As Amy and run around like silly people packing up to head back to Boulder tonight, I stumbled upon two fantastic posts on the web. Consider this your daily reading if you read nothing else.
The first is titled Five Life-Changing Mistakes and How I Moved On by Julie Wainwright. Julie is now the co-founder of SmartNow.com but is infamous for being the CEO of Pets.com. Her post is personal and phenomenal. She identifies five mistakes she made leading up to and during the simultaneous failure of Pets.com and her marriage. She then describes – point by point – how she moved on. The mistakes follow; you’ll need to click through to her article to see how she moved on. (Thanks Heidi).
- Allowed others to define me.
- I built my image of myself on two main supporting pillars. When those collapsed, I did too.
- I stopped believing in myself.
- I stopped taking care of myself.
- Allowing my head to rule my heart.
The second is titled It’s the Software, Not You in the NY Times by David Pogue. If you’ve been following along at home you know that I’ve been deeply immersed in human computer interaction (HCI) during the past year. Pogue gives several great examples and ends with "Why do software designers want their work to appear more complex instead of less? I just don’t get why they don’t get it. So the next time you’re frustrated by software complexity, take heart; much of the time, it’s not you. It’s them. It’s designers who have something on their mind other than software intelligence." Right on!
Both are worth reading and savoring.