Handshakes and Contracts, the future and the past

If you rent a car, borrow money for school or engage in some other complex transaction, there's a contract to sign. It's filled with rules and obligations, and the profit-maximizing finance organization does everything it can to do as little as it can and make you responsible for as much as it can. This sort of contract has evolved into a battle, an effort to get something now and deliver as little as possible later. Loopholes and fine print are there for a reason, and it's not to make you happy. Contracts like this are about the past. "We agreed on this, you signed it, go read your copy, we don't care so much that you're annoyed, goodbye."

A handshake deal, on the other hand, is about the future. Either side can claim loopholes or wriggle out of a commitment, but the consequence is clear—if you disappoint us, we won't be back for more. The participant in a handshake deal is investing in the future, doing more now in exchange for the benefits that trust and delight and consistency bring going forward.

It might be sensible to write your handshake deal down, to memorise the key promises in an email. If your goal is to delight and to exceed expectations, the more clear you are about the expectations, the more likely it is you'll exceed them.

But it also pays to hesitate when you (or your advisors) start pushing to transform the handshake about the future into a contract about the past.

"I'm hoping to do this again with you," evokes a very different reaction than, -  but you said..."

-Seth Godin.

Expanding the Cloud, Amazon AWS

Introducing the AWS EU (Frankfurt) region, October 2014.

Amazon Web Services is expanding its worldwide coverage with the launch of a new AWS region in Frankfurt, Germany. This infrastructure built to support the strong demand in Europe and to give customers the option to run infrastructure located in Germany. The new Frankfurt region provides low millisecond latencies to major cities in continental Europe and is also run with carbon neutral power. With the launch of the new Frankfurt region customers now also have the ability to architect across multiple regions within the European Union.

In addition to a broad base of customers, AWS has a vibrant partner ecosystem in Germany that has built innovative solutions and services on AWS. Among the many local Independent Software Vendors are: SAP, Infopark, Suse, and Software AG. With the new Frankfurt region, companies that are required to meet certain compliance, control, and data locality requirements may now be able to achieve these certifications. As with all AWS regions, customers can choose to keep their data entirely within the Frankfurt region.

Und auf Deutsch:
In unserer neuen Region in Deutschland können Sie - wie bei allen anderen AWS-Regionen - auswählen, wo Ihre Daten verarbeitet und gespeichert werden. Einige Kunden haben nach einer Möglichkeit gefragt, ihre Daten innerhalb Deutschlands hosten zu können, und wir freuen uns darüber, dass wir Ihnen jetzt diese Möglichkeit geben können.


Durch die geographische Nähe profitieren Sie auch von einer kürzeren Latenzzeit, die Ihre Anwendungen schneller machen kann. Außerdem können europäische Kunden jetzt zwei AWS-Regionen nutzen, um die Fehlertoleranz ihrer Applikationen noch stärker zu verbessern, ohne den EU-Raum verlassen zu müssen.

We are Optimists

"Humans are hard-wired optimists. It may have something to do with survival and evolution, but we must go on – and going on is driven by hope. We always think this time it’s going to be different. When we become optimistic about the economy, we behave like we are in love for the first time. We get giddy, we dispense with logic and we fall headlong into a new adventure.

We also become over-confident. Most of us inflate our abilities. For example, men everywhere inflate their intellect and social skills. We believe we are more able then we are. A recent study revealed that 95 per cent of European men believe they are in the top 20 per cent when it comes to social skills. We exaggerate in lots of areas and our belief in ourselves is where we start."
-David McWilliams

perbit at the BBC London

BBC aktuelle Nachrichten heute! (www.bbc.com/news/)

Gut gemacht Gabi! Eine der meist besuchten Websites der Welt.

Free U2 Album

A free U2 Album on iTunes. Apple and U2 have grown up together. Steve Jobs incorporated Apple in 1976, the same year that U2 formed at Mount Temple Comprehensive School (Mountjoy) in Dublin. Both thrived on constant reinvention, retaining a loyal audience by delivering pioneering products – the iPhone, and U2’s ever more spectacular live shows.

The 2004 release of a U2-branded iPod first brought them together in a bid to strengthen their grips on the entertainment sector, but now the demise of the traditional record industry has given both middle-aged brands intimations of obsolescence.

Following the relative low sales of their 2009 album No Line on the Horizon, U2 feared that the paying public’s appetite for further releases was in decline. U2 aren’t the only victims – album downloads on Apple’s iTunes store are dwindling as fans turn to streaming services. 

Was the giveaway of Songs of Innocence a success ? Apple said a “record-breaking” 38 million people have already “accessed” the album, far more than would have bought or heard the record normally.

Bono remains unapologetic. He told Time: “We want to get these songs to as many people as we can. We went to Apple and we said ‘We’re not interested in free music – we think music is undervalued. Would you be interested in buying our album and getting it to all 500m of your iTunes accounts?"


Giving Songs of Innocence away makes sense for U2, since the album will act as a promotional tool for their next global tour.

Despite the negative reaction in some quarters, the union between Apple and U2 is set to strengthen. The partners are now embarking on a “secret project” to create a new digital music format which will compensate musicians for their efforts, and aims to revive the dying art of listening to a complete album.

Do it again!

U2’s Mission to Save Music!

For the second time in the band's history, U2 is on the cover of TIME magazine. The September 29, 2014, issue features a black-and-white photo of the band with the headline: The New U2 - The Veteran Rock Band Faces The Future.

Apple and U2 are giving the new album Songs of Innocence to over 500 million iTunes customers worldwide. Never before have so many people owned one album, let alone on the day of its release.

U2 was also on TIME's cover in 1987 when the magazine called the band Rock's Hottest Ticket. And Bono got the cover in 2002 and 2005.

Programming takes time!

One thing people who don't do development don't easily understand is that the time spent doing something repetitively is how you figure out how it works. So when users ask for features that are needed early in the life of a product, for example, where fotodesignarri is now, while I recognize there's a need to simplify and automate the design process for end users, for me as a designer, the repetition of redoing the programming is how I figure out how to address the issue of user enabled web design.

I can't tell you how many times I've programmed quick fixes in the last 30 years, and then had to live with those foolish decisions for years afterwards. Two years later when people ask why it works that foolish way, I have to say it's because I delivered too quickly. I'm now working again on something I've already done half a dozen times over the last two years. This time, I see how to organize it. The other 7 times I was fumbling around in the dark. How long did this take? In this case -- 3 years. But I did wait. So now I'm fairly confident I have the right answer.