Roger Stringer

For those of you curious about what’s being sent to servers after the Path.com debacle last week…

Recently there has been a lot of chatter about mobile apps uploading your entire address book to their servers. The app makers claim that their intentions are noble, yet they have no right to the data unless you give consent. As an informed consumer, we should learn how to detect that an app is phoning home and what information it is sending.

∞ Visit Link: http://thinkvitamin.com/asides/detect-what-a-mobil...

Interesting reading for startups…

One of the most pervasive myths of startup life is that it has to be all consuming. That unless you can give your business all your thoughts and hours, you don’t deserve success. You are unworthy of the startup call.

This myth neatly identifies those fit for mission: Young, without obligations, and few if any extra-curricular interests. The perfect cannon fodder for 10:1 VC long shots.

They’re also easier to rile up with tales of milk and honey at the end of the rainbow, or the modern equivalents, “compressing your working life into a few years” and “billon dollar waves”.

But running your life in perpetual crunch mode until the buy-out or bullshit-IPO fairy stops by your door is not surprisingly unappealing to lots of people.

The problem is that most “exciting new company” lore is intermingled with that of Startup Culture™. This means it’s hard to find your identity when it doesn’t match the latest company write-up of How Those Crazy Kids Turned VC Millions Into Billions!!!

Most people will look at that and say that’s not me. I don’t have 110% to give. I have a family, I have a mortgage, I have other interests. Where’s my place in the startup world if all I have to give is 60%? What can putting in part-time give?

∞ Visit Link: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3106-all-or-somethi...

More sound advice…

In Gimmicks and Patterns I wrote that new features either become table stakes, or are dismissed as being gimmicky. As some readers noted, this is a simplification of what happens. The Kano model shows exactly how the slide happens, and explains why any one particular feature or trait will never be a sustainable advantage.

Here’s how it works…

When new features emerge, even the smallest investment in them delights users as they are novel. Take “Location” for example. even a tiny investment, such as defaulting country and timezone correctly impresses users. As you invest further you really begin to delight them.

∞ Visit Link: http://blog.intercom.io/sustainable-advantages-for...

Make sense…

“Grandma’s rule” has a common meaning across countries & cultures. At a simple level it’s usually understood as “eat your carrots, then you can have dessert“. At a more abstract level it’s about priorities. Get the important stuff done first, the cool fun stuff can follow. It applies in all disciplines. Let’s see some examples.

∞ Visit Link: http://blog.intercom.io/design-and-premature-optim...