2013 May 10

A Good Example of Metrics

The Jerusalem Post on Thursday 9 May 2013 had a simple op-ed on affordable housing in Israel. My interest here is not the political side of it - which is most of what the article addresses - but the good use of metrics the author, Ron Diller, uses to lead off on the article. The author takes the average home sale price in Tel Aviv, average family income price, and relates the two.

2013 May 8

When Lawyers Get In The Way, Part II: When Your Company Really Learns

Last week, I posted a detailed account of my experience trying, as a customer, to help Bauer Hockey improve their products and customer relations. Today, I received a first-class email from Ken Covo, VP of R&D at Bauer Hockey. This was the most forthright, honest and learning contact I have ever received from a company. Not only did Mr. Covo recognize the effort I put into helping them improve their products, for no remuneration at all, but he recognized that the incident showed that the product feedback process is broken, and that they need to change it so they can get, as he put it, a "

2013 May 8

Bitcoin Again: Inflation

In an online discussion on Bitcoin, kidmercury pointed out an error of mine, related to Bitcoin (BTC) and inflation. In the earlier post, I mentioned that all fiat currencies, controlled by central bankers, are subject to inflation for technical reasons (bankers misjudge the amount of currency necessary), and political reasons (bankers know they need fewer dollars or euros, but by printing too much, they inflate the currency, reducing the cost of already outstanding debt to the government).

2013 May 6

Airlines to Tel Aviv and financial metrics

I love a good metric, one that provides critical insight into how a business is operating in one glance. It is never the whole story, there are always caveats, but the usage of the right metric is incredibly insightful (and, for lax management, "inciteful"). It can also lead to a dramatic change in behaviour. I once proposed a "Deployment Velocity" metric for a cloud company: +1 for every successful deployment, -1 for every deployment that: has deployment issues, does not solve what it is supposed to solve, or break anything that worked before.

2013 May 5

Bitcoin follow-on - I lead the WSJ by three days

Three days after I published my piece on Bitcoin, the WSJ's weekend interview, available here, is with the Chief Scientist of Bitcoin. I have always enjoyed their weekend interviews, even - or perhaps especially - when I disagreed with the interviewee. As a consultant and writer who is not a professional journalist, I do not have the time or access of the WSJ to conduct these interviews, so I am grateful they did.

2013 May 2

When lawyers get between you and your customers

I play ice hockey. I love it. Of course, hockey is a sport that requires gear; lots and lots of gear. After all, you not only need skates and a stick, but lots of protective equipment, bags to carry the equipment in, tape of various types, and so on. Since I play in multiple locations around the world, and have kids who play, I have quite a lot of hockey gear.

2013 May 1

Why is Bitcoin Suddenly So Interesting?

In the last few weeks, I have seen a surge in interest in Bitcoin from multiple sources. There were negative reports, such as those describing possible currency manipulation and the possible failure of one Bitcoin exchange. Then a report in the WSJ described that PayPal may be interested in accepting Bitcoin as an official currency. And yesterday, BusinessInsider reported that Chris Dixon, a top Silicon Valley VC and partner at Andreessen Horowitz, the firm founded by Netscape inventor Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, is "

2013 Mar 21

Advertising Works, Even if You Don't Click... Even if You Hate It!

Slate Magazine had a fascinating article yesterday about how Facebook intends to make money. In the early years of Internet advertising, the assumption by most was that the Internet was better than traditional (print or television or radio) advertising for two key reasons: Impressions: Internet gave you the ability to show it to exactly the right number and kind of people, the ability to target impressions. This is just a more effective form of traditional print/TV/radio advertising, and is paid for in CPM (cost per thousand impressions).

2013 Mar 20

Getting employees to take risks... which are good

The WSJ had a great article today on the challenges managers have in getting employees to take risks. It profiled a number of companies wherein they had been in survival mode for a long time, and employees had gotten used to being cautious. As one managing director told me at an overseas bank where I worked in the US operations, "the nail that stands out gets hammered." In his case, I believe it was meant to be a rebuke - I am usually the nail that stands out for advocating change and risk - but the mindset of being cautious was clearly there.

2013 Mar 9

Why I Still Write Code

I grew up an engineer. You could almost say being an engineer defines me. When I worked as a manager of engineers, and I would go recruit staff, I would tell recruiters - in-house and external - that I wanted "engineers." "Ah, they would say, you want developer," or perhaps "programmers" or even "administrators." "No, I want engineers." They would ask, "what's the difference?" My response was always the same.