Zag To The Zig #50 :: Tech+art, Tech+productivity & forget about Users
Half a century of ZTTZ updates. ๐ for myself - I didnโt think I would reach this.
๐ to you for reading and sending me nice words of feedback.
And ๐๐ for sharing. New audiences are always welcome.
In the Gaming Room this week
Weโve got a quarantine kid in the house right now, so more time for gaming! ๐น๏ธ๐น๏ธ๐น๏ธ
And I should be happy about that (chill, boomer), because the way games are being discussed in popular media is unfair.Roblox IPO'd last week. Cue: strategic decks about how it's not a game but a platform.
All true, but you could also look at how a mainstream news channel like the BBC frames it: "We paid off our parents mortgage by making Roblox games".ย ๐น๏ธ๐ธ๐น๏ธ๐ธ๐น๏ธ๐ธ
Which brings us to the Economy Room
How much bitcoin should you own? If you're into mathematical investment models, this may help you.
The Click Economy. Last edition we talked about the difficulties of digital advertising and balancing data-use with business models.
If youโre on the privacy-side, you can wait for privacy terms to update, for regulation or you can just be annoying and install the Ad Nauseam plug-in for Chrome. It basically 'clicks' ads for you to create random data, i.e. noise to stop feeding the algorithm machine.ย
In the Tech Basement
๐ฅ๏ธโฅ๏ธ Quite meta, but definitely interesting. This is a short love story, written with the help of the language AI GPT-3, with a bit interactivity in there.
Of course someone had to challenge the NFT hype. NFT artist Neitherconfirm made a point about real ownership by fiddling with the JPGs on the platform's servers.ย Annoying troll? Or hitting the nail on the head?
NFTs are also getting the climate-criticism treatment, stating that creating rare items on a blockchain like Ethereum costs computing power and therefore energy.
Itโs a little more nuanced, though. /insert emoji for nuance-warning/
True, the Ethereum blockchain is an energy-guzzling network, but that amount stays the same, regardless of the kind of transactions. Bluntly: if nobody would be doing any transactions or creating/buying NFTs, the blockchain would still demand the same amount of energy.The battle for our thoughts is on. The Crown is a productivity-increasing device that finetunes your Spotify playlists based on the emotional reactions you have to music.
In the Office
Next time your boss starts going on about productivity, tell him (let's be honest, likely to be a 'he/him') to read these 5 reasons why productivity may not be that useful. Tell him to read it slowly. ๐ค๐ฆ
Align around shared goals. It makes it easier for people to be ok with criticism. Because what we don't need in a company or an organisation is a bunch of yay-sayers. Neil Perkin (friend of ZTTZ) explained the use case of how Southwest Airlines did just that: align around shared, but very practical, goals.
In the Attic of Innovation
I enjoyed this open and honest account. The founder of Waze wrote a post about what it was like being acquired by Google and why he left (or stayed so long) . ๐บ๏ธ
I liked this User-vs-People statement. It stops facilitators, strategists,... de-humanising people into 'users'. But this was created back in 2016 apparently.
While the design and innovation industries are slowly catching up, the creator Ted Hunt has given it a 2021 upgrade by moving onto Human-Nature design. Quite a jump, but worth a read.
Random ZTTZย
Going to film school wonโt be the same again.