Right Now
I help boards and executives at growth-stage technology companies continue (or resume) rapid acceleration by advising them on improving their leadership capabilities, operations, and technology. While I specialize in executive advising on leadership and process, I can also dive into deep technical problems with Data Science or Software Engineering departments. Feel free to contact me directly to learn more.
I have a few tech projects in progress that will undoubtedly become blog posts. I’m working on an e-book about leadership in organizations, as well as a field manual for triaging performance and architecture in growth-stage startups. I sometimes write code for open-source projects like TinySite and CompressTest. I also work on ApplyByAPI, a tool that helps companies focus on quality over quantity in their tech hiring process.
Recent Publications
On Two-Sided Markets
Many technology companies can be viewed in the context of a two-sided marketplace (TSM), a special case of a multi-sided marketplace (MSM). This view has interesting implications for the dynamics of the business in addition to how product strategy and prioritization is decided. Having worked for over 15 years in TSM environments from Online Travel, to Affiliate Marketing at Zanox, mobile ad network madvertise, and many years in Financial Services, I thought it might be useful to provide a conceptual overview of the markets, dynamics, and implications. Since TSMs are so ubiquitous among internet economy success stories, we can also learn a lot from the likes of Google, eBay, Airbnb, Etsy, Kickstarter, oDesk, iTunes, Netflix, Spotify, Facebook, and others. ... read moreMoving from Type 2 to Type 3 Data Organizations
Introduction In the previous post on the Kardashev scale for data organizations we discussed the three general types and their characteristics, but didn’t dive deeply into how to make the move from Type 2 to Type 3 (the move from Type 1 to Type 2 doesn’t really require much explanation). The move from Type 2 to Type 3 requires more focus on data and how it integrates into the product (including developing totally new products) and a departure from focusing on the data organization as a service unit. It also implies that the infrastructure and tools are in place for people to look into data on operational metrics themselves and that they do not require the expertise of a dedicated BI group. ... read moreOn Schemas
Introduction Over the last few years, some people have come to see schemas of any type as a legacy hinderance which should generally be ignored, and much of the NoSQL fervor that gained momentum around 2010 was related to this. The promise was that not having schemas would set you free and that you would become more productive, agile, your application would be faster, and all kinds of other things. Some of this may have been true for web applications or APIs backed by a single data store, in a relatively small company or team, but it’s an entirely different matter when talking about distributed data processing systems. ... read moreThe Kardashev Scale of Data Maturity
Introduction For those who have read or seen much science fiction, you have probably encountered the Kardashev Scale at some point. This is a general grouping of how advanced a civilization is based on the ways it utilizes energy. At the risk of reiterating what’s already on Wikipedia: The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization’s level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to utilize. The scale has three designated categories called Type I, II, and III. A Type I civilization uses all available resources impinging on its home planet, Type II harnesses all the energy of its star, and Type III of its galaxy. ... read more