Catalyst

Trojan Horse: Ever wonder why some web pages take forever to load? On today’s episode of Track Changes, Paul and Rich explore the mess that is the internet. We take a look at three different websites to see what’s hiding behind them, and what we find is not pretty. From ad-tech to unknown JSON files, the results are surprising and confusing. 

Links: 

New York Post 

The Atlantic 

Chartbeat

Mixpanel 

New Relic 

New York Times 

Scroll

Wirecutter 

AMP 

uBlock

Privacy Badger 

Ghostery  

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We Need Guardrails: On this week’s episode of Track Changes we sit down to discuss the big question of regulating online content. Could a class action lawsuit be brought against sites that encourage violence? How can content be screened to ensure it doesn’t lead to harm? What is the role of government in all this? We discuss these questions and many more and Paul and Rich share some online privacy tips. We also chat with Engineer, John Holdun! 

LINKS

• LGBTQ creators accuse YouTube of discrimination in class-action lawsuit alleging it unfairly restricts and demonetizes queer content 
• TikTok
• Full House of Mustaches 
• Firefox 
• Pi-hole 
• Variable Stage 
• John Holdun 

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Follow the Data: On this week’s episode of Track Changes, tech journalist Adrianne Jeffries sits down with us to talk about The Markup, a new non-profit data driven newsroom. She talks about the importance of using data to combat bias and about how using data in journalism can bring about greater change. She also addresses the shake up that happened at The Markup in its beginnings and tells us about her personal podcast Underunderstood. 

Links: 

- The Markup 

- Propublica  

- Machine Bias by Propublica

- HUD Sues Facebook Over Housing Discrimination by Propublica 

- New York Times

- Buzzfeed 

- Yelp is Screwing Over Restaurants By Quietly Replacing Their Phone Numbers

- ReadWrite 

- TechCrunch 

- New York Observer

- Motherboard 

- The Outline

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Without the user there is no product: When Twitter rolled out its new design, many users were upset with the new changes, but what comes first, the product or the user? On this week’s episode Paul and Rich sit down to chat about Twitter’s redesign. We share our reactions to the changes and delve into questions of user consultation. Also featured in this week’s episode is the second installment of our new segment Hello Postlight. In it we hear from Aimée Reed, Postlight’s Director of Product Design, who talks about where she finds inspiration for her work (Hint: get out of the house!).

Links: 

Twitter 

The Web Is a Customer Service Medium by Paul Ford 

Aimée Reed

Barbara Kruger 

Geoff Teehan

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What's the purpose of Email today? This week Paul and Rich sit down to discuss the monster that email has become. Email has transitioned away from a place to have conversation and become a function that eventually moves to another platform (usually Slack). So what is email's real purpose? Do all meaningful conversations need to happen face-to-face? Can we collectively put an end to the eight-paragraph email? We answer these questions and share the top 5 worst email subject lines (Hint: "You have a minute?" is up there!)

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

To ship or not to ship: Software is never ready, but sometimes you have to ship it. This week Paul and Rich sit down to talk about the difficulties of shipping software. We share tips on how to deal with numerous stakeholders and engineers so that you can release software on time. We also talk about the importance of setting deadlines and draw some parallels between software and Las Vegas buffets. 

Links: 

General Magic 

Tinysheet by Postlight

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Do Digital Boundaries Exist?: This week Paul and Rich sit down to talk about this week’s tech scandals. We chat about the security flaws found within email client Superhuman and teleconference software Zoom. Do these companies have an obligation to protect their client’s information? Should usability trump security? Do we have a right to be angry? If that's not enough, we also chat about summer BBQs.

Links: 

Mike Davidson: Superhuman is Spying on You

Superhuman

Zoom

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Technology is not a panacea: This week Paul and Rich sit down with Noah Brier, who explains to us why technology cannot solve all of our problems. Noah has done countless interviews with enterprises about their tech needs, and has created content marketing software for large enterprises. He shares his insights on current enterprise software trends and gives us some tips on how to better market our business. Pro tip: traditional marketing like billboards and taxi top ads give the most bang for your buck! 

Links: 

Percolate

Noah Brier’s Blog 

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Digital Transformation is like a Horoscope: In this week’s episode, Paul and Rich sit down to discuss need creation and the tech industry's move to talk about trends in such abstract language that it seems like it applies to everybody. We chat about the relationship between service providers and tech research firms and why you should be suspicious of new industry buzzwords and complex acronyms. Reminder: it’s okay to ask what that new acronym means!

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Focus on Core Needs: Lara Hogan knows and loves management so she wrote a book about it. This week she joins Paul and guest host Gina Trapani to chat about her new book and about leadership in the workplace. Lara breaks down her framework for managing different types of people and gives tips on how to adapt your management style. She also gives Paul some useful advice on where he should sit in the office and explains why moving desks can be so traumatic.   

LINKS:

Lara Hogen - Resilient Management 

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard 

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