miercuri, 24 august 2016

Seth's Blog : Graceful degradation

Graceful degradation

Stuff's going to break.

Then what?

Air conditioners, for example, gradually lose their charge. When they do, icing can occur. When that happens, the drain pans overflow and water seeps away.

The smart builder, then, anticipates all this and has the pan connected to some sort of drain, as opposed to having it rot the beams or collapse a ceiling. 

Most failures aren't shocking surprises. The law of large numbers is too strong for that. Instead, they are predictable events that smart designers plan for, instead of wishing them away as rare unpredictable accidents.

Lastpass is a popular password manager. (You should have a password manager. And tenants' insurance. And you should backup your data, too. You'll thank me one day for the reminder.)

It's inevitable that people will forget their master password. It's inevitable that a network glitch or other unforeseen event will cause the software to forget. Sooner or later. Then what? 

Blaming a significant hassle and frustrating data loss on an unlikely accident is bad design. Instead, Lastpass built in a 'revert' feature will allows them to roll back a password without ever compromising security.

When the glitch happens, does your design fail?

The most hackneyed line in design is, "first, do no harm." A more useful adage is, "when weird stuff happens, make sure it doesn't cause harm you didn't expect or plan for."

For work where the outcome matters, consider the immortal words of the Smith System, "Always leave yourself an out."

       

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luni, 22 august 2016

Seth's Blog : "The main topic that's been on everybody's mind"

"The main topic that's been on everybody's mind"

Is almost never the one that's worth talking about.

The urgency of the day, today's celebrity crisis, the thing of the moment... that's what the media wants, that's what creates urgency, and that's what is most definitely not important.

We now follow that same path at work.

No excuses for the reporter (and editor) that pursue a story merely because it's on everybody's mind. Or the boss or the VC, either. That's not a good enough reason to waste our attention on it.

Step by step, drip by drip, you carve your path by focusing on what matters, not what's on everybody's mind. By the time you try to chase the urgent thing, it's too late.

       

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duminică, 21 august 2016

Seth's Blog : Marketing in four steps

Marketing in four steps

The first step is to invent a thing worth making, a story worth telling, a contribution worth talking about.

The second step is to design and build it in a way that people will actually benefit from and care about.

The third one is the one everyone gets all excited about. This is the step where you tell the story to the right people in the right way.

The last step is so often overlooked: The part where you show up, regularly, consistently and generously, for years and years, to organize and lead and build confidence in the change you seek to make.

       

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