I’m giving a presentation at this year’s Marketo Summit. The topic is how to give a great presentation. This creates a conundrum. If the presentation is not great, then the content will be considered suspect. How can one trust that the lessons are solid if the presentation wasn’t awesome? It certainly puts the pressure on.…
There is a phenomenon that happens when you have lots of customers using your product and you suddenly change it. They get mad. Facebook is a perfect example. Every time they change something, their user base erupts in turmoil and dissatisfaction. Then an interesting thing happens about 2-3 months later. They get used to it.…
In my lifetime so much has changed. In these changes, I have lost and I have gained. Some examples: Communication As a teenager, I would stay for hours on the phone with my girlfriend. (When I was lucky enough to have one!) The phone wasn’t a bother and the sound was crystal clear. I could…
Why do most cars lack character? They look like they have all been designed by the same person. All sedans look alike. All SUVs look alike. It’s a conspiracy to make us all into automatons. Good little soldiers in our little boxes going to work in our cubicles and staring at rectangle screens. Well, to be fair,…
We are interviewing for some VP positions and it has me thinking about one trait that I look for in a candidate, regardless of position. Does this person have a strong point of view? Not all leaders are managers and not all managers are leaders. However, leaders usually have a strong point of view, a…
I have seen people with e-cigarettes frequently in the past few months. The styling of the devices generally look like regular cigarettes. A few look bigger and stranger, almost like miniature hookahs. It got me thinking that we could be entering a new fad. In a few years, we might see the pipe making a…
I was talking to someone about how UX works at Marketo and how it is different than other places. At Marketo, the UX team has specific responsibilities and ownership within the process of development that differs from the norm. Product Management defines WHAT the feature needs to do. They define it’s required capabilities. PM does not however,…
What does it mean to have a safe place to work? What does it mean to provide a culture where it is safe to fail? I hear these terms alot, but usually they are not backed up by specific actions. It’s more of a wish, like “we should not be a bureaucracy” or “we should…
We are in an interesting time. A tweener. Native is when you build your mobile app using Objective C (IOS) or Java (Android) or Visual Studio (Microsoft). HTML5 is when you build a wrapper for your app in native code, but all of the functionality is built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript (a.k.a. HTML5). Native…
Racism is alive and well in the United States. African Americans are at a disadvantage in many categories. This includes how they are treated by the law, corporations and education. Plenty of studies have proven that African Americans have serious disadvantages that come directly from government and legal policies. (Example) Racism isn’t as explicit as…
I have four new designers on my team. That’s alot of people to get up to speed on the product, process and people. Rather than teaching them myself, I assigned my most experienced designer to be in charge. He has not previously managed people and this is his first time training other designers. There are…
Amazon is getting into the content business and their first two comedies are absolutely brilliant. Alpha House This show is about a group of republican senators in Washington DC who share a brownstone. It stars John Goodman. The writing is crisp and the comedy is nuanced. The republicans are portrayed as fairly cynical. They aren’t…
I’m looking for awesome new people to join my team. Check out the UX Help Designer job description: What’s a UX Help Designer? At Marketo, the UX team is responsible for the way a feature works. We collaborate with engineers, product managers and other various groups. When we are ready to launch a feature, help…
I have a few new designers starting at Marketo in the next 30 days. One of the most important, but neglected, aspects to having new employees is giving ample training time before they are asked to do critical work. I can’t even count the number of times I saw someone doing something poorly because they…