My journalist colleagues at Wired.com published some of my comments related to Amazon S3.1 Wired also posted another article titled Customers Shrug Off S3 Service Failure. I agree with the views of many of the customers expressed in the article. Don MacAskill, CEO of the popular photo hosting site Smugmug, wrote an understanding post about… Continue reading Opinion on the Amazon S3 Outage; Checklist for Dealing with Outages
Category: Leadership and Management
Articles about leadership, management in a business environment.
Management & Technical Career Growth Tracks
Described here is one way to enable technologists to grow their careers in your organization while still allowing them to focus on the type of work they are best at and enjoy most. The typical management career growth path does not suit some technical people. These information workers need to grow in their careers (gain… Continue reading Management & Technical Career Growth Tracks
Interviewing By Putting To Work
I’ve found this to be an effective way of evaluating potential hires compared to just interviewing in a question/answer format: Put them to work for a few hours (or even days/weeks/months as contractors) and see how well they perform. Having someone do the job as a short-term temporary contractor before hiring them is one of… Continue reading Interviewing By Putting To Work
Software Products: Own vs. Rent & Create vs. Get (Incorrectly Called Build vs. Buy)
Understanding the issue Technology executives are often asked about their preferences on build vs. buy. This question would be better articulated as two separate questions: 1. own vs. rent and/or 2. create vs. get. Why? The usual problems a company is trying to solve when they ask this are: How can we have the products, features and/or functionality we… Continue reading Software Products: Own vs. Rent & Create vs. Get (Incorrectly Called Build vs. Buy)
7 Tips for Effective Email
Some tips for making better use of email at work and in personal life Realize that busy people may skim your email instead of reading it thoroughly, especially if they notice that they are among one of multiple recipients of the email. When speaking to a specific person or people in the email body, highlight their name… Continue reading 7 Tips for Effective Email
Project Management: Time to Market, People & Teamwork
Starting early, not driving recklessly fast People who have worked with me are familiar with my trait of challenging the team to bring products and solutions to market as soon as possible. I’m a strong proponent for quickness to market and love to deliver sooner than the initially projected timeline. In this article, however, I… Continue reading Project Management: Time to Market, People & Teamwork
Technology, Innovation and Business Decisions
Nowadays, it is becoming fashionable to belittle technology. I hear people say things like “technologies should not drive business decisions“, “define your requirements without worrying about technology and ask technology [people] to deliver them“. May sound logical at first, but is it? Consider this imaginary conversation between Bill, a technologist and Plato, a Platonist businessperson.… Continue reading Technology, Innovation and Business Decisions
Craigslist & eBay: Community sites founded by programmers
Great businesses are often started by people without a formal business background but with passion, vision and the ability to execute. Neither Craigslist nor [founder and chairman Craig] Newmark benefits financially from the deal. EBay and Craigslist both were started in 1995 by pocket-protector-type programmers; each became wildly successful in its own way, attracting fervent… Continue reading Craigslist & eBay: Community sites founded by programmers
What is Leadership?
Victory is not defeating others. Victory is winning others. The three skills that people in an organization have are leading, managing, and working. Every person has a combination of all three. I refer to a leader as someone who is strongest in leadership, a manager as one who is strongest in management and a worker… Continue reading What is Leadership?
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