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“Your call is important to us” – The Daily PPILL #357

“Your call is important to us” – The Daily PPILL #357

No wonder why younger generations prefer to text or just use an app. We still have to call-in every once in a while, and when we do, we get the “…your call is important to us…please stay on the line…” on loop. Even we hear this, we know...
‘lectric – The Daily PPILL #356

‘lectric – The Daily PPILL #356

To me it is pretty clear, but there are still sources that try to make it look like the environmental impact of an electric vehicle is higher than one equipped with an internal combustion engine. Here are a couple of graphics that show the data, you may argue that the...
Drummers and platforms – The Daily PPILL #354

Drummers and platforms – The Daily PPILL #354

What’s the purpose of platforms? With so much talk these days around the responsibility of Social Media companies in what their members say or do not say, it is worth looking at what is meant with platforms and what’s their reason for existing. I used to...
The masculinity of gardening – The Daily PPILL #353

The masculinity of gardening – The Daily PPILL #353

Are we still in the celebrity CEO era? I think we are. I believe I heard someone calling its end, but the market never got the message. We continue to laud -sometimes even worship- the energetic visionary, and even despotic fearless leader in front of some of the...
Encryption and truth – The Daily PPILL #352

Encryption and truth – The Daily PPILL #352

The simplest way to understand encryption, is to think of a decoder wheel. One character becomes another, so the output on the other side of the function becomes garbled and cannot be read, unless we have our own wheel. Modern encryption though, is some more complex...
Absolute and relative – The Daily PPILL #351

Absolute and relative – The Daily PPILL #351

What matters? Is it the actual number? Or is it compared to something? As many times, the answer is, “depends”. When we are trying to determine if we reached a goal, if we “made it”, we have to go with the absolute number. “Black or...
Forethought – The Daily PPILL #350

Forethought – The Daily PPILL #350

To make a house livable, you first have to have a house. We all know that. But if there is enough forethought, those designing the house’s frame, can do so to make it much more livable. The doors, the window frames, the orientation, and a long list of etceteras...
Everything is a subroutine – The Daily PPILL #349

Everything is a subroutine – The Daily PPILL #349

We live in the age of the API. Most solutions have an open API (Application Programming Interface – Just in case you don’t remember what it stands for), to communicate with them. APIs allow software to communicate among each other, making it possible for...
Expendable: The three jobs of the CEO – The Daily PPILL #348

Expendable: The three jobs of the CEO – The Daily PPILL #348

The CEO/founder has three jobs. The first one, is to provide the vision. The things that could be. By providing a vision, a leader can instill purpose into every single person in the organization. The second, is relations, relations, relations. Customers, investors,...
The relentless pursuit – The Daily PPILL #347

The relentless pursuit – The Daily PPILL #347

What a better day than today to write about this? Almost 250 years ago, the people in the original colonies of the USA signed the Declaration of Independence against the “King of Great Britain (with) a history of repeated injuries and usurpations”. The...
Great technology, bad place – The Daily PPILL #344

Great technology, bad place – The Daily PPILL #344

Platforms and Marketplaces have one particular issue. You can build an awesome tool, make it robust, responsive, and even fun to use. You can put all the servers and routers behind it, and pour hours of development into it, but the real outcome gets determined by...
Retro all around – The Daily PPILL #343

Retro all around – The Daily PPILL #343

I was reading a case study about the once revolutionary “Mas por Menos” supermarket chain in Costa Rica. They were the first ones to introduce the self service experience in that country almost 100 years ago. Before them, there was only the regular corner...
Actionable AI – The Daily PPILL #341

Actionable AI – The Daily PPILL #341

Even with all the buzz around AI, and all the rapid advancements, sometimes we still fall into thinking that nothing’s going to change. Everything will as we are used to, and no, no jobs will be disrupted. Here is one to make you think again: with the latest iOS...
Patents vs. secrets – The Daily PPILL #340

Patents vs. secrets – The Daily PPILL #340

How intellectual property is protected seems to be quite a mystery for many. I am no lawyer, but ideas, designs, and methods can be protected in at least a couple of different ways, very different one from the other: The first one is just plain secrecy. If no one can...
Re-post: Less is more – The Daily PPILL #339

Re-post: Less is more – The Daily PPILL #339

In any competitive industry, there’s ever-pressing need to improve products and services, and we can get caught in the relentless pursuit of the added feature. But this is not always what the customer wants. I am not referring to the price-sensitive customer who...
Peer reviewed – The Daily PPILL #338

Peer reviewed – The Daily PPILL #338

A few days ago, I was pointed to THIS ARTICLE on a major data forgery disaster in a research paper. The article points to evidence that not one, but TWO researchers altered, fabricated, or forged data on the same research paper. The paper was published with the...
The 13 month calendar – The Daily PPILL #337

The 13 month calendar – The Daily PPILL #337

There are many things that are in use today, that are the product of cultural standards. Someone thought it was a good idea, or it may have made sense at the time, and many years ago, this is how things started to be done. Or perhaps they were ordered by someone very...
Do you want me to google it for you? – The Daily PPILL #335

Do you want me to google it for you? – The Daily PPILL #335

One of my relatives used to have quite a bad boss. An individual who was probably in their position due to some series of fortunate events that led him there. This particular person, whenever asked something about the job, he would answer snarkily: “Do you want...
Has convergence gone too far? – The Daily PPILL #334

Has convergence gone too far? – The Daily PPILL #334

In the 80s and 90s it was all about the number of gadgets you had. The video camera, a Walkman, DSLR, a VCR, then a CD player, and a computer. There are some funny pictures of all the devices we used to have, the one below is legendary. Then we went through a phase of...
Your team is the F1 – The Daily PPILL #333

Your team is the F1 – The Daily PPILL #333

I have shared this video several times in the past, but is worth showing it again. Besides the comedic value, it illustrates how important scientific management is to be able to reach peak performance, and this includes the right amount of people, the right tools, and...