Published in Nonfat Design·May 11, 2019Member-onlyAre you “doing” agile, or are you actually being agile?Folks who are new in tech, when faced with real-world business constraints, always try to reach for “agile” as a silver bullet. Let’s implement scrum! Story points! SPRINTS! Yay! Innovation! Let’s show our managers our burndown charts so they know WE MEAN BUSINESS. Perhaps, forgetting that “Agile” is a process…Agile5 min read
Jan 22, 2019Embracing React Native for Lean Mobile Development (Part 1 of 2)A look into how and why we migrated the TenX Wallet apps to React Native — Disclaimer: I’m no longer working at TenX. This post is the original article I wrote and published on the official company blog, while I was an employee. …React7 min read
Jan 22, 2019Embracing React Native for Lean Mobile Development (Part 2 of 2)A deep dive into how and why we migrated the TenX Wallet apps to React Native — This is the second part of a two-part post. You can read Part 1 here, where I introduce the context and motivation behind our decision to port our standalone native iOS/Android apps to a unified React Native codebase. “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been” …React10 min read
Published in Nonfat Design·Oct 28, 2016Member-onlyThe new “Creative Professional”The story of Apple and Microsoft, and their wildly differing ideas of what it means to be a creative today. — Apple’s new touchbar-equipped, port-deficient MacBook Pros reflect the new realities of what it means to be a “creative professional” today. It used to mean graphic designer / illustrator / 3D artist / video editor / motion graphics designer / audio engineer / photographer.Apple4 min read
Published in Nonfat Design·May 23, 2015Member-onlyThe Problem and not the Tools“It’s important to teach problem solving, or teach to the problem and not the tools. Let’s say you’re trying to teach people about how engines work. A more traditional approach would be saying, ‘We’re going to teach all about screwdrivers and wrenches.’ This is a very difficult way to do…Education4 min read
Published in Nonfat Design·May 8, 2015Art or Design?It’s often said that Art and Design serve different masters, or perhaps they are the masters that all manner of human creation serves. Art is said to ask, and be useless, and Design is said to answer, and be useful. But is this a symbiosis or a dichotomy? …Art2 min read
Published in Nonfat Design·Mar 13, 2015The future is too much for most people to handle.The future is too much for most people to handle. features ≠ benefits Sci-fi writer William Gibson famously remarked that “the future is already here,” it’s just not evenly distributed. And the reason it’s not evenly distributed could be it’s out of reach to most people. Or that new technology isn’t ready for mass adoption. …Tech2 min read
Published in Nonfat Design·Feb 24, 2015The Unexpected Virtue of IgnoranceWhy it’s flawed to recognize creativity with awards. — The “middle ground” The problem with Oscar voting is it tends toward the middle ground. Is Birdman better than Boyhood? Not necessarily, it just means fewer people think it doesn’t deserve an award. And the divisive films — the ones we either love to bits or hate to death — lose out in…Creativity4 min read
Published in Nonfat Design·Feb 3, 2015Member-onlyContent isn’t culture.Culture is what’s valuable, not content. — Is it any wonder that Apple (and Google) is famous for baking culture into their products? A decade ago, in the Information Age, Apple wouldn’t have succeeded as well as it did. But we are now in the Connection Age. In the Information Age, content that sold was, well, information. …IMHO5 min read
Nov 18, 2014A video response to the Spotify-Uber allianceA video response to the Spotify-Uber alliance “You pay so much fucking money for these cabs, you should have the option to listen to whatever kind of music you want.”1 min read
