Articles for category: Initiative

March 29, 2016

Greg Thomas

LinkedIn Connection Requests

I receive a few unsolicited connection requests a month from people I have never met. Maybe they have read something I wrote (that’s cool). Maybe they want to partner or work with me (that’s cool too). Maybe they want to sell me something (sure why not, that’s what it’s there for). Maybe I’m a small part of them trying to grow their network with like minded people (all sounds great). When I receive these requests where the profile is incomplete, no photo, no experience, no effort in trying to create something – I’ll always reject them flat-out.  The goal of

March 28, 2016

Greg Thomas

Oranges and Innovation

It’s not about how you grow a great orange.  In business schools, we really teach people how to squeeze oranges – how to manage for greater efficiency and economies of scale – not how to grow new and better oranges, which requires a different kind of thinking.  Business schools may offer a few selective courses in innovation, but they foster a mind-set that promotes way more obsession with how to make money than how to create a truly great, innovative product, and that obsession will suck the life out of the organizational pursuit of innovation. From the book – Creating

March 25, 2016

Greg Thomas

Own your Niche

Speciality or Everything – it’s always the same battle. Will being a generalist at everything be what propels my career or will focussing on my niche give me the expertise I need to be “that guy” that everyone comes to for answers. When you are a generalist, you need to get used to being spread thin, there is no ifs and/or buts about.  You know a bit about everything, people from all over the place will start coming to you for a variety of things – sales questions, product management ideas, design problems, code reviews, platform integration, etc, etc. When

March 18, 2016

Greg Thomas

Second Screen Syndrome

I’ve worked with two monitors going back to the days of CRT screens. I’ve tried going to one large monitor, but it leaves me feeling constrained. It is impossible to actively work on two things at the same time on two screens but what I have noticed over time is that one screen becomes the Planner, the Guide, the Director on what needs to be done and the other is where I work (Director on the right, Worker on the left).  Any time I set this up, it’s always the same. Apps run on the Director EverNote – what is the

March 10, 2016

Greg Thomas

The Technology Announcement Conundrum

There is a moment where you are sitting at a conference, perhaps during a keynote, waiting for some huge announcement that is destined to blow you away. This is the killer app… This is the app that will change your life… This is the platform that will redefine how you build… And then you leave the conference, head back to work and try to get it working and you can’t… It’s still in beta. It doesn’t work in your environment with your configuration. You need to deploy a slew of other servers to even start setting it up. The APIs have not