But doesn't the Law of Large Numbers disagree with this. Yes the first 5 Users (froma random sample size in the target market) could agree, when you get to larger numbers the real observations come out.
Thats marketing... and there are a lot of ways to skin that cat.
Cold Calling is virtually dead in the traditional sense (for Small-Medium business). Cold Emailing can work, but there's a lot of noise with all the SEO scams that business owners get.
For Marketing, I generally recommend doing something that you are good at that other developer's don't do. Stuff like networking events, public speaking, Business Clubs(Vistage, etc), etc. Indirect approaches work really well too- Partner with a bar for a "business happy hour" and buy everyone's first drink, then literally go business to business (of businesses that have websites you would like to redo) and invite them. A similar sort of a thing, with less personal interaction is to build a website that would directly benefit local businesses and give it to them for free. Targeting is important.
These sorts of things are really only for when you are starting out though (1 year tops). After a year of these sort of gimmicky things you should have built a solid portfolio and should focus your energy on growing your business via your existing clients. They should be ecstatic to give you more business because you took care of them so well.
Counter to this: Door to door salesman were the common occurrence. Now I do not know if the average person liked having people walk up there door, but how else would you sell something in competitive (arguable even un competitive) markets? Look at even ads in newspaper/magazines. One could argue ads took up wasted page space. What is the solution to advertisement alternatives in a capitalist society? (Genuine question)
I would also say this is different than restaurants who is able to sell locally or products that can be sold with media (i.e. cartoon shows that sell related toys).
" there is “no indication” O’Rourke actually ever broke into computers or even possessed the skills to do so. Instead, O’Rourke’s membership is linked to his participation in online discussion forums ran by the group. Beto himself operated one such forum known as “TacoLand” to discuss mostly punk rock."
This has already perplexed me on this shift - on discrimination on older tech workers and woman in tech compared to now- because 40 years ago THEY were the predominant tech force. The idea of the young white-asian male being dominant in this work force is relatively new, correct? What shift happened?
Looking at degrees in the US, IIRC, the shift did happen in the mid/late 80s. I have no idea what might have caused it, but basically the male/female ratio was pretty consistent until then, when male degrees suddenly skyrocketed while female rose slowly, at a pace very closely in line with the previous pattern.
I guess it's like how people trashed COBOL and Fortran when I was getting into development. Then later in life, I come to find out that Fortran is ubiquitous in engineering and is actually amazing for what it does.
When I turn down the Alexa because of music but then I ask Alexa what is the weather, it is the same volume as down and I cant hear it. Then I have to say increase volume and then ask Alexa again.
This is small but I think defines the missing design principle of Alexa. Yes I want the music to be low when Im doing active 1, but the introduction of new action of knowing the weather I need to hear it. These are the little "smart" features that are needed for a product that Amazon is striving for needs.
Edit: I actually say Echo because I think we should stop personifying technology.
How is the device or software supposed to deduce your wants without your expressing them? How does it know what you can and cannot hear, and that you chose to turn down the music (rather than explicitly turn it off) because it was distracting to some other activity rather than because that was the optimal setting for hearing the music while not waking a sleeping baby in your arms? And when it decides to shout the weather rather than voice it at the same level of the music which results in waking the baby, how "smart" is that?
Same thing with the Google Home's. The first step in our good morning routine is set the volume low and the last step is increase the volume again at the end.
I am the only software engineer at my company so here are my tl;dr;
1. Pro: I have ownership and gaining experience in multiple areas ranging from networking, QA, Testing, design architecture where at bigger companies I may only be in one of those foci.
2. Con: No Coding Reviews. I cannot bounce ideas of someone and trying my best to produce the best codes but I believe I need a Senior/Prinicpal above me to help me on this front.
