“Mama Sue, who you gonna vote for?” I asked my 86-year-old grandmother. “Trump,” she said, without missing a beat. “I’ve never voted for a Democrat for president, and I’m too old to start now.” Mama Sue represents generations of Huffstetlers who have worked with their hands for a living. When…

The importance of scoring interviews during customer development. — I had just completed my 30th demo of our product, and I remember leaving the feedback session on cloud nine. As I wrapped up showing our API to the potential customer, he suggested what we were building was “amazing.” Yes, I thought giddily, this is going to work. It took…

I slept with a gay man for six months in Afghanistan. No one asked. He did not tell. In 2005, I and 200 Marines in my squadron deployed to Afghanistan to support the global war on terrorism. We were stationed at Bagram air base, a deep bowl surrounded by snowcapped…

“We want to instantly connect people everywhere to what’s most important to them.” @dickc — Twitter’s new mission statement is 80 characters long but needn’t be more than 40: instantly, connect, everywhere, and important are the four words essential to both understanding Twitter’s success and moving the platform forward from a compelling idea to a powerful, ubiquitous force in the marketplace of information and commerce.

Armed Forces stress rules of duty, restraint — As I headed to Iraq, I told my family not to worry. Our mission here, like our mission in Afghanistan last year, does not put us in constant danger. While important, it does not provide us with the traditional opportunity for heroics. Nevertheless, the continuous scrutiny and high visibility of…

A Corporal can destroy all a battalion creates — What causes terrorism? An excellent question, but one best answered by someone like Aristotle. A more interesting, and perhaps answerable, question is what causes terrorism to be used? Disintermediation—the process of cutting out the middleman—is typically used in reference to the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain. Its application…

Corps has the skills to restore order, setup services — Recent events in the Gulf Coast remind us that FEMA and the federal government in general are not organized to swiftly deploy in support of situations that require rapid-fire decisions, extended self-sustainment, and dangerous conditions. …

It’s time for the Marine Corps to make better use of its Internet capabilities.  — Introduction The motto of the Marine Corps Command, Control, Communications, and Computers (C4) group is “Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast.” Although this is a reasonable idea given the task of directing all the information management activities in the Marine Corps, the C4 motto could do a better job in its…

It’s time to do more than talk about the problem.  — The Marine Corps desperately needs additional translators who can speak critical languages including Arabic and Dari. The translators are needed to support our warriors who are currently engaged with the enemy as well as supporting the indigenous populations of countries around the world. …