When we talk about metrics, there is often an assumption that everyone in the company needs the same data to make decisions and this is dangerously incorrect. Different levels of the organization need different kinds of data to make effective decisions. Yet, all too often we use the wrong data at the wrong point.
Treating computing as a utility, like electricity, is an old idea. But now it makes financial sense—a historic shift that is reshaping the IT industry.
One thing that often strikes me when sitting in on client interviews is how many candidates lack an historical perspective on software development. In a profession of “perpetual beginnersR…
I recently finished reading “How Infrastructure Works”, by Deb Chandra. It is a must read if you are doing APIs at scale today. She opens the book by talking about charismatic infrastructure like the Brooklyn Bridge or the St Louis Arch. These are grand collective public infrastructure projects that rise above, stand out, and have a personality all of their own. This look at physical infrastructure got me thinking about APIs (duh), and how Stripe, Twilio, and a handful of other APIs enjoy a status as charismatic APIs. Her story is pushing me to think about why they enjoy this position and why can’t other APIs achieve the same status. Like physical infrastructure, I think there are certain characteristics that render virtual infrastructure more tangible, meaningful, and useful, which will help them not just succeed, but achieve a charismatic status in our stories.
Recently I was chatting with a Staff-plus engineer who was struggling to influence his peers. Each time he suggested an approach, his team agreed with him, but his peers in the organization disagreed and pushed back. He wanted advice on why his peers kept undermining his approach. After our chat, I followed up by talking with his peers about some recent disagreements, and they kept highlighting missing context from the engineer’s proposals.
I will never forget the time I discovered how web pages were made. The year was 1995. I was using Windows 3.1 like most everyone, and it didn’t even support the TCP/IP network stack out of the box. I had to install a program called Trumpet Winsock and a hot new web browser called Netscape to connect to the Internet…
The creep of conducting our day-to-day interactions over screens has reached a breaking point—and it threatens to push out everyone but those with the “right” access.
RFC processes are a poor fit for most organizations - Jacob Kaplan-Moss
The RFC process has been a huge success in defining the standards that run the Internet, but naively adopting this process for your company is a mistake. RFC processes tend to fail at most organizations because they lack a clear decision-making step.
50 Years Later: Remembering How the Future Looked in 1974
A half-century ago, "Saturday Review" asked some of the era's visionaries for their predictions of what 2024 would look like. Here are their hits and misses.
There are internal and external changes. Internally, company needs, products and personnel are evolving. Externally, the tech landscape is constantly shifting.
