Simplicity. A word to live by. An unending quest. The holy grail of software. As software makers our raison d’être is making complex tasks easy. We’re back to that elusive word–simplicity. In a beautiful twist of irony it turns out that even thinking about simplicity involves a great deal of complexity. Enter John Maeda’s Ten [...]
This rings all too true. Companies that get real value from social media put forward informal / conversational narratives from subject matter experts. Granted sometimes its hard to find geeks with the requisite communication skills, but when you do find them they should be out front. Once you get to multiple author blogging it feels [...]
Hank, one of my favorite dev reads, hits the nail on the head on manpower issues. The problem is that folks still think they can scale and grind. Get enough developers and, though less efficient, the scale moves operations forward. This strategy doesn’t work when individuals and small teams can dance circles around you and [...]
I’ve long been a fan of Gary Vaynerchuck. He’s innovative and in many ways represents much of what is good about the new media / user generated content revolution. That’s why I was stoked to stumble on to Cork’d. I signed up for the service and immediately started kicking out my first wine review.
However, during [...]
I call bullshit. These are unprovable assertions based on purely imaginative history. The web has proven that cooperation and standards can emerge from billions of diverse voices. If anything TCP/IP probably had as much to do with where we’re at today as anything. Computers were just expensive word processors until the Web emerged. Most of [...]
Mark Schmitt paints a big tent two-party picture where issue oriented constituencies are able to effectively organize and compete by virtue of Clay Shirky’s lowered transactions costs.
The use of constituencies rather than parties is telling. The American political system’s implementation of Montesqueian separation of powers provides a durable, but extremely rigid political system by pitting [...]
From RWW:
Realistic video search seems to be a long ways off from where I sit, but I’m not sure I buy how disruptive tagging actually is. Yep, I’ve read Shirky, I use del.icio.us regularly and I appreciate and argue for tagging in the applications and services I use. The problem is I actually loathe it. [...]
It’s amazing how much the world of software development is changing. What was once a clandestine affair now extends to early public alphas / betas. For those not quite so inclusive, a Flickr stream of UI screenshots lets the masses get involved.
Why screenshots of the UI? Like it or not, everyone considers themselves a UI [...]
Apparently for a cool $300 million you can get a bunch of avid Mac users to attempt to convince themselves that Microsoft is cool enough for them to give up their Apple. Article just emphasizes the perception problem MS has. It’s 6 pages, but the first page and a half and the last couple of [...]
Keith says something I feel very strongly about, but how do you get business types to get out of the feature arms race? Lot’s of business folks still feel like its the bullet points that win product comparisons and sell upgrades, but do they help you create passionate users who love your products?
I’m not [...]