- Certified Scrum Product Owner Training class on August 07, 2012 in Boulder.14 February 2012, 7:07 pm
Certified Scrum Product Owner Training class on August 07, 2012 in Boulder.... - Certified Scrum Product Owner Training class on August 29, 2012 in Silicon Valley.13 February 2012, 6:06 pm
Certified Scrum Product Owner Training class on August 29, 2012 in Silicon Valley.... - Certified ScrumMaster Training class on August 27, 2012 in Silicon Valley.13 February 2012, 6:03 pm
Certified ScrumMaster Training class on August 27, 2012 in Silicon Valley.... - Effective User Stories for Agile Requirements Training class on July 09, 2012 in Silicon Valley.25 January 2012, 12:37 am
Effective User Stories for Agile Requirements Training class on July 09, 2012 in Silicon Valley.... - Certified ScrumMaster Training class on July 10, 2012 in Silicon Valley.25 January 2012, 12:32 am
Certified ScrumMaster Training class on July 10, 2012 in Silicon Valley.... - Succeeding With Agile Training class on July 12, 2012 in Silicon Valley.25 January 2012, 12:27 am
Succeeding With Agile Training class on July 12, 2012 in Silicon Valley.... - Certified ScrumMaster Training class on July 19, 2012 in Dallas.18 January 2012, 7:32 pm
Certified ScrumMaster Training class on July 19, 2012 in Dallas.... - Certified ScrumMaster Training class on July 16, 2012 in Orange County.18 January 2012, 7:13 pm
Certified ScrumMaster Training class on July 16, 2012 in Orange County.... - NDC on June 06, 2012 in Oslo, Norway.17 January 2012, 5:02 pm
Mike will be speaking at the 2012 Norwegian Developers Conference in Oslo, Norway.... - Certified Scrum Product Owner Training class on June 13, 2012 in Copenhagen.15 December 2011, 6:26 pm
Certified Scrum Product Owner Training class on June 13, 2012 in Copenhagen....
- Can Support and Maintenance Become Agile?22 February 2012, 11:57 pm
Agile methodology has gone from being a manifesto to an industry standard. Most of the product majors are adopting it, which promises to resolve multiple grievances that Waterfall is supposed to have created. The short, time-bound sprints with pre......
- An Agile Team Reset22 February 2012, 11:43 pm
By its very nature, Scrum is a constant journey of inspection and adaptation. But there comes a time when it's a good idea for an Agile team (mature or not) to take a step back to review and relearn the foundation principles and practices of Scrum...... - A Journey: From Project Manager to ScrumMaster17 February 2012, 8:44 pm
In the beginning I was a coder. Then, suddenly one day, I found myself a Project Manager. Our PM had left unexpectedly and the call went out for a temporary replacement. I was the last one to bolt for the door, and so there I was: temporary Projec...... - Agile Requirements Definition and Management10 February 2012, 3:53 pm
One of the myths of Agile software development is that documentation is not required or useful. It is true that one of the core values within the Agile Manifesto is Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation. However, note the word over...... - Failure IS an Option7 February 2012, 6:24 pm
This is an article asking you to fail. More precisely: Fail now for greater success later. One of the five Scrum values is courage. Courage to point out problems, ask for help, receive help, and most important take risks even thou...... - How to Be an Effective ScrumMaster7 February 2012, 12:34 pm
Several weeks ago, I joined an online discussion about the key skills of an effective ScrumMaster. Everybody actively shared their experiences and thoughts. But I strongly felt that we were talking about the definition of a good ScrumMaster, not an effective one, which was the original topic. This made me recall an experience I had last year. I'd joined a new project that was outsourced, and...... - Coaching Agile Teams2 February 2012, 6:21 pm
Two words, Agile and coaching, seem to be the most-used buzzwords (after brain and neuro) of the last five years or so. The way things are progressing, I see them staying at the top of the list for decades.... - Dealing with Negative Persuasion: Can the Product Owner Lead to Quality Destruction?30 January 2012, 9:03 pm
Quality: It's one of the common commercial arguments made when offering a software product. Those who have already mature products in the market justify their careers by emphasizing quality. Other companies, perhaps with more innovative products o...... - Budgeting a Scrum Project in a Fluid Environment30 January 2012, 8:48 pm
Agile, and Scrum in particular, are buzzwords. Everyone wants to try out Scrum and reap its benefits. Clients (especially business clients) see a big advantage in not having to wait till all the requirements are carved in stone before starting a p...... - Agile Testing: Key Points for Unlearning27 January 2012, 4:15 pm
When quality assurance teams and management who have adopted Agile practices first put the ideas to work, they face a significant impediment in unlearning the traditional mind-set and practices that experience in traditional practices has instilled in them....
- Summary Box: Calif. clamps down on mobile privacy - Newsday23 February 2012, 1:51 am
Summary Box: Calif. clamps down on mobile privacyNewsdayNews Newsday > News Content Preview Newsday 7 day/Optimum Online ® subscribers click here for full access Not a Newsday or Optimum Online ® subscriber? Click here Summary Box: Calif. clamps down on mobile privacy Published: February 22, 2012 8:42 PM By ...and more »... - Rick Mercer's online privacy rant takes aim at controversial bill - Yahoo! News Canada (blog)22 February 2012, 11:11 pm
CTV.caRick Mercer's online privacy rant takes aim at controversial billYahoo! News Canada (blog)By Tori Floyd By Tori Floyd | Daily Brew – 2 minutes 47 seconds ago The CBC's Rick Mercer, well known for his vocal stances on certain social and political issues, has spoken out against the controversial online surveillance bill.No online privacy? No problem!Abbotsford TimesCanadians will likely pay for online surveillance billCTV.caHow do you keep your privacy online?Calgary HeraldCBC.ca&n... - Privacy concerns flare with Google, Facebook - Baltimore Sun22 February 2012, 10:54 pm
San Francisco ExaminerPrivacy concerns flare with Google, FacebookBaltimore SunBy Gus G. Sentementes, The Baltimore Sun Online privacy issues jumped to the forefront Wednesday in Maryland as the attorney general challenged Google Inc.'s new privacy policy, a few days after a pair of Baltimore attorneys filed a class-action ...Murphy PA Files Nationwide Class Action Lawsuit Against Facebook for Alleged ...MarketWatch (press release)Peter Angelos sues Facebook over privacy rightsBizjournals.co... - Google agrees to CA Online Privacy Act for mobile with Apple and Microsoft - SlashGear22 February 2012, 9:59 pm
SlashGearGoogle agrees to CA Online Privacy Act for mobile with Apple and MicrosoftSlashGearAs the Californian Online Privacy Act extends to Mobile Apps in an effort to keep the entirety of the web-connected western-USA world safe from harm, several of the biggest names in mobile computing have jumped on board with the initiative.Google, Microsoft tangle over tracking, online privacyArizona RepublicState Plans To Enforce Privacy Law For Mobile AppsKCRA SacramentoCalif. pledges better mobile priv... - Anonymizer Offers Tips to Help iPhone, Safari and IE Users Guard Against ... - San Francisco Chronicle (press release)22 February 2012, 7:05 pm
Anonymizer Offers Tips to Help iPhone, Safari and IE Users Guard Against ...San Francisco Chronicle (press release)Recently discovered activity by online advertisers, who circumvented browser privacy settings and tracked consumer usage without permission, spotlights the need for consumers to take a multi-prong approach to protecting their online privacy.and more »... - The Online Trust Alliance and Members Demonstrate Innovation and Leadership at RSA - Sacramento Bee22 February 2012, 3:14 pm
The Online Trust Alliance and Members Demonstrate Innovation and Leadership at RSASacramento BeeOTA's mission is to develop and advocate best practices, public policy and self-regulation to mitigate emerging privacy, identity and security threats to online services, brands, government, organizations and consumers. By enhancing online trust and ...Pitney Bowes Joins Online Trust Alliance as Appointee to Steering CommitteeMarketWatch (press release)all 18 news articles »... - Online privacy bill remains elusive - Charleston Gazette22 February 2012, 1:16 pm
PoliticoOnline privacy bill remains elusiveCharleston GazetteCongress has been mulling general online privacy laws for longer than Google and Facebook have been dot-coms. But none has passed muster. “It's Washington's fault,” Jeff Chester, executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy, ...White House to hold online privacy meetingPoliticoThe Facade of Privacy: Use caution, good judgment in online presenceThe PendulumOnline Privacy Fears Stoked By Google, Twitter, Facebook Da... - Google, Microsoft tangle over online privacy - Tucson Citizen22 February 2012, 1:39 am
CTV.caGoogle, Microsoft tangle over online privacyTucson CitizenBut the red hot issue of online privacy has pushed it to another level. Last week, Google scrambled to deflect criticism that it tracked the online activities of users' of Apple's Safari Web browser against their wishes, by circumventing an ...Things you can do to protect your online privacyCTV.caBrowser bypasses put Google in privacy cross hairsPhysOrg.comMicrosoft Says Google Violates User PrivacyWISN Milwaukeeall 573 news... - Online privacy must be safeguarded, critics insist - Edmonton Journal20 February 2012, 3:32 pm
CBC.caOnline privacy must be safeguarded, critics insistEdmonton JournalCALGARY — While police clamour for a controversial federal bill giving them more access to Canadians' online information, critics say concerns over privacy and costs have to be addressed before it's made law. Under the bill, police would have the ...Online surveillance bill backed by police chiefsCBC.caCanada's top cops back online surveillance billGlobal WinnipegPolice back online surveillance billGoldstream N... - Online privacy debate rages - Appleton Post Crescent20 February 2012, 10:30 am
Online privacy debate ragesAppleton Post CrescentWhat if they and advocates for maximum online access could persuade the entertainment industry to loosen its tight grip on its coveted, copyrighted material — quite the opposite of what the industry is trying to do right now?and more »...
- SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 22, 201222 February 2012, 10:02 pm
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... - Google Wave Logo For 155th Birthday Of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz22 February 2012, 2:54 pm
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- Content Curation In Ten Minutes A Day21 February 2012, 3:51 pm
A few weeks ago I wrote about the Three C’s of Social Content - Creation, Curation and Cultivation, today I’m going to focus on content curation. A lot of people seem to be interested in the curation piece but don’t know how to do it consistently or feel that it is just too big a job, [...]... - Huge Giveaway & a Twofer for Dallas Marketers9 February 2012, 3:15 pm
Jason Falls is bringing his Explore experience to Dallas on Friday February 17th. The one day conference presents a dozen or more of the smartest people in Social Marketing all in one space. Whether you are a seasoned veteran or still trying to wrap your head around the priorities this is a conference you do [...]... - Check Your Hair, Make Sure Your Mic Is On – Houston, We Have A Speaker!8 February 2012, 4:29 pm
This is a continuing series of posts by Speakers for speakers. If you are currently a speaker and looking to improve, if you are an aspiring speaker and worried about the mistakes that others make this is the series for you. Each Wednesday a speaker who I value will share their thoughts on how speakers [...]... - Buyosphere:Why It’s Better Than Pinterest7 February 2012, 3:15 pm
I can already hear you screaming at the screen, this had better be good, how can he say that Buyosphere is better than Pinterest? Pinterest is on the lips of everyone at the moment. Less than two years old and benefiting from a $27m funding round, it is the current darling of the social media [...]... - The Fall of The Roman Empire & The Collapse of The Social Media Outpost2 February 2012, 4:36 pm
What has the Fall of The Roman Empire got to do with Social Media? Is this another of those weird analogies that “guru’s” like to throw around? Possibly, though I hope you will see the connection in the way I do. Over the past few years those of us who advise others on how to [...]... - Check Your Hair, Make Sure Your Mic Is On – Know The Lingo1 February 2012, 5:01 pm
This is a continuing series of posts by Speakers for speakers. If you are currently a speaker and looking to improve, if you are an aspiring speaker and worried about the mistakes that others make this is the series for you. Each Wednesday a speaker who I value will share their thoughts on how speakers [...]... - Buddy Can You Spare A Dime? The Rise of Micro-Investing31 January 2012, 5:01 pm
Micro-Investing is providing those of us without the funds to become Venture Capitalists or Angel investors the opportunity to experience the thrill of investing without the risks. The model is somewhat similar to that employed by charities for years. A small amount multiplied many times equals a much larger amount. So instead of seeking thousands [...]... - Check Your Hair, Make Sure Your Mic Is On – Speaking Is About More Than Speaking25 January 2012, 3:40 pm
This week sees the kick off of this new series of posts about speaking written by speakers that I know do a great job. I intend this series to be of interest to those who are already speakers, those looking to get better at speaking and to those who aspire to speak in public. [...]... - Waiting To Write24 January 2012, 4:15 pm
Waiting to write makes you a waiter not a writer, the sage advice from Somerset Maugham. It is advice I give myself regularly and have shared with many others, both privately and publicly. There exists a strange new beast in the creative world, the content scientist. These people can tell you how many times a [...]... - Check Your Hair, Make Sure Your Mic Is On – The Series19 January 2012, 4:56 pm
Check Your Hair, Make Sure Your Mic Is On is the title of a post I wrote a few weeks ago in which I talk about the importance of appearance for speakers. In talking with new, aspiring and even existing speakers it seems people would like to read more of the same. Rather than simply share my [...]...
- How one author won over the gun buff message boards22 February 2012, 1:00 pm
In order to mine social media marketing gold, you really need to roll up your sleeves, put on a pair of sturdy work boots, get into that little elevator, and descend that deep shaft into the gold mine yourself, pick in hand, and get to work. Message boards and forums are full of marketing gold, [...]... - Encourage visitors to save your site as a mobile shortcut21 February 2012, 1:22 pm
You don’t need a mobile app to help your audience keep your website top of mind on their smartphone or tablet. Your site visitors can easily save your website as a shortcut on their mobile device, keeping your content as fresh in their minds as their Angry Birds. The problem is that many of your [...]... - A different kind of Valentine16 February 2012, 4:50 pm
Tired of getting the same old flowers every Valentine’s Day? Sick of paying an arm and a leg for that bouquet of roses? This year a few companies offered some unique and innovative ideas to help consumers give something different to their loved one this year. In the age of the internet, social media and mobile [...]... - Round two for forums and message boards?16 February 2012, 1:02 pm
The problem with most social media marketing agencies is that we’re fickle. We tend to keep rushing into the future, adopting anything and everything hot and new and overlooking the rest. In our constant hunger for the latest and greatest, we have mostly abandoned working class heroes like forums and message boards, preferring exciting new [...]... - How do people use the mobile Web?15 February 2012, 1:57 pm
Image by rzymu on BigStockPhoto.com People browse differently on mobile devices than they do on their desktop computers Mobile device users don’t typically “surf” the Internet using mobile devices. Their motives tend to be more intentional and action-based. They usually know what it is they are looking for and are more likely to act [...]... - Why Timeline is a colossal blunder for Facebook13 February 2012, 1:30 pm
In September when Facebook introduced Timeline, its new profile interface designed to “tell your life story,” many of us scratched our heads and wondered whether this would turn out to be a serious misstep — a blunder significant enough to knock Facebook from its throne of power. While the long-term consequences remain to be seen, [...]... - Taste everything well before serving up your social media offerings8 February 2012, 1:09 pm
If you want to succeed in running a kitchen for the homeless in Washington, DC, or have wildly successful social media marketing campaigns, it all comes down to one thing: do you respect and appreciate your guests? Do you cut-corners and just serve slop or do you prepare organic, healthy, and delicious meals with an [...]... - TaskRabbit: Crowdsourcing comes to your neighborhood6 February 2012, 1:11 pm
A mobile marketplace for getting stuff done from JD Lasica on Vimeo. Start-up offers location-aware marketplace for getting stuff done One of my favorite new iPhone apps and online services is TaskRabbit, a platform that allows people to hire other people to complete tasks in their own towns or neighborhoods. The concept is drop-dead [...]... - Why you should care about the mobile Web3 February 2012, 1:22 pm
Image by BigStock Photo Ready or not, the mobile revolution is upon us! There is a lot of hype out there about how many people own mobile devices and how much time people spend on them. Over the past two years, I’ve been charting and chronicling the rise of the mobile Web and the [...]... - Social media, tech & marketing events: February1 February 2012, 2:02 pm
The Social Enterprise Conference will be held Feb. 25-26 at Harvard. Guide to events & conferences for the coming month Who would have guessed that February has become one of the busiest months of the year for social media, technology and marketing conferences? Look at the list of conferences below, which run the gamut [...]...
- Introducing New Apps for Timeline19 January 2012, 1:26 am
New timeline apps are now available from Foodspotting, Foodily, Ticketmaster, Pinterest, Rotten Tomatoes, Pose, Kobo, Gogobot, TripAdvisor, and others. You can now enhance your timeline with apps that help you tell your story, whether you love to cook, eat, travel, run, or review movies....... - Listen to Music With Your Friends12 January 2012, 6:00 pm
Music is one of the most powerful and fun ways to connect. Whether it's at a concert with a bunch of people or on a long car ride with your best buddy, we love listening to music with our friends...... - Timeline: Now Available on Mobile15 December 2011, 6:00 pm
UPDATE on Sunday, December 18th 2011: We're excited to announce that timeline is now available on Facebook for iOS version 4.1, for iPhone and iPod Touch devices...... - Timeline: Now Available Worldwide15 December 2011, 12:30 pm
UPDATE on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012: Last year we introduced timeline, a new kind of profile that lets you highlight the photos, posts and life events that help you tell your story. Over the next few weeks, everyone will get timeline....... - A Faster Facebook for Android7 December 2011, 7:30 pm
Today we're launching an updated Facebook app for Android. It's now quicker and easier to view photos, get messages and navigate around the app. Photos get better Photos and albums are up to two times faster than the previous Android app....... - Like My Status: Memology 20117 December 2011, 5:01 am
Each year, millions of people post on Facebook to share what's important to them, discuss world events, or just catch up with friends. With more than 800 million people connected around the globe on Facebook, news about the world's triumphs and tragedies spreads fast...... - Our Commitment to the Facebook Community29 November 2011, 5:39 pm
I founded Facebook on the idea that people want to share and connect with people in their lives, but to do this everyone needs complete control over who they share with at all times. This idea has been the core of Facebook since day one....... - Bigger, Faster Photos16 November 2011, 5:41 pm
UPDATE on Wednesday, November 16th, 2011: We're excited to announce an update to Photos that makes it faster and easier to share photos on Facebook...... - Interesting News, Any Time You Visit9 November 2011, 9:59 pm
UPDATE on Wednesday, November 9th, 2011: Now you have a new way of sorting your News Feed: most recent stories first. You can also continue to view highlighted stories first, followed by recent stories, like what you see today. If you don't have the updates to News Feed yet, you can expect to s...... - A Faster Way to Message on Mobile19 October 2011, 8:31 pm
UPDATE on Wednesday, October 19, 2011: We're excited to announce an update to Facebook Messenger. In this version, we've included a bunch of new features and performance improvements designed to make your messaging experience even better......
- Changing the look of your Search Result Pages22 February 2012, 1:37 pm
I love Google, I seriously do. What I don't like too much is them adding more and more fluff to my search result pages (or SERPs) that I really don't want or need. Most of us know about their new Terms of Service now, right? No reason to show me that box all the bloody [...]Changing the look of your Search Result Pages is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my t... - Where do you want me to click?17 February 2012, 1:00 pm
The case for a clear Call to Action on your homepage It’s a vastly overrated notion that a homepage should include all sections of your website and serve all kind of visitors. It needs one clear call to action. Clutter: To make disorderly or hard to use by filling or covering with objects The need [...]Where do you want me to click? is a post by Michiel Heijmans on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do ... - Website Traffic times ten? Sometimes it’s easy15 February 2012, 1:50 pm
I'll be honest, this post is somewhat of a "boast". But since "boast" rhymes with "Yoast", I think it's allowed. Recently we did a website review for "How do you say that Word?". The review contained instructions to make a section of the site accessible to spiders. Results? 10x the traffic. The Site & The [...]Website Traffic times ten? Sometimes it’s easy is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be sl... - WordPress robots.txt Example10 February 2012, 12:47 pm
Robots.txt is a way to tell a search engine which pages it's allowed to spider, to "see", and which pages it cannot "see". Because of that, robots.txt differs from meta name="robots" tags, which tell search engines on those individual pages, whether they can include them in their index or not. The difference is subtle, but [...]WordPress robots.txt Example is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, ev... - Use Gravity Forms to submit custom post types6 February 2012, 9:17 am
In my previous post I explained how I used the Types plugin to create a new custom post type. That custom post type will be used to display a table of supported themes for my WordPress SEO plugin, and is therefor called wpseo-theme. Now the trick here is that I want users to be able [...]Use Gravity Forms to submit custom post types is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? ... - Types WordPress plugin – Easy Custom Post Types2 February 2012, 10:06 am
I've long wanted to create a database of themes that support my SEO plugin and never came up with a manageable way of doing that. When my buddy Amir from WPML emailed me about their two new plugins, Types and Views, it took me a while to grasp what they did. Turns out I'm daft [...]Types WordPress plugin – Easy Custom Post Types is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you... - Tracking Outbound / Affiliate Links with getClicky26 January 2012, 10:30 am
I use Clicky for most of my day-to-day tracking and analysis, only using Google Analytics for the harder analyses. One of the things Clicky can do most wonderfully is track outbound clicks. There's an issue however when you start routing your affiliate links through a script or on-site redirect. I redirect mine through /out/ here [...]Tracking Outbound / Affiliate Links with getClicky is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want... - On WordPress Dashboard Widgets25 January 2012, 8:18 pm
I was one of the first plugin developers to add a dashboard widget to your dashboard when you installed one of my plugins. I'm hoping people will follow me in doing the reverse as well. While it generates traffic, it doesn't generate sales. Let me show you. When I added mine, in the beginning, it [...]On WordPress Dashboard Widgets is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? C... - Search & Social – you can’t get the cream out of the coffee11 January 2012, 2:47 pm
Yesterday, Google launched "Search plus your World", intermixing search and social and providing even more "personalized" results. There's a lot of outcry about some parts of this, with people saying they don't want "personalized" results. I actually think that normal users do want personalized results and that this is, for the most part, a good thing. [...]Search & Social – you can’t get the cream out of the coffee is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good... - Stop SOPA, help the internet.11 January 2012, 10:31 am
I'm not political in my posts normally, just like WordPress.org isn't and Matt Cutts isn't, but it's about time we put this whole SOPA thing to a stop. Since some well respected politicians are using my plugins and carry my news widget in their dashboard, I thought it was time I used that "power" to show [...]Stop SOPA, help the internet. is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, d...
- Dell Goes on Ultrabook Diet With Slimmed-Down Laptop23 February 2012, 2:03 am
Dell's new ultrabook is compact, well-built and speedy, sporting a good backlit keyboard and a bright screen. But it has subpar battery life.... - Stashing Movies23 February 2012, 2:02 am
Walt answers a reader's question on whether you can download movies to the AirStash storage device.... - Still Waiting on Office for iPad? OnLive's New Subscription Service Has Office, Flash and More.23 February 2012, 12:55 am
For those of you still holding your breath while you wait for an official Microsoft Office app to come to iPad, here's something that might help in the interim: OnLive Desktop Plus, a premium, $4.99-a-month version of the OnLive Desktop app for iPad and other tablet devices. The newest version of the app offers a cloud-based Internet Explorer 9, Adobe Flash, and PDF capabilities, in addition to the full Office suite and the "accelerated browsing experience" that OnLive created for fast pushing a... - Google's Cable TV Lineup: A Wishlist22 February 2012, 11:29 pm
Don't expect Google to break the bundle when it experiments with cable TV. But you could see some cool features, like a cloud-based DVR, and a programming guide that doesn't make you want to scream.... - State AGs Want Google to Address New Privacy Policy22 February 2012, 11:26 pm
An alliance of 36 state attorneys general has sent a letter to Google CEO Larry Page questioning the upcoming changes in the company's privacy policy.... - Fare Play: Rivals Have Reason to Be Wary if Square Grabs NYC Cabs22 February 2012, 10:38 pm
Mobile payments start-up Square wants to snag New York City taxicabs -- and its rivals are unlikely to keep quiet about it.... - Whitman: HP's Turnaround Is a Multi-Year Journey That's Just Getting Started22 February 2012, 9:53 pm
HP's earnings are mixed bag. So what's the strategy going forward?... - HP Beats Street's Lowered Expectations22 February 2012, 9:18 pm
HP's bottom line beats the street's diminished expectations handily, but the topline is a little light. And oh, those printer results gotta sting.... - Google Seeks Approval for Kansas City Video Service22 February 2012, 8:27 pm
Google Inc. filed an application last week to provide video service to residents of Kansas City, Mo., according to state records, setting the stage for the Web giant to offer a cable-TV-like package in addition to the high-speed Internet service it plans to market there later this year.... - Inside Foxconn: Little Evidence of Abuse, but Workers Sure Want a Raise22 February 2012, 7:48 pm
Tell us something we didn't already know, "Nightline."...
- Creating an Early-Stage Pitch Deck7 January 2012, 10:29 pm
Note: This article originally appeared on TechCrunch (“How To Create An Early-Stage Pitch Deck For Investors”). It is the first in a series of posts / decks that I will be doing on those questions I get asked most commonly. Of course we will start with the question I get most: how to create a [...]... - Why Dublin is probably the best place in Europe to launch your startup7 November 2011, 6:57 pm
When deciding where to ‘do’ a startup………you’re looking for: Human capital, financial capital, an established... - Dia dhaoibh Europe!1 November 2011, 2:34 pm
As many of you know, Dogpatch Labs are established communities in the major tech hubs across the US: New York City; Cambridge, Mass; and the Bay Area in California. The latest Dogpatch Labs in Dublin, Ireland, is our first non-US outpost and henceforth will be known as Dogpatch Labs Europe. For those of you this [...]... - Dogpatch Cambridge Hiring like Crazy!26 October 2011, 3:03 pm
I posted an update last week about some of the successes that our residents are celebrating, and about the awesome community that makes Dogpatch such a vibrant place to come and build your company. One thing that struck me was the sheer number of open jobs that our residents are trying to fill — over [...]... - Dogpatch Cambridge is Rocking & Rolling!11 October 2011, 8:36 pm
In some places, summer means relaxing on the cape, traveling around the country, or perhaps just working your standard 35 hour work week. Not in DPL Cambridge — here is means cranking on product, fundraising and hiring! It’s been an amazing summer for the Dogpatch Cambridge community, and I wanted to share some of the [...]... - Awesome Week in Dublin!3 October 2011, 7:49 pm
In case you missed it, last week we officially announced the opening our 4th Dogpatch in the European Tech Hub of Dublin (in the amazing Grand Canal’s neighborhood). We’re just back today from spending the week in Ireland at the official launch & grand opening, and all I can say is — WOW! What an [...]... - DPL-SF: Remembering Our Inspirational Home, Preparing for Next Chapter6 September 2011, 10:46 pm
Since 2008, Pier 38 has been the Dogpatch Labs, San Francisco (DPL/SF) inspirational home to nearly 250 entrepreneurs. Using the shared space and mentorship that DPL/SF has provided, these creative minds formed roughly 150 innovative companies. Unfortunately, our Pier 38 home will soon be changing. The Port Authority of San Francisco notified all Pier 38 [...]... - Updates from the Pier on DPL San Francisco23 August 2011, 9:13 pm
If you’ve stopped by Dogpatch at Pier 38 over the past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed a bunch of new faces! We’ve had a whole new crop of awesome entrepreneurs working on some pretty cool projects. At any given time, across the 3 dogpatch location, there are over 80 companies at work, representing well over [...]... - Looking to Apply to Dogpatch?10 August 2011, 5:18 pm
We’ve created a standard application process that covers all 3 US locations of DPL. You can apply here: http://bit.ly/dplapplication.... - Things are hustling at Dogpatch Cambridge!10 May 2011, 3:34 pm
It’s been a crazy couple of months at Dogpatch Cambridge, and I wanted to share some of the awesomeness that happening here in our new space in Kendall Square (thanks Microsoft!). In the past few months, we’ve added a bunch of GREAT companies, had a couple graduate and have seen a bunch of companies [...]...
- 10 Free Android Apps You’ll Use Every Day23 February 2012, 4:56 am
From the moment you wake up in the morning to the second you close your eyes at night, your smartphone is probably the first and last thing you touch.…... - Marketers: What Mobile Users Will and Won’t Put Up With [INFOGRAPHIC]23 February 2012, 4:29 am
Young people between the ages of 18 and 24 are even more connected to their mobile devices than you might think. Nine in 10 young adults spend…... - Adele Is First To Go Double Platinum on iTunes23 February 2012, 4:05 am
Like many artists before her, global pop star Adele experienced a post-Grammys album sales boost, selling 730,000 copies of 21 in the past wee…... - Use Online RSVP Tool to Help Your Party Make A Splash23 February 2012, 3:35 am
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your st…... - Samsung Totally Copies Us With Galaxy Note ‘Street Challenge’ [VIDEO]23 February 2012, 3:07 am
The Samsung Galaxy Note, a so-called “superphone” that has a massive 5-inch screen, gives quite a first impression. Not only is it huge,…... - Advanced Infrared Camera Keeps Soldiers Farther From Dangerous Targets [VIDEO]23 February 2012, 2:31 am
An advanced camera could help save the lives of U.S. soldiers in combat. The new camera was developed to navigate dangerous war conditions …... - NBA Fans to Decide Dunk Contest via Twitter in Most Connected All-Star Weekend Yet23 February 2012, 1:57 am
Tweets, apps and status updates will join the usual barrage of dunks, three-pointers and no-look passes more than ever this weekend at the NBA&#…... - Google to Launch TV Service23 February 2012, 1:42 am
Google is looking to get into the paid TV business. The company filed an application last week to provide video service to residents of Kansas C…... - Nostalgia Overload: New Tumblr Challenges You to Draw Classic Video Game Maps From Memory23 February 2012, 1:13 am
What is it about video game worlds that etch themselves so vividly in our mind’s eye? A fun new user-generated blog aims to unearth the…... - Awesome New ‘Borderlands 2′ Trailer Gives September Release Date [VIDEO]23 February 2012, 12:56 am
Gearbox and 2K Games announced Wednesday that the sequel to the popular Borderlands will have a Sept. 18 release date for XBox 360, PlayStation 3 and…...
- Cloud Security: DataLocker Lets You Encrypt Your Sensitive Dropbox Files For Free23 February 2012, 5:55 am
We're all becoming increasingly reliant on consumer cloud services, as cloud storage providers like Dropbox make it easy to share and store files, folders, images, sync between platforms, and more. They make our lives easier, but because they store an enormous amount of potentially sensitive data, there are some inherent risks. While Dropbox is for personal use, it and services like it are increasingly being used by businesses -- another example of the ongoing consumerization of enterprise and I... - Report: Video Accounts For Half Of All Mobile Traffic; Android Biggest For Mobile Ads23 February 2012, 5:22 am
Mobile video now accounts for half of all mobile traffic; and on some networks, that number is as high as 69 percent -- a testament to the rise of smartphones and tablets as the mobile devices of choice for consumers, and their growing interest in using these devices to do a lot more than just make phone calls. The data, from a new report on mobile data usage by mobile analytics firm Bytemobile, also found that Android is generating more mobile ad volume than iOS devices, and that Google now ac... - Clothes Horse Wants To Solve The Biggest Problem With Online Shopping: Finding Clothes That Fit23 February 2012, 4:58 am
Clothes Horse, a fashion technology company based out of New York, is publicly launching its platform today in an attempt to address one of the biggest challenges facing online shoppers: buying clothes that fit. Through the use of a customizable widget that merchants add to their own websites, Clothes Horse can determine within just 30 seconds how the retailers' items will fit any customer. The goal is not only to decrease shopping cart abandonment, but also the rate of returns due to ill-fitt... - The Winners Of This Year’s $100,000 TechFellow Awards Are…23 February 2012, 4:33 am
Tonight, Silicon Valley's heroes gave competition a rest and joined together to celebrate the spirit of innovation. An all-star committee of tech moguls carefully considered your nominations of visionaries in the fields Engineering Leadership, Product Design and Marketing, General Management, and Disruptive Innovation. They chose 5 leaders per category and awarded them each a $100,000 grant to invest in a startup of their choice. Here are the winner's of this year's TechFellow Awards:... - San Francisco Launches The 2012 Innovation Portfolio, From Open Taxi Data To Beta Tests In City Hall23 February 2012, 3:45 am
San Francisco may not have intended to be become the startup mecca that it is today, but now the city government is working hard to make itself as friendly as possible to tech entrepreneurs. Makes sense, considering that there are 1,539 tech companies and 30,000 tech jobs in the city now -- a number that's been growing fast as older industries like high finance continue to suffer through the recession. What that means is this. Mayor Ed Lee, who came to power last year with heavy support from th... - OnLive Adds “Cloud-Accelerated Browsing” To Its Streaming-Desktop Stable23 February 2012, 1:42 am
You're probably familiar with OnLive, the company that made its mark by streaming brand new console and PC games to whatever devices could support a high-bandwidth video stream. Many doubted its technology to begin with (including yours truly - Is OnLive OnCrack?) but they've more or less delivered on their promises, and have also been expanding the services they offer. Most recently they introduced OnLive Desktop, which streamed a Windows 7 desktop to your iPad. That was mainly focused on prod... - Browser Shootout Shows Minor Variations In Performance – It’s Still A Matter Of Taste23 February 2012, 12:40 am
The browser wars are in a tense state of suspension right now. The once-obvious advantages of one and disadvantages of another can't be counted on as much as they could a year ago, and fast-changing standards and interaction methods have produced a sort of uneasy détente while everyone awaits the browser equivalent of the Manhattan Project to catapult them into the atomic age. Tom's Hardware just did a nice, thorough examination of the available browsers on Windows 7 and Ubuntu, and the findin... - As Journalists And Video Bloggers Are Killed, SyriaPioneer Lives On23 February 2012, 12:19 am
It goes without saying that the death of veteran Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin and the French photographer Remi Ochlik - after an artillery shell hit their makeshift press centre in the Syrian city of Homs - is tragic. It's also testament to the lengths to which journalists often go to get the story. But equally, the use of new technology by 'citizen journalists' has been equally significant in documenting the deadly acts of the Syrian government against its own people. Among thos... - Apple, Google, And Others Agree To Mobile App Privacy Policy Guidelines22 February 2012, 11:21 pm
Though Apple, Google, Microsoft, RIM, Amazon, and HP don't always see eye-to-eye, the six of them have entered into an agreement brokered by California Attorney General Kamala Harris to take a tougher stance on the issue of mobile privacy. Going forward, the six companies involved must provide users with a privacy policy if the app in question collects personal information. Though the move will affect the app submission and downloading process for users the world over, it was designed to bring ... - First Floor Labs Sold A Company To Facebook, Graduated Three YC Startups, And Is Accepting Applications22 February 2012, 10:53 pm
Last Friday I visited the Aol* building on Page Mill Road in Palo Alto. But instead of the stench of death and decay you would normally find at a dying company, I found joy and the hustle and bustle of youth. More importantly, I found startups, tens of startups with founders eager to show me around the various VC firms (SoftTech, Morado) and incubators occupying the building's first floor....
- We’re All Coders: Atlassian Opens Up The Engineering Sandbox22 February 2012, 11:00 pm
Australian startup Atlassian lets anyone play in the engineering sandbox.... - Yahoo’s Signal Predicts Presidential Election: Obama Over Romney19 February 2012, 2:38 am
The 2012 presidential election race is in full swing, but Yahoo has predicted a winner already. Yahoo, using statistical analysis from a product called The Signal, is calling the race for Barack Obama, projecting the president to top Mitt Romney by a vote of 303 to 235 in the electoral college.... - Bump 3.0 Revamps App Focusing On Photos, Contacts17 February 2012, 1:09 am
Mobile app company Bump has released a revamped app that cuts down its features to photo and contact sharing.... - Yelp Looks For IPO Of $12-$14 Per Share16 February 2012, 11:07 pm
Yelp's IPO could raise a maximum of $115 million, up from a previous estimate of $100 million.... - Zynga Finds Online Gambling ‘Very Interesting’ [Earnings Call]14 February 2012, 11:32 pm
Online gambling is “very interesting” to Zynga, Zynga COO John Schappert said in a conference call with analysts after posting its first quarterly earnings as a public company. A recent Justice Department opinion according to some observers could open the way for Internet gambling in certain states. Speculation has been running high that Zynga would move into [...]... - Zynga Q4 Earnings Beat Street But Stock Down14 February 2012, 9:15 pm
Social gaming company Zynga just reported its first earnings as a public company.... - Fab.com Aims For Amazon-Sized Business14 February 2012, 8:03 pm
Startup Fab.com has been on growing like a weed since it relaunched last year as a ecommerce style website. The company has seen its user numbers grow rapidly to 2 million registered users in less than seven months. Fab expects to do $100 million in sales this year.... - Shoutlet Brings Automated Triggers To Social Marketing14 February 2012, 5:25 pm
Startup Shoutlet has released a new trigger-based version of its social media marketing software that tries to make it easier for brands to post across a variety of social networks.... - OpenX Hits $100 Million Run Rate, Has Profitable 4Q13 February 2012, 6:06 pm
Online advertising startup OpenX Technologies has reached profitability in the fourth quarter of 2011, and has passed a $100 million annual revenue run rate.... - Can Science Make Los Angeles Matter In Technology? [Video]10 February 2012, 8:29 pm
Peter Pham, cofounder of Science, the new Los Angeles-based tech studio, stopped by the FORBES office to talk about his firm....
- Steve Jobs Leaves Us With 9 Questions6 October 2011, 8:30 pm
Steve Jobs is the Luke Skywalker of American business. But he could have been the Darth Vader. He’s a charismatic leader of such force and possessed of such strong will- power that he might have done great harm had his talents gone over to the dark side. Instead his talents were discovered, honed and rewarded [...]... - Yves Béhar: Steve Jobs Changed My Life6 October 2011, 12:31 am
By Yves Béhar Steve Jobs changed my life. He also changed the life of every designer. When I started working in Silicon Valley in the early 1990’s, a designer’s role was considered similar to a decorator’s: after engineers built a product’s features and configuration, we would be consulted on form and colors. Design was late [...]... - Nicholas Negroponte: Steve Jobs – Influence, Not Influenced.6 October 2011, 12:22 am
By Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child I first met Steve in 1979, when the idea of merging design and computation was considered sissy or silly. Not to Steve. A fact not widely known: He was one of the first funders (1980) of the MIT Media Lab, then a mere inkling [...]... - Fred Anderson: There Will Never Be Another Steve Jobs6 October 2011, 12:11 am
By Fred Anderson, former CFO of Apple Computer Steve Jobs and I worked together as close business partners during the turnaround of Apple, and shared the challenges and joy of the company’s resurrection. Who will ever forget Michael Dell’s statement about Apple at its nadir in 1997: “I’d shut it down and give the money [...]... - Is This The Swedish Data Center Of The Future?19 August 2011, 10:29 am
Jon Karlung says building a data center should be more like building a space station.... - China’s Facebook Could Be The Next Big Tech IPO22 February 2011, 4:45 am
China’s maverick entrepreneur Joe Chen may just have the magic touch for cashing out super rich with the IPO of the Facebook look-alike Renren he runs in Beijing. His venture investors have nearly $500 million riding on a successful public listing this spring on NASDAQ, which could be in the same league as recent Chinese Internet IPO hits Dangdang and Youku.... - Why India Doesn’t Have A Baidu – And May Not Ever18 February 2011, 12:20 am
A whole group of Indian entrepreneurs would like to be as rich and famous as Robin Li of Baidu and Jack Ma of Alibaba. How the new team at Sequoia Capital India invests in deals will signal prospects for the continued rise of Indian entrepreneurship in this key Asian nation—the largest venture capital market after China.... - IBM’s Supercomputer Pulverizes Puny Humans In First Jeopardy Game16 February 2011, 1:06 am
The supercomputer Watson trounced its carbon-based foes by a factor of three.... - Citrix And The Atrix17 January 2011, 6:49 pm
The Motorola showcase of the Atrix 4G a few weeks ago at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas is a huge step in the right direction for desktop virtualization. For the past 18 months, I have been speaking publicly about desktop virtualization, and at every conference I keep stressing the inevitability of the smartphone [...]... - CES: Toshiba’s Ginormous Glasses-Free 3D TV7 January 2011, 5:34 pm
A round up of TVs at this year's show....
- The Biggest Mistake Web Analysts Make… And How To Avoid It!20 February 2012, 10:19 am
The single biggest mistake web analysts make is working without purpose. We work very hard. We torture SiteCatalyst. We send out a lot of data. Then we resend it again and again. And yet our work results in very little impact on the business in terms of action taken by company leaders. Why this sad [...]The Biggest Mistake Web Analysts Make… And How To Avoid It! is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik... - Google Analytics Tutorial: 8 Valuable Tips To Hustle With Data!30 January 2012, 10:52 am
It is painfully heartbreaking to realize that a very small tiny number of people who have access to web analytics tools actually use them. I mean really use the tools. Ravage all the features. Exploit every possible button. Produce built-in visualization magic. Poke into the hidden crevices and discover exotic delights. Nourish yourself with the [...]Google Analytics Tutorial: 8 Valuable Tips To Hustle With Data! is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik... - The 2015 Digital Marketing Rule Book. Change or Perish.9 January 2012, 10:26 am
It is the season to be predicting the future, but that is almost always a career-limiting move. So I'm not going to do that. It is a lot easier to predict the present. So I'm not going to do that either. Rather, I'm going to share a clump of realities/rules garnered from the present to [...]The 2015 Digital Marketing Rule Book. Change or Perish. is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik... - Best Web Metrics / KPIs for a Small, Medium or Large Sized Business12 December 2011, 10:11 am
We have access to more data than God wants anyone to have. Thus it is not surprising that we feel overwhelmed, and rather than being data driven we just get paralyzed. Life does not have to be that scary. In fact a data driven life is sexiest digital life you can imagine. In this blog [...]Best Web Metrics / KPIs for a Small, Medium or Large Sized Business is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik... - Smarter Data Analysis of Google's https (not provided) change: 5 Steps21 November 2011, 10:22 am
It is astonishingly common that we are asked to analyze the impossible. In perhaps a career-limiting move I'm going to try to do that today (and for a controversial topic to boot!). In this post about an important Google change, I want you to focus less on the data and focus more on the methodology. [...]Smarter Data Analysis of Google's https (not provided) change: 5 Steps is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik... - Data Analysis 101: Seven Simple Mistakes That Limit Your Salary31 October 2011, 9:42 am
Data analysis is not easy. It takes years to get good at it, and once you get good at it you realize how much more there is to learn. That is part of the joy. You are always learning. You are always growing. This blogpost is a collection of tips I share with my friends [...]Data Analysis 101: Seven Simple Mistakes That Limit Your Salary is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik...
- Raising Money: What Not to Say and What Not to Believe #OfficeandGuyK20 January 2012, 6:46 pm
Over the past two weeks via my partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve provided templates of models for you to create enchanting PowerPoint pitches, Word business plans, and Excel financial models. They are all available for you to...... - Design a Sam Adams beer20 January 2012, 4:24 pm
Now this is a fun project. I’m helping Sam Adams “tap” the knowledge of beer drinkers and crowd source its next brew. Join the party by getting the app and designing your beer: The final brew will be released in...... - How to Create an Enchanting Financial Forecast #OfficeandGuyK17 January 2012, 9:52 pm
This is the third post in my Microsoft partnership, and it’s all about numbers. The topic is crafting your financial forecast to include in your pitch. Bill Reichert, my partner at Garage Technology Ventures, created an Excel model and wrote...... - How to Create an Enchanting Business Plan #OfficeandGuyK12 January 2012, 4:16 pm
Here is the second post in my series about planning, pitching, and launching a new business venture. In partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps, I’ve created a Word document that outlines a good business plan. It’s saved to my...... - How to Create an Enchanting Pitch #OfficeandGuyK9 January 2012, 4:01 pm
Welcome to the first in a series of blog posts I’ll be doing as part of a partnership with Microsoft and Office Web Apps. Over the next two weeks, I’ll cover everything a budding entrepreneur needs to turn an idea......
- Points Are About Relative Effort Not Ranking19 February 2012, 11:24 pm
I’m thinking of buying a new car. So I’ve put together a list of cars to consider. Here they are in priority order: Bugatti Veyron Super Sports Pagani Zonda Clinque Roadster Lamborghini Reventon McLaren F1 Koenigsegg CCX Porsche Carrera GT Aston Martin Vanquish Toyota Prius Toyota Camry Tata Nano Unfortunately, though, I’m not sure I [...]... - Agile Succeeds Three Times More Often Than Waterfall13 February 2012, 3:22 pm
Agile projects are successful three times more often than non-agile projects, according to the 2011 CHAOS Manifesto from the Standish Group. The report goes so far as to say, “The agile process is the universal remedy for software development project failure. Software applications developed through the agile process have three times the success rate of [...]... - Estimating and Planning Are Necessary for Maximizing Delivered Value6 February 2012, 6:11 pm
Because I’m so interested in estimating and planning, I always take notice when I see a new blog post or news group posting claiming, “Estimating is waste! Don’t do it!” The thing that never shocks me about these arguments against estimating and planning is that they never come from the business people for whom we [...]... - Announcing an Online Agile Estimating and Planning Course31 January 2012, 4:00 pm
I’m very excited to let you know that we now have an online course on Agile Estimating and Planning. The course is a series of videos and interactive quizzes. Videos are a combination of screencast (slides) and live action of me. All videos are extremely professionally done–no handheld video camera or recordings of me talking [...]... - Rotating the ScrumMaster Role27 January 2012, 3:18 am
Some teams that struggle with choosing the best ScrumMaster decide that an appropriate strategy is to rotate the role among all team members. I don’t advocate this, as I don’t think it demonstrates an appropriate respect for the challenges and significance of the role. In my family, we rotate who cleans the table and loads [...]... - Please Help Me List the Problems with Using Agile or Scrum3 January 2012, 10:03 pm
I’m trying to create a list of the biggest, most common, or hardest to overcome problems that a team might face when adopting Scrum or agile. I could really use your help by contributing to the list by adding a comment to this post. I’m thinking of things like: We have five product owners. What [...]... - Recommendations not Rules2 January 2012, 5:24 pm
I seem to be encountering more and more people who want to codify agile into a set of rules. I’ve seen this lately in authors of books, blogs or PDFs about agile or Scrum that say “You must do this” or “If you don’t do this or all of that then you’re not doing it [...]... - New Planning Poker Card Design4 December 2011, 3:01 pm
I’ve wanted to update the design of our Planning Poker cards for quite awhile, and we finally got the chance. The new cards feature an all-new back design to go along with the same faces we’ve used for years. There are 56 cards in the deck. Thirteen estimating numbers are provided in four colors, each [...]... - In Defense of Large Numbers28 November 2011, 4:15 pm
People are often surprised that I allow (or even encourage) people to estimate with story points as large as 20, 40, and 100. We include these values in the decks of Planning Poker cards that we sell and give away in classes and at conferences. Yet many people tell me they start out my taking [...]... - Stories, Epics and Themes24 October 2011, 3:00 pm
I’ve been getting more and more emails lately from people confused about the difference between “user story”, “epic” and “theme.” So I thought his month we’d return and cover some basic–but very helpful–territory by explaining those terms. First, the terms don’t matter that much. These are not terms with important specific meanings like “pointer” to [...]...
- TED: Shilo Shiv Suleman: Using tech to enable dreaming - Shilo Shiv Suleman (2011)22 February 2012, 4:59 pm
Has our technology -- our cell phones and iPods and cameras -- stopped us from dreaming? Young artist Shilo Shiv Suleman says no, as she demos "Khoya," her new storybook for iPad, which floats us through a magical world in 7 minutes of pure creativity.... - TED: Chris Bliss: Comedy is translation - Chris Bliss (2011)21 February 2012, 4:54 pm
Every act of communication is, in some way, an act of translation. Onstage at TEDxRainier, writer Chris Bliss thinks hard about the way that great comedy can translate deep truths for a mass audience.... - TED: Neil MacGregor: 2600 years of history in one object - Neil MacGregor (2011)20 February 2012, 4:37 pm
A clay cylinder covered in Akkadian cuneiform script, damaged and broken, the Cyrus Cylinder is a powerful symbol of religious tolerance and multi-culturalism. In this enthralling talk Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, traces 2600 years of Middle Eastern history through this single object.... - TED: Paul Conneally: Digital humanitarianism - Paul Conneally (2011)17 February 2012, 4:08 pm
The disastrous earthquake in Haiti taught humanitarian groups an unexpected lesson: the power of mobile devices to coordinate, inform, and guide relief efforts. At TEDxRC2, Paul Conneally shows extraordinary examples of social media and other new technologies becoming central to humanitarian aid.... - TED: Simon Berrow: How do you save a shark you know nothing about? - Simon Berrow (2010)16 February 2012, 3:52 pm
They're the second largest fish in the world, they're almost extinct, and we know almost nothing about them. At TEDxDublin, Simon Berrow describes the fascinating basking shark ("Great Fish of the Sun" in Irish), and the exceptional -- and wonderfully low-tech -- ways he's learning enough to save them.... - TED: Lucien Engelen: Crowdsource your health - Lucien Engelen (2011)15 February 2012, 4:07 pm
You can use your smartphone to find a local ATM, but what if you need a defibrillator? At TEDxMaastricht, Lucien Engelen shows us online innovations that are changing the way we save lives, including a crowdsourced map of local defibrillators.... - TED: Inara George sings 'Family Tree' - Inara George (2010)14 February 2012, 10:43 pm
Singer Inara George and guitarist Mike Andrews play the quietly lovely love song "Family Tree."... - TED: Jenna McCarthy: What you don't know about marriage - Jenna McCarthy (2011)14 February 2012, 3:41 pm
In this funny, casual talk from TEDx, writer Jenna McCarthy shares surprising research on how marriages (especially happy marriages) really work. One tip: Do not try to win an Oscar for best actress.... - TED: Tyrone Hayes + Penelope Jagessar Chaffer: The toxic baby? - Tyrone Hayes / Penelope Jagessar Chaffer (2010)13 February 2012, 4:31 pm
Filmmaker Penelope Jagessar Chaffer was curious about the chemicals she was exposed to while pregnant: Could they affect her unborn child? So she asked scientist Tyrone Hayes to brief her on one he studied closely: atrazine, a herbicide used on corn. (Hayes, an expert on amphibians, is a critic of atrazine, which displays a disturbing effect on frog development.) Onstage together at TEDWomen, Hayes and Chaffer tell their story.... - TED: Erik Johansson: Impossible photography - Erik Johannson (2011)10 February 2012, 4:01 pm
Erik Johansson creates realistic photos of impossible scenes -- capturing ideas, not moments. In this witty how-to, the Photoshop wizard describes the principles he uses to make these fantastical scenarios come to life, while keeping them visually plausible....
- The Highlander Principle8 February 2012, 2:32 pm
The Highlander PrincipleThis blog post discusses why it is important to put a single product owner in charge of a product and how this enables fast decision-making, learning, and delivery.Roman Pichler - Roman Pichler's Thoughts on Agile Product Management Roman Pichler... - The Product Backlog as a Learning Tool12 January 2012, 1:16 pm
The Product Backlog as a Learning ToolLeverage the power of customer feedback, and use your product backlog as a learning tool. Discover the right product features and take advantage of emerging requirements by integrating customer a feedback into the backlog early and frequently.Roman Pichler - Roman Pichler's Thoughts on Agile Product Management Roman Pichler... - The Scrum Startup15 December 2011, 3:14 pm
The Scrum StartupThe blog posts explains how to set up a Scrum team as a “startup” within an established enterprise to create a new product, and to pilot a new way of working.Roman Pichler - Roman Pichler's Thoughts on Agile Product Management Roman Pichler... - The Vision, the Product Backlog and the Minimal Viable Product7 November 2011, 3:26 pm
The Vision, the Product Backlog and the Minimal Viable ProductI find the Lean Startup concept of a minimal viable product (MVP) rather exciting: It entails creating a first product version to test the vision as quickly and cheaply as possible. This could be a throwaway prototype such as a mock-up or a product increment, working software that is tested and documented. The MVP works [...]Roman Pichler - Roman Pichler's Thoughts on Agile Product Management Roman Pichler... - Two Common Ways to Apply the Product Owner Role25 October 2011, 10:52 am
Two Common Ways to Apply the Product Owner RoleApplying the product owner role can be challenging, as no two products are the same. While products and projects vary, I have found two common ways to employ the role: Asking the customer or a customer proxy such as a product manager to take on the product owner role. This post discusses when the two alternatives [...]Roman Pichler - Roman Pichler's Thoughts on Agile Product Management Roman Pichler...
- Perception Trumps Reality17 February 2012, 8:07 pm
It’s not hard to identify things that should not happen when people use the software we build: We should not lose customer data. We should not lose customer effort (i.e. half-written emails, file drafts). We should not share customer data in ways other than what the customer agreed was okay. We should not require customers to go [...]... - Announcing Change without Inducing Panic2 February 2012, 8:04 pm
Your product will change. You’re going to have to communicate those changes to your customers. How you do this can make the difference between “a few angry Tweets” and “death threats from your community” That last point may bear repeating — 9 times out of 10, it’s not what you changed that makes customers angry. [...]... - You Shouldn’t Use a Survey If…26 January 2012, 8:44 pm
Surveys are an incredibly useful market and customer research tool. But you use them too often. (Not, you know, you personally. But ‘you’ in a global companies and organizations kind of sense.) You shouldn’t use a survey if: You aren’t sure which type of people you should ask to take your survey. There are almost [...]... - All Customers Are Not Created Equal (part 2)19 January 2012, 7:37 pm
You can read part 1 here. So how can you apply customer development techniques to large enterprise customers and existing customers? They’re still people, so fundamentally they also have problems and pain points and constraints. But there are some things to keep in mind if you want to maximize how productive your conversations are. [...]... - All Customers Are Not Created Equal (part 1)12 January 2012, 9:00 pm
Customer development and lean startup techniques have been so loudly touted by, well, startups, that many people in non-startup or non-technology companies think these tools don’t apply to them. “The rules are different when you’re talking to large enterprise customers,” they say. ”This doesn’t work when you’re dealing with customers who are already using your [...]... - The Biggest Risk in Hiring Product People2 December 2011, 6:27 pm
The biggest risk in hiring product people is… THE UNKNOWN. What if we hire this person and they aren’t able to execute? What if they can’t negotiate with our engineers? What if they can’t operate under conditions of uncertainty? What if they worry over every little detail until they’ve totally missed the big picture? What [...]... - It’s valuable because I said so4 November 2011, 5:07 am
I was lucky today to have a day to spend with my 2-year-old daughter. In the morning we walked up and down ten city blocks, stopping to pet dogs, sit on stoops, and inspect leaves and spiders. In the afternoon we went to the Exploratorium, which is a ridiculously award-winning and enriching museum. Truth be [...]... - Why Are So Many Products Poorly Designed? (Part 2)27 October 2011, 6:01 am
As I discussed in the previous post, many products have terrible design because the design team doesn’t get to use the product, and because design is brought into the process too late. I’m going to discuss two more reasons which extend beyond the design team. The first one will not be a surprise to anyone [...]... - Why are so many products poorly designed? (Part 1)7 October 2011, 4:01 am
(Originally answered on Quora.) Why do so many products have crummy design? Many designers do not (fully) use the product they are designing. Sometimes this is due to laziness on the designer’s part; much more frequently company culture and the product management/engineering organizations are to blame. Why? Many applications — especially B2B applications — are difficult, [...]... - What does a validated hypothesis look like?30 September 2011, 4:00 pm
Customer development — both interviewing and then figuring out how to decipher the responses you get — is an art, not a science. A validated hypothesis has the following components: Customer confirms that there is a problem. Customer doesn’t accept it the problem as “that’s life” or “it’s beyond my control.” Customer is already investing [...]...
- Be a Product Manager, NOT a Product Janitor22 February 2012, 6:10 pm
Be a Product Manager, NOT a Product Janitor™ We've been consulting and training inside of companies worldwide for over fourteen years, and one thing we noticed is a trend. Since Product Management is often not well-defined or well understood (see the Product Management Manifesto and our white paper on Product Management versus Product Marketing for [...]... - Austin pCamp session: Standard Seven Phase Product LifeCycle6 February 2012, 9:29 pm
Brian Lawley, CEO and Founder of the 280 Group, will be presenting at Austin's upcoming pcamp. The topic is: The Seven Phase Standard Product LifeCycle: What you MUST know for your products to succeed How can you make your products DRAMATICALLY more successful? Is there a process you and your company can implement to ensure success? [...]... - Optimal Product Process Book16 January 2012, 5:31 pm
Optimal Product Process book now available! We are VERY excited to announce the availability of our newest book in the 280 Group Press series: Optimal Product Process A Modern and Flexible Standard for Highly-Effective Product Management and Product Marketing. The book describes the standard product process that all products go through, including seven phases during [...]... - Product Management New Year’s Resolution: Just Say No (Gracefully)!9 January 2012, 10:18 pm
As product managers we are constantly bombarded with requests: Put this new feature in the product! Drop everything - I need you to travel to a customer and do a product demo! Quick, give me a competitive selling sheet by tomorrow! We don't have a tech writer - you need to write the manual! You [...]... - Lean Product Management Book27 October 2011, 4:32 pm
Looking for some new ideas on product management? Want to know the four key product-market fit challenges? Check out 280 Group’s latest book, Lean Product Management. Download the advanced reader copy now!... - Henry Ford and the Faster Horse21 September 2011, 5:44 am
Let’s pretend that Henry Ford did say that consumers would ask for a “faster horse”. The comment clearly demonstrates a lack of understanding of the primary objective of product innovation research.... - Why has Apple been so successful in the marketplace, when most products fail?2 September 2011, 8:36 pm
why has Apple has had such a significant streak of hit products over the past decade or more? Is it all Steve Jobs? Are there other factors, other causes?... - Measuring Fit for Lean Product Management24 August 2011, 4:36 am
what goes into evaluating something as subjective as product-market fit or “fit” for short. Achieving and maintaining fit is an incremental process and needs to be tested repeatedly from concept development through limited availability and post launch stages. This testing occurs through a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods.... - Defining Lean Product Management11 August 2011, 9:41 pm
Thus, Lean Product Management is a journey. It is a process of continuous learning and improvement. There is no point where we can say “We have arrived.” We can only say “we did better today than yesterday, and I believe with the following changes we can do better tomorrow than we did today.”... - Prioritization Webinar9 June 2011, 7:46 pm
Free Webinar: “Real World Product Prioritization Strategies” June 15, 10am PST http://bit.ly/kCfIYo...
- Learn Social Media Marketing at Boot Camp on 8-26 in Campbell, CA16 August 2011, 6:41 pm
Want to learn the fundamental skills of social media marketing? If you’re interested, I’ll be teaching “Social Media Marketing Boot Camp” in Campbell, California on Friday, August 26th in conjunction with our friends at the 280 Group. For the first several years Twitter existed, I was a skeptic because I mostly saw friends commenting about [...]... - Proprietary Data Formats Require Vendor Trust29 June 2011, 4:00 pm
If your product requires customers to create and maintain data in a proprietary file format, your business depends on customer trust.... - Bad Product Transition Management: Final Cut Pro X28 June 2011, 8:49 pm
Apple's mistakes in managing the launch of Final Cut Pro X and the transition from Final Cut Studio 7 illustrate how NOT to manage a product transition! Learn from Apple's mistakes.... - Product Managers: Plan for Human Error, Not For Perfection!18 April 2011, 4:00 pm
Don't assume your users will perform perfectly. Assume they will get tired, busy, distracted, hurried, and interrupted and will make mistakes. Then design your products accordingly.... - Startups, Products, and Projects: Cutting Through Noise15 April 2011, 6:28 pm
Startups, product managers, and project managers can save time by focusing on current revenue, plans for generating revenue, whether anticipated revenue supports the company's valuation, and what other value the company has to potential acquirers.... - Slides: Social Media Marketing for the Lean Startup7 April 2011, 8:34 pm
This presentation covers how to set up and configure a blog with Wordpress, search engine optimize (SEO) your web site and blog posts, promote them with twitter, RSS, and sharing icons, make and publish a video at low cost, and do video search engine optimization (VSEO).... - Slides: Introduction to Agile Project Management and Scrum7 April 2011, 7:53 pm
Covers Agile Project Management, Scrum, user stories, story points, release planning, sprints, capacity, velocity, burndown charts, the roles of the product owner, ScrumMaster, and team, key values, and classic problems with waterfall project management and product requirements documents.... - Fukushima Lesson: Beware Assumptions! They’re Prisons for the Mind!29 March 2011, 4:00 pm
Your mind is only as free as you make it. Beware unchallenged assumptions. They are a prison for your mind that you build yourself!... - Product Management Security Tip: Allow Hard Passwords!24 March 2011, 4:00 pm
Automated attacks are a greater threat than ever, so allow users to pick hard passwords that combine uppercase, lowercase, numeric, and punctuation characters.... - Fukushima Lesson: Protection Won’t Work If You Don’t Use It!23 March 2011, 4:00 pm
Don't make the mistake of applying different security or safety standards to the same critical asset at different times based on expediency. If an asset is critical, it needs to be consistently protected, not inconsistently protected....
- Social Contract for Product Managers17 February 2012, 6:13 pm
If I were starting my career in product today, I would do anything I could to get into a very innovative program at Stanford called the Stanford Design School (aka "d.school"). I absolutely love the curriculum and the faculty. But this article is not really about this program. One of the most creative minds I've ever had the good fortune to work with is Michael Dearing, and he co-teaches a graduate course called "Launchpad." A friend of mine told me about the "social ... - Product Management Then and Now23 January 2012, 2:09 pm
Occasionally in my work with technology product teams around the world, I run into product managers that are still practicing the role as it used to be defined back in the PC era of technology. These organizations are inevitably frustrated, as the role was not terribly effective and often not respected. There are many possible reasons why these organizations have never moved forward. Perhaps the leaders are simply perpetuating what they learned many years ago. Perhaps the organizatio... - Measuring Innovation12 December 2011, 1:07 am
Measuring innovation is a popular topic lately. Many product teams use Product Scorecards to keep their focus on outcomes rather than output. Eric Ries introduced the term “Innovation Accounting” for this purpose as well. However, as much as I like and advocate for these techniques of measuring true improvement to your products rather than just adding features, if this is all you look at, over time you run the very real risk of falling into The Innovator’s Dil... - Product Manager vs. Product Owner6 December 2011, 4:11 pm
All too often I run into companies that have resigned themselves to having two different people covering the product role. Usually the way they split it is they have one person responsible for interacting with customers and stakeholders (which they often call the product manager), and another to interact with the development team and manage the backlog (which they usually call the product owner).The reasoning is typically because they don’t have someone with either the skills or the ... - MVP vs. Product Vision31 October 2011, 8:40 am
Earlier I expanded on the notion of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and I promised a series of articles that explores aspects of MVP that often cause product teams confusion. In this article, I’d like to discuss the relationship between the MVP and the Product Vision. As a reminder, the Product Vision describes the types of services you intend to provide, and the types of customers you intend to serve, typically over a 2-5 year timeframe. When I meet a startup, or begin working wi... - Lean Thinking13 October 2011, 7:13 pm
A while ago I posted an article on people that I think have something really valuable to say to product leaders. One of those people I discussed was Eric Ries, author of the blog http://www.startuplessonslearned.com. I also promised that I’d share a glossary to map the nomenclature and concepts he uses with the terminology I use in my writing and my work with product teams. I held off a little on this because he has been working on a book which has just recently been publ... - The Greatest6 October 2011, 1:45 am
It may have been Muhammad Ali in the boxing world, but in the product world, it’s hard to argue that Steve Jobs wasn’t the greatest ever. He tackled immensely difficult problems, and generated products that came to define their categories and literally change the world. Just one such product can define a career, but a stream of them defines an icon, and leads to the most valuable company in the world.I can’t imagine a world without Apple, and I am grateful that I don&rsqu... - Minimum Viable Product25 August 2011, 12:51 am
One of the most important concepts in all of software is the notion of minimum viable product (often referred to as “MVP”). But if you’ve been around software products for a while, you know that term is used in many different ways, and while the term intuitively resonates with people, there’s often a lot of confusion about what this really means in practice. You can find it defined as the smallest possible experiment to test a specific hypothesis, all the way up to ... - Competition2 August 2011, 7:55 pm
One of the constants in our business is competition. Very occasionally you find a company that has established a monopoly position, but for the most part, if the market you’re serving is a real market with real customers with real needs, you either have competitors already, or you will very soon. Yet so many companies struggle to determine how to respond when a new competitor emerges. They are worried that this competitor will somehow make their product offering obsolete, or un... - Project-based Funding24 July 2011, 1:07 pm
If your company is one that still allocates product development funds based on approval of projects, then you still have the old “project-based funding model.” This is mostly a situation in either large companies, or those that have an IT-style legacy, but the mindset often exists even in small companies too. Unfortunately it’s a very bad model. I have written about this before but not as explicitely as I am here. There are three fatal problems with the project-based fund...
- Twitter mobile app updates for iPhone and Android21 February 2012, 11:34 pm
... - Coming Soon: Twitter Advertising for Small Businesses17 February 2012, 1:27 pm
... - New version of Twitter, now on for everyone16 February 2012, 9:33 pm
... - Twitter Recap: GRAMMYs 201215 February 2012, 6:33 pm
... - And the first Ad Scrimmage winner is . . .14 February 2012, 12:56 am
... - Securing your Twitter experience with HTTPS13 February 2012, 9:20 pm
... - Watch the GRAMMYs unfold on Twitter10 February 2012, 7:56 pm
... - Twitter SMS: Now available for satellite providers9 February 2012, 9:02 pm
... - Post-Bowl Twitter analysis6 February 2012, 9:06 pm
... - Roar of the crowd: Super Bowl on Twitter2 February 2012, 7:34 pm
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- Product Page Tab Usage [Omniture]6 February 2012, 10:30 am
If you sell products on your website, you will often find the need to provide detailed information to those browsing your products. For example, below you can see a product detail page for a Gas Grill. As you can see, there are tabs for Specifications, Ratings & Reviews, etc… One of the things I have [...]... - Welcome Demystifier Brian Hawkins!1 February 2012, 8:36 am
Adam, John, and I are incredibly excited to announce that industry veteran Brian Hawkins is joining Web Analytics Demystified to help us expand our offerings around testing, optimization, and personalization of all forms of digital communication. Brian is the most widely recognized expert in the field when it comes to Enterprise-class optimization and personalization technology, [...]... - Announcing the Analysis Exchange Scholarship24 January 2012, 8:28 am
Continuing our long-standing efforts to support the broader digital measurement, analysis, and optimization community around the globe, I am incredibly happy to announce the creation of the Analysis Exchange Scholarship Fund. You can read the press release and learn more about the effort at the Analysis Exchange web site, but in an nutshell thanks to [...]... - Internal Search Position Placement [Omniture]23 January 2012, 10:00 am
When it comes to searching on the Internet, where a particular search result appears in the list of results can make an enormous difference. Companies pay big bucks to SEM and SEO experts to tell them how they can be ranked higher for specific search keywords. While you cannot control all that happens to you [...]... - Big News from Web Analytics Wednesday!17 January 2012, 6:57 pm
Just a quick note of thanks to OpinionLab, ObservePoint, and Splunk who have joined I.Q. Workforce as official sponsors of our global Web Analytics Wednesday series for 2012. Thanks to these very generous organizations, my partners and I are going to be able to continue to help Web Analytics Wednesday evolve and continue to be [...]... - My New Year’s Resolutions, Demystified9 January 2012, 10:22 pm
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a relaxing and joyous Holiday season and are as excited as I am about what the coming year has in store. While I’m not much for making predictions I am a big fan of making resolutions, both personal and professional. Here are five high-level resolutions that Adam, [...]... - Integrating SiteCatalyst & Tealeaf9 January 2012, 10:00 am
In the past, I have written about ways to integrate SiteCatalyst with other tools including Voice of Customer, CRM, etc… In this post, I will discuss how SiteCatalyst can be integrated with Tealeaf and how to implement the integration. This post was inspired and co-written by my friend Ryan Ekins who used to work at [...]... - Counting ROI in Pennies with Social Media16 December 2011, 9:08 pm
“Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell.” ~ Holden Caufield, The Catcher in the Rye That is…if you let it. During our webinar yesterday Activating Your Socially Connected Business, Lee Isensee (@OMLee) and I caused a minor flurry on Twitter when I Tweeted about the results Lee showed from the IBM/comScore [...]... - Real-Time Analytics in SiteCatalyst [Omniture]12 December 2011, 9:30 am
While I have never been a huge fan of “real-time” web analytics, when Google started giving it away as part of GA, there was quite a buzz in the web analytics community. The reason I have not been such a fan of real-time analytics is not because I don’t see cases where it would be [...]... - The Evolution of Web Analytics Wednesday11 December 2011, 7:47 am
I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the community events that my partners and I have had the opportunity to create over the years lately. While a lot of the focus recently has been on ACCELERATE — the web analytics industry’s first free conference series — our efforts more will turn back to Analysis [...]...
