kornertalk

Hello NYC

Henry Ko — Fri, 18 May 2012 20:49:22 +0000

NYC just in reach from Pulaski Skyway

Lamborghini in stealth mode

Henry Ko — Wed, 09 May 2012 21:35:21 +0000

I did the same with my corrolla

Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse

Henry Ko — Wed, 09 May 2012 04:39:55 +0000

Route 66

Krazy Korner in NOLA

Henry Ko — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:01:42 +0000

getting krazy in NOLA

Notes from the Knowledge Coffin

Henry Ko — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:58:31 +0000

Continuation of notes from Paramore Uni presentation…

Leslie Camacho, CEO, EllisLab

CMS serves content in a way that makes your customer successful.

COPE create once publish everywhere

Agnostic… A running theme….

Understand how your content helps people succeed. This is a human problem.

Lack of customer empathy creates a Knowledge Coffin.

Don’t skimp on discovery. Eat your own dog food. Ask your customers. A good team agency will demand you do all of the above.

BELIEVE THAT YOU MAKE LIFE BETTER

Jettison cynicism so you can empathize and make life better.

Success Guide explain how you make customers successful in plain English. Use simple language. Describe process from customers pov.

This in turn translates to technical requirements.

Empathize with your makers. Read Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham. Be comfortable with working with geniuses. Read The Nerd Handbook by Rands in Repose.

Empathy creates a shared language. This will save you money because you’ll understand both your customers and makers.

Use Success Guide to help your makers Empathize with your customers. End result is a creative and Technical requirements guide that tells you what your Makers need to make your customers successful.

Know your strength and weakness so you know what’s support you’ll need.

Play darts and earn $1,000,000

Henry Ko — Wed, 02 May 2012 05:58:14 +0000

Kobe Bryant, J.D.

ESPN came out with their best paid athletes survey again.

Aside from the usual suspects you’d find on the list – i.e. A-Rod @ $30M/year – there are quite a few “athletes” that get paid doing what they do. Yes, I put quotes around athletes because some of the athletes compete in games or weekend hobbies. But don’t get me wrong. I’m not hating. If I could play darts well too, I’d be doing that for a living (a guy made close to $1M throwing darts

See the list below.

Kobe Bryant, the top-paid bball player, needs to moonlight as a lawyer when he’s not busy shooting the J. I guess $25M plus endorsements just isn’t enough these days…

Sport	Athlete	League, competition	Earnings
Auto racing	Fernando Alonso	Formula 1, Ferrari, 2011 salary and prize money	$40,000,000
Badminton (women)	Wang Yihan	BWF Superseries, Grand Prix Gold and Continental Championships, 2011 prize money	$277,550
Badminton (men)	Lee Chong Wei	BWF Superseries, Grand Prix Gold and Continental Championships, 2011 prize money	$267,350
Billiards	Shane Van Boening	Billiards, 2011 prize money	$160,450
Bowling	Sean Rash	PBA Tour, 2011-12 prize money	$140,250
Darts	Phil Taylor	Pro Darts Corp. 2011 tournament prize money	$938,497
Distance running (men)	Emmanuel Mutai	Distance running (2011 prize money from various events)	$815,000
Distance running (women)	Liliya Shobukhova	Distance running (2011 prize money from various events)*	$720,000
Eating	Joey Chestnut	Major League Eating, 2011 prize money	$205,000
Equestrian	Rolf-Göran Bengtsson	Show Jumping, 2011 prize money	$1,161,280
Fishing	Kevin VanDam	Bassmaster Elite Series, 2011 prize money	$706,500
Horse Racing (jockey)	Ramon A. Dominguez	Horse Racing, 2011**	$20,567,032
Sled dog racing	Dallas Seavey	Iditarod, 2012 first place prize money***	$50,400

Mingling with NYC Startups

Henry Ko — Tue, 01 May 2012 02:34:50 +0000

hanging out in the spotify lounge

Last Thursday, I played hookie and skipped my last day of class to attend a startup recruiting event in NYC. Sponsored by some of the hottest startups in the city (i.e. Spotify), Uncubed brought together 80+ startups and 1000+ job-seekers for an afternoon of networking and info exchange. Oh the nerd-sanity!

BB Summer Ale... so tasty after 5 hours of elevator pitching

I had no idea what to expect going into the event. In fact, I haven’t been to a real job fair since coming to bschool so I felt woefully under prepared. At the end of the day though, I felt pretty good about my new prospects and was very thirsty for a beer.

a meat market for nerds

What I learned…

If you haven’t heard about it yet, there is a major supply shortage of good programmers… If only I enjoyed programming more
It almost feels like 1999
I miss the speed and energy of working for a startup
Having development/software engineer background + business skills ain’t too shabby
I wasted too much time working on my LComm elevator pitch. Never will I ever use that pitch
I’m only knocking on the front door, but it looks like NYC has a great tech startup scene
Did every other founder attend either Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Columbia or MIT?
Brooklyn Brewery Summer Ale…. I need you
Glad I made the trip, can’t wait to live in NYC

Mobile Myths Presentation Notes

Henry Ko — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:34:26 +0000

Below are my scribblings from the Debunking Mobile Myths talk by Josh Clark, author of Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps. My notes are mostly my interpretation of what was said.. P.S. I just found his deck here.

Understand mobile culture and problem of consumer. But there are myths that we stumble on based on so many different cultures. We oversimplify diversity.

1. Mobile users are rushed and distracted.

40% of people use phone on toilet… like me

Mobile should be lite – wrong!

EBay sells over 2000 cars on mobile… per month… wow…

Mobile usage is everywhere.

28% of US adults use mostly mobile web… And growing.

2. Mobile equals less

Jakob Nielson is evil. Says feature set for mobile should be smaller. Don’t pack too much info, but don’t cut content entirely. “Companion Version”

Don’t confuse context with intent.

Want full content, all device have primacy!

3. Complexity is a dirty word

Not dumbed down apps, less complicated apps.

Figure out what they want in the simplest way.

Clarity trumps density.

Q&A interaction creates rich content => Responsive Design

Embrace complexity.

4. Extra tap and clicks are evil.

Tap quality more important than tap quantity, with each tap brings something good.

Progressive disclosure. Provide the whole meal but in smaller bites.

Think… Order and prioritize content. How can I do more?! Progressive enhancement of features from desktop to mobile

Don’t silo devices

5. Gotta have a mobile website

Build for the web, not mobile web. There is no mobile web.

Don’t silo content by device. One web.

Responsive web design. See Boston Globe. It adapts to capabilities and device.

But don’t make wildly different experience… Only if technically different.

Design for mobile first – it will filter needless content and experiences, makes desktop even easier to use.

Deliver great content to mass, not individuals. Content runs the show.

Focus for all platforms

6. Mobile is about an app

Again, its all about content. Apps, websites, etc are just containers.

Goal. Common backend to serve multiple interfaces. Agnostic backends.

NFL ad (Anytime, Anywhere). Growing expectation that content will follow you. iCloud. We are all cloud developers now.

Can’t keep up or scale to all these different platforms…

Real goal is what is the holistic experience?

7. CMS and API are for database nerds

Care about content flow, storage, presentation.

Metadata is the new art direction. -Ethan Resnick (hey, i know this guy!)… Have robots build our stuff. See theguardian website and app. Repurpose content not design.

Has business value, creative control, user experience. Just plain strategy.

Happy waffles and eggs

Henry Ko — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:34:43 +0000

I felt a little happier after I was done eating

Test kitchen recipe: simply baked chicken wings

Henry Ko — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:27:26 +0000

I got the craving for chicken wings last night so I went to publix and bought a pack. The recipe below seems like something my mom would tell me to do, nothing fancy, only uses ingredients I normally have.

couldn't have been simpler

Soy sauce
Garlic
Pepper
Honey
8-10 chicken wings

Mix soy sauce, garlic, pepper and honey to taste. Add chicken wings. Toss. Marinade for an hour or so. Set oven to 375 and bake wings for one hour. Turn wings when halfway through. Don’t forget to let the wings rest for a bit when done.