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Showing posts from July, 2011

Plotting for serendipity

I rarely eat lunch at my desk. Eating lunch in a cafeteria is such a precious opportunity to waste. I plot for serendipity. That's right. Some of the best conversations that I have had with people — on my way to a cafetaria or in the cafeteria — are purely serendipitous, but they're not purely accidental. I even pick a cafeteria that requires me to walk a little more. I believe you can always create opportunities for good things to happen to you. When people say "It's a small world", they are so wrong. The world isn't small but they're at the right place at the right time to think it's a coincidence. The coincidences do happen but there's a larger force behind orchestrating the possibilities for such coincidences to occur. The same applies to creativity. You can design an epiphany. I have heard people say that they had an epiphany while they were in shower. It's not the shower but it's illumination followed by a prolonged incubation , two p

Designing Terms Of Service Is As Important As Designing A Product

Dropbox revised their Terms of Service (TOS) over the long weekend. That triggered a flurry of activities on Twitter. Dave Winer even deleted his Dropbox account saying that he would revisit it once the dust settles. A lot of people concluded that there's nothing wrong in the new TOS and that people are simply overreacting. And then Dropbox updated their blog post, twice, explaining that there is nothing wrong with new TOS and cleared some confusion. I would let you be the judge of the situation and the new TOS. This post is not about analyzing the new TOS of Dropbox, but it's about looking at more basic issue in product design. What we witnessed was just a symptom. Let me be very clear - your product design includes getting the TOS and End User License Agreement (EULA) right before you open up the service. The way the most TOS and EULA are worded, an average user can't even fathom what the service actually does, what information it collects, what it shares, and most impor