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Blockchain and The Third Web

26 minute read

Thumbnail image for 'Blockchain and The Third Web' “Tell us where you hid the USB drivewith the bitcoin on” Last time I talked about the origins of the architecture of the modern web and how it is what it is because people like Tim Berners-Lee and Roy Fielding radically decomposed the problem space into its stable, long-living, constituent parts. These parts are the constraining building blocks of REST and the web. The design for the web came off the back of some visionary work by Va...

100-Year Architecture

14 minute read

Thumbnail image for '100-Year Architecture' your neon lights will shine for you, Xanadu In late 2011, I was asked to talk at a conference on digital trends. I didn’t have anything prepared so hastily suggested the topic “100-Year Architecture,” thinking that sounded clickbaity enough to get people to show up and I could fill in the blanks later. I did though have one thought in my head to build on - the 10,000-Year Clock being built by the Long Now Foundation - which I hoped mi...

Killing The Sacred Cows

10 minute read

Thumbnail image for 'Killing The Sacred Cows' what? killing the whatnow? A lot of businesses say they want to be ‘digital.’ And I think when they say that they mean two things: (A) they want to create an end-to-end suite of slick apps for their customers to enable them to self-serve, have a great experience, develop some love for the brand (B) they want a delivery capability to make that happen, which must therefore include a good smattering of highly-motivated clever people wh...

Tech Culture

12 minute read

Thumbnail image for 'Tech Culture' the mandatory work-from-the-officeday was going spectacularly This is stating the obvious, but it’s still worth stating - whatever ambitious vision a company has, and whatever obstacles might stand in the way of that vision, you are infinitely more likely to achieve that vision if you can create and nurture a thriving culture. You can have the greatest strategy in the world and still fail because: Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfa...

Moving to the Cloud

12 minute read

Thumbnail image for 'Moving to the Cloud' cloud bill’s a brewin’ It may seem odd in 2023 to be talking about moving infrastructure to the cloud, but I am constantly surprised at how many businesses that could be cloud-based aren’t. AWS has been around for 17 years, Google Cloud for 15 years, Azure for 13 years and alternative cloud offerings for 10 years. Actually, I say I’m surprised, but perhaps intrigued is a better word. Like so much in tech, these things do have a sort o...