I’m reading a new book called Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure. It’s a fantastic book, and if you’re a CEO or CTO of a startup, or an innovator, or anyone who tries new things, you should read it. In the book, author Tim Harford makes the case that trial-and-error, done intelligently, constantly outperformsRead… Read more »
Yesterday I was talking with Edd Dumbill, who runs the O’Reilly Strata conference, about big data. Edd said, “I think we’re moving out of the phase of data as pretty pictures and into a phase of data as something actionable…. We (at Strata) want to enable companies to become data-driven companies.” That was an interestingRead… Read more »
Co-authors Bill Jensen and Josh Klein are interviewing people for a book they’re writing called 100 Disruptive Heroes. As they interview people, they stick the videos up on YouTube for anyone and everyone to see. Last week Bill interviewed me for the book, and here is the resulting video. Admission: I have not actually hadRead… Read more »
I’m starting to think about cities more and more in terms of user experience. It works pretty well as a metaphor – maybe so well that you don’t even need to call it a metaphor at all. When you’re navigating the city, you want certain things to happen, you want a nice experience, just asRead… Read more »
If you’ve been reading this blog over the past few months, you’ve probably seen some passing mentions of the company faberNovel and the innovative work they do. I’m excited to announce today that I’m joining them to work as their Head of New York Operations. faberNovel is a very interesting company. (I personally think ofRead… Read more »
Is it me, or does it suddenly seem like everyone is so busy that they hardly have time to return each others’ email, let alone get together for coffee to discuss how to take over the world? (Or save the world, or disrupt the world, or just have coffee). That’s definitely been me and theRead… Read more »
This weekend, after living in NYC for seven years, we got an EZ Pass. As we whizzed by a toll line on the RFK bridge that was a good fifteen minutes long, my wife asked “Why didn’t we have one of these before?” I answered, “Because they haven’t built EZ Pass to make it easyRead… Read more »
Things have been quiet here lately because I’ve been in Paris for the past 5 days, talking to some friends at faberNovel, a very cool company that works in what they call “innovation services”, and also creates co-working spaces. They have their hands in a whole lot of interesting projects and ideas, some of whichRead… Read more »
I was helping to run a user testing session yesterday for a startup I’m helping out. Early on in the conversation, when asked if the woman would consider showing the app to her friends and getting them to use it, she replied, “Sometimes people are overwhelmed with all the apps, and you know, it’s justRead… Read more »
Last week the new app Color launched, a service that lets you take pictures on your phone and share them with people in your immediate vicinity. Soon after the app debuted to mediocre reviews, it was discovered that the founders had managed to raise $41 million for their first, pre-launch round. Let’s leave aside forRead… Read more »