Category: Opinion

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Crypto Currency Problems

Even with the recent decline in cryptocurrency prices, enthusiasm remains high among blockchain supporters. However, after more than a decade, several key problems still remain before wide-spread adoption can be expected.

Investment / Currency Dilemma

The first problem is the investment/currency dilemma. Blockchain evangelists repeatedly tell us what an amazing investment crypto currencies are. Then, they tell about how crypto is replacing fiat currencies. Unfortunately, however, it’s not possible to be both an investment and a currency. Why? Because the two are – for the most part – mutually exclusive. Investments require volatility – something we see in abundance with crypto currencies. However, an actual currency requires stability. Nobody wants to be paid for work done this month at a wage that is wildly fluctuating. So, we need to decide which it is – a currency or an investment.

While some currencies – known as stablecoins – strive to maintain a 1-to-1 relationship with the dollar, this seems to fly in the face of the argument that fiat currencies should be replaced with crypto currencies. While these stablecoins may work great for purchasing goods and services, why not simply use the dollar instead and save yourself the transaction costs?

Energy Consumption

I have previously blogged about the crypto energy issue. In short, crypto currencies consume massive amounts of electricity while many around the globe are arguing that we need to reduce energy usage to prevent climate change. However, even if you reject climate change; it’s no secret that many places around the world suffer from energy shortages. Even in the US, brownouts are not uncommon in many communities on the hottest days of summer. Is it really reasonable to consume massive quantities of energy to create digital money?

Cyber Terrorism

Crypto has a long history of being used for money laundering, drugs, hacking, and other nefarious uses. While many will argue that this represents only a very small portion of the crypto market, it none-the-less is a real concern that the crypto community needs to address. This is particularly obvious with the growth of ransomware demanding payment in Bitcoin. Regardless of the actually percentage of illicit usage, it still reflects poorly on crypto currencies and will cause increasing oversight by government entities which could negatively impact the crypto markets and long-term viability of blockchain technologies.

Quantum Computing

Nobody seems to talk about it much, but quantum computing could unravel the entire blockchain in the blink of an eye. Since crypto currencies depend on encryption, it is absolutely essential that the encryption algorithms used be unhackable. Given the history of encryption protocols, that seems unlikely. However, it becomes even more unlikely when quantum computing enters the mainstream. While it may be years off, the introduction of a large quantum computer would allow the owner to rewrite the entire blockchain by simply having the majority of computing power on the internet – something not unreasonable with a modest quantum computer. This would rapidly shift financial power into the hands of a single individual.

Conclusion

While I continue to hear people talk about all the great things crypto currencies have to offer, few are interested in addressing the issues that will either prevent widespread adoption or create growing threats to commerce moving forward. If, indeed, nobody is interested in resolving these issues to support the long-term growth of blockchain technologies, then doesn’t it support the notion that this is really nothing more than a Ponzi scheme?

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Language Learning Tools

Language

As we start a new school year, many students – both in high school and college – will be learning a new language. For most of my life, I have been fascinated with foreign languages and spend time every day honing my skills. While I spend much time learning from books, there are some great tools for the more tech savvy that can make language learning more fun.

Pimsleur Language Programs

One of my favorite tools, particularly for working toward conversational skills, is Pimsleur. Their product typically provides 30 half-hour recordings that guide the listener from no language skill through the path to conversational knowledge. I used Pimsleur Chinese 1-4 to help improve my Chinese proficiency – and was pleased with the results. While Pimsleur can be expensive, it’s probably one of the best tools if your ultimate goal is fluency. Note, while they have traditionally been a CD-based program, they have have an app too.

Duolingo

Another favorite for language learning is Duolingo. This is probably the best-known mobile application for language development. Duolingo offers a variety of languages from typical European languages such as German, French, and Spanish to less common languages such as Yiddish and even fictional languages like Klingon. In my experience, Duolingo works best with languages sharing our alphabet. But if you’re willing to work a little harder, their Asian language tools are pretty awesome too. Duolingo has some really nice features such as weekly competitions on the leaderboard and some social aspects too.

Japanese Dungeon

As I’ve started trying to learn Japanese, I came across this app. It’s particularly fun as it’s a good mix of game and learning. This particular tool is great for learning the Japanese scripts. In addition to Japanese Dungeon, versions exist for Korean, Russian, and a variety of European languages. What makes this app so fun is that it plays like an 8-bit game where you fight orcs. Get a character right and you hit an orc. Otherwise, you will be hit. As you progress, you can unlock more characters with different stats and level your character up to deal more damage.

Other Tools

The above are my current favorites. However, there are countless other tools out such as Rosetta Stone, Hello Chinese, Drops, and too many others to enumerate. So, if you are looking to expand your language skills, head to your mobile app store and get learning!

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Impact of Social Media Bias

Scales

Since last year’s election, I have been substantially less involved with blogging and social media marketing. While we are all entitled to our political views, I will keep mine to myself and simply talk about how social media bias has negatively impacted social marketing.

Demographics

As a small business owner with an MBA, I am all too familiar with demographics. When I consider any marketing efforts, I have to consider who my primary market is and how I can reach them. For instance, marketing to children or teens would be ineffective for me as a software company. So, that means I have to ponder who does buy my services and how I can reach those markets. That also means knowing the demographics of my local area and their interests. While there are always outliers, I have determined that a sizable number of my customers are middle-aged or older white men with conservative political views. Of course, some of my customers are women or politically liberal – they just form the minority of my market in this area.

Reaching my Demographic

Once I’ve determined my demographic, the next step is to find ways to reach them. Newspapers are not likely to effectively market to millennials, for example. So I need to find the media used by my demographic. Of course, a substantial number of Americans are active on one or more social media platforms. Specifically, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram provide access to a substantial number of consumers of all demographics. These tools provide cheap advertising access to a large cross-section of Americans – in my demographic as well as other demographics I would like to attract to my business.

The Impact of Bias

Unfortunately, as last year progressed, there were more and more stories of political bias by the social media platforms. They felt it was their job to monitor political content and, ultimately, to deplatform people they did not agree with. Unfortunately, for those relying on social media for advertising, it meant that some demographics were substantially less present on social media. Or, worse yet, that those demographics had disengaged the platforms entirely. That means fewer people for me to market to and less desire to advertise or engage in social media.

Neutrality

Regardless of your political views, the neutrality of social media is essential not only for its viability as a marketing platform, but also for the long-term financial viability of any social media company. Alienating half of the population by politically-motivated censorship will do nothing but ensure the eventual demise of social media and will cause businesses to find alternative advertising means to reach their target demographic.

Conclusion

Whether you are a republican or democrat, if you’re involved in business you recognize the importance of advertising. Likewise, you are inevitably aware of conservative friends or political figures who have fled due to censorship. This must stop – not only because it discourages the open debate of ideas – but because it damages the platforms as well as the utility of social media marketing.

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What You Need To Know About Apps

Apps

As companies prepare to enter the new year, some will embrace new technologies like mobile applications. While a large number of businesses already have apps for both Android and iOS, may smaller business do not. Those businesses will have to decide if the investment will provide value for their users as well as their organization. To help make that decision, it’s useful to better understand the mobile app ecosphere.

Android or iOS?

The most important question is what devices you are targeting with a mobile application. Are you only looking to support iPhones, or do you want Android too? This decision will drive the rest of the decisions you make. While most organizations want an application for both platforms, you may be looking to create apps for a niche market better serviced by one or the other. For example, if you want to create an app that will target a handheld barcode scanner and label printer, you’ll want to develop for Android only as iOS doesn’t support that that hardware.

Native or Hybrid?

The next question is if you want the app to be developed natively or using hybrid technologies. The difference is the programming environments used as well as the development time and costs. While native apps almost always ‘feel’ better than their hybrid counterparts, they also require developing separately for both platforms – which increases the development time as well as the cost. Conversely, hybrid apps can be written once and will work well on both devices.

Costs & Monitization

To place an app on either store, you will need a license. For Google, this is a nominal one-time purchase, but requires an annual license from Apple. If your organization is a non-profit or business that doesn’t wish to pay an annual license fee, you may wish to skip on Apple development. If you’re planning to sell your app on the store, note that both Apple and Google take a 30% cut of all sales. This can be significant cost, but the large market available to you makes it well worth the cost.

Approval

After you’ve created your app, it will need to be reviewed. Both Google and Apple have staff who download apps to verify compliance with their rules. Note, it is possible for your app to be rejected, in which case you will have to make modifications and resubmit.

User Acceptance

One last point I’ve learned is to make sure your app services a purpose. I’ve had several clients create an app they thought was great only to find that nobody downloaded or used the app. This can be disappointing and lead to a substantial loss to the business. The best way to avoid this is to ensure that you’re creating an application that fills an actual user need – not just something that you perceive as a need.

Conclusion

The decision to make an app can be a big one with lots of options and potential costs. Take time to research the market and ecosphere before you jump in and you will have a much more successful app launch!

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Skills All Developers Should Know

Tools

When I talk with developers, it’s amazing how many of them are disappointed with the limited job opportunities available to them. Often, the problem is that they lack many of the common skills required to be an effective programmer in today’s market. These developers have managed to become specialists in a very specific technology stack which isn’t widely used elsewhere. I’ll tell them some things they should learn, and – surprisingly – they’ll often argue that the specific skill I mentioned isn’t that useful. What are those skills?

HTML

First and foremost, every developer today needs to know HTML. In our web-based world, it’s hard to find work that doesn’t require HTML at some point. This is obviously true for web development, but is equally valuable with hybrid mobile technologies such as Cordova or Ionic. Or, maybe you need to create documentation for you application that will be accessed on the web.

JavaScript

While every developer may use a different programming language for backend development, we all use JavaScript for web programming. But JavaScript goes well beyond that. Today, JavaScript can be used for developing backend services with Node or even interfacing with Arduino hardware with the Johnny5 library.

Git

Developers need to be comfortable with Git from the command line. GUIs are nice, but when you need to automate a build script or download code from a command prompt on a remote computer, the Git command line is essential.

BASH

Like it or not, much of the cloud runs on Linux servers. As such, a knowledge of BASH is essential in today’s world. While many developers prefer a Windows only world, it’s just not the case when you have to deal with Google or AWS cloud services.

SQL

It’s amazing to me how many junior developers are unfamiliar with SQL. In today’s marketplace, nearly every application needs to interact with a database somewhere. Whether it’s an enterprise application using Oracle or an Android app using SQLite, SQL is the common way to interact with a database.

Conclusion

It may be noted that – other than JavaScript – no programming languages are on the list. Whether you develop in C, C++, Java, Swift or some other language, the above skills will apply. There are countless toolkits and frameworks, languages and environments. However, nearly all of them will require some mix of knowledge of HTML, JavaScript, Git, Bash, and SQL

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Attitude Matters

Bad Attitude

Anybody who has ever looked at job requirements for technical staff has probably noticed the huge number of skills required. This may include programming languages, hardware platforms, frameworks, protocols, or countless other technical specifications. However, what you will see far less often is interpersonal skills or attitude. In reality, these soft skills are typically far more valuable.

This week, I overheard an aspiring programmer discuss how he found it “mentally draining pretending to care about business needs our values”. I immediately jumped in to try to correct his errant thinking. As the discussion continued, he made it abundantly clear that he only cared about money. In fact, the only reason he was going to school for technology was to make money.

While many people chose their profession based on financial factors, money should never be the primary motivation. Why? Because study after study has found that money is a poor motivator of behavior. Instead, people motivated by the intrinsic characteristics of a job are far more successful. For example, as a programmer, I’m motivated by helping business transform their operations through technology and by the challenge of the problem. While a large number of the applications are, in themself, boring; solving complex problems and helping businesses grow is always exciting.

For the individual trying to find a job, learn to be motivated by the job instead of the money. Not only will it help you perform better, it will help you develop a more positive attitude.

In the end, most business owners would rather have a less technically competent individual with a positive attitude than a more skilled individual with a poor attitude. For the business, they can train the desired skills, but fixing a poor attitude is far more difficult.

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Backups Are Not Optional

Drives

Recently, I visited a customer site for what seemed like a simple request – to update their Windows computer. However, in the end, the machine had to be reformatted. The customer was very worried that they would lose critical data on their system. That didn’t happen, but I was concerned that the customer wasn’t performing backups on what he considered to be critical operational data.

Today, failure to backup important data is not excusable. With the advent of cloud services as well as cheap data storage, customers have countless options for ensuring their data is always available. Regardless of the operating system or situation, everyone should be performing regular backups of critical information.

Backup Options

For Mac users, Apple’s Time Machine is the way to go. The gold standard for computer backups, Time Machine automatically backups up your entire system whenever a configured hard drive is connected to the computer. Not only is it easy to configure and implement, backups couldn’t be easier. During setup of a new Mac computer, simply plug in the Time Machine drive and the OS will take care of moving everything to a new system. It could not possibly be easier. Additionally, Apple’s iCloud drive is an incredibly cheap cloud-based backup option. The free iCloud storage allows up to 5 gigs while paid solutions start at only .99 cents per month.

Unfortunately, Windows users don’t have anything as nice as Time Machine. However, Microsoft’s OneDrive allows free storage of 5 gigs (like iCloud) and up to 1 TB for only $6.99 per month. With automatic syncing to the cloud, OneDrive can quickly – and easily – protect mission critical data.

In addition to the above, countless other options exist. Google Drive, a service similar to OneDrive or iCloud, allows 15 gigs of free storage. For developers, both BitBucket and GitHub provide off-site storage of source code. For your cell phone, Google Photos can backup every selfie you take so you never have to worry about losing the pictures on your phone.

Conclusion

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what service you use or how you do your backups. What matters is that you’re doing them. For me, as a business owner, the loss of my business data would be catastrophic. So, I have implemented various backups to preserve critical files. If my computer blows up today, I’ve got nothing to fear – I’ll be back up and running tomorrow.

If you are concerned about what would happen to your business in the event of a computer crash or catastrophic event, contact someone in your IT department. If you don’t have an IT department feel free to contact Talixa Software for assistance.

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Remote Work? It’s Not All Good.

During the last few months, we’ve seen a huge shift by companies to encourage remote work. Indeed, for many organizations, this is they only option they have if they wish to stay in business. Many workers are very pleased with this, and some have even blasted companies who say they’ll end their remote plans when the coronavirus passes. However, as a business owner, I have a variety of issues with remote work.

Lack of Accountability

One of the biggest difficulties with remote work is the lack of accountability. Online, you’ll see all the people who support remote work argue that if you don’t trust someone, why are they working for you? But how can I possibly ever grow to trust someone I don’t have any interaction with? If the person works a remote-only job, and was hired remotely, I have no way to ever know the individual’s work ethic, whether he consistently shows up on time, or whether he plays games at the office all day. I’ve seen many people play Facebook games in their cubicles, I can only imagine what they would do if they were at home!

Difficulty in Mentoring

I currently have several interns (or, as I hear they’re called now, externs) working for me remotely. They need to complete an internship to finish the degree, and I offered to let them work for me. Unfortunately, I can’t watch what they do or easily mentor them. I don’t know when they’re stuck, and I have no way to really tell if they’re having difficulties or if they’re simply unproductive. I feel sorry for anyone working as an extern now, as I do not believe it’s possible to provide the same level of mentorship that’s possible when a team member is onsite.

Inability to Develop Social Connections

While many people may prefer to ignore it, social connections in the workplace are important. Developing relationships with a diverse pool of team members provides an employee the ability to learn from other team members, to share in the success and hardships of a project, and to engage in team-building that grows ever important as someone desires to climb the corporate ladder. Individuals who never work at the office will have a very difficult time developing the skills necessary to become the leaders of tomorrow.

Decreased Visibility

When it comes time to promote someone, do you chose the worker you’ve never met, or the individual who you see showing up early and staying late every day? The remote worker may put in just as many hours, but it will never been seen by management. Likewise, when it comes time to downsize, are you going to fire your friend or the worker three states away?

Minimized Importance of Client Interaction

Developing custom software for clients, I place a great deal of importance on relationships with my customers. I like to visit them whenever possible, see how things are going, and even socialize a bit. I view my customers as more than a source of revenue, but as the people who enable me to have a business. As such, I place a great deal of value on relationship building. With remote workers, the option for real meaningful client interaction is gone.

Why Not Outsource Everything?

If you disagree with all of the above, and you really think that remote-only is the future, then why not outsource everything to India, the Ukraine, or Latin America? If there truly is no value to being onsite, then there’s no value to me paying an American developer when I can outsource the work at a substantially reduced rate. By arguing that all jobs should be remote, you’re actually arguing that you’re way too expensive for the benefit you provide.

Conclusion

While I think remote work can be a great thing, I reject the notion that it is superior to working onsite. I look forward to returning to a normal business world where I can interact with my customers, meet for a burger with a new lead, and mentor my team in person. The remote-only world of today isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!

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Master of Your Destiny

Workforce

As the economy begins to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, people are starting to go back to work. Unfortunately, it seems some sources are suggesting that companies have engaged in sexist behaviors by only bringing men back to work. Or have they? I asked both my wife and my daughter what they thought the reason for this apparent sexism may be and they both came to the same conclusion – women were likely staying at home to take care of their children. None of the articles I read came to this conclusion.

Shouldn’t we stomp out sexism whenever we find it? Absolutely. As my daughter enters the workforce with a STEM degree, I want her to have the same opportunities as men. As a business owner, I have a simple rule for the people I work with – they must be the most qualified people I can find. Note my lack of concern for race, gender, religious creed, etc.

Unfortunately, I see a bigger problem with the assumption that everyone is bigoted: it destroys the motivation of those who are the target of those prejudices. For instance, as women see articles about sexism in the workplace, they increasingly believe that everyone is out to get them. Likewise, the constant insistence of racism creates an environment where minorities believe they’re unable to get the job. This causes those individuals to put in less effort or even give up. After all, if the system is rigged against a person, why would they bother to try?

These notions of sexism and racism end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. People give up, we see a less diverse workforce, and then point out the racial/gender makeup of the workforce to prove our conclusion.

What Do I Tell My Daughter?

When I talk to my daughter about sexism, I tell her that she is in control of her own destiny and can accomplish anything she wants to do. I tell her to ignore the reports of widespread bias and instead work hard to achieve her goals. I tell her that when she falls for the narrative that women are at a disadvantage in the workplace, she becomes the victim and is unable to achieve her goals.

Conclusion

While I have witnessed sexism in the workplace, I reject the notion that women are systematically oppressed. I believe that women are just as capable as men, and that when they begin to see themself as the victim they kill their own upward mobility through the paralysis of fear. Most importantly, I reject the politics of division and believe we all end up better when we bring the best people together – regardless of race, gender, or any other meaningless classifier.

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Marketing 3.0

Marketing

In the early days of marketing, companies relied on print, and broadcast media. Newspapers, magazines, television, and radio provided advertising solutions for everyone. Then came the internet. During the last decade, we’ve seen marketing rapidly move to things like Google AdWords as well as social media. Today, people make heavy use of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to push their brand. Through both paid advertising as well as providing content, social media is now a major player in the marketing realm.

Unfortunately, however, this seems to be changing faster than many would like to admin. Facebook’s user base is dwindling, and Twitter is typically only used by people looking for information within a niche market – such as music or tech. Worse yet, LinkedIn – once a place for professional networks – is becoming the venue of choice for advertising. Initially, I embraced the use of LinkedIn to advertise my services to local businesses. Unfortunately, over the last year, I have been increasingly bombarded with connection requests from people who simply want to sell me products. Now, I am increasingly reluctant to connect with people I don’t know. I look for where the individual is located, and if it’s outside the US, I reject the connection. I’ve removed individuals who acted as spammers. None of this is new, of course, I’ve talked about it before (Social Media Etiquette and Sleazy LinkedIn Users).

Now, I am left to wonder where the next phase in advertising will take us. I assume others are having the same experiences, and are wondering the same thing. Mobile advertising seems to be good, but only if you’re selling games. Advertising on digital audio services such as Pandora or Spotify are great – if you’ve got the budget. I have to assume that other’s are having the same experiences I am, and so these methods are becoming less useful. I think we are on the brink of a massive shift in marketing, but I’m not sure what it will be. But whatever it is, I hope it’s less spammy than what people are doing now.

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