After a brief hiatus, I am back to writing my regular columns for the Technique. This one might be called the last column of my "Kazakhstan series," though I never thought of my columns like that.
While I feel like I ramble a bit, the thought process isn't so complicated. People have to make a tradeoff between money and convenience, and that's the quintessential question of product development. When you read advice for product development, one of the key points is always that your product should be a painkiller, not a vitamin: In other words, your product needs to solve an actual problem the target audience has, not just make things marginally better. If it isn't, you've basically created a luxury item. There's nothing wrong with that, mind you, but it completely changes your target audience and approach.
More critically, I think that when it comes to the issue of software development, creating "luxury items" doesn't work. I mean, sure, you could consider something like Adobe Photoshop a luxury item because you can get The Gimp for free, but Photoshop is the industry standard software that professionals rely on to do their work. It solves the pain these people have of photo and image editing more effectively than anything else.
In web applications, the situation is even more stark. There are a select few applications that actually cost money to use (and don't have a free version), and with a few exceptions these are targeted at businesses. If your target is the casual user--the one who might carry two cell phones because it works out to be cheaper--your product just may not be worth paying for.
September 6th, 2008
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One of my more unusual assignments at work: serve as the model for an experiment with hand drawings. This was the result after some Photoshop processing.
July 16th, 2008
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After this long blogging break, I realized that I forgot to post a link to my most recent column from the Technique. As is often the case, articles I stumbled across on the web made me begin thinking about a topic -- in this case, that of happiness and why people are or are not happy in certain situations.
My key point is that students at Tech are often unhappy because they have unreasonable expectations of success, which cannot hold up in the Institute's challenging environment. I'm not sure I made the argument as well as I wanted to, though, and I'm frustrated because I don't have any really practical ideas for making students happier. As is often the case with matters of the mind, it's up to the students themselves to adopt the right attitude.
June 17th, 2008
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In Kiev, there is a roughly 100-year-old bridge known as the "Bridge of Love." It is not a particularly long or wide bridge, as it only connects two parks and is intended for pedestrian traffic only, and in fact it seems a little unstable. But as the bridge is one of many structures worldwide to carry the legend that passing across it with a significant other will lead to eternal happiness, couples have scribbled, tied cloths, and placed metal locks onto the bridge as signs of their commitment.
Despite the fact that I just had an unforgettable experience learning from and working with people from over 20 different countries at AIESEC's International Trainers Congress and I have lots of memorable photos from the trip, this is the photo that stands out most in my mind.
The locks on the bridge are to me a reminder of the commitments I made to myself and to others at the conference: to aim for and achieve my goals related to gaining and practicing training skills, keeping up contact with people from the conference and applying my newfound knowledge in a meaningful way. Shamefully, I have often failed to complete the lofty goals I set for myself at these conferences, but I think there are several things that differentiate ITC from the past ones.
First and foremost, the goals I set coming off the other conferences were largely AIESEC-related, and my occasional love-hate relationship with the organization (or at least AIESEC United States) often got in the way and sapped me of energy. The skills I gained at ITC, on the other hand, are much more applicable to my overall life, and practicing them makes sound sense regardless of the medium. In the near term that's likely to continue to be AIESEC, but in the future it could be anything. Second, I was too busy much of the time to really reflect on the things I wanted to achieve and put the appropriate amount of effort into them, as I was constantly sideswiped by "just getting by." As I mentioned in my thoughts on mental bandwidth, I think this problem is, at least for the immediate future, solved. Finally, I am a somewhat older and more experienced person now, and I think that will also play a role.
So with all that said (and no actual details about the conference itself -- I'll correct that oversight another time), I'm looking for suggestions on as many effective ways to hold myself accountable as I can reasonably implement. What are your thoughts, oh few readers of mine?
May 15th, 2008
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For any of you trying to get in touch with me, I'm going to be pretty much entirely unavailable for the remainder of my time in Kiev. If you send me an email, don't expect an answer before May 14.
May 4th, 2008
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Apparently that whole thing about ironing shoelaces was an elaborate joke. :-/
Now I must go search the office; I've been informed that gullible is written on the ceiling, but I absolutely can't seem to find where...
April 21st, 2008
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