Category Archives: General Information

General Information, Uncategorized

2013, the Year in review

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Following on what I posted for 2012… below is my year in review for 2013…  I’ll use the same format, the good, the bad, and the verdict (no ugly here).
The Good
  • I love Boston!  We had a massive set back in 2013 with the Marathon bombings, but it has given me greater resolve that this city is fantastic!
  • I’ve had many conversations with companies across the globe, and startups in Boston.  It’s given me a great sense of the value/role that I could play with them, and the great news is that I accepted an offer to join a new company.
  • The cambridge startup community seems as strong as ever.
  • There’s a continued hope for progressivism in this country (marriage equality to name one) which is giving more hope that the sun will continue to rise.
  • My brother got married!
  • Despite my injuries, I was able to add biking in.  These will add new goals for 2014.
The Bad
  • I have not had as much opportunity to work on big projects this year.  Most of my projects have been about biz dev, without really an opportunity to get into the details.
  • My work needed to change, and at the end of the year it did.  However, the year was quite challenging.
  • I am still struggling to get my running going. My achilles heel is still hurting.
The Verdict

On the whole, I would give 2013 a B.  It was a mostly uneventful year, but with some good highlights.  Even the Boston Bombings in April, but hit has furthered my resolve that this is a great city! 2014… HERE WE COME!

 

General Information, Miscellaneous, Uncategorized

2013-05: Three Types of People

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File this on comedic observations….

I noticed that there are three kinds of people on this earth.

  • Doorway People:  These are people that like to stand in doorways.  Standing in a doorway means that you are controlling the space that you’re in.  It means that you are blocking access to other rooms, govern the room, and people have to go through you to get to those other spaces. If these were managers, they would be road blocks, micro-managing managers.  If they were parents, they would be dotting parents.
  • Couch People:  Then we have couch people (or chair people).  These are people that like to sit somewhere, and let people come to them.  They use their voice to get attention, and are comfortable being served.  Without making too many generalizations, patriarchs fall in this category, and bosses who like to be
  • Moving People: Moving people are those that always moving around, from room to room, from activity to activity.  They can’t stand still and need to move around.  These are your classic worker bees, your classic active project managers.
Now we all exhibits some traits of each kind, but notice around your house what traits you and your family demonstrate.  Also, notice what it means for your interactions.  For example, I noticed that my wife is generally between a door person and a moving person, I am between a couch and moving person.  What is particularly interesting is that I tend to be a moving person when my wife is a door person.  A classic example is when I am trying to get ready for work.  I’ll move from room to room, assembling what I need to assemble, doing the things that I need to do.  My wife will do the same, but often she will while sitting in the doorway.  As a result we run into each other quite a bit.  I end up feeling all the same feeling that one feels when they are micro-managed or hampered by a boss.  On Sunday afternoons, I tend to be a couch person and tend to use my voice to call out, at the same time, my wife tends to be a moving person then as she runs around getting projects done before the week starts.  The difference in energy between the two of us leads to some interest conflicting situations where, I think, my wife ends up feeling that I may not be contributing sufficiently (she may be right).
I was amazed to see that this carries through with friends and family.  We’ve had friends at our house and the same thing developed.  We’ve gone out with friends, and we see the same thing.  See for yourself, and let me know if you see the same.
General Information

2012, the Year in review

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What better time than the year end break to take stock on the year, and comment on the good, the bad and the verdict that was 2012…

The Good

  • Boston remains a great town to live in.  Somerville (where I live), is as vibrant and dynamic as ever.
  • There’s been quite a bite of travel in my life, which is phenomenal (and how I want to spend my life).
  • I took on a couple go big projects that allowed me to play with open source software, and big-data.
  • I’ve started to form a view point on what I want to do next.
  • Our house is getting to be in good shape (massive purging of stuff in April).
  • There’s a hope for progressivism in this country which is giving more hope that the sun will continue to rise.

The Bad

  • Our political system is a complete mess, if often feels that we’ve lost values common decency and respect towards one another (even if of different political view) for the promotion of unhealthy and destructive ideologies.
  • My work needs to change.  I’m finding that increasingly I am in an administrative role… not what I love or am interested in.  My manager keeps on telling me I’m good at it.  If I’m not passionate about it, I don’t really care for it.
  • I still take too many vacations for the sake of family.
  • I was pretty badly injured at the end of 2011 (Achilles heel), and it’s taken most of the year to get back to a good running level (frequency and pace).
  • I’ve completed about 50% of my project list for the year.

The Verdict

On the whole, I would give 2012 a B-.  Not a bad year, but definitely can be better.  Looking forward to 2013.
General Information, Technology

Gimmickry…

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Hello again, Friends!

I recently came across an eweek.com piece on what’s expected from the iPad 3.  I’ve made a habit not to talk about this kind of stuff, but feel significantly compelled to opine on this particular subject, not because of the topic (the new – rumored iPad 3), but because of the tone of piece, and the nearly juvenile and indecipherable difference between gimmickry and significance to stay relevant.

The piece can be found here:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Networking/Apple-iPad-3-10-HighPriority-Features-We-Want-in-the-New-Tablet-739540/?kc=EWKNLEDP01252012A

Below I articulate my point of view on each of the items, and why they are irrelevant:

  1. This is effectively a no brainer.  Apple has made strides in creating a more integrated ecosystem, and therefore we’re likely to see this.
  2. This is not really a must have, and is just an attempt to articulate that for the iPad to remain relevant, it needs to have multiple screen size.  Should Apple introduce new (presumably smaller) sizes of the iPad, it will create lesser and lesser differentiation between the platforms, and effectively cannibalizing sales across the platform.  The iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch line, I believe, would overall not be affected as you’ll see a switching from one platform to the next by consumers
  3. 3D, IMHO, is a gimmick (for now).  A gimmick created by the TV set manufacturers to create more relevance for their increasingly irrelevant products.  It’s simply a way for them to boost sales during the recession.
  4. This I agree with.
  5. This is borderline gimmickry.  There’s no real issue with device, and because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
  6. I’ll agree with this.
  7. Nice to have – not must have to remain relevant.  Are there problems with the iPad’s existing glass (in terms of break-ability)?
  8. While I would want that, I would still think it may be on the nice-to-have bordering on the must-have.  The only real benefits would be for high-res screen capture (for documents), or for movies.  A lot of app developers would need to redesign their interface to get to it, but that has not prevented Apple before.
  9. Gimmickry.  Basically a claim to turn an iPad into XBOX controller.
  10. NFC.  Yes that would be a good idea, not sure it’s critical.  I also believe that NFC may become obsolete (IMHO) as geofencing, and companies like LevelUp (thelevelup.com) continue to enter the marketplace of mobile payment.

Reviewing these results, I would argue that 1 is almost obvious, 4 and 6 are must have to remain a relevant product, and 8, and 10 are nice to have.  The rest… not sure…

This is not the first thing of the sort that I see on eweek.com, and frankly have found the writing to get less and less compelling (on par for a lot of ZD publications, IMHO).  This particularly piece reads as a child like wish list, not the product of a professional publication.

General Information

Aspirations

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It seems to me that the best way to start this journey is by telling you:

  • a bit more about me,
  • the focus of the content of this site, and
  • some general guidelines that I hope to follow.
    I hope that you find the reading here insightful, interesting, pertaining to what you do and if anything not boring.

    About me:
    I have a mixed cultural, academic, and professional background. I currently work for a global consulting firm in a research and knowledge development capability. I have about 10 years of professional experience dealing in a range of topics including business development, market research, marketing, technology, and design. I hope to leverage on this extensive background to develop insights and share those with you.

    Focus of this site:
    My efforts to share insights with you are two fold: one the one hand I hope to vet my thinking with others; on the other hand I hope to elevate the discourse in the topics that I will be pursuing. Speaking of topics, I plan on keeping them broad, and generally dealing with the role that geography and space (whether overt or subvert) plays in every day life and business life. I also plan on sharing results and information on specific research that I am pursuing on my own. There are a few blogs/sites that cover geography and geographic topics, but I find that almost all of them tend to get caught up on technology discussions rather than adequately focus on the geographic and socio-demographic impacts of and on business decision making process.

    General Guidelines:
    I have grouped my guidelines into three categories (just to keep it simple).
    Frequency: I will try to add an entry about once a month to start. Underpromise… Overdeliver…Length: In my experience, I have found that many blogs end up being unread either because the content is not interesting, the grammar or writing style make them innacessible, or are simply just too long. I can’t guarantee anything about the first two, as this can be subjective, but I do think that I can get most entries under 500 words (1 page), making it a quick 2 minute read for you, the reader (this being a notable exception).
    Format: I also plan on keeping the format informal so as to help promote content deliver.

    In my first series of entries, I hope to cover topics on why geography matters.

    PS: Not bad… first entry is 402 words.