950 words, 4 1/2 minutes. Hugo by Étienne Carjat, 1876 “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo. This is the second of two posts on strategic software. The first explained what it is, what it does, and where to find it. Now I’ll tell you why it’s an idea whose time has come. I’ll tell you why it will be more powerful in some respects than traditional politics and how it will come to shape the world. »
1300 words, 5 minutes. Belloc by E. O. Hoppé, 1915. “Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim gun, they have not." - Hilaire Belloc. Once upon a time software was just for counting beans. It counted more beans faster and cheaper than anything else. Then computers became personal, then portable, then pocketable. All sorts of different kinds of software were created to serve the people and help them do their jobs better. »
1500 words, 7 minutes. Fishing Through Ice, Bain News Service. c.1910. This post is written from the perspective of a VC screening for success factors. In it, I drill deeper into successful operational characteristics. If you’re an entrepreneur or founder, you should give consideration to adopting some of the systems I talk about here. I’ll even suggest prioritising them over features and fixes to your product because getting imperfect product adopted by many is a better predictor of success than putting perfection in the hands of a few. »
1300-1600 words, 6 1/2 to 8 1/2 minutes. An Etching of Samson by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, from an 1882 German Bible. “He grasped two pillars of the temple and bowed himself with all his might” - Judges 16:30. Introduction This post is about online services which rely partly, or wholly, on user-contributed content. It’s about what happens to that content if those services close. I’ll examine the constraints and motivations of the parties involved. »
1300 words, 4 and a half minutes. This will probably be the first and last time I write about social networking. I’m an antisocial social networker. I had an expectation that part of the job of a networking platform (professional or social) would be to filter content or updates, both in terms of who was posting them and the individual significance or quality of the posts. Boy was I wrong. One person re-posts every single article they see, another “motivational” poster repeats blithe optimism without context at the end of every day (tellingly never the beginning). »