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The underlying idea behind what he did here is sometimes called Ethnography. There was another great article a while back on this going on at adobe/photo shop:

The underlying idea behind what he did here is sometimes called Ethnography. There was another great article a while back on this going on at adobe/photo shop: https://medium.com/startup-study-group/my-two-years-as-an-anthropologist-on-the-photoshop-team-e700acb7d3d5#.t6m5wue0c https://medium.com/startup-study-group/my-two-years-as-an-an... As far as tools go, ethnography can be very powerful in the right hands.

grizzles 10y ago
Great comment. Fantastic article. I wonder if they considered involving both sides of the contract from the get go. When I've negotiated small-mid size deals with other tech savvy folks, I've often thought a two sided chat style interface that I could use sitting next to someone or if they were across town would be ideal. The way I conceptualized it would be a 3rd party tool for making deals where the main feature is standardized clauses for minimal lawyer involvement. Eg. Need a standard confidentiality clause? (Drag Drop). Boom. Let's do business. Commercial lawyers would hate it, but that's sort of the point.
- rtpg 10y ago
  I think the primary issue is that when you start redlining, everyone has their workflow and the side that's in the "position of power" will use what they feel like using. "Oh check out this contract at FooBarContracts" (counterparty opens link, copies text into word doc, edits) "Here's the latest DOCX with my revisions."
  - grizzles 10y ago
    It could be an iterative process, with niche domain and custom clause support. For small-mid business people interested in GTD, I think there would be enough utility gained by both sides to remain on the platform. For experienced business people, involving the lawyers is an inevitable drag on dealmaking. I bet people involved in frontline sales for (eg. software) would love something like this to exist for fast closes. There are your shadow unpaid product evangelists.
- epa 10y ago
  You're assuming both sides 1) play nice and 2) actually collaborate in that way. A lot of the time it is David (small corp) vs Goliath (huge corp) where David has to accept terms of Goliath on their standard deals or risk not completing the deal.
kentlyons 10y ago
Ethnographers tend to be rather hands off (/against) directly changing who they're observing. Contextual Inquiry (http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/contextualinquiry.htm http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/contextualinquiry.htm, http://www.amazon.com/Contextual-Design-Customer-Centered-Interactive-Technologies/dp/1558604111 http://www.amazon.com/Contextual-Design-Customer-Centered-In...) is a fairly light weight method and I think would benefit a lot of startups.
- Ftuuky 10y ago
  Depends on their school of thought. You could go full gonzo anthropologist.

grizzles 10y ago

Great comment. Fantastic article. I wonder if they considered involving both sides of the contract from the get go. When I've negotiated small-mid size deals with other tech savvy folks, I've often thought a two sided chat style interface that I could use sitting next to someone or if they were across town would be ideal. The way I conceptualized it would be a 3rd party tool for making deals where the main feature is standardized clauses for minimal lawyer involvement. Eg. Need a standard confidentiality clause? (Drag Drop). Boom. Let's do business. Commercial lawyers would hate it, but that's sort of the point.

rtpg 10y ago
I think the primary issue is that when you start redlining, everyone has their workflow and the side that's in the "position of power" will use what they feel like using. "Oh check out this contract at FooBarContracts" (counterparty opens link, copies text into word doc, edits) "Here's the latest DOCX with my revisions."
- grizzles 10y ago
  It could be an iterative process, with niche domain and custom clause support. For small-mid business people interested in GTD, I think there would be enough utility gained by both sides to remain on the platform. For experienced business people, involving the lawyers is an inevitable drag on dealmaking. I bet people involved in frontline sales for (eg. software) would love something like this to exist for fast closes. There are your shadow unpaid product evangelists.
epa 10y ago
You're assuming both sides 1) play nice and 2) actually collaborate in that way. A lot of the time it is David (small corp) vs Goliath (huge corp) where David has to accept terms of Goliath on their standard deals or risk not completing the deal.

kentlyons 10y ago

Ethnographers tend to be rather hands off (/against) directly changing who they're observing. Contextual Inquiry (http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/contextualinquiry.htm http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/contextualinquiry.htm, http://www.amazon.com/Contextual-Design-Customer-Centered-Interactive-Technologies/dp/1558604111 http://www.amazon.com/Contextual-Design-Customer-Centered-In...) is a fairly light weight method and I think would benefit a lot of startups.

Ftuuky 10y ago
Depends on their school of thought. You could go full gonzo anthropologist.