Avoid the middle of the road
“As a company, you have to be the most of something—the most exclusive, the most affordable, the most responsive, the most friendly. Companies used to want to be in the middle of the road — that’s where all the customers were. But now, in an age of hyper-competition and non-stop innovation, the middle of the road is the road to ruin. What do they say in Texas? ‘The only thing in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead armadillos.’”
-Bill Taylor, author of Mavericks at Work
Put your business model in beta
“So my advice to startups in this particular category is if you’re going to put your product in beta — put your business model in beta with it. Far too often we are too product focused and not business-model focused. That’s one thing I definitely would have done differently with JotSpot.”
-Joe Kraus, CEO of JotSpot
Work in small bits
“When dealing with git, it’s best to work in small bits. Rule of thumb: if you can’t summarise it in a sentence, you’ve gone too long without committing.”
-Git for the lazy
The schizo thing about software development
“Here’s the schizo thing about software development (at least on Macs): 1. Everybody praises apps that don’t have a ton of preferences and features. 2. Everybody asks for some new preferences and features. (Okay, not everybody. Not you, I know. I mean everybody else.) To make it worse: 1. Everybody thinks they’re representative of the typical user, so what they want ought to be a no-brainer. 2. And they act like you put skunks in their fridge if you don’t do whatever-it-is. (Okay, again — not you. You’re cool. I’m talking about the others.) The problem is 100 times worse when it comes to deleting features.”
-Brent Simmons of NetNewsWire
Major in learning
“It’s easy to educate for the routine, and hard to educate for the novel. Keep in mind that many required skills will change: developers today code in something called Python, but when I was in school C was all the rage. The need for reasoning, though, remains constant, so we believe in taking the most challenging courses in core disciplines: math, sciences, humanities.”
Google’s advice to students
Learn from mistakes
“If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, then all you’ll ever get is all you ever got.”
-An old saying in Texas
Maurus
on 29 Jul 08Why does simplicity imply less functionality? I don’t get it…
Chris
on 29 Jul 08Regarding the Joe Kraus quote, I like another quoter I read in Thomas Hardy’s book and also seen that in Arby’s commercial, “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained”.
Joe
on 30 Jul 08You are the greatest design company ever. I accept it. Stop it now…Creating software is not just creating simple websites. I don’t know why you make yourself so popular
Mark Sigal
on 30 Jul 08Here’s one.
‘Never let them see Oz. Sell the Magic.’
(EXCERPT): But remember, while these statements are borne of reality, there is another reality; namely, that customers don’t want to see the man behind the curtain. They want to be entertained and amazed. Don’t let them down.
I have a link to the full post , if interested:
Never Let Them See Oz
http://thenetworkgarden.com/weblog/2008/05/never-let-them.html
Cheers,
Mark
Bill Roberts
on 30 Jul 08I like the Bill Taylor quote – but I think that avoiding the middle of the road is not so much about being extreme, but about having a consistent clear vision for a product and sticking to it. Maybe it’s about making your own road rather than following the big wide one that’s already there.
Chris
on 30 Jul 08Regarding Google’s advice to students, I’d argue that education for the novel is the only real education there is.
“Education for the routine” = Training
Nic
on 30 Jul 08[OFFTOPIC] Who on The Deck bought Microsoft Expression Studio 2!?
Anonymous Coward
on 30 Jul 08Nic – [OFFTOPIC] – considering The Deck’s policy that “We won’t take an ad unless we have paid for and/or used the product or service.”, I’ve been wondering ‘who’s the “we” in “we have paid for and/or used”? Guess I should just ask The Deck instead of posting here…
John O
on 01 Aug 08Simplicity is the key :-)
This discussion is closed.