We’re Back!

Shop "Open" sign

This website has been down for a while, but I finally got around to getting back on line with a not insignificant difference: I’ve moved everything back to WordPress. It has been ten years since I wrote Goodbye WordPress, Hello Drupal. That’s a long time in computer terms. In that post I argued that WordPress … Read more

What is Bitcoin?

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you have by now at least heard of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is essentially a digital currency (AKA, electronic cash or cryptocurrency) where transactional integrity is secured cryptographically. Bitcoin stores those transactions on a distributed database called a blockchain. The whole cryptocurrency craze started in 2008, when Satoshi Nakamoto published … Read more

What’s Your Unique Selling Proposition?

Several orange habanero peppers with a single red one

If you haven’t read Customer Value Proposition you might want to start there first. This is a continuation. As I’ve said, the “customer value proposition” (CVP) is an internal document that serves to clarify your relationship with your customers and address your customers’ concerns. So how then do you articulate that value to your customers? The answer is … Read more

Customer Value Proposition

Small businesses and start-ups are often asked to communicate their “customer value proposition” (CVP) or their “unique selling proposition” (USP). So what’s the difference? Today I’ll look at CVP and then move on to USP in What’s Your Unique Selling Proposition? “Customer Value Proposition” (CVP) is an internal document that serves to clarify your relationship … Read more

Information is Useless!

Magnifying glass showing web search results

I sometimes catch myself thinking of information useful and, when I do, I tell myself that it’s because it provides knowledge that enriches. But what I forget that information is no more than a collection of data or facts with no guarantee of validity. It isn’t information itself that is powerful. Let me demonstrate: Here … Read more

For Your Eyes Only

Notebook page

Scientists and Inventors keep written journals called laboratory notebooks, or just lab books. They meticulously record experimental data, procedures, processes and the results of such of their experiments. Such journals are the canonical source for validating the research data in formal papers or claims for patents. I argue here that keeping a journal is not … Read more

Goodbye WordPress, Hello Drupal

Back in April, the Critical Tinkering Network went live with WordPress, arguably the most popular way to get a fully functional website up in the shortest amount of time. WordPress’s origins are as a blogging platform but increasingly it is being used more as a general-purpose CMS (content management system). Last week I relaunched the … Read more

A Tinker by Any Other Name

Early photo of a Tinker by Ignacy Krieger

Once upon a time, a tinker was a tinsmith who travelled from town to town making a living mending metal utensils. Today, we would say it’s someone who repairs machinery or appliances. That is, unless you’re British, in which case you might think of it as a less-than-complimentary label for itinerants. There is also a … Read more

Hello World

My name is Stephen M Brown and I know how to spell “entrepreneur” and 47 other dangerous words.