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7
Mar 10

Fighting Fires instead of Owning the Problem

Jeffrey Phillips: Why is fighting fires more valuable than avoiding fires?

“For some reason we believe that sweeping in and fixing a problem has more drama, and gains more attention, than doing the work to predict and avoid problems.”

I think the problem is also a blame game. If we acknowledged that there were ways we could avoid the fire, then we would implicitly own the problem and more so, be responsible for avoiding the next occurrence. But when the next fire comes, implicitly we’ve now failed. The goal was to avoid the fire, not react quickly. This requires strategic thinking.

So if we never acknowledge there is a change that could make things better, then when the fire comes, we just block and tackle — it is happening to us, not caused by us. No one is to blame for the fire, and thus our only measure of success is our reaction speed.

Blocking and tackling is easy. Strategic thinking is hard.

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24
Feb 10

My First iPhone App: Walk or Bus

Now Available in the iTunes App Store!!  I’m very excited about this! Never created an iPhone App before, and this was a great experience. Here’s a bit about the new app. If you try it out, please do let me know how it goes!

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Do you ever wonder whether you’d be better off walking instead of taking the bus? This app will help you answer that question.

Fine tune your personal walking speed and your city’s bus speed for the most accurate Walk or Bus recommendation.

Measure by kilometers, miles, or by configurable city block sizes Receive helpful feedback: “at a brisk pace you will get there 4 minutes faster than the bus”

Ideation: Chris Mueller & Dana Boyd
Graphics: Trevor Brown
Coding: Peter Edstrom
Contact: walkorbus@edstrom.net
Twitter: @walkorbus

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20
Feb 10

The opposite of “open” is “theirs”

Joho the Blog is talking about Net Neutrality in The opposite of “open” is “theirs”, but the same could be said for any number of domains.

  • The opposite of public domain is their domain
  • The opposite of open source software is their software
  • The opposite of open standards is their standards
  • The opposite of open file formats is their file formats
  • The opposite of open rights is [their] copyright
  • The opposite of an [open] democracy is [his/her] dictatorship

This may be good in some cases, but usually only for a limited time.

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16
Feb 10

I’d like that feature, and that one, and that one…

Marco considers input from his users but ultimately says:

“If I let users steer product decisions, the result would be a massive codebase producing a bloated, cluttered product full of features that hardly anyone used at the expense of everyday usability and polish on the features that matter. Like Microsoft Word. Or Firefox.

By listening too much to outside suggestions, I’d destroy the very reason why I’m receiving them.”

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12
Feb 10

Decisiveness

Herding Cats Quote of the Day:

If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I’d say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.

—Lido Anthony (Lee) Iacocca

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