Why isn't mesh networking more popular?
May 11, 2014
isps, mesh, meshnetworking, netneutrality, networks
Mesh networking is an exciting idea (quick explainer below if you’ve never heard of it), the technology (largely) exists to do it, and there are some pretty clear use cases related to routing around entrenched internet gatekeepers (whether they are governmental or private).
Perhaps most importantly, the idea of mesh networking seems to be a fit with our current trend toward decentralization, where there’s money to be made in providing infrastructure for peer-to-peer networks, rather than for providing services directly.
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I would pay for Twitter. In fact, I would prefer to pay for Twitter.
May 3, 2014
facebook, free, twitter
Let’s talk about Twitter and Facebook. Compare their stock graphs, and in the lower-right of that view, check out the steady drumbeat of stories about Twitter’s stalled user growth.
I discovered Twitter a few years ago, took a break of almost exactly one year in 2013, and have been using it more and more over the past six months.
By contrast, I removed much of my personal information from Facebook a year or so ago, haven’t logged on in a while now, and I increasingly think that it’s junk food: a fun one-off experience that for many users simply produces addiction and unhappiness.
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Enthusiasm and criticism
May 2, 2014
debono, decisionmaking, decisions
Enthusiasm is important, but I’ve found that it makes working effectively more difficult.
For my own projects, this is partly because enthusiasm tends to entail a very specific vision of the future. That specific vision reduces openness to experimentation, failure and change.
For example, during business school I was very enthusiastic about the idea of starting a 3D printing company, and I spent a lot of time building out the plans for exactly how I would do it.
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Revenue marketing and content marketing are two sides of the same coin
April 29, 2014
content marketing, marketing, revenue marketing
I’ve only been heavily involved in marketing at my company for a couple years now, but two memes in particular seem to be cropping up a lot: revenue or “closed-loop” marketing, and content marketing.
“Closed-loop marketing” has a lot of components, but basically it means that marketing is actually responsible for revenue (hence its alternative name, “revenue marketing”). This is a replacement for the “demand gen” or “lead gen” model, where marketing is only responsible for delivering leads and it’s the job of Sales to close them.
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Ways of communicating
April 27, 2014
branding, communication
I have seen the Virgin America airline safety video several times in the past few weeks. It’s a great video, and it’s not annoying to watch (yet), which is amazing. Most importantly, it actually seems to get people’s attention so that they can receive the information it wants to convey.
As a kid, I remember flying and watching extremely boring safety videos that I would soon learn to tune out: someone demonstrating how to buckle a seatbelt, etc.
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Structure without content
April 25, 2014
content, structure
A way to get agreement more quickly is to get people to agree on the structure or goals of a solution, without making them agree on the content.
For example, let’s say you’re creating a style guide for graphic design. One of the most important pages in the style guide is the “brand personality” (along with its related pages such as the “brand promise” or even the company values). Why? Because this page is a structure.
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Why I care about numbers
March 21, 2014
data, language, numbers, words
If you have worked with me, you know that I am not obsessed, but at least very, very interested in numerical measurements of performance. I have even been called, occasionally, a “math guy”.
That is a really weird place for me to have ended up, because I have to use a calculator every time a I leave a tip.
In college, I was a classics major. In particular, I concentrated on classical philology, the study of historical language.
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Tim, a simple Arduino-based timer
January 20, 2014
arduino, diy, protoboard, prototype, soldering, tim, timer
The video demo to the left shows what happens as Tim counts down the final minute. It blinks faster, then flashes to indicate the timer is done, plays a tune, and resets.
Well, I finally finished my first Arduino project. It’s called Tim, and it’s a simple minute timer with a user-selectable number of minutes (up to 10). The goal was to create a simple project involving an LED bar graph (because I think they’re cool), music, and a battery that would allow the resulting electronics to be self-contained.
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Some cool new technologies
December 5, 2013
book, books, high-low technology, old-new technology
[caption id="attachment_2208" align="alignleft" width="388" caption="Introducing Book: a delightful video hosted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhcPX1wVp38"][/caption]
I go back and forth on buying physical vs. electronic books. Recently, I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy on my Kindle, but then just a few days after finishing I bought about half a dozen physical books for my next reads. Physical books have these advantages which I just haven’t been able to get in digital:
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Hacking is the skill of...?
November 11, 2013
hack, hacking
The concept of “hacking” is interesting; it’s usually thought of as finding some kind of novel solution or shortcut to solving a problem. I think there’s a deeper meaning, though.
Any time you write code (and arguably, when you solve any problem at all), you make a model. A model is a way of representing reality, and when you represent something, you necessarily simplify it. In fact, if you’re a good problem-solver, you simplify so much that you consider only those dimensions that matter for the solution.
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