The world is flat. The Four Humours. Geocentricism.

These are all examples of paradigms which have since shifted once thoughts moved on.

In a similar way to these paradigms, Joel Spolsky’s writing in the early 2000’s on joelonsoftware.com shaped thinking in the software business – some could say even forming paradigms of their own.

Top of the list of all of Joel’s 1113 articles* is ‘Things you should never do, Part 1’. This article states the worst strategic mistake you could ever make is ‘rewrite the code from scratch’.

David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and Co-Founder of Basecamp, disagrees with Joel. Rewriting should be an option.  

Duane grew up in childrens’ homes in the East End of London, left school with no qualifications and ended up serving a 5 year prison sentence for drug trafficking. He served time in US and UK prisons.

It is not in the interests of any investors or entrepreneurs to talk about bubbles. They are too profitable for some. Besides, ‘this time it’s different‘, is the stock response to anyone who question the increasingly high valuations of some companies.

It is in everyone’s interests to understand the implications and what this means for other companies.

Picture the scene. You enter a room. The room has windows and doors, sometimes music and usually drinks. People fill this room, talking, smiling, and bunched in groups like a Roman Tortoise Shield formation.

This is no start to some mind-boggling brain teaser. No. This is something FAR worse. This is a networking event. Enough to send shivers down the spine of any self-respecting introvert.

Last week we took over Cambridge, UK for the second BoS Europe Conference Europe. As ever, the speakers produced a great show for those in attendance, delivering thought provoking presentations with software businesses in mind.

The slides from most of the presentations are here – with thanks to the speakers for permission to share the slides with the wider BoS Community.

Footballer or Funding Round…?

The numbers are mind boggling. The names can be confusing. Can you identify the footballers from the funding rounds? No Googling. Spot the odd one out. Just for fun…

We’re all guilty. The world is moving too fast and we all have to deal with customers, employees, family, friends, investors, events, unexpected problems, Unicorns, smart phones, 24x7x365 availability. Do you honestly feel you’re in control of your life? If you do and can share the secret, I want to hear from you – please.