How often do you walk into a public restroom in a venue that is non-smoking (restaurant, office, sporting venue, airport), and you get hit with a blast of cigarette smoke. I just rolled off the plane here in MSP, walked into the bathroom and BLAM....
Travel Foibles Part 1 of (many)
As I approach a million miles on United airlines, and lately have struggled to earn even premier status on their Milage Plus program, I am accorded the benefit of "Unlimited Domestic Upgrades". This is a nice touch. But I have yet to receive this ...
NYT – Your special deal for $0.13 a week still blows
Twice in the last week I have received emails from the NY Times advertising a special 80 weeks all access for $0.99. That is roughly 13 cents a week. Sounds like a good deal. But, after the 8 weeks, ir will rise to the $30+ per month. Your digital...
I miss my real blog – rambling about product management, and my sad state.
Summary: A few weeks ago, a sales engineer was being disruptive in our iteration demo meeting. I sent a (non appropriate) message to my scrum master to get this individual to stop trying to turn it into a design review. The message was mistakenly ...
Opt out marketing mail messages
We all get a lot of spam. I have int he past, used one of my mail accounts to register for something or other. Don't know what it was, but it seemed to bring a few offers of "XYZ market report" or "Reach KLM decision makers in solar technology". O...
Why is it that sales’s first reaction to something new is to give it away?
I know that I can't be unique here. We develop a really cool new feature/module/functionality. Early validation and customer feedback is hugely positive. Phrases like "game changing" "revolutionary" "must have at any cost" are bantered about. Then...
Ever read something that made you feel dumb(er)? #ui #ux #consistency
I saw a quip on Slashdot about a Google researcher who found that ~90% of his subjects (aka people) that he was observing didn't know that the keyboard shortcut ctrl+f would bring up a dialog to find the desired phrase/word in the current document...
Wrong Turns in Life
Last week, I was chatting with a colleague, and I made an off the cuff comment that the day my life began to fall apart was the first day that I took a Product Management job. I was only half joking, and this week has given evidence to support the...
Hawaii Five-0 observations
Lately, I have been watching a lot of classic TV series on Netflix Streaming. Lots of fun, although it did highlight that my cable modem is ancient and needs to be replaced with a DOCSIS 3.0 box, to prevent hiccups. One show that I have been cruis...
Computers and Precision machining to the rescue
This morning I got my second crown. Both upper rear molars are now crowned. The first one I got ~ 20 years ago. I ate a hard candy and the tooth completely crumbled. Getting fitted for the crown was a bit arduous. Two impressions (before and after...