OK Go’s New Video is Embedable Again!
Posted by grantis in Uncategorized on March 2, 2010
These guys are the poster boys for how and why people spend their time online. If you’ve been following them at all, and what self-respecting tech person hasn’t been, then you’ve heard about the snafu with their music videos and their label. I’m not sure what they did, but I’m so glad they worked out something to unknot their ridiculous label’s panties.
In honor of this development, I’m embedding this video not only because it’s fantastic, but also because I can.
Customer Development Methodology by Steve Blank
Posted by grantis in Uncategorized on February 24, 2010
I love Steve’s blog, and this presentation is a great intro to Customer Development Methodologies.
Ben Tilly: “Things I’ve Learned At Google”
Posted by grantis in Uncategorized on February 1, 2010
Just read this very impressive article. It speaks not only to Ben’s intelligence, but also to the things that Google is doing that have made it the runaway success it is today.
Check out the article here:
http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2010/01/things-ive-learned-at-google.html
Some quotes I liked:
Seriously, the corporate culture is based on hiring really smart people, giving them responsibilities, letting them know what problems the company thinks it should focus on, then letting them figure out how to tackle it.
It is as if an entire company intuitively understood that defect rates are tied to distance on the corporate org-chart, and tried to solve it by eliminating all barriers to people communicating directly with whoever they need to communicate with.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Ben!
David Pogue and the Cult of Simplicity
Posted by grantis in Uncategorized on January 26, 2010
I absolutely love this TED talk extolling the value of the user experience for your customers.
Urban Space Dissected
Posted by grantis in Uncategorized on November 25, 2009
Epic Fail: American suburbia
Simplify Your UI Design
Posted by grantis in Uncategorized on October 8, 2009
Smashing Magazine does it again…
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/07/minimizing-complexity-in-user-interfaces/
Mint.com’s Story as told by it’s Founder and CEO
Posted by grantis in Uncategorized on October 8, 2009
A must watch:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/07/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-startup-building-but-were-afraid-to-ask/
Kevin Rose: Grow a quality site huge. Fast.
Posted by grantis in Uncategorized on October 5, 2009
This is a great guide to building a quality site in a hurry:
http://carsonified.com/blog/web-apps/9-ways-to-take-your-site-from-one-to-one-million-users/
The Art of Getting Things Done
Posted by grantis in Startup Finds on September 24, 2009
You can always count on Joel Spolsky for an insightful post.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html
“The Duct Tape Programmer” delves into the finer points of getting things done. This resonates with me because for better or for worse, I wasn’t born with a knack for anything in particular so much as I was the with the drive to just finish things.
Am I jealous of Systems Architects who think in complex algorithms? Sure. Designers who know the intricacies that govern what makes a design good and what makes a design bad? Yup. Do I worry about it? Nope. Because the world I live in doesn’t demand perfect. It demands progress. Taking a problem, tackling it, seeing if your solution worked, and trying again. This means that I will never fit into a big company as a cog in the well-oiled machine. This also means that I fit right into startups.
I like startups better, anyway. 
Working less = working better?
Posted by grantis in Startup Finds on September 23, 2009
I essentially work 4 full time jobs at EnticeLabs.
The ride that brought me to this point has been insane. A little over a year ago I was a college student, two semesters from getting my degree. Today I run the Creative, Marketing, and Product Strategy departments (and do lots of the jobs included in them). Then again — this isn’t entirely abnormal for those involved in tech startups.
This article by the WSJ discusses a study conducted in conjunction with the Boston Consulting group that concludes that working less markedly improves productivity:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203803904574429151858232582.html?mod=rss_careers
For me there are never enough hours in the day to get everything that needs doing done.
That said, I’ve definitely noticed that over time I’ve adjusted to working 16+ hours a day. Knowing I’m going to be here until 1am, I’ve subconsciously spaced tasks out more and more, so I’m wondering if both the company and I wouldn’t benefit from me trying my own work-time limitation experiment…
I’m going to give it a go, and see how it pans out after a month.