Duncan McDowell Joins Decision.io Full Time!

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An image of Duncan McDowell, co-founder of Decision.io

Image is from the original article written by Trish Crompton at the Communitech Hub.

At Decision.io, we do things differently than most startups.

We didn’t go for funding right off the bat. The team worked full-time at incubators and accelerators and came aboard full time as needed. We bootstrapped. It’s not the way you’re necessarily advised to do things in a startup world where a sizable round of VC funding is the holy grail.

Fortunately, we don’t really care. The way we’re doing things has led to the best in class team decision-making platform, and customer service that would blow you away. Oh yeah, people have been more than happy to pay for Decision.io since the beginning of our beta. Unconventional is just fine when it’s working.

The last to make the leap to joining full time is Duncan McDowell, manager of the startup services group at the Communitech Hub in Kitchener-Waterloo. Check out this great Q & A featuring Duncan McDowell, where he dishes out some priceless startup advice and speaks about his ambition to build Decision.io into a billion-dollar company.

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The Application Management Software Checklist

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Today, we are accepting more applications for grants, business incubator and accelerator programs, and competitions than ever before. This is a great thing of course – it means more money, mentorship, and prizes for all! However, with a change in application volume comes a need to improve the application management process. Even if your particular team isn’t seeing this dramatic increase in applications, it is always worth looking at your process and looking for inefficiencies that can be fixed by better application management software.

We’ll take a look at some of the benefits of using up to date application management software, and some capabilities you should be looking for in a product.

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8 Decision Making Insights from a Game of Poker

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Using data and logic pays off at the poker table, and we think it will pay off for your organization as well. Whether you are a foundation or non-profit reviewing grant applications, a startup incubator or accelerator reviewing applications from budding entrepreneurs that want access to your programs, or a business making big decisions around strategy and product – making use of as much relevant information as possible within the time available will improve your outcomes over time. It’s important to find a way to implement solutions, software or otherwise, to aid in the management of these submissions, applications, and group decisions. Continue reading →

How We Think About Decisions – the Fast, Slow, and the Lazy

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In the book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, author and Nobel Prize laureate Daniel Kahneman identifies two thinking systems we possess called “System 1″ and “System 2″. Each system is responsible for a very different kind of thinking – one system isn’t fundamentally better than the other. The trouble occurs when one system jumps in to do work best left to its buddy system. This happens more than we would like to admit, and so it is critical that we have a basic understanding of these systems, the tricks they can play on one another, and how to limit the negative effects of these tricks.

Lucky for you, that’s what we’re going to cover today!

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Business Intelligence 2.0 – Start Making Better Decisions Today

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In this post, we introduce Business Intelligence 2.0 (BI 2.0). In order to do so, we’ll talk about what business intelligence (BI) is, what the “2.0″ represents, and how BI 2.0 differs from its predecessor. Most importantly, we’ll discuss how BI 2.0 can help your organization to start making better decisions today!

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The Ultimate Decision-Making Mobile Application

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Today’s post is a little different from the others…

We’re officially announcing the Decision.io mobile application that will work on your smartphone and tablet!

It allows the reviewer to carry out all of their main responsibilities such as reviewing online applications, giving overall ratings and/or individual ratings for each piece of decision criteria, and to read and write internal and external comments.

Pretty awesome, eh?

You know what else is awesome? You have access to this right now! So log in, and I’ll take you through the application!

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ABCs of Decision-Making Biases – Part 2

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In Part 1 we looked at some of the biases that introduce themselves when generating potential solutions to be decided on later. There are also a number of decision-making biases that rear their ugly heads when it’s time to evaluate the proposed options and decide. This post will focus on just four of these biases.

So, let’s assume we’ve addressed all of the scary biases in the first stage of the decision making process, we’ve got our potential solutions in front of us bias free (congratulations!), and now it’s time to make the decision.

Not so fast! Let’s work on getting an understanding of some of the decision-making biases that introduce themselves during the all important decision-making stage. For now, let’s dive into four big ones, and we’ll tackle some of the others in future posts.

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ABCs of Decision-Making Biases – Part 1

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Here’s a scary thought: when we are sitting down to make the best decision based on the possibilities presented to us, we are often choosing from possibilities that have already been subjected to biases. We may even introduce a different set of biases when it’s time to actually make a final decision. This tendency isn’t due to a lack of intelligence or skill, but rather to the fact that we’re human. The idiom, “to err is human”, is an idiom for a reason!

Whether we are foundation or grant-maker reviewing online submissions and applications, a startup incubator or accelerator reviewing online applications and interview notes to decide on our next cohort of entrepreneurs, or a business building a strategy in a boardroom, these biases promise to get in our way!

For now, we will focus on just four of many common biases that may be present while generating and collecting possibilities to be decided on later. We’ll discuss the biases that present themselves during the decision making stage in Part 2 of this series.

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