People sometimes confuse direction with dictation, both as an IC and a manager. One technique I often use is dueling principles. They are delivered two at a time and are contradictory. I ask the individual to use practical wisdom and judgment to make the final decision using the principles as guides. Here some examples I have used…
I was recently invited to try Bluesky Social, the Twitter competitor founded by the original Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. It seems pretty early days. There is no iPad app or WordPress Plug-in. Not many influencers have accounts yet. My account here. I need to try putting up some posts and see if it devolves into…
I just watched Oppenheimer in San Francisco in true IMAX 70mm. To cut to the chase, I have not been this annoyed by a movie in decades, first some background, so you you know where I’m coming from. I have read The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen…
Lately, I have seen some examples of brands being obliterated. The two that stand out are HBO and Twitter. HBO Home Box Office has been around for half a century. It existed at the dawn of the “cable” revolution. Before cable, we had only broadcast television and movies. Cable expanded our puny list of 5-6…
I was thinking about the new Visio Pro goggles from Apple. I can not, for the life of me, understand why Apple thinks business people are going to strap a computer to their faces to have a zoom call. It seems ok for gaming, but nothing special to me. This does not seem like a…
I was recently in Prague and noticed something about all of the sidewalks and many of the streets. They usually looked something like this: It looked pretty and had a cool pattern, but I didn’t think that much of it until I saw these guys working. They had simple tools: bricks, shovels and hammers. They…
I recently spent a week in Bangalore, India for work. As usual, I looked at everything around me. I observed how the streets and sidewalks were built and how the design of the city affected the culture and usability. Of course, I only saw a sliver of the whole city, but I noticed a few…
Sorry. This is a long meandering post. It’s not about UX, so I hope it’s not too annoying. It’s just been on my mind lately. It’s easy to say government is inefficient or wasteful, even if it’s not true. We hear it repeated over and over. All well-crafted propaganda is designed to sound accurate/truthful and…
I recently talked about the time zone troubles in California. This TikTok guy is saying the same thing about the macro-economic situation. I think the brain drain from California (and the US) will continue in the coming decade. Knowledge workers will move to cheaper locations and companies will continue to globalize. It leaves me with…
I have been busy building the UX and Docs teams for work. California has been difficult for me as the time zones are so different. The center of gravity in the company is on the other side of the world including centers in Tel Aviv, Prague, and Bangalore. I decided to spend 6 weeks in…
I live in “Silicon Valley” halfway between San Francisco and San Jose. I moved to the Bay Area in 2002 and have loved it ever since. My first impression was that “everyone here loves technology like I do!” and that has stuck with me for 2 decades. However, I see a trend now that is…
The truth is that I hardly ever use Twitter these days. It’s not a source of news for me (NYTimes, John Oliver). It’s not a source of joy or information (YouTube). It’s not a place to gain reputation for answering questions (Quora) or mentoring people (ADPList). It’s not addictive fun (TikTok). It’s not a marketplace…
When my kids were little, we would all watch Naruto as a family. Recently, they have all moved out and are successfully adulting. (A verb I made up) Maybe out of nostalgia or empty nest coping, I have been binge watching the original Naruto. It is an exceptional show with terrific story. Some of the…
I’ve been using WordPress 6.0 with Twenty Twenty Two theme for a little while now. I had a particular vision of how I wanted my homepage to look and work. This is a breakdown of how I achieved the effect along with thoughts on the new Full Site Editing in WordPress 6. It’s been an…