personal

Clayton Christensen and Siri

Clayton Christensen and Siri: But it takes time. Like any truly useful breakthrough, it takes a long time to mature. And also like any disruption, the potential of Siri is rooted in four principles:

  • Humble early goals which it accomplishes well
  • A large population of enthusiastic adopters who give it sustenance
  • Plenty of headroom in improvement giving it areas to grow into with positive feedback
  • A patient sponsor who makes a stable living

There’s no magic to it. In fact it’s banal. These are only the principles that every parent uses to raise a child.

[I’d love for a large population of enthusiastic adopters to give Noah sustenance. Queue starts on the right… thanks! :)]
Source: asymco

Was it ever mine?

Was it ever mine?: How different this notion is from a sense of scarcity, of needing to learn to let go each and every time we give.  I find this notion freeing.  We approach giving with the knowledge that what we are giving away was never ours; we approach giving with a sense of humility and with the knowledge that good fortune has played a role in our own good circumstances, and we are passing on a bit of that good fortune to another.

[Very well said. I can’t help wonder if this notion eases my ability to give. That is, if it was never mine, it’s easier to give. What if I consider it all mine? Is it harder? Still working on this for myself.]
Source: Sasha Dichter’s Blog

Open conversations (or close them)

Open conversations (or close them):

A guy walks into a shop that sells ties. He’s opened the conversation by walking in.

Salesman says, “can I help you?”

The conversation is now closed. The prospect can politely say, “no thanks, just looking.”

Consider the alternative: “That’s a [insert adjective here] tie you’re wearing, sir. Where did you buy it?”

Conversation is now open. Attention has been paid, a rapport can be built. They can talk about ties. And good taste.

Or consider a patron at a fancy restaurant. He was served an old piece of fish, something hardly worth the place’s reputation. On the way out, he says to the chef,

“It must be hard to get great fish on Mondays. I’m afraid the filet I was served had turned.”

If the chef says, “I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy your meal…” then the conversation is over. The patron has been rebuffed, the feedback considered merely whining and a matter of personal perspective.

What if the chef said instead, “what kind of fish was it?” What if the chef invited the patron back into the kitchen to take a look at the process and was asked for feedback?

Open conversations generate loyalty, sales and most of all, learning… for both sides.

[Of course, these simple examples (as important and relevant though they may be in context) are important as a lesson. Many of us get used to closing conversation. What if we were more open even if not directly related to our job? And the flip side. I’ve had many open conversations about a wide range of topics without anyone in the room telling me something important like “I’d prefer you work this way…” or “Why don’t you do more of this?”. Watch out for that…]
Source: Seth’s Blog

via Frank : For Steve

via Frank : For Steve: We all have that same opportunity. Take a moment to consider your job. Boil it down to its essence: you make things for other people. The most important concept to learn from Jobs is embedded in how we feel after using one of his products. That very same thing is happening now in his wake. Look closely and you will see it: wonderful experiences have an afterglow to them. The delight we find in what we do is in some way lost in the moment, but captured in our memories.

[There’s been a lot of lessons to remember lately. Trying to embed them more deeply in my life right now.]

The Friends We Never Meet

The Friends We Never Meet: I’ve watched people — friends — die from cancer. It’s horrible. And I saw in his face that he knew, just like they knew.

There’s so much more I’d like to say. Comparisons with exceptional people I respect from history and how rarely and brightly their lights shine, so rarely that we can name many of them even hundreds or thousands of years later. Or the fleeting nature of life, and how important it is that we do our best with what time and resources we have.

But mostly, since I learned in a text message from Corinne that “Steve Jobs died”, I’ve been thinking about friends we never meet. People we interact with every day but in a very one-sided way, and how they can be important to us without them ever knowing it.

And how it hurts to lose them, even if they were never really there.

[Brilliantly said.]
Source: Truer Words – A Journal

Know what to give a sh*t about

★ Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot:

One of Jobs’s many gifts was that he knew what to give a shit about. He knew how to focus and prioritize his time and attention.

[And is one of the most critical skills any of us can develop. Not just the ability to prioritize, or the often mistaken-as-a-skill being able to blow stuff off. But the true, “focusing on the important things”. Thoughtfully deciding that something is worth the limited amount of time and attention and focus we have, and choosing that this, right now, is the thing. Because not doing that is a waste of what limited time we have. Even the longest life is short measured in time. Lisa wondered how long after Steve’s passing I would say something to her about the fact that he was only 9 years older than I am now. I did tonight. If today was my last day was it well spent? And not in the overly dramatic way that sounds at first read. I often must be careful with my capability to be maniacally intense, and I work on the balance needed to focus that kind of energy. I’ve often been asked “be more like this person or that person”. I don’t always fit comfortably into other people’s worlds. In my personal life that’s not a problem, but it is something that affects my work life. It’s time to ensure that I don’t live in that situation for any length of time any more. It’s draining and uncomfortable, and it wastes what precious time I have. Today I got a chance to have some heartfelt conversations, crack a bottle of wine with some friends, and care for Noah. Now, I’m going to snuggle with my wife, and put this day in the “attaboy” column. With Yom Kippur arriving tomorrow eve, may everyone be signed and sealed for a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year. May anyone mourning the passing of loved one this past year find comfort and grace and joy in the new one.]
Source: Daring Fireball

Occupy Silicon Valley?

Occupy Silicon Valley?: Instead of bundling parcels of mortgages and turning them into derivatives, they bundle up parcels of people and turn them into masses of users, who generate content. Then they sell access to those users for a price, to other businesses. The problem is that as growth levels off, and it’s sure to do that (how many more groups of 800 million can Facebook find, and where will they have to go to find them, and who will they have to sell out to to get there) — they’re going to have to take more from those users. Zuck calls it “sharing.” The rest of us call it “privacy.” [I find it interesting that the vast majority of friends and family have barely any network/social presence at all.]
Source: Scripting News

The Cloud’s My-Mom-Cleaned-My-Room Problem – Alexis Madrigal

The Cloud’s My-Mom-Cleaned-My-Room Problem – Alexis Madrigal:

Netflix, Twitter, and Google make unasked-for, unanticipated, and unstoppable change in their products, which also happen to be our work and play spaces.

and

But the freedom of usage that defined personal computing does not extend to the world of parental computing. This isn’t a bug in the way that cloud services work. It is a feature. What we lose in freedom we gain in convenience. Maybe the tradeoff is worth it. Or maybe it’s something that just happened to us, which we’ll regret when we realize the privacy, security, and autonomy we’ve given up to sync our documents and correspondence across computers.

[The thing to remember is that we do not have to give up one to have the other. We can have document syncing etc. without living “in our parents house” simply by paying for the services. We can have our privacy and our freedom. But it has a cost.]

Google gave ‘the ultimatum only a monopolist can give’

Google gave ‘the ultimatum only a monopolist can give’: For me, the testimony of Yelp’s Stoppelman and Nextag CEO Jeff Katz was the most compelling, because it came from Web-based entrepreneurs who know all too well how the game is played.

Here’s the crux of the story Stoppelman told the senators: 

“The experience in my industry is telling. Google forces review websites to provide their content for free to benefit Google’s own competing product, not consumers. Google then gives its own product preferential treatment in Google search results.

“Google first began taking our content without permission a year ago. Despite public and private protests, Google gave the ultimatum that only a monopolist can give: In order to appear in Web search, you must allow us to use your content to compete against you. As everyone in this room knows, not being in Google is equivalent to not existing on the Internet. We had no choice.”

Google softened its stance, according to Stoppelman, only after the FTC announced an antitrust investigation, the states’ attorneys general took notice, and the Senate antitrust committee proposed this hearing.

The text of Stoppelman’s written testimony is available here.

[The usual mess…]
Source: FORTUNE: Apple 2.0

The Age of Mechanical Reproduction

The Age of Mechanical Reproduction:

Paul Ford, back in July, a lovely gut-wrenching piece for The Morning News. Read it, you won’t regret it. Then, when you’re done, read today’s postscript.

[Many years ago I had a discussion with Lisa about “how far to go” to have a baby. What interventions were cool, and what was “it wasn’t meant to be” for us. This brought all of it back… and 6 years of incredible joy. I wonder if my answer would be different knowing what I know…]
Source: Daring Fireball