Tag: business

All aboard

We’re pleased to announce that we have acquired GrandCentral Communications, a company that provides services for managing your voice communications. GrandCentral is an innovative service that lets users integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into one account, which can be accessed from the web. We think GrandCentral’s technology fits well into Google’s efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users.

as customer-hostile industries like telcos and music are invaded by the software industry, features go up, prices reach zero, and customer satisfaction increases.

Facebook Platform

Metaphorically, Facebook is providing the ease and user attraction of MySpace-style embedding, coupled with the kind of integration you see with Firefox extensions, with the added rocket fuel of automated viral distribution to a huge number of potential users, and the prospect of keeping 100% of any revenue your application can generate.

facebook makes the sharecropper life so convenient

Avoid Schedules

Let’s start with a bang: don’t keep a schedule. He’s crazy, you say! I’m totally serious. If you pull it off — and in many structured jobs, you simply can’t — this simple tip alone can make a huge difference in productivity. By not keeping a schedule, I mean: refuse to commit to meetings, appointments, or activities at any set time in any future day. As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time. Want to spend all day writing a research report? Do it! Want to spend all day coding? Do it! Want to spend all day at the cafe down the street reading a book on personal productivity? Do it! When someone emails or calls to say, “Let’s meet on Tuesday at 3”, the appropriate response is: “I’m not keeping a schedule for 2007, so I can’t commit to that, but give me a call on Tuesday at 2:45 and if I’m available, I’ll meet with you.” Or, if it’s important, say, “You know what, let’s meet right now.” Clearly this only works if you can get away with it. If you have a structured job, a structured job environment, or you’re a CEO, it will be hard to pull off. But if you can do it, it’s really liberating, and will lead to far higher productivity than almost any other tactic you can try.

the secret of productivity: don’t commit to meetings.

Office Jargon

Let’s think out of the box: Really means, “Can you creatively anemic people please come up with something?” The person who says, “Let’s think out of the box” is usually desperate for a new idea and surrounded by people who are not known for generating ideas. So the phrase is actually an announcement that says, “I’m in trouble.” I need someone who can hit the ground running: Really means, “I am screwed.” Because no one can hit the ground running. You need to at least assess what race you’re in and who else is running. Do you have the bandwidth? Note that bandwidth is not time. It is something else. If you ask someone “Do you have time?” you mean, “Am I a priority?” If you ask someone “Do you have bandwidth” you mean, “You seem like your brain is fried. Can you pull yourself together to do this for me?”

the talk of a dysfunctional organization. see also research into the evasiveness of business english. strong words like “truth” are rarely used, the study finds.

Damien Hirst

Placed outside of the White Cube Gallery Masons yard at 3:30 in response to the Damien Hirst’s “For The Love of God” diamond skull exhibition.

fucking with damien hirst has to be one of the most meta fucks of all time.

a life-size platinum skull set with 8601 high-quality diamonds. If, as expected, it sells for around $100m this month, it will become the single most expensive piece of contemporary art ever created. Or the most outrageous piece of bling.


2008-09-13:

More than 180 people work for him, creating Damien Hirsts. 2 specialists oversee the formaldehyde unit, which on a visit in July contained 4 dead ponies, a wild boar, an upended cow and, in good “Godfather” style, a horse’s head in a plastic bag.

Open Email

“JP has set up a stringent approach to filtering his email. He throws all email where he is CC’d directly into the trash. Basically, he only reads email directed to him, alone. Of course, for this to have any influence on people’s behavior, he has to loudly and regularly let others know that he is doing this. More interestingly, he has opened access to his email to his staff. By treating his email as an open forum, he has found that his associates are more involved in his interactions with others. He has found that they can use this — particularly his sent mail — is a great learning opportunity.” So much of working online involves deciding what’s public and what’s private. Rangaswami has turned this around, at least for his work (I assume he still has a private email account he doesn’t share). Although this is analogous to making email like forums and wikis, the key difference is that you are using email as the entry point. It’s not a separate wiki/forum site.

making work mail public and getting rid of the cc games would remove so much politics