thompsa6

"As Russell says, you need a whole new approach to prototyping, focused on building something that..."

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 16:02:52 -0700

“As Russell says, you need a whole new approach to prototyping, focused on building something that works with actual data and lets you interactively explore what works in reality, versus the relationships you hope are there from thought experiments….Next time somebody’s trying to sell you on the awesomeness of their new data technique, ask to see a prototype. If they haven’t got that far, it’s snake oil.”

- http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/12/data-is-snake-oil.html

The rhythms of a start-up

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 13:16:17 -0700

I have three points:

Start-up rhythms “as seen on TV”…the ideal.
Rhythms in real life…via my high school football experience.
How do we get there in our own start-up…”what’s next?”

Aaron Sorkin nailed the ideal for start-up rhythms in one of his creations: 1) hire the rockstars 2) iterate big ideas for the future in parallel to executing the tasks of today 3) have a common passion and feed off of that. But it wasn’t in The Social Network where he nailed it; he nailed it in The West Wing.

In The West Wing everyone is on top of their game; they are the “rockstars”. The rhythms of these people are fast and impassioned. I’m sure these characters have meetings regarding status checks, sync ups, project plans, etc. But these things are not what consumes their day. They execute on theses tasks while walking through the halls and in between the brainstorms and iterations for tomorrows next big idea. Executing what is needed for today just happens. Pushing things forward by thinking about the next big idea for tomorrow is their common passion. As the president likes to say in the show, “What’s next?”.

The closest thing I’ve seen to this level of excellence in the real world was with the 1994 and 1995 Celina Senior High School football team. The guys on those teams were “rockstars”. Excellent athletes obviously, but there was more to it than that. As I joined the 1994 team in camp, I was amazed at how the execution of the daily tasks just seemed so easy for these guys. It was as if they weren’t even trying that hard on the daily stuff and were able to think big about what is needed to take them to the next level. It wasn’t until later, as I worked with these guys in the off season, that I realized that they were able to do that because they were so passionate about what they were doing and they worked their asses off to get good enough to make the tasks of the day seem trivial. You have to put in the effort to get good enough on the day to day execution to earn the right to think big; otherwise you’re just an ideas man with no history of being able to execute.

So how do we get there? You don’t get there by applying tools or processes. Those things are necessary of course; and they often lift a team up to a point of “we’re doing great”. But to get from the plateau of “we’re doing great in day to day execution” to the point of “excellent day to day execution is the norm and the larger part of our day is pushing the bigger picture forward” takes something else. It comes from a common passion about what pushing that bigger picture forward means. A common understanding of “this is why I work my ass off; and I love it.”. Once you have that across a team, then the team will optimize the tools and processes they are already using in a way that makes being excellent on day to day tasks trivial. And their passion will also power the big picture forward in ways that are unexpected and wonderful.

"By the time he (Kent Beck) was done, he had launched a new Agile Manifesto: - Team vision and..."

Mon, 31 May 2010 22:27:23 -0600

“

By the time he (Kent Beck) was done, he had launched a new Agile Manifesto:

- Team vision and discipline over individuals and interactions (or processes and tools)
- Validated learning over working software (or comprehensive documentation)
- Customer discovery over customer collaboration (or contract negotiation)
- Initiating change over responding to change (or following a plan)

”

- http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2010/05/thank-you.html

This video is great: Pay people enough to take money off the...

Fri, 28 May 2010 10:06:45 -0600

This video is great:

Pay people enough to take money off the table as an issue so that they can focus on their work.
People that do creative, cognitive work care most about:
- Autonomy
- Mastery
- Purpose

Ben Horowitz: "Why We Prefer Founding CEOs"

Tue, 18 May 2010 19:23:25 -0600

Ben Horowitz: "Why We Prefer Founding CEOs":

A lot of great thoughts on innovation and being agile in this post.

"I like that on a Friday night, nobody is making me go out for a drink, although plenty have put out..."

Mon, 17 May 2010 13:28:57 -0600

“

I like that on a Friday night, nobody is making me go out for a drink, although plenty have put out invites. It isn’t a social faux pas to work.

-Andrew Hyde

”

- http://andrewhy.de/reflections-on-boulder/

"some people learn to ship…they learn to ignore the critics they can never possibly please. The..."

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:26:16 -0600

““some people learn to ship…they learn to ignore the critics they can never possibly please. The ability to choose who judges your work—the people who will make it better, use it and reward you—is the key building block in becoming an artist in whatever you do.””

- http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/04/who-judges-your-work.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+typepad/sethsmainblog+(Seth’s+Blog)

Jason Putorti: How Mint.com Acquired 1.5M+ Users

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 14:18:34 -0600

Jason Putorti: How Mint.com Acquired 1.5M+ Users:

Recently on Quora, my friend Brit posted a question:
…
Since the Quora community found my response helpful, I’m posting it here for everyone:

The Product. Maybe we didn’t have a high viral coefficient but we had a great net promoter score. People loved Mint, it solved a real…

"Without teams of trust and good leaders who take risks innovation rarely happens. Next, we need to..."

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 11:57:43 -0600

“

Without teams of trust and good leaders who take risks innovation rarely happens.

Next, we need to get past our obsession with epiphany. You won’t find any flash of insight in history that wasn’t followed, or proceeded, by years of hard work. Ideas are easy. They are cheap. Any creativity book or course will help you find more ideas. What’s rare is the willingness to bet you reputation, career, or finances on your ideas. To commit fully to pursuing them. Ideas are abstractions. Executing and manifesting an idea in the world is something else entirely as there are constraints, political, financial, and technical that the ideas we keep locked up in our minds never have to wrestle with.

The word innovation is not itself an innovation. Words are cheap. You can put the word innovation on the back of a box, or in an advertisement, or even in the name of your company, but that does not make it so. Words like radical, game-changing, breakthrough, and disruptive are similarly used to suggest something in lieu of actually being it. You can say innovative as many times as you want, but it won’t make you an innovator, nor make inventions, patents or profits magically appear in your hands.

I know from my studies if you are in the room when something that is later on called an innovation is being made, the language is always much simpler. Words like problem, solution, goal, experiment, and prototype, simple workmanlike words are the language you’ll hear.

”

- http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2010/my-speech-at-the-economist

"Just as GOOG used their anchor Google.com to build direct response advertiser base and then..."

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:06:29 -0600

“

Just as GOOG used their anchor Google.com to build direct response advertiser base and then syndicated around the web via AdSense, so should FB with display ads. Knowing that Jimmy is friends with Sarah and they both like Justin Beiber is extremely useful for targeting display ads.

-Chris Dixon

”

Risk and Startups -Mike Perham

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:05:14 -0600

Risk and Startups -Mike Perham:

This is a good take on risk and risk mitigation when joining a start up. The one major item that I’d like to add to Mike’s list is related to personal finance.

When I was younger my dad made me play a game called CashFlow 101 It was all about personal finance and reinforced a concept that was new to me.

Your personal wealth is not measured by numbers like “total asset value” or “total net worth”. Your personal wealth is measure in “financial freedom” and “personal choice”. This equates to the # of days you can live without being required to work to sustain yourself. So, if my monthly expenses are $1,500 / mnth and I have $15,000 in cash in the bank; then my personal wealth is 10 months. This type of thinking is interesting because:

It forces you to focus on your expenses, not your salary or current income. If you figure out how to be more frugal and drop your monthly expenses to $750 / mnth your personal wealth just doubled to 20 months.
It presents a novel idea, “infinite wealth”. Infinite wealth is achieved when you have passive income that exceeds your monthly expenses. Pass income is income that you receive that doesn’t require you to be at a job, e.g. stock dividends, rental income, etc. So, if I have my $1,500 / mnth expenses and rental income of $1,000 / mnth and stock dividends of $800 / mnth, then I am infinitely wealthy. I am also generating a monthly surplus of $300 / mnth, which I can reinvest to generate additional passive income.

The point is not that we should strive to live in an “infinite wealth” state where we don’t work or don’t contribute. The point is that putting yourself in an “infinite wealth” state provides you unlimited personal freedom and choice. Choice to take greater risks if you want, without the dangers of being stuck “without a paycheck”.

Product Development: Why "Google vs. Apple"? Why not "Google AND Apple"?

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 08:59:32 -0600

What the heck do I mean by “Apple” / “Google” when I speak about product development?

“Apple” means design for what you believe. Design from your gut with less of a need for data from iterations to guide your design decisions. You design for what you believe it is right, and in the process you might create or invent new markets.

“Google” means design minimally. Make small assumptions then release and see how people use it by collecting data. Then make further decisions based on the data.

I’m starting to think that in product development, at all levels of granularity (product level, feature level, UserStory level) there are opportunities to decide how a problem should be addressed based on the problem at hand. Rather than adopting a company culture of choosing “Apple” OR “Google”, why not adopt “Apple” AND “Google”. Use both approaches when it makes sense.

Both design approaches are valuable, both have their place. The challenge is knowing when to use which design pattern.

"My thesis today, however, is that there is an opportunity for online merchants to build a sort of..."

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 16:43:04 -0600

“

My thesis today, however, is that there is an opportunity for online merchants to build a sort of brand relationship with consumers, and that this opportunity hinges on stellar customer service. Those online stores and retailers who engender the trust of consumers should, under this thesis, obtain a measure of loyalty from those consumers. This thesis will be easy to test – if it’s true, the merchants who succeed will be able to charge higher prices than those who fail. If, on the other hand, Zappos and those like them, are exactly price-competitive with the field, then the correct conclusion will be that great customer service is actually a red herring. As a consumer, I certainly hope this isn’t true, and as an investor I hope the same thing, since I continue to look for online commerce businesses that have an opportunity to build something truly defensible over time.

-Eric Weisen

”

- http://fiveyearstoolate.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/customer-service-is-the-new-location/

"One in a million" by Seth Godin

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 10:54:50 -0600

"One in a million" by Seth Godin:

I like this one a lot. It reminds me that I really need to blog more, get out to local events more, etc. Great stuff.

saw an email signature, “Sent from my mobile. Please excuse iTypos!” I love that. I need...

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:29:39 -0600

saw an email signature, “Sent from my mobile. Please excuse iTypos!” I love that. I need that for everything I write ;) I am spelling impaired!

Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:40:14 -0600

Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits:

Great bullet points from Google on fostering innovation.

Very interesting stuff. I’d have to play around with it to...

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:58:04 -0600

Very interesting stuff. I’d have to play around with it to get a real sense of its value.

New York Times article on the Short North in Columbus

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 10:12:48 -0700

New York Times article on the Short North in Columbus

One of the better pics I’ve taken; and it was using an old...

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:12:41 -0700

One of the better pics I’ve taken; and it was using an old school flip phone!

Posting to my tumblog from my phone!

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:04:04 -0700

This is pretty sweet. Hopefully I can control myself and not spam my own tumblog :)