I first encountered the idea of intermittent reinforcement in my Organizational Behavior (OB) classes at business school, but it’s become a touchstone in my conversations about user experience design and application “stickiness” as well. Pioneered by renowned (and sometimes reviled) behaviorist B.F. Skinner, the core insight is that a behavior that is reinforced intermittently is continue…
Following up on my last post on Solutions in Search of a Problem, today’s post is about the best way to avoid that trap: engaging your prospective customers *before* developing your product. Too many first-time entrepreneurs are unable or unwilling to sell their vision without an actual product to back it up. As a result, continue…
Maybe I’m just cranky because the Seattle weather has been so terrible recently, but I’ve seen a bunch of ideas recently that I would classify as “solutions in search of a problem”. This is frustrating, not just because these aren’t deals I feel comfortable investing in, but also because the founders behind these ideas are continue…
I thought I was paying attention to the latest developments in data portability and messaging, but Skydeck is one I missed (thanks Mashable for bringing it to my attention). These guys are taking personal cellphone call records (one of the personal data silos I mentioned back in December as a target for portability) and turning continue…