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Time for Digital Hat Racks

Hat rack for devices: don't use devices in meetings

The first thing Don Draper does when he gets to his office is give his busty secretary a suggestive wink. The second thing he does is take off his fedora. Finally, depending on the severity of the previous night, he completes his morning routine with a stiff drink.

What can we learn from Don’s habits? First, that scotch and submissive secretaries always equal drama. But what of that fedora? There’s a lesson there too.

As any Mad Men fan knows, it was once popular for men to wear hats everywhere they went — except, that is, when they stepped indoors. When a gentleman went inside, he (more…)

The Next Secrets of the Internet

Right now, someone is tinkering with a billion dollar secret — they just don’t know it yet. “What people aren’t telling you,” Peter Thiel taught his class at Stanford, “can very often give you great insight as to where you should be directing your attention.”

Secrets people can’t or don’t want to divulge are a common thread behind Thiel’s most lucrative investments such as Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as several other breakout companies of the past decade. The kinds of truths Thiel discusses — the kinds that create billion dollar businesses in just a few years (more…)

Pinterest’s Obvious Secret

Note: This article was first published in Forbes

User addiction illustrates the success of Pinterest

Executive Summary:

  • Pinterest is onto something big, but few know its obvious secret.
  • The success of Pinterest is because of its focus on reducing users’ cognitive load.
  • Pinterest brilliantly aligns its user experience with its business objectives of getting users to consume, create and share content.
  • Pinterest will soon have the richest consumer purchase intent data ever assembled.

Last week, I sat down for drinks with a few friends.  “Have you heard of this Pinterest website?” (more…)

Personalized eCommerce Is Already Here, You Just Don’t Recognize It

NOTE: This post originally appeared in Techcrunch. (Photo credits)

Personalized eCommerce is already here

Reading Leena Rao’s recent article on Techcrunch about the personalization revolution, you get the sense that the tech world is waiting for a bus that isn’t coming. Rao quotes well-known industry experts and luminaries describing what needs to happen for e-commerce to finally realize the promise of personalized shopping, a future where online retailers predict what you’ll want to buy before you know yourself.

Ironically, Rao and her pundits are missing the zooming race car that’s speeding by them (more…)

The Developer Divide: When Great Companies Can’t Hire

Engineers are missing out on opportunities to work with great companies (Photo credit) Lately, I’ve noticed a startling paradox in Silicon Valley.  I see shitty companies hiring more engineers than they know what to do with, while other, great companies struggle to fill open roles.  Now my definition of “shitty” is completely subjective, but I bet you too can name some ridiculous start-ups that no sane engineer should work for. Meanwhile, great companies catering to huge markets, logical business models, amazing user growth, and cash in the bank from top investors, are having a hard time hiring tech talent.  What gives?

I call this phenomenon the developer divide. It occurs after a company has cracked a user need (more…)