Everyone should read Brain Rules by John Medina
Several months ago I finished reading Brain Rules by John Medina and I’ve been raving about it ever since. Medina is a noted brain researcher and the book contains the 12 things he wishes the lay public knew. The 12 things (with my notes in bold and italic) EXERCISE | Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power. […]
Is an Ivy League education pointless for creative people?
I came across some of Richard Florida’s work online yesterday (Florida is the author of “The Creative Class” and the creator of the notion that creative people should self-segregate) and I began wondering: why do Ivy League institutions produce so few creative people?
Beware aggressive salespeople – The power of “No”
For reasons unknown I spent most of yesterday dealing with salespeople. One common component of all the salespeople was the instinct to “Close”. The longer the contract period (these were all service companies) the stronger the close instinct. Usually I just hang up on these people, but for fun I tried negotiating with them using […]
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 three types of wealth – Money, Time, and Clan
After reading this article on the phenomenon of Farmville I revised my notions of wealth. I previously categorized wealth in the following two ways: Owning Money – how much money do you have in the bank account, or can be converted to cash quickly. Most people regard money wealth as the only wealth Owning Time – How much […]
The 5 lessons of personal development
I’ve read many personal development books and business books in the past year, and they all seem to be variants of the following five ideas Live in the present – thinking about the past and the future leads to thoughts of grievance or anxiety. The best example is Derek Sivers’ essay on the topic Be […]
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 […]
Upgrading to Silverlight 4 and Visual Studio 2010
Sorry for the blog silence so far, I’m still working on my post on programming and endurance sports. I also have started using Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight 4. So far I’m impressed by both. photo credit: Wonderlane This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory […]
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 […]