Super8: Eight intriguing articles from April.

Hot cross buns and Easter eggs may have come and gone, but don’t lose your appetite just yet—I’m serving up eight delectable articles to satisfy all your reading needs.

I hope you’re hungry for the very best in tech, design and business April has on offer. This month we explore problem-solving like a programmer, the qualities of fluid leaders and a 540km sprint through LA’s desert heat.

Welcome to Super8 in April!

1. Six principles of fluid leadership.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by Jayesh Ghatge.  
• Contributor: Vivi Chau.  

Are you a fluid leader? Leadership in tech demands leaders to seek opportunities, adapt to new experiences and remain relevant within an ever-changing industry.

Whilst only a blueprint, Jayesh Ghatge’s article shares the core skills of fluid leaders: value creators, T-shaped, contextually aware, relentless networkers, focused on essentials, and bold futurists. Get started by applying these six skills and adopting a mindset of experimentation, learning and adjustment.

2. The status of JavaScript libraries & frameworks: 2018 & beyond.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by Jae Sung Park.
• Contributor: Matt Agar.

Whether you’re looking at building a web application, or adding a feature that adds a little flair to your website, there’s a framework for you. With the increased popularity of JavaScript, libraries and frameworks can support developers with the shortcomings of the language.

Following each corner of stack seems impossible, but knowing and understanding the part of it, can give us the insight on front-end development.

However, with power comes great responsibility—libraries carry a cost: page weight and performance. This trade-off should be kept front of mind when choosing your tools.

Jae Sung Park weighs up the current climate of JS frameworks, and the road ahead for 2018.

3. Frequent vs. infrequent designers.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by Fabricio Teixeira.
• Contributor: Melanie Bruning.

Whether it’s the IDE they use, or the language they specialise in—every developer has their own toolkit. The same could be said for designers. Choice in platform, plugins or creative software all inform a designer’s process to approaching their work.

But what about design tools for people who don’t often design? Mastering a design tool requires practice and patience.

These tools are proud and should  be celebrating the ecosystem they have built, but they also have to remember people don’t go from newbies to experts overnight.

Here’s why this may be a missed opportunity for users lacking expertise across complex platforms, or for newbies just looking to try something new.

4. Qualities of a brilliant salesperson who actually closes deals.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by Tim Denning.
• Contributor: Zoe Warne.

Closing deals isn’t always about applying a systematic approach. Here’s why your attitude and behaviours have a vital role to play. Tim Denning details 13 qualities that separate high-performing sales teams from the pack.

Successful salespeople understand the importance of communication, referrals, discipline—and perhaps most importantly—staying humble.

Try instilling some (or all) of these traits to improve your hit rate and reap the benefits of better relationships.

5. The bot plan: your guide to making conversations convert.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by Purna Virji.  
• Contributor: John Broadfoot.

Purna Virji starts her article off with a prediction: by 2020, the average person will have more conversations with their bot than with their spouse.

Countries such as India and China are no stranger to bots, and they are used widely to improve customer service—who hasn’t been on an hour-long phone call with their internet provider?

For the chatbot to be truly helpful as an influencer, it needs to learn from each conversation. It needs to remember what you shared from the last conversation, and use it to shape future conversations.

Purna outlines a three-step plan to making these conversations convert to actions.

6. Three insights from Reddit’s first major redesign.

• Read full article here.
• Written by Mark Wilson.   
• Contributor: Mark Davis.

How do you redesign the front page of the internet for over 330 million users? Reddit’s recent redesign offers a unique process for organisations with loyal (and vocal) audiences. With Reddit’s legacy code starting show its age, releasing new features onto the platform proved difficult and time-consuming.

It’s easy to imagine there’s a perfect design for the one ideal user, but everyone uses a platform differently.

A substantial upgrade was needed to bring the website up-to-date with best practice design and development. Learn how the Reddit team opted for a tailored approach and gave their users the ultimate power: choice.

7. How to think like a programmer — lessons in problem solving.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by Richard Reis.  
• Contributor: Kurt Smith.

Ever been stuck trying to solve a complex problem? Tired of trial and error? According to Steve Jobs, becoming a programmer may be the answer:

Everyone should learn to program a computer, because it teaches you to think.

Great programmers are often great problem solvers. Try Richard Reis’ framework to better understand, plan and divide complexities.

But don’t expect efficiencies the next time you encounter a problem: practice makes perfect.

8. 39 hours on the road for The Speed Project 4.0.

• Read the full article here.
• Written by Riley Wolff.
• Contributor: Sarah El-Atm. 

Riley Wolff takes us on an immersive journey with The Speed Project. Join their running team as they begin a mammoth relay—an awe-inspiring 540km starting from the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, to the finish line in Las Vegas.

The Speed Project will change you. Whether you think it will or not, and whether you let it or not, it will change you.

Crafted with absorbing details of their 39-hour trek, including lush visuals, energetic storytelling and team testimonials—this piece is worth slowing down for.