2011 was a great year for the Brainscape blog. 200 blog posts published, over 600 comments received, and countless tweets and likes spreading our posts across the internet! In light of the end of 2011, the Brainscape blog’s most epic year to date, here are the Top Ten Brainscape posts from the past year. Please enjoy this little look-back, and perhaps you’ll find an article you happened to have missed: (more…)
I spend a lot of time thinking about Brainscape’s long-term product vision. Sometimes, I’ll lay awake until the wee hours of the morning, visualizing some new feature suite that is so advanced that we’re probably at least 1 or 2 years away from being ready to develop. My enthusiasm for these visions is often so great that I am tempted to draw up wireframes, call a design meeting for the next morning, and present my new mockups as the potential future of Brainscape’s product architecture.
But then I snap out of it. You see, there is a delicate balance between the size of your engineering team and the level of detail with which you should be pre-planning your product long-term development. (more…)
If we do not enjoy the work we do, finding the motivation to get out of bed in the morning and go to work can be difficult. This lack of drive and energy can expand to other areas of our lives; in the end, it will only make us unhappy. Some think that with the right incentive – preferably monetary gain – their jobs might become more appealing. As a result, many employers use bonuses to encourage their employees to produce better results. However, if we consider our motivation in other areas of life, we may find that we enjoy working towards goals that promise us no financial gain whatsoever.
Why would we learn how to play an instrument? Why study a foreign language? If we do not pursue a career in that field, no money will be made from our new skill. But still our motivation is great – for the simple reason that we enjoy what we do. We are being challenged, we achieve mastery and in some way, we make a contribution. This is exactly the point the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) makes in this great video they uploaded to their YouTube channel. Take a look and let us know: In what ways does your job motivate you? (more…)
I often find it hilarious how many people I see on LinkedIn, or hear introduce themselves at a networking event, professing themselves to be founders of a “Stealth Startup.” These people presumably want you to know that there is a good reason for their current lack of formal employment, but they don’t want you to know what their actual project is, for fear that someone might copy their idea. Their intent is usually to stay in Stealth Mode for just enough time to prepare an impressive product and marketing blitz, so that the eventual launch has the highest impact possible, with momentum that cannot be easily replicated by copycats.
The problem is that being in Stealth Mode could kill your company.
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