During my week working in the Pivotal Labs office in LA, I spent all–yes–all of the time doing pair design. Here’s a recap on what that was like, what’s awesome, what’s hard and what’s next.
http://pivotallabs.com/design-pairing-can-two-designers-really-share-a-screen/
A short bit from the Extreme Roundtable at the Pivotal Labs office in LA. Surprisingly, ‘Should developers design’ got the most votes as a conversation topic!
http://pivotallabs.com/finding-the-middle-for-designers-and-developers/
Last week I joined Pivotal Labs, a full service development consulting company. I wrote my first post on their blog about my transition from working in-house to consulting. Read it here:
http://pivotallabs.com/what-in-house-design-taught-me-about-consulting-part-1/
Stroll down 18th street or visit Baker Beach on any day of the week in San Francisco and you’ll find so many people out, you’ll think it’s Saturday. You won’t be the first to wonder if anyone in this city of workaholics is actually working.
I left my full-time job and took an unstructured staycation of exactly one month. I wanted to reconnect with people whom I’d lost touch, spend time writing and reflecting and improve my diet, sleep and exercise routines. My only restrictions were from traveling, shopping and developing new technical skills. Otherwise, life was an open book.
For a thirty days I led a flexible schedule lifestyle like my friends who are artists, freelancers, founders, bartenders, night-workers, Lyft drivers, students and on the rare occasion: those who are unemployed.
The first week was a blast.
I scheduled bagel breakfasts, strolls for fresh-squeezed juices, tea times, Taco Bell trips, park hangouts and visits to art exhibitions. I leaned on momentum from working life and completed item-after-item of third priority todos on my Asana task list. At first, my weeks were booked before they even began. That part of my life had unfortunately gone unchanged.
But during small pockets time when I was alone amidst my flurried schedule, I could see I was busying myself. I did this because I was nervous about feeling lonely or bored.
I reduced my calendar density and scheduled activities only one day in advance at most. And eventually, blocked out days where I would see no people.
And actually, I did get lonely and bored which was uncomfortable and sometimes very unpleasant.
During some long coastline drives and flora-filled hikes I thought about people who say they wish could win the lottery or sell their startup and never have to work. I can’t imagine ever wanting that now.
But there was a lot of joy to be had as well.
I happily spent time at home cooking, cleaning, biking, listening albums, reading entire Economists, welcoming surprise visitors and watching all nine seasons of Scrubs.
I put together a new site for my music visuals content and took on a few exciting VJ gigs. The time off gave me opportunity to push my creative reach while performing live and work on art installations I’d like to make in the future.
I stayed out late on weeknights for music and took weekend nature trips with friends.
And after years and years of wishing I could capture the serendipity that comes with traveling in a new city, I finally figured out how to do it at home.
I wanted to spend this time off ‘being here now’ and resisting my natural instinct to get on an airplane going anywhere. Now that I’ve dipped in the oceans, sat in the sand, hiked in the woods, napped in the parks and flurried in the winds, all at home, I can rejoice that it’s May.
Why?
Because I’m allowed to jet set again! But this time, with the intent to sit still when I land. I’m punctuating this wonderful month with my friends in the desert, my favorite nature scape of them all, at the Joshua Tree National Park.
In my final week off, I found myself building prototypes, writing about design and ready and hungry to work. Now that I’m drenched in Vitamin D, at Inbox 0, and have a completed task list, I’m back at the beginning but with a new perspective.
And now, after having actually taken time to do it, I’m much better at stopping to smell the roses.
Yesterday marked the end of many things, including my employment at Twilio. Great company, smart people, wonderful friends. The day brought many cupcakes, a Swanky tea time and one alphabet-singing toddler.
Today, many new beginnings.
Some say we’re in an age of ignorance. And why? We have more information than ever before. It’s just too much.
I’d like to revisit some thought’s I’ve explored about reinventing the news. Let’s discuss how I expect to see news storytelling taken out of the traditional vacuum of websites or apps and integrated into our lives when its most useful.
Though my days as a traditional journalist are over, I still frequently think about this problem. Well, that and how my reporter friends can get paid to report.
Why don’t people read? Why don’t I read? Why don’t people care? Why is it so hard to know what’s happening in the world? Why isn’t there more time? In fact I spent a year of graduate school working on this problem.
Context in storytelling
I made Newskite which collected audio snippets from people around the world. Each caller answered a question what they were hearing about a certain global event like the Earthquake in Japan or the protests in Egypt. What this did was give a global and real context to a geographically centralized problem–truly showing the human impact on world events.
Personalized News
What I’d like to see is something similar to News.me, a personalized news concept I made that predated Newsite. It leveraged the power of social feeds and individual data to write news stories for you. It did not recommend news your friends liked–that does not work in an age if ignorance. It figured out how you, the reader, are linked to some news story that any one of us might otherwise ignore.
Today on the New York Times Front page I see Kenyan Part Says Vote Count Should Stop. An article that seems unrelated to my daily going-ons. But if smart machines could scrape my data and see I once participated in earth hour, am potentially concerned about energy conservation, the elections in 2007 led to power outages and it’s a risk again, what impact that could have on other energy resources and how that influences what happens in my backyard. There are infinite ways to draw links between what’s happening somewhere far away in the world to what happens in my daily life. I then wanted to use natural language processing to rewrite stories, using the inverted pyramid, actually personalized for each reader. And beyond that, have editors, actual people, prioritizing news topics and stories about what to display on the ‘front page’.
But now is not a good time for that. For people uninterested in news, they just will not visit your app or website. No matter how incredible your site. If people don’t care, they don’t care. In this case, we’re not in the business of changing behavior. However, integrating news into people’s lives where it’s useful and welcome is a smart thought.
Let’s look at the travel industry
It’s still quite difficult to get around the world. Flight costs, hotel prices, cost of food, etc. It’s getting easier, and in a few years transportation technology will change how we geographically move around the world. We’ve already seen this happen in lodging and flight bookings. Services like Airbnb, Tripit, Hipmunk all have a vested interest in making
Because of this, I see an opportunity for travel services to have a vested interest in integrating global news stories with truly personalized smart content into their products.
Perhaps my upcoming trip to Costa Rica has potential to be seriously influenced by the recent news about Hugo Chavez. Or if I’m choosing which dates to go to Buenos Aires, it’s great if they can tell me the wine season has been wonderful. There are so many tasks that come with planning a trip, reading the news rarely is a priority and it’s nearly impossible to even know about what to start reading. Knowing what’s happening in the world can help me decide where, when and how to go there.
A service to do this doesn’t exist yet and I’m not interested in becoming a founder right now, so please by all means, take this idea and run with it. And as always, if this idea is hogwash, I want to hear your thoughts.
Let’s get out of the business of shaming people for not being informed, but of making relevant information available when they need to know it.
December is a special month. Here’s a roundup of my favourite December mixes that look back at 2012 and take us into the new year. They’ll get you through the bitter cold, long car rides, sleepy airplanes and hopefully while wrapped up under warm blankies with warm people in a warm place.
Karmon – Diynamic Radio Show (Diynamic, DIY)
Midsland; House
This mix has barely been out for a day and I’m loving it. He starts off with the beautiful and sexy Frank Wiedemann & Ry Cuming track Howling. It’s completely acoustic and has me melting every time. It then takes you through a smooth and straight dance mix. It’s housey, rich and stays warm and dabbles. This one, your family might like.
Atish – Dark & White (Listed, House Heads)
San Francisco, Melodic Deep House
I think Atish is in a good mood this month. This mix like many of his will get you wiggling, smiling and in a grooving. But he brings something new to the table. This mix is in true form a melodic deep house mix, but is made for the wintertime. It’s steady and is obviously off the heels of his last and more technical sounding mix, Orbit. This mix makes me want to hold people I love.
Vinayak^a – Lonesome Train Album Mix (Wind Horse)
Bangalore, Progressive
This is a progressive mix, especially the first half. Like many of Vinayak^a’s mixes, it’s eclectic in range and will absolutely remind you there is great dance music being produced outside Europe and North America. For all the house heads in the room, there’s something in here for you too. You’ll love this mix when you hit the treadmill or track for the first time on January 1st after two months of eating pies.
Blackstock – 217.13.205.171 (Less is More)
San Francisco; Techno
With the re-launch of Less is More, SF pal Alex Blackstock, brings a new mix series ABX with serious techno, it does nothing more than drive straight forward like a bullet. It’s technical, hard and steel. You’ll want this one while you’re waiting on the El train Platform with your toes frozen and soaked from walking in slush or shoveling the driveway for mom or dad. But fear not of this brushed metal, the ABX series isn’t made for grinches. Make it to the end and your heart will also grow triple in size.
Mark Slee – DST Nightfall (Listed, House Heads)
San Francisco; Tech House
Here’s the first mix from Slee after his sensual and emotional Slinky series. Taking us down a different path, he plays out darker sounds, new textures but still the keeps the long tones and bells floating in the background that he loves so much. While this DJ is a family man, enjoy this mix with your favourite friends and one too many hot toddies.
Close your eyes, there’s so much more to see. Here are three spots in SF caught in your blindspot that you won’t want to miss. 
1. Oscillations – sound and lightscape
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in the Room for Big Ideas, Th-Sa, 3 minutes, Free
Dip into the the YBCA for an immersive and sensual experience. The installation space, curtained off for one person, made with wood, electric fans, lights, speakers and custom technology takes you through a 3-minute intense 360 light and sound experience. I attended the live performance of the scape but actually much prefer the solitary experience off the YBCA lobby and have been three times with many more to come. The installation will be on display until 13 January 2013, so it’s not to be missed. Read more about artists Surabhi Saraf & Sebastian Alvarez’s but wait to watch the video until you’ve felt the warm heat on your face and cool fans on your arms, yourself. You have one more month to enjoy this city’s gem.
2. Audium – Sound theater
1616 Bush Street San Francisco, CA 94109, Fri, Sa at 8:30, 1 hour, $20
Enter this sound-sculpture space created in 1975 and seems to have barely changed since for a truly unique experience. Artist Stan Shaff hosts an hour-long expression of live and recorded audio pieces for those seeking something truly experimental to hear ranging from obtusely abstract to comfortably familiar sounds. It’s rumored that the 40-year old theater will be shutting down and the shows change from month-to-month, so there’s no better time than now.
3. Float Matrix – Sensory Depravation
Nob Hill Wellness Building, 815 Hyde St. Lower Level, Mo-Su by appointment, 1hr, $75+
Lay your mind and body down in a shallow pool of water and 1,000 pounds of salt. With earplugs in, the lights off and the scentless water the temperature of your body, this is as close to feeling nothing as you’ll ever get. Your mind, relieved of all the sensory input processing takes many into deep relaxation or significantly emotional and creative places. I’ve experienced all three and have been twice. The owner has changed into good hands since I’ve last attended but this has been one of the best and most rewarding San Francisco experiences I’ve had. I cannot recommend this enough. In simpler terms, it’s the best tool for meditation, focus on the present and self-awareness.
I spent time at Twilio working with Kyle Conroy learning to work with data and processing to build a live data visualization of calls being made on Twilio. Read the full post on Twilio’s engineering blog: Visualizing the heartbeat of Twilio
Teeny tiny apps, designed for the details, can save us a click or show us something more pleasant. These little technologies refute the default settings to bring you something more efficient or more beautiful and likely a few less clicks.
For Chrome
1. Currently: a better new tab
Ditch the harsh-colored visited links thumbnails and and shiny apps buttons in Chrome’s new tab window for a beautiful display and animation of the time and weather. Customize the look for a fresh start in every new tab. I love this for its quiet colours and soft animations.
2. Awesome Screenshot: the best screen grab app
Finally a tool to help me take a screen grab of an entire webpage. Gone are the days of stitching together multiple images in Photoshop. This plugin also lets draw lines, arrows and annotations. Thanks @WookieBoy.
3. Text this to me: send links from your browser
Now for a nice little extension that will text your mobile phone a link to whatever URL is currently open in your browser. I love this because it’s faster than emailing or messaging a link to myself. This is especially handy for hard to remember long and wonky URLs. And yes, of course, it’s built on Twilio.
For Mac OS
4. Breakaway – SmartPause: silence the music when you unplug your headphones
Breakaway is brilliant. You’re grooving along to Prince and someone trips over your headphones or you quickly rip out the audio cable in a hurry to a meeting and now everyone in your office or the silent cafe is now also listening to When Doves Cry. Breakaway knows when your headphones are plugged in. When you unplug, the music pauses; when you plug back in the music plays again. As it should.
5. DragonDrop: hang onto pictures and snippets from window to window
With a small shake of your mouse, DragonDrop will save an image, text snippet and many other goodies into a small modeless window on your desktop. Need to email a picture to a friend? Skip saving it to your desktop and let the DragonDrop give you a hand. Thanks Atish.
6. Little Ipsum: Lorem Ipsum when you need itFor iPhone
7. Dropbox iPhoto Sync
Work your way around using hardware or iCloud to syncyour iPhone photos. Visit the settings panel in the Dropbox iPhone app and switch on the Camera Upload switch. Then, every time the Dropbox app is open it will upload your pictures from your iPhone to a Dropbox folder on your computer. I recommend opening up the app when your iPhone is plugged in and charging otherwise the screen will lock and stop uploading. Thanks @immunoglobulin
Ifttt: Make your Instagrams your screensaver
Borrow my Ifttt (If This Then That) recipe that saves each of your Instagram images to a Dropbox folder. Set your screensaver to make a slideshow of all the images in said folder and poof, you’ll enjoy a personalized, beautiful flurry of images that’s always updating itself with photos you’ll be happy to see.
9. Solar Weather App
This weather app, with gorgeous colours, animations and gestures with and nearly no buttons is my favourite way to get a quick look at what the day will feel like and weather in other cities. I love their product video too. It has a spot on my homescreen.
More lovely apps
This is my third installment that shares some great under-discovered apps. Check out other services below and let me know in the comments if I’m missing out on other goodies.
– Brilliant (free) Services for better reading online
– Seven online services that do more than mail you lipgloss
&ME – Data Transmission – Podcast 278 (Keinemusik)