When I worked as a sales guy for the now-defunct Canadian retail chain Future Shop, my colleagues and I were constantly at each other’s throats for “scooping” customers. It was survival of the fittest — a limited number of sales to go around on any given day. In that environment, lack of ethics was a […]
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A recent message exchange with someone on Twitter has once again left me pondering the profound impact that AI will have on life in the near future. She approached me to ask if I’d like to write blog posts for a “conversational AI” company. Her pitch was terrible, with no clear ask, a bunch of […]
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Last week I interviewed Murat Pak, the creator of @Archillect, an artificial (or synthetic) intelligence that curates online images. As people’s reactions started to pour in, one pattern above all caught my eye. Certain people were stunned when they realized for the first time that their favourite curator of beautiful, inspiring images was not, in […]
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Each day Archillect peruses her favourite sites for new images that she thinks her 160K followers will appreciate, and the sheer size of her fan base suggests she’s very good at what she does. A quick glance at her Twitter or Facebook feeds shows a keen eye for stark, striking images and a remarkable breadth […]
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Recently, I shared an article on Twitter with the caption: “The internet is freaking out over this analysis of the best/worst Clickbait titles (not really, nobody cares).” Within three seconds, it had been “hearted” 74 times by accounts that all had the exact same content. None of them said anything to me, and none of […]
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Seventeen was a great age for finding others with shared interests. Because of the structural limitations of high school, everyone you knew was getting most of the same information as you. They also knew all the same people. Additionally, at least when I was seventeen, most people shared the same cultural references because we got […]
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“A talented but meek creative personality can never join the pantheon of the greats, because timidity leads to mediocrity.” – George Lois, Great Ad Man of the 20th Century Ever feel like you’re a voice in the wilderness? No matter how hard you try to spread your best ideas or work, nobody seems to be […]
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You may have noticed that little blue progress bar in the top right corner of my pages of late. I’m working on a new writing project called Spendshift — a series of lazy hacks to help people free up time and money. Because I think I can hit 50% completion on the project today, I […]
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Yesterday I made a spreadsheet. The result? Digital carnage. There’s nothing quite like a ruthless digital hack-and-slash to get the blood pumping. Using the Pareto principle, commonly known as the 80/20 rule, I had a good, honest look at which of my digital accounts were actually useful, and which were leeches on my time and […]
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