Everything comes back to considering an audience, to the user experience, not only in the product (the outcome) but also in the process (the story). Does empathizing well transcend the gap between disciplines? Is it empathy that sells products as effectively as it produces them? Few of us are able to transmit the value and…
Googling for Talent
Hacking machines is easy. People? Not so much.
All in the telling
The latest technologies, including cloud, social, anything mobile, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have and will continue to transform business, especially the customer experience, which still revolves around the story. Storytelling is still the centerpiece. Nothing new there. Storytelling has been the centerpiece since before anyone could even write….
Telling stories
We can’t throw a rock across the Web without hitting one of the many articles, posts, books, podcasts or interviews focused on the use of storytelling in business. Arguably kicking the magic out of the hat, most of them address the way stories are used in marketing goods and services (yawn). We need to think…
Plated
I eat too much. It’s simple. I eat good things because I love to cook so they are fresh and wonderful but I just eat way too much. So, I started looking at alternatives. I started learning about liquid diets. Soylent. Not for me, but interesting, nonetheless. This learning led me to discover Plated, a…
The Dark Age of Story
Story is going through a dark time. We have over-fished the narrative seas, giving not a single nod to sustainable practices. The need to produce quantity (in marketing and advertising, especially) over quality has diminished many audiences’ discernment to demand quality. By doing so, we have become perfectly satisfied with the third-rate. Like mass-produced products…
The Future of UI
Human interface devices are keyboards, mice and screens, things that allow us to give and get information to and from computers. Combined with how software allows us to interact with machines, this is known as User Interface. For the last 70 years or so, User Interfaces have stayed more or less the same. That is…
Creating Meaning in the New Media Ecology
Neil Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ (1985), is about how mass media turns real, complex issues into entertainment.
Cure for the Common Algorithm: True Curation
Curation is fundamental to how we process messages in the world. There is simply just too much information to process without filtering it for content and quality. Curating it. We curate all over the place. Social networks are among the most well-known of curation tools. That is coming under some threat, however. Twitter is now…
Science is no country for the storyteller? Nonsense.
Science is no country for the storyteller? Nonsense. Should not scientists be, more than anyone, acutely aware that the data tells only a slice of the story? Would not anyone truly, passionately in search of an answer (an accurate one) be more likely to search for the whole story to tell the whole story? Even…
Human potential, pushing boundaries, and the International Race of Champions
We have always pushed the boundaries of what is possible. That’s why we love things like the circus, competition, and pursuit in general, especially, perhaps, from great heights. Certainly, there are many moving parts to our success in pushing the envelope of what is possible, how fast we can go, how far we can push,…
On perfect, little packages
Few things in this world reach perfect little package status, though, arguably there are some that come pretty darn close. A kiss on the cheek, for example? Is a kiss on the cheek the highest form of affection? When not used to say goodbye forever to a former friend or lover (or some other manipulative…
Amazing Grace Hopper
Grace Murray Hopper was born on December 9, 1906. Before she passed away on January 1, 1992, “Amazing Grace” made significant contributions to the way we use computers today. The Hour of Code, a part of Computer Science Education Week, is held in her honor each year. Grace was a pioneering American computer scientist who…
snowflakes
Alexey Kljatov figured out a cool solution for photographing snowflakes:
Virus, Malware, Ransomware all need our help
Viruses have evolved. Big time. We have many words for viruses, depending on the type. Malware refers to specific types of them. Ransomware, for example, is a type that holds a computer hostage until a fee is paid. Some ransomware just freezes our PCs and asks us to pay. These threats, typically can be unlocked…
MakerBot Academy is coming to a school near you
The President, during a State of the Union, does rally the troops to begin the next industrial revolution. The launch of MakerBot Academy may indeed be an attempt to realize President Obama’s urge to: “ensure that the Next Industrial Revolution in manufacturing will happen in America.” The plan is pretty simple, and already underway, from…
Net Neutrality is dead
Wikipedia hosts a great definition of Net Neutrality. In a nutshell, it means: Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication. There has been extensive debate about whether net neutrality should…
Stealth wisdom
I am going to let all five of you who might be reading this in on something: somewhere along the line, without meeting him or seeing this film, I decided to aspire to be like Daryl Zero. I often speak silently to myself, sometimes even out loud to others in silly, seemingly nonsensical phrases that…
Battle of the Bands: Configuration Management
Anyone who works in information technology spends a fair amount of their day automating simple tasks. I always say if it can be done once, twice, in the same way, it can be automated. Technology should do some of our tactical work for us. Configuration Management (CM) is arguably one of the best fits for…
Adaptation, Semiotics, and Getting Used to Things
My awareness of the word ‘adaptation’ began as a 5th grader in Mr. Johnson’s 6th grade class.
DevOps is TeamOps
No doubt, there are a bazillion new buzzwords every year in technology. I’ve not personally been as excited about one in a long time, though, as I am about DevOps, a long overdue blending and alliance between developers and cloud/network engineers/systems administrators, a multi-disciplinary community movement dedicated to the practice of designing, building, evolving and…