Quality and Innovation

Disciplined Creative Time

Nicole Radziwill — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:27:40 +0000

I think every blog has at least one post that says “sorry I haven’t posted in a while.” Today is that day for me. I started professor-ing in August and have been on the Manager’s Schedule ever since. By the time I get to Maker’s time, which is where I think about the things I see [...]

Maker’s Meeting, Manager’s Meeting

Nicole Radziwill — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:12:00 +0000

In July, Paul Graham posted an article called “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule“. He points out that people who make things, like software engineers and writers, are on a completely different schedule than managers – and that by imposing the manager’s schedule on the developers, there is an associated cost. Makers simply can’t be as productive [...]

How to Achieve Transparency: One Approach

Nicole Radziwill — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:12:02 +0000

Point 1: Transparency in business and in government means that you know what’s going on (or can find out). You have access to information about the organization’s processes and results, it is clearly presented, and it is understandable. It is difficult, if not impossible, to understand accountability when transparency does not exist. In the emerging [...]

Clickability improves Discoverability

Ron DuPlain — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:37:35 +0000

Michael Davis (@yellowfish_md) and I were talking last night about effective email and other electronic communication. We were discussing the utility (importance?) of making twitter updates/tweets clickable. (I really don’t like saying “tweet,” but I’m getting used to it.) You can make tweets clickable by adding URLs, using hashtags when appropriate, and using @twitter names [...]

What Cupcakes Can Teach Us About Quality

Nicole Radziwill — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:22:12 +0000

After being introduced to Cappellino’s in Charlottesville this past week, I have been thinking a lot about cupcakes. I have actually been thinking about cupcakes for a couple weeks, since the time that my friends Ron (@rduplain) and John (@superninjarobot) went out for “beer and cupcakes”. I thought they were either joking, or that this [...]

Disorganization and Changing Your Mind are Both Expensive

Nicole Radziwill — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:25:36 +0000

Ron DuPlain forwarded me an interesting post from November 2008 (via @duanegran, I believe) called How much do websites cost? It’s a great comprehensive overview of the different kinds of web sites that can be built – the spectrum of customization, interactivity, and intent that dictate whether a web site will cost $200 or $2 [...]

Baldrige-Based Health Care Reform?

Nicole Radziwill — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:15:11 +0000

Today’s Washington Post has an article by Minnesota senator Tim Pawlenty on the effective design of national health care reform, entitled “To Fix Health Care, Follow the States”. He argues that the federal government should model its initiatives after successful state-based systems that link outcomes to value: In Minnesota, our state employee health-care plan has demonstrated [...]