SERGIO VEMIC: März 2014

Sonntag, 30. März 2014

Networking!?!? Stop Networking!

Here’s the deal. Networking sucks and you’re probably bad at it.

I say that because I believe it too: I hate networking, and I’m bad at it. So I don’t do it. But that doesn’t stop me from meeting new people, in a business setting, who sometimes refer projects to Paper Leaf.

Wait a minute… isn’t that networking?

Not in my mind, and I’ll explain to you why. But first a little story.

60-Hour Work Week Is Not A Badge Of Honour

Your 60-hour work week is not a badge of honour. It is a problem.

There is a sense of pride over being able to state that we worked an exorbitant amount of hours this week, last week, or last month. I know because I’ve done it in the past, and probably still do it *sigh*. After all, saying you worked a 60 hour week is indirectly telling the listener how busy your design firm is; how successful your product is; how important you are to your employer.

It’s essentially a humblebrag.

Read more at:

http://jeffarchibald.ca/60-hour-work-week-badge-honour/

What Makes a Genius?

Eric Barker writes at TheWeek that while high intelligence has its place, a large-scale study of more than three hundred creative high achievers including Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Beethoven, and Rembrandt has found thatcuriosity, passion, hard work, and persistence bordering on obsession are the hallmarks of genius. 'Successful creative people tend to have two things in abundance, curiosity and drive. They are absolutely fascinated by their subject, and while others may be more brilliant, their sheer desire for accomplishment is the decisive factor,' writes Tom Butler-Bowdon. It's not about formal education. 'The most eminent creators were those who had received a moderate amount of education, equal to about the middle of college. Less education than that — or more — corresponded to reduced eminence for creativity,' says Geoffrey Colvin. Those interested in the 10,000-hour theory of deliberate practice won't be surprised that the vast majority of them are workaholics. 'Sooner or later,' writes V. S. Pritchett, 'the great men turn out to be all alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing.' Howard Gardner, who studied geniuses like Picasso, Freud, and Stravinsky, found a similar pattern of analyzing, testing, and feedback used by all of them: 'Creative individuals spend a considerable amount of time reflecting on what they are trying to accomplish, whether or not they are achieving success (and, if not, what they might do differently).'

Dienstag, 18. März 2014

How Adobe Got Rid of Traditional Performance Reviews

Today i just spoted this nice insight on changing business/organisational practices from Stanford Professor Bob Sutton, from article:

Renowned American novelist Ernest Hemingway said that the most essential gift for a good writer is “a built-in shock-proof shit detector,” the ability to spot bad or unnecessary text, the skill to fix what is salvageable, and the will to throw away what is beyond repair or unnecessary. Leaders and teams that spread excellence act the same way, ruthlessly spotting and removing crummy or useless rules, traditions, tools, and roles that clog up the works and cloud people’s minds.

One of our favorite examples of such subtraction was implemented by Adobe’s senior leaders in 2012 – a change that affected all 11,000 employees. Most LinkedIn readers know that Adobe produces software including Photoshop, Acrobat, Creative Cloud, and the Digital Marketing Suite. Adobe killed one of the most sacred of corporate cows: traditional yearly performance reviews. Management experts have questioned the value of such reviews for decades. Quality guru W. Edwards Deming blasted away: “It nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, nourishes rivalry and politics.” UCLA’s Sam Culbert called them bogus and urged companies to abolish them. We sometimes joke that, if the performance review (as usually done) was a drug, it wouldn’t be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because it is so ineffective and has so many vile side effects (see this related piece on performance evaluations).

Despite such blistering critiques, Adobe has been one of the few companies with the guts and gumption to abandon them: in 2012, they moved from yearly performance rankings to frequent “check-ins” where managers provide employees targeted coaching and advice. There is no prescribed format or frequency for these conversations, and managers don’t complete any forms or use any technologies to guide or document what happens during such conversations. They are simply expected to have regular check-ins to convey what is expected of employees, give and get feedback, and help employees with their growth and development plans. The aim is to give people information when they need it rather than months after teachable moments have passed. Once a year, managers make adjustments in employee compensation. Managers have far more discretion over such decisions than in the past: they have nearly complete authority to allocate their budget among their charges as they see fit. In addition, employees are now compensated based on how well they have met their goals--forced rankings have been abolished. As part of the rollout, managers were trained in the nuances of giving and receiving feedback and other difficult conversations through lectures and role playing, where they practiced challenging scenarios.

Sonntag, 16. März 2014

Making Wi-Fi as easy as cellular

Nice article over at The Ruckus Room on Hotspot 2.0...

From Article: "Making Wi-Fi as easy as cellular” is a popular maxim when engineers, marketeers, and journalists talk about Hotspot 2.0. And it’s not hard to understand why. The cellular connectivity experience is well understood in virtually every culture, while, except to those involved with its development and testing, Hotspot 2.0 remains a big unknown. Therefore to say Hotspot 2.0 makes Wi-Fi connectivity like cellular puts it in terms that most people can understand. In fact, if you look back, you’ll find a few Ruckus press releases and presentations that use this very analogy.

However, as we approach the launch of production Hotspot 2.0 networks and begin using this technology in our daily lives, it is important to have a more precise understanding of what it is and how it works.

It’s at this point that the comparison with cellular connectivity and roaming falls short of conveying what people need to know. For context, it’s best to start examining some of the similarities and differences between cellular and Wi-Fi with Hotspot 2.0 relative to connecting automatically, authentication, and roaming. Airlink encryption aside, users can be assured that robust security is given for both cellular and Wi-Fi (wih Hotspot 2.0) connections.

Samstag, 15. März 2014

We need to re-decentralise the web

Twenty-five years on from the web's inception, its creator has urged the public to re-engage with its original design: a decentralised internet that at its very core, remains open to all.

Speaking with Wired editor David Rowan at an event launching the magazine's March issue, Tim Berners-Lee said that although part of this is about keeping an eye on for-profit internet monopolies such as search engines and social networks, the greatest danger is the emergence of a balkanised web.

"I want a web that's open, works internationally, works as well as possible and is not nation-based," Berners-Lee told the audience, which included Martha Lane Fox, Jake Davis (AKA Topiary) and Lily Cole. He suggested one example to the contrary: "What I don't want is a web where the Brazilian government has every social network's data stored on servers on Brazilian soil. That would make it so difficult to set one up."

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/03/web-at-25/tim-berners-lee

Donnerstag, 13. März 2014

'Introduction To Linux' Course Will Be Free and Online This Summer

Earlier this week, The Linux Foundation announced that it would be working with edX, a non-profit online learning site governed by Harvard and MIT, to make its "Introduction to Linux" course free and open to all. The Linux Foundation has long offered a wide variety of training courses through its website, but those can generally cost upwards of $2,000. This introductory class, which usually costs $2,400, will be the first from the Linux Foundation to run as a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)."

'pCell' Technology Could Bring Next Generation Speeds To 4G Networks

A new San Francisco-based start-up, Artemis Networks, announced today that it plans to commercialize its “pCell” technology, a novel wireless transmission scheme that could eliminate network congestion and provide faster, more reliable data connections. And the best part? It could work on your existing 4G LTE phone.

If it proves capable of scaling, pCell could radically change the way wireless networks operate, essentially replacing today’s congested cellular systems with an entirely new architecture that combines signals from multiple distributed antennas to create a tiny pocket of reception around every wireless device.