This week I have learned: Basically anything useful on the internet that is useful will eventually be overridden with spam. Google seem to be blinding us with natural language processing. It's clever, but it's hardly Her. "Just talk to them" should be everyone's motto. I'm quite taken by the OKR approach. Four day weeks are weird. … Continue reading Weeknote 386: 32 Bit
Category: Themes
Yesterday at their I/O conference, Google announced a couple of new developments that place Simulated Intelligence technologies into the world of collaborative platforms. The first, Smart Compose, extends out the quick response features already available in Google Inbox from a single line message (usually things like "Thanks!" or "I'm running late!") into full-blown messages. The … Continue reading The collaboration arms race
So apparently Theresa May has asked her Brexit subcommittee to go away and think a bit harder about their two proposed solutions to the post-Brexit EU border and customs problem. One of the two approaches has been summarised as: A 'highly streamlined' customs arrangement - This would minimise customs checks rather than getting rid of … Continue reading Problem-less solutions
We are obsessed with being busy. Think about how you answer the question "How are you?", particularly at work, these days... "Rushed off my feet!" "Back to back!" "Swimming not drowing!" and other such epithets. We use busy-ness as a sign of importance, of status. Of Godliness. The Protestant Work Ethic has a lot to … Continue reading The curse of busy-ness
When you start to look at the world through the lens of User Experience it can start to become both obsessive and sometimes somewhat depressing. Where the user experience meets organisational compliance is usually the most miserable. A week or so I had a migraine. I get them a few times a year, and have … Continue reading Making things usable
This week I have learned: the stuff that goes viral is the trival - chat about iPads and croissants that look like a poo; being asked to fill out a two-page form when trying to get migraine medication on the cusp of a migraine is the epitome of user experience fail; tech events organisers - … Continue reading Weeknote 383: they still don’t get it
Back in September I started what felt like an unlikely experiment. Through work for a client I had the opportunity to try out using an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to see if I could switch from being an inveterate paper notebook user to working completely paper free. For many years now I've not printed … Continue reading The little white doo-dah that changed my (working) life
I was born in Northern Ireland in November 1970. Of all the times at which I could have chosen to be born in Northern Ireland (which of course there weren't any), November 1970 was probably just about one of the worst. Northern Ireland in 1970 wasn't a happy place. My dad was a mature student … Continue reading Ir-ish
Parking in the UK is a big business. In 2015-2016, according to research undertaken by the RAC Foundation, UK local authorities charged motorists in excess of £1.5bn and generating a cash surplus of around £0.75bn for parking their cars. But the process of paying for parking is a ramshackle and expensive affair. There are pay … Continue reading Digital parking
This week I have learned: This year so far has been busy. A couple of major projects running up to Easter has left me very much in need of the break. Good, but tired. I love running training events. They're exhausting, but there's real sense of achievement in a very short period of time. Eczema … Continue reading Weeknote 380: running out of steam
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