Designing Intelligence, Update 3.0

Joe Toscano⚡️
Aug 22, 2017 · 6 min read

First, just let me say thank you to everyone that has signed up for this book. There are now almost 1,200 of you on the list now. This is insane to me. I haven’t purchased a single ad, and have rarely mentioned it on my social media, besides these updates, which means each of you found me or were referred to the waitlist list from me directly or someone you knew and were interested enough to subscribe.

You don’t know how much that means to me. I couldn’t be more excited to have such an incredible amount of people committed to this! Thank you :)

As for the book, there are three big updates this time. Here they are in TL;DR form:

  1. I left my job to focus on the book.
  2. The list of experts, the quality of content, and the team I’m surrounded with has only gotten better.
  3. One more push back, for good reason.
  4. I’m beta testing the book. Want to get in? Scroll down.

And here’s the long version:

1. I left R/GA

If you didn’t already know, I left R/GA. There are several reasons, but most important being to focus on the book and the end product you’ll be receiving. Things have gotten busier than I ever could have expected and it was distracting me from doing my best work in the office.

If you’d like to read a more in-depth explanation of why I left and what I’m doing, check out this article I wrote about Why I’m Leaving the Golden Handcuffs of Silicon Valley Behind to Educate the World.

2. The book is only getting better

In February I shifted gears from creating a book that was a grouping of unpublished articles tied together with some extra info, to a commitment to making one of the most valuable books you’ll buy this year.

From March to early June I sent it to over 40 people, around the world—experts in the field, students I’ve taught, people in other countries that speak different languages — all to test the content. I wanted to know if it was valuable info, if it was accessible to less technical audiences, and if it crossed language barriers. The feedback was incredible.

Now, after restructuring the content I’m doing one more round of refining with the world-class technical leaders I’ve been blessed to connect with along the way. Whether our interactions consisted of interviews, one-on-one workshops, or working together hand-in-hand this book wouldn’t be the same without these people:

-Nandini Stocker, Head of Voice Design at Google
-Hugh Dubberly, CEO of Dubberly Design Office and co-creator of Apple’s film “Knowledge Navigator”
-Brian Rommele, Voice First thought leader, consultant, and field expert
-Chris Messina, former Uber and Google, current thought leader and gatekeeper of the bot community
-Fabricio Teixeira, Creative Director of Experience Design for R/GA
-Ryan Germick, Principal Designer of Google Assistant Personality, as well as Google Doodles
-Omar Pera, CEO of Reply.ai
-Ilker Koksal, CEO of Botanalytics
-Arte Merrit, CEO of Dashbot.io
-Dan Gailey and Nathan Ross, Founders of Radbots
-Stephane Nguyen, CTO Assi.st

The new focus is to outline how conversation plays out in a future of ambient computing, which is destined to happen as more and more devices are connected to the internet with powerful technologies like Machine Learning and other, more advanced Artificial Intelligence capabilities running in the background. There’s no doubt that ambient computing is the future of computing, and conversation will be one of the primary ways we interact with these systems.

In the past few months I’ve also sign on to work with a world-class editor, named Ellen Kleiner. She has been editing since before I was alive, and has done work with international publishing companies like Wiley Publishing, Penguin Publishing, Sun publishing, and many more. She’s also won a long list of awards including being named one of ten Outstanding Women in Independent Publishing by the Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Oh, and if you didn’t notice the cover pic, the book is beginning to look like something I never could have imagined but always wanted thanks to one of the best designers I’ve had the pleasure to work with (and one of my best friends in San Francisco), Jessie Sohpaul.

3. One last push back

However, as frustrating as I’m sure it is to hear, I’m making one final push back. After talking it through with Ellen and connecting with experts I didn’t think I’d actually ever get to meet (it took Nandini and I over two months to connect because of our busy, mismatching schedules), I’m doing one more round of refinement before I hand it off to Ellen.

I’d like to share something with you that Ellen sent to me that made me reconsider moving so fast. About two months ago she sent me an article about the publishing industry as compared to Silicon Valley and the startup mentality, in which it stated:

When I worked in publishing in the late 1990s, my boss often repeated the business maxim, “Fast, cheap, and good — pick two.” This is the belief that it’s impossible to produce something of high quality very quickly and at low cost. Companies have to prioritize two of these and sacrifice the third…

It’s a common and unfortunate platitude that self-publishing offers an advantage in getting books to market quickly. But this is a terrible reason to choose self-publishing, because a successful launch requires months of preparation. If done right, it’s the same amount of preparation as a traditional publishing launch…

There is no secret. The faster the production, the more the quality will suffer.

As someone who has always focused on creating quality over quantity, this really resonated with me and pulled me out of my Silicon Valley rush-to-the-finish-line mentality. I know it’s been a long wait, but I promise it’s going to be worth it.

Based on the last cycle of refinement, I’m expecting this round to be finished by October sometime, at which point I will hand it off to Ellen to start doing the heavy edits before it gets brought to life.

The plan is then to leak one chapter a month to those of you on the waitlist as Ellen gets done editing them. So, I’d say you can probably expect to start seeing content coming your way in October.

But that also means you need to be signed up for the waitlist!

4. Beta Testing Time

Now, in order to start spreading the word and educating the world about this content, I’m traveling the world speaking with those interested in learning about this stuff before the book comes out since there is a process that I can’t speed up. I left San Francisco 7/27 to travel, speak at conferences and Meetups, in classrooms, at private events, and more, across the globe.

I‘ve been on the road for over three weeks now and have visited Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. I’m on my way to Austin, Dallas, Denver/Boulder, and Chicago over the next month and I’d love to connect with you when I’m in the area!

My first talk with Cascade SF back in early July.

After that I go to Brazil and then finish out the rest of the U.S.traveling through Nebraska (my home state), Kansas City, Detroit, Nashville, and others. I’m planning on making my way to the other side of the globe as well, although details are still getting worked out. More details on that when we finalize the dates.

If you’d like me to stop through your city, please reach out and we’ll figure out a way to make it happen!

For more updates on where I’ll be and when, check out DesigningIntelligence.com.

I’m getting booked up fast, but I’d love to connect and figure out a way that I could visit you. I don’t really care if it’s a big conference, a ten person meeting room filled with your team, or just a place filled with people interested in creating the future. I want to educate anyone interested in creating an inclusive future, through technology.

If you’d like to book me please reach out to me directly at yo@realjoet.me or ping me across the internet @realjoet. I’ve had a few of you reach out and I’m stoked when you do. I’m more than happy to help. Let’s do this!!

RE: Write

Thoughts and stories from Studio, a product design masters program at CU Boulder, dedicated to re:working, re:designing and re:imagining the world of design and technology.

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Joe Toscano⚡️

Written by

Founder, BEACON // Contributor, @smashingmag @adweek @invisionapp // prev XD, @rga @google. Changing the world w/ a smile, design & some code.

RE: Write

RE: Write

Thoughts and stories from Studio, a product design masters program at CU Boulder, dedicated to re:working, re:designing and re:imagining the world of design and technology.

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