I do this talk called “The Engineer, The Designer, and The Dictator,” and it’s about the things I love. It’s a little bit about the nature of engineers and why I think we might have more power than we deserve. I talk about designers, the creators of art, and how I want the engineers and… more
Blake looks tired. He’s sitting in the food court at O’Hare Terminal 1. He’s halfway through a beer and the jokes are coming out, but they’re a little labored. Blake is tired. Blake’s tired because Blake goes to a lot of conferences. Earlier in the conversation, he was explaining the next month of travel and… more
Management has a set of power words that it’s appropriated as a means of giving it a sense of identity. This list is endless and entertaining. When these words are spoken, they are said in such a way that you are meant to wonder in awe, “What does that mean?” but you don’t ask for… more
When it comes to working at your computer, there is only one rule: context switches are horrifically expensive. Let’s talk about the Zone once more. You’re either sitting down with your computer to futz around with something or you’re attempting to get in the Zone. This is that magical place where you’ve managed to fit… more
Hands up if you use Dashboard on Mac OS X. I said hands up. Hello? As for me, I installed Mac OS X Lion, discovered where they shoved Dashboard, and immediately turned it off. Good riddance. Like iChat AV before it, Dashboard was one of those features in Mac OS X that I loved to… more
Much has been written about employee motivation and retention. It’s written by folks who actively use words like motivation and retention and generally don’t have a clue about the daily necessity of keeping your team professionally content because they’ve either never done the work or have forgotten how it’s done. These are the people who… more
Flat. It’s an organizational meme in rapidly growing teams in the Valley and it contains a couple of noble ideas. Simply put: a flat organization is one with as little hierarchy as possible to encourage the individual voice. What’s not to love? The first challenge to the flat organizational mantra is the inevitable arrival of… more
In an otherwise elegant and well-integrated operating system, the notifications user interface in iOS 4.x feels like a wart — a tacked-on afterthought that offers a bare minimum of usefulness. Competitors have jumped all over this weakness. An early Microsoft Windows Phone ad implies a strategic notifications deficiency by showing users glued to their iPhones…… more
Early on in your mastery of a complex thing you are going to catastrophically overestimate your ability. Your confidence is going to be artificially high. This new job, hobby, or sport is going to appear magically easy. You’re going to feel gifted. Those watching your miraculous aptitude keep saying, “beginner’s luck”, but that’s neither what… more
Dear Summer Interns: Your stock is up — like way up. Ten years ago when I was hiring interns at the mothership, my incredibly flawed and shortsighted policy was to hire as many as they’d let me, dole ’em out to the teams that screamed the loudest, and see what happened. There were successes, we… more