Supernice feed that is simple for me to use. I clicked the buttons and everything seemed easy enough to understand. I don't really get some of the comments here as I find the UI easy to understand as in I clicked everything, it worked, then I understood it.same as I do for every new site I encounter..
(Disclaimer: Friend of one of the guy's behind this.)
On official US Govt site, it says you need an award, e.g. nobel prize for O1. But that is a complete exaggeration as many people have rather average creditentials getting the O1. Having a good degree is enough for several people. Everything in addition helps.
"We’ve always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments, these moments when we dared to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known. We count these moments as our proudest achievements. But we lost all that. And perhaps we’ve just forgotten that we are still pioneers and we’ve barely begun. And that are greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, as our destiny lies above us."
This analogy started as a way to explain the scene to friends and stretches further to include company builders, patents, bootstrapping and pirates. But keeping this post under five minutes to read.
In this interview, Gentry Underwood explains why good design is based upon constant iteration. He sheds light on the importance of having a desire in solving a particular problem. We also talk about getting acquired, working at IDEO, and the role Human Centred Design played within Mailbox.
What is the motivation for Kicktrolling? Who would a kicktroller be? I don't get it.
i) Person who just wants to be a dick.
ii) Person with personal vendetta against the project creator
iii) Company looking to fend off competitors much the way of clicking lots of links to burn through a competitors ppc on adword.
Taking inspiration from Urban Design where a path runs along the outside of a park expecting everyone to take the architected route. However people cut through the middle when they don't like the given route, following their desire path. Over time, the grass wastes away from the thousands of footsteps and bicycles that take their preferred route. The park owners have a choice to put up a sign saying "Do not walk on the grass" or altenatively pave the new path.
In business, when consumers take a new path, there is an option to pave their path as a new product line. Watch Tom's talk above to see how Facebook didn't pave their users desire path giving space for snapchat to grow. An example where a business put up the "do not walk on the grass" sign is Kickstarter who blogged, "Kickstarter is not a store," moving away from the desire path.
In this case, the CEO of T-mobile has helped a user cross the middle of the park, the question remains whether he should pave it.
What about a simple porter analysis of Apple, still in a strong position, but not as strong as several years ago.
Power of New Entrants: Xiaomi
Power of Substitutes: Google Glass
Power of Customers: demand for low cost iphone
Power of Suppliers: Moving back to US manufacturing?
Power of Competitors: All the big tech companies.
Also a fantastic article on Disruption from The Kernal. Key insight is that companies are very aware of disruption considering it irresponsible for any board of a large technology incumbent not to have read 'Innovator's Dilemna.'
THE STORY WE ALL KNOW
"Kodak built film cameras, and made money on the film, the classic “Gillette” business model, and was so obsessed with this profit stream that it completely missed the tidal wave of digital photography and the internet"
INTERESTING ADDITION
"The next step for digital photography wasn’t the internet. It was point-and-shoots. Canon and Fujitsu. Kodak was so focused on disrupting itself and not falling into the trap of the innovator’s dilemma that it lost a grip on its core business. It turned out that in order to remain relevant in the internet age, it just had to make good cameras."
Basic point made is that a user cares more about the design of a product that matches our desires, that is more human, more elegant over whether it simply goes faster.
"We no longer want a faster computer, but one we like more."
Had a really interesting conversation the other night about sites that offer consumers an honest ranking of things such as a place to eat. When they monetise through businesses that care little for the honest rankings and only desire strength for their own personal ranking, there is a conflict of interest. When power is placed completely in hands of consumer, power corrupts them too as they demand a free meal otherwise leaving a bad comment despite recieving good service. I have talked to hotel managers who have been threatened with bad comments despite no problem in service and had no choice but to not charge for the room due to the dishonesty.
The big question here is how do sites generate a site that is honest providing a good service that can be monetised successfully and cannot be gamed by either business or consumer. Any good examples?
Interesting case study of a company that was a leading trophy company in the US in the 70's or 80's that had a model that worked. They had a single production location that shipped nationally across the United States.
They thought they could do the same in Europe, immediately running into problems as they quickly found they would need a distributor in each country which would take a rather large chunk out of their margin. They still proceeded and found that everyone had different tastes, the Italian's liked something flamboyant, the French preferred something classy, the English wanted something Iconic and the German's wanted something Minimalist. In the US, everyone wanted the same thing. In short, the company went bankrupt in both regions due to the errors made in Europe.
There are language differences, cultural differences, tax and regulation differences, additional costs of multiple companies to be setup during expansion and the list keeps going on. Startups stuggle to scale in Europe for very clear reasons, it's much harder to do so. With a small team and little resources, a company can address the entire United States, in Europe they simply can't (of course there are a few lucky exceptions).
So as a European, what has Europe needed for the last two decades to be competitive? Quite obviously, it is to level the playing field and remove those barriers to zero. Until that happens, European Startups will never be able to scale to the size or with the speed of their US competitors. While I think European founders are as smart as American founders, by the points above, does that even matter?
Easier translation such as http://www.reverbeo.com (Friends of mine) will take care of the language barriers on web businesses.
Higher levels of customisation on both software and hardware will take care of the stylisic differences.
But the regulation challenges require EU intervention and we've been waiting a long time for them to do anything.
In this interview, is there a relationship between a TV pilot and a lean startup MVP where Spacey is against such a pursuit preferring more visionary endeavours that take longer to get feedback?
I'm not too worried about titles either, just what does the person who identifies in that role do? Pre-investment, they are a builder in many cases who makes code or makes a community or makes something. In each of the stages, it seems that the role changes radically.
-Didn't immediately know that top left logo switched feeds until I clicked tour.