Very recently, the New York Times ran an article on the correlation between depression and certain mental disciplines. It’s definitely a thought provoking read, and the title “Depression’s Upside” is bound to spark some controversy. If you experience depression or know someone that experiences depression then it’s well worth the 7 page read, as it’s probably one of the most well crafted pieces of text I have ever read on the topic:
Depression’s Upside @ NYTimes.com
Read the rest of this entry »
posted on the February 28th, 2010 No Comments »
A little over five years ago now, my wife and I arrived back in Australia from a year over in the UK. It was a great year, and I’d enjoyed the work I’d being doing over there (coding at a smallish Biotech) as well as the ability to travel. Additionally, I’d left on good terms with my employer and had the opportunity to do some work with them from Australia. Great, I thought – an opportunity to get my own software development business started; which I guess has always been my dream.
While, I think the idea was good in practice, it wasn’t the right time. My current struggle is attempting to determine if now is the right time.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted on the February 20th, 2010 No Comments »
Living life with depression in my own words, “sucks arse”. I do generally try to keep my language clean, but I have no other way to really describe the condition. Certainly not in my case at least. Today is the third day in a row that I have been away from work due to depression.
While I have always attempted to be as open as possible with my managers (given the impact the condition has on them), I have found it much more difficult to be open about things with my peers and people who work for me. Well today, I just chose to tell it how it was, and I honestly think that was the best thing to do. That does, however, mean I need to be this open with everyone so I am not putting others in a difficult situation of knowing something about me that is not widely known.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted on the January 18th, 2010 21 Comments »
The amount of discussion that has gone on projecting twitter’s demise based on “stalled growth” is very interesting. I think this particular example demonstrates very well that current competitive analysis techniques used for web business are broken and failing to deliver the information genuinely needed.
I believe the web is currently informationally, functionally and economically constrained from further evolution.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted on the January 13th, 2010 1 Comment »
With last week’s release of Sidewiki, there have been a quite a few discussions around whether it is a good or bad thing for blogs and sites in general. Whether it is the right way to go about implementing a global commenting system, etc, etc.
Whether it is or isn’t doesn’t really worry too much – my thoughts are around what can be done with the API.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted on the September 28th, 2009 No Comments »
I just finished reading a great post on Mashable about a social media campaign run by Grasshopper. To me the campaign that grasshopper ran (read the mashable post for info) truly shows that innovation and a willingness to take a risk are what’s required to have some success in the noise of our current Web 2.x market.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted on the June 16th, 2009 1 Comment »
It’s been a couple of weeks now since we got our first looks at Google Wave, and the dust is starting to settle. In the process of the dust settling for me, I really started question why we aren’t already actively using a key component of Google Wave on the web. The component I am referring to is being able to comment inline (or contextually) on web content such as blog articles.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted on the June 12th, 2009 No Comments »
Now I haven’t been a twitter user for years or even a large number of months yet, but I am already frustrated with tweets from one individual to another that have absolutely no value to anyone but those two people involved. I mean how can Twitter continue to grow having to store and archive a massive number of tweets with such low interest value?
Read the rest of this entry »
posted on the May 31st, 2009 2 Comments »
One of my strong beliefs is that there are enough good ideas in the world to go around, and thus sharing those ideas early is a good thing. That is the whole premise surrounding my idea of Concept Buzz and it would appear the folks over at clusterify have a similar belief.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted on the May 29th, 2009 No Comments »
As part of the Global Mood project I am currently working on, I feel one way of allowing people to specify their mood is by using an x,y coordinate on a 2d graph (mood really doesn’t seem like a one-dimensional thing to me). I have my first design done for the mood selector widget (just an image at this stage) and really need some feedback.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted on the May 26th, 2009 5 Comments »
