My family loves music. I bet yours does too. If you’re like us, you’re listening all the time, at work, at school, the car and especially at home. Listening to music has been a fixture in my life since I was born. There’s an 8mm film of me dancing in my crib while my parents…
Category: Platform
Advancing platform success and my new role at Mashery
Platforms have an ability to reveal new value and opportunity. I spent several years creating platforms, making data and services available to various communities of developers. I once likened opening up a new API to unlocking a treasure box of functionality for a developer. As part of Mashery’s Strategy services group, for the past year,…
APIs are an invisible wire
It’s been said that the best user experience is one that goes unnoticed. In other words, the more seamless design is to the consumer, the better it is. In almost all cases, the same can be said for the elegant integration of APIs. Typically an application or device user has no idea their experience includes…
Be open to learn in 2013, a work approach inspired by my 5-year-old
A conversation last night with my 5-year-old at bedtime was a revelation. This one happened on New Year’s Eve and should likely set the tone for how I approach my year professionally. Me: I hope you’ve had a great vacation. One more day until you go back to school. 5yo: And one more day until…
I Spy an Ecosystem
With the upcoming election, I’m hearing “platform” mentioned a lot when describing candidates and their political parties. Of course, that’s more about soapbox – the stage candidates and their supporters speak from – than sandbox – the space where developers code from. The irony is that politicians, historically referred to as public servants, were intended…
Emerging platforms from the overcast: The value of Strategy at Mashery
Somewhere there could be a group of people sitting in a room coming up with a new definition for “platform”. It appears to be overused. Any online content or service provider, device, website or application — open or closed — that offers its data, functionality or even its users to itself or external partners and…
Building on my love of platforms as I join Mashery
There’s something I’ve always loved about working with platforms; It’s a special thing being able to add value and unlock so much potential for a company and a possible infinite number of apps — at the same time. While I’ve had to explain ‘what I do’ dozens of times to so many people, family and…
Breakfast Parameters
It’s an amazing thing to watch your child learn — especially as they start figuring out how to spell and write. I captured this photo on a recent weekend morning, when it was just me and my 5 year old in the kitchen cooking up some pancakes. As I was mixing up the eggs, water…
APIs in Life, Music and Wiffleball
This talk expresses my love and intrigue of APIs, demonstrating where I’ve found platforms and APIs in real life, music and things like wiffleball. I have a lot of fun with this one. At one point during this talk, I walk across the stage (or room) and throw various wiffleball pitches at my laptop, with…
New approach to platform evangelism
Back in 2005 when the “mashup” craze was really taking off, we were getting reports at Yahoo! about how many developers were using our Maps API. The report was broken down into technologies, web sites, and how many API calls were made from each. Sites like programmableweb.com were busy cataloging platforms and counting how many…