Skill or Habit? What belongs to the first category and what belongs to the second? And how can technology better promote skill? That is the primary question of this week’s podcast and we take a long time to answer it. Our trip takes us through the writings of Adam Smith, an app that can calculate … Continue reading 16260: Disrupting the Schumpethon →

What kinds of qualities do you want on your team? We start discussing skills and the qualities of our personnel with guest George Dyson while our intern and our IT guy go in search of John Von Neumann’s early computer. Dyson identifies some useful lessons from Julian Bigelow, who served as the engineer on von … Continue reading 16250: Getting the Right People →

Observing Technology and Technological Organizations. And while you’re at it, how do you explain a boating accident to your boss, who thought that you were going to meet George Dyson? [16240]

We now live in the age of Big Data and believe that numbers hold the answers to all our problems.  But in dealing with technology, it is useful to return to first principles and start by asking what assumptions underly our data and whether or not those assumptions are true. [16230] Our guest this week … Continue reading 16230: Scientific Observation with George Dyson →

Negotiation. Negotiated Technology. How do we start to make the compromises that turn a technology into a product. We sit down with our CTO, Vinny and our Business Manager, Evelyn, in the famous Silicon Valley Restaurant, Bucks of Woodside, to discuss these issues. (And oddly, the waiter looks remarkably like Rohit.) This week, as we … Continue reading 16220: A visit to Bucks of Woodside →

A crisis with Evelyn-the-Business-Manager leads to a discussion of organizational operations, negotiation in the work place and to a preview of the new podcast season – which includes interviews with the historian of technology, George Dyson. This episode introduces new cast member, Margaux Amie. [16210] Janus Cones Janus Cones are graphical tools for organizing events … Continue reading 16210: The Omnipurpose Negotiator →

A binge of three episodes.  A binge for your workout.  A binge for your commute.  Or just a binge to catch up on the episodes that you missed. This binge has three episodes from the fall.  In the first Don Shafer of the Athens group talks about deadlines and why software projects can run late. … Continue reading 16165: The Binge – Don Shafer, The Cycle of Continuous Improvement, Pierre Bourque →

Once you have a character, it is impossible to control him or her.  In the winter of 2016, Anna-the-Intern made a pitch to the (even then) notorious Elon Musk.  She thought that he might like to be the next host of the podcast as the then current hosts were not pulling their weight.   She … Continue reading Anna appeals to Elon Musk →

Here’s the trouble with real people.  They don’t don’t write, they don’t call, they just aren’t reliable.  Anna the Intern made an appeal  to Elon Musk early in our run. Did she get a reply?  You tell me. Real people! Anna wants to be a player. She hopes to be a technology media mogul. For … Continue reading Anna appeals to Elon Musk →

Drama has its uses and its limits.  Anna-the-Intern one more substitutes for the missing hosts and introduces this binge episode that incorporates the three episodes that started the discussion on Agile methods & Management: 210: What’s in a name? 220: What is new about Agile? 230: The Agile Manifesto [15316]