Agreed, however they rarely pull punches at the SvN blog. This is not the first time they make comments about the "others" (even if they're successful "others").
What's wrong with being young? I feel old at 27, but because I have 5 less years now to think of, develop, and launch new projects compared to a 22 year old.
There's nothing wrong with being young and a CEO. In fact, you'll probably have to step up to the plate because no old fart will work for free and helm you startup (not that you'd want them to anyway).
I've used Basecamp, Trac and Bugzilla. All are easy to use (and we've had some very non-technical users on them). My favorite though was trac, very easy to use, easy to set roadmaps and milestones. The bonus with bugzilla is that its more flexible (we're managing several development initiatives simultaneously). Basecamp is inexpensive, but I didn't find it as useful in managing bugs and support tickets (it was very useful in managing a grant application process though).
Personally, I don't think that the mode matters as much as consistency in method. I've successfully managed support tickets for smaller projects on a series of google doc spreadsheets without any problems. It makes for easier sharing with the client as well.
Bugzilla might fit your needs best out of the three I know about. Good luck!
Sounds eerily familiar to the SvN mantra (37signals). I think the point is that momentum can be exhilarating while even the smallest missteps can really set a company back. Which is why, as a startup you need to positively reinforce your staff, remind people of/tout the little successes and mitigate the failures. Momentum is important for morale (and future successes).
I agree with you, but I also agree that major changes in a companies focus can really hurt morale (if the employees aren't sold on the idea they'll push back).
Also, I think the author would agree with you to an extent. Apple really did push into a market where they didn't have any prior business, but their experiences and expertise really paved their way to success.
I hope they continue and expand the practice. It seems like a cool initiative, though I'm a little fuzzy on what the products of the initiative are. For example, you can get the foodbank data, which would be great for finding the exact locations of the nearest foodbanks...say, if you were homeless and had an iPhone.
Could be great for transit times and getting around the city too.
If I'm missing the point of the open data please enlighten me.
there's a correlation between depression and food, but there are also correlations between food and socio economic status. So being low income might also be contributing to mental health (which isn't addressed in the article at all; though they do point out that if there are a lot of takeaway joints near by then the problem is exacerbated...might those areas also be lower income?).
This is not to mention that kick ass programmers that leave can end up being competitors. Any employee that's valuable knows the ins and outs of your company/software (what's good about it, where the limitations are, what customers want/don't want). letting them walk away is a risk.
Setting up an environment where employees often walk is even worse, i.e. where there is rampant "poor communication, disregard for an employee's cares and well-being, or a combination of the both". I've been there and watched great programmers leave unhappily. It causes morale issues and leaves a huge hole in institutional knowledge.
Yeah, I think one thing to add to that list is testing. I'm not a programmer, but I have often been able to root out bugs that really affect customer usability (and often can save our programmers time by finding the specific variables that contribute to the bug...which can make fixing them faster).
Product testing is really everyone's jobs (in software it's much easier to manage your app if it's something you engage every day).
According to the question ask "do you think war is inevitable?" you'd be included in 9 of 10 think war is inevitable. What we want was not part of the question (and I don't think it is on peace.facebook.com either. Their question is "is world peace possible?", based on your response above your answer to facebook would be "no").
Anyone else think it's weird that he wouldn't even mention twitter and facebook? he just called them "the two fine companies". I know they want to own the information and distribute it (that's their biz). But why not talk about them directly?
I've got a mytouch. I think android is going to be huge. Time will tell, but I'm betting that it will become the sole "iphone competition" (though it will be codified in 100s of phones, not just 2)
radiolab (part of nyc's public radio) had a great news piece about this very topic. Back during the cold war like 1 in 3 people thought war was inevitable. It says a lot about our culture that 1 in 10 think that we can achieve PEACE. 66% peace lovers to 10% is pretty sad.