I’ll start with the punchline: Getting to market faster is not important at all. Every company I have ever worked with in the past 15 years pressured the development staff to deliver functionality faster. We need to get to market first! Quicker! 4 months??? Make it 1!!! It has been nearly universal. I see it…
Several movies I have seen recently (Karate Kid, The Last Airbender) made me think of movies that were based on previous works. This isn’t universal, but a common theme I see is that the newer version removes all of the charm from the older version. Modernization, somehow has become synonymous with bland and charmless. Here…
Most of us are not the CEOs of our organization. We are somewhere in the middle. Yet we all have, every day, an opportunity to provide leadership from the middle. Leadership comes in several flavors. Here are some that I find valuable. Movement Leadership When you are in a meeting and everyone is looking at…
One annoying thing about Hybrids is that oil changes are expensive. Doing the maintenance at Nissan was over a hundred dollars. Last time I did it, the service was mediocre and I had to wait quite a while. This time, I decided to try something new. I actually thought the place was a JiffyLube, but…
Of course, the expression says the opposite. However, I reject the expression. If a tree falls in the forest, it does kill the rabbit it lands on and it does make a sound. Reality is reality. The truth is the truth. However, future decisions are not based on historical reality, they are based on historical…
I was feeling stressed the other day and I wondered how much stress I feel compared to others. I decided to ask around a bit. Me: You ever feel stress to the point where it is causing physical discomfort or bring you close to tears? Like throat swelling and heart pounding? People I asked: Yes,…
In sports, you either win or lose or tie. And when it comes to final championships there are no ties. If you win in Basketball 110-109, you get the win and they get the lose. In football, if you are within 1 inch of the end-zone, that means you are NOT in the end zone. To…
I had several interesting experiences yesterday. In all of the cases, the subject of my work was much more or much less complicated than what I initially thought. Some examples: Case #1: I was working with an engineer who had a problem with CSS. He is only loosely familiar with CSS, so he was freaking…
As we are getting close to finishing election season, I am noticing a very specific common experience. The media is the number one victim of this. They are “following the narrative”. By this I mean that they have a hypothesis about the world and will do anything to support that idea. Any new information that is the…
There are two types of people in this world, browsers and searchers. Searchers You see the search box and type in what you want and then look at the results. The results are based purely on your input. The thinking involved is primarily about what to search for. Different search phrases will yield different results. …
From Urban Dictionary A term used by many people all over the world, to make the next few words coming out of their mouth, sound less offensive. Example: With all due respect, your mom looks like a permanently aroused gorilla. As a species, we often get angry at other people. This is a worldwide phenomenon. We get…
I received a bunch of business cards at the conference and was thinking about them. Some of the cards had clever things on them that pointed you online. Others were plain white, classic and boring. Others were black, which made writing on them impossible. Some were oddly shaped and difficult to put in the stack…
Of course, I have a vested interest. I am the first hired employee and the head of UX for Marketo, but I feel I can be objective. Well, just take it with a grain of salt anyway. It was awesome. Last year, we had about a hundred and fifty people. I thought that was alot…
Aikido is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as “the Way of unifying (with) life energy” or as “the Way of harmonious spirit.” Ueshiba’s goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from…