Something I’ve been thinking a lot about - how entertainment and technology companies can Solve the challenge of digital TV.
Weekly Reading
Here are my recommended long reads for this week:
- How, When and Where Will The First Truly Great Digital Design Studio Emerge? - The digital agency landscape is changing rapidly, and small shops are ascendent. Good summary of the current landscape.
- A Guide to Practical Compassion - I’m interested in all aspects of mindfulness and one area that I’ve found I really need help with is compassion - for myself and for others.
- ‘Invisible biometrics’ detect user identity by how they use the device - I’m fascinated by alternative, passive interfaces, and this a great example of a future use case.
- Why Every Business Should Consider Innovation Teams - The skunkworks model of innovation continues to be popular, and this article displays why.
- Is design a part of mainstream startup culture now? Absolutely. - Good article on the importance of design in startup culture.
- Creative People Say No - I love this article. It explains why creative people have to be good at filtering distractions from their primary work - and that means saying “no”. Great read.
"Time is the raw material of creation. Wipe away the magic and myth of creating and all that remains is work: the work of becoming expert through study and practice, the work of finding solutions to problems and problems with those solutions, the work of trial and error, the work of thinking and perfecting, the work of creating. Creating consumes."
"AirBnb baked design in from day one — taking the time to design the entire user experience from the maps to the review forms. Warby Parker? Same thing. CEO and co-founder Dave Gilboa thoughtfully discussed that they spent a year and a half designing a beautiful site, thick card stock printed elements in their packaging, and a really polished product. And Medium? They’re competing for designers because, as Williams stated, “they’re no longer a nice-to-have."
—On-the-nose article about the increasing role of design in start ups.
Weekly Reading
Here’s a lis of the long reads I’m enjoying this week:
- The Money Shot - Very interesting and in-depth profile of Instagram’s meteoric rise.
- “Second Screen” Industry In Prime-Time - I’ve been fascinated by the ways in which the so-called “second screen” is both replacing and augmenting the entertainment experience. This article has numbers to back it up.
- The grand ambitions of Google Ventures - The interactions between VCs and startups are always interesting - and even more so when a big company like Google gets in the mix.
- From Beethoven To Woody Allen—The Daily Rituals Of The World’s Most Creative People And What You Can Learn From Them - Inspiring (and humbling).
- Haruki Murakami and the Art of Japanese Translations - A discussion of one of my favorite authors and translations both lingual and cultural. Great read.
"Startups ask almost everything of you. They are entirely consuming. If you don’t deeply care about and deeply believe in the thing that you’re trying to do, the things, the problem that you’re trying to solve, I don’t know how you can sustain the pain and the energy requirements."
—Gentry Underwood and Scott Cannon, founders of Mailbox. Via Fast Company.
The Flattening of Design
It might sound audacious to think that Microsoft, the arbiter of uncool, was at the forefront of design a few years ago. But it was. (shared via Pocket)
Sonder (via Reddit)
