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Rick Chapman’s "In Search of Stupidity" points out that one reason for Microsoft’s success is that they kept their marbles while all others around them were losing theirs. They simply didn’t screw up, and that inexorably led to their success while others self-imploded. Now, however, they are working hard to be included in the next [...]
I’ve been writing this blog for a few months now. Although a few people view the newer posts, the older posts lie mostly unread. I think there’s life in them yet though so I’m going to try featuring them on the home page. The first one is "Not with a bang but a whimper", my [...]
Seth Godin wrote a recent post about layering. Here’s an excerpt: Someone asked me which post on this blog represented the turning point of its growth. The ‘breakthrough’ post. It turns out that there wasn’t one. Instead, there were 2,500 posts, one after the other, each building (and I was learning from each) as we [...]
There’s a great chapter on hiring in Peopleware, by Tim Lister on Tom DeMarco. It starts by demonstrating how most managers would hire a juggler: Circus Manager: How long have you been juggling?Candidate: Oh, about six years. Manager: Can you handle three balls, four balls, and five balls?Candidate: Yes, yes, and yes. Manager: Do you [...]
37signals do some cool stuff (Ruby on Rails and Basecamp, for starters). Over 1 million people use their web based applications. For me, perhaps the most interesting thing about them is their ethos. In particular, I like their forceful emphasis on design and simplicity. 37signals have a book – actually, it’s more of a manifesto [...]
I came across the following quote the other day: Those who say it can’t be done should get out of the way of those who are already doing it. Unfortunately people don’t always follow this advice. I was about to flip it round and write something about success, but if you want advice [...]
I’m a sucker. Last night I went to the cinema for the first time in a while. The queue was huge. I was cunning and called the automated booking system from my phone. Its voice recognition system left me standing in the street shouting "I said Cambridge you motherf***ing piece of s**t" into my phone. [...]
I toyed with calling last year’s Business of Software conference "The Web 0.2 Summit" and publicly not inviting Tim O’Reilly ("Tim O’Reilly not invited to speak at conference shocker"). I decided against it on the grounds that my sense of humour has a very poor commercial record. Plus I didn’t want to risk offending Tim [...]
I’ve started organizing Business of Software 2008. We’re planning on holding it in Boston in September or October. The web site is now live. The big news is that I’m working with Joel Spolsky on this year’s conference. In fact, it’s called "Business of Software 2008 – A Joel on Software Conference". Together, I think [...]