Sorry non iPhone users this one isn't for you 🙏

Notifications can control your life if you're not careful.

Now, I would definitely consider myself as someone who is addicted to technology, I've fallen into the trap of being constantly distracted by it. Throughout 2017, I took extreme measures to recalibrate, organise, and alter my approach to tech.

Near the end of the year, I found myself running people through some of the steps I've taken to regain control and be more mindful in how I use my iPhone. I thought rather than repeating the conversations over and over I would start writing.

This was reinforced by something Robett Hollis said recently on a LinkedIn Daily video:

"You can't scale the one on one conversations"
- Robett Hollis

This comment really resonated with me. Those of you who know me, will have at some point had to sit through a detailed explanation (even if you didn't ask 💤) about all the benefits of an app or product. In the essence of scalability and simplicity I'll start by sharing three of the many apps that changed the way I interact with my iPhone! 👍

#1 Bear

Bear Writer has given the way I capture and organise notes a complete overhaul. The past has seen me using the likes of Apple Notes, EverNote, OneNote, Google Keep, IA Writer, Sticky Notes, and of-course physical notebooks. All of these have their pros and cons and I settled for some messy middle ground which as you imagine or have experienced means your notes are all over the place.

I discovered Bear when it popped up on the Apple App Store as part of the editors choice showcase. I immediately downloaded the free version because I liked the look of the logo. Once installed the simplicity of capturing notes, articles, and links made Bear an immediate hit in my books 💯 (the fact that it supports Markdown is a bonus).

After some seriously heavy usage I really got the hang of the modern organisational system that Bear uses. Rather than creating folders and dragging notes into them you tag everything using our good friend the Hashtag (#). I believe this is powerful because it means your hands don’t need to leave the keyboard to archive and organise your notes.

I’ve since moved on to the paid annual subscription to make use of full iCloud sync which means I have now fully integrated this app into my workflow. ✅

Try it out for yourself https://www.bear-writer.com 🐻

#2 Medium

Medium... where do I start? Medium is a platform built for people which allows you to write and consume quality original stories. A commonly untapped resource by many people I meet.

During 2017 I made a small shift, I deleted Facebook from my iPhone. I found my thumb kept going back to the same spot after unlocking my device, so I downloaded the Medium iOS app placed it right where my thumb wanted to go, voila! Thanks to the addictive habits Facebook instilled into my daily routine I’ve now started digesting large volumes of content via Medium.

You are able to customise your interests and control the reading experience in a way that I hadn’t seen since “flipbook” is that what it’s called? I can’t remember because it doesn't matter.. Medium wins🏅.

Another feature worth mentioning is the Audio playback functionality which I didn’t know existed until recently (after becoming a paid member). Being a big fan of audio content such as podcasts and audiobooks this was a great addition to an already solid app.

Consume all the words you can here https://medium.com/ 📖 🎧

#3 Pyro

Pyro is Serato's latest game changer, it connects with your library (Apple Music or Spotify) and plays a seamless mix from your playlists. In my mind the app has two use cases (of course there might be more for you):

1. Extroverted Party Mode 🚀
2. Introverted Productivity Mode ✍️

In short, Party Mode is when your phone is connected to sound system at an event and you want to keep the momentum, tempo, and flow. You can take requests and create a mix on the fly but still remain in control.

Introverted Productivity Mode is perfect for when you've got a batch of repetitive tasks to smash through such as clearing email. You can add one of your dance floor banger playlists using the beautiful user interface and hit play, Pyro takes care of the rest.

Start a fire https://seratopyro.com/ 🔥

If I help one more person than I normally would discover something new then this blog post was a success.

Thanks for reading.

— Shane

What is Semi Permanent?

It’s a global creative and design thinking platform. Over 14 years, they have established a community of over 400,000 people and a network of over 800 speakers and artists, across their operation around the globe. Here are some quick background stats to give you an understanding of the platform scale:

14 years / 48 events / 12 cities / 6 countries / 800+ speakers and artists / 400,000+ attendees

We are extremely lucky to have this conference come to Auckland.

When and where was the conference?

Two day event: August 11/12 2017 @ Aotea Centre in Auckland

What was the focus?

Throughout the conference the following themes came through for me:

• Futurist / futurism
• Sci Fi
• Passion
• Blank Page
• Self Learning
• Transcendence
• Health

Who spoke?

The speakers this year were top notch 💯💯💯. Throughout the event I took pages and pages of messy notes, the act of distilling all of these into a post would have most likely result in a book of other peoples ideas. Instead, I've decided to focus on the speaker that resonated with my aspirations and values the most (see bolded below in the amazing line up of speakers).

• Amber Cartwright - Design Manager – Airbnb
• Ana Arriola - Director of Product Design – Facebook
• Ben Johnston - Founder – Josephmark
• Dean Poole - Co-founder and Creative Director - Alt Group
• Erik Klimczak - Creative Director — Advanced Technologies Group, Data Design Group - Uber
• Hayden Cox - Founder and Surfboard Designer - Haydenshapes Surfboards
• Hector Ouilhet - Head of Design - Google Search
• John Brown - Technical Director - Instrument
• Kara Place - Executive Director – Instrument
• Kelly Thompson - Creative Director / Illustrator
• Lucy McCrae - Science fiction artist, Body Architect
• Marc Moore - Founder and Creative Director - Stolen Girl Friends Club
• Mark Gowing - Founder and Director - Formist
• Michael Parekowhai - Professor in Fine Arts, Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries – University of Auckland (UoA)
• Natasha Jen - Partner and Designer - Pentagram.
• Nicholas Kamuda - Sensory Design Director – Windows Mixed Reality
• Sissel Tolaas - Smell Researcher and Artist
• Steve Denekas - Executive Creative Director - Instrument
• Tobias Frere-Jones - Founder and Design Director
• Valentin Ozich - Creative Director Founder – I love Ugly

Key Takeaway: These days speed is everything.

This takeaway is inspired by the talk from Ben Johnston - Josephmark.

Ben Johnston had a superb presence on stage at Semi Permanent 2017. He took us all on a journey of how he and his friend Josh Capelin started JosephMark (J-M) in 2004. One notable comment was that their first hire Jess Huddart is now the CEO. Josephmark is a digital product studio, who design, develop, and launch digital products that change the way we work, play and connect. They have a mantra of:

“Keep your tables clean and your walls messy”. - Ben Johnston

Some of the different projects Josephmark have delivered:

• Their own T-shirt company
• Gilimba
• Breeder
• Their own bar (apparently they have two)
• Established their own beer (Rainbow Pilsner)
• We Are Hunted (acquired by Twitter)
• Pocket Hipster
• Undertone
• Redesigned Myspace.com

Rainbow pilsner by Josephmark

Throughout these projects J-M realised they were succesfully churning out traditional businesses. This gave birth to Josephmark Ventures - A design led digital ventures lab with a systemised process of execution. The timing of founding this lab and the experience gained from the ventures has positioned them as leaders in this future thinking space. See a photo of their process below from Ben's talk:

As you can see their process is clearly articulated and transparent. The circles represent pivot points where the investment committee are able to give a 👍 or 👎, ultimately determining the fate of the venture.

It all starts with their Recon team (which I have to admit is an excellent name), the goal of this team is to rapidly take ideas from napkin to business plan. Once the plan is pulled together the venture is then pitched to the investment committee. If successful the venture is then propelled toward minimum viable product (MVP) as fast as possible. Following this is commercialisation, solidifying, and amplifying to potential customers. The key thing here is ⚡️speed⚡️:

"Speed is the new IP" - Ben Johnston

From his talk it was clear their team has an eye for knowing when to call it quits with an idea or as Ben put it “Identifying ideas whose time has come.” The following image outlines the number of ventures they are able to validate (or invalidate), monetise, and exit.

This process has seen J-M develop a networked portfolio across multiple verticals, where each venture team is helping the other.

An important note is that everyone working on a ventures has a slice of the equity pie 🥧. This means everyone is incentivised to build great products and therefore assets and over time. This approach is next level and I haven't seen a company in New Zealand offer this, yet...

My hypothesis is this joint ownership would be extremely motivating and increase staff retention in many companies. There is plenty of room for venture builders like this in the world. I'm making it my mission to contribute to getting one of these off the ground in New Zealand with a world-stage focus.

Thanks for the bout of inspiration Semi Permanent. 🙌 🙏 💯

Check out upcoming events here

We love to build great products. It’s what our team lives for at Pixel Fusion. In fact, building world class digital products is our day job, and on top of that, our team often sticks around on Thursday nights for Pixel Fusion’s weekly Hackathon (seperate to our 48 hour hackathon- more on this soon). This is an evening to work on side projects, learn new skills, and collaborate on grand ideas. Fuelled by tunes, beer (and non alcoholic beverages), food, and passion.

We’re ecstatic to finally be able to share one of our recent products "Jerry the Coffee Collector (CC)" which was a project started and delivered by:

• Thijs (Our next level intern from the Netherlands) and;
• Shane (me) one of our Business Development Managers.

Why did we start this project?

We take coffee seriously, almost as seriously as the calibre of products we build. There is always a faint sound in the distance of fresh beans being ground and our team is capable of producing cafe grade coffee (which our clients love). There is one catch, the building our studio is situated in (The Textile Centre in Parnell) has been standing for roughly 100 years which means some of the pipes are by definition old and run almost horizontal. Pipes like this don’t like coffee grounds because it can build up over time and cause an obstruction. Our solution to this dilemma to date has been a bright green 5L bucket from the a local supermarket.

Over the last two years our team size has grown significantly by more than 120% and our collective caffeine addiction is becoming stronger. A natural consequence is an increased frequency of emptying the coffee waste bucket before it overflows and leaks into the Xero offices. We had the idea to use the Internet of Things (IoT) to make this whole situation a bit more “smart”.

On the 11th of May 2017 we created a Slack channel called #cc - Project Coffee Collector was born. The project started with a brainstorming session where we decided the following 6 things:

1. We would use an ultrasound sensor to measure how full the bucket is.
2. We would use a tiny OLED screen to display info on the bucket.
3. We will connect the bucket to the internet (securely) using a Raspberry Pi Zero.
4. We won’t use a bucket instead we’ll use a slick jerrycan.
5. Oh and of course, we’ll integrate with Slack to push notifications at intervals in order to avoid the grounds ever spilling again.
6. Finally; lets name the product “Jerry” - get it?

We decided to use Python and make the entire project open source, so what follows is a breakdown of how the product works and what you’ll need in order to make your own smart jerry can or device that can measure your water tank.

(Pixel Fusion accepts no responsibility or liability, please experiment/hack at your own risk 😉 )

Key features:

• Autostart
• Real time information on LED screen
• Notifications via Slack
• Error Logging

Further technical detail on Pixel Fusion’s Github Page: https://github.com/pixelfusion/coffee-collector-messenger

Parts

• Raspberry pi Zero W (with or without case)
  • Micro Usb Power 5v
  • SD Card
• Adafruit SSD1306 128*32 led screen
• HC-SR04 ultrasonic distance ranging module
• Army Jerry can 20L
  • Dark green 0.7mm metal wall container with grenade style locking pin & cap
  • Measures: 470mm high x 350mm wide x 150mm
• Wires

Tools

• Drill
• Metal Files
• Blu-tack
• Soldering station
• Soldering iron

How it works

1. Raspberry Pi boots
2. Initialises Python script
3. Every 3 seconds Pi uses the sensor to read the current centimeters (CM) left in the Jerrycan.
4. Processes CM into a formula and outputs a % (with +10% safety.)
5. Pi updates the LED screen every 3 seconds with real time information:
6. CC / Pixel Fusion Logo
7. % of liquid in the jerry can
8. Statistics about the Pi
9. IP Address
10. CPU Usage
11. Memory Status
12. Disk Status
13. Notifications are triggered as per the table below. When a notification is triggered Pi creates the message with all the relevant data.
14. Pi sends message to a specified Slack channel (If nearly full the random team members are tagged)
15. Repeat steps 3-7

Slack notifications

Slack integration to notify team of current levels:

Randomly tags team members to empty the CC when status D, see table below:

We ask that if you create one of these yourself, please take a photo and send to Pixel Fusion: hello@pixelfusion.co.nz

If you are interested in working for Pixel Fusion, email us on careers@pixelfusion.co.nz

If you’d like to talk about this project or a new project, you can email or call me on shane@pixelfusion.co.nz or 09 353 1234

— Shane

New years resolutions don’t always work out.. unless you make them happen. One of my goals for 2017 was to attend a world renowned international conference. I’ve always been interested in going to The Next Web (TNW) Conference in Amsterdam which is held annually in May. This conference has been described as "the most intimate technology festival on the planet”.

Being a kiwi Millennial i’m saving for a property deposit while spending all my spare cash on smashed avocado and delicious flat whites, this makes it hard to pack your bags and go to Europe for a “tech conference”. Realising this I decided to proactively apply for one of the more appropriately named grants "Conference Attendance Grant" provided by Internet NZ. In a spot of good fortune the panel of judges was pleased with my application and I was selected as one of the five grant recipients for this round so I booked my flights to the Netherlands.

On 15th of May I boarded an Airbus A380 and 27 hours later via Dubai I was getting off the plane at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport with my 12kg checked luggage and backpack. After a short ~€5 train ride to the Central Station I was stunned... because sun. I quickly realised I was not going to need half the stuff that I had packed, specifically the jumpers and thermals. Note to self: pack even lighter next time and look at the weather in advance.

I took off my noise cancelling headphones (which at the time were blasting the latest Camo & Krooked Essential Mix) and stood still with the sun on my face listening to the myriad of foreign languages rush past. Those of you who have been to Europe will understand this feeling, for those of you who haven't its invigorating.. do it. For some odd reason instead of using the very extensive and convenient tram network, I decided to walk with my suitcase of somewhat necessary clothing for 1.5 hours to my hotel.

The walk was filled with beautiful canals, street art, and espresso. My hotel was a short <10 minute walk from #TNW2017 or a quick tram ride to central station.. I enjoyed a couple days of good weather, museums, bars, and restaurants while adjusting timezones. TNW know how to party, so much so they hired three night clubs on Reguliersdwarsstraat in the middle of Amsterdam near their offices for the famous opening party.

I highly recommend attending this, as it's a great way to meet people and share the excitement for TNW. Afterward I decided to head back to the hotel and catch some shut eye to wake up refreshed for day one.

Day One

I was going into the first day with an almost child like excitement, because TNW conference is no a regular technology conference it's more of a technology festival.. see map:

Pro Tip: If you are thinking of going, I recommend picking up your lanyard and cashless payment wristband at the airport on your way through. It means you don’t have to line up to get in.

First impressions were.. “What… seriously?!”. Having an event background I was overwhelmed and intrigued, thinking of the fact that >12,500 people were about to arrive. My first mission was to find caffeine, I went into the Exhibitor Area (marked 2 on the map) and the first people I spoke with were the team from Typeform (If you don’t know of Typeform, I suggest you google it). They had a decent coffee machine and knew how to make a flat white which boded well. There was a freelance illustrator who was illustrating t-shirts with what ever you wanted. It’s safe to say I left their stall feeling caffeinated, chuffed, and had already made some new connections for the next time I visit Barcelona (Hi if you are reading this).

After visiting a snippet of the 500 startup stalls that will exhibit throughout the course of the festival, I could see the masses of attendees arriving- a mix of geeks, investors, speakers, cyborgs, and tech enthusiasts. I knew it was time to try and find a good seat for the opening ceremony. One thing that surprised me is that there was no reserved row at the front. Most conferences/events you attend have a "VIP" type mentality that ends up with a half filled front row, it was refreshing and meant you could sit up the front. I found a decent seat just before the mind bending opening ceremony and connected with the people either side of me, making some fantastic connections who I look forward to keeping in touch with. The stage was backed with 2km of LED, mixed with lazers and audio equipment. See video:

After the ceremoney Boris (the co-founder and CEO of TNW) came onto the stage and shared opening remarks and introduced the MC Pep Rosenfeld who did a great job of keeping the flow of the entire conference going.. the rest of the day saw speakers from companies such as:

• F-Secure
• Niantic
• Booking.com
• Blippar
• Product Hunt
• So many more..

The general theme of the talks on day one were future focused, offering insights into trends such as:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Internet of Things (IOT)
• Virtual/Augmented Reality (VR/AR)
• Computer Vision (CV)
• Machine Learning (ML)

The speakers at TNW Conference definitely made me realise that all of the above are no longer a thing of the future, these trends need to be embraced in order to create exciting new sustainable and competitive businesses.

The event management was flawless, together with great food, coffee, solid networking, a beach themed party, and then to top it off a trip to the TQ building (TNW Headquarters and co-working space).

Day Two

The second day was just as eventful with another blockbuster line up of speakers. This day I explored more of what TNW has to offer such as the workshops, Hack Battle pitch presentations, and new exhibitors. It was inspiring to see such a vast line up of gloabl startup representatives and founders so passionate about their companies. At TNW Conference some of the exhibitors are being matched with investors in a series of 1 to 1 meetings. In 2016, participating startups raised over €14 million in funding. I'm looking forward to seeing the 2017 stats.

Some of my takeaways from the conference are:

1. Blockchain will change the world.
2. Every industry will be disrupted by AI and ML, to what extent and speed is unknown my most.
3. 55% of people millennials in Singapore would rather give up sex than give up the internet.* (according to a 9GAG study - check out Ray Chan's talk below)*
4. As privileged people we are no longer limited by technology just our ability to utilise it.
5. Make sure your technology is secure.
6. If a company knows they are building software that is addictive and don't take steps to inform their addicted users its unethical.
7. IBM Watson is a decent product.
8. Everyone should have a side hustle.
9. The transition to automation is going to be rough.
10. Computers follow instructions and humans don't.

If you'd like to talk about any of the points above please reach out

After the closing of the day, everyone has a few hours to kill before heading to the legendary after party which this year was at TQ. This is a final chance to network and swap ideas in person with a room full attendees that are all as inspired as you.

Spectacular is the best way to describe this event. Even though there is thousands of people, the layout of the festival makes it extremely easy to talk to people and create new connections. Thanks to the outstanding organisers and top notch speakers.

Here are seven of my favourite talks:

1. Chase Jarvis - Founder & CEO of CreativeLive

Creativity is the new literacy

2. Kathryn Myronuk - Faculty Lead at Singularity University

Convergence Lessons

3. Chris Guillebeau - Author of The $100 Startup

Notes on the New Economy

4. Mikko Hyppönen - Chief Research at F-Secure

Internet of Insecure Things

5. Nir Eyal - Author of Hooked

Technology is Distracting and Addictive

6. Jonathan Rochelle - Co-founder of Google Drive

Machine Learning Insights for Human Learning

7. Ray Chan - Founder of 9GAG

What Millennials are thinking

— Shane

What is Webstock? It’s much more than a conference, it’s a community of people that welcome you with open arms. The team behind Webstock; Natasha Lampard, Mike Brown, Deb Sidelinger, Ben Lampard, and Charles Bird pour their hearts, feelings and passion into making sure the event is successful, entertaining, and high quality every year since 2006. 2017 was no different — it was incredible, this year it had it all:

• Beauty
• Politics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Controversy and public apologies
• Design
• The after party!
• Highly sought after Swag
• Technical insight
• Stories

I believe that anyone who goes will gain an unprecedented amount of value from attending Webstock in Wellington each February, they even make it easy to ask your boss. It wouldn’t be possible to do the event justice by trying to cover all the value I indulged in this year, so I would like to share just three key takeaways.

1 . “You’re only as strong as your weakest link”

The first takeaway is inspired by Jared Spool’s talk Beyond The UX Tipping Point.

Jared Spool shared insight around how organisations all over the globe have teams from the executive level down, seemingly all with different understandings as to what user experience (UX) actually is. Conversely, if an organisation has not invested in UX at all, then there is a high chance they are, as Jared would say “stuck in the dark ages”, unconsciously producing highly technical products that are essentially solutions looking for a problem. Both of these issues are not ideal because they result in terrible user experiences.

Jared refers to three different levels of understanding an individual goes through on their user experience skill set development:

1. Literacy
2. Fluency
3. Mastery

These days it’s extremely important that we work toward a point where every project team member has fluent design skills. Jared says that it is a “UX Leader’s primary job to level up of the rest of the team”. We are certainly seeing the benefits of this at Pixel Fusion.

Don’t take my word for it, head over and check out some of Jared Spool’s talks and follow him on Twitter.

2. Silo based thinking is painfully common

The second takeaway i’d like to share is inspired by Kim Goodwin’s talk Scenarios & Storyboards - Getting to structure and flow.

Kim Goodwin’s talk changed my perspective on how to think and work with organisations structured in silos. By silos I mean departments filled with people that are seemingly not willing to share information with others in the same company. Kim spoke about how painfully common silo based thinking is, which is when people only think within their silos, this leads to narrow constrained views.

Kim also mentioned the best way to get people talking about a product is by going further than “usable”, always looking to add something unexpectedly good. Silo based thinking makes it difficult to create these experiences, as you are not always in control of the entire process.

Therefore, considering your part as a designer, you need to continuously think about where people have come from and where they might be going before or after interacting with your part of the process. Good experiences come from connecting silos.

Remember, in each of these silos you may be thinking of “users” or “roles” don’t forget these terms refer to “people”.

At the beginning of your user experience activities don’t be specific as doing so makes assumptions that you are most likely not ready to make. Kim challenged us to “Think big”, to consider what would happen if we ran the world - think outside your silo.

Follow Kim Goodwin on Twitter or on LinkedIn

3 . The web is for everyone, regardless of location, beliefs, and circumstance.

My last takeaway is inspired by Tim Kadlec’s talk Unseen

There are four basic elements of an internet user person that uses the internet:

• Consumer readiness - society accepting everyone can have access
• Content - what one has access to
• Affordability - cost to access
• Infrastructure - broadband, 3G, 4G, and electricity

Have a think about the device you are reading this on.. you are most likely on a mobile device that is branded with a piece of fruit or a funny looking robot, regardless there is a high chance it has a significant amount of computing power and is connected to high speed internet connection.

Now take a moment to consider how this experience might differ on a device that had significantly less computing power and you were on a dial up connection (do you know what dial up is? google it), what if this page took more than five seconds to load, would you even be reading this?

In July 2016, 3.4 billion people were connected to the internet, which was 46.1% of the global population (7.4 billion) at the time, this leaves 4 billion people essentially “internetless”. Of that 3.4 billion that are connected not everyone is on fibre, infrastructure varies from country to country. Users have a completely different experience when accessing the internet on outdated devices with connections worst than dial up.

As creators of the web everyone is responsible for ensuring we build beautiful experiences that everyone can securely access. Simple security, accessibility, and performance mistakes may be invisible to people in privileged countries and situations. However these mistakes can cause major issues for people around the globe if overlooked.

Lets not predefine, unintentionally or intentionally, who can access our websites. Put emphasis on the following components, consider them as part of your design process (hopefully you already are and this is just a reminder).

Lets not have another healthcare.gov (don’t know what that is? google it)

Tim recommends using a chrome browser extension called aXe, which is an automated tool to find accessibility defects on your website.

Tim built an awesome tool that allows you to check out what any website costs to access around the globe called whatdoesmysitecost.com. Below outlines what pixelfusion.co.nz costs around the globe (in USD).

http://pixelfusion.co.nz weighs 1.24MB.

Learn about Tim’s background here and follow him on twitter

Thanks for reading, see you at Webstock next year http://www.webstock.org.nz

Originally Published on Design Assembly