Bogdan's Shoutout - Issue #1
I started my first blog back in 2006. Writing about nothing, things I felt were important at that time. Reading those past notes is like looking to my highschool yearbook and being embarrassed by my stupid outfit. Know that feeling?…
… then it was a community blog about winter sports, pretty successful at its time. Then was Facebook, Medium, Reddit, LinkedIn, etc. And, for a while, I noticed a shift in how I digitally socialize: more playlists shared on Apple Music and public reading lists on Pocket.
So, you got the point, I’m a digital extrovert :)
Starting today, I’ll issue this weekly curated list of articles, links and other gimmes that rang me a bell during the past week.
If you find something interesting, stupid, to be improved, whatever, please approach me. I’d love to get some feedback, I really think is the best way to calibrate everything - products, content, myself.
/* during my startup years I was told so many times by so many people that the negative feedback is the most valuable feedback you can get, so don’t be shy, shoot! */
Sincerely yours & thrilled,
Bogdan
💰 Roman Pichler is a product guy that I’m following for a long time. In a very recent LinkedIn Pulse article, he highlights the deep link between technical debts and product success.
Similar to a company experiencing financial debt, products can incur technical debt: This happens when wrong or suboptimal architecture, technology, and coding decisions are taken.
And, like the financial debts, when it is not paid back, the interest can multiply and eventually cripple the business.
👜 Not too far, is a good read about the “premium mediocre” trend in the urban culture. Or how premium mediocre fashion conquered the world. This proves to me, once again, that the emotional value of a product is as least so important as its utilitarian value. Or, my old-loved point, a Product is not necessary any product.
/* captured from a keynote I gave in at a product workshop“The idea is simple – by dressing up something mediocre as premium with a few extra touches, real and imagined, companies play on people’s aspirational drive to give them the illusion that they are purchasing into something elevated. ”
💡 Eugen Eşanu, one of the most articulate voice on the Romanian UX scene, has an ultra fair point in his latest Medium post: feedback we get from the products and how we connect the user with his action.
“… our designs should give clear responses on what is happening on the screen or with a certain action. And a user should not make an effort to understand that. Because if it is missing, it will be like trying to hit a target with a ball when you can’t see.”
But too much feedback is as wrong as no feedback. Because, it ends being ignored, as the big-big warnings on the cigarette packs. But, yes, a good read, this is my instant feedback :)
Some other cool stuff
After rolling out a slew of new services at last year’s re:Invent conference, AWS is polishing them up before this year’s big event. —> Amazon expands machine learning services ahead of re:Invent | ZDNet
The world isn’t as it seems - here are some of the most important cognitive biases that are messing with how you think the world works, and why. —> 24 Cognitive Biases That Are Warping Your Perception of Reality
Michael Seibel comments on five of his essays. The essays are: Why Should I Start a Startup?, One Order of Operations for Starting a Startup, The Real Product Market Fit, Users You Don’t Want, and Why Does Your Company Deserve More Money? —> Michael Seibel on Starting a Startup, Finding Product Market Fit, and Fundraising – Y Combinator
1.1.1.1 is the fastest, privacy-first consumer DNS service powered by Cloudflare and no, this is not a joke. —> 1.1.1.1 by Cloudflare - The Internet’s fastest, privacy-first DNS resolver | Product Hunt
Last but not least...
December 1st is Romania’s National Day. On this occasion, watermelons and how you can take a Romanian out :)
