“The observer effect is real in the workplace, and you can affect the outcome of any project as a manager simply by inserting yourself. Often, a manager will take their team into a room and say, “Here’s what we need to do,” or “Here’s what I’ve been thinking,” or “Here’s one way we can think about this…” as they start sketching on a whiteboard. They’re trying to add value. We always want to add value. But if you’re in any position of authority and you do this, you’ve just limited the number of outcomes and your path to success pretty dramatically.

Instead, if you simply outline the problem and what success looks like — let’s say it’s increasing revenue by 100% — all paths to success are still possible, including those you haven’t thought of yourself. It’s very likely that someone on your team will think of a better solution, but as soon as you say what you think, everyone gets a whole lot less creative.

I used to make this mistake a lot when I was a junior manager. I would give my team ideas to get them started, and as soon as I thought they were headed toward failure or a dead end, I’d stop them and say something to turn them around. It seemed like it was in everyone’s best interests to avoid the wrong solution, but a mentor of mine told me that my team would never get better if I didn’t let them learn from failure.”

firstround.com/review/the-principles-of-quantum-team-management/

The Principles of Quantum Team Management

Instagram Head of Engineering James Everingham walks us through a different approach to management, drawing on science and machine-building.

More behavior design built in into OS, this time from Apple:

“In iOS 12, we’re offering our users detailed information and tools to help them better understand and control the time they spend with apps and websites, how often they pick up their iPhone or iPad during the day and how they receive notifications”

www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/06/ios-12-introduces-new-features-to-reduce-interruptions-and-manage-screen-time/

iOS 12 introduces new features to reduce interruptions and manage Screen Time

Apple today announced new tools built-in to iOS 12 to help customers take control of the time they spend interacting with their iOS devices.

Tldr: everything is wrong

jacquesmattheij.com/what-is-wrong-with-microsoft-buying-github

What’s the education going to be like in the next 15-30 years?

futuref.org/educationfutures

GEF Report

A few wonderful examples and stories around ‘Dark Patterns’ in design (e.g. behavior change design that hijacks people’s habit not to necesserily add value to their lives): mobilejazz.com/blog/dark-patterns-in-design/

Dark Patterns in Design

When I was at university, I took courses in subjects that didn’t seem related to design, which was my intended occupation. I enrolled in literature, philosophy, history and maths just to name a...

Apple bites back

www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/technology/telegram-apple-russia.html

Telegram App Says Apple Is Blocking Updates Over Dispute With Russia

The allegation undercuts the importance Apple has placed on privacy and encrypted communication, and highlights the gatekeeper role the company plays with its App Store.

For most US cities, it’s cheaper now to use Uber than to own a car. It’s just a matter of years until OWNING a car becomes obsolete, same as it happened with the notion of owning music or video.

techcrunch.com/2018/05/30/heres-where-its-cheaper-to-take-an-uber-than-to-own-a-car/

Here’s where it’s cheaper to take an Uber than to own a car

Ride-sharing companies have long touted the cost benefits of their platforms. Well, depending on the city, it can be cheaper on a weekly basis to take an UberX or UberPOOL than it is to own a personal car, according to Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers partner Mary Meeker’s 2018 annual internet trends report. In four of […]

Starting at Directly tomorrow as a sr product designer. Love, service and lots of AI

High school teacher created a simple Physics course with stunning javascript simulations. That’s the physics I wish I had in school. landgreen.github.io/physics/index.html

Explorable Physics

Interactive notes for algebra-based physics with explorable explanations.

Another behavior design hack: mute notification and use a devide that only allows a single modal view/task at all time. Like a phone —  exactly the only kind of device Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey uses for work.

mashable.com/2018/05/24/twitter-jack-dorsey-laptop/#7EzwivLrJqqo

Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO, says he doesn't have a laptop. At all.

All you need is a phone to run one of the world's largest social networks, apparently.

So far it’s a little too little, but it’s a first step to balance tech addictions and make tech companies a bit more responsible for addictive habit design.

“We know that our smartphones are making us unhappy. At its annual developer’s conference this week, Google revealed that 70% of its users actually want help balancing their digital lives. What’s not so clear is what the smartphone manufacturers of the world should do about it. After all, it’s in their business interests to make their phones as engaging–or addictive–as possible.

Yet at I/O, Google introduced a clever and aggressive response to its own habit-forming products. It’s a broad initiative called Digital Wellbeing that CEO Sundar Pichai says will ultimately affect every Google product. “It’s clear that technology can be a powerful force, but it’s equally clear that we can’t just be wide-eyed about [it],” said Pichai on stage at Google’s I/O conference. “We feel a deep sense of responsibility to get this right.”

www.fastcodesign.com/90171307/googles-plan-to-make-tech-less-addictive

Google’s Plan To Make Tech Less Addictive

Just don’t quit entirely, okay?

Here is a good set of ideas from Tristan Harris (who actually kickstarted this whole google wellbeing thing) on how to move yourself to a driver seat when it comes to everyday technology use: humanetech.com/take-control/

Take Control of Your Social Media Use for Well-being

Social media competes for your attention and can hijack your behavior. Follow these steps to change how you use apps by setting goals and working with others.

Visiting Portland, Oregon, I stumbled upon a really vivid case of good design/service thinking. Zoom+care redefines healthcare for people in Portland and Seattle. Really thoughtful and smart

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.fastcodesign.com/3050380/zoom-wants-healthcare-to-be-more-like-visiting-an-apple-store

Zoom Wants Health Care to Be More Like Visiting An Apple Store

The Portland, Oregon-based company has a plan to redesign the “full stack” of medical services and health insurance.

Designing for the world of post truth: Facebook is using subtle behavior design techniques to avoid being neither censoring nor appreciative of potentially fake news.

techcrunch.com/2018/04/27/facebook-false-news/

Facebook shrinks fake news after warnings backfire

Tell someone not to do something and sometimes they just want to do it more. That’s what happened when Facebook put red flags on debunked fake news. Users who wanted to believe the false stories had their fevers ignited and they actually shared the hoaxes more. That led Facebook to ditch the incendiary red flags in […]

Great recap of Theranos, a blood sampling startup that ended up being fake (aka based on the undeveloped technology). Another thoughful vision on SV culture of fast-growth-no-matter-what www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/books/review/bad-blood-john-carreyrou.html

‘Bad Blood’ Review: How One Company Scammed Silicon Valley. And How It Got Caught. (Published 2018)

In “Bad Blood,” John Carreyrou tells of the rise and incredible fall of Theranos, the biotech company that was going to revolutionize blood testing.

Some readings that I found amusing last week:

+ Guardian on a psychological phenomenon of “illusory superiority” which is at heart of addictive technology, and a few tips how to not feel miserable through “status anxiety” → www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/04/think-special-just-proves-you-are-normal

+ Nir Eyal on why it’s harder and harder for products to get traction. medium.com/@nireyal/where-have-the-users-gone-45c5183cea3e

+ Farnam Street on creating faster, more entrepreneurial learning loops by understanding reversible and irreversible decisions. www.fs.blog/2018/04/reversible-irreversible-decisions/

+ Short piece in NYTimes on how technology diminishes our ability to pay attention, and therefore, to connect with others. www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/how-not-to-be-alone.html

Think you're special? That just proves you're normal

There’s a reason Big Tech knows us so much better than we think – each of us is far more normal than we realise

Consensus, an annual blockchain technology summit is happening this week in NYC. A friend sent a video of bankers protesting against BitCoin on Wall Street.

Some banners read:

“Bitcoin ruined our business model”, “We opened all those accounts on accident”, “Free Jamie Dimon” — referring to a massive bank fraud scandal with Wells Fargo that’s been rolling out throughout past couple of years, and statements by a controversial CEO of JPMorgan Chase:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rtdkom_N4U&amp=&amp=&amp=&feature=youtu.be

(yes, it is a joke, and a brilliant one)

Consensus 2018 // Genesis Mining // Bankers against Bitcoin Protest

Segment, GV, Accel & KPCB-backed analytics and data gathering tool just released Personas, a new way to automatically build personas based on common traits of your users.

As far as I know, up until now designers and researchers were building personas based on qualitative data (or their imagination). If Segment’s new feature works as advertised, this can be a great breakthrough for human centered product design (and yeah, design systems are boring).

segment.com/blog/put-your-customers-first-with-personas/

Put your customers first with Personas

The Twilio Segment team's latest thinking on all things data, product, marketing, and growth.

Following Google IO announcement last week, Ben Thomspon from Stratechery wrote a great long-read post about two tech philosophies: 1) tech as an amplifier of human ability to complete tasks - Microsoft, Apple, and 2) tech as a source of task completion whatsoever - Google, Facebook. Very intriguing observation:

“There is certainly an argument to be made that these two philosophies arise out of their historical context; it is no accident that Apple and Microsoft, the two “bicycle of the mind” companies, were founded only a year apart, and for decades had broadly similar business models: sure, Microsoft licensed software, while Apple sold software-differentiated hardware, but both were and are at their core personal computer companies and, by extension, platforms.

In a platform business model 3rd parties attract customers

Google and Facebook, on the other hand, are products of the Internet, and the Internet leads not to platforms but to aggregators. While platforms need 3rd parties to make them useful and build their moat through the creation of ecosystems, aggregators attract end users by virtue of their inherent usefulness and, over time, leave suppliers no choice but to follow the aggregators’ dictates if they wish to reach end users.

In the aggregator business model the aggregator owns customers and suppliers follow.”

stratechery.com/2018/techs-two-philosophies/

Tech’s Two Philosophies

Google and Facebook represent one philosophy, and Microsoft and Apple represent another; tech needs both, but ultimately platforms are more important than aggregators.

Figma (design tool on web that tries to disrupt another design tool on mac) has started a blog on design systems. “A resource for learning, creating and evangelizing design systems.” Reminds me of evangelizing usability 15-20 years ago - completely redundant, except for marketing purposes. Yet, the content collected is pretty good.

www.designsystems.com/

Design Systems articles on building and maintaining design systems

A Figma publication for design systems creators, designers, developers, and managers

Doc Searls of Harvard on new EU regulation, GDPR (that thing every website is changing their privacy policy for) and its likely massive effect on what we call AdTech (tracking your activity without much of your consent to sell it to advertisers).

«The main problem: tracking people without their knowledge, approval or a court order is just flat-out wrong. The fact that it can be done is no excuse. Nor is the monstrous sum of money made by it.

[…]Adtech spies on people and violates their privacy. By design. Never mind that you and your browser or app are anonymized. The ads are still for your eyeballs, and correlations can be made.

[…] Adtech has caused the largest boycott in human history. By more than a year ago, 1.7+ billion human beings were already blocking ads online.

[…] When customers can operate both privately and independently, we’ll get far better markets than today’s ethically bankrupt advertising and marketing system could ever give us.»

blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/05/12/gdpr/

GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

In The Big Short, investor Michael Burry says “One hallmark of mania is the rapid rise in the incidence and complexity of fraud.” (Burry shorted the mania- and fraud-filled subprime mor…

«Think about the story you tell yourself about yourself. In all the lives you could be living, in all of the worlds you could simulate, how much did luck play a role in this one? Have you gotten more than your fair share? Have you had to deal with more struggles than most? I ask you this question because accepting luck as a primary determinant in your life is one of the most freeing ways to view the world. Why? Because when you realize the magnitude of happenstance and serendipity in your life, you can stop judging yourself on your outcomes and start focusing on your efforts. It’s the only thing you can control.

I know this because I have had far more luck than most. If I ran the world 1,000 times over, in less than a handful would I be where I am today. Most lower-middle class kids growing up with divorced parents don’t get the chance to get a full ride to a top university. And even fewer ever find their passion and get to do it everyday. However, I’ve always tried to work hard and that’s where I get my satisfaction.

So don’t let good luck put you on a pedestal, but don’t let bad luck knock you down either. Because for every Stephen King there is a Richard Bachman that never saw the light of day. Yes, some of us are born with more advantages than others and some of us are born with less, but you should never let that define how hard you try.»

ofdollarsanddata.com/why-winners-keep-winning-4e7f221f5b84

Why Winners Keep Winning – Of Dollars And Data

Have you ever wondered why successful people continue to be successful? I address why those with early advantages are able to maintain them over time.

You might find yourself in a moment in your career when you are thinking of what’s next. That’s an interesting twilight zone: you feel like you ready to give up old, but not sure what the new is. That’s where I found myself not so long ago.

Truth be told, career decisions are very personal - and I doubt all ‘one-size-fits-all-your-parachute-color’ approaches. However, I think there are great thought partners who can inspire and create some support. Here are some sources that can help frame and navigate your thinking.

1) Amazing long-read piece by Tim Urban of Wait But Why: How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You). waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/picking-career.html

2) Can Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You is an amazing amazing book. Cal is a super nerdy Computer Science professor and MIT grad. He is also curious about productivity and decision making patterns that humans fall into. He introduces the idea of rarity and value as a part of career growth. When someone asks me about their professional development or jumping ships, that’s the first book I recommend. is.gd/69bItc

3) Ikigai is a Japanese concept that means roughly ‘something that makes you wake up in the morning’. Thomas Oppong’s schort piece on Medium outlines how one can apply this concept for their life and their career. medium.com/thrive-global/ikigai-the-japanese-secret-to-a-long-and-happy-life-might-just-help-you-live-a-more-fulfilling-9871d01992b7

4) Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions is a great book to help you think more objectively about decisions (including career ones) that we humans make all the time, but which, frankly, computers tend to be better equipped to make. is.gd/Ap5keR

5) Designers, if you don’t already read Julie Zhuo of Facebook, start doing it now. Julie has one of the best design leadership blogs out there, and she shares some good thoughts on career among many other things. Here is one of highlights: medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/how-to-think-about-your-career-abf5300eba08

6) HackerNoon’s piece on becoming a product manager. Chances are, if yo work with very scalable matters (like technology) in any capacity, you’ll have to interact with product managers. You might even be in a role of one — knowingly or unknowingly. Here is a great article that can save you a lot of time (and money) navigating your work with or development of PM skills. hackernoon.com/forget-the-mba-heres-the-fastest-way-to-become-a-product-manager-b3a230a7c055

7) Cherry on a pie. Inc.com's collection of 25 inspiring and infamous leaders’ pieces of advice to anyone thinking of a career move: www.inc.com/business-insider/25-successful-leaders-give-their-best-career-advice-for-millenials.html

How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You)

Our career path is how we spend our time, how we support our lifestyles, how we make our impact, and even sometimes how we define our identity. Let’s make sure we’re on the right track.

Alex Baldwin, designer at Simple Casual in SF compiled a short list of resources for effective behavior design:

"Behavior design gives us an organized and specific model to define and foster behavior change. This field is known academically as Captology (Computers as Persuasive Technology) and originates with Professor BJ Fogg's work with the Stanford Persuasive Tech lab."

1) Behavior First, Design Second | bokardo.com/archives/behavior-first-design-second/ | Why should behavior precede design? As designers, are we only amplifying existing human desires or modifying them?

2) Behavor Grid: 15 Types of Behavior Change | www.behaviorgrid.org |What are the different types of behavior change? Should you treat all types of behavior change the same?

3) Behavior Model | www.behaviormodel.org | If your behavior is abstract (ie. eat better), define a more precise behavior (ie. eat salad once a day).

4) Habit Design with BJ Fogg | www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQjLOyguXSQ | 40 min intro video from the guy who invented contemporary behavior change techniques

(via HackDesign)

Behavior First, Design Second

An Interface and Product Design blog by Joshua Porter

Channel Rename: Ponchik News: Design+ Strategy

Notes from yesterday’s AIGA SF’s panel discussion on Voice Assistants, AI and the future of it all (“Lessons Learned: Designing for Voice Assistants") from the leading researchers, designers and product managers at Google, SoundHound and eBay.

Highlights:

+ Voice UIs are just another UIs. They’ve been with us for a long while. What changed is that they became self-learning,

context-aware, and interconntected with other UIs.

+ There is a possibility for voice UIs to facilitate quality conversations among people, as opposed to screens.

+ Talking to VUIs creates way more emotions in people compared to other UIs.

+ There is a potential for sexism due to natural bias of humans towards female voices. However, gender-neutral and robotic options seem to be even more confusing. Hint: you can change wake-word “Alexa" to “Computer" in your settings — that’s the first step.

+ It’s all about figuring out right contexts and being smart about continuing conversations.

Read all notes here: workflowy.com/s/FVcu.PeQr8IxMGc

WorkFlowy - Organize your brain.

Lessons Learned Designing for Voice Assistants

By the way: Notes are taken in WorkFlowy, perhaps the best editor for organizing your thoughts in a nested fashion. is.gd/o74NDK

WorkFlowy Invite: Get 2x the free space

WorkFlowy is an incredible tool for thinking, writing, planning, organizing. Think like Einstein, and give it a shot.

www.wired.com/story/google-duplex-phone-calls-ai-future/

How Google's Eerie Robot Phone Calls Hint at AI's Future

Google's new "Duplex" technology presents a significant tipping point for machine intelligence–powered virtual assistants.

«In the first demo, a woman calls a hair salon, where another woman answers the phone; the two go back and forth for approximately a minute before they figure out a time that works for a hair appointment. In the second demo, also about a minute, a man calls a restaurant to book a reservation; the woman on the receiving end has a heavy accent and isn't offering the best information, so the caller pivots to make a new request.

The big reveal was that neither of the voices who initiated the calls belonged to a human. They were bots, dispatched through Google Assistant and activated through a back-end system.»

“That’s where the final transformation comes in. How do you turn a few hundred thousand personality profiles into a few million? With a lot of computing power, and a massive matrix of possibilities. “Even though your sample size is 300,000 people, give or take, your feature set is like 100m across,” says Wylie. Every single Facebook “like” found in the data set becomes its own column in this enormous matrix. “Even if there is only one instance in the entire set, it’s still a feature.””

www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/06/cambridge-analytica-how-turn-clicks-into-votes-christopher-wylie

Cambridge Analytica: how did it turn clicks into votes?

Whistleblower Christopher Wylie explains the science behind Cambridge Analytica’s mission to transform surveys and Facebook data into a political messaging weapon

“Almost everything Zuckerberg and his colleagues announced today focused on bringing people together. Virtual reality? It’s about letting you play Boggle with your friends who live across the country. Messenger? A tool for business owners touch base with their customers. There’s even a new Facebook dating platform for, uh, sparking “connections.” “

www.wired.com/gallery/everything-facebook-announced-at-f8-2018/

Everything Facebook Announced Today at F8

Oculus Go, Facebook for dating, and a suite of new features for Instagram and WhatsApp.