When I was about eight years old, I was given my very own tackle box; a classic Plano three-tray box in a nice two-tone, dirt-inspired brown -- Model 6303. At the time, I remember thinking that it was extravagant; too much perhaps for one young man to have at his disposal. The fish wouldn't stand [...]
All Stars
My son recently participated in an All Star tournament for his Little League. Watching him through the tournament, the confidence he built throughout the regular season was clearly abandoned for feelings of alienation and a general lack of passion. When we feel the pressure of highly capable people around us, it can affect our mindset. [...]
Five Ways UX Designers Can Build More Acceptance of Their Work
Have you ever attended a design review meeting — perhaps to review the results of a design sprint (see Jake Knapp) — where the team seemed to love the work, appreciated the research that went into the design decisions, and yet ultimately decided not to move forward with the proposed design? How frustrating. Don’t they know what this means [...]
Entrepreneurship = Taking Risks
entrepreneur |ˌäntrəprəˈnər| nouna person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so. I am not an entrepreneur, but I know one when I see one — the risks they take define who they are. Entrepreneurs have no other choice but to take their vision to [...]
What’s the Problem, Again?
4 Simple Rules for Avoiding Death Spiral Projects At times in my career, I’ve found myself working on projects that I would describe as “going through the motions.” While these efforts often began with the best of intentions — “make the customer happy”, “rewrite our client/server software for the Web”, and so on — over time they became death spirals [...]
Advice for the New Engineering Manager
When I first started leading software development teams, I was extremely naive about what it meant to be a manager. My father was a small businessman and lead his company and its employees with an unmistakable authority and command-and-control style. I was naturally influenced by this approach early in my career and applied it to [...]
Evolving Storytelling in Product Development
Imagine you've observed a problem that many people around you experience. Like how, for instance, meaningful home automation is still extremely hard for the everyday home owner to achieve. So, being a smart product manager / programmer / entrepreneur / hacker / designer / innovation-generating-machine, you set out to solve this problem once and for all! [...]
