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Rob May* wrote this three years ago about the same topic: Is Concentration the New Competitive Advantage?: http://www.businesspundit.com/is-concentration-the-
by dgallagher 18y ago
Rob May* wrote this three years ago about the same topic:
Is Concentration the New Competitive Advantage?: http://www.businesspundit.com/is-concentration-the-new-competitive-advantage/ http://www.businesspundit.com/is-concentration-the-new-compe...
He goes onto saying how reading every Digg post, or looking at every new Web 2.0 startup is basically a complete waist of time.
You feel like you're actually learning something, but in reality the info you're learning is "junk" knowledge (unless you're a VC looking for an investment opportunity - but by the time it hits TechCrunch or Digg, it's probably too late to invest anyway).
*Rob no longer writes for BusinessPundit.com. He's at CoconutHeadsets.com now.
- keopi 18y agoYeah, I had a similar thought thinking how Hacker News was distracting me from the work I should be focusing on.
- gcheong 18y agoI'm beginning to think the value of HN is to give you something to do after you've sold your startup.
- mahmud 18y agoFor me it's before and during. HN is a deadly weapon in the hands of a shrewd business opportunist with kickass hacking team/skills. It has been an MBA for me.
- dgallagher 18y agoIt's definitely useful in moderation. I think most of us would agree that we find a lot of the comments to be valuable and insightful, as with some of the articles. Of course, "in moderation" is key here. Spending all day on the site probably isn't a good use one ones time. Popping in for a few minutes throughout the day is probably pretty safe to do.
- trapper 18y agoWhat have you learned here that you didn't know already?
- mahmud 18y agoThe transformation from a shrink-wrap industrial software developer to doing web-startups. It takes two different minds; previous projects were hard and very demanding, and they were sold via word of mouth and ads in trade publications. Web business is entirely different.
- frossie 18y agoThe HN "noprocrast" feature is there for a reason. Use it.
- psyklic 18y agoconcentration was always the competitive advantage!
- jseliger 18y agoI'm the original submitter and also wrote about the distraction issue in the context of students and laptops in this post: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/laptops-students-distraction-hardly-a-surprise http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/laptops-students-di... . I've just bookmarked May's post for future reference.
- dgallagher 18y agoI didn't mean to post Rob's blog to discredit your submission of the link in any way. Sorry if I came across like that. Thanks for posting the link, I enjoyed reading it! And great article on your blog too! :)
- chris11 18y ago"You feel like you're actually learning something, but in reality the info you're learning is "junk" knowledge" That is a great descriptor. You can read interesting stories and expert advice in no time at all. But that doesn't mean you know how to apply that advice or even use it. And if you don't use the knowledge, you will have probably learned very little and wasted your time.