Unsolicited Advice

Your First Employee

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ October 24, 2011 / Leave a comment

A skilled manager always considers motivations and outside influences when evaluating a subordinate’s recommendations. Do they think there is not enough information to proceed just so they can get out of work early? Do they think a product feature is critical only because they were the one who implemented it? ...
Approaching Immaturity with Maturity

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ October 22, 2011 / Leave a comment

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world....
Applying Innovation to the Past Before the Future

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ October 21, 2011 / Leave a comment

My colleague, Sheppard Narkier wrote a great post on my company’s blog today. The overall concept is that when new innovations come around they often enable us to automate or get rid of deeply engrained tasks that may not be obvious. Once we’ve done that, we’re free to use the...
iOS5 vs. Android Ice Cream Sandwich

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ October 20, 2011 / Leave a comment

We’ve got new releases of both the Android and Apple mobile operating systems so everyone is forced to ask… “Who’s ahead?” As always, it’s not a simple question to answer. The interesting part about the Android vs. Apple discussion will always (or at least the next few years) be that their design...
Visualizing Data

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ October 19, 2011 / Leave a comment

I have had a post in my “ideas that need to be noodled” hopper for about a month with the heading “Visualizing Data”. I woke up this morning and found that Seth Godin had just written half the post. I particularly like his point about data visualization being especially necessary...
Product + Business + Company = Success

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ October 12, 2011 / Leave a comment

What do I mean by building the company as opposed to building the business? Building the business means obsessing over things like product features, getting traction with early clients, competition, and generating buzz Building the company means obsessing over things like HR policies, company values and culture, long-term strategy, and...
Staying Inspired

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ October 11, 2011 / Leave a comment

I have been crazy busy the last few weeks. I’ve had both personal fun (went to a Penn State game, NYC, had company, ran the great race) and professional obligations (trying to get a swanky new version of a couple of our products out the door ASAP). It has caused...
Netflix Hitting Cntrl Z

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ October 10, 2011 / 1 Comment

I am having a hard time processing the news this morning that Netflix is undoing their move to spin off the DVD rental business as Qwikster, explaining that they were moving too quickly. While I agree that they may have moved too quickly to split Qwikster and Netflix, I think...
On Respecting Steve Jobs

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ October 6, 2011 / Leave a comment

Note: I wasn’t going to do a Steve Jobs post. I have another post prepared about the protesters on Wall Street that’s far more interesting and informative. At the same time, I feel like every technology focused blog owes him a post of some sort today, so here is mine....
What’s Wrong With Government

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ October 3, 2011 / Leave a comment

The Public insists, and arguably has a right to insist, that it knows where its money’s going. have a very high expectation of results. That is not the way innovation works. Innovation, the essence of innovation, is you don’t know what you’re going to build, what it’s going to...