Our bodies need constant oxygen. Even a minute without it can do serious damage. Our organs, our brains, our plants, our pets, our stoves…everything needs oxygen. It is the single most important thing in our lives. We need metaphorical oxygen too. I am going to skip all of the ways…
I’m at Figma’s annual conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Their annual event has really grown since the first one I attended almost a decade ago. Rough estimate is about 10,000 attendees, but I did not count them all. The announcements they released were fine and expected, but…
I have been using Google Android phones since 2009. I was always a Windows person and never an Apple fanatic. So when Apple had the iPhone, I steered towards the cheaper alternative. I upgraded every 2 years like clockwork. A few years ago, I was traveling internationally more often and…
Recently, I needed to answer the question of whether to default to dark mode, light mode, or system preference. System means that it would respect whatever preference the user had in the operating system. The engineers thought system preference was the most logical and it seemed to make sense, so…
I am a fan of Black Mirror on Netflix. It is an anthology series focusing on technology and culture in the near future. Most of the time the future is sad, terrifying, or horrible in one dystopian way or another. Sounds good, right? Season 7 just dropped 6 episodes, which…
Every tech SaaS company has Pendo or Amplitude or a similar analytics tool. The question is whether we are using these tools effectively. Spoiler alert: I think not. The key to using any analytics tool actually starts in the mind of the designers and product managers. (namaste!) The most important…
Uncertainty report from 3 years ago with image excerpt. I think the last 3 years have increased the uncertainty on the right. Uncertainty is the big U in FUD. It leads directly to the other two, Fear and Doubt. One thing the world abhors in uncertainty. (Take that Heisenberg!) Uncertainty…
One technique that I teach almost every mentee is to conduct informational interviews as often as you can. This is especially useful in the early stages as you graduate from school, start your first job, and navigate your career. Informational interview 101 Simply put, it is a meeting (in person…
In complex B2B systems, you often have to pick your poison when dealing with data accessibility. I remember when Marketo was first developed and we asked how many leads/contacts a company would have. The answer we received was about 3k. Little did we know that the real answer would be…
LinkedIn is the only social media platform that I actively engage in. I don’t use Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. I like to doom scroll TikTok a bit, but it’s not like I talk to anyone on it. LinkedIn is the one platform that I will actually talk to people. I…
Corporations are not human beings, no matter what Citizens United and the Supreme Court says. As non-human entities, they have no compassion, no empathy, no sense of right and wrong. Corporations are set up for one purpose: to create value, usually in the form of money. Now obviously, I don’t…
In LinkedIn, I will often see someone ask what is the better UX or UI design. Something like this: This drives me crazy. In my B2B design world, this is a meaningless detail that doesn’t make any difference. This is B2C mobile design and they don’t do what I do,…
I remember the news cycles from 2016-2020. It was a non-stop flood of news ranging from the horrible to the ridiculous. (rarely anything good). I decided back then to limit my news intake to maintain my sanity. We are just two weeks into the 2nd Trump administration and I sadly…
Many decisions that I have made over the years seemed like good ideas at the time. However, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that I could have made different decisions that would have had greater long term benefits. Three examples to illustrate. ExtJS 0.33 Alpha When Marketo first…