Technical Marketing June 24, 2009
Posted by ccollins in How To, Opinion, Uncategorized.Tags: customers, software marketing, technology, users, video
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It saddens me sometimes to see videos like this. While the rest of us chuckle, we fail to learn the lesson, that users don’t share our world view of software.
As a Software Engineer, I am too well aware of our industries penchant for technical terms. Yet the fact remains that you can use the internet without knowing what a “browser” is, just as well as you can drive a car without knowing what a “limited slip differential” is.
Swaying the Team to Innovate. June 7, 2009
Posted by ccollins in Change Management, Java, Opinion, Software Engineering.Tags: books, Change Management, group dynamics, innovation, loss aversion, Software Engineering, sway
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Innovation in Corporate America
As I mentioned in Between a Rock and a Hard Place, our team is currently on the horns of a dilemma. I likened our situation to racing on a flat tyre. Do you stop and fix, taking the hit of lost time, or do you make a best effort to keep pace, almost blindly disregarding the situation.
I’ve just finished reading Sway (Brafman & Brafman, 2008). It offers some additional insights into our situation. For example, all my engineering training has been around technology. How computers work, how software works, how to create good software, how software design works, how the software process works, etc. As far as I remember, no time was given to group dynamics. Since most non-trivial software requires a team to collaborate, one would think that taking the group into account would factor into software design and engineering.
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