Lord Stanley’s Cup
I grew up playing hockey. My parents had me on the ice when I was two, and I have been playing ever since. Growing up, winters were spent traveling every weekend throughout upstate New York, and weeknights were spent at practices in rinks that only had three solid walls, the forth being a [...]
Are You an Athlete?
Breaking Down the Game Film – Voting with Your Dollars
“Breaking Down the Game Film” is a term commonly used to analyze tape from an already played sports game to dissect what went right and what went wrong. In this series I’ll be taking published articles from around the web and break them down.
Topic: Voting with Your Dollars
Article: “Will Anyone Pay for Anything”
Author: Guy Kawasaki
Links: [...]
Doing More With Less
Did you know Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham was written on a bet? Neither did I, until I came across a collection of bronze statues of his characters at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, California. I snapped this picture of a plaque next to the statue for Green Eggs and Ham.
A full [...]
Linchpin
My name is Benjamin Hysell, and I’m proud to say I’m an artist.
I’m not sure I could have made that statement before reading Seth Godin’s new book Linchpin, but I am now proud to stand up and count myself as one of the many artist in the world.
Background
This past December Seth Godin put out a [...]
November Reading List
Just last night I finished reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and decided it was high time to update My Bookshelf with what I’ve been reading lately.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is not a breezy read, nor, sadly, does it have much to do with motorcycles or Zen. I should have [...]
Auto Fail
Lately I’ve been pondering, “Why is it that most people design the user interface last?”
It would seem, to me at least, if one were to design a product for the mass market, one would focus a lot of time and energy on how that product would be seen by that market. What will it look [...]
Breaking Down the Game Film – Micro Code Reviews
“Breaking Down the Game Film” is a term commonly used to analyze tape from an already played sports game to dissect what went right and what went wrong. In this series I’ll be taking published articles from around the web and break them down.
Topic: Micro Code Reviews
Article: “The Joy of Code Reviews”
Author: Tom Hollander
Link: http://blogs.msdn.com/tomholl/archive/2009/01/06/the-joy-of-code-reviews.aspx
Short [...]
Tools in the Toolbox – Personas
“Tools in the Toolbox” is a series of posts on development and design tools I use on a daily basis.
I am a huge fan of Alan Cooper and personas…huge fan. I have written at length about him and his techniques here, http://benjaminhysell.com/archive/2009/02/alan-cooper/. My goal in this article is not to cover the basics; other [...]
Breaking Down the Game Film – Mission Statements
“Breaking Down the Game Film” is a term commonly used to analyze tape from an already played sports game to dissect what went right and what went wrong. In this series I’ll be taking published articles from around the web and break them down.
Topic: Mission Statements
Article: “How to Write a Mission Statement that Isn’t Dumb”
Link: [...]
Whose Brand are You Building?
Towards the end of 2009 there were two great articles published by two of my favorite bloggers, Joel Spolsky from Fog Creek Software and David Heinemeier from 37signals.
Joel’s post wonders if growing your company too slowly means your company is bound to die:
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/does-slow-growth-equal-slow-death.html?partner=fogcreek
David responds to Joel in his own post on his blog:
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2002-bug-tracking-isnt-a-network-effect-business
Normally, I would [...]