Thursday, April 17th, 2008
Tactics or Toxin?
I love seeing companies trying unconventional ways to motivate their employees to keep them healthy, happy, and more productive.
The folks at 37 Signals have always been pushing this envelope. They have a small office in Chicago, but less than half of their (dozen or so) employees work there with the rest are spread out [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Other by Shane
Thursday, November 2nd, 2006
Office Anthropology 101 by Alan Alda
Rule number two of blogging is to title your posts after search terms people might use on Google. I’m sure this title will get a lot of traffic. (Rule number one, by the way, is to write a lot.)
Anyway, Margy Ross and Ralph Kimball write an interesting article about interviewing customers during the analysis [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Shane
Tuesday, July 25th, 2006
Innovation in Software Development
When I was 21, I dropped out of college and went to work at a start-up called Creative Internet Solutions. I had played with web development as a hobby since late 1995 but now I got to do it full time without those pesky classes occupying my time. And having money was nice. I was [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Shane
Thursday, April 13th, 2006
Patents are Like Nuclear Bombs…
… you just got to have some. When I was at Delani — now SwiftK — there was, I thought, an unhealthy obsession with patents. The line was that the only way to get investors was to have patents. VC Fred Wilson weighs in on software patents today. He suggests that the best offense is [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Shane
Thursday, April 13th, 2006
Blogging and Organizational Communication
I told myself I would never blog about blogging. It’s like watching a movie about the making of a movie. To the outsider, it just seems like self-gratification that you’d rather not watch. In this case, at least you’re not paying for it.
I had a conversation with a colleague today about blogging. This person is [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Uncategorized by Shane
Friday, March 17th, 2006
Leadership and Praise
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about “effective habits” or other sort of self-help blather. But I was recently tipped to Bob Lewis’ advice column on InfoWorld. He writes about topics that normally turn me off in a way that is provocative and engaging.
I was adding his feed to Thunderbird today, and I [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Uncategorized by Shane
Wednesday, December 14th, 2005
Patents
Joel says: I just learned that my company is being granted two patents - with my name on them.
Shane says: whoa, cool
Shane says: for what?
Joel says: Hell if I know.
Joel says: I couldn’t even comprehend the patent applications. All this tells me is that if you make your application long and confusing enough, and you [...]