Blog

February 15, 2014

Disconnect

Creators of things are people like anybody else. They have flaws, often major flaws, like anybody else. They are nevertheless often able to create art that is moving, meaningful, emotionally involving, satisfying, and beloved. This is a very strange alchemy that doesn’t really make much coherent sense. Humans create art that is better than they, […]

February 14, 2014

Career Lessons from Don Draper

“You are too young to be counting your ideas” “Everything is an opportunity to you” “… that’s what the money is for!” Mad Men is gold.

February 13, 2014

A Dog Can’t Teach A Dog New Tricks

… but it can teach a wolf. […] dogs didn’t learn from each other as easily as wolves learned from them. Dogs lost their power to pay attention to each other when we bred them to pay attention to us. (source) The domestication of dogs by human beings is easily one of the most compelling […]

February 12, 2014

Adaptive Content

One of the most insightful talks on content strategy. Karen McGrane on Adaptive Content Content should be designed for reuse and ‘platform agnostic’ (forget web first or print first). The idea that you are not in the magazine publishing business, you are not in the web publishing business, you are in the content publishing business, […]

February 11, 2014

Philanthropy by the Wealthiest

Fact: The richest eighty-five people in the world have the same combined wealth as the poorest half of the population. (source: Oxfam report) With wealth distribution so perversely skewed, does philanthropy by the most affluent among us make up for the negative consequences of inequality? Peter Buffet, Warren Buffet’s son, wrote: As more lives and […]

February 10, 2014

The Only Metric That Matters

Don’t look at numbers or metrics in the abstract — total page views, logged in accounts, etc, but talk about users. […] How many people are really using your product? You need a metric that specifically answers this. It can be “x people did 3 searches in the past week”. Or “y people visited my […]

February 9, 2014

Designing the Right Product

“You will always have business requirements that try to push you beyond ‘MVP’. Never, ever let business requirements get in the way of a great and empathetic user experience.” — Ethan Kaplan, Co-Founder of Live Nation Labs Some great tips on how to build a good product 1. Everything you do should always be a minimum […]

February 8, 2014

Does a More Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex?

A very interesting piece on the power dynamics of modern relationships. Isn’t it intriguing that the things that contribute to a progressive (i.e. more equal and balanced, or the so-called ‘peer marriage’) relationship are often inconsistent with what drives our libido and makes our knees weak with desire for our partners? On an emotional level, “kindred […]

February 7, 2014

The Only Interview Question that Matters

“What single project or task would you consider your most significant accomplishment in your career to date?” And some follow-up questions: What were the 3-4 biggest challenges you faced and how did you deal with them? Where did you go the extra mile or take the initiative? Walk me through the plan, how you managed […]

February 6, 2014

Writing a Startup Post-mortem

This topic seems to be all I read about these days. It could very well be that I am just noticing it more because of my current state of mind. But it does seem that entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly transparent about their journey to failure. ‘My startup tanked’: Why more entrepreneurs are being open about […]

February 5, 2014

Things I Learn from the Internet – 3

Note: Things I Learn from the Internet is a series of post containing snippets of wisdom collected from stuff I read on the WWW which do not warrant a post in itself. Crunchbase A free database of technology companies, people, and investors that anyone can edit. Its goal is to make information about the startup world […]

February 4, 2014

The Economist Report on Tech Startups

The Economist has put together a 16-page special report on the rise of technology startups around the world. Very interesting read. TechCrunch did a pretty succinct summary of what’s in the report.