Archive for September, 2011
10 Tips on Presenting Abroad
Posted by: | CommentsIf you think giving a presentation or a speech in front of an audience can be stressful, wait till you have to give one in a foreign language or in front of a foreign audience!
Read 10 Tips on Presenting Abroad. Not just tips on presenting abroad but good tips on presenting anywhere.
Great Design isn’t Created, it is Waiting to be Discovered
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Amazing design speaks to us on an unconscious level. We appreciate it without knowing all of the pain and suffering that the designer went through to get to the final product. We appreciate it because of its utility or simplicity and its ability to add value to our lives through beauty, or helping us solve a problem in our daily lives. This is why Apple products resonate: they solve problems we all have (technology is confusing and hard to understand) and do it in a way that is beautiful.
This evening, as I sit in the Admiral’s Club lounge in LAX, I was browsing through the beautifully designed products on Dwell. Some of these products are high art, and are priced as such. Some are crafty reboots of timeless classics, with added details of beauty or utility. One such product is the Tip Ton Chair, a take on a chair a school child would use.
The Tip Ton is a beautiful, useful product, but what caught my eye wasn’t the chair, it was the quote from the chair’s designer, Edward Barber:
“We knew what the problems were but weren’t yet aware of the solutions”
This quote perfectly captures the process of design. Wonderful designs aren’t created, they are out there, waiting to be discovered. Only in order to discover them, you first have to understand the problem that needs to be solved.
Web Ink Now: You have been hacked
Posted by: | CommentsLast week while I was in Stockholm for a speaking gig, my friend Steve Johnson sent me an email with the subject line: “Have you been hacked?”
In his email to me, Steve kindly shared a screen grab of a nasty message that popped up when he tried to visit my site. He also pointed me to a Google diagnostics tool that contained all sorts of very bad news.
Yikes!
It looked bad indeed.
via Web Ink Now: You have been hacked.
Glad to help, David!
Read the full post for how this resolved. And now ask yourself: Would your company respond as quickly?
ProductCamp Minnesota
Posted by: | CommentsProductCamp Minnesota is a collaborative, user organized unconference, focused on Product Management, Development and Marketing topics. At ProductCamp Minnesota there are no “attendees,” since everyone participates in some manner: presenting, leading a roundtable discussion, helping with logistics, securing sponsorship, setting up wifi, or volunteering. ProductCamp Minnesota is a great opportunity for you to learn from, teach, and network with professionals involved in the Product Management, Marketing, and Development process from the Twin Cities area!
via ProductCamp Minnesota 3 – PCamp – Marketing- Eventbrite.
Join folks from the area and from around the country on Saturday, November 12, 2011. We’ll be there. Will you?
How Hewlett-Packard Lost the HP Way – Bill Taylor – Harvard Business Review
Posted by: Steve Johnson on September 23, 2011 | Comments (0)That said, it is possible. I was struck that as the West Coast watched with agony at HP’s implosion, the East Coast watched with celebration as IBM marked its 100th anniversary with a two-day global summit in New York’s Lincoln Center. I’m convinced that the deep-seated transformation of IBM over the last 20 years, and its capacity to remain in the vanguard of the technology sector for literally 100 years, is the most underrated story of corporate renewal and relevance in the world. What the leadership of IBM has done, that leadership of HP has been unable to do, is to overthrow a successful company. That is, to remake a glorious enterprise, born in one business environment, for an entirely new business environment, to rethink strategies and practices and markets, without reneging on the values and principles and cultures that fueled that glory in the first place.
Read more in How Hewlett-Packard Lost the HP Way – Bill Taylor – Harvard Business Review.