Innovating at the bleeding edge
Meet the dudes who put Sylo’s production in motion.
Our Co-founder and Product Director Ben Jordan and Head of Design James ‘Jimmy’ Carolan have been part of the core team bringing the Sylo vision to life since ages ago.
They’re two pretty humble dudes who work creatively, under fire, on a daily basis. Through them, the Sylo app comes to be. First imagined by Ben and then executed via James’ direction.
Read on to get to know them better.
Which part of production at Sylo is your specialty/responsibility?
James: I’m responsible for the day-to-day side of the production department; making sure it runs as smoothly as possible.
This involves making sure we are on track for release milestones, as well as figuring and laying out tasks for our design and front-end teams.
Ben: I oversee Sylo, the product, which means I work with all the core pieces of our business to ensure we are all on track, together.
Are we building the best product? Are we making the right development decisions? Are we designing for the right people?
It’s a pretty amazing gig — we’ve got some of the best people working here and it’s awesome that things just click.
Do your family and friends understand what you do?
James: Some of them do, I don’t really go into that much detail when I speak to my friends about my job, but if they’re willing to listen — I’m willing to rant.
Ben: My friends and family know what space I’m in but not really what I do day-to-day.
With the buzz around decentralisation and cryptocurrencies, that’s the ‘job-type’ I get lumped into, which I don’t mind.
‘What does he do?’ ‘Oh, he does crypto …’
Tell us about what you’re working on at the moment:
James: Apart from my daily UI/UX debates with the design team…
We’ve compiled the results from the usability testing we recently conducted and I’m now in the process of planning and laying out the next period of work for our designers and front-end team.
Ben: At the moment we are working on a number of features which will really let more people into our world.
We have started opening up to other developers so that they can build features that work inside Sylo. This has been a really fun experience and it’s exciting to see other devs pick up our code and use it.
We are working through the core Connected Application flow… E.g. how do we allow use of the keychain safely, how does a user control access to their data, how does a Connected Application developer access blockchain functionality on behalf of the user?
What part of your area of work do you find most challenging and why?
James: Being fully-decentralised comes with big challenges both technically and in the user interface.
We want everyone to use Sylo but also need to be realistic and concede that not everyone cares about decentralisation. What everyone likes however, is really good UX — we think it needs to be simple and intuitive for everyone.
So, to answer your question, I think the most challenging (and most exciting) area of my role would be bridging the gap between the decentralised and centralised worlds without our users getting confused or irritated.
Ben: Managing expectations. It’s a brand-new space and we are breaking new ground.
Felix, our lead dev recently said to me, ‘Imagine the damage we’d be doing if we were centralised?’ and he’s right. We’d have the perfect, bug-free product out in no time, but it wouldn’t solve any of the problems that we are here to solve.
There is no question that building decentralised tech is 10x harder, but it is that challenge that gets us out of bed each morning.
What do you think ‘the next big thing’ for your area of tech will be and why?
James: Sylo :)
But if I had to pick something else it would be the utilisation of digital assets.
Imagine if anyone could create a digital asset, assign a value to it, then exchange it with their mates, their family or whoever. The possibilities for digital assets are endless, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how that develops.
Ben: Data sovereignty.
There will be an ‘aha’ moment for the world some time soon, when it will be obvious that you don’t need to give a company unfettered access to you when you interact with them.
Kind of like how it’s obvious now that you don’t just hand out your credit card details to strangers online.
Two years from now, that conversation will be like this:
‘What? You just told them who you are and everything about you? You probably shouldn’t have done that Mum…’
What issue relevant to our industry concerns you the most right now and why?
James: Our industry has been plagued with speculation, misinformation and companies that promise the world and deliver nothing.
Some companies were able to raise significant amounts of money because there was crypto currency bull rush, not because of their tech.
Here at Sylo, we’ve been developing fully decentralised technology for years — long before blockchain was a thing.
But I feel like we are sometimes tarred with the same brush as the imposters who gave our industry a bad name.
Ben: For me, it’s the risk that a few big companies end up doing everything. I don’t think this would be a good outcome at all and at the moment there is a very real possibility that this could happen.
Flipping the data model on its head (changing who owns this data) will make it more difficult for a possibly quite dystopian scenario to unfold.
I am hopeful that all the work happening in the decentralised space will ensure this doesn’t happen, and that it will lead to much, much better outcomes for consumers.
What’s a misunderstood thing about your job that you’d like to clear up?
James: When you’re head of design — you don’t do much designing!
For me it’s more planning and setting out future work.
Ben: I don’t think there’s much I’d like to clear up :) Always happy to answer any questions though!
Make a prediction for where technology will be at in five years time:
James: Five years is a lifetime in tech, so it’s hard to predict. But in saying that, I think that there’s no doubt that AI will enrich our lives, just in what capacity it’s hard to determine.
Decentralised apps and trustless systems will become the norm and Sylo will be the most used app in the world :)
Ben: This is a very broad question!
We won’t have teleportation down pat but we might have interplanetary travel sorted.
Big corporates will still be around, but big networks will be their biggest competitive threats…
—
Next week, we’ll be helping you get to know our business side, with a close up on our Co-founder and Business Director Dorian Johanninnk and Partnerships Manager Neil Morrell.
In the meantime… Got a question? Want more info?
