Bruce Keener’s Lifestream

Executives should read fewer management books. I don't mean that reading is a waste of their time; on the contrary, they should read more. The question is what to read. My own view is that only one book in 20 should be a business book.

That may sound odd coming from an author of three management books, but I'm convinced that you can improve your leadership capabilities by drinking deeply from the well of great books that have been published in a wide variety of disciplines. For one thing, the business and management genres offer precious few superb books with new insights, good writing, and timeless value. I can think of fewer than 10 published in the last 50 years.

Excellent book recommendations by management guru Jim Collins. I plan to work my way slowly through the list. Perhaps there are some in the list you will also want to read.

After reading a recent post by Steve Souders concerning a free tool called dynaTrace Ajax, I was intrigued. It claimed to provide full tracing analysis of Internet Explorer 6-8 (including JavaScript, rendering, and network traffic). Giving it a try I was very impressed. I tested against a few web sites but got the most interesting results running against the JavaScript-heavy Gmail in Internet Explorer 8.

Sounds like a great tool for working with Internet Explorer to test a site's performance.

You have 3 brains — In my book, Neuro Web Design: What makes them click? I talk about the idea that you really don’t have one brain, you have three. The “new brain” is the conscious, reasoning, logical brain that you think you know best; the mid brain” is the part of the brain that processes emotions, and the “old brain” is the part of the brain that is most interested in your survival.

From reptiles to people — If you look at brains from an evolutionary perspective, the “old brain” developed first (hence the name “old brain”!). In fact, that part of our brain is very similar to the brain of a reptile, which is why some people call it the “reptilian” brain.

“Can I eat it? Can I have sex with it? Will it kill me?” – The job of your old brain is to constantly scan the environment and answer the questions: “Can I eat it? Can I have sex with it? Will it kill me?” That’s really all the old brain cares about, is food sex and danger. When you think about it, this is important. Without food you’ll die, without sex the species won’t continue, and if you are killed the other two questions don’t matter. So animal brains developed early on to care intensely about these three topics. As animals evolved they developed other capacities (emotions, logical thought), but they retained a part of their brain to always be scanning what is going on for these three critical questions.

For the guys in the crowd, now you know why you think with your pecker: it's actually the reptile part of your brain at work.

It could be that everyone will figure out how to play nicely with each other, and we'll see a continuation of the interoperable web model we've enjoyed for the past two decades. But I'm betting that things are going to get ugly. We're heading into a war for control of the web. And in the end, it's more than that, it's a war against the web as an interoperable platform. Instead, we're facing the prospect of Facebook as the platform, Apple as the platform, Google as the platform, Amazon as the platform, where big companies slug it out until one is king of the hill.

I've listed a summary quote, but you should read the entire O'Reilly article: an important read.

SOMETHING big is out there beyond the visible edge of our universe. That's the conclusion of the largest analysis to date of over 1000 galaxy clusters streaming in one direction at blistering speeds. Some researchers say this so-called "dark flow" is a sign that other universes nestle next door.

Interesting. Not conclusive, although could become so with more data and work. Could turn into evidence that our universe is but one of many.

Yes it's true, Basecamp to-dos are getting due dates. Putting the finishing touches on it now:

For those of you who use Basecamp, you'll be pleased to know that it is getting due dates for Todo's. Great addition!

[Disclosure: I am a Basecamp affiliate.]

Our blog has more than 100,000 readers, but I don't post every day. I write when I have something specific to say. I recently wrote a scathing piece on the tech media. It really bothers me that the definition of success has changed from profits to followers, friends, and feed count. This crap doesn't mean anything. Kids are coming out of school thinking, I want to start the next YouTube or Facebook. If a restaurant served more food than everybody else but lost money on every diner, would it be successful? No. But on the Internet, for some reason, if you have more users than everyone else, you're successful. No, you're not.

Really sound implicit advice from Jason.

“Our job is not to tear down the things we hate. Our job is to build up the things we love.”

That quote, from an Irish revolutionary dating back to the 1920s, is the motto that Frank O’Reilly, a parishioner of St. John the Baptist Parish in Front Royal, says he has tried to live by since first reading the words as a student at Christendom College in Front Royal almost 30 years ago.

“Evil is not as real as good, even though it seems more present,” O’Reilly said. “Build up the things you love and that you agree with and the bad things will eventually go away.”

Good insights from Tim O'Reilly's brother

The referenced blog says that it explains the "science behind the science." It particularly seems to go into explaining the science discussed in episodes of the popular TV show "The Big Bang Theory," which at least one leading physicist has described as the most scientifically correct of the various science-related shows.

I thought you might enjoy scanning the blog.

Fear is ugly because it makes you irrational. Fear makes you jump to conclusions. Fear makes you reactionary. Spolsky’s reaction to the imaginary threat of extinction is all fear:

1) Build every feature any customer would ever want: Apparently, by having all the features anyone can ever imagine, Fog Bugz will “eliminate any possible reason that customers might buy our competitors’ junk”. That’s a faulty conclusion and a terrible idea. Software that tries to be everything to everyone generally sucks. It becomes bloated, hard to use, and in need of big up-front training. (Actually, that’s a pretty good definition of enterprise software right there).

If you know many software developers, then you know some who think they are going to change the world with software that is so robust that it does everything for you. They are always adding features, even while letting bugs languish. I don't know that it's fear that drives them to do that ... in fact, the guys that do this are often too cocky to really stop and think enough to be afraid.

Time and time again I am reminded of the lessons of the Paradox of Choice: people make better choices when they have fewer options (or when they are not overwhelmed with options). Something for us to all keep in mind.