Brendan's Reflections

  • Applying Lean Startup in an Enterprise with Steve Sanderson

    I had the pleasure of hearing Steve Sanderson speak at the Austin Lean Startup Circle last night.  Although I’m a big fan of the Lean Startup, with a working wife and two little kids it’s rare that I prioritize a Meetup over some family time before the kids go to bed.  But I really wanted…

    brendansterne

  • JPMorgan Chase to set up an Innovation Lab

    I noticed a new job announcement this morning from JPMorgan Chase seeking a Head of Chase Labs: The Head of Chase Labs will lead a new team focussed on digital product innovation across banking, credit and consumer payment product groups. This team will operate within the overarching product and business strategies, and will drive new…

    brendansterne

  • People Lab: The Next New Thing in HR

    A while back Nordstrom Innovation Lab posted a great video of the team working inside a Nordstrom store to rapidly prototype and iterate on a iPad app for sunglass shopping: When I went back to re-watch recently I noticed an interesting thing on their website: Interested in checking out our new People Lab? Apply here. This…

    brendansterne

  • Kauffman Foundation joins the Lean Startup Movement

    The venerable Kauffman Foundation has jumped on the Lean Startup bandwagon.  They just launched the Kauffman Founders School, “an online educational resource dedicated to entrepreneurship.” The school is organized as a series of topics, each presented by an expert in a handful of short videos.  First topic is Startups, presented by Steve Blank.  If you’ve already…

    brendansterne

  • Bill Gates: 3 Myths That Block Progress for the Poor

    If you haven’t already read the 2014 Gates Annual Letter: 3 Myths That Block Progress for the Poor, go do so now.  It’s probably one of the more important things you’ll read all year. Here are some highlights: Myth 1: Poor Countries are doomed to stay poor The global picture of poverty has been completely redrawn in…

    brendansterne

  • The Art of Innovation

    Ever wonder who is really good at Innovation?  Clearly Apple comes to mind.  But what about when Apple goes looking for a little help? If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire IDEO IDEO is the small silicon valley design firm that Steve…

    brendansterne

  • The Future of Commerce

    “Online commerce currently accounts for only about 6 percent of all commerce in the United States. We still buy more than 90 percent of everything we purchase offline, often by handing over money or swiping a credit card in exchange for the goods we want.” Last Week The New York Times wrote a great piece…

    brendansterne

  • Why People Hate New Ideas

    “Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas.  If they’re any good you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats”  – Howard Aiken There are many bad reasons why people hate new ideas – and a few good ones.  Scott Berkun explores both in his book The Myths of Innovation.   In the chapter “People love…

    brendansterne

  • Revealed: The 4 Reasons Amazon Web Services Got Approved

    In the summer of 2003 Amazon was a fast-growing online bookstore.  Nine years old, it had pioneered many innovative components of e-commerce that we take for granted today: customer reviews, a personalized shopping experience, relevant product recommendations, and frictionless buying. Jeff Bezos had founded the company in 1994 and began selling books online.  His advantage,…

    brendansterne

  • Recommended Reading: The Log, what every software engineer should know

    Today I found this absolutely superb article on distributed systems and the central role of the log:  The Log: What every software engineer should know about real-time data’s unifying abstraction It’s a technical-but-readable exploration of the role of the humble log in databases and distributed systems.  The article lives up to it’s title and I think…

    brendansterne