On the perils of changing an existing, highly engaging product. This is a response to this week’s Startup Edition question: “How do you build engaging products?” Facebook has a history of experimentation – changing things wholesale for large groups of…
In the movie Star Trek II (and in the more recent reboot), then-Starfleet Academy cadet James T. Kirk relates the story of the training exercise to try to save the Kobayashi Maru as a key learning experience for his transformation…
What does it take to succeed? this post was inspired by Bijan Sabet’s Who Took a Chance on You? and is a contribution to Startup Edition. If you’re reading this post, it’s likely someone took a chance on you. If you got a “lucky…
In my experience, successful organizations do a few things right when it comes to people. Not only do they do a great job attracting, discovering, and retaining people, they do a great job at “catching people doing something right.” What…
Why you should bring your interactions to the place where people already spend their time. Email is the #1 Destination photo by Ryan Hoover published a great article the other day on the trend of using email as an…
The last time you needed to buy a vacuum, a car, or a coffeemaker, what did you do? If you’re like me you probably asked your family, friends, and neighbors for a recommendation. Maybe you even asked your friends on…
I’ve written here before about the effect that one person’s thank you had on me (thank you, Brad Feld!) I believe that “The Thank You Effect” is an example of a small action that prompts meaningful next steps to measurably…
I’ve been using a computer at a standup desk since April 2012 (almost a year.) When I first started using a standup desk, the key things that I noticed were that it was challenging to stand all day and that…
Say you’re going to start a company, and the first thing you want to do is provide amazing customer service. Are you going to hire the brilliant person who alienates customers? Or are you going to hire the friendly person…
