I recently had the opportunity to speak with Greg Lee, the Chief Financial Officer of the Lance Armstrong Foundation and Livestrong, about the design and buildout of the new Livestrong world headquarters in Austin, Texas. Livestrong is in the process of converting a 30,000 square-foot, 1950′s-era industrial building into a modern, green, collaborative workspace for their foundation’s efforts to combat cancer. You may have seen some video clips of Lance Armstrong touring the new facility yesterday here on EdgeHopper. In this interview, Greg gives us a more detailed look at all of the sustainable design elements of the new building and discusses the long-term financial savings they will provide. He also delves into the collaborative nature of the space and the teams at the foundation. I was going to turn the interview into a blog post, but Greg provided so much great information in such a passionate way that I wanted to have you hear it from Greg himself.  I hope you enjoy this interview with a fantastic person from an amazing organization.  Read the rest of this post

I am almost speechless. This was by and far THE most powerful talk at ADP this year. Forget ADP, this was one of the most powerful talks I’ve ever heard. For me to try to convey the emotion and passion that was so much a part of this talk would be a disservice. All I can say is if you ever have the chance to hear Linda Rising speak…DON’T miss it!  Read the rest of this post

OK, so if you didn’t guess it, quality software has been on mind a lot over the past two weeks. And why shouldn’t it be? It should be foremost in all of our minds (if you’re in software development). It’s what our customers expect and demand. They don’t want buggy, defect ridden software. Unfortunately, things like software quality and testing are usually seen in a budgetary/cost light instead of the customer satisfaction light. I’ve beaten this point to death already and by now you already know that in my opinion customer satisfaction is paramount. And, anything we could do to improve the quality of our products should be pursued vigorously.  Read the rest of this post

I was recently re-reading an article in the March issue of Smithsonian Magazine about the life and career of Quincy Jones.  If you don’t know who Quincy Jones is, he is possibly the greatest American music impresario ever. He’s a living legend, with multiple Grammy Awards to his credit.  His career and the musicians he has worked with are simply amazing.  What really caught my eye in the article was a small paragraph that gave some insight into how he has been able to create such huge successes with the artists he has worked with.  Here’s the line that really made me think:  Read the rest of this post