Here I must credit Ambient Devices, maker of the Ambient Orb: http://www.ambientdevices.com/about/consumer-devices http://www.ambientdevices.com/about/consumer-

Here I must credit Ambient Devices, maker of the Ambient Orb: http://www.ambientdevices.com/about/consumer-devices http://www.ambientdevices.com/about/consumer-devices It was a tricolor LED connected to the pager network that came out circa 20 years ago. By default you could hook it up to the weather, stock prices, and the like. What I hooked it up to was early Continuous Integration servers, so that everybody could see if the build was broken. It made a huge difference for some teams, where the build went from usually broken to usually green. Sometimes because people changed on their own, sometimes because executives suddenly had a thing they could understand about the room full of people typing furiously. And yes, totally agreed. The best work I've ever done was in close contact with the people I'm serving. It can make a huge difference.