Harry's Ruminations

Definition: Dutch Disease After reading Alan Greenspan's book last year, one concept that's remained with me is Dutch Disease, which I (over-)simplify to mean: When you have one huge cash cow industry/revenue stream, then all your other industries suffer. Combine that with this article on tech crunch . I see a similarity there, in that tech companies that were formerly innovative latch onto a current upper-bound revenue source (Let's say MS Office) and short-change other opportunities, or (worse yet) view them in terms of the current technology. It's interesting to look at one company that hasn't fallen prey to this: Amazon.  Amazon survived the dot-com bubble, and looks to survive and thrive through the Great Recession, too.  Why?  To me, the answer is counter intuitive:  They do the opposite of "focusing on [their] core competencies]".  They do off-the-wall stuff. Remember the first Kindle?  Totally ahead of the market, and totally against thei...

I attended the Central Ohio Software Symposium in Columbus, Ohio this past weekend.  What follows are my reviews of the event overall and the individual sessions I attended. Overview Most conferences suck, frankly.  They're usually put on by a single company, and are a combination of too much marketing pitch, too little content & reality.  As it's name would suggest, a No Fluff/Just Stuff conference is none of that.  No vendors.  No showy crap.  Just industry-leading experts presenting what they're doing and how they're doing it. This conference was at the Embassy Suites Airport .  I found the rooms and venue nice (It's a Hilton Hotel!), though the conference rooms themselves were too cramped for the # of attendees.   This conference was sold-out, and it showed.  Day 1 Executable Specifications: Automating Your Requirements Document with Geb and Spock by Matt Stine This session was a passionate examination of how specs/requirements...