Two excerpts from Neal Stephenson‘s “The Diamond Age” that have implications for the culture of a startup or an economic region. These are from pages 24 and 25 and outlines two real life events as a part of the back story of one of the characters in the novel, hyperlinks have been added to provide […]
Neal Stephenson on the Importance of Culture Read More »
It’s less about working day and night than working on the right things. I used to determine when I needed a break by when I was too sick to work. It’s an effective stopping rule but not particularly well thought out.
Working Day and Night Read More »
Debugging your startup requires peace of mind because debugging any problem, including debugging yourself, requires peace of mind. It’s what enables you to stay in flow.
Debugging Your Startup Requires Peace of Mind Read More »
Marcelo Rinesi writes on the implications of the “expertise light speed barrier” of ten years of focused practice to become an expert. He observes that if “we manage to defeat the ‘expertise light speed barrier’ and find ways to teach and learn much more effective than anything before, it would have an astounding impact on
Marcelo Rinesi: The Expertise Light Speed Barrier Read More »
While we stress the value of serious conversations with prospects and customers there are other sources of market insights on emerging opportunities for your current product or next offering. I have placed them on a spectrum that runs from a macroscopic view based on objective measurements and numbers to a microscopic view that is more
Verify Your Market Insights Against A Variety of Information Sources Read More »
Today many change initiatives (and new software sales almost always involve the key elements of a change initiative) rely on interviews and replicating the results from an existing “manual system.” Processes mining tools and techniques will play an important role here.
Enterprise Change Agents Need to Add Process Mining to Their Bag of Tricks Read More »
Entrepreneurship is sustained by what’s in your heart and a childlike curiosity toward how the world works and new undiscovered possibilities.
The Heart That Holds On Read More »
One key technique for determining whether you have a workable plan of action is to conduct a premortem, a review of possible sources of failure in advance with a goal to avoid them, or at least reduce their impact and likelihood of occurring.
How to Tell When Your Team Has a Workable Plan of Action Read More »
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 have been reading “Working Minds: A Practitioner’s Guide to Cognitive Task Analysis” by Gary Klein et. al. and I had an epiphany that these techniques would be
Are You Using Cognitive Task Analysis for New Market Exploration? Read More »
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 relationship we’d like our work to have with
Your Prospects and Your Customers are Real People Read More »
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
David Foster Wallace: The Only Choice We Get is What to Worship Read More »
“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.
Seth Godin “Trust Is Even More Scarce Than Attention” Read More »
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
Susan Cain: The Power of Introverts on TED.com Read More »
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.
Four Excerpts from the Valve Employee Handbook That Belong In Yours Read More »
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
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand CPU Hours Read More »
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 $0.99) lists a set of seven techniques for pretotyping on pages 39-40. This post analyzes and elaborates on the techniques
Pretotyping – Techniques for Building the Right Product Read More »
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.
Doing Business On a Handshake Read More »
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
Even Great Art is Lost Without a Buyer Read More »
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.
Record to Remember, Pause to Reflect Read More »
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.
