It’s probably pretty obvious from this blog that my political philosophy most closely aligns with the Liberal Party. What’s less obvious is that it’s hardly a tight fit. Its more of an alignment of averages. Some probably perceive me as radical left (for example I believe in a guaranteed annual income for all Canadians), some as radical right (along with guaranteed income comes the cancellation of many social assistance programs). I believe in competition, but I don’t subscribe to the interpretation that competition requires traditional capitalism. (more…)
About a year ago, I came up with the idea of doing a series of video interviews with Canadian entrepreneurs. Hardly a unique idea, but my take on it was to focus on the experience and process of starting and running your own business instead of just talking about what the business does.
I subsequently put a fair bit of effort into getting everything set up: build a site, bootstrap a platform… all in my “spare” time. Then I stalled. That platform will never be ready because it suffers from the chicken and egg syndrome. There’s no site without content, and there’s no content without a site. Frustrated, I’m solving that problem by redefining it away. This post is the egg. (more…)
The theft of perfectly functional manufactured goods for scrap value has become a serious issue over the past decade. The number of stories of small to medium scale theft, primarily of copper, has gone from rarity to ubiquitous. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has declared copper theft a critical threat to infrastructure. The size of the problem has grown because the recovered value of many easily recycled raw materials is exceeds the risk of getting caught.
This can be generalized. If raw materials aren’t cheap relative to wages, civilization collapses by dismantling itself. This is a grave matter, and I find the implications profound. (more…)
I Twittered this but it deserves more permanence. I’ve been using it for years and unfortunately it still summarizes my frustration with browser based Javascript “WYSIWYG” text editors:
WYSIKSWYGBNQ = What You See Is Kinda Sorta What You Get But Not Quite.
I’ve been engaged with social media since forever. Always found it fascinating, even exciting. I really like Twitter. Now Quora seems interesting, but in a semi-social-media sort of way. There’s a bit of a shift happening. A lot of “early adopters” have been doing the Quora thing for a while and now it’s on the upswing of that familiar knee function of exponential growth.
Meanwhile, Twitter seems a little less vibrant. Is it because all the cool kids are playing with Quora? Partially. After all anyone with a real job only has so much time to dicker with this stuff, unless you’re a rare beast: a Professional Social Media Guru that’s a real job. So maybe Twitter is a little less shimmering with excitement because really interesting people are spending less time on it.
But that isn’t all. That only explains part of it. (more…)
Update: Part of the problem is the “allow people to contact me through this address” flag, which was set on. Hard to believe I’d let that happen, but I’ll assume that part was my failure, although the spam in question came in directly, not through Zoominfo’s servers. It’s probable that there was still a loss of data integrity at Zoominfo.
One of the great things about maintaining your own domain is the ability to put up a good fight when it comes to spam. It’s a real battle. This domain has been registered since the late 90’s, when an open Internet meant that just about anybody could harvest contact information from domain registration databases. (more…)
Over the past year or so there’s been an unusual amount of public navel gazing on the investor side of Silicon Valley (and by proxy most of the North American venture capital space). Venture capital companies have an image of being slow, demanding, and cumbersome; solely focused on big wins with huge valuations. So called “super” angels have emerged to fill a void in the VC deal space, and new hybrid models like that of YCombinator have emerged.
As Max Levchin observes, angels have an interest in lower valued exits. He concludes that the positioning of super angels as VC alternatives has resulted in a “lack of visible significant innovation”. While Levchin’s observations are correct, I’m not certain that it’s the angel’s fault.
Instead, I think we’re reaching the “long tail” of the Internet, and we need to look for innovation elsewhere. The big hits in the Internet space have all had to do with providing analogues of existing human behaviours, and the number of untapped behaviours is diminishing. A preponderance of incremental innovations with corresponding low exits is only to be expected.
We have been so focused on Internet related innovation for the past decade and a half (and software for the decade previous) that for a lot of investors seem to have forgotten that there are alternatives.
It’s not that there’s a shortage of demand for innovation. There are many areas that need great minds and risk capital. Unfortunately those aren’t the opportunities that can be exploited by a bright kid with six months programming experience. They’re big, capital intensive, long term projects that need teams of highly skilled people to address them. Some of these problems are critically important. They need to be solved if we’re going to preserve our current lifestyle, if not ensure our survival.
If the investment community wants to innovate, it’s going to have to stop looking for the ultimate solution to determining how to rank “influence” on Twitter, and instead look for better transportation solutions, better solar power generation, methods to scrub carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, local power generation and distribution, and solutions for other truly important problems.
While North America becomes increasingly concerned about it’s own relatively trivial problems like how to make an even cooler handheld device, our ability to innovate our very concept of innovation is collapsing in on itself like a dying star. Meanwhile, Asia is fast becoming the true leader in innovation and unless we pull out of this “make it big on the Internet” vortex, it won’t be long before we’re buying critical technology from abroad.
Let’s not blame the angel investors. Levchin says “we should aim higher.” He’s right. The question is whether or not we know which way is up.
These days things are really busy over here. Aside from neglecting this blog (partially Twitter’s fault), it’s a good busy. Too much work in a recession is a nice problem to have. I’ve been working early mornings and late nights to find quiet times when I can concentrate and keep up with the load.
So now it’s a four day long weekend. My spouse has the time off, my stepson is in town, and it’s going to be really hard to get stuff done. For a split second I resented the weekend as interference with work, and that’s when one of my alarm bells went off.
Let me back up for a moment. I’ve always been a little ahead of the curve. I started my first home based business shortly after university, in 1981. Back then it was radical, now it’s an established practice. There are many advantages to running a business from home, like my ten second commute to work. But there are disadvantages too, and one of them is that same ten second commute. Over the years I’ve learned to identify destructive thought patterns and to change course before doing much damage. “I wish everyone else was at work” is high on that list.
Over the past three decades, I’ve had times when I was so involved with my work that my friends forgot I existed. I did a lot of exciting work, but for the most part the results of my efforts have long since disappeared. Meanwhile most of my friends are still around. More poignantly, some of them are no longer around. The hard lesson is that the time I spent on work is time I didn’t spend with them, and now there’s no way to address the imbalance.
So if you find yourself resenting the long weekend, take a step back and get a new perspective. Most of us are working hard to bring benefits to our immediate families. Don’t focus on that to the point where you deprive them of what they want and need most… your full attention.
Earlier today Amy Stephen and I had an interesting discussion on development teams, I thought it worth organizing and preserving. Because it’s a bit of a threaded conversation it takes a little work to follow the flow, but there’s no easy way to sort it out.
One of the most interesting things here is that even though I tend to take a bit of a hard-ass “no prisoners” approach to the problem, and Amy is fairly close to my polar opposite, we actually look at the fundamental problem in nearly the same way.
AmyStephen
Wondering about the market potential of the promise of a 1 day workshop that can turn a dysfunctional group into a high performance team. It’s puzzling to watch a dysfunctional group where members keep barriers to entry high and engage in intense, private battles within.
FxNxRl
Lets see… the seminar starts with a real-time attitude and teamwork survey, then lists who should be retained and who fired.
AmyStephen
That might do it – if management would so empower. Typically, you’ll find spineless leadership behind dysfunction.
FxNxRl
Indeed. I have done consulting assignments where I had to tell the person who hired me that they were the main problem. Awkward.
AmyStephen
So, how would you sort out the understandably frustrated’s from those who might be, shall we say, squelching innovation?
FxNxRl
Most of the time it’s pretty easy to tell one from the other by simply talking to them face to face.
AmyStephen
I used to think that I could tell quickly but now I am doubting my early instincts. It’s a bit unsettling, in fact. I can’t tell.
FxNxRl
What’s difficult is to unmask the passive-aggressive ones. Usually high-value team members who kill things by “contributing”.
FxNxRl
It is impossible to tell when there’s distance involved, and it can be difficult in person too.
FxNxRl
I once managed a team where I had to use source code control metrics to track project progress. Every time a project was really doing well, the lead developer would step in to “help” and the project would nearly stop. There was no way to fire him…
AmyStephen
Yes, it’s tricky when the one causing the problem has a great deal of authority. You have to control the process to figure it out.
AmyStephen
Source code control can be a great tool for lots of challenges simply because people who are traumatized can see justice/hope
AmyStephen
That is, provided they can commit to it, of course. Otherwise, it’s just another situation where they have to face this barrier.
FxNxRl
Yup, and it’s hard data in an environment where everyone has some emotional involvement no matter how hard they try not to.
FxNxRl
Development without revision control is art, not engineering.
FxNxRl
The very first thing is to put proven development methodologies in place. If there’s strong resistance, fire the dissidents.
AmyStephen
lol – I definitely do not agree, but I understand. Many times, your skeptics are simply people who think for themselves.
AmyStephen
In fact, you can bag anyone who’s onboard with change too quickly. Everyone should resist process changes if they are moving forward.
FxNxRl
I realized, at about age 45, that I had become the “asshole manager” I loathed at 25. Team results trump individual brilliance.
AmyStephen
In general, I think it’s a bad idea for mgmt to plunk a set of “productivity tools” on an engineer’s desk. Best to let them pick.
FxNxRl
Well yeah, you can’t say “effective Monday everyone is using SVN and methodology X”. The *method* of change is critical.
AmyStephen
I’m a HUGE believer in team. I think, though, the strongest teams are built from a complementary collection of individual brilliance.
FxNxRl
But the guys who say “never did it that way, ain’t gonna start now” and then dig in? Well they can do it “their way” elsewhere.
FxNxRl
So am I… and I have seen effective teams operate in mayhem. It’s all about getting complimentary characters.
AmyStephen
That’s why it’s important to involve them. Good engineers know what productivity aids are needed and welcome it. They resist “silly”
FxNxRl
I have seen highly effective teams with vastly different cultures. You could NEVER take a person from one of those teams and put them in the other. It’s all about getting people who work well together.
AmyStephen
Absolutely! I’ve worked on a team like that 2 times in my life. When you have tasted it, you know what it is & why it’s worth having
FxNxRl
I’ve also become friends with people who I’ve let go as a “parachute in manager/jerk”. They found teams where they fit & r happy
AmyStephen
Yes – there’s a chemistry that cannot be ignored. In MBTI, it’s the middle 2 indicators that can sometimes predict compatibility
AmyStephen
Yes. That’s best. A self-directed work team w clear boundaries and focus and empowerment. It’s how “grown-ups” should be treated.
FxNxRl
Dated though it may be I’m a huge MBO fan. Here’s what we need to do, tell me what you need to do it, then get it done.
FxNxRl
as long as it’s legal and ethical I don’t care how it gets done, just that I can measure progress and that there is progress.
AmyStephen
I don’t think common sense is ever dated. Keeping a focus on “what this is really about” is always good.
There’s not much to say, these numbers speak for themselves. I figure I’m about 3Km from the nearest CO.
Okay, I lied 121ms pings?? Give me a BREAK! I may just give up on DSL.
Hey my line went dead for about half an hour today (no dial tone even) and look: Moving from “effectively non-functional” to “pathetic” Way to go.
More news… 7:40 on a Saturday morning, and finally things seem to be up to par: Now we know the connection is definitely up to snuff, although the ping times are a little pathetic. The next question is how well does this hold up during peak demand. Even though the line isn’t shared, there’s network hardware at the other end that needs to keep up with peak loads. We’ll see…
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