Luck

"There is no such thing as luck. There is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe." Robert Heinlein 

Automated stalking

Creepy - I've just confirmed that Facebook is stalking me by scraping my LinkedIn account to make friends suggestions.

Just though that I should re-generate my QR codes so here they are

My QR code for LinkedIn

My QR code for Twitter

I hope that these work better than the QR codes that I saw demonstrated at IMRG at Microsoft in London last week.!

Contract Killer

Not so much talking of  Edward Fox in Paris as thinking here of an analysis of what is likely to kill other people's projects.

I wouldn't say I am a manager anymore than Bill Gates is a typist.  After all, My Gates had to press keys occasionally to cut code and I've have to make people do complex, challenging things for money to get creative things done. Never the less I noted after a recent discussion on contractor selection that I have actually recruited, assessed and employed contractors and external companies for over five hundred professional companies over the years. I've employed people while wearing the hats of Fortune 500 executive, Government Scientist, Research Scientist, Start-up entrepreneur and Ober-technologist. Strangely enough I can only count the bad experiences on the fingers of one hand - and almost every time it has been when I've not had complete control of the process or when I've overestimated someone who is key to the process.

Organizational charts in major tech

Manu Cornet caricaturizes org charts of major tech companies, such as Amazon with its top-down structure and Google with its slightly less structured structure. Thanks to the every wise Tobe Freeman for tipping me off to this!