Blog

March 11, 2016

Greg Thomas

That Amazing Kind of Customer Service

Last week I was travelling quite a bit and had a number of opportunities to encounter customer service. This isn’t about the bad kind, this is about the good, really, really good kind. From the moment I walked in I was blown away – and not just by one person, but by the entire organization – person at the desk, person at the door, person in the hallway, etc.  I encountered, easily 5 – 6 people that continued that mantra of amazing customer experience.  Obviously the remarkable piece is that this was not solely one person, but rather many people, in teams

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

March 9, 2016

Greg Thomas

Thirty Day Trials

A lot of software, especially that within the cloud, is offered to developers on a 30 day trial basis.  It is really such an antiquated model that harkens back to the days of demoware and freeware.  After 30 days it stops working and you need to buy (or reset your clock or something). Go do whatever you want… for 30 days… then start paying us. It’s a tough model because with everything else on your plate do you really have the time to learn everything and anything on that topic? Doubtful. I’ve had trials for software up to 90 days

March 8, 2016

Greg Thomas

The Whiner

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about what you could call the “Rogues Gallery” of Software Development Teams. We have the Nitpicker, the Backbencher and the Doomsayer but today we are introducing the legend themselves – the Whiner. It’s super easy to know who Whiner is… Whine about the requirements Whine about the codereview Whine about the unit tests Whine about the QA Plan Whine about the deployment taking too long Whine about the servers being too slow We all whine about this, that or the other thing from time to time.  Some days you have absolutely had enough and

March 7, 2016

Greg Thomas

The Startup Investment

I’m not a startup expert by no means.  I’ve tried a few things, inside and outside of companies, on my own and with others, fully committed and partial at best. Everyone loves the idea of starting something new – it’s akin to throwing out the old and just going with it – no restrictions or constraints around you – just you and your ideas.  It really is akin to that moment in Braveheart where Mel Gibson’s character yells out the immortal line “FREEEEEDDDOOOOMMM” as he is being disembowelled at the end.  (Side note: I used to have that voice clip