Since South by Southwest is coming up, I thought I would post about Free by Free Free, or as the legions of fans and true believers refer to it, FxFF. It was an event that was born in 2014 as I was doing my taxes while others were out enjoying SXSW here in Austin. My inbox was full of party invites,...
In business and the arts, the differerence between hope and despair, energy and stasis, and awareness and being lost is sometimes just the difference between being able to think of at least one conceivable way that you might get out of your situation. If doesn’t matter if the path you have conceived...
Many people fantasize about quitting their job to finally write that novel. Or start that business. Or change their career. Or hike that mountain. Or whatever. How do you know if you should do it or not? On the one hand, it worked for Thoreau, right? On the other, there’s the familiar phrase,...
Your Favorite Book From Last Year Think of a book you read maybe a year ago that had over 200 pages. One that you loved and recommend to people. You thought it was great. Now, without looking it up, take out a pad of paper and rewrite the book. Ok, that’s a lot to ask. Write a 20 page sum...
Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights by Steve Portigal I bought this book to help improve my beta testing hosting skills. I’ve been able to get good feedback from people in the testing sessions, and I’ve done some reading on how to interview users but I wanted to expand that knowle...
This idea originally came out of my “AI For Moral Reflection” post, but it took on a life of its own. #post. It is a more generalized version of “The Museum of You Work Here Now”. There’s a concept in confidence training (and other trainings) of acting “as if”. Less formally known as "fake it 'til y...
One popular type of video posted on social media is the “reaction video”. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a video of someone watching a video. Typically the video they are watching is surprising or shocking in some way. In many reaction videos you don't even see the original - just the expressions on the...
I searched the web for articles on how museums use or could use AI. Here’s some of the more common uses: Use AI predict no showsUse AI identify and catalog artUse AI providing voice assistantsUse AI sentiment analysis for visitor comments But here’s the one I like the most: Deciding which art stays...
The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning by Paul Bloom It’s been ages since I posted about a book I read. Here’s one I read recently that had some ideas related to IRL experience design, though designing experiences was not at all the focus of the book. Why do people eat...
I’ve been reading David Byrne’s book, How Music Works. In the book, Byrne explains and ponders many, many facets of music and music industry. Among them were his observations of CBGB’s and why the club became such a scene. Amongst the principles he posits are “Rent must be low - and it must stay low...