Category: Business

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Business Marketing

Quick notes on Facebook’s f8 08 developer conference

I went to f8 yesterday and I can’t say I had the best time in the world. I probably have more fun at LinuxWorld, but maybe my expectations are lower when I don’t pay $150 to get in. I was hoping to get some more juicy details about the platform, especially about the business side, but the content is mostly people on panels talking about what they do. The most interesting and well-organized presentation on the business track was run by Jia from RockYou. It’s not that it wasn’t interesting, I just wish there was a bit more preparation.

I’m sure all the announcements have been well-covered. I haven’t gone into Google Reader yet today, but I wanted to note a few things.

  • Wireless was horrible.
  • That there was constant music was OK, but it was usually too loud.
  • I saw Marc Canter, Robert Scoble and Mike Arrington walking around (separately), and intellectually I wanted to say hello to them…but I chickened out.
  • Arrington was wearing flip flops. There’s probably a bad pun in there somewhere, but I won’t go there.
  • As Mike Arrington walked by me, I suddenly reconceptualized him as human being, not a sometimes-aggravating participant of the Gillmor Gang. It made me appreciate him more.
  • I am not an Arrington fanboy. I am a Steve Gillmor fanboy. I didn’t spot Steve at f8. 😛
  • There were a couple viable consultancies who help traditional agencies develop Facebook strategies. I’m going to push hard to get Clear Ink to offer those services.
  • Zuckerberg’s keynote made me thirsty for (virtual) kook-aid. The goal of increasing social connections appeals to me. I’m not sure I’ve heard a tech company pitch their vision on being part of a real social movement as compared to offering me something that would be fun to have.
  • Coolest company name: Shanghype.
  • I’m still enjoying the idea that people in Liverpool started a fan group for me on Facebook.
Categories
Business News

Does Google Hate Businesspeople?

It’s April Fool’s Day, and out come jokes from popular Web sites. Google usually does a few things. This year they have something called Custom Time, a feature for Gmail that allows you to send the email with a date in the past. It’s mildly amusing, and probably feasible to implement, actually. But one thing stuck out to me: the fake testimonials feature an honest philosopher and a dishonest investment banker.

Fake Testimonials

What’s up with that? Isn’t it more likely that the philosophy professor would say something condescending and illogical, such as “Despite what your feeble mind might tell you, time travel must be real because we can imagine it.” The Investment banker should be saying, “In recognizing investments, timing is everything. With Custom Time, I can send that email to that Zuckerberg kid and tell him I will be helping him fund his silly dating site for college kids.”

All I’m saying is, it isn’t nice of Google to add yet another smear on businesspeople, perpetuating a false stereotype. It’s especially true since Google would not have been successful at all without the help of investment bankers. Epistemology Professors likely have had little or no impact on Google.

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Business Politics Programming

Optimize the Most Significant Parts

There’s a general principle to optimization that many people miss, but seems so simple once you know it. I’m sure I first read about it in The Practice of Programming from Kernighan and Pike. You should optimize the most significant part of a program to get the most reward for your effort. The procedure is simple. Measure how much time the computer spends in each part of your program. There’s likely a loop that takes up a significant portion of the time. Optimize that part first. If you don’t follow this formula, you’ll probably spend a bunch of time optimizing what you intuitively think is slow, but it may not matter at all.

I’ve found that this approach applies equally well to optimizing money. For example, when you’re running a business, you have a range of expenses. Some of them are for tangible goods, some of them are for outside services and some of them are for salaries. Imagine an office with a fancy coffee maker. Everyone might think it’s a waste of money and a luxury, but the cost of that expense is likely minuscule compared to salaries. You’re usually better off figuring out how to improve efficiencies in your work process than going with cheapo amenities.

Of course, once you know how this work, you can use it deceptively. Politicians do it all the time. Watch how they talk about earmarks, or the apocryphal $100 hammer. You might agree that it’s not a good idea for a congressman to request a $1mil earmark for his wife’s employer, but even $1mil is nothing compared to the most significant costs to the U.S. budget: Social Security and Medicare. If you check the measurements, you’ll find that all the earmarks together total about 1% of the budget, which Social Security and Medicare are about a third. (Total federal spending is about $2.9tril, and Social Security plus Medicare is about $900mil).

I’m a relatively young person in my late 30s. I wonder if I’m not alone in counting on getting absolutely nothing from Social Security by the time I might need it. I’m not taking that chance. I’m saving money in a 401K plus whatever else I can beyond the annual limit of a 401K. I really wouldn’t mind if my taxes were 30% lower and I had to take responsibility for my own retirement.