Distilled

In this episode, we consider the impact of compassion and empathy on the user experience of a digital interaction. By tailoring your product to account for the personality traits of each individual user, you can deliver a more rich and emotionally compelling experience.

From 3D printing to BitCoin to exciting new mobile/technology products, it's been an amazing year. We make some predictions for 2014, which we hope to be wrong about. Thanks to our listeners for a great year!

From text editor features to commenting standards to continuous integration and git flow, this whirlwind tour of effective process will help you organize product engineering projects. We hope you learn something. We certainly did.

Often, sales and marketing folks push hard for amazing features that will make it easier to sell the product. Engineering pushes back, trying to balance delivery milestones against limited resources. Inevitably, there is tension involved. This episode dives into one possible strategy for success in this hostile landscape. That is to embody the expression, "if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your new product, you waited too long to publish."

Special guest Dr Sophia B Liu talks with Aubrey about collaboration and its role in crowdsourcing. Together, Aubrey and Sophia designed and built an app that uses crowdsourced data to improve mathematical models for predicting coastal change as a result of storm activity. Dr Liu's ongoing research at USGS explores the roles of students and citizen scientists in the collection and curation of big data for geospatial systems.

This week's discussion highlights the distribution of themed interactions within mobile apps. We consider the architecture and design implications, how the theme syncs across many devices and how this affects the visual design process.

Ned Pope, president of Florida Next Foundation, joins the program to discuss his role in facilitating the birth and evolution of non-profits. We explore the many parallels between commercial start-ups and non-profits and highlight some of the stark differences. In a completely predictable twist, the conversation shifts toward the uncanny overlap between musicians and technology entrepreneurs. Look for more episodes with Ned. He's always good for an unexpectedly amazing story. Plus, he's just two doors down the hall... :)

In social dynamics and product development, we encounter this problem. There's an awful lot going on, and we need some mechanism to help filter the firehose down to something we can actually drink. In this episode, we discuss some processes and techniques for cutting through the noise to find the signal. Enjoy!

So, I guess this week, there was an IPO in the technology industry. Seems like this Twitter thing is actually a thing somebody thinks will make money somehow. Maybe we should talk about it, I guess. And other cool stuff too. Yeah.

In our first live recording with an audience, we discuss e-textiles and wearable electronics. Thanks to Tampa Bay Wave for having us during the Wave-O-Ween pumpkin carving party. Happy Halloween!