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leadership does not mean optimizing for ROI
Choosing projects based on projected ROI is a dangerously simplistic way of running your business. If you take a look at the actual acronym: “ROI” return on investment, it seems like a perfectly...
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surveys give a false sense of direction
Mark Earls over at Herd recently made a post which comes along the same lines of two of my recent posts. In his post “Preaching Against Survey Data” he speaks out against the traditional ways of...
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a solution for email spam
My inbox has a fundamental flaw: every email is treated with the same level of “respect” or priority. It contains both forwarded urban legends, and highly critical information related to my banking and...
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optimization is the enemy of innovation
Innovation is exploring the “new”; and by definition, the new is unoptimized and inefficient. Optimization is the enemy of innovation. Or should I say, innovation and optimization usually inhabit...
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do companies look like their CEOs?
It’s eerie sometimes, isn’t it, how a dog can look like its owner. Would it be outlandish to imagine that a company looks like its CEO? Or, not looks like, exactly. But perhaps acts like? Does the...
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5 lessons for young designers
While at eBay, I’ve had the opportunity to cut my teeth being a “designer” on various projects, initiatives, and explorations. Over time, I’ve learned that (like many other things), design looks like...
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want to win? pick a fight.
Every battle worth fighting needs a good enemy. Who is your enemy? MySpace has Facebook. Chevy has Ford. Luke Skywalker has Darth Vader. If you’ve failed to define the enemy, whether it’s “Competitor...
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dear twitter bashers: get off my lawn!
former colleague fmbillwatt points us towards this very amusing segment attempting to explain the Twitterverse: “The Twouble with Twitters” The confusion between the haves and have-nots is essentially...
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understanding failure and success
Why do projects fail? Projects do not fail because of poor planning, the wrong people, or a bad idea. All of these can be remedied over time with dedication, time, and resources. Projects fail when we...
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innovation: your leaders are key to success
Mitch Ditkoff over on his Heart of Innovation blog has posted “56 Reasons Why Most Corporate Innovation Initiatives Fail”. Browsing through this list really rings true to me, as anything and everything...
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designed for maximum fail
One of the design practices I employ is to assume I am working for evil rather than good. I sit down and I ask myself, “what if I really wanted this to fail, how would I sabotage it?” There’s many ways...
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make millions scrubbing toilets
Every unpleasant activity is an opportunity for you to make money, build a name for yourself, and get ahead. How? Become a professional toilet scrubber. Admit it, you hate scrubbing toilets. No,...
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innovation’s dirty secret: work in disguise.
As a presenter in the area of innovation, I often get asked about the “secret” of innovation, commonly phrased as requests for “tips or strategy”. Sadly, there are no silver bullets. Instead, I usually...
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I see what you’re doing there Steve Jobs…
Ok Steve, I’m calling you out. The iPad is not what you say it is. You’re defining something not quite like what we’ve seen before, because that allows you to define every aspect and control every...
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want innovation? embrace constraints
The Atari 2600 defined an era of gaming. For many, it was their first introduction into what would become a long obsession into video gaming. The ability to program Atari 2600 games however, required a...
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is innovation nature or nurture?
When I speak at conferences, I am often posed with questions like: how can I be more innovative? how can my company innovate more? In that question there is another question hiding, is “innovation”...
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is your brand keeping you back?
Are you controlling your brand, or is it controlling you? If you haven’t examined your mission statement recently, you are probably missing out on opportunity. Many moons ago, each in their separate...
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design cancer?
When we create design layouts in tools like Photoshop or Illustrator, does the ease of copy-paste ultimately create artificially dense, human-unfriendly spaces? Are these interfaces not unlike a...
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trusted email: facebook’s unintentional legacy?
Even if Facebook implodes in upon itself, the concept of an inbox limited to the “trusted few” may lay the groundwork to finally destroy spam. Back in the days of old on the proto-internet, each major...
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ten tech trends for tomorrow:part 2
In an earlier post (ten tech trends for tomorrow: I need your help), I proposed 10 things to keep an eye on for the next 3 to 5 years in the internet sphere. If you missed the previous list, go back...
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Web 2.0: Lies, Mystery and Opportunity
Thought you’d all like a peek at my eBay Developer’s Conference ’08 presentation. Enjoy. And Discuss. When you’re done, click to view last year’s presentation.
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5 reasons why innovation teams are like unicorns
After two years on eBay’s Disruptive Innovation team, I feel that I can safely draw parallels between “innovation teams” and unicorns. The comparison may be more apt than you expect. 1) they are...
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5 eternal truths of humans
Carrying on my selection of “5 items” to put nicely in a list, here are 5 eternal truths of humans in the world. This is the first post in a series leading up to the final work I’m doing around...
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sampling myopia: do you know when to ask?
While walking home the other day, I made an observation which I thought I’d share in a very Seth Godin way. Here goes: I walk to and from work, usually waving hello and exchanging a few words with a...
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macro patterns: 1000 to 100 years
Last week I started the first of a five-installment series of blog posts centered around trends I’m seeing in the world, marketplace and history. This is part of a larger project I’m working on,...
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why can I only SMS other cell phones?
Why can’t I SMS to a land-line? This might seem like a silly question, but if I’m noticing it, then other people must be too. I think it’d be great to SMS my mom at her home, but of course there’s no...
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why I’m unfollowing @barackobama
why I’m unfollowing @barackObama: a social contract broken. It’s in sad contrast to this hope I felt watching astonished through the morning of President Obama’s swearing in ceremony, that I now am...
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is the iPhone the spiritual successor to the Palm line?
And what do we call these things anyway? PDAs? Handhelds? Since 1999, I’ve had 4 devices with a touchscreen, which ostensibly keep track of what I should be doing, but usually were just a way for me...
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there is no glory in “I told you so”
Why are moaners jerks? Because they’re not adding anything to the conversation, they’re merely causing strife because they can. Even when they see the problem coming, what do they do in their moment...
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10 tips for identifying fake twitter accounts
Today, my wife replied to a tweet of mine and a few minutes later, I noticed an odd retweet of her response. “@rolfsky The OpenOffice version is worse, though” Without the context that I was wrestling...
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