Friday, September 12, 2008

Sigh.

This is terrible. It's been more than a month since I've posted anything here.

One of the reasons is that I've been busy, busy, busy. On currently in New York City for the weekend, on my way to one of the things I've been busy with, the Open Source in Mobile conference, which is taking place in Berlin next week.


I've been particularly busy coming up with fiendish questions for the ACCESS-sponsored Open Source in Mobile Pub Quiz, which is shaping up to be quite an event! We going to be having ten (!) teams, beer, and questions galore, hosted by yours truly.

I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

On a not-really-related note, I'm taking along my GiSTEQ GPS data logger to Berlin, so I should be able to do some experimenting with geotagging photos. On another, my friend John Kreuzer has a video posted of me demoing some Netfront widget stuff at Linuxworld...

I'm also reading quite a good book now, which offers some interesting explanations of why "feature checklists" are wrong and how companies fail to grapple with what their customers actual needs and experiences are: Subject to Change by Peter Merholz, Brandon Schauer, David Verba and Todd Wilkens (O'Reilly)...

2 comments:

blizzard said...

Check out "The Ten Faces of Innovation" and "The Art of Innovation" both by Thomas Kelley. You're interested in a design process instead of a feature checklist. It's a huge difference in process and is one of the reasons why companies like Apple have design-led products instead of feature-led or technology-led products - and it shows.

Lefty said...

Thanks, those sound like excellent recommendations. I'll check them out.

Next on my reading list is "Communities Dominate Brands", a book which has been percolating up in my awareness...