Friends, founders and product owners. I love you all. But if you stand in front of a mirror as say “AI” as part of your app store or website value proposition copy three times, I will come for you. You know who you are. “X is an AI powered journal” “Y is an AI powered…

The hubs and I had a discussion a few weeks back, about Etsy, of all things. No, not a “I bought too much shit from Etsy” discussion. A discussion on it’s economic model. And a lot of it reminded me of the talking points I hear tossed around in startups, in tech culture, on work culture in general. It basically came down to how economists model…

Designing for a state of flow — A while ago, I went nuclear on every notification on my desktop and iPad. I killed them all, apart from one slack channel, which by default is not open. I check into it at intervals that work for me. I did this because I realised these notifications were a constant…

(and Theresa May) — This article was inspired by a small article in the The Times a while back (I’m not able to find it today) which claimed that it wad “Bad Data” that cost the conservative party votes in the snap election. I’d been joking about how the Evil Queen from Snow White…

There are two ways to make solid design decisions, but I’m going to start by telling you the wrong way, the way that too many companies use because it feels safer and easier. — There’s a way that’s guaranteed to crush the soul of every person in the project and result in unambitious, bland, ultimately forgettable products and increasingly lower standards within your team. That way is Consensus. “Consensus: “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in…

Stakeholders don’t always know what’s going on on the ground. And before social media, they didn’t care. This is not profound, just a story from my own life to demonstrate why I do believe Ja Rule had zero clue as to what was being organised, because I’m 100% sure B.A would fricking die if they actually knew the hell they paid someone put their customers through while…

Parrot for President My parrot’s name is Floki and he is our future president. Folki was born like you and me, helpless and small. Except for having a beak and claws. And hatching. But we will overlook that for the sake of “the narrative” of feeling represented by President Parrot. …

In the last few weeks I’ve seen what I can only call algorithm anxiety. The algorithm is fracturing society by bubbling us in echo chambers. Well, I’m going to tell you why it’s not Facebooks or Googles fault people are “bubbled” and why changing their algorithms: 1) will make no…

After Amazon’s physical book stores, Barnes and Nobel plans a physical Nook store to be launched this year. One of the challenges of that (prototype) store is going to be the digital experience,” CEO Boire told conference-goers. “I don’t think until you’re fully connected — mobile, desktop, and store —…