After reading it for 2 years, finally get to be in it - excited for our first feature on TechCrunch:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/26/mozilla-and-the-national-science-foundation-challenge-developers-to-build-apps-from-the-future/ Long-Term Monitoring and Crisis Management System
Amr Ali, Biomedical Engineer and Dmitri Boulanov, Software Engineer, Boston University 2010
Ubiquitous sensors plus high-speed networks can revolutionize healthcare.
This app would allow you and your doctor to aggregate and analyze your health data in realtime, detecting and preventing potential crises before they occur.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/26/mozilla-and-the-national-science-foundation-challenge-developers-to-build-apps-from-the-future/ Long-Term Monitoring and Crisis Management System
Amr Ali, Biomedical Engineer and Dmitri Boulanov, Software Engineer, Boston University 2010
Ubiquitous sensors plus high-speed networks can revolutionize healthcare.
This app would allow you and your doctor to aggregate and analyze your health data in realtime, detecting and preventing potential crises before they occur.
A repost from another blog about the value of the time you spend in college and the alternatives you could take.
Especially wish to highlight the point that trying to start your own venture into your own interests is one of the greatest things you could do for your self-development (as opposed to college or an MBA): http://tynan.com/hustleHighlights:"...9. Start a business after two years. With a full two years of self-education under your belt, you should have something useful to contribute to society. School makes you go from sheltered learning mode straight into real-world career mode. I think a better way is to have a transition, and to couple productivity with learning. Having that habit will ensure that you continue to perfect your craft as you get older. Your business can be anything-- a tech startup, publishing books you've written, giving speeches, making clothing and selling it online, whatever you're into. Read some business books before starting it and try to make money. One of the most common complaints I hear from graduates of traditonal school is that nothing they learned was actually applicable to real ife. Everything you learn from starting a business IS...""...Will this work for you? There's no guarantee, but I see people work pretty hard at school, and if that same effort were put towards the Hustler's MBA, I thnk the chance of being self-sufficient and prepared for "real life" is about 90%. I'd estimate that non-laywer/doctor college is somewhere around 50-70%. So, like anything, this plan is not totally foolproof, but I think it's a lot better and cheaper than the alternative..."
Especially wish to highlight the point that trying to start your own venture into your own interests is one of the greatest things you could do for your self-development (as opposed to college or an MBA): http://tynan.com/hustleHighlights:"...9. Start a business after two years. With a full two years of self-education under your belt, you should have something useful to contribute to society. School makes you go from sheltered learning mode straight into real-world career mode. I think a better way is to have a transition, and to couple productivity with learning. Having that habit will ensure that you continue to perfect your craft as you get older. Your business can be anything-- a tech startup, publishing books you've written, giving speeches, making clothing and selling it online, whatever you're into. Read some business books before starting it and try to make money. One of the most common complaints I hear from graduates of traditonal school is that nothing they learned was actually applicable to real ife. Everything you learn from starting a business IS...""...Will this work for you? There's no guarantee, but I see people work pretty hard at school, and if that same effort were put towards the Hustler's MBA, I thnk the chance of being self-sufficient and prepared for "real life" is about 90%. I'd estimate that non-laywer/doctor college is somewhere around 50-70%. So, like anything, this plan is not totally foolproof, but I think it's a lot better and cheaper than the alternative..."
The garage where Bill Hewlett and David Packard founded HP had its own core set of rules. They apply equally to programming.
The garage in Palo Alto where HP was born was the workplace of only two employees, the founders. Yet, to keep their core beliefs front and center as they tinkered and toiled, they posted a sign that articulated the guiding principles they shared:
- Believe you can change the world.
- Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.
- Know when to work alone and when to work together.
- Share tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.
- No Politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage.)
- The customer defines a job well done.
- Radical ideas are not bad ideas.
- Invent different ways of working.
- Make a contribution every day. If it doesn't contribute, it doesn't leave the garage.
- Believe that together we can do anything.
- Invent.
Succinct and to the point, the overarching core beliefs were to work together, invent useful things, and let the customer be the final arbiter. These principles are just as applicable today for start-ups as they are for established companies.
They also bear more than a passing resemblance to the foundational tenets of the Agile movement, although I think HP's principles are far more positively and clearly stated than the Agile manifesto. But even putting Agile aside, I would expect to see the HP rules in any enlightened software development organization or on any programming project — even if it consists of just two people.
"...The first step in dealing with the workload is putting in place the support structure that allows you to focus your energies on key priorities and issues where you can add the greatest value to the business..."
The Myth of Work-Life Balance - John Beeson - Harvard Business Review
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/12/the_myth_of_work-life_balance.html?cm_sp=most_widget-_-default-_-The%20Myth%20of%20Work-Life%20Balance
Amazon to Connecticut, Arkansas: ‘Drop Dead’ Over Sales Tax | Epicenter | Wired.com
http://m.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/amazon-conn-ark/
A well thoughtout StackExchange post by its very founder, a guy named Joel, which answers another user's question about the proper ways to approach the division of individual stakes in a newly formed venture.
Surely there are countless other approaches, yet this looks like a reasonable set of logic to guide any team through their first attempt at self-employment.
"Forming a new software startup, how do I allocate ownership fairly? - OnStartups - Stack Exchange"
http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/6949/forming-a-new-software-startup-how-do-i-allocate-ownership-fairly/23326#23326