Month: September 2011

15 or 20 years ago, when you needed to trade stocks or fly somewhere – you contacted an agent. Most likely over a landline phone. Those agents existed because they had access. They’re nearly extinct now because access is ubiquitous. So ubiquitous that it’s nearly impossible navigate the options without being paralyzed by choice. I […]

Seems to me, if you name your company ‘Netflix’ and it’s not a streaming movie service – then the company is horribly misnamed. On the flip side, Netflix has taken years to build a highly efficient distribution pipeline optimized for USPS. And they’ve trained their customers to have high expectations for and quickly report any […]

Build an iterative development strategy around these four activities in this order: make it run make it right make it fast make it small

Today, Patrick Rhone and I challenged each other to imagine our respective projects as rooms in our homes. What color are the walls? Is there furniture? Are you sitting? Standing? How does the room make you feel? What do you do (an not do) in this room? I found it a quite interesting and insightful […]

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, our region has had the 6th largest year-over-year percentage increase in GDP and yet we’ve a lower employment percentage. I know you’re all anxious to show how valuable you are, but just stop. At this point your work ethic is obnoxious. Just stop being productive.

1. Twitter adds ‘Promoted Tweets’ to everyone’s ‘stream’ “Twitter is expanding its promoted-tweets program and is now including paid tweets from companies that people don’t already follow in their timelines.” 2. Facebook introduces the ‘Subscribe’ button “Hear from people, even if you’re not friends Let people hear from you, even if you’re not friends” What’s […]

“‘Foxfire’ is the name of a series of books which are anthology collections of material from The Foxfire Magazine. The students’ portrayal of the previously-dismissed culture of Southern Appalachia as a proud, self-sufficient people with simple beliefs, pure joy in living, and rock-solid faith shattered most of the world-at-large’s misconceptions about these ‘hillbillies.’” The Foxfire […]

I’m subscribed to Hugh MacLeod’s “Hugh’s Daily Cartoon” email. Lately he’s been in rare form – even for him. Today’s reflected where my thinking has been as of late.