All my blog posts and articles
Page 55 of 142 (2825 total posts)
A long long time ago there was a product called Lotus Improv. Our premise was that complex spreadsheets were very difficult to maintain, to audit and to modify. So much so that we had heard stories about companies fearing making any change to the spreadsh...
Read more →
As you know the topic of the future of the university, the role of MOOCs, and online learning, is highly topical these days. I happen to be interested in it too so I refer you to this [David Broo...
This is a tired topic but this article from the New York Times does have some good tips on managing your avalanche of email … > “…There’s no quick fix. But set aside a few hours...
Read more →We saw “Ryan Landry’s “M”” at the Calderwood Pavilion in the South End last weekend. I started out a bit suspiciously when the playwright (who’s not famous) name is part of the name of the play being promoted. The play is based on a famous film “M”. Here’s a bit f...
Read more →This is kind of depressing, but I don’t know why – but NASA administrator Bolden says that NASA has no plans to lead another mission to the moon within our lifetime: > “However, he made it clear NASA has no plans to lead its own human return to the Moon under his watch. “NASA will not take the lea...
Read more →Control The Sun! As you know, I am teaching a course at Olin College this spring – alas we are coming to the end. Anyway an important component has been a Lean Startup project, where students take invent a product and take it through a complete Lean Startup validation. Among many things that students do is to ‘go outside the building’ to validate their businesses. Do me a great favor and help a team of students validate their idea,“Sunrise Blinds”, and answer this super easy questionnaire!
Here’s a really interesting article: “Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead”? from the New York Times. It’s abou...
Tom Friedman, quoting Tony Wagner, describes what he thinks should be taught today (that isn’t really being taught:) > ““Today,” he said via e-mail, “because knowledge is available on every Internet-connected device, what you know matters far less than what you can do with what you know. The capac...
Read more →
I don’t know if I mentioned that I’m teaching Engineering Entrepreneurship at Olin. What a cool school! While the two course have existed at Olin, I was asked to re-invent...
I am (after 10 years) a beginner pianist who wants to improve. I practice, but not diligently enough. On average I think I practice 5 days a week, for about 1/2 hour, so that’s less than 3 hours a week. Clearly I could do better. But I...
I’ve used the now-famous internetty car service Über a couple of times. The prices for the two rides I took were about 20-25% more expensive than taxis. Which made me **wonder about how th...
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU1xS07N-FA&w=560&h=315]
There are fascinating shifts going on in higher education today, from MOOCs to the ‘flipped classroom’. A lot of action. I think we are looking at another text-book “Innovator’s Dilemma” scenario playing out: The established players (traditional universities), aware of a new way of delivering their...
Read more →I saw this in the Boston Globe this morning and I jotted it down because yet again a bit of totally counterintuitive and confusing info: > “It is not like we have Soviet tank divisions at the German border poised to launch a sneak attack,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, an indep...
Read more →I don’t know what’s going on, am I suddenly famous? LinkedIn invites are picking up. I think it’s more likely that LinkedIn has come up with a clever way to encourage people to link to others. I don’t know, but I am receiving LinkedIn invites, from people I never heard of before, and from other cities and even countries. Whatever, first I was feeling important, now I am starting to feel a little besieged!
An interesting international perspective on politics: > “…So, believe me, US politics don’t have a Left. Looking at the presidential candidates, I am frankly appalled. None of them would be a viable politician in Sweden. They all support the death penalty, none advocates strict gun control and all make frequent mention of their religious beliefs in public. These are extremist stances. Not even the tiny Christian Democrat party mentions God publicly in Sweden, for fear of alienating the pragmatic rationalist majority….” (from Aardvarchaeology)
In the continuing stories around Aaron Swartz and events that led to his tragic suicide recently: > “Many people speculated throughout the whole ordeal that this was a political prosecution, motivated by anything/everything from Aaron’s effective campaigning against SOPA to his run-ins with the FB...
Read more →Well these stories appear from time to time, either saying it’s good or bad for you. What’s an addict to do? 
> “Coffee isn’t just warm and energizing, it may also be extremely good for you. In recent years, scientists have studied the effects of coffee on various aspects of health and their results have been nothing short of amazing.” (from Lifehacker)
Just tonight I squirted a few shots of Sriracha on my multi-layered-grilled-vegetable parmigiana. And now there’s an article about Sriracha in Business Week! “…Like ketchup, sri...
Pretty good review of a broad topic: Negotiating Your Startup Offer