For several years I’ve served on the business council for Glasswing, an early stage venture firm focused on AI and frontier tech. Working with Glasswing has broadened my knowledge of where AI is currently viable, particularly its application under the hood in marketing technology. Three takeaways from their recent annual summit at MIT Media Lab: …
Talking digital problem solving with Postlight
Fun to do this Track Changes podcast with the Postlight team. In this episode, Paul Ford and Rich Ziade mock a bunch of CxO titles, and then dig in on the hard slog of marketing knowledge and learning. In the end, I make the case for closer collaboration between marketing and product teams.
Friday 5 — 3.17.2017
John Maeda and team released the 2017 Design in Tech report. Observations include lessons from Chinese design tech principles and practices; the value of inclusive design; and writing as a must-have skill. The early promise of social media as proxy for inclination to purchase has not been realized. HBR explores the marketing value of social media, and highlights …
Friday 5 — 2.24.2017
Amazon celebrated Alexa reaching 10,000 skills with a new musical game called Beat the Intro. The fast rise of Alexa skills invokes the inevitable comparison to Apple’s app store, and with it the associated growing pains of discovery. Is that really Michael Flynn on Twitter? Before you retweet or reply, take these steps to determine if a Twitter account is legit. How do leaders make the …
Friday 5 — 12.23.2016
Do you have 49 other people you’d like to video chat with over the holidays? Facebook Messenger can help you out, with up to six people streamed simultaneously, and up to 50 in a carousel-style display. Remember the good old days when digital experience meant only an html webpage? Scott Brinker explains how digital proliferation — from …
Friday 5 — 11.18.2016
A Steam account and an HTC Vive headset will get you free access to Google Earth in virtual reality. Try out the experience on your laptop with locations like the Hoover Dam and Hong Kong Stadium at Google Earth VR. As someone who has stayed up far too late writing marketing copy for an app release, I’ll vouch for …
Friday 5 — 10.28.2016
The microcopy in a user interface — the words that go on the buttons, appear in error messages, and guide you through wizards — is too often neglected or left for the developer to fill in. Nick Babich provides guidance on effective writing for your user interface. No more shopping for snake oil: the best search …
Friday 5 — 8.5.2016
Consider optimizing your analytics implementation for more lightweight use cases — e.g., monitoring and reporting, rather than exploration and data mining . Alex Couch captures a frustration I’ve experienced with all kinds of software projects—a great deal of energy is expended designing for what might end up being the rarest and most involved use case, neglecting the lighter weight, most common use cases. …
Friday 5 — 7.8.2016
A case for using paper rather than a purely digital approach underpins this article on how to get the most value out of wireframes. The goal is to focus your energy — and your stakeholders’ attention — on providing feedback that is high-level and conceptual rather than aesthetic and over-specific. This insider’s guide to Google docs at work …
Friday 5 — 7.1.2016
This is the year I began to rely on voice commands in the same compulsive manner that we all reach for our mobile devices. Try this helpful catalog of over 150 questions and 1,000 variations you can ask Google. My favorite Easter egg: “askew.” Just when you thought it was safe to count on your distributed content strategy, Facebook tweaks the …