I have no idea how Gabriel ever gets anything done, considering that he’s constantly responding to emails, tweets, forum posts, comments on various sites and IRC – just to name a few! Here’s a typical exchange from earlier today when I reported a poorly performing query on DDG: I used to be like that when I was at Operative but I don’t think I was anywhere near as productive as him. ...
Del.icio.us (sorry, it’s just plain old “Delicious” now) 2.0 finally launched a few days ago and the response so far has been mixed. But now that the dust has settled some, it’s time to think about just how we got here and if it was really worth all the trouble. According to the official blog post, the new and improved Delicious brings us speed, usability, and oh so good looks among other features and it was a long time in the making. The Yahoo acquisition was announced on Dec 9, 2005 and the new site finally went live a little over two and a half years later on July 31, 2008. So why did it take them so long? ...
Is just getting the job done always enough? One of my personal philosophies is that if you’re not learning, you’re not improving. If you’re not improving, then what have you really accomplished? In fact, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve even gotten worse, if only because everyone else has gotten better. It’s like a television or movie series that comes back year after with the same old, tired formula. No better than previous iterations, and doesn’t even meet the expectations set by its predecessors. Think Bond, James Bond.
Ever have a moment where you suddenly stop and ask yourself: how did I get here, to this exact moment in time? For me it’s almost an out of body experience where I look [down] at myself in a particular instant and I try to work backwards to the events that led up to it. It seems to be happening a lot, of late, and it always comes back to the same question. Two weeks ago, I was sitting in the domestic terminal at the Bombay airport, reading a book of no consequence and listening to my iPod while waiting for my flight to Pune when I suddenly looked up and thought to myself, “what the fuck am I doing here? How the hell did I get here?” ...
My boss asked me a question recently, which really got me thinking: would it make any difference if I [my boss] wore slacks and a shirt every day? That is, do outward appearances at the office really matter that much? Could dressing a little better mean being taken more seriously? It took me a really long time to answer the question, because to me it doesn’t affect how I judge a person’s performance, and it was difficult for me to look at the question objectively and realize that not everyone thinks the way I do. Everyone has their own criteria for judging performance or value. Which got me thinking about meritocracies and why they don’t work in business. ...