Archive | August, 2007

Jeff Skoll on inspiring real change

This talk by Jeff Skoll (former eBay president) must be the most inspiring event of this year.

I totally admire persons, who have become wealthy  and spend it for good cause. I mean there are more people that have a lot of wealth and spend it only for their own dreams. Wouldn't it be great if you could influence the future of your society and the world in general, create awareness and give something back to the people who made you wealthy in the first place?

Jeff Skoll made his fortune as the first president of eBay. Now he's spending it at the movies. His company, Participant Productions, makes entertaining, issues-driven films that inspire real change — Murderball, Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth … Here, he talks about the people who've inspired him to do good, and about some upcoming films that will open your eyes.

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Keep it small, keep it simple and with less structure

You know 10 years ago you had to be this big company to succeed, especially in the software business. Nowadays with the Internet people can find you and you don't need to shell out big money for advertising campaigns and hire 100 developers just to make your product succeed.

Actually we think that a small team with some key people can make it all happen. Some of the advantages of a small team are:

  • Less overhead. You don't need a big fancy shiny office, a location that fits 4 to 6 people will do.
  • Less structure. Think about how easy it is to come up with a decision without hours of meetings.
  • Less intrusions. A big team also means a lot of disturbances going on in the office. Ask any developer inside a big company. I swear they want to work in a room all by themselves …
  • Less infrastructure. Obviously a smaller team does not require so many special arrangements. Your CFO will thank you.

All of the above leads you to one single thing; that is your product will get done sooner then later, you can act faster to market then big teams (think about how long it takes Microsoft to make its Mac Office 2004 available for the Mac 2 years after Apple made the Intel switch) and all in all your reaction time for your customers will outdo any big team.

 

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Why Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook are going to kick Google’s butt in four years

There are 3 very good videos on the above topic over at Scobleizer.com.

And as the author himself notes "…and the only way you’ll watch these videos is if someone tells you to watch them…".

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The music we currently listen

While developing there is nothing better then a good piece of sound. Here are some of the artists we are currently listen to:

  • Feist – latest album "The Reminder"
  • Nine Inch Nails – latest album "Year Zero"
  • Trentemoller – latest album "The last resort"
  • Skye – latest album "Mind how you go"
  • Lunik – latest album "Preparing to leave"
  • Mich Gerber – latest album "Tales of the wind"
  • Placebo – latest album "Meds"

There are some other artists we like to listen to, but these are the ones we have put on the most in the last 2 months. More to come soon…

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