Most of us are born with innovation traits. Do you still have yours?

Innovation traits are not taught; they are innate characteristics found in every child. Curiosity, creativity, observational skills, and the ability to talk about the world as they experience it are fundamental to the success of our species.

Innovation,Transformation

Building a consultancy with the right culture

The guidance in this article can apply to any consultancy and a few other types of service-based companies. However, given my interests and expertise, what I have in mind here is specifically a cloud consultancy providing strategy, training, and engineering services.

Entrepreneurship,Consulting

Over-reliance on vendors in cloud security

As the use of the cloud increases, cloud security has become increasingly critical for organisations to understand and get right. However, I often come across organisations that rely heavily on vendors to manage this for them. This article highlights the dangers of over-dependence on vendors and proposes strategies for mitigating these risks.

Security

Training problem solving and keeping your brain active with Sudoku

I love sudoku, and in this article, I explain what it is, why I like it, and provide some strategies to help you master it.

Transformation

Processing grief and talking about mental health

A bit different to my usual blog, I talk about coming to terms with saying goodbye to my grandad

Transformation

Bridging the agility gap in large enterprises

While many organisations have made great strides in agility, many departments are still lagging, causing collaboration challenges and an awkward mix of waterfall and agile at different stages of a project’s lifecycle.

Transformation,
training

Planning vs impulse

Some personalities like to plan ahead, while others take action in seconds with minimal thought. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses, and the differences are as impactful today as they were centuries ago.

Transformation,
strategy

Short-term vs long-term dichotomy

A dichotomy of life is that if something is easy in the short term, it will likely be challenging in the long term. Conversely, if it's difficult in the short term, it often becomes easier in the long term. This principle is a testament to the enduring human struggle between immediate gratification and long-term success. Psychologically, this struggle is entrenched in our evolutionary biology. We are wired for survival, which often means opting for the path of least resistance to conserve energy and resources.

Transformation

Striking a balance between policy and common sense

In our complex, fast-paced world, we often seek refuge in the certainty of rules and policies. They are the concrete directions that guide our actions, promising a sense of order and predictability. However, sometimes this adherence to policy is taken to extremes, in what seems to be the death of common sense. At first glance, this statement may appear overly harsh, even anarchic. However, it prompts one to consider the balance between rigid policy adherence and the exercise of individual judgement.

Transformation

Mistakes vs non-competence

In the evolving landscape of the modern business environment, where we've learned to be more accepting of the occasional misstep, it becomes imperative to distinguish between errors and a lack of skill, or what I prefer to call non-competence.

Transformation

Fear of Finding Out (FOFO)

A psychological mindset, especially common in first-time startup entrepreneurs, that can be highly damaging to the success of the business or product.

Transformation,
strategy

The organisational wolves: security and user experience

Like the story that has been making the rounds for a few decades, supposedly of native american origin, I think every organisation also has two wolves: one representing security and the other representing user experience.

Transformation

What is a consultant?

I wrote this for my last book Serverless Beyond the Buzzword 2nd edition (before ChatGPT was churning out poems). Quite happy with it, so I am including it here in my blog for posterity.

transformation,
strategy

Attracting technical talent: Addressing the maritime industry’s struggle

The maritime industry is in dire need of attracting digital talent, particularly from the younger generation, to enhance its capabilities in cloud computing, application development, data analytics, and cybersecurity.

Transformation

Empathy is complicated

Today, I learned that there are two types of empathy, cognitive empathy and emotional empathy. Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand someone's situation from their point of view, while emotional empathy is the ability to feel what someone else is feeling.

Transformation

Serverless Beyond the Buzzword 2nd edition: Chapter 10. Case Studies

A series of articles and videos providing a summary of my latest book, Serverless Beyond the Buzzword - 2nd edition. This article focuses on Chapter 10. Case Studies.

Serverless

Serverless Beyond the Buzzword 2nd edition: Chapter 9. Architecture

A series of articles and videos providing a summary of my latest book, Serverless Beyond the Buzzword - 2nd edition. This article focuses on Chapter 9. Architecture.

Serverless

Serverless Beyond the Buzzword 2nd edition: Chapter 8. Logging and Testing

A series of articles and videos providing a summary of my latest book, Serverless Beyond the Buzzword - 2nd edition. This article focuses on Chapter 8. Logging and Testing.

Serverless

Serverless Beyond the Buzzword 2nd edition: Chapter 7. Data

A series of articles and videos providing a summary of my latest book, Serverless Beyond the Buzzword - 2nd edition. This article focuses on Chapter 7. Data.

Serverless

Serverless Beyond the Buzzword 2nd edition: Chapter 6. DevOps and Tooling

A series of articles and videos providing a summary of my latest book, Serverless Beyond the Buzzword - 2nd edition. This article focuses on Chapter 6. DevOps and Tooling.

Serverless

Serverless Beyond the Buzzword 2nd edition: Chapter 5. People

A series of articles and videos providing a summary of my latest book, Serverless Beyond the Buzzword - 2nd edition. This article focuses on Chapter 5. People.

Serverless

Serverless Beyond the Buzzword 2nd edition: Chapter 4. Security

A series of articles and videos providing a summary of my latest book, Serverless Beyond the Buzzword - 2nd edition. This article focuses on Chapter 4. Security.

Serverless

Serverless Beyond the Buzzword 2nd edition: Chapter 3. Finances

A series of articles and videos providing a summary of my latest book, Serverless Beyond the Buzzword - 2nd edition. This article focuses on Chapter 3. Finances.

Serverless

Serverless Beyond the Buzzword 2nd edition: Chapter 2. Strategy

A series of articles and videos providing a summary of my latest book, Serverless Beyond the Buzzword - 2nd edition. This article focuses on Chapter 2. Strategy.

Serverless

Serverless Beyond the Buzzword 2nd edition: Chapter 1. Serverless Basics

A series of articles and videos providing a summary of my latest book, Serverless Beyond the Buzzword - 2nd edition. This article focuses on Chapter 1. Serverless basics.

Serverless

re:Invent 2022 Updates

Another year, another re:Invent and another host of awesome updates to AWS cloud. Here, I cover the keynotes and some talks that I attended.

Serverless

re:Invent 2021 Serverless Updates

Another year, another re:Invent and another host of awesome updates to AWS cloud. Here, we have gathered those updates we feel are relevant to Serverless architecture with our thoughts and ideas on each.

Co-authored with KangZheng Li

Serverless

Summary of: Walkthrough of the Singapore Personal Data Protection Act 2021 Update

Singapore’s Personal Data Protection (PDPA) is the country’s primary data privacy regulation, with more business-friendly aspects to offer than Europe’s GDPR.

Privacy

My Recording Studio for Content Creation

Recently, we rented a new workshop space for storage and Meiting’s soap making side gig. The workshop had enough room for me to carve out a little studio corner for recording training and other videos.

Training

Serverless design patterns

As with most development projects, there is no single right way to do things. It really depends on your use case and the project’s short and long-term goals. In this article, I look at a few design patterns that you can consider for Serverless or hybrid backends.

Serverless

Static site deployment with CDK and AWS

A reusable simple CI/CD pipeline created with CDK for deploying static websites to AWS S3

Serverless

re:invent 2020 Serverless Updates

We have come to expect a plethora of cloud updates and announcements from the yearly re:Invent AWS event and this year was no different. Serverless also enjoyed some great updates, some of which I have summarised below.

Serverless

Serverless: Team roles

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Serverless: Privacy regulation

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Serverless: Security

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Serverless: Cost of operations

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Serverless: Cost of development

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Serverless: History

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Serverless: Benefits?

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Serverless: Challenges

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Serverless: Suitable projects

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Serverless: A simple example

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Serverless: Microservices

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Serverless: What is it?

Serverless - Beyond the buzzword is a book about Serverless aiming to give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions. This is part of a series of articles summarising some of the topics from the book.
More information about Serverless - Beyond the buzzword can be found here: serverlessbook.co

Serverless

Truly Serverless Container

AWS Fargate service fully manages the underlying EC2 instances for containers but to launch a truly serverless container in AWS, a bit of development needs to be done.

Solution Architecture,
Serverless

Serverless Per-User Costing

Serverless architecture is much better than server-based solutions at tracking costs and linking them back to specific users. You can use this to bill your users (cross-department and external) for use of your solution based on actual usage.

Serverless

Innovation Roles: Enterprise Architect

Enterprise Architects may also be known under a different title, but their responsibilities are fairly consistent. Startups and most SMEs should work with solution architects, but enterprises and larger SME’s should also consider an enterprise architect.

Innovation

Ideas for Innovation Transformation

There a few ways for a business to transform itself into an innovation culture. This is a list of actions that can be considered to drive transformation in your business. The right ones to pick will depend on your business, market and budget.

Innovation

Virtual Barista

In the summer of 2019, I was introduced to Globe, a major telco in the Philippines, by AWS. They had been looking for someone with experience in Sumerian. Having developed several prototypes, a simple (but difficult) game, and an e-training solution using Sumerian, I was suitably experienced to answer their needs.

Solution Architecture,
Rapid Prototyping

Training in Cambodia

Cambodia is the latest up and coming tech centre in South-East Asia. Driven by companies such as Slash with co-founder Andries de Vos who recognized the opportunity of building a low-cost, high-capability development team in the region.

Solution Architecture,
Training

Microservice types in Lambda

An overview of some of the different types of microservices I have used in my projects (on AWS Lambda). These are not official definitions, just how I refer to them in my architecture designs.

Solution Architecture

Serverless Attack Vector

I recently thought of a potential attack vector related to serverless. After discussing it with people at AWS it seems that, at least in theory, it is plausible. I have not tested it in my own AWS account for obvious reasons - even a simplified version could get out of control if I make a mistake and the method for stopping it has not been confirmed.

Security

Technical Contract Evaluation & Vendor Negotiation

In the age of social, big data, cloud, mobile and web applications, properly negotiating vendor contracts removes a significant amount of risk related to information access and usage. It facilitates successful and on-time project completion.

Vendors

Data Privacy in Digital Applications

As long as your business has an online presence that collects personal data and information, you need to be aware of and comply with privacy regulations. This can often be tricky as you need to consider both the legal requirements as well as user perception, which may not always align. Different regions in the world also have varying degrees of legal requirements. We explore the recent changes in online privacy regulation and offer 6 tips to ensure your business is in compliance with privacy regulations.

Tips

Executive Summary: Serverless Architecture

There are many articles about the technical details of serverless but I found there were very few that looked at how Serverless can impact security policies, business models and team structure. Certainly from the perspective of executives and account managers.

Solution Architecture

Singapore Government Grants For Web & App Development (Updated: November 2018)

Grants don’t come easily, and knowing how to source for them increases your chances of getting your ideas off the ground.

Tips

Client - Technical Vendor Relationships

Relationships can be hard work and when money, deadlines and complex technical requirements are involved they can be even more of a challenge.

Vendors

Non-Functional Requirements (NFR) - What are they?

An essential part of scoping projects, this article seeks to explain what they are and why they are important.

Solution Architecture

Publishing a Book

Recently, I finally published a book I had been working on for some time. The process of writing the book is a story for another day, but I wanted to share my experience with publishing it.

Tips

Project Scoping Methodologies

In this article I cover the 3 most common project management approaches to scoping and how my approach uses the best parts of each while minimizing the negative aspects.

Solution Architecture

Managing a development vendor? Be involved!

Detailed and meticulous scoping and research for your custom web or mobile project will ensure you are well prepared for development, but it does not stop there.

Vendors

Comparing an Off-The-Shelf solution with a Custom build

From time to time we get asked by clients if we can draw up a comparison chart between a similar existing OTS (Off The Shelf) solution and a custom solution. But does this give a realistic impression?

Research

Strategy Session, how to kick off your project

The kick-off for all projects is a lengthy but structured discussion between all stakeholders and a consultant to get detailed insights into their goals and requirements for the solution.

Solution Architecture

12 Common Mistakes Startups Make When Building Apps

Many businesses are enchanted with the idea that mobile apps will enable them to reach out to more users and customers. However, they often underestimate the challenges of creating a mobile app, and their first attempt may result in failure and wasted time and effort.

Tips

Should You Work For Equity?

Working for equity can be a way to gain valuable experience for junior or freelance developers, but if you are looking for more than just experience ask the right questions and be aware of the risks.

Tips

10 Marketing Ideas for Your App

Most of the computer-literate public today suffer from “app burnout”. No matter how useful or entertaining your new app is, the average smartphone user hears about a dozen new “killer apps” each week. After awhile, users pretty much tune out the hype unless someone or something makes the app appealing to them.

Marketing,
Tips

Informed Decisions with Market Research

Before embarking on any major project it is essential to do research to confirm and validate the project and its requirements. This research can help shape the plan to ensure maximum chance of success with the target audience.

Solution Architecture,
Research

What can Ideation do for your project?

If you are in the creative industry, it is common for clients to ask for a new website, or web or mobile application. You may have a few ideas - but are they possible?

Solution Architecture

Dynamic Engineering Teams

A hierarchical approach to business teams might work for the banking industry, but far more productive results and increased innovation can be achieved with a dynamic approach to project teams.

Strategy

Serverless Web Applications

Lately most of the projects we have been doing Solution Architecture for have been serverless. But what does this mean exactly and what makes it so great for web applications?

Tech

Considering a custom website? Here are 10 tips!

We are frequently approached by prospective clients who think they need a custom website. More often than not, we recommended these clients to start with a subscription platform.

Tips,
Clients

Briefings that work

Many inconsistencies between estimates and final invoices can be improved with a better approach to vendor briefings. This approach can even follow corporate procurement guidelines.

Clients

7 Myths about Web and App Development

A large part of what we do is educating people on all matters relating to custom application development and we have noticed that there are a few misconceptions that many of our clients share in this area.

Clients,
Tips

There are no winners in Fixed Price

Where does this fixation for fixed price come from, why is it so prevalent in the tech industry and why is the concept of fixed price completely counter-intuitive and flat out wrong?

Clients,
Vendors

Requirements Gathering

How you can build better applications by focusing on users’ requirements instead of technology to drive decisions in your application planning.

Solution Architecture

What is a Bug?

A loaded question with different answers from different people. This article is about bugs in custom applications, my opinion on the matter and how to reduce the frustration they can cause.

Vendors

Solution Architecture II

A more in-depth look at the contents of our Solution Architecture documents and insight into the areas we evaluate and research when writing them.

Clients,
Solution Architecture

Managing your expectations

Many clients embark on the journey that is custom web/mobile application development full of enthusiasm and with clear goals and deadlines in mind. But more often than not, this quickly turns sour.

Clients,
Tips

Vendor briefing and evaluation

To get the best possible estimates you must ask the right questions and manage both your own and the vendors’ expectations. But which questions should you ask and how to ensure that you get consistent estimates from multiple vendors?

Vendors,
Solution Architecture

I want a website or app, what now?

Through my work and network I have helped many people who wanted a new website or web application but were unsure what to do next. Many of them started by looking for a designer or developer and getting an estimate.

Clients,
Tips

Solution Architecture (SA)

Binary Thinktank no longer provides development services but focuses entirely on Solution Architecture. But what is SA? And how come there is enough of it for a company to only offer this?

Clients,
Solution Architecture

Blog