No filler no bullshit no holdbacks – let’s do this:

1. Research time is a privilege. Not a right. Not every design project gets the luxury of research time – and I might even add – sometimes – you really don’t need much. Unless you’re at a pure play design shop like Frog or IDEO who literally sell design research – most places need to jump straight into delivery. Learn how to do rapid research – and how to understand the world through freely available data. Google Trends, Twitter advanced search, Reddit – we’re surrounded by data for insights into ethnography, trends and what the world is trying to figure out right now. Just because you know how to research doesn’t make it your most useful tool. Get practical- get to work.
2. Your value is not in the amazingness of you design chops (whaaaaaat) – no really – your value is where you slot yourself into a larger puzzle of people – and the gaps that you fill in that puzzle. Maybe it’s several pieces worth, and you’re a productivity driven, studio god(des) who literally scales output. Maybe you’re great with clients and don’t need a handler. Maybe you’ve invented a process that removes a few humans altogether (you scum you). Your value is the simplicity of the return on your investment. Figure out what you’re worth – based on your part of the team – not whether you’re the best player in it. Those players never evolve. Don’t be that person.
3. Beware of “career stewards”. Don’t try to shortcut the path to career growth by asking for directions. The only person who can steer that course is you. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying not to take advice or to find a mentor. Those are crucial to your growth. But don’t expect mentors, parents, managers or anyone else to tell you what to do next. The faster you learn how to figure that out yourself – the faster you go faster… know what I mean? Next.
4. Don’t choose a job based on what you’ve heard in the news. The news doesn’t know what’s actually happening inside a business. Only what their PR firms want them to know – or what their enemies want to leak about them… which can sometimes be their own employees – and in that case – think twice. But other than that – be weary of places from magazines and other mainstream outlets. Be aware of people you know on LinkedIn who might be a little older than you – and see where they stay. Job longevity amongst your friends (who don’t hate their lives) is a great sign of a good place to work. Which brings us to…
5. Network Now! Don’t wait for a career fair or internship program. You’re as passionate now as you’ll likely ever be – show that shit off man! Do the next step – and then use it inside of this one. Some ground rules though – when I say network – I don’t mean add everyone on LinkedIn. Have an agenda – find someone based on where you think you want to be. You’d be surprised how many talented vets are out there who would be happy to talk to up and coming talent… at least the smart ones are anyway. They need new talent.
6. Innovate ahead of your peers. That’s how I got my first design job. Threw up a really cool flash site (yes I have gray hair) and promoted it in a few spots I knew recruiters were looking (thank you Craigslist) and boom. Hired by a major agency. And yes – it was insanely competitive. I was hugely under qualified – and yet this worked. BUT – it was way harder to do that back then. Squarespace makes it easy – you need to find the next thing. Maybe write an article on AI driven XD for IoT devices on the blockchain.
7. Be a polyglot – learn the culture of business and the culture of technology. Read up on what they’re teaching MBAs – do the same with what they’re teaching comp sci students. There are a ton of free classes online from Stanford and MIT. Have fun – dig in, speak three cultures.
8. Don’t idolize the influencers. Reverse engineer their thinking. Read their books – watch their TED Talks – every one of the great ones “open sources” how they became what they are. If you look hard enough – you’ll see how they honed their process and became good at their craft. Or better yet – you’ll know how to think the way they do. For every Tim Brown, there’s an MJ Taylor who wasn’t as easy to understand.
9. Study MJ Taylor. It’s as real as it gets for true Design Thinking.
10. Take the time to create your portfolio. It’s your GitHub Repo. Prove you can tell a story and that you had fun doing it. I don’t mean put goofy shit it in – I mean – that you enjoy your work. Show work that you’d be proud to put on Dribbble. And be honest about who you worked with – the direction you received – and how you adapted to the challenges ahead. Honesty is a far better sales tool than attempts at heroism. We don’t expect heroics from students – but we do expect honesty and hard work. You’d be surprised how often that’s the deciding criteria for a new hire.

That’s all I got – now go make a kickass portfolio, find your people, dig into the opportunities and get to work!

In mid-December — the founder of a well known Canadian bitcoin exchange died, without leaving anyone his password to his laptop. Those under him have said they’ve tried to access the exchange, but it’s been two months and no luck. NPR ran great coverage on the story here: https://www.npr.org/2019/02/04/691296170/cryptocurrency-exchange-says-it-cant-access-millions-after-founder-s-unexpected

Key Takeaway

$190 million is a small fraction of the bitcoin market, but the story is part of a repeated narrative of immaturity for the currency. This is yet another story about an entire exchange that has died because of a lack of succession planning or effort to design a business.

On the flip side — bitcoin’s value hasn’t fluctuated much since this story hit mainstream news sources — indicating that this issue has become par for the course, rather than a shock to the public.

Google estimates news sites in the EU will lose 45% of their traffic due to new copyright reform

The EU has been trying to move forward with new copyright laws to combat fake news. A large chunk of the proposed laws put the onus on media platforms to ensure that all content is appropriately associated to real content owners. This includes adjustments to how news sites will feature headlines to ensure that they can’t use dark tactics like clickbait.

Google and several other media platforms have responded by forecasting what these changes will do to the media industry — specifically that traffic to these websites will be cut in half as audiences will be far less likely to be compelled to read content with less interesting headlines.

https://thenextweb.com/google/2019/02/07/google-copyright-reform-eu-article-11/

Key Takeaway

Google clearly has its own self interests in mind here, but putting that aside — these reforms are more likely to not only reduce traffic, but eliminate the value that audiences see in media sources — namely as entertainment sources.

It’s unfortunate that journalism is mainly an entertainment source these days, but until that turns around — creating punitive measures for attracting eyeballs is the wrong approach, and will decimate whatever journalism still exists in the EU.

If this goes through, or worse, creates precedent for North America — we can expect a much faster death to the category.

A new type of ‘printed poster’ will be able to tell you the current weather

A small design shop in Melbourne, Typified, has launched a kickstarter campaign for paper that changes its ink to tell you the weather. The changes can be fairly slow, but hey, they figured out how to make paper work like a computer screen — that’s epic in my books.

It’s essentially a high quality piece of paper with a tiny computer plugged into it that makes the ink move around to change icons, texts and colours. Almost like a steampunk version of a computer screen.

You can check out the full project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1806793473/a-poster-that-knows-the-weather-first-updating-pap/description

Key Takeaway

A few weeks back — I talked about Subtle Design — the idea of products that fit into the background and only appear when we need them. This product alters that idea by taking materials that we expect around our home, but allows them to adjust to new data. If more products like these start coming to life, it will be very likely that we’ll be surrounded by data without feeling like we have TV screens everywhere.

It’s a very comforting idea, and is a very important one for the future of Experience Design, as we think about the role that data plays in a soon to arrive future where we don’t have to worry about cramming everything into a phone screen or laptop. This makes our data far more ubiquitous across our every moment in a pleasant way.

Originally published at jonlitwack.com on February 11, 2019.

Inventing the future helps you predict the future, The three year plan is now obsolete and The emergence of transparent influencers

Inventing the future helps you predict the future

This is part of an on-going series at Farnam Street that I’ve really been enjoying called The Knowledge Project. It’s focused on how smart thinking can be thought of in a structured way. This week’s podcast features an interview with one of the founders of VC Firm Lux Capital. https://fs.blog/josh-wolfe/

Key Takeaway

The future is about people. Relationships with people, and continuing to meet interesting ones that are shaping the future. Taking that one step further — it’s not about the tech per se, but the voices behind it, and their purpose.

The McKinsey Horizon’s model is obsolete now due to the rapid pace of technology

What were once five year plans, which then became three year plans, have popularly become Horizon models over the last two decades. If you’re unfamiliar — it’s a great model for determining how to focus a business into three areas: The core of the current business, new adjacents to the business and net new business concepts. It’s worth a read here: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/enduring-ideas-the-three-horizons-of-growth

Now that you’ve read that — you can throw it all away. Fundamental to the idea of the three horizons is the notion of how long it will take to achieve them, but thanks to massive advances in technology — the old five or three year plan are completely out of date.

One of the best examples being Uber and their ability to rapidly create new businesses through prototyping and testing. Check out the full article here: https://hbr.org/2019/02/mckinseys-three-horizons-model-defined-innovation-for-years-heres-why-it-no-longer-applies

Key Takeaway

The future / immediate here and now is all about speed to market, and you don’t need to set up a factory or full company to do it anymore. Prototyping has replaced business planning — which may mean a new breed of management consultants who need to have a massive focus on tech over traditional management thinking.

Jerry Media gets called out over their theft of content — promises to change their ways

Jerry Media — known for the world famous Instagram account — “fuckjerry” — has been called out for consistently “curating” content from others and posting it as their own. Those who have recently watched the Fyre documentary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_(film)) may recognize them as the media agency that was responsible for promoting the festival that never happened.

In recent weeks — comedians have banded together to promote Jerry Media’s theft of ideas from Twitter, Instagram and other channels, created by comedians with less popularity.

In a response, the owner has stated that they will assign credit where its due from here on in. https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/2/18208446/fuckjerry-elliot-tebele-meme-joke-aggregator-repost-new-policy-change

Key Takeaway

It’s surprising that this behaviour hasn’t been stopped or called out before — especially in a medium where everything is easily trackable, but at the end of the day — maybe we turn a blind eye to who we get our content from — so long as we see it before our friends do.

This is hopefully a trend toward more authentic influencer relationships with their audiences as it becomes easier to call out those who have built up their empires through less than genuine means.

Originally published at jonlitwack.com on February 4, 2019.

Over the past few weeks, a social media challenge has gone viral in which people post pictures of themselves from ten years ago next to a photo from 2019. It seems fairly benign and not any different from any other trending hashtag, but if you peel beneath the surface — these days, it’s likely just another ploy to get people to hand over personally identifiable information. In this case, you’re helping someone train AI on how to age a face by ten years, but it may be for something far darker.

Shoshana Zuboff has just published a book about the larger issue beneath these types of social campaigns, and does a great job explaining the full ecosystem and ill-intent from the companies that are pushing it all forward: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook

Key Takeaway

EVERYTHING you do online is being used somehow to sell something to you, or condition you to buy something later. Be vigilant in your use of your own information, whether it’s a photo or text.

Project Alias prevents Alexa and Google Home from eavesdropping on you

Using 3D printing, a startup has created a brilliant addon for Smart Speakers that sits on top of them and muffles the microphone with white noise. The only way it can listen to you is if you say “Hey Alias” instead of “Hey Google”. Check it out here: https://fossbytes.com/project-alias-prevents-alexa-and-google-from-eavesdropping-on-you/

Key Takeaway

Similar to how we saw malware removal software and ad blockers in the early 2000s, we’re now starting to see similar devices pop up to combat digital eavesdropping. I won’t be surprised if new players emerge in the market to play against the Googles and Amazons of the world — based on a mission to give power back to consumers… Or one can hope — or do it ourselves.

With the US government shut down creating financial issues for their workers — thousands of them have taken to online donation platforms to keep themselves afloat during the crisis; however, as it turns out, they’re not the only ones. Apparently these tools have been used for the past few years by families that can’t make ends meet, students who need an extra pay bump, and those who need medical payment support. All of this is being summed up now as “The Begging Economy”: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3m59p/we-are-living-in-the-begging-economy?utm_source=reddit.com

Key Takeaway

As we get closer to a recession — these stories are the hallmark of the complete collapse of the middle class — as they start looking to digital tools to ask strangers for money. It’s begging, but without having to sit on the street.

There are other tools like these coming on to the market, and we’re likely to start seeing many more creative ways of making money beyond our day jobs.

Originally published at jonlitwack.com on January 21, 2019.

Most of my day is spent talking to colleagues and clients about improving their digital ecosystems. Nearly every one of the conversations I get into about ecosystems results in someone saying something like

Have you heard about Periscope?? We should think about how we use that!

Don’t get me wrong, Periscope and all the other new channels that have come up are great… But we have more important things to worry about than how we use all of them. Here are the two most important ones:

What’s our objective?

Why are we having this conversation in the first place? Is it for more sales? Awareness? Either way — our first step isn’t in figuring out the right channel. It’s probably in figuring out what’s missing in our current content strategy, or if there’s something preventing people from buying something off your website.

Do we already have something that will accomplish our goals?

My father always said (and still does) — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I couldn’t agree more, and wish more people were brought up with this wisdom. Most of the time, the basic parts of an ecosystem will satisfy our goals, because unless our goal is to “Try Every Social Channel”, chances are, you can sell your product using your “tradigital” website.

Typically the answers to these questions allow us to stick with what we already have, and focus on answering the big question that we rarely nail — who is our audience, and what do they want?