected to move up and get the work you want (as he said), but "politics" has no constructive place at work. As soon as everyday politics bleeds into the office, hell ensues.

How very French to build an Arc de Triomphe to celebrate a war they lost. Twice. Elba and st. Helena.

Eiffel Tower is nothing more than an inartistic scaffolding of crossbars and angled iron, change my mind.

I agree with the critics.

Politics: definition 1: poly = many, ticks = blood sucking parasites. definition 2: the practice of our religion in community.

Go vegan.

Nickolas has really good lessons, thank the algorithm and him, for enlightening me.