
What are the implications of the Conceptual Age for startups? - Alex3917
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/brain.html
======
Alex3917
Conceptual Age: real or hype?

Software startups can run circles around big companies because of their
agility and their ability to follow best practices as opposed to standard
practices. What are a startup's biggest advantages in the conceptual age?

Is sensemaking purely a service industry, or will there be a thriving product
market?

What is the sustainable competitive advantage in a startup that revolves
around sensemaking?

~~~
amichail
I certainly believe it is real. It would be nice however if computer science
education and research would have more to do with this conceptual age.

~~~
Alex3917
Agreed. The study of IT traditionally ends at data. Brad Burnham actually has
a really amazing post about this:

http://www.unionsquareventures.com/2007/01/whats_next.html

------
danielha
This is a great article (excerpt, actually) -- thanks.

Creativity over competence. This is what separates simple programmers from
software engineers.

~~~
amichail
"Yes, there are programming techniques to be learned, and there are tricks to
help you keep a large software project on its rails. Unit testing,
computational complexity, all these things are very important. But saying that
software projects fail for lack of engineering is like saying that the latest
Stephen King's novel is boring because he forgot to draw a UML diagram of the
book." http://www.daniel-lemire.com/blog/archives/2007/02/04/why-building-
software-is-hard/

