A Software Developers Focus On Selling

Its funny. When you are really interested in something like mountain biking for instance, you know every detail about the gear. You only want the best and you cannot imagine why anyone would purchase anything other than a 5000.00 LiteSpeed with a custom crank and carbon fiber forks.

But in reality, the majority of bicycle consumers will be best served with a 250.00 bike from the local bike shop and that is what the majority will buy.

As a software developer or technologist it is easy to forget that most people don’t care how high tech your app is. In the end they want a bike that is easy to use, already assembled, cheap to buy / repair and not a pain to maintain. None of which are offered by a 5000.00 pro mountain biker setup.

Do any IT directors sign checks for software purchases because they use the latest and greatest? Not the ones I have worked for.

Stop Abusing Your Email!!!

Howdy Strangers,

My name is Ian Mechura. I am a software developer in the process of designing and launching a team communication and collaboration product.

I came up with the idea by constantly being bombarded by unnecessary emails at every company I have worked.

Dealing with an overflowing inbox has caused lots of pain over the years and now I have set out to do my part to right the situation.

My intention is not to compete with or replace email. I think that email is a useful tool, its just misused because often it is the only thing available.

Take a moment to look at the product goals and tell me what you think

Product Goals:

• Relieve the burden of email misuse
• Provide an alternative to spamming an organization with automated emails
• Reduce the loss of valuable information scattered in individual employee inboxes
• Allow the individual to filter content instantly based on their preferences in a personalized and centrally located feed.
• Facilitate targeted distribution of information.
• Create only a single record for each message to reduce storage and bandwidth usage

In my next few posts I will describe specific cases where emails where misused and how they impacted my work life.