Suggested reading: IDEO’s guide to designing for social impact.

PierG

Courtesy of annia316, Some Rights Reserved

Who can afford, in today’s markets, the multi million / billion dollars innovation processes?

Someone might want to invest (many) money in innovation, but NO ONE can wait for the end of the project to start earning moneys!

So we have to change the way in which we make innovation exactly in the same way we are (struggling in) changing the way in which we run regular projects: a just in time innovation made of a set of quick wins!

How’s innovation handled in your companies?

PierG

Here we are, simplicity is gaining positions also in the operating systems arena. The “power of less” is making a new announcement: Introducing the Google Chrome OS.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system [...] We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. [...] The user interface is minimal [...]

And now the best part of the post:

It should just work

These should be the underline assumptions of any modern software project, and this should be the innovation we need!

PierG

Yes it is … Google has officialy announced that Google Apps is out of beta yes, really.

Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk — both enterprise and consumer versions — are now out of beta. “Beta” will be removed from the product logos today, but we’ll continue to innovate and improve upon the applications whether or not there’s a small “beta” beneath the logo.

PierG

My dear friend Piergiuliano Bossi, and a couple of really smart guys like Antonio Cangiano and Marco Beri, have just founded a startup to deliver high quality screencasts about software development: thinkcode.tv

Have a look at the site: http://thinkcode.tv

PierG

I ask all my (agile) readers to read the post Collective Responsibility is No Responsibility form the very good blog Herding Cats of Glen Alleman .

I appreciate Glen, he is very pragmatic and focused on reaching results so I’d like to get your feedback about his post and about the doubt the Glen has:

Why is it we get this confused in the agile IT world. Is there a different work ethic? A different egalitarian motivation is let people "try there hand," to learn by failing. Maybe. On the other side how do people "learn" in our world, if they don’t fail?

Feedback please!

PierG

Courtesy of Evil Erin, Some Rights Reserved

Yes, IT is too difficult and it’s mainly our (IT professional) fault!!

The story: I wanted to send a small video of my son to my mother … and here starts the nightmare:

- some phone calls to agree on the meeting time for the surgery

- a lot of time and shouting to make her find and push the ‘Accept’ button in Skype to authorize the file download

- almost impossible to determine where the video was saved

- almost impossible to understand the reason why the video was not playing (codec? app? …)

I than decided to use a remote control tool to get her screen and do it myself but:

- I got time to find a free and EASY one

- I failed to use a couple as my mom was not able to connect

- failed to make her install QuickTime

The result: I abandoned the session after around 1 hour and a half!

So … do we need “the next Bing” or an usable IT?

PierG

The fact that Einstein stated that time is relative doesn’t allow you to arrive late in meetings.

Or you move at the speed of light or meetings start at a defined time and last for a defined time.

Why this rule is so hard to follow?

PierG

Courtesy of zenobia_joy, Some Rights Reserved

I took the sentence “let them see the light dance inside your eyes” from a post of zenhabits blog called 7 secrets to raising a happy child.

Read the post and you’ll see that most of those suggestions are very good also in managing people. I do hate the metaphor direct = child and some of the things in the post worth the reading.

Let me know what you think!

PierG

According to Wired Italy, Twitter (if you asking to yourself what Twitter is, you do need to have a look at it!) has suspended the planned and announced maintenance of the system pushed by the flood of requests.

In fact Twitter has been defined one of the few communication media available in Iran during this tough period.

Internet is having a real crucial role in this protests no matter the effort to control / close it, see what The Guardian writes:

Although many sites including Twitter, Flickr and Facebook are blocked in Iran, Iranians are using proxy servers to route around government-controlled gateways and publish images, video and blog posts about the protests.

PierG