February 2012
2 posts
January 2012
3 posts
“…great horizontal killer applications are actually just fancy data...”
– How Trello is different - Joel on Software
December 2011
1 post
“Autonomy at work is strongly associated with lower stress and greater happiness,...”
– Time to grow up: The future of work is adult
November 2011
3 posts
WatchDieter Rams - SFMOMA (by Andrew Birchett)
“Google knows it. Viacom knows it. The Chamber of Commerce knows it. Internet...”
– STOP SOPA, SAVE THE INTERNET - Boing Boing (via fred-wilson)
“A tool addresses human needs by amplifying human capabilities.”
– A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design
October 2011
1 post
What sits within the cross section of our talents?
While having dinner with a couple of friends the other night a discussion came up of where each of our businesses were going in respect to our city, state and region. Everyone at the table is either a new entrepreneur with a service based businesses model, or had been one at some point. The, enviable, topic of trying to move from a 100% service (billable hour) to purely a software as a service...
September 2011
7 posts
We don't hire commodity workers
Last night at the aimWest Innovation panel a great statement was mentioned by one of the panelists that stuck in my mind. “We don’t hire commodity workers.” That short, one sentence, line provides a great deal of insight into the culture, direction and fortitude of the company, department and team members. Not just top down, but even the expectation placed on fellow coworkers.
...
“…work has become something that we do rather than a place that we go.”
– Cisco security GM: Consumerization drives everything — Tech News and Analysis
Don't tell me maybe
I’m tired of maybe. Maybe is where you waste mine and your time. Maybe doesn’t help either of us move foward. Maybe is where decisions go to die.
If you can’t commit right now, say no. This clears you from wasting your own time thinking about the proposition any longer and I don’t have to put other actions on hold.
Yes allow us to both move forward and figure our...
Less is more, again
I was listening to a recent episode of Back to Work while mowing the lawn. Merlin and Dan we’re discussing commodities and constraints within life and work. The example of time was brought up as our major constraint and limited resource in life, projects and the pursuit of happiness. I think by now we all realize this, we all wish for more time in the day, more days in the week, etc.
...
“I love to work and do it far more than eight hours a day. Part of that love...”
– WORKTECH 11 West Coast: Where Will I Work?
“A new generation, one that grew up with a data surplus, is coming along. To this...”
– Seth’s Blog: The shower of data
August 2011
10 posts
“Fun projects like this are why a lot of us started programming in the first...”
– SlideShare - The importance of silly projects
1 tag
Review: Read This Before Our Next Meeting
Meetings meetings meetings, we all have them. Some of us more than others. They’ve grown to take over our calendars, some bore us to tears and little get’s done in them.
I recently finished Read This Before Our Next Meeting, a great short book explaining how to re-purpose our traditional meetings into those that are concise, thorough and purposeful.
The message of the books rings...
Anual questions to think through
This afternoon I watched a good talk from JP Rangaswami (of SalesForce.com), at Read Write Web’s 2Way Summit. JP was speaking on the gamification of business & work. Overall the talk was interesting. I don’t know if I yet buy into the gamafacation of work per-say, but he had some intriguing views that you can see in action within SalesForce products. JP also had some really good...
“You can’t make progress in an environment where egos are more important than...”
– via sstephenson
“Your problem seems to be that you’re both approaching it like co-workers instead...”
– (courtesy of ajtarachanowicz via redit)
1 tag
Do distributed teams make better use of...
I came across this great post from Toni Schneider from Automattic’s (makers of WordPress.com). In this post Toni goes into the five reasons that an organization should be looking at working in a distributed form.
It’s a great 1,000 foot view of the same reasons that I believe hold true across many companies and instead of me re-writing it I think you should just go read his post...
1 tag
Virtual, distributed, wide. What do you call your...
The adoption of common language is one of the largest barriers from mass understand and appeal for a new concept or movement to overcome. This is true in politics, business and our day to day lives. You have to be able to explain something and have that repeated in a consistent way in order to grow and spread. Overtime you want the community at large to accept and recognize a consistent set of...
1 tag
Strangers + Paintball = Team? A lesson in common...
This past weekend I was up in northern Michigan for a bachelor party for a live long friend. The festivities were set to start at noon on Saturday in a town out in the middle of nowhere. A group of 12 of us convened on this ratty place and were promptly armed with guns, protective masks, pain-balls and plenty of compressed air. Most of us had never met one another. There may have been one or two...
July 2011
16 posts
1 tag
Whiteboard + Camera, a match made in heaven for a...
One of my favorite tools that I use on an almost daily basis isn’t really digital. Simply enough it’s my whiteboard and my camera. I’m always surprised by the amount of people that just have a passion for whiteboards and the whiteboarding (is that a true verb?) activity. It almost surprises me now when I find people don’t make use of them. I start to wonder what’s...
1 tag
Lessons for building a collaboration platform
Management Innovation eXchange (MIX) has a great writeup detailing IDEO’s internally grown collaboration and knowledge management platform. In many cases a “home built” platform for such a complex problem, such as global collaboration, tend to end in disaster and abandonment. On the other hand IDEO isn’t your typical organization.
The write up, done by Doug Solomon,...
1 tag
5 Tips to make Instant Messaging more effective
This has probably been written to death, and I’m sure we’re all instant message experts by this point, but every once in awhile it’s good for a reminder.
With my distributed team my most frequently used tool in my toolbox is probably short form instant message chat. Instant messages and chats are probably the easiest place for misunderstandings and miscommunications to occur....
“…the only way you’re likely to find product-market fit is if you’re almost...”
– Before product-market fit, find passion-market fit - Venture Hacks
1 tag
Tools don't create culture
Over dinner last night I was discussing my interest about virtual teams with some friends. We talked through a lot of different aspects that come into play, have it be cultural or work ethic differences to simply dealing with time zones. We talked a lot about tools, some that are for knowledge sharing, others for making one’s presence in the office seem more “real”. I don’t...
1 tag
Setup telepresence on the cheap for virtual teams
I was talking with a few my colleagues this past week about what their thoughts were around being a virtual worker. We’re all professionals who love what they do, but all choose to work from our homes, coffee shops or coworking spaces. The one feeling that was consistent across everyone was a sense of loneliness or disconnectedness from the home office.
In each of our scenarios...
1 tag
Will a video "wormhole" help your remote team?
Today we work in a world where we’re physically disconnected from our co-workers. As I write this my coworkers are no less then 200 miles away. We are of course “connected” in some sense of the word through instant messenger, email, Basecamp and skype (when it actually decides to work, but that’s a post for another day).
I was reading an article about some of the...
“Part of your credibility as a leader is your public and repeated declaration...”
– Rands In Repose: Bored People Quit
Turn off the power
Yesterday in Grand Rapids we had a series of strong storms roll through at the unusual time of 9am. It was a fun way to start the week. The storms brought with them high winds, plenty of lighting and some much needed rain.
Later in the day, around 4pm when the skies were clear, the sun was shinning and the winds were calm, *poof* our power went off. I was in the middle of writing up a status...
“Microsoft touts that nearly 80% of SharePoint deployments involve a partner in...”
– There’s a lot of things that could be said about this, but it amazes me that MS is still able to sell organizations on the idea that this is a good thing - Building An Enterprise Software Company That Doesn’t Suck
A new forum for west michigan entrepreneurs
Last night was the inaugural Grand Rapids Lean Startup Circle meeting. It was great to see a good representation of our local entrepreneur community out to show their support on a beautiful west Michigan evening.
During the open discussions I brought up that my biggest hope for this group is to provide an open and comfortable forum to allow our entrepreneurs to come and speak freely and learn...
“For independent contractors and freelancers, work-life boundaries can blur not...”
– Matthew Bidwell - Stay-at-home workers face unique problems
June 2011
5 posts
“Multiple Discovery - The hypothesis that most scientific discoveries and...”
– Multiple discovery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
May 2011
3 posts
“Step away from the whiteboard, the answer isn’t there, it’s outside...”
– David Binetti - #sllconf 2011