Joe Davison

The Agora and Value

Whether as an entrepreneur or employee, I have always sought to provide value to the market, and to measure my performance by the degree of value I am providing. Here are some of the ways I deliver value in the marketplace. 1. Stay ahead of the technology curve adopt technology

engineering

Case studies from the Google trenches

From the Google trenchesCase Study 1 - Project backlog improvementBacklog expanding beyond capacityProjects not getting done Lack of motivation reorg causing confusionImprove project throughputPush back on impossible projectsIncrease stakeholder satisfactionEstablish a process and framework for evaluating incoming projectsPublish project criteria and standards for requirements, notes, agenda, cadence, comms, cultureImplement transparency

education

"The Thales Way" by Bob Luddy

Recently, I joined the faculty of Thales College as an adjunct professor. My inaugural course is entitled Philosophy of Business and Management. In it, I cover the ideas behind the great business and management thinkers of the 20th century, including Peter Drucker, Clayton Christensen, Masaaki Imai, and a host of

engineering

System design cheat sheet for technical product and program managers

As a technical program manager, you are expected to be a capable engineer as well as a manager, and be able to perform at a level equivalent to a practicing engineer in the field. Many program managers, especially senior ones, find fewer opportunities to keep their technical skills sharp. This

management

Program management 101

What is a program manager? How is it different from a product manager? How about project manager? And what differentiates a “technical” PM from a “non” technical one? These are all questions I get asked often, so I’ll attempt to avoid repeating myself (and clarify my own thinking) by

bitcoin

Running a Lightning Network Daemon (LND) Node - Part 2

This article is a continuation of Part 1, so if you haven't read that, start there. To quickly recap: my LND node was set up, I was able to open a few channels and able to send a successful test payment. But I could not receive payments and my node

economics

Idea: Appalachia Free Zone

I have followed with interest the Free Cities movement, including developments in Honduras (Próspera) and native American lands (Catawba Digital Economic Zone) over the recent years. In the same spirit, I present the idea of the Appalachia Free Zone. Imagine somewhere in Appalachia, there is a 500+ acre site on

management

A framework for understanding and applying group dynamics

Next time you are faced with an organizational challenge or situation, try using this framework to analyze the group situation from the perspective of each of these attributes. By doing so you are likely to uncover opportunities to improve group identity and performance. Attributes of group dynamics Cohesion Cohesion is

books

The Story of Obvious Adams, by Robert Updegraff

I have seven extra copies of Obvious Adams sitting on my desk right now – you may wonder why? It all goes back to a fateful day when a mentor of mine (Gary Bencivenga) invited me to visit him at his home in Garden City, New York, and he gave me

business

Empire Metal Supply

My father was an entrepreneur. He taught me the value of hard work and dedication. He built an impressive company in his lifetime, especially given his background. He supported four children and sent them all to college. He sold the company and was able to retire. Jim Davison, Founder and

bitcoin

How to run your own Lightning node with Lightning Network Daemon (LND)

Lightning Network is growing in popularity and many believe it is the answer to bitcoin scalability. In order to understand Lightning Network more, I recently set out to build and run a lightning node from scratch on my spare Linux machine. To start, I downloaded the LND source code from