Recent Blog Posts
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The Customer is Always Right, Even When They Call it an On-Premise MTA
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the On Premise MTA One fun thing about being a founder is that you get to be a chef, chief cook, and bottle washer, and on top of that, you have to handle the social media and SEO. In my latest work on helping people discover KumoMTA,…
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Product Managers need to Think from the Outside-In
One of the easiest ways to kill a product is inside-out thinking in the Product org. Take a quick read of this and come back, I’ll wait: Imagine putting years of research and development into a product for it to end up being “completely stupid”. How does it happen? While some of the issues in…
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Getting Started with Home Assistant and Node-RED
Getting Into Home Automation and Home Assistant During the recent pandemic, it seemed like everyone was picking up a new hobby, and I was no exception. While I’d made some progress toward converting my home into a smart home by using a collection of smart devices, I didn’t have any real cohesion between the different…
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The Joys of Yakiniku
Growing up I developed an interest early on in Japanese culture, thanks to my regular watching of Robotech as a child. I was fortunate to attend a high school that had a Japanese language program as one of its available courses and took three years of classes for a great teacher who immigrated from Japan and…
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Dig a Little Deeper!
I recently re-watched The Princess and the Frog and realized it could be interpreted on yet another level, as an allegory for how to be more successful as a Sales Engineer. For those who haven’t seen the film (and I recommend you do), you can catch up on the plot at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_princess_and_the_frog. The film has a…
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Why Your Email Marketing Sucks
There’s a great article over at Hubspot that talks about “16 Things People Really Hate About Your Email Marketing” and it’s a good read. I especially liked: The content of your email — whether the copy itself or the offer you’re promoting — should be something the email recipient actually wants to receive. And you…
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More Wisdom From Ed Catmull
Another great video of Ed Catmull speaking at the 2012 General Commencement of the University of Utah: http://webapps5.utah.edu/digvid/?id=2012-05-04~88 Jump to 98:25 for the commencement address. What follows are my notes as I watch the video myself. I love the importance he ascribes to creativity, even in industries that are not typically considered creative. He also…