Tag: nhl

Make Your Day

Post author By Jeff Clark
Post date August 7, 2020

We’re technically in the dog days of summer, but considering I’ve barely left my house for 141 days, I’m just going to call it March 160th.

Here are a few things that I enjoyed this week:

I enjoyed this summary of the book “Execution“. It’s a 35-page PDF, but it gets to the point of the book really well.
This is an incredibly long, but worthwhile read about how TikTok became TikTok. It was a little timing, a little engineering magic and a lot of marketing.
The NHL resumed actual games that actually matter this week, and are doing so in a bubble without fans. They posted a video explaining how they designed and produced the rinks to look interesting on TV by considering them stages instead of empty building.
The NHL posted another video giving a quick tour from inside the bubble. Not bad. Not amazing, but totally livable.
Google Analytics shows that I’m basically screaming into the abyss here, but I have documented by love for Coffee KIT KAT
I watched nearly 20 minutes of a Bon Apetit test cook attempting to recreate Lucky Charms.
Here are some great photos of Oklahoma that make me want to go back and visit.

Tags execution, kitkat, nhl, oklahoma, tiktok

Reading List

Luigi is Real

Post author By Jeff Clark
Post date July 30, 2020

It’s been insanely hot here this week. My lawn makes me sad, but my little garden in the back is growing really well. Let me know if you would like more information, and how many hours you have to talk about it.

In the meantime, here are some things I really enjoyed this week.

I am currently obsessed with the Nintendo Gigaleak. Obsessed with the Gigaleak, especially the debug tools and early development artifacts. It’s especially cool seeing how the sausage of my youth was made. That’s a weird sentence to type.
Matthew Ball wrote up a long piece about how we shouldn’t compare Nintendo’s apparent strategy to Disney’s “Disney as a Service” strategy. It’s similar, but not the same because Nintendo is Nintendo (and is happy about it).
The NYTimes has a pretty good series about how people spend their Sundays. 50cent’s sunday routine is work, workout … and more work.
Free Seed With (No) Purchase: E-Comm is a rough-and-tumble business, and scammers will do anything (including mailing random people random seeds that they didn’t order) just to trick the algorithms into promoting their stores. It’s called “brushing”.
Most of the Deadspin writers quit last year, but have combined forces again to create Defector. It’s got a cool business model, and a writer-first culture – including the ability to change the editor-in-chief at any time with a 2/3 vote. I’m going to wait to see what their hockey coverage is like before throwing my money at them.
Speaking of: hockey’s back, baby! The NHL is kicking off their playoffs in two Canadian bubbles. And it sounds perfectly fine.

Tags brushing, deadspin, defector, disney, gigaleak, nhl, nintendo

Reading List

Release the Kraken

Post author By Jeff Clark
Post date July 24, 2020

The Seattle Kraken logo and jersey is great. No white anywhere on the home jersey (supposedly deliberate: “no white, no surrender”).
It’s surprising to me that we don’t hear more about the progress being made on a Coronavirus vaccine, but there are more than 100 in development, with four in the latest stage. Makes me sleep a little better at night.
A colleague shared a brief way of thinking about product development opportunity cost. Being able to justify $1m in additional revenue per new team member puts an objective lens on a strangely subjective process.
Same colleague, similar topic. The Four Laws of Software Economics. It’s so easy to be nice and mish-mash opinions together into a plan forward, so “strategy requires judgement” may be my professional mantra for a little while.
I can’t get “What’d I Miss” out of my head. In fact, I can’t get the entire Hamilton soundtrack out of my head. Since seeing it for the first time on July 5th and making it my running playlist, my average running pace has dropped 31 seconds per mile.
It looks like it’s going to be a fantastic weekend to be on (or near) the water around here, even if we have to dress a little differently this year. Summer is in full swing.

Tags beachplease, hamilton musical, hockey jersey design, nhl, product development, seattle kraken, software economics