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By J. Timothy King on May 30, 2013
A couple weeks ago, I was reading through Andy Hertzfeld’s anecdotes at FolkLore.org, about how he and his colleagues developed the original Macintosh. These stories brought me back, first to nostalgic times, then to a nostalgic purpose. I remembered all the reasons I first fell in love with software development, many of which are also […]
Posted in Confessions of a Veteran Software Developer, Software Development, Stories, True Stories | Tagged Apple, computers, Damon/IEC, history, innovation, Macintosh, software engineering |
By J. Timothy King on February 25, 2010
If you want to understand why I think eBooks should be almost free, let me start by telling you a little story (first related by Peter Drucker in his classic Innovation and Entrepreneurship on pp. 33 ff.): Some decades ago, the chairman of Macy’s became disturbed by a trend he saw in his industry. Most […]
Posted in Books, Entrepreneurship | Tagged ebook, innovation |
By J. Timothy King on August 18, 2009
Bob Baker pointed me toward this blog post by Leo Babauta: “8 Valuable Lessons Newspapers Must Learn From Bloggers to Survive”. I’m actually finding myself disagreeing with some of Leo’s points. For example:
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Writing | Tagged blogging, innovation, Internet media, news media
By J. Timothy King on August 12, 2009
This morning, after I dropped the Missus off at work, I headed down Washington Street toward Mishawum Road, where I needed to make a left turn in order to get to the highway. Now, this particular intersection has two left-turn lanes. That is, if you want to make a left turn, you can either get […]
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Leaving Normal, Stories, True Stories, Wishcasting Wednesday | Tagged herd instinct, innovation, psychology |
By J. Timothy King on March 21, 2009
One way to deal with poor communication on a software project is simply to ignore the people around you and do what you wanted to do anyhow. Of course, this strategy can backfire, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. But in that case, you probably won’t know enough to notice it backfiring, so […]
Posted in Confessions of a Veteran Software Developer, Humor, Software Development, Stories, True Stories | Tagged communication, Damon/IEC, innovation, programming, software engineering
By J. Timothy King on March 17, 2008
Recently, a fiction author told me that because I was “unpublished”–his word, not mine–I was unqualified to offer advice on writing stories. Of course, that’s silly, because getting published is not about whether you can write. It’s about schmoozing with editors and agents and about receiving enough rejection letters. Getting published is an exercise in […]
Posted in Business, Leaving Normal, Self-publishing, Stories, True Stories | Tagged critics, innovation |
By J. Timothy King on December 31, 2006
“Once upon a time, there was a quiet, little village in the French countryside whose people believed in tranquilite. If you lived in this village, you understood what was expected of you. You knew your place in the scheme of things. And if you happened to forget, someone would help remind you. In this village, […]
Posted in Entertainment, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Marketing, Movies | Tagged Chocolat, Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, innovation, Pam Slim |
By J. Timothy King on May 5, 2006
Somewhere between 9 employees and 50, the job becomes a burden. The best company I ever worked for was around 20 or 30 people. (It varied over the years.) After it ended, I said I wanted a break, a normal job for a stable employer. Be careful what you wish for; you might actually get […]
Posted in Entrepreneurship | Tagged innovation, Peopleware |