Disqus - Latest Comments for devahaz

Re: Help Me Understand The Value of Slack Instead of an Email List

Deva Hazarika — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 14:20:40 -0000

Had exactly the same experience a few months back with non-internal Slacks. Was in a few for a bit, then either activity in them faded away and I left because it wasn't valuable or activity got heavy and I left because I didn't have time to keep up. For me Slack works great for situations that are important enough I'm going to be interrupt-driven based on activity in the channel. But for things I'm going to engage with asynchronously, email lists are better for me.

Re: There Is No Glory In This

Deva Hazarika — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 12:24:29 -0000

"The smells are a complicated mix of antiseptic, sweat, deodorant, and perfume with cooking food mixed in." Maybe your best line ever!

Re: The Best Fuck Scene On TV

Deva Hazarika — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 21:21:15 -0000

The Wire is amazing, one of the best TV shows of all time. True Detective (currently on HBO) is another one you absolutely must watch.

Re: Why Every Company Needs A DevOps Team Now

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 18:33:19 -0000

Another good post on this topic: http://continuousdelivery.c... (the key points are much more similar than one might think based on the titles)

Re: The Incredible Waste of Food at Events

Deva Hazarika — Thu, 02 May 2013 08:13:08 -0000

Love that you made this post. I think it's a bit challenging for conference/meeting organizers because especially for high ticket events at expensive locations there's a certain expectation of food/drink/etc to be provided. But I bet if a conference took the lead and instead of more mediocre pastries with coffee in the afternoon sold a food bank sponsorship that came with a placard next to the coffee explaining that they have donated x to a food bank instead of more snacks for the few hours between lunch and end of day reception snacks and dinner, everyone would be fine. And maybe it would open the door for even broader changes. This is something I'm always aware of and it feels even crazier against the backdrop of separating trash into four different bins so as not to waste resources...

Re: Angry, Hostile, and Bitter Is Not A Winning Strategy

Deva Hazarika — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 21:15:02 -0000

This is my favorite part: "well if you ever come across investors who give a fuck the business plan is there online" I sometimes respond to emails like this with some corrected spelling/grammar, but they tend not to appreciate my helpfulness on that front either.

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books of All Time

Deva Hazarika — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:48:52 -0000

Don't have any new suggestions not mentioned already, but I am kinda sad Ray Bradbury didn't rate a mention in your post!

Re: My Smart Phone Is No Longer Working For Me

Deva Hazarika — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 13:32:33 -0000

I just got back from a couple weeks in India with intermittent Internet access. It was pretty eye opening in terms of how little impact it had on me to consume a lot less information a lot less frequently.

Re: The Formula

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:56:21 -0000

Brad, have you checked out Breaking Bad? It takes 3 or 4 eps to really get drawn in, but then is really great writing and acting combined w/ scenes/plots that are very entertaining and exciting.

Re: Video-sharing sensation Viddy rockets toward 30M users, banks $30M | VentureBeat

Deva Hazarika — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:42:40 -0000

FYI, that's not what comeuppance means

Re: Getting President Obama To Play With Your Product

Deva Hazarika — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:28:29 -0000

A+++

Re: American River 50 Mile Endurance Run

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:12:33 -0000

awesome. I feel like Western States is in your future.

Re: Email: Chamath Palihapitiya Decries Airbnb’s Recent $112M Funding for Founder Control and Cash-Out

Deva Hazarika — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:10:46 -0000

"his concerns center on how much voting control of new investors’ preferred shares the founders have in the latest round and also a $22.5 million cashing out" Reading the actual letter it seems that he's not too concerned about some cashing out at this stage, but rather concerned that it's happening via a dividend rather than selling of shares. Which obviously makes sense for the reasons he outlines.

Re: Hello, American Pie! Why a 40-Year-Old Song Became This Weekend’s Viral Video

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 30 May 2011 19:59:55 -0000

I'm just gonna assume Ashely's correct, because I thought that was super cool for one take

Re: Hello, American Pie! Why a 40-Year-Old Song Became This Weekend’s Viral Video

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 30 May 2011 13:13:26 -0000

News reports have stated that it was a five-hour shoot, not a single take.

Re: The Credit Card Expiration Blues

Deva Hazarika — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:32:44 -0000

Maybe the real and easier answer is that credit card expiration dates are largely obsolete and should just go away. The two main reasons I've heard they exist are fraud protection and physical deterioration of mag strip. With better fraud/security systems in place and chips becoming more common (plus they can always send you a shiny new card from time to time as needed), and recurring subscriptions and auto-payments becoming standard, seems like CC expiration dates should be a thing of the past.

Re: Little things to make email better

Deva Hazarika — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:35:49 -0000

i've been working on solving this problem for Outlook users at my startup ClearContext for the past few years. we're focused on automating the whole process through software, but in doing this we've learned from many thousands of users what helps them keep their inbox under control (we have tons of inbox zero success stories). some useful strategies:

1: do email in batch as much as possible - ideally, have some time windows where you crank through lots of emails at once rather than doing them on an interrupt-driven basis

2: try to look at an email only once - that means delete, reply, turn into a task, turn into appointment - basically do something with an email rather than keeping it around in the inbox as a constant reminder/distraction

3: set up rules to file things like twitter and facebook notifications, amazon receipts, and other automated emails to folders out of your main inbox so you can review them later if you want, but they don't distract you from your real work.

4: do everything possible to minimize email traffic. include the minimum number of people possible on each email. include "no reply necessary" or "no need to include me in response" or similar statements when appropriate. don't subscribe to newsletters you don't actually need/read.

we're working on making that all automatic for Outlook users, as well as highlighting the most important emails in the inbox (based on sender, your activity in conversation, etc) and organizing related information together by project. but regardless of what software or email platform you use, the tips above will help make email more manageable.

Re: Some Thoughts On Email After Dealing With 500 Emails

Deva Hazarika — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:48:24 -0000

Fred, this problem has been my focus for the past few years via my work at ClearContext and with the Information Overload Research Group. You've identified some key techniques - managing your email in batches, effectively triaging, not scanning the same messages repeatedly. Over the past few years we've found those (plus one other feature you mention - automatically analyzing email activity to highlight email from your most important contacts) to be key elements in effectively managing high volumes of email. Gmail has done a good job innovating on email features to help with that. Here's a post I just made about your system and how ClearContext has evolved to help Outlook users manage their email just like you do in Gmail: http://blog.clearcontext.co...

Re: Who Decides When To Exit?

Deva Hazarika — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:20:00 -0000

if TC rumors are correct (http://www.techcrunch.com/2..., then i'm curious about this chain of events:

1: $130M offer rejected
2: $14M raised at $140M valuation
3: $170M offer accepted

Depending on liq pref of the round, that's effectively equiv to the prior offer having been $140-150M. Sure seems like Mint went through an attitude change to decline it first time around and then accept it right after raising a round. Or, more likely, the rumor amount was false.

Re: TC50: TechCrunch50 founders’ feud: “It’s over”

Deva Hazarika — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:45:40 -0000

sweet, another fake "feud"

Re: Microsoft’s new Office 10 brings Office back from the dead (tons of videos)

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:15:02 -0000

Nice videos! For Outlook 2003 and 2007 users jealous of Ignore Thread, we have it for them in both our free and paid ClearContext for Outlook products - http://www.clearcontext.com... . We've also made a ton of progress on prioritization and project management within Outlook as well.

Re: Breaking Hearts Over Hearts of Palm

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 04:37:18 -0000

poor guy, how was he to know?! it was much more likely you were hitting on him than you actually needed some hearts of palm. who buys hearts of palm?

Re: Wet Pavement …

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:48:07 -0000

well, that and not falling

Re: Wet Pavement …

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:47:49 -0000

canvas bags ftw, obv

Re: 20 days off from Twitter: A View From The Outside

Deva Hazarika — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:38:08 -0000

I found the same thing at a more general level last year after being offline for three weeks (http://www.emaildashboard.c.... I think what you say is only going to become more important as usage of these technologies becomes more widespread. The amount of time wasted to value created is definitely very significant and worth stepping back from for many (if not most or all).