Two Years On

Posted on 10 April 2009 by Erik Hare | 22 Comments

It was a dark and stormy night …

That’s how I started writing Barataria two years ago today. Like many of my small acts of humility, the reference to Bulwer-Litton was simple and funny and ultimately unnoticed by many of my readers. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 43 years of life, it’s that I usually require a little more explanation than I am willing to give. Please forgive my indulgence as I look back at what I was trying to accomplish with this blog over the last two years and what has actually gone down.

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Restructuring

Posted on 3 April 2009 by Erik Hare | 32 Comments

I explained the economic downturn to my son, who is 9, in terms he could understand. “It’s like we’ve done something bad, so the whole economy has to go to its room and think about what it did and what it can do differently. We’re in our room, alone and sad right now.” He bought it, and unlike some of the things I explain to him I eventually bought it, too. The problem, of course, is what we tell the great economic parent when we come out.

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Double Take

Posted on 1 April 2009 by Erik Hare | 10 Comments

Hardly anyone saw it coming. One day, guys in suits were happily revisioning new paradigms, and the next day everything changed. Where they used to synthesize synergies, they suddenly found themselves having to work together. Properties that were highly leveraged are now mortgaged and busted. Things that once were utilized overnight were merely used. The economic bubble has been no match for the great Language Bubble that, sadly, is only starting to pop.

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Minimalism

Posted on 30 March 2009 by Erik Hare | 14 Comments

The design team at Facebook thought it had a winning strategy to defeat Twitter – offer users everything that Twitter has, and more. What they didn’t realize is that Twitter’s base were fans for one key reason – it was less. The resulting firestorm has Facebook scrambling to regroup. This may seem like an isolated situation, a simple business decision gone wrong, but it appears to be something more. Observed from the perspective of general trends in culture and the arts, minimalism appears to be the fashion and thought of the day. The implications extend far beyond one software product.

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Trust

Posted on 27 March 2009 by Erik Hare | 23 Comments

Like any good trust-building exercise, it started when a moment of tension took a sharp left turn into the unexpected. I was down to visit with Jonas, an Amish carpenter, about how my associates and I were going to sell his craftsmanship on the internet. More than a meeting of cultures, centuries were colliding. The moment of truth came when he went to ask his apprentice sons about a few details. Rather than turn away for privacy, Jonas simply slipped into his native language, Plattdietsch. I caught it immediately.

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