Creating, Improving… Managing?

Giff Constableleadership

I bet most of you have listened to Ira Glass on being creative. If not, ignore this post and go watch that video. His comments resonate with me deeply. Frustration with not being able to always produce work to the level of your taste. Demanding more. Overcoming that frustration through perseverance and relentless creating, making, shipping. The downside to being …

The Misogyny Has Got to Stop

Giff Constabletechnology

This weekend I was startled by a tweet from Margaret Wallace, a game industry executive whom I respect in New York. Welcome to my world: She Was Harassed By A Games Reporter. Now She's Speaking Out. http://t.co/hVx638XBQc #onereasonwhy — Margaret Wallace ♕ (@MargaretWallace) February 1, 2014 Margaret is referring to a series of unacceptable, appalling messages written to a woman …

Myth-Making and the “Authentic Founder”

Giff Constabletechnology, venture capital

One of my pet peeves about startup-land is myth-making. I refer to the stories that get made up about a startup’s founding and trajectory. Entrepreneurs spin tales for two reasons: to get press, and, particularly, to get funding. Investors have a name for their intuitive filtering — they call it pattern recognition. But at the early stage, it seems to …

Lean… startup? enterprise? Just use your head

Giff Constablelean

Andreas Klinger recently wrote an article that made some rounds in the lean startup circle entitled “why lean startup sucks for startups.” Putting the attention-grabbing headline aside, I found much of the piece rather bizarre. Is lean startup different for startups? Yes and no. Hoping for a detailed playbook is lazy, naive thinking. Lean, going back to the Toyota system, …

Minimum Viable User Stories

Giff Constabletechnology

Agile. How did a movement whose manifesto began with “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” get so caught up in ceremony? (“Humans” is the answer) Thoughtbot tweeted a thought-provoking article on “Replacing the User Story with the Job Story“. I am a fan of “jobs to be done” but do not think this is really much of an improvement. …

A lean case study with Time Inc’s Cooking Light

Giff Constableinnovation, lean

Giff Constable- Testing New Products Ideas at Time – NCCSF Neo Day Session 2 from NeoInnovate on Vimeo. We spent a fascinating 8 weeks with the team at Cooking Light magazine, part of Time Inc’s Lifestyle Group, helping them put “lean startup in the enterprise” methods into action. Our goal was to ideate and then test a new product idea …

Hiring an Intrapreneur Team

Giff Constableinnovation, management

Let’s say you’re a leader at a Fortune 500 company. You know you need to move faster and take on more risks with your digital products. How do you conquer your “innovator’s dilemma”? You need the right structure and the right people. Today, I wanted to talk about the people. You need dynamic, passionate, multi-skilled, highly talented people. In other …

Research vs Design

Giff Constabledesign, lean

“Research is the process by which we understand problems. Design is the process for which we solve problems.” Yes! Watch this video of Farrah Bostic’s talk at Lean Day West on how to improve the world of qualitative research.

Getting the experiment wrong

Giff Constablelean

On October 12th, the artist Banksy set up a stall in New York selling signed canvases for $60. Banksy didn’t announce it, but released a video the next day. Banksy fans across the globe were probably mortified that 1. they missed it, and 2. these people walking by didn’t appreciate the opportunity! Personally, I think Banksy set it up to …

Mac Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

Giff Constablemisc

File this under the “so I remember it later” department.  Tonight I was working on a large financial model and banging my head against the fact that all my old Excel keyboard shortcuts don’t work on the Mac.  So I dug around and pulled together the list of ones that I commonly use: MAC EXCEL 2016 Define a name: Ctrl …