Saturday 15 February 2014

WDI Progress Update and Intro to Startups - Unit 3 Tech 101 Summary, Random Thoughts

Challenges:
  1. My First Apple Store Experience (George Street, Sydney) - So, by Week 4 of the WDI course I'd already destroyed the 'Delete' key on the Macbook Pro, which I borrowed from my partner. I'm not very Apple savvy, but someone gave me a tip to visit their store. So I get to the Apple Store any I wondered.... Why did the Apple staff direct me to the 'Front Desk' when there aren't any signs in the store? and when by 'Front Desk', they actually meant the people wearing bibs around their neck? Why point me to line up in imaginary queues where the sole purpose is to be plonked in front of one of their Macs and baby sat in filling out a 'make an appointment' form? Why not tell or direct people upfront at the entrance of the store to click the App Store on their mobile? 
  2. Finished Hangman game overnight and posted solution on my GitHub account
  3. JS Object Model Constructors, Prototypes, Inheritance
  4. JS Regular Expressions
  5. LESS Mixins, Classes, Arguments, Guards
Progress @ General Assembly (GA)
  • Javascript - String Literals, JS Special Characters 
  • Startup Scene - Read about Anti-Problem Entrepreneurs vs Unexotic Underclass vs Anti-Answers (bureacracy) 
Progress @ Intro to Startup Entrepreneurship
Progress @ Intro to Startup Entrepreneurship
  • Unit 3 Tech 101 - Summary
    • Summary Lessons 1-6
      • Front-end Decisions: 
        • Platform (decision influence, startup friendliness) - Browser, Mobile, Desktop, Back-end
        • Tech Stack (reflect on known solutions) - Web stack, Native, Meta Frameworks, Web Front-end
      • Back-end Decisions:
        • Priorities (tech options, fast MVP to market, use tech you know)
      • Cloud (on-demand scalability)
        • Server (Platform as a service) 
        • Services (Services as a service) - Identify pre-existing solutions
      • MVP - Top priority!
      • Prototyping:
        • Change costs increase with time
        • Sketch ideas to convey details and functionality pre-dialogue
        • Wireframing quick visual prototype mockup. Share for test iterations
        • Functional Prototypes - Test before build
        • User Testing - Insight from others for objective feedback
      • Hustling:
        • Priority is effort and investment in first customers to build momentum
        • Seed data and manual solutions to save time and avoid unnecessary automation
        • Kickstarting: "If it's perfect it's too late" - Early perfection and optimisation = evil, "who cares if noone wants to use it", "who cares how fast it is if it misses its mark" - Phil Reither (watch the video)
      • Homepage of Startup:
        • 5 seconds to impress
        • Outsource design?  (compromise quality vs cost)
        • Responsive across devices design - Mobile first strategy
        • Slogan, Screenshot showcasing implementation, Call to actions
      • Developer Competency and Fit Testing and Interviews - Coding ability, Communication skills, Motivation, Aptitude, DNA, Goal compromisings (speed vs quality with modular solutions), Project testing
      • CTO responsibilities - Handling build, unforeseens, understanding competing tech and impact of strategies and choices on products and users 
      • Outsourcing - Maintain control of product and them, realise common understandings of goals, visions, requirements and activities, candidates are stand-alone features, offers faster solutions allowing focus on strengths and priorities, test their timezone availability and motivation (i.e. Skype interview)
      • Product Management - Startup tools - Github (Versioned Source Control, Community, Collaboration), Dropbox, Trello (Digital Post-It Board), Jira (Atlassian System Dashboard), Skype, Basecamp (Product Management Platform)
      • Agile Development - "Fail early and fail often", Feedback, Try, Throw-away willingness
      • Scrum - Fast moving, Process and Specification (guideliness), Adapt what works to team, Pick and match (good and bad parts)
      • Traditional Systems - RUP (Rational Unified Process) like Waterfall with 120 rules, Prescriptive Rules
      • Kanban - JIT Change Management modelled from assembly line manufacturing and LEAN Value System
      • Scrum (preferred by Startups) - Adaptive Rules, Software development and creative product design, Agile Value System
        • Sprint - Daily Standups (mornings <15min), Planning Meetings(start of iterations breakdown into manageable tasks, Timebox <45min, Agenda, Chair, Assign Actionable), Always Testable Product, Deploy after each
        • Roles - Product Owner (process, upcoming, priorities, sign-off), Scrum Team (build product, no micromanaged, signoff on tasks at sprint start, responsible to do in sprint or its their fault), Scrum Master(Lord)(team runs smoothly, tools working)
        • Artifacts (non-person, touchable) - Agile Manifesto, Scrum Boards (Post-it notes, To Do, In progress, Ready for QA, In QA, Validated) Backlogs
    • Links:
    • Apps:
      • Xero accounting cloud app
Other Thinking (reflecting on this Unexotic Underclass reading):
  • Potential clientele?: Impoverished, Injustice chain of deliverers and recipients, Inflexibilities, In-appropriation, Deceptive selling and marketing {reflect on $ vs timeframe to earn value}, Untimely, Unaccelerated and Un-engaging education with limited UX, Unfair distribution of wealth, freedom and rewards (celebrity and anti-problems celebrated and spark interest across society), Lack of humaneness in some large corporates (lenience, common sense, broad effort, care, genuine companionship, are not always prevailing, spectrum of consequences isn't closed loop to drive continuous change), Highly ambiguous and near primitive legal constructs enforced with gaps, and even the most fundamental parallels ignored (lack of proactive behaviour, only excessive wrongdoing and persistent suffering by the good seems to ever drive social movements that realise change for betterment), Media and role models often drive and thrive on widespread curiosity toward negativity, excessively celebrating stupidity and anti-problems (disregard for intelligence and purity in values), Lack of acknowledging human achievements (with broad reason and purpose), cascading unrealistic and uncoordinated timeframes (underpromising, overdelivering, and ignorance of corporate slavery and its impact on the mental and physical health of teams and wider society), lack of hero metrics and parallels, Upheaving long-impoverished markets (technology driving the tides to turn), Rethink societal pressures driven by emphasis on borrowing and manipulation of value cycles, Overhaul life-expired legal systems with tech, Transform emotional intelligence into measurable skillsets, Flatten broader societies class hierarchy (viral knowledge-worker syndrome), Rank quantifiable risk parallels and actions across society, markets and the environment, Rejuvenating and monetizing traditionally boring and mundane jobs using media and gamification, Unjust distribution and priority toward handouts and freebies in response to sympathy trippers, carefrees, excuses, and whingers (average joe busy bodies and the genuinely disadvantaged miss-out or are excluded from offerings)
  • Keynotes?: Assume and dwell on impossibilities, Reverse mentality, Back to basics fallback, Demise of the first-class citizen and leveraging the rise of eager emerging markets overhaulling white elephants in our traditional frameworks, Rediscover purpose and passion following creative and adventurous pathways, Filter out monetary enticements to jump back on the treadmill bandwagon of mundaneness and in-humaneness, Carefully judging deservedness
Community Contributions:
  1. My First Post answering a question on Stackoverflow
Curiosity:
  1. Composition and 'includes' in Javascript to work-around single class inheritance limitations

1 comment:

  1. Pretty cool post) By the way maybe you don't know but Pitchenvy website is no longer available. It was awesome project. Anyway I found two alternatives to Pitchenvy: Pitchdeckia and BestPitchDecks. Both of them have a lot of good pitch deck examples. So if you need ideas for your presentation you can use these websites for inspiration.

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