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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
In my daily writing, I save some drafts and some titles to be developed later and today, I noticed a pattern. Every few weeks or days, I save some kind of title that speaks to scarcity of ideas, to the day that will eventually come where I have nothing to write about....
You have heard it before, maybe even watched a movie or read a book. “What you envision, manifests”. There are some very famous versions of this, “The Secret”, your “vision board” exercise, etc. It may sound “woo woo”, but the truth...
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...
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...
There is a different way of thinking of “the singularity”, perhaps in its lesser mode. Whit systems that are capable of learning, we can draw an analog from human mentor-mentee relationships. As the student becomes better at the craft, they need the...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Hello all, I am tearing down the proverbial “fourth wall” here to tell you how much I appreciate you following my writing. We are still a small tribe, but a loyal one. Thank you. I started The Daily PPILL as a pressure valve for the ideas boiling in my...
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...
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...
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...
When new technologies are introduced, there is a sense of awe that -honestly- inspires me. The wonder of discovering what “this thing can do” and imagining how your life be in the future is something be worth seeking out. I mean, heck, there are people...
How many times have you heard “such a talented person”? Some people say there is no talent, there is only effort; that the only way to become proficient, even reach mastery in something, is through sweat and tears, deliberate practice, and with a lot of...
As it happens lately, things develop faster than usual, and in unexpected ways. The concept outlined in this article came as a revelation. But not in its literal way, where basically, the article highlights the fundamental difference in user intent between chat-based...
