Coté Memo #046: I don't like dick-bags either, and part two on marketing platforms
Meta-data
Hello again, welcome to #046. Today we have 53 subscribers, so we're +1. The crazy pills are working! I'd love to hear what you like, dislike, your feedback, etc.: memo@cote.io. (If you're reading this on the web, you should subscribe to get the daily email.)
See past newsletters in the archives, and, as always, see things as they come at Cote.io and @cote.
Sponsors
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Follow-up
See below.
Tech & Work World
More on marketing platforms.
One of you wrote in and asked for more detail on the platform marketing missive. As I replied back, that text was taken from an ongoing conversation I've been having with someone so much context was lacking. Here's another take at the point I was trying to make.
The point I was trying to make was: your platform can probably do 50 things. Market just 1-5 of them. 50 things is too much and you come off being scary or, worse, arrogant. Developers don't like switching to uber platforms - <gratuitous inside joke targeted at Robert Brook>Marco still uses PHP!</gratuitous inside joke targeted at Robert Brook> SOA/WS-* failed to be sustainable at winning the thought-leadership war because it was too big, did too many things. Developers just said, "uh, I just need a 3 page web application..WTF...?"
To use another metaphor, getting developers to adopt a new platform is like boiling a frog. You can't let them know you're doing it until it's too late, otherwise they hop out. Again, this is where the open source process and culture is key. Unlike commercial products , OSS platforms are rarely planned out in advance. They evolve, often in an ugly fashion. And if they are "planned," they're allowed to "pivot."
Remember Apache Avalon (I could never understand what the fuck was happening there)? Probably not, but I bet you remember Struts (ugly collection of code that coalesced into a platform through much patina'ing) - .do forever! You probably also recall Tomcat (based on a standard which the market had already long ago accepted - Tomcat's pitch was "it's free! [and works]").
All of those were platforms, but each evolved differently. Each were destroyed/replaced by the next iteration of platforms that mostly grew up organically in the same ship-mutate-pivot-ship-mutate-pivote-etc. cycle.
You can't plan ahead for a platform, you just have to adapt your bucket of parts to how "the market" actually uses it (here, "the market" == "developers," sometimes "architects," God help us). Or, have your platform be so damn simple that it does, pretty much just one thing, and then you market the shit out of that. E.g.: rails, early Heroku.
Yet another phrasing: "tech marketers: pick one thing your platform does, just one. What's that? No! No exceptions: sit down and shut-up. Did you pick one thing yet? Good, now go market that for 30-60 days and see if it works. If it doesn't, go through the cycle again and again with different features."
Quick Hits
Getting Help - Josh is amazing person and entrepenuer. When you see him type about how to get along in life, it's worth reading very carefully. He's the only person I know who tries to embody all the good parts of one of my heros, Hunter Thompson, and does a good job doing it.
Oracle Exec: Commodity Servers Fine For Some Tasks, Not For Running Enterprise Apps - Unix, smoke 'em if you got 'em.
Gartner Study Finds Big Data Still In Infancy - "turns out..."
Your choice of mate can make or break your career - there's so much to impact here. The big question is, is the reverse true, and what does that mean for me typing this at 5:31pm on a Friday?
StackEngine Brings Automation To Docker Containers - (a.) this looks like it's talking and the right talk, and, (b.) they're in Austin.
Explaining the Uptime Institute’s Tier Classification System - get it straight, goof-balls.
The ultimate CEO travel secret: Wash your underwear in the sink - sag advice here.
Why women leave tech: It’s the culture, not because ‘math is hard’ - what I like about the women in tech conversation is that on the shallow levels, you could search and replace "women" to "Coté" and much of it would be true. I realize I'm the prototypical privileged white guy and all that. My point is this: I don't fucking like dick bags, assholes, and people who don't have boundaries, empathy, common sense and decency either. Who do I start writing privilege-checks to?
Mesosphere To Bring Google-Style Cluster Management Mainstream - a damn good overview from TPM.
Meanwhile, at for those not lucky enough to have hung out with my old firm this week (like this guy!):
I think I'll crack a PBR, mute #monktoberfest, and pretend I'm at an exclusive conference. A very exclusive conference. Of one.
— Peter Monks (@pmonks) October 2, 2014
A burger diagrams go, this is a good one:
Model of different application stacks from IBM. Anyone disagree with this framework? http://t.co/aGNcvQnXpz @IBMCloud pic.twitter.com/HmIkzjNcqY
— Lawrence Hecht (@LawrenceHecht) October 2, 2014
Fun & IRL
This episode's "core references/inside jokes": Mashed Taters (Potatoes). I don't use that one much, but I think about it all the time and it comes up sometimes. "POE-TAY-TOES!"
Grand Duke Michael’s Brasov estate painted by Stanislav Zhukovsky, c. 1916. - how awesome would it be if that's the way (colors and clutter) you saw life all the time?