Years ago, a friend of mine was in college and had an old, beat up car that leaked oil on to the street where it was parked, which, for some reason annoyed her elderly neighbor. When we returned from a trip overseas competing for the U.S., there was a notice on her car – the…
Many years ago, I was walking through the exhibits at the county fair with my late husband (he was alive then, that’s why he was able to walk with me) and I lamented, Look at those quilts. My grandmother makes quilts. Look at those crocheted tablecloths. My other grandmother crochets. Look at me – what do…
Funny how a random sight can jog a memory, like today when I was walking around the neighborhood, taking a break from the marathon push to get our newest game out the door. It was November 11, 1985. I was about eight months pregnant, and about two months into my doctoral program at the University…
Your mileage may vary, your life may vary, but there are a few lessons worth learning . As a public service, I have decided to share with you things I thought I knew but was initially wrong about. Your children don’t actually consider you a person until they are nearly 30 (if ever). Many years…
Let’s get this out right up front – I have no question that there is discrimination in the tech industry. I gave an hour-long talk on this very subject at MIT a couple of weeks ago, where I pointed out that everyone’s first draft of pretty much everything is crap – your first game, first…
I’m just sitting here in Boston airport waiting to catch the bus to Rhode Island. For some reason, the WordPress app on my iPad doesn’t want to upload the images I downloaded from my phone. This is the sort of thing I would often get upset about. I also have several emails to answer…
Do you really need to document everything? Those who say that there is no such thing as a stupid question might be reconsidering their position right about now. Of course we need to document everything! Perhaps my reluctance stems from my hatred of technical writers. If you are a tech writer and are a decent…
Start-ups are all about buzzwords – innovation! disrupt! billion! We’re going to disrupt the something something something with our innovation that will bring us a billion dollars! Hurray! VCs , give me money! That all sounds really good until it’s you that’s being disrupted. We’re part of the Boom Startup Ed Tech accelerator for twelve…
I certainly understand how you could think that all CEOs are rude and all investors are assholes but it’s really not quite that simple. This occurred to me today as for the 4th (or was it 5th?) time in a row, I told someone talking to me that I had to go because I had…
First, the big, exciting news, if you have not heard it – we are one of EIGHT COMPANIES IN THE WORLD selected to be part of the Boom Startup Accelerator for Educational Technology. Can you tell that I’m super-excited about this? At lunch today, for the second time in two days, someone asked me what…