Author: admin

Learning to separate value from cost. I spent three years at the Copenhagen Business School to largely acquire one skill: The ability to price something at its value, not cost, and feel damn good about it. It sounds trivial, but it can be the hardest thing. Russell Beattie gives you the guilt version: Let me… Continue reading Learning to separate value from cost

Mike Arrington's new stream. Most of you know Mike as the editor of TechCrunch, a phenomenal new weblog that tells the story of new web services, written from the heart of SiliconValley. I met him for the first time in a meeting in NY, in May, when we got together to talk about the sale… Continue reading Mike Arrington's new stream

The top 5 red flags of software development. “Wouldn’t it be easy to…” (the hidden cost of change) “This shouldn’t take long” (artificial time frame) “Can you make this small change real quick?” (“small” and “quick”) “Before you finish X, could you do Y?” (the mental costs of interruption) “Let’s push this today” (artificial scope)… Continue reading The top 5 red flags of software development

Lind on “processing” failed states Lind. Another reason the WMD lie matters is that the real reason the administration invaded Iraq, “to redesign the Middle East,” reveals (officially) a truly breathtaking hubris, coupled to a monumental ignorance of the region in question. Redesign the Middle East? What do the Bushies think it is, a Chevrolet?… Continue reading Lind on “processing” failed states

Swan song?. My first reaction to Delta to Eliminate Discount Carrier Song was, “of course it failed.” It failed because they didn't burn their bridges, didn't really commit, didn't do anything but a pale imitation of Jet Blue. But then I realized that Song wasn't a failure on at least one level… it allowed a… Continue reading Swan song?

Optimizing Rails Resource Usage. Hi, my name is Julik and I'm one of the new guest writers on the TextDrive weblog. Jason has given me the privilege to talk a little about performance-tuning Rails applications for deployment on TextDrive or anywhere. I've been doing Rails development since April 2005 and have deployed 3 applications already,… Continue reading Optimizing Rails Resource Usage

Kudos to Doonesbury. A major problem in the United States is the drop in the number of students studying engineering in college. Reportedly, we are graduating fewer engineers than we used to and are falling far behind other countries, such as China and Russia. This was one of the issues Ray Kurzweil and I discussed… Continue reading Kudos to Doonesbury

Famous last words?. I almost fell off my chair when I read this: ” I don't really feel personally as though Microsoft is behind in any way, shape or form related to services, except for the size of revenues from the new economic model ” – Ray Ozzie, CTO Services, Microsoft Not behind in any,… Continue reading Famous last words?

Guest post from Nick Bradbury: What Can I Learn from You?. Hi folks, this is Nick Bradbury, the author of FeedDemon for Windows. Now that Brent and I are co-workers, we thought it would be a great idea to guest post on each other's blog today as a way to introduce ourselves, and also to… Continue reading Guest post from Nick Bradbury: What Can I Learn from You?

So ya wanna be a consultant?. So Matt in the mailbag says that he's planning to become a consultant in the next 6 to 8 months and is studying right now for the Small Business Specialist exam. Matt….here are some more ideas to help you in your journey…. Join a partner group – the web… Continue reading So ya wanna be a consultant?