Category: People
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Insight
Idea Generation and Design Thinking Crafting great web destinations is not about technique. It’s not even about technology. You can have the best team, fast servers, and amazing VCs behind you. But those things, although important, don’t matter as much as the golden key: insight. Insight gives you an invitation to explore the customer’s mind. It lets you know what they want. Hence, you can engage in customer-driven development. It’s like a compass for your…
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Don’t Ignore the Social Challenges of Web Development
Our goal is to leverage what is already out in the field in terms of partners, but then hire in project management capability and a bit of technical capability. – Kevin Rollins It is easy to get excited about the new wave of technologies entering the market and the constant evolution of frameworks, hardware and technological ecosystems while at the same time forgetting about the single biggest bottleneck in web development: social challenges. Organizational structures,…
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End User Involvement is Critical for Web Development Success
Whether you are building social networks, web applications or simple websites, end-user involvement is critical for success. Wireframes, prototypes and MVPs mean little without strong user feedback. It pains me to review a number of products and services which were built with no end-user input whatsoever. Benefits of End User Involvement End-users can shed light into a myriad of issues that designers and developers constantly forget. Figuring out things like font sizes, layouts and content…
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Tim Cook Has Been a Great CEO And He’ll Prove it Today
Apple is largely expected to reveal an assortment of new products and services for its fans all around the globe. We’ll probably see new iPhones, get a hard date for OS X El Capitan and enjoy some meaty surprises. All and all, despite the Apple Watch fiasco, Tim Cooks has been a great CEO, here’s why. Nice Transition Cook was able to lead a post-Jobsian Apple into an era of shared leadership and utility-oriented computing.…
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Become an Engine of Change
Focus on the change that you want to see in the world. Read every day about leadership, technology, finance or personal improvement; don’t waist your hours in nonsense. Because, if you use your time well, you can become an engine of change. You can be the connector that refers key people to world-changing entrepreneurs. Or the clever programmer that comes up with a faster algorithm that changes an entire industry. But, in order to do…
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Love the Craft. Craft the Love
What is the key to success in building new things? Is it making the code run fast. It is proper financing, or maybe hiring the right people. At a technical level yes, those things matter tremendously. However, at a high level you should probably strive for a more general goal: crafting love. First you have to chose your craft, and make sure you love it. Only pursue fields you are passionate about. And only hire…
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How to Win
Focus on the prize. Focus on the goal. Never on your opponents. Then go to work, hard and fast and smart. Winning is an art in itself, to become a winner you need a different mindset. It all starts with your preparation. Drop the nukes, then fight the ashes Step 1. You must prepare heavily to win. That might include waking up at 4:00 am every day for a couple of years to understand the…
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How to Keep Customers Coming Back for More
In the quest for customer retention is imperative to maintain constant communications with constituents. Clear and timely communication is key for establishing a long-term relationship with customers. But this is only the tip of the iceberg; because customers require much more attention to remain loyal, and to remain contributing, to your business. There are several general tips that can help you keep customers coming back for more, they fall in three areas: operational effectiveness, marketing…
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They’re Not Real But You Are
Steve Jobs was not real. The demigod created by the media is only in our heads. Mark Zuckerberg is not real. Not even Bill Gates. They are all fantasies created by the media to peg larger than life successes and failures to mere men. Yes, we’re leaders in our fields, you see us in magazines, use products which development we supervise, yes we picked the color of the website sidebar. So what? What you read…