Curt Doolittle

Theme: Productivity

  • WORDS ON PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT (From Rodrigo) [quote on] 1. The product is only as

    http://www.fastcompany.com/node/28121/printCHOICE WORDS ON PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT (From Rodrigo)

    [quote on]

    1. The product is only as good as the plan for the product.

    2. The best teamwork is a healthy rivalry.

    3. The database is the software base.

    4. Don’t just fix the mistakes — fix whatever permitted the mistake in the first place.

    [quote off]

    I was telling the guys yesterday that their rivalry was a good thing. Denis is always fighting for user simplicity, and Kyrill is always fighting for shipping the product and rich feature functionality devoid of ‘hacks’. Dennis is intuitive and impluslive and throws ideas out quickly to see if they stick. Kyrill is a physicist and engineer, and he thinks every idea through all the possible steps. I said “you know, I couldn’t go out and hire for this if I wanted to. THis is the most awesome value to the business I could ask for.”

    Of course, it doesn’t help that they’re arguing furiously over some bit of nuance while Vitaly, Alexey and I shake our heads, look for the waitress, and try to get a refill of our coffee. 🙂

    It’s freaking priceless. Really.

    Now, a second thing that I find no one agrees with me on any longer, and I say that ‘the database is the application’. I love my diagrams. I use pretty colors. I model them in detail. And for me, the ERD is how I capture the requirements. The UI is open to constant revision. It is art. It is psychology. But a database is a bit of math that represents a business problem in the form of the relational calculus.

    Databases correspond to reality. Databases turn me on. Every kind. Doesn’t matter. Faster, richer, all the better. Don’t like code other than triggers back there.

    ———

    “

    “

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 14:49:00 UTC

  • SOFT SKILLS You know, I’m really proud of our “Skills” system. ( I suppose I cou

    SOFT SKILLS

    You know, I’m really proud of our “Skills” system. ( I suppose I could turn it into a personality-type system with the right questions. 🙂

    We break skills into: 1) like/dislike (equally weighted), 2) soft (equally weighted), 3) hard (weighted) and 4) ‘Desirable’ (a multiplier for the skills a service company weighs most highly).

    So, I was trying to explain the weights to everyone. And I said, think of hard skills this way: for us OO Javascript is probably the most valuable hard skill. Say, desirability 10. Php is less scarce, so it’s say an 8. Unix a 7. SQL a 6, and cobol, say, 0.

    Likewise there are soft skills. In this company, I think it’s an asset to be short. Why? Do you really have to ask? THere are important soft skills like politeness and ability to dress one’s self. And those are just normal things. They don’t need to have a multiplier, but you need to have them. Say, given my incompetence with Russian, speaking English is worth a multiplier of say 5.

    Then we have say, extremely important soft skills like: “Likes Nirvana”, “Drinks Hoegaarden”, “Buys beer for co-workers”, and “Attracts really hot girls” to our table. Now, these are seriously valuable soft skills that significantly contribute to workplace performance, in immeasurable ways.

    They laughed. It was fun. The feature is awesome tho. ‘Cause you could actually do it. And more. I get to tell travel around the world with Max Romanenko telling clients similar silly nonsense for a living. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 07:48:00 UTC

  • BROOKINGS GETS ON BOARD. Told ya so. Economics is largely demographics

    http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/08/the-nation-will-need-another-7%c2%bd-to-8-years-to-restore-full-employment/Oooh!

    BROOKINGS GETS ON BOARD.

    Told ya so. Economics is largely demographics.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-28 14:02:00 UTC

  • THE ECONOMIC RED QUEEN?

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393239357/ref=mw_dp_mdsc?dsc=1&qid=1377611476&sr=8-1TECHNOLOGY: THE ECONOMIC RED QUEEN?

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-28 13:56:00 UTC

  • ECONOMIC HUMOR What do bookstores and brothels have in common? Replacement of th

    http://bloom.bg/183xmjH(Adult). ECONOMIC HUMOR

    What do bookstores and brothels have in common? Replacement of the brick and mortar as a distribution channel. 🙂

    Humans are fascinating creatures. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-28 13:51:00 UTC

  • LIST OF STARTUP RULES (Dated but fun.) 1. Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at

    LIST OF STARTUP RULES

    (Dated but fun.)

    1. Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.

    2. Stealth startups suck. You’re not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.

    3. If you don’t have scaling problems, you’re not growing fast enough.

    4. If you’re successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you’re in that position, and hope that you’re smart enough to not fall for it.

    5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that’s really the case, you shouldn’t be doing your startup.

    6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.

    7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.

    8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).

    9. You don’t need business development people. If you’re successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you’re not spending any effort trying to get them.

    10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.

    11. Starting a company will teach you what it’s like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.

    12. Your startup isn’t succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What’s it going to be?

    13. If you don’t pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?

    14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.

    15. You’re doing a web app, right? This isn’t the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor’s most polished software application.

    – Mark Fletcher

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 06:45:00 UTC

  • READ (Of course, I’d aregue that we are spending our creative efforts trying to

    http://business.time.com/2013/08/26/nobelist-on-americas-missing-economic-mojo-and-how-to-get-it-back/MUST READ

    (Of course, I’d aregue that we are spending our creative efforts trying to keep the givernment away so we are reducing investment in things that are taxable and open to regulation as a means of defending ourselves from the state.

    The state is more interested in wonen snd minorities than it is in our civilizatiin and its economy. The reason is democracy and the addition of unproductive rent seekers to the voting pool.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-26 07:40:00 UTC

  • DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD, THE WICKED WITCH…Hmmm, hmmm, hmm….” Greatest destroy

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23815563″DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD, THE WICKED WITCH…Hmmm, hmmm, hmm….”

    Greatest destroyer of company value in American history.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-23 14:26:00 UTC

  • BIZ: EATING YOUR DOG FOOD We are getting fairly close to being able to use our p

    BIZ: EATING YOUR DOG FOOD

    We are getting fairly close to being able to use our product Oversing to run our own business. Just another month or two.

    At Microsoft we had this saying “eat your own dog food” which means “Use our own products”.

    The thing is, you should WANT to use your own product.

    It’s the same thing with CEO’s. If you’re going to build products, you should WANT THEM. For yourself. ‘Cause you’ll obsess over them.

    I love Oversing. I think it is the most awesome product that’s ever been built for the services market. And if I didn’t, then I wouldn’t build it. And I wouldn’t want to use it.

    You can’t obsess over something you don’t want and love. You can only obsess over the money it makes, or the happiness of the customers you want to keep, or the people you want to work with.

    But if you’re selling a product, your first obsession needs to be teh product. You should build products for yourself. If you have good taste. Customers will want it too. And while I agree that you can make products for customers, based upon customer demand, if you aren’t creating that demand, then you’re not obsessing enough about your product.

    Obsession is a beautiful thing.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-23 00:39:00 UTC

  • POSSIBLE TAX RATES. The reason Europeans are poorer than americans is taxes

    http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/08/no-we-cant-return-to-the-sky-high-tax-rates-of-postwar-america/ON POSSIBLE TAX RATES.

    The reason Europeans are poorer than americans is taxes.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-22 14:10:00 UTC