I broke the Tortoise table this morning because I was impatient. I tried to move it without someone helping me. I leaned a little hard on the plexiglass and it cracked. I should have waited until tonight and had help carrying it. I hope it’s not totally ruined. One part of my personality is that…
Recently, we bought a red foot tortoise. We bought it without realizing how much space the thing really needs. Subsequently, we bought a habitat that is too small for him. I was determined to figure out a solution to the problem. There was a spot in our house that would make a good home for the…
I had been testing for a couple of weeks and the winner seems to be ASmallOrange.com. Performance I used some ping services as well as anecdotal evidence from colleagues around the world. Orange performed consistently better. Price Orange is half the price of MediaTemple. It’s not THAT much money, but it’s enough to make a…
The art of making great APIs has become a key skill in a technology organization. Whether it’s the protocol or the naming scheme or the functions or even the error logging, the API has a UX of it’s own. Make a bad developer UX and you will have fewer technology partners. You can see great…
The Marketo 2014 Summit has grown to enormous proportions. It’s doubled and doubled so many times that over 5,000 people packed into the Moscone Center this week. It funny how much work goes into it and exhausts us, while at the same time fills us with enthusiasm and energy. Our customers really are something special and…
What happens when you die? What if all of this is meaningless? Why do parents says to their kids, “In the REAL world, blah blah”? What is the real world? Does high school matter? Should one go to college? What does success mean? Why won’t that other person like me? My kids are wondering what…
I’m giving a presentation at this year’s Marketo Summit. The topic is how to give a great presentation. This creates a conundrum. If the presentation is not great, then the content will be considered suspect. How can one trust that the lessons are solid if the presentation wasn’t awesome? It certainly puts the pressure on.…
In my lifetime so much has changed. In these changes, I have lost and I have gained. Some examples: Communication As a teenager, I would stay for hours on the phone with my girlfriend. (When I was lucky enough to have one!) The phone wasn’t a bother and the sound was crystal clear. I could…
Why do most cars lack character? They look like they have all been designed by the same person. All sedans look alike. All SUVs look alike. It’s a conspiracy to make us all into automatons. Good little soldiers in our little boxes going to work in our cubicles and staring at rectangle screens. Well, to be fair,…
We are interviewing for some VP positions and it has me thinking about one trait that I look for in a candidate, regardless of position. Does this person have a strong point of view? Not all leaders are managers and not all managers are leaders. However, leaders usually have a strong point of view, a…
I have seen people with e-cigarettes frequently in the past few months. The styling of the devices generally look like regular cigarettes. A few look bigger and stranger, almost like miniature hookahs. It got me thinking that we could be entering a new fad. In a few years, we might see the pipe making a…
Amazon is getting into the content business and their first two comedies are absolutely brilliant. Alpha House This show is about a group of republican senators in Washington DC who share a brownstone. It stars John Goodman. The writing is crisp and the comedy is nuanced. The republicans are portrayed as fairly cynical. They aren’t…
Good decisions are always based on the point of view of those judging. “What is better?” all depends on what you are optimizing for. In the book The Power Broker, by Robert Moses, there were two plans to create Central Park in New York City. One was to leave it as a natural habitat for…
I’ve had this mild allergic rash for a while on my neck and elbow. I’m having trouble figuring out exactly what I am allergic to. It could be the dog, but hopefully not. One person suggested it could be something in my diet. This led me to try an experiment. I cut gluten out of…