-
Recent Posts
Monthly Archives: September 2010
x of the month
Today is my Mom’s birthday. Happy Birthday Mom! As you get older, buying gifts gets more and more complicated. If you’re like me, you tend to just go out and buy those essential things you need; given a situation where … Continue reading
things i like: guided tours
When traveling, you don’t always have the time, energy or expertise to make your visit the vacation of a lifetime. That’s why I love guided tours. Continue reading
Posted in Life, Things I Like
Tagged being in the moment, Chicago, guided tour, landmark, travel
Leave a comment
mini-cases: controlling the source
When you’re working on something by yourself, life is simple. But add just one person to the mix, and everything gets a lot harder. You want to keep track of what changed, when, and who was responsible, and to do that, you need source control. Continue reading
Posted in Business, Life, Mini-Cases, Tech
Tagged collaboration tools, management technology, mini-cases, open-source, project management, source control, Subversion, versioning
Leave a comment
mini-cases: better to beg for forgiveness, part 2
In this mini-case, I did not have official approval for my idea. And it was simple: I was working for a business that, among other things, allowed users of a website to search for airfares across multiple providers—pretty innovative, at … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Life, Mini-Cases
Tagged approval, flight, mini-cases, pricing, projects, skunk works, skunkworks
2 Comments
mini-cases: better to beg for forgiveness, part 1
This case is about a time I should have started a skunkworks. While the historical origin of the term “skunkworks†is lightly disputed (it most certainly references a comic strip called “Li’l Abner†and stems from military projects in the … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Life, Mini-Cases
Tagged approval, flight, mini-cases, pricing, projects, skunk works, skunkworks
Leave a comment
brief update: 20100916
No update yesterday, for which I apologize. I’ve been writing quite a bit of the content for the mini-cases, but it doesn’t always make it to the blog by the deadline. I blame the editors. I had a great lunch … Continue reading
Posted in Personal, Things I Like
2 Comments
mini-cases: support your core
The new content-management system was done, and we breathed a sigh of relief. We needed it to support our ambitions of providing even more specific content to our users, who came to our site for our well-informed professional recommendations in … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Life, Mini-Cases
Tagged cms, content management system, core business, mini-cases, publishing, publishing systems
Leave a comment
mini-cases: things take time
My manager uttered a phrase that, to a software developer, was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying: “It’s time for an upgrade.†I was working for a company in the financial services sector; their core business involved a proprietary system for predicting … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Life, Mini-Cases, Tech
Tagged mini-cases, project, resources, schedule, software upgrade, time management
1 Comment
mini-cases: keeping the lights on
You know your job is in trouble when you can’t log on to the Internet, and the Internet Service Provider tells you that the bill hasn’t been paid in months. Such was my situation at a small government contracting company. … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Life, Mini-Cases
Tagged cashflow, contracting, creditworthiness, mini-cases, survival
Leave a comment
mini-cases: more movement means more mistakes
I used to have the power to email over 250,000 people at my fingertips. We weren’t spammers; far from it: we were publishing a successful newsletter to all those subscribers, and had quite a few who were actually paying for … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Life, Mini-Cases
Tagged automation, broadcast, email, mini-cases, project, web application
Leave a comment