Work Smart & Play More

"Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of..."

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:29:17 -0400

“Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.”

- Henry Ford

A little fsck'ing, if done properly can put a smile on your face

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 10:54:00 -0400

I turned on my computer last night to find that it wouldn’t boot, opposite of smile. It would try, but then either just shutdown or I would get the Apple GSD (Gray Screen of Death).

My first concern was my data and specifically my pictures, I have a ton of images. After a brief panic attack, I remind myself of my backups. I have nightly scripts setup that back up my important files to a local external hard drive as well as a remote server.

I have a couple of recovery CDs, but couldn’t get the computer to boot from them rendering them useless. Just an FYI, the computer that was having issues is an iMac using a wireless keyboard & trackpad. As useful as the wireless keyboard is, it didn’t serve me well last night. There are keyboard commands you can press as the computer boots up to put it in different modes, but doesn’t work so well for Bluetooth keyboards. This is because the commands need to be entered early in the boot process and the keyboard isn’t recognized just yet. Luckily I have an older computer in the house that uses a wired keyboard. So, I kicked my daughter off of Facebook and stole her keyboard.

The first thing I try is to boot in Safe Mode, you can do this by pressing the Shift key during boot. No luck, same issues.

Next is to boot in Single User mode, Command + S during boot. This brings you to a command prompt. Having spent a good amount of time on Linux machines I’m fairly comfortable getting around in a shell. Once at the command line I immediately check that I could access my user files, all good there. I assumed that there was something wrong with the boot files. I then run the ‘fsck -f’ command, this does a file system check and the -f forces the fixes. Bad news: I get a error message stating
I/O error. Invalid node structures
** The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified **

A little more panic sets in, but I realized the fsck is a wrapper for multiple file system checks. After a little Googling, I found the command fsckhfs. This is the command specific to my hard drive format, HFS. I then run ‘fsckhfs -rf /dev/disk0s2’. The disk0s2 is the specific partition that was having a problem. The original ‘fsck -f’ command gave me that information. This did the trick, the corruptions were fixed and the machine booted normally.

I ran the Disk Utility application upon reboot and it looked like there were still some issued that fsck_hfs didn’t resolve. I had to reboot the computer with Command + R pressed. This brought me to a Recovery screen in which I could run the Disk Utility again. I selected the Repair Disk option and all is good in the world again, big smiles.

Some Thoughts from SXSW

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:14:00 -0400

What do artists, brands, technologists, filmmakers, and musicians all have in common? Two weeks of the best mashup our industries could want, I’m talking about none other than SXSW, hosted in Austin, TX.

For a first timer, SXSW is completely overwhelming. There are multiple sessions going on all at the same time at multiple locations throughout Austin’s downtown area. This event takes over the city, both day and night. There are just as many things to do after hours as there are during the day. The one saving grace was the SXSW app. It allowed me to manoeuvre through the event with so much greater ease. I attended this event with my colleague from our London office, Kashif Hasan. This was the first time for the both of us. I now have a much better idea of how to approach this event next year as I definitely plan on coming back. There is just so much to soak up, I came away from this event inspired not only for my company, but also for my clients.

If you plan to go to SXSW, here are a few tips:

Book everything - flight, accomodation - early
If you want to be right in the middle of everything, then stay at the Hilton
Get your badge as early as possible; the lines after the first day were ridiculously long. Some folks said they waited in line for a couple of hours to get their badge. I got mine on the first day and waited maybe 20 minutes max
Plan your sessions one day at a time, don’t try to schedule everything up front, it’s just too overwhelming
For the big keynotes, get there at least 30 mins early and expect to wait in line. Most of the keynotes are broadcast to other rooms, so if you are really far back in the line, go to some of these rooms
Make sure you make time to enjoy yourself

The energy was amazing, just being around so many creative people makes you think differently about how you approach ideas. The overall event seemed to start off a little slow, it rained for the first couple of days so everyone tended to stay indoors. Once the weather picked up the mood and vibe completely changed, the entire area was energized.

There is too much to go over in a single post, so I wanted to highlight just a few themes that were discussed during the sessions.

Are UX consultants the new brand guardians?

More and more our online and digital experience with a company helps define the brand for good or bad. Because this is so important should the torch of brand guardianship be handed over to UX consultants? There are pros and cons to both sides of this argument, but in the end we need to be cognizant of the entire user experience across multiple mediums and not just the digital space. If we define our UX consultants more broadly and focus on the entire experience across multiple channels, then yes there is a possibility for the torch to be handed over.

Companies need to be listening to what their customers are saying about them and not just what they are saying to them.

Everyone now has the ability to publish favorable and not so favorable information about companies to the general public. Given this reality, more and more of our truths are being defined by the public. Companies need to learn how to harness that information. This applies not only when an individual publishes some content directly to a company, but also when they are talking about a specific industry. An example would be if someone published a tweet that a particular hotel was overbooked and that person did not have anywhere to stay, a savvy competitor should be monitoring tweets for hotel chains in their area. This would allow them to offer a room to that individual if they had the availability. In this scenario, the savvy competitor wasn’t just listening to tweets to them, but also about their competitors.

This is just the first of many installments. Please stay tuned and feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss any of these topics further.

Putting ideas to the test

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:55:01 -0400

By nature I’m a tinkerer; I like to play around with new and different things. So when I have an idea the first thing that comes to mind is that I have to try it out. I recently came across an issue in which I tried to register for a Twitter handle, but it was already taking by someone. I’m sure that I’m not the only one that has experienced this problem. The issue in this situation is the this particular handle has become stale, meaning that the person has never sent a tweet and the account was created in 2010. This was the seed that generated the inspiration for my idea.

Twitter is just one location in which this could occur, there are plenty of other examples: domains, Tumblr, Facebook, etc. I started to search for online exchanges, in which individuals could procure or release handles from someone else. There are plenty of sites for domain exchanges, but I couldn’t find anything for other types of digital handles. So what is a tinkerer like myself going to do? … go out and build it myself.

Fade to stage left, in comes handleswap.com. I decided to start coding again and build a site in which people can identify what handles they either want to acquire (swapin) or release (swapout). The initial focus is on Twitter handles, because they have a decent API and I wanted to solve my immediate problem, which was to get the handle I’m looking for.

Currently it is against Twitter’s policies to buy or sell handles, so handleswap.com doesn’t deal with the actual exchanging of handles just yet. (Don’t tell anyone, but this is being worked on.) What you can do however, is to let people know the handles you want to swapin or swapout. The best part is that all you have to so is send a tweet.

To SwapOut a handle, just send a tweet and include “@handleswap #swapout”. This will let the system know that the owner of the tweet wants to release that particular handle.

To SwapIn a handle(s), send a tweet and include @handleswap #swapin as well as include the twitter handles you would like to acquire, eg: “@handleswap #swapin @handleyouwant, @secondhandle”.

If you feel that this idea is worth pursuing, please let me know by sending a tweet to swapin or swapout a Twitter handle.

Not just nerds in a corner

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:13:00 -0400

I was inspired to start blogging again after attending a talk given by the CEO of Etsy, Chad Dickerson. The talk focused around the importance of the engineering culture at Etsy and how it’s helping the company move faster than they thought they could. For those that don’t know Chad, @chaddickerson on Twitter, was the CTO until July of this year and has been the driving force behind Etsy’s engineering team. Chad discussed how at Etsy, they have a “just ship” mentality that has manifested itself as a means to ship code to production by anyone at anytime, even by members of the board.

Although I am a strong proponent of continuous deployments, I’m not going to argue the merits in this post (we will save that for another time). I would however like to focus on an underlying theme that was touched upon during the talk. The reason why Chad was able to build such a culture within Etsy is their view on technology. The engineering team is a true partner in the business and not just to the nerds that are put in a corner and only consulted with when there is a system problem. Looking at the technology teams as core to the business allows for more collaboration between the groups creating better alignment on the overall company objectives. It seems like such an obvious thing, but in my experience the technology teams are typically treated like the little brother that you don’t want but have to keep around. Lets face it, almost all businesses today rely on technology for day-to-day operations, and Etsy is no exception. The technology is the backbone of that organization. I don’t want to trivialize the amount of effort that I’m sure the team put in to get to this point, this was not an overnight process. The point I’m trying to make is that the company supported this approach and could have only been accomplished with that support. Chad, please keep up what you are doing, you are not only a great example for technology companies to follow, but I think for CEOs of all types.

You can find out more about Etsy’s engineering culture at their Code As Craft blog.

Found this in my back yard. (Taken with Instagram at Home)

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 23:22:11 -0400

Found this in my back yard. (Taken with Instagram at Home)

Most thoughtful gift

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:17:00 -0400

I consider myself a very fortunate man. I have everything I need. I’m not bragging, this is just how I feel. Because of this, when asked on special occasions (b-days, father’s day, etc.) what I want or what people should get me, my typical response is “I don’t need anything.” I realize that this can be frustrating for family & friends that are trying to do something nice for me. No one feels this frustration more than my wife. So what do you purchase for someone that doesn’t need anything? You get them something that can not be bought, and that is exactly what my wife did. For father’s day this year, she gave me something we could all use more of, time.

After a fantastic breakfast that she and the kids made for me, she got everyone ready and took the kids to work with her. My gift for father’s day was time to myself. This is something I haven’t had in a very long time. I could do what ever I wanted for the day. In case you are curious, I went to the movies and took a long walk through the Great Swamp.

This gift of time allowed me to clear my mind and reflect on what I consider important & valuable in my life. We spend too much of our lives IN our lives, not able to take a step back and appreciate what it is that we have.

Time slips by too quickly, as I’m reminded everyday when I look at my oldest daughter. Against my approval, she has transformed from a cute little girl to a beautiful young woman. The lesson here is to make the effort to enjoy your life and the people in it, you only get one shot at it.

True Strength & Beauty A friend posted this on her Facebook...

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:09:22 -0400

True Strength & Beauty

A friend posted this on her Facebook page and I thought it was worth sharing with more people. Ami, I am humbled by your strength and honored to call myself your friend.

Why is the why more important than the what?

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:11:06 -0400

I haven’t pooped in a while, so I figured it was time. Take it easy, I’m not being literal, I’m referring to an older post I wrote.

Have you ever wondered why some people’s thoughts/ideas solicit more of a reaction than others? Why do some companies have a stronger following than their competitors in the same business. According to the speaker in this video below it has to do more with how things are being communicated as opposed to what is being communicated. Not only that, but when things are communicated in this specific manner our reaction is more biological than it is psychological . I think the speaker does a better job of describing this than I could, so take a look a the video.

So the question to each one of us is, what is our purpose?

Song of the day, dedicated to my wife. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

Wed, 26 May 2010 09:00:00 -0400

Song of the day, dedicated to my wife.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

"May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows."

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:17:38 -0400

“May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows.”

- Jay-Z (that’s whom I got it from, not sure of his source)

"Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means."

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:13:22 -0500

“Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means.”

- Dr. Koichi Kawana

I’m sure by now most people have heard that today Apple...

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:15:00 -0500

I’m sure by now most people have heard that today Apple announced their new multi-touch device. There are some that think this is the best new thing from Apple. For me however, I was greatly disappointed by this device. Not only is the iPad name a poor choice, I think the video explains why, but it’s just an iTouch with a larger screen, and a new application to read e-books. Big Deal.

I guess I set my expectations too high. From a form factor standpoint, it is basically what I would have liked to see. Functionality, however, is definitely lacking. I would have liked to see a fully functional computer running OS X that was multi-touch enabled. This would have allowed for a whole new range of applications.

I guess, I’m going to have to suck it up and wait some more for Apple to create a real tablet device.

OMG: brains can’t handle all our Facebook friends - Times Online

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 09:25:53 -0500

OMG: brains can’t handle all our Facebook friends - Times Online:

I find this study interesting on a couple of fronts. First, I have 236 friends on Facebook as of today. According to this study, I should probably purge a few folks from my friend list ;-)

The second reason I find this interesting is looking at this from a company/organization perspective. I’ve often heard complaints that companies get too large and take on minds of their own. That organizations turn into smaller groups competing for internal resources and not working in what would be in the best interest of the overall organization. Is it just that the internal social networks get too large and the personal connections are lost? I’m a firm believer that it’s people that run organizations and not the other way around. However, when the personal connections are broken or lost, its only human nature to act in your network’s/department’s best interest.

So a note for entrepreneurs, if you want to maintain a tight, well focused team, keep it under the magic 150 number.

Tired of the same old background wallpaper

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:58:47 -0500

Tired of the same old background wallpaper:

Just one example

Moved to tumblr

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:05:00 -0500

Moved to tumblr:

I just moved my blog to tumblr.com. My previous site was hosted via Wordpress.com, I just found it too heavy weight. Lets see if I can contribute more content with tumblr.com.

Where has the joy gone?

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:43:00 -0400

I think I found it (the joy that is) at a bar in Montclair, NJ called Just Jakes. My wife and I had gone to see a friend and his band, Hyperactive, play the other night and had an incredible time. Not only was the diversity of music (that ranged from funk to rock to swing to ska) fantastic, but I saw something that night that I hadn’t seen in a really long time. The guys on stage were doing something that they loved. They were performing not because they HAD to, but for the pure joy that they got out of it. Everyone in the band has a day job; but they have found an outlet for the passion of music. Watching these guys got me thinking about the fact that our lives are so focused around work and the daily grind. We tend to lose sight of the fact that it IS possible to have fun. Unfortunately, too many of us spend time working and doing things because we HAVE to and not because we really WANT to. For most of us, our jobs are avenues to make money in order to pay bills as opposed to passions to live and abide by.

As I gazed in amazement at the band, my attention turned to my friend Joe, the lead vocalist. When he is not playing gigs, he spends his days as the wine director of a shop in Bernardsville, NJ called 56 Degree Wine. My immediate thought was, what a lucky bastard. He gets to travel the world to drink wine, which he then writes about on his blog, Le Monstre Du Vin (this means The Wine Monster - I had to look it up) during the week and then plays music at clubs/bars on the weekends. The more I thought about it, I realized that it wasn’t luck at all. He designed his lifestyle to accomodate these two worlds. Joe found a way to take one of his passions and make a living from it, while still having fun with his passion for music. My sentiments then went from jealousy to admiration. Here is a guy that is so passionate about wine and music that instead of pushing these passions aside to maintain his life, he embraced them and decided to make a living from them.

The lesson I think we can all learn from Joe and others like him is that we don’t all HAVE to do things that make us unhappy. The key strategy is to identify your passions, and then have the courage to chase them down. Now don’t get me wrong - I’m not suggesting that everyone immediately quit their jobs so that they can have fun all day. It’s not always that easy. I think in many cases, it is MORE work to pursue your passions than to just make a living. What I recommend is that everyone try to find something that they enjoy doing… and then spend more time doing it. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if more of us spent time feeling satisfaction and joy from our day vs just going through the motions to “get by?”

Life mimicking art

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:50:19 -0500

Or is it the other way around?

If you liked the movie Minority Report, or at least thought the technology scenes were cool, you’re going to love this. A company has built an operating systems that leverages hand gestures to manipulate the information presented on the screen. One of the founders of Oblong was a science advisor on the movie and based the designs of those scenes on his work at MIT.

I’m especially excited about this because my company has been working on a software application that takes data from disparate sources and allows multiple remote individuals to interact with that data in real time. We have focused our efforts primarily on the data integration and collaboration aspects of the system. Next steps are to apply an easy and intuitive user interface to the application. This video has given me a lot of ideas on where we can take our application.

What business leaders can learn from the military

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:58:27 -0500

I recently came across a term called Commander’s Intent (CI). I briefly mentioned it in a previous post.

The core idea behind CI is:

The commander’s stated vision which defines the purpose of an operation
The end state with respect to the relationship among the force, the enemy and the terrain
The enabling of subordinates to quickly grasp the successful end state and their part in achieving it

To put it more plainly, it’s the military’s version of the KISS principal. There are too many variables that will dictate the actions taken by the forces on the ground. There is no way every action can be planned out. This is where the CI comes into play. Each person has a clear understanding of the overall objective. Each person will do what needs to be done in order to achieve that objective.

I think that the business world can learn from the concept of Commander’s Intent. The CI defines the where and the why; a finite objective, a way of behaving, or a desired result. This is significantly different than a vision statement that is difficult to pin-point. It’s a leader’s job to provide clear directions/goals for the business and to ensure that his/her team understands those goals and why they are important. It’s then up to the team to execute and achieve those goals.

Using the concept of CI instead of a vision statement also aligns the goals of the different teams, departments, and organizations involved. Because the objectives are more concrete. Any time you align the goals and motivation of a group of people, you achieve significantly better results.

When a business leader tells you what the desired goals are and then lets you go and do it, they are letting you know that they have trust in your abilities to get the job done. Trust between people is the foundation on which effective organizations are created.

The continual communication about the CI is critical to every business. You can/should modify the means of the message, but not the message itself. Aligning everyone’s goals sets the stage for success.

Eat like a bird, poop like an elephant

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:45:46 -0400

I realize that this is a fairly strange title, but it is actually a quote from Rules for Revolutionaries a book by Guy Kawasaki. I haven’t read the book as of yet, but it is on the list to read.

The quote “Eat like a bird, poop like an elephant.” is actually a philosophy that I have adopted recently.

It is fairly simple, consume as much information as you can; read, have conversations and be open to new ideas/concepts.

- Eat like a bird (birds eat a lot & often)

Spread the knowledge as much as you can, share what you have learned with others. This is partly what I’m trying to do with this blog.

- poop like an elephant (elephants poop a lot)

I thought this was worth pooping (sharing) ;-)