Training and marketing as taxes
“Training is a tax you pay for a lousy hiring environment…Marketing is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.”
-Robert Stephens of Geek Squad in A Geek’s Guide to Great Service
Complex UIs
“Why do software designers want their work to appear more complex instead of less? I just don’t get why they don’t get it.”
-David Pogue in It’s the Software, Not You
Choosing between safety and risk
“Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.”
—Abraham Maslow on 8 Ways to Self-Actualize
Launch quickly
“One reason to launch quickly is that it forces you to actually finish some quantum of work. Nothing is truly finished till it’s released; you can see that from the rush of work that’s always involved in releasing anything, no matter how finished you thought it was. The other reason you need to launch is that it’s only by bouncing your idea off users that you fully understand it.”
-Paul Graham in The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups
Design languages that can grow
“The main thing Guy Steele asks during the lecture is ‘If I want to help other persons to write all sorts of programs, should I design a small programming language or a large one?’ He answers that he should build neither a small, nor a big language. He needs to design a language that can grow. A main goal in designing a language should be to plan for growth. The language must start small, and the language must grow as the set of users grows.”
From Growing a Language by Guy Steele [good coders code, great reuse]
Software stays healthy
“It can be hard for a business to stay ahead if its technology is falling behind. That is one reason that despite an uncertain economy, worldwide information technology spending is on track to reach $3.4 trillion in 2008 — an 8 percent increase over 2007, according to the research firm Gartner. Of all spending categories, software and services are set to show the healthiest growth — with projected increases of around 10 percent each.”
From In a Downturn, but Still Spending on Technology [NY Times]
Chicago-style software
“There’s the dot-com, Silicon Valley, blow-all-your-money-on-booze style. Then there’s the Chicago thing: Do something, do it well and be modest about it.”
-Adrian Holovaty from EveryBlock.com in Cyberstar [Chicago Tribune]
Get on with it
“Test just enough to know what your gear can do, and then get on with real photography.”
-Ken Rockwell in The Seven Levels of Photographers
Deleting code
“Abandoning a speculative peice of functionality just allowed me to delete 2/3 of this module’s code. I got all 37signals on its ass.”
-Mike McCaffrey
Anonymous Coward
on 04 Sep 08“Someone with a decent portfolio is not an equipment measurbator. Someone with more cameras than decent photos just may be. People with websites teeming with technical articles but few interesting photographs probably are.
Do not under any circumstances deal with these people, talk to them, read their websites or especially ask them for photography advice. To the innocent they seem like founts of knowledge, however their sick, lifeless souls would love to drag you into their own personal Hells and have your spirit forever mired in worrying about how sharp your lens is. If you start worrying about this and you’ll never photograph anything again except brick walls and test chart” – Ken Rockwell
Interestingly, his equipment is better than his images.
Stephen Jenkins
on 04 Sep 08On photography:
“Amateurs worry about equipment, pros worry about money, masters worry about light.” -Unknown
Greg
on 04 Sep 08I have to disagree with the training comment. If not training is necessary, your product or service is little more than a commodity.
Good people are worth investing in.
GeeIWonder
on 04 Sep 08“Then there’s the Chicago thing: Do something, do it well and be modest about it
Ha. Ha-Ha.
Not-a-Photographer
on 04 Sep 08Wow. Ken Rockwell is a dick.
Quivo
on 04 Sep 08““Training is a tax you pay for a lousy hiring environment…Marketing is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.”
Greg already got the training half of this sussed out. What I’m annoyed by is the crack against marketing: no one cares if your product is remarkable if they don’t know about it. Marketing, advertising, shilling, call it what you want, but there’s a reason people spend on it. Spending wisely on training or on marketing is what needs to be done. True, the worse your hiring practices and primary products are, the more you’ll need to spend on gilding the lily. But that doesn’t mean that spending on either thing is negative or unnecessary if you have great employees and great products and services to sell.
matt
on 04 Sep 08@Greg: “If not training is necessary, your product or service is little more than a commodity.” Or designed well enough that it’s intuitive and doesn’t require training.
Thiago
on 04 Sep 08I didn’t get the 37signals part . . .
Grant
on 04 Sep 08Haha – I love that.
David Andersen
on 04 Sep 08“Or designed well enough that it’s intuitive and doesn’t require training.”
A common fallacy held by designers (surprise!) that every product and system can be intuitive and instruction free if only the numb skulls would get out of the way and let them design.
Perhaps it’s even true, but at what cost?
GeeIWonder
on 04 Sep 08To be fair, he’s talking about his hiring for ‘Geeks’—i.e. people who drive from house to house to fix hardware/software issues.
All he’s saying is he’d rather hre the kid on the block that goes from house to house fixing computers and loves it than train the kid on the block who plays Wii all day to do it.
There’s basically no adequate training (possible?) for the kind of personal and troubleshooting skills that takes anyways.
Rich
on 04 Sep 08Indeed, you can know something technically inside out, but as I have come to realize the interpersonal side is just as important.
Jeff
on 04 Sep 08responding to the marketing piece of this..
If you have to tell people how good you are, you likely aren’t that good. That said, I agree the world does need to at least know that you exist.
Ho Letes
on 05 Sep 08I was one of your lurkers, so I thought this would be a good post to comment on first. :) Thanks for the list!
DanGTD
on 08 Sep 08We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.
- Bill Gates
Avon Blake
on 08 Sep 08DanGTD is correct. That statement is one of the few things that Gates ever got right.
Kristof
on 08 Sep 08hello. i agree with avon blake
Darrel
on 09 Sep 08I don’t get Robert’s quote. He built the Geek Squad on marketing. Or am I reading it wrong?
Frenky
on 10 Sep 08darrel, i also(
This discussion is closed.