A phrase closely linked to Tip O’Neill, which has been on my mind lately. Specifically, I was thinking about how companies make decisions. When you gather a diverse set of people in a room to make a decision, people usually try to lobby for the decision that is best for their…
Ok, cutting the cord isn’t going to work for me. So let’s recap: Had DirecTV with Comcast Internet Switched to no DirecTV and just Android TV streaming (Netflix, Amazon Prime) Added Amazon FireTV Added Hulu at various levels (including the new beta) Added YouTubeTV Switched from Comcast to Wave Added…
Every major product I have designed has had specific influences. Some examples: Marketo In 2007, when I was thinking about the Marketo UI I rewatched Minority Report (2002). The UI where Tom Cruise waved his arms in the air was the inspiration for how Smart Lists would drag items from…
My journey has taken a negative turn. My youngest son wanted to watch Adam Ruins Everything, which is a fun show on the TruTV network. The problem is that TruTV is not on Hulu or YouTubeTV. Sidenote: Google Branding is Broken For your understanding: YouTube is everyone’s videos uploaded YouTube…
Politics Easy prediction: Trump will tweet stupid shit all year. The Russia investigation will lead to more drama and possibly impeachment along with sketchy pardons. My main prediction is that Democrats will gain one of the houses of congress. This will yield gridlock until 2020 (a good thing) when Joe…
I did not realize it, but I actually have a choice on internet access. I just assumed that Comcast had a monopoly on my house. I have been waiting patiently for fiber, but it has not been available. Luckily, Grant commented about Wave Communications who provides internet access for a very reasonable…
Warning: This has been an insane journey, so I might be ranting a bit. Once DirecTV changed their interface, I decided to suspend the service and see if I could live in the streaming only world. It’s been an insane journey which will likely be impossible to journal. I’ll do…
As a designer, I always look at the design of things, especially user interfaces. Recently DirecTV updated their user interface in dramatic fashion. It’s very different than before. I could call it an epic fail, except that I hate that term. It’s an Epic LEARN. There is a forum thread on…
These two guys apparently set up a kickstarter to build a new design tool, named SubForm. I just watched a few videos. It’s not available for download yet, but rather than go “stealth” the two founders decided to build tool in broad daylight. I have alot of respect for that. It…
Metcalfe’s law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system. In other words, the more people using something, the more valuable that thing is. My first few computers in the 1980s were islands, completely isolated from the…
In 2005, I worked for a year at Intuit and they claimed to be Customer-Driven. This came from a specific story. Originally the company produced Quicken, a personal finance tool. When they watched their customers, they realized that many of them were using it for business purposes. They realized this…
I have a bunch of questions for Product Designers that I have evolved over time. However, I don’t think I have ever done the same exercise for Marketing. The context is the “first marketer” in a company. At Marketo, this was Kelly Abner. He did an awesome job and helped…
We all care about lots of decisions. However, it’s not healthy to argue about every single decision. In fact, it’s not healthy to argue about 90% of the decisions that are made. I talk to people about the Decision-Care Pie. This is a pie-chart that has two parts. The first…
I think the market for product designers stink. We have no real loyalty and minimal budget. I would never join a startup that targets me as a customer. However, there are plenty of players out there. Here is my prediction for 2018 in the space: Adobe The category king in…