Category: Creative

10
Mar

#SXSWi — Hardcore vs. Casual games and gamers

Published by adil in Creative, Product Management 3 comments

Tweet I’m in an interesting talk at South by Southwest Interactive (2012) put on by Jack Buser and Scott Rohde (from PlayStation). I figure it makes sense to write a few live thoughts as I’m listening since it’s turning into a pretty lively discussion. This may be the only way that I’ll be able to keep up with the rapid-fire conversation. Some interesting threads of conversation that I’m hearing so far: (Hard)core games — these → Read More

2
Aug

The solution to premature commitment bias starts with a K

Published by adil in Creative, Development, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship 5 comments

The solution to premature commitment bias starts with a K

Tweet As you may have noticed, I have recently found myself consumed by the problems facing technology entrepreneurship today.  In particular, it’s the amount of sheer waste that gets to me.  As I’ve mentioned before, the real tragedy here is all of the time that is wasted by really talented entrepreneurs and early employees.  Unlike money, time is non-renewable.  You don’t know how much you actually have, and you can’t make any more of it → Read More

13
Nov

How to know what is worth fighting for

Published by adil in Creative, Productivity Reply

Tweet Effectively managing conflict in the workplace has been a topic on my mind for some time now.   Having a new topic on your mind is kind of like buying a new car; you start to notice it everywhere.  Now that I am thinking about effectively managing conflict, I am starting to see conflict or opportunities for healthy conflict everywhere.  One of the most challenging things for one to think through as they try → Read More

6
Oct

Product Management vs Interaction Design

Published by adil in Agile, Creative, Product Management Reply

Tweet One of the questions that gets escalated to me most often these days is some permutation of, “What is the difference between product management and interaction design?”   It is particularly hard to answer questions like “where does one end and the other begin?”  These are not simple questions to answer because the roles do have some overlap and it is important that both of these roles collaborate closely in any organization. Before I → Read More

22
Sep

How to successfully integrate into a new company

Published by adil in Creative, Development, UX Reply

Tweet New team-members are not created equal I’ve had the opportunity to evaluate and hire around thirty very talented people in the last few months, and it has been a pretty eye-opening experience for a lot of reasons.  Perhaps the most interesting reason is the varying outcomes I have seen from all these new employees.  I have seen some new employees do a fantastic job of integrating themselves with the culture and the team, and → Read More

18
Sep

A culture of innovation

Published by adil in Creative, Entrepreneurship 1 comment

Tweet I’ve thought a lot lately about innovation and creation.  There are lots of ways that we can try to improve our total creative quality and output as an organization.  The first, and most obvious choice, is to try and find and surround ourselves with innovative people.   We’ve gone from a group of four very talented folks in our office to over fifty in the last four months.  Check.  Now what? Now we have to → Read More

9
Sep

The five stages of creativity are not just for writers…

Published by adil in Creative Reply

Tweet I said in my recent post that creativity an innovation are the key factors of success for entrepreneurial businesses, going forward.  I still mean that.  And the more I think about it, the more I have come to believe that it’s actually true.  If you want to succeed in the incredibly tough marketplace of high-growth technology start-ups, you have to out-innovate your competition. Since I have come to this realization, I have been hunting → Read More

5
Sep

Design thinking

Published by adil in Creative, UX 1 comment

Tweet Designers don’t just ‘throw sparkles.’ In the last post, we explored some of the differences between entrepreneurship today and ten or so years ago.  As I think about how creativity and innovation seem underrated, it gets me to thinking about the way that design is perceived in most organizations. When most people think or talk about design, it seems that they think about the classic definition that was popular many years ago.  To me, → Read More

29
Aug

The new critical success factors: Creativity and Innovation

Published by adil in Creative, Entrepreneurship 1 comment

Tweet The world of entrepreneurship today is very different than it was in 1999.  The cost and time related to developing web applications are both much lower today than they were years ago.  That’s not to mention that entrepreneurship has grown considerably in popularity.  Starting a company now is a lot cooler than it used to be.  And people are getting involved at much younger ages. The net effect of all this is that the → Read More

5
Jul

Creative and engineering .. how different are they?

Published by adil in Creative, Development Reply

Tweet I often hear practitioners in creative fields (such as photography, design, and writing) and engineering fields (such as development, QA, systems, infrastructure) talk about how different they are from the other group.  This is sometimes in reference to processes from the other camp that ‘won’t work here’ or in reference to a frustrating experience that leaves people wondering how they could be so different from one another. In either case, this is a topic → Read More