The civil war between designers and developers shifts to developers
I’ve long viewed web development as a shifting balance of power between graphic designers and software developers. A rough timeline would go something like this
The Kill Shot and Project Management
What is a preventable cause of scope creep? Anxiety. Anxiety attacks project managers at the end of projects, making some or all of the following happen: Project managers insist on new “essential” features Assistants demand detailed technical explanations for the most mundane of matters. Urgent, surprise meetings will be held People you’ve never heard of […]
Free Jim Camp negotiation book – “Start With No”
I listened to an interview with negotiation coach Jim Camp on Mixergy and learned much from the experience. He evangelizes (for lack of a better word) a negotiation strategy based on rules rather than outcomes, which rules out “win-win” as a strategy. He also posted the audio copy of his book “Start With No” […]
Lessons from Joseph Kennedy
I read the Wikipedia entry on Joseph Kennedy (JFK and Ted’s father) and his business life fascinated me. Particularly I was struck by the following passage (describing his time in the stock market in the Great Crash) as : Kennedy survived the crash “because he possessed a passion for facts, a complete lack of sentiment and a […]
The Turner Rule in Marketing and Branding
Over the years I have met many alumni of the Turner Empire (CNN/Turner Broadcasting/Turner Enterprises/WCW/TBS/Braves/Hawks, etc) and most of them have told me some version of the following story. [Setup – In the early days of CNN and Turner Broadcasting Ted Turner would prowl his office building and drop in unannounced into random meetings. One day […]
Startup Atlanta – April Edition
Last night I attended the StartUp Atlanta April event (on the web at StartUpAtlanta.org, @StartupAtlanta on Twitter) where 40 or so members of the Startup community mixed, mingled, and listened to 6 presentations by Atlanta Startups. Mike Shinkel and Jenny Trautman (the organizers) focused this meetup on the Real Estate industry. I did not see […]
New Business Adage: The Lemansky Rule
In the television show about corrupt cops The Shield, Curtis Lemansky, one of the main characters, once said “Why can’t we just do our jobs, and stop?“. That quote came back to me while reading Jason Friend’s book Rework. Rework is A) about doing the bare minimum, B) starting now, and C) completing the work […]
Why you should never complain about anything – with anecdotal proof!
My new commandment: Never complain about anything. Ever. If you feel the need to complain to pressure someone else to make something happen, then be honest and call it manipulation. I realized this while at a client meeting; we were talking about problems with a botched sales program and the staff had a litany of […]
Ten great books for American business
After writing yesterday’s post on lessons learned from eight years in business, I thought I would come up with my listing of great books that have helped me starting out. I follow Tyler Cowen’s notion that if you you finish every book you start you’re wasting time on crap. On average I finish less than […]
Lessons learned from eight years in business
Yesterday a friend of mine told me he was considering starting his own small business/consultancy which led me to thinking about my eight years in the solo operator field, and now in the web startup field. Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned over the years.