davidkatz

I started

This is an important point. You contribute most as a designer when you control or influence whatever is necessary to get to good design. In most cases, the largest levers of influence are not in which design patterns you use, but in the business decisions that make things simple or complex.

Learn the languages that best help you build the things you want to build. Programming languages are tools, and that's all they'll ever be.

Actually that can be entirely rational. When shareholders believe that management will run said assets into the ground, they value a company under book (asset) value.

If I have two hundred dollars in my pocket and without you knowing anything else, you might assess my value at two hundred dollars. However, if I had a thousand this morning and I'm standing at a slot machine with no sign of giving up, you'd probably think my $200 are on the way out.

First impression: feels undifferentiated. It doesn't seem to be particularly quick on the data entry, or particularly powerful on the analysis and reporting side. Perhaps there's something great about it, but if so at least I didn't get the message.

A lot of companies don't appreciate the competitive space they're in.

If you're building something that addresses a novel value proposition ("a machine that turns water into wine") you can say it like it is and expect at least some conversion from an audience which cares about your promised value.

When your value proposition is something like "better product management" you're competing with dozens of products which people already use and are happy with. Just saying "we're a better tool for product management" isn't going to fly. You'll need to communicate exactly why you're better.

I appreciate the friendly "talk to us anytime and we'll walk you through it", but I think as a strategy that suffers from a similar problem. It's not going to work with a muddy value proposition, most folks just won't bother.

It is. It also happens to be very good at reporting live rocket hits fast, which makes it a valuable resource regardless of their politics (which I don't agree with).

Yo's popularity entirely rides two facts: (1) it's a silly app, (2) it got a million dollars. We currently know nothing about user engagement and retention. I'd be surprised if anyone uses it for more than a few weeks.

Anyone out here that's using TapTalk and can comment on it's quality? Is it useful/fun? What makes it better than Snapchat?

I wish this was a mac app instead of a chrome extension. So many things I want to organise don't live on the web. Photos from my iPhone, screenshots I take with my mac, pieces of text I write, etc.

Nate Silver discusses the Fox/Hedgehog division in his excellent "The Signal and the Noise" frequently, and he largely takes on the meaning proposed by Phillip Tetlock in his book on expert political judgement.

The idea that Tetlock puts forward is that pundits divide into two categories, Foxes and Hedgehogs. Hedgehogs explain the world and make predictions according to one large all encompassing principle. Foxes don't, and apply different principles to different circumstances. Tetlock concludes, and Silver endorses this, that Foxes are better at understanding the world than Hedgehogs.

An example might be the (proposed) principle that free markets lead to increased prosperity. A hedgehogy capitalist might state the above as a broadly applicable principle. A foxy capitalist might opt for something like: "yes, many times increased freedom makes us prosper, but sometimes it doesn't, it depends, let's talk about the specifics".

I take this to be an argument about complexity. The fox side of the argument is roughly that the world is more complex than most people allow for, and one principle or world view will usually not cover an area of knowledge well.

Hi there. I have some experience with building user generated content communities. If you'd like to talk, feel free to email me.