Thieves, Androids & iPhones

Katy Tur, for “NBC New York”http://bit.ly/rxeZiC: A pair of would-be robbers targeting Columbia students in upper Manhattan seem to be rather picky as they prowl. Twice… the suspects demanded the victims hand over their iPhones, police said. The first victim … Continue reading

The anti-social networkers

Jenna Wortham for The New York Times Tyson Balcomb quit Facebook after a chance encounter on an elevator. He found himself standing next to a woman he had never met — yet through Facebook he knew what her older brother … Continue reading

How investment bankers killed customer delight

Steve Denning, Forbes — Cisco vs. Juniper: Delight or Die! In the 1980s American business discovered quality and started getting into the quality business. They had learned from Toyota that the best ideas came from the bottom up. They recognized … Continue reading

The four stages of creative thinking

Tony Schwartz, The Atlantic — How to Think Creatively 1. Saturation: Once the problem or creative challenge has been defined, the next stage of creativity is a left hemisphere activity that paradoxically requires absorbing one’s self in what’s already known. … Continue reading

Headline of the week

From Trevor Gilbert The Cycle Wherein Apple Creates A Product And People Copy It And Then “Improve” Upon The Design And Then People Ask Apple To Do The Same “Improvements” And Apple Doesn’t And Then People Get Mad At Apple … Continue reading

The invisible side of design

Great presentation from Vitaly Friedman. The key takeaway from Friedman’s presentation can be found on slides 42 through 44: Users stop noticing web design if it works. Users keep noticing design if it’s broken… or when it gets in the … Continue reading

On Jobs’ Apple and Page’s Google

Scott Cleland, Forbes Jobs’ Apple specializes in delighting the most discriminating, hard-to-please customers. Page’s Google specializes in satisfying the least discriminating customers: the long tail; the automatable; and those that can’t complain because the Google product or service is free. … Continue reading

How to procrastinate and still get things done

John Perry, writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education: Structured procrastination… converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time. All procrastinators put off things they … Continue reading

Mobile phones are the new internet

For some of us who follow the trends prevalent in the mobile and internet industries, the writing on the wall has been clear for quite some time — in the developing world, the majority of people’s first experience of the … Continue reading

Amazon is on Fire

Chris Espinosa, Fire But what this means is that Amazon will capture and control every Web transaction performed by Fire users. Every page they see, every link they follow, every click they make, every ad they see is going to … Continue reading