February 14, 2010 at 9:45am
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Why I left business school
I came across an older essay, which I found on Hacker News earlier, from a student at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. A lot of what he says is extremely accurate and telling of the b-school experience, which I lived through in an alternative form over the past few years as a media management student at Columbia College Chicago. All of the bullshit, as this author puts it, is incredibly on-point and I have since changed my major to Interdisciplinary Arts (graphic design & business). It is a great read overall, and a nice insight to what you can expect if you pursue a business degree. The main lesson: Don’t. Here is the essay.
She didn’t mention sandwiches until I asked her which one she liked the most. She didn’t mention that the owners traveled extensively picking ingredients at tiny farms and bakeries, or brag about their customer service (their founder wrote a best-selling book about it), or describe their massive mail-order sales, or explain the seminars and tastings from which they generate a substantial profit, etc. In short, she didn’t really say anything at all, and yet the kids around me were taking notes
That’s the root of the problem. That’s what the business school teaches us to do. Not once has a professor told us to “make great products” or “do something people love.”
Ok You Luddites, Time To Chill Out On Facebook Over Privacy
Thank you Michael Arrington. Read it here.
January 10, 2010 at 11:47am
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What Type Are You?
Pentagram has a fantastic, funny, short quiz/game that asks you four questions about your character-traits and pairs you with the typographic font most similar to you. Try it out here. Make sure you turn the volume up to hear the questions.
Open letter to Jon Rubinstein
Fred Olivira, former writer and designer for Techcrunch, wrote an open letter to Jon Rubinstein, CEO of Palm. The letter is about Jon’s terribly stupid comment from an interview at CES which he stated he has never used an iPhone. Ever. I wrote about this yesterday here, and Fred’s letter says what I wanted to but was too lazy to articulate. Read Fred’s letter here.
Pirate Coelho
Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist and many other books, found a site online called Pirate Coelho. This site offered many translations of his books to download for free. He decided to send an email to the owner of the site. Most authors would send a cease-and-desist order. Instead, Paulo sent a request to add the links to his website. Go here to find multiple translations of many of Paulo’s books. Download them. Read them. Buy them. Print them out and take them to your local library, school, prison, etc. Don’t fight the pirates. Exploit them and use it to your advantage.
Time to reimagine?
Innovation is what defines the technology industry. Founder and CEO of Slideshare, Rashmi Sinha, wrote a short post sharing her thoughts about something Mark Zuckerburg said yesterday at the Crunchies. The interview, which is short and entertaining, is here. Her post is spot-on, and we are often stuck in a thought-process that we created when we began a project, and not where the world around us is. This, among many reasons and much luck, is why Facebook is the current leader in the social market. Read her post here.
Our services are vintage the year which they started. Flickr is vintage 2004 when it started. Basecamp is vintage 2004. Delicious is vintage 2005. While they remain great services, there has been no re-imagining of the service so that it fits into the web of 2009-2010.
Why Palm will go nowhere
Kara Swisher from All Things Digital did an interview with Jon Rubinstein, CEO of Palm, at CES 2010. There is absolutely nothing of interest or boldness that comes from this guy. Not that I ever cared about what Palm was doing, but it was nice to get excited about the Pre for a little while. However, after using it I was able to quickly move back to happily using my iPhone. If there are any phones to get excited about besides the iPhone it is without a doubt Android-based phones, such as the Nexus One. Read a summary of the interview here.
First he says this:
“We don’t pay that much attention to Apple….I know it sounds really strange,” says Rubinstein.
“Really?” Kara replies. “You don’t worry about the iPhone?”
“No, I really don’t,” Rubinstein answers.
“I don’t believe you,” says Kara, telegraphing a sentiment I imagine is widely held among the audience. Rubinstein is sometimes referred to as “the father of the iPod.” Hard to imagine he doesn’t have at least a passing interest in the evolution of the device he helped create.
Rubinstein: “I don’t have an iPhone. I’ve never even used one.”
Are you joking? The iPhone is its own untouchable beast in the market (for the moment), but to make multiple ignorant statements such as above is ludicrous. You HAVE to pay attention to it, and at least use one to know who it is that is setting the bar in the industry. Then he says:
The conversation shifts to webOS and the developer community. Rubinstein says Palm sees strong interest in its development platform. “I think we have a very large potential developer pool for the product.”
May I ask to see where that “large potential developer pool” is? Developers only make their way to developing for the Pre when absolutely necessary. It is an after thought. Get real, Jon.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Jon was instrumental in creating the iPod. He led the production of the first generation release, and then immediately was put in charge of Apple’s iPod division amongst the wild success it created. He left Apple in 2006.
