Misc. Ramblings on Salesforce, Photography, Books, Penguins and Other Things
There is a version of this that ran for 20 years that I am going to try to revive
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- Art (3)
- Books (2)
- Cycling (2)
- Music (2)
- Photography (6)
- Politics (3)
- Salesforce (6)
- Technology (6)
- Toronto (6)
- Travel (6)
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Tokyo Diaries: Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden (in the Pouring Rain)
To say it was raining the the day I chose to visit the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden is an understatement. I lived in Vancouver for 20 years: this wasn’t rain, it was a torrential downpour. It didn’t help that I didn’t pack an umbrella. There are a large number of gardens such as this in…
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Tokyo Diaries: A City for Bikes
Not just in Ontario, but all across North America there seems to be a bit of a backlash emerging against bike lanes and urban cycling. It’s not terribly rational–bicycles have 2% of the road space in Toronto, and yet our wonderful premier is convinced that roads are clogged because of the bike lanes. This made…
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Tokyo Diaries: Neighbourhood Mailboxes
One of the lovlier things about travelling is fresh eyes: mundane scenes from everyday life become interesting. This is particularly true if you’re a little bit off the tourist path. My hotel was in the Ryugoku area of Sumida. This isn’t a neighbourhood you’ll hear a lot about (Shibuya, Ginza and Shinjuku have the good…
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Salesforce and the Lost Information Architecture
I got an invite on LinkedIn the other day that piqued my interest more than most: it wasn’t actually related to Salesforce at all. It was a Business Analyst and Information Architect position, which is sort of where my career started. So, that got me thinking about some of the problems that I see in…
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Tokyo Diaries: Bistro Ryumilu
Food and travel inevitably go together: whether you’re cooking for yourself or staying in a hotel and eating out travel takes you out of your normal routine. The grocery store is different, the restaurants are new and the culture of the food can be completely different. So, even a travel diary that starts late can…
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Keeping the Inmates at Bay: Defining Done
John Irving, whose A Prayer for Owen Meany would probably be my choice for greatest American novel of the 20th century, swears he knows the last sentence of every book he’s written before he starts writing. The book works better if I know everything I can about the ending. Not just what happens, but how…
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Danny DeFrancesco, First Jobs and Lessons from Bowling
I learned yesterday that the first boss I ever had died. I was talking to my mother and names came up, as they do, and I searched for Danny for the first time in a while. In my teen years I worked in a bowling alleys around Toronto, and I followed Danny DeFrancesco around as…
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The Epic is Made Up of the Tiny
If you haven’t read Colum McCann’s novel Let the Great World Spin, I highly recommend you do. It’s one of my favourite finds of the last ten years. I’d lend you my copy, but it’s sitting on someone’s bookshelf in Vancouver where it’s likely to, unfortunately, remain unread. The Irish born and raised author lives…
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The Inmates are Running the Asylum: Salesforce Personas
So, in the first post on looking at the principles of Alan Cooper’s Inmates are Running the Asylum I summarized the overarching message of the book which is, essentially, “don’t let programmers design your solution.” This applies particularly in Salesforce world, as it’s fundamentally an operational tool–it implements your workflows and processes. This time we’re…
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Henry Moore, Two Large Forms
Two Large Forms is located in the Grange Park at the back of the Art Gallery of Ontario and adjacent to the OCADU. You can learn more about it in a little feature the AGO posted.