Brandon Muramatsu

Posts of the Week for May 24, 2011

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  • Why It’s Time To Pull The Plug On Your Website: I’ve struggled with this, should I continue my website or move to social media exclusively. David Rogers talks about some of the pros and cons. (NextDigest Design, May 20, 2011)
  • Quick Practical, Tactical Tips for Presentations: Mark Suster provides some useful presentation tips. Sit between the audience and the screen, no us vs. them, no handouts, if details are needed hand them out in real time, etc. (StartupDigest, May 20, 2011)
  • Activity Streams Versus Bureaucracy: Monica Wilkenson describes how activity streams support transparency and openness in a group’s operations. I think OEIT could learn something from this article.

    [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][This company] practiced openness and transparency with their employees and there was a high level of trust. Executives shared very important, sensitive information with employees on a regular basis – the kind of information that reporters would kill for. The level of trust was tremendous considering the company’s high profile and intense public interest.

    Second, I was extremely impressed with how the company had a tool for everything. From scheduling meetings, creating tasks, or submitting a piece of code for review, having the right tool for the job made work so much more enjoyable.

    And finally, what I was most impressed with was how the tools we used, and the humans that used them, were in succinct harmony via the internal activity stream. As engineers went about their day, they would perform work in the many different tools, never in isolation. Before long, other people would join to collaborate further, maybe reviewing a task or providing an answer. These tools would take care of adding the pertinent bits of important information into the activity stream automatically. They even provided dashboards that summarized the many things others were waiting on. It was always clear what the status was for any given project, being very clear on who had what due or who was waiting on someone else.

    (NextDigest Enterprise, May 20, 2011)

  • Tech Shopping Rules of Thumb: Kevin Kelly expands upon a list by Sam Grobart of the New York Times. I find the one about reliability vs. mileage interesting, in my next car I’d like both. And one of my own that I still struggle with “Pay for Quality Amortized over Lifetime”. One of the things I’ve adopted it to buy high quality stuff. The challenge is that expected/reasonable lifetimes are shifting. My first color TV from 1985-ish lasted for maybe 20 years before the tuner finally gave out. My second color TV from 1993 equally lasted 15 years. And I replaced it with a larger screen, it was working fine. A LCD HDTV from 2005 just gave up on me after 5.5 years. The difference, today I don’t expect to have a TV for more than 5-7 years. Either the expectations on size change, or the technology (HDTV, 3D, whatever) changes enough to warrant an upgrade. I was advising my friend April to think in the 5-10 year timeframe for her new TV and not the 20 year timeframe (which she too learned from her dad). (Lifehacker)
  • Do the Best Web Workers Think Like Gamers?: I like the summary much better than the article itself, not the least of which because it mentions WoW. But I’d argue that “networked” and “geographically dispersed” have nothing to do with it. I think OEIT could be improved by promoting the traits identified below.

    In the networked, geographically dispersed workplace of the future, the mental traits of World of Warcraft (WoW) enthusiasts — being bottom-line oriented, tolerant of diversity, comfortable with constant change, happy to learn, and intensely interested in innovation — may be hugely beneficial.

    (GigaOm Collaboration, April 5, 2011)

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