chris
Notes from Kathy Sierra’s Business of Software 2009 conference presentation
I’m a huge Kathy Sierra fan, so I was delighted to have this chance to watch her speak. You’re better off watching this video of Kathy Sierra speaking at the 2009 Business of Software conference, but it’s an hour long, so if you’re in a rush you may find these notes useful – I took [...]
Producty goodness – May 13, 2010
Interesting post by Andrew Chen: http://andrewchenblog.com/2010/04/07/minimum-desirable-product-and-lean-startups-slides-included/ Min desirable vs. Min viable product. He advocates that a desirable product is better in some cases (high growth consumer-facing) than a viable product at the outset. From his slideshare: the IDEO human-centered design toolkit. They offer 2 free downloads as part of the HCD: HCD Toolkit (PDF) HCD [...]
Mike Crozier animation and drawrings
SNASK from Mike Crozier. Croz is also an illustrator and graphic designer whose work is reminiscent of Barry McGee and the rest of that mid-2000′s illustration revolution that’s still in effect in design circles – lots of hand-drawn patterns and wrinkly, burly cartoon men. I’m a fan of his pizza box work, like this one: [...]
OpenSky blog series on successful sellers
I recently published a 2-part article about successful OpenSky sellers on the OpenSky blog. Check ‘em out: 5 characteristics of a successful OpenSky seller, part 1 5 characteristics of a successful OpenSky seller, part 2 Thanks to Matt Bijur from KickApps (where I worked before OpenSky, insert shareholder disclaimer here) for talking to me about [...]
Reposting web prodman resources
I have been a product manager long enough that I’ve begun to frame much of my world view in prodman terms – just this past weekend I spent an afternoon cruising the aisles of a supermarket, searching for foodstuffs and thinking “and this is exactly why folksonomies trump hierarchical taxonomies!” (if this sounds interesting, check [...]
Wireframe porn
Update: See Will Evans‘s extremely thoughtful response in the comments – there’s a method to this madness that I was unaware of when I wrote the post. Thanks Will, for calling me to task so kindly. Sketches, wireframes, and mockups are an essential part of the product development process and popular standards are beginning to [...]
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s best interview question
The NY Times recently interviewed Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. Most of the published conversation focuses on building a good corporate culture. When asked for his best interview question, Tony offered this: What would you say is the biggest misperception that people have of you? Really good one. I usually ask “if I called someone who [...]
I got a new gig, so you get a special offer? Weird.
For anyone who wasn’t on my big ole email, here’s some news from the home front: As some of you may know, I’ve recently joined OpenSky, a startup that’s changing the way people shop online. I wanted to share with you what we’re creating and ask you to get involved (yes, there’s a payout at [...]
Tim Ferriss productivity tips
Reminders from Tim Ferriss for being productive instead of being busy Via BNet. I love Tim. Seriously. Elimination, not organization, is key Single task – focus on start-to-finish completion of a few critical tasks Pareto principle (80/20) – you’ll get 80% of results from best 20% actions Divorce effort from results – performance instead of [...]
Peak shift
First read about this on Dustin Curtis’s blog, which describes an experiment where a mouse trained to find food at a rectangle will choose a more rectangular rectangle if the option presents itself. Lesson: rather than look for specific patterns, animals identify a characteristic features and look for the “peak” instance. Another example is V.S. [...]