Team Debt

I'm currently having a blast leading the technical team behind the LivingSocial Takeout & Delivery web site. One of the challenges of a growing team is maintaining appropriate amounts of communication. You want everyone to know everything that's important, but not everything. Otherwise, you end up being a case study in The Mythical Man Month. Although … Continue reading Team Debt →

The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley and Jonathan Littman

Several years ago, my dad, Bo Lotinsky, showed me the infamous 60 Minutes special on IDEO--the mecca of innovation. After watching it, I couldn't help but buy their book The Art of Innovation. I finally got around to reading it, and boy is it good. As always, a bulleted list of ideas and quotes don't … Continue reading The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley and Jonathan Littman →

Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review by Jason Cohen

It has been three years since I have been under the oppressive finger of the waterfall software engineering process, but that is still what comes to mind when I hear the words "peer review." Corporate software outfits typically require programmers to present their code to other engineers in hopes of finding bugs and fixing them … Continue reading Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review by Jason Cohen →

Importing a Contacts CSV into Gmail and BitPim Correctly

Snowmageddon was the perfect excuse for me to initiate my migration over to Google Gmail and play with Google Voice. I had to start by exporting and merging my contacts out of an LG EnV via BitPim, Microsoft Windows XP Address Book, and Microsoft Hotmail Contacts. The export to comma-separated values (CSV) in each application … Continue reading Importing a Contacts CSV into Gmail and BitPim Correctly →

The Unplugged by Ruven Meulenberg

While researching user experience design techniques, I stumbled upon some nifty whiteboard magnets for prototyping called GuiMags as well as a complementing book called The Unplugged. GuiMags look like the nicest way to prototype something before going to HTML and CSS. Labor intensive forms of prototyping don't seem to add much value, and paper and … Continue reading The Unplugged by Ruven Meulenberg →