Archives / December, 2007

Revenge of the database

I had a note from a break-out session I led at defrag a few months ago that read "database is back".  It was by far the biggest take away from the two-day conference for me.  While a significant infrastructure has developed around simplifying and virtualizing pretty much every aspect of the technology stack, the common denominator to all NextGenWeb, Web 2.0, social networking, aspiring platform companies is the database.  And while the other elements of the technology stack are getting all of the fanfare the very unsexy database that back-ends all of this great new stuff is the real hero.  After all, many of the companies in the categories I mention above are really just fancy front-ends to a large. …

Sales is a science, not an art

Andy Blackstone had a great comment to my post yesterday on Atul Gawande’s New Yorker article about explicit behavior (in the case of the article, doctors using checklists). I’ve edited the comment slightly for clarity. An important concept in the article is that the checklists are not aimed at a specific condition but at an overall process in the ICU. One of the objections I often encounter in my consulting practice is “my business is different” – I’d contend that at the process level that’s most often not true. The resistance to adopting these checklists often comes from doctors that think the “art of medicine” is being threatened by the regimen of the checklist. In my practice, I see sales…

The most inspirational songs of the 80’s

For a fun diversion take a look at Cracked.com‘s list of “The 10 Most Terrifyingly Inspirational 80’s Songs“. Don’t know that Danger Zone or You’re the Best (Joe Esposito?!?) would be on my personal list. And how can you possibly leave out Foreigner’s I Want To Know What Love Is (which, in a true highlight of my life, I was able to see performed live by Foreigner about 5 feet from the stage at a conference I was attending)? For that matter, how can Wanted (Dead or Alive)] not be at the top of the list – it blows the rest of the group away without a doubt! Of course there will be disagreements about this sort of thing (why…

Skinny Songs!

My partner and friend Heidi Roizen has just gone public with her new venture. No – it’s not another tech start-up.  It’s Skinny Songs – a collection of music that she wrote and produced as a soundtrack to inspire those trying to lose weight.  Its part country, part rock, all attitude and extremely catchy (there are sample tracks on the site linked to above – my personal favorite is I think I’ll go to Saks). Heidi joked that she’s going to have to start wearing all black with lots of bling and air-kissing her friends now that she’s a media mogul.  In all seriousness, however, I’ve watched how hard Heidi has worked on this project over the summer and through…

I’ve given up on IM

Someone asked me today if I use IM any more – the answer is a resounding NO. Make that NO WAY. I used to think that IM was useful for short conversations but have completely changed my view on it and dropped using it altogether about 18 months ago. Here are some of my reasons for jumping off the bandwagon: As the number of connected devices I use increases, it became harder to keep my ‘status’ up to date. At any given moment I have at least one laptop online (sometimes two), my office tower and a mobile device. With my IM client on each of these, 1) it always looked like I was online somewhere and 2) I seemed…

Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit

You know your software has problems when you have to offer a tool like the Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit. The WSPBTK, like its name suggests, stops Windows Update from automatically installing new service packs (and presumably entering into the endless Vista shut-down cycle in the process). Brilliant!   Hat tip to Ross for the pointer.

Explicit Behavior

Atul Gawande has an outstanding article in this week’s New Yorker entitled “The Checklist” (full article available) that describes how explicitly defining the steps in complex processes (and then following those steps religiously) significantly reduces errors in certain intensive care procedures. Creating explicit checklists of steps for common ICU procedures resulted in far fewer infections and other complications and an unbelievable amount of money and time saved (not to mention the number of deaths averted). It’s truly mind boggling and a great example of Occam’s Paradox, which I wrote about a few years ago on this blog (for those of you who don’t want to link through, Occam’s Paradox is the idea that while the “challenges we face in life…

The missing social network

Facebook trying to co-opt the web into Facebook highlights for me how backwards the social networking world is today. I’m a fan of the platform idea, but the more I think about this, the more I come to the conclusion that the world already has the greatest platform yet developed at its fingertips – the Web itself. I understand why Facebook is trying to enable the reporting of external content all over their site but what would really be great is if rather than trying to port the net into my social network, my social network extended onto the net. When I’m in Facebook, I don’t really care that much if Brad just bought Book A or if Chris just…

Widgets are s-l-o-w-i-n-g m–e d—o—w—n

The great thing about having a bunch of widgets on my blog is that every time my site slows down I have my choice of people to blame. Shame on me for having so many widgets, I guess, but really – there has to be a better way of managing this. From start to finish, the experience of inserting a widget on my blog is unsatisfying. I have to configure each separately (so it’s hard to make them consistent in look and feel); I have to manually insert the javascript on my blog; to change attributes or location of the widget I have to mess around with the code again or have to go back to the site where I…