Copacetic

Evert Bopp is offering a cool prize to someone for helping to rename his Tipperary-based company.

“My main venture at the moment is a company called 802.EU. This venture’s main product is a captive portal solution for use with wireless hotspots, hot-zones, municipal wireless networks & wisps….. We’ve recently heard several comments that the name ‘802.EU’ basically sucks.”

I have to agree 802.eu does suck, black hole style.

Stop trying to get people to be smart and start from the other end of the scale. Try and stop them doing the most stupid thing. This works particularily well with smart people who are usually so busy being clever about stuff that they regularily do the dumbest thing in the playbook while engaging in some really smart piece of activity.

So, get your smart to start thinking about the  stupidest thing they could do, and then get them to not do it!

Simple really.

Dontcha just love external validation. Robert Sutton also believes in firing the Asshole (see rule 9).

I found this page tonight with a bunch of old saws, but good ones all the same. I particularily like this one by Deming which predates agile programming, but could have been written for it….

Deming’s 14 points

1. Create constancy of purpose.
2. Adopt the new philosophy.
3. Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality.
4. Minimize total cost, not initial price of supplies.
5. Improve constantly the system of production and service.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership.
8. Drive out fear.
9. Break down barriers between departments.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and numerical targets.
11. Eliminate work standards (quotas) and management by objective.
12. Remove barriers that rob workers, engineers, and managers of their right to pride of workmanship.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everyone in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.

I’m by no means the most prolific blog reader, but even I find myself cherry picking from my blog roll on occasion. The criteria for selection are pretty crude actually,

1. Are you near the top in my bloglines viewer (Eirpreneur wins on this count)
2. Do you post less than once a day? (nothing worse that discovering 200 unread items after a few days, digg and engadget stand up and take a bow).
3. Can I read it in 5 minutes or less

So in no particular order the blogs I’ll hit nearly everyday that they have content,

• Eirpreneur : Good round up of Irish startup news
• Sarah Carey - GUBU : Sarah was the first Irish blogger I read regularily and as I know her, it always gives her posts a certain spice.
• Bernie Goldbach - Irish Eyes : Nice perspectives on technology from Bernie (but if he keeps that del.icio.us autoposting stuff going he’s heading for the high road :-))
• David McWilliams : He writes well and has a larger worldview than most Irish journalists
• Sharpcast : Competitor website, ’nuff said.
• Dave Winer - Scripting News: Dave always has a point of view, he writes beautifully and if you missed it on the web, Dave will generally link to it sooner or later.
• Jonathan Schwartz: As CEO of Sun, Jonathan blogs once in a while. I read it because he has balls and if anybody can save Sun from themselves he can.
• I, Cringely : Robert Cringely writes a column once a week and always has something worthwhile to say about the tech industry especially when it comes to the six pack, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, HP, Yahoo and Google.
• Robert Scoble : Lost some of his lustre since leaving Microsoft, but still a good link source, if Dave Winer doesn’t get it Scoble will.
• Darren Barefoot: Darren worked wih me in Cape Clear (which is where I met Sarah Carey) so the personal relationship extends to the blog. He also is definitely “quirky” in a way that I like.
• InfoWorld Top News : Keep up to date on TechNews with this one site. Ads are big and the articles are small, but nobody does it better.
• Mike Arrington - TechCrunch : Great competitor watch site.
• Dilbert : You need a reason?

Ogden  Nash : “People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.”

Ogden has obviously not had to call out a emergency plumber or glazer in Dublin recently….

It helps to know that Orlaith is Sean O’Sullivan’s sister. If he’s the big cheese (at Rococo) she’s the big chalk. Compare and contrast!

If you know any thing about Bruce Schneier or have ever had to struggle through “Applied Cryptography” then The Bruce Schneier Facts site should crack you up. A small taster,

• Bruce Schneier once killed a man using only linear cryptanalysis
• Bruce Schneier reads RFID cards with the knuckles of his clenched fist
• Alice and Bob got Eve pregnant together; the result was Bruce Schneier
• When Bruce Schneier decrypts the Da Vinci Code, the ending doesn’t suck

You need to vist the site and see the pictures to get the full value…

Tom Murphy (one of Irelands most pre-eminent software PR guys) has moved his blog to a new home.

Tom is always worth a read.