I remember the news cycles from 2016-2020. It was a non-stop flood of news ranging from the horrible to the ridiculous. (rarely anything good). I decided back then to limit my news intake to maintain my sanity. We are just two weeks into the 2nd Trump administration and I sadly…
Many decisions that I have made over the years seemed like good ideas at the time. However, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that I could have made different decisions that would have had greater long term benefits. Three examples to illustrate. ExtJS 0.33 Alpha When Marketo first…
Social media has been a fascinating experiment for civilization. Something in our DNA craves group interactions and the internet has created so many different ways to connect. The digital evolution from bulletin boards (old school method) through MySpace and AOL, to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, and TikTok has shown…
I remember watching The Pirates of Silicon Valley. (The documentary, not the dramatization) It was a series of interviews about the Silicon Valley world in the 1970s – 1980s. It covered the birth of Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and other giants. You can’t tell their story without talking about Xerox. Xerox…
One of the most important skills of a designer is the ability to break down a problem into coherent building blocks. Unfortunately, I find most designers struggle with this task. It seems that there is an expectation that breaking a problem down is a PM or Engineering thing to do.…
Right now, AI seems to fall into a few camps. One is add-ons to existing products. Seems every SaaS provider is adding AI to its offerings. Salesforce is trying to resurrect their flagging growth numbers this way. Another is pure chat like ChatGPT. These are open ended systems. Google Gemini,…
I always find it cathartic to review the year and make 10 predictions for the next year. Also, I look back at 2024 and see how accurate my predictions were. 2024 Prediction Grade: 60% 2024 was a tumultuous year, especially in politics. At work, things have been good, but also…
Not exactly a bucket list, but these are things I can imagine myself doing later in life. Educating product design I think Seth Godin’s altMBA is a great example of how you can gather a small group of students and teach them high quality skills. I could imagine doing my…
WordPress has been my blogging software since 2006. I installed version 2,0 and have been a fan ever since. I have been blogging since March 1996. (Wow, 28 years flies by so fast!) I used to blog nearly every day and now its just a few times a month. I…
I heard this phrase on the news from a Kamala Harris advisor. I kind of love how it captures the feeling I often have, not just about the current political situation. Over the years, I have worked on many big projects. At least a half dozen times over the years,…
Many PMs love to play the feature checklist game. It’s a strategy to win against the competition by having the highest number of features. Many salespeople convince themselves that they lost a deal solely because of a missing feature. In my opinion, this can sometimes work, but often omits more…
Imagine living a thousand years ago. Your life would have been much simpler. Probably one town, maybe a couple of kings in power. Predictions of the future were more about love and health. Most people did not change their class or social position. Your life would have been mostly about…
Apologies for the extra long post. I see a strong similarity between AI 2024 and the Web of 1995-1997. It’s hard to conceive now, with the internet being so ubiquitous and full-featured, but in 1996 you could barely do anything with the HTML. Netscape 1.0 had no CSS, no JavaScript,…
Im scheduled to be a speaker at the upcoming BeMore Festival. The festival is put on my ADPList. It’s a free service for designers to get mentorship. I have been an active mentor on that platform since Feb 2022. My talk is specifically for designers in the beginning of their…