Rules of Thumb Archives - Page 10 of 19

Are You Using Cognitive Task Analysis for New Market Exploration?

3 Early Customer Stage, Books, Rules of Thumb / By Sean Murphy / May 30, 2012

Review of key elements of Cognitive Task Analysis–Knowledge Elicitation, Analysis, and Knowledge Representation–with applications to market exploration. Are You Using Cognitive Task Analysis for New Market Exploration? I am interested in talking with anyone who is using Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) or Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) methods and paradigms to inform their customer interviews. I […]

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Your Prospects and Your Customers are Real People

Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / May 29, 2012

Your Prospects and Your Customers are Real People I’m hardly the first person to complain about the word “user” to describe people who do stuff with software…People don’t think of themselves as “users” and in all other contexts the word “user” is not generally positive and certainly not evocative of the kind of intimate, day-to-day

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David Foster Wallace: The Only Choice We Get is What to Worship

Rules of Thumb, skmurphy, Spirit / By Sean Murphy / May 27, 2012

What follows are excerpts from a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. I thought they were an appropriate antidote to a model for entrepreneurial motivation that aspires to make enough money to do whatever you want. Wallace outlines some of the risks in failing to align

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Seth Godin “Trust Is Even More Scarce Than Attention”

Rules of Thumb / By Sean Murphy / May 9, 2012

“Trust is even more scarce than attention.” Trust doesn’t scale, it’s built up by repeated interactions over time. That’s what makes it so important.

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Susan Cain: The Power of Introverts on TED.com

Rules of Thumb / By Theresa Shafer / April 23, 2012

An interesting TED talk by Susan Cain on the power of introverts: how introverts impact innovation and creativity. Here are some key points she makes (see full transcript) When it comes to creativity and to leadership, we need introverts doing what they do best. A third to a half of the population are introverts. You

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Four Excerpts from the Valve Employee Handbook That Belong In Yours

5 Scaling Up Stage, Rules of Thumb / By Sean Murphy / April 20, 2012

A link to the Valve Employee Handbook made it to front page of Hacker News recently and I can see why, it makes for very interesting reading.

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A Picture Is Worth a Thousand CPU Hours

1 Idea Stage, Events, Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / March 7, 2012

Last week was a thought provoking one for me with Big Data Camp on Mon February 27, a “Great Demo” workshop on February 29, and a tour of the Strata 2012 exhibit hall on March 1. I encountered either examples or stories of visualizations that required hundreds to thousands of CPU hours to create at

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Pretotyping – Techniques for Building the Right Product

1 Idea Stage, 2 Open for Business Stage, Books, Favorites, Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / March 6, 2012

Alberto Savoia defines pretotyping as determining that you are “building the right product before you invest in building your product right.” His book “Pretotype It” (Second Edition available as a Free PDF or on Kindle for $2.99) lists a set of seven techniques for pretotyping on pages 39-40. This post analyzes and elaborates on the techniques

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Doing Business On a Handshake

Rules of Thumb / By Sean Murphy / February 21, 2012

Doing business on a handshake requires us to listen carefully and offer our diagnosis your needs before moving on to how you can help yourself and where we can add value.

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Even Great Art is Lost Without a Buyer

Quotes, Rules of Thumb / By Sean Murphy / February 2, 2012

Lenny Greenberg observed, “Creating art for yourself that no one else wants is fine and dandy. But, when other people will pay, that means that it has value and meaning to others. Even great art is lost without a buyer.” Even Great Art is Lost Without a Buyer Every few days I tweet a “quote

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Record to Remember, Pause to Reflect

Rules of Thumb / By Sean Murphy / January 1, 2012

Record to remember, pause to reflect. Combine these two actions to speed learning, improve your ability to plan, and make mid-course corrections in your plan of action.

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Thanksgiving 2011

Quotes, Rules of Thumb, skmurphy, Spirit / By Sean Murphy / November 24, 2011

Reflections at Thanksgiving 2011: in the second half of my life, it’s time to appreciate all that I have and be more forthcoming in my gratitude to others.

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Pictures Are to Words as Conversations are to Surveys

3 Early Customer Stage, Customer Development, Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / November 22, 2011

You waste time and reputation using these methods for B2B customer discovery: surveys, landing pages, and asking for endorsement before product experience.

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A Professional Always Specializes

Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / October 30, 2011

A Professional Always Specializes, great advice for entrepreneurs from the Bill Miner character in “the Grey Fox.”

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Expiration Dates: Deadlines and Commitments

Rules of Thumb / By Sean Murphy / October 20, 2011

Bootstrappers need to make commitments and meet deadlines to achieve their cash flow objectives. Deadlines and commitments are inextricably linked. Be explicit up front about how long offer is good or how long a customer needs to wait for delivery. Get them to be explicit on payment terms.

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