From the past: Early blog post about Twitter

Looking through some old notes and came across this blog post by Liz Lawley about the early days of Twitter. http://many.corante.com/archives/2007/03/06/thoughts_on_twitter.php I’ve heard two kinds of criticisms of Twitter already. The first criticizes the triviality of the content. But asking “who really cares about that kind of mindless trivia about your day” misses the whole […]


A great way to run a small software company: Literature and Latte

Ran across Scrivener again this weekend. Scrivener is book writing software. I’m not going to write the great american novel, I’m not even sure how I got there, but I’m impressed with good customer interactions. Things to like about their site and software: The documentation is incredible and pretty. You really should read the manual. […]


Varsity Bookmarking My Job Pt.1 — I have no idea what I’m doing

Love this. Varsity Bookmarking My Job Pt.1 — I have no idea what I’m doing: “I am the CEO of Svpply, Inc., a social shopping S-Corp operating out of New York City. My company has been the recipient of over half-a-million in investor dollars, for the stated purpose of building an unknown, 3,000-member web service […]


A.Word.A.Day –etiolate

Cool, I did not know this. I assumed “to friend” was a new version. A.Word.A.Day –etiolate: “The Oxford English Dictionary has the first citation for the word friend as a verb from the year 1225. In fact, ‘to friend’ has an older pedigree than ‘to befriend’ (1559). A similar pattern emerges for the undoing part, […]


Build services for and track your logged out users

Fred Wilson: A VC: Don’t Forget Your Logged Out Users: “There is a 100/10/1 ‘rule of thumb’ with social services. 1% will create content, 10% will engage with it, and 100% will consume it. If only 10% of your users need to log in because 90% just want to consume, then you’ll end up with […]


Insurance situation for individuals and maternity coverage in California and Texas – 2011

[Note: This is a mildly edited speech I gave this morning.] Imagine yourself, you or your mate has just had a baby, the little life wiggling in your arms screaming at the top of your lungs. You feel fortunate that this child is healthy and happy. In the back of your mind, that part you […]


Thoughts on FoldingStory

I’ve been folding stories on FoldingStory. If you are not aware of it, the idea is to collaboratively create stories. The twist is that each user can only see the last user’s contribution and you only have 4 minutes and 180 characters to write your lines (called “fold”). They say, “FoldingStory™ is a game in […]


Don’t force your users to log into your Knowledgebase

Carlo Costanzo asks “Why do I have to log into your Knowledgebase” I just don’t get it.  Why do I need to have a user account and password to access a vendor’s Knowledgebase?  What is so important behind that link that you do not want it indexed and searchable by Google (my primary troubleshooting tool)? Friends […]


Manifestare

Welcome, my name is Mark and these are my ramblings. It’s 2010. I should have a blog. Mostly so I can tell my kids I had one – just before blogs get clobbered by real-time social whateverness and spam bots. I don’t claim to be a writer or even funny for that matter. If either […]


Walking a crooked line

This was a response to my friend Fred’s post apologizing for Pat Robertson’s insensitive remark regarding Haitians and their “pact with the devil.”  I find it occasionally difficult to respect the beliefs of my friend while also wanting to point out the evil that some in a religion can bring. You can read his post […]