Musings

Too Big to Fail and IT

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ December 30, 2011 / 3 Comments

People have their lives, their IP on IT systems like Google Docs or iTunes or Facebook, and many businesses rely on the software and support of companies like Microsoft. Imagine what would happen to the American economy if Google or Microsoft failed. Imagine if Facebook shut its doors and you...
Breadth, Focus, and the Need to Practice Thinking

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

I had a great conversation a few evenings back with a new friend. She had read many of the same books I used to read when you saw Book Reviews popping up on this blog on a very regular basis. I still read those books, but MUCH MUCH slower than...
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....
Creator/Consumer Ratio and Innovation

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ August 10, 2011 / Leave a comment

Fifty years ago, the ratio was a million to one. For every person on the news or on primetime, there were a million viewers. The explosion of magazines brought the ratio to 100,000:1. If you wrote for a major magazine, you were going to impact a lot of people. Most...
The Speed of Innovation: The 30 Year Anniversary of the IBM PC

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ August 2, 2011 / Leave a comment

This month is the 30 year anniversary of IBM producing its first personal computer, the IBM 5150. It had absolutely no connection to the internet or network and no speakers. It had little built in functionality, requiring the user to develop their own applications in BASIC. It cost upwards of...
Network Innovation – Why I Work in a Startup

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ July 16, 2011 / Leave a comment

I often get asked why I insist on being involved in startups eventhough my skill set lends itself better to large companies. The answer is that I love innovation, making something where nothing existed before and big companies are just naturally bad at it; over the rest of the post...
Home Sweet Home

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ May 31, 2011 / Leave a comment

If there are typos in this post I apologize I am currently hurdling south on I75 towards Pittsburgh and typing with my thumbs. I have been away from the Burgh for the past two weeks for a combination of fun and work trips that’s taken me from Switzerland to Vegas...
Saturday Musings: Rapture Obsession

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

So some idiot put together some stupid stuff in the bible and managed to predict the rapture today. To me, this isn’t news, If I had a nickel for every time I heard when the world was going to end I’d be rich. The question to me, is WHY would...
Sunday Musings – Life is too Short to Live With Regret, Life is too Long to Live Without Purpose

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ February 27, 2011 / 2 Comments

Typically on Sunday’s I run a post where I collect all of my tweets from the week and include a trivial fact about Sauerkraut. Today, I’m going to run a musings post (one that’s about a subject a little bigger than this blog normally covers) instead of Sauerkraut because with...
Saturday Musings: Watson, Jeapordy and Singularity

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

> I have been trying to get back in the habit of doing these Saturday Musings posts where I take some time to think of an issue that’s a little bit bigger than (though often related to) the worlds of IT, startups and Pittsburgh. I missed it yesterday because I...