Catalyst

Shared Crisis: When a stressed client comes to you with an urgent request, it's hard not to panic. The tight deadlines may seem daunting but there are ways to mitigate the crisis. Paul and Rich share their insights on how to lessen stress, limit expectations, and simplify processes to get a product shipped quickly. Some pro tips: take a breath, create a sense of shared responsibility, reduce risk,...

Apologize later: Renowned tech journalist and writer Steven Levy chats about his new book, Facebook: The Inside Story , which peers behind the scenes at the biggest social media monolith of our day. Levy breaks down how he convinced Facebook to give him inside access, what was happening there during the 2016 election, and why Mark Zuckerberg loves Caesar Augustus so much. Caution, books spoilers a...

Paul and Rich have a follow up discussion about Marc Andreessen’s newest article and ask the important question: How can we connect and empower people to create crucial tools for society when the industry has become so transactional? Are we able to create necessary social momentum when there’s no money involved? Paul puts out a plea for Postlight to create a software development kit for education...

There’s a reason to expect criticism: Paul and Rich dig into the newest article from VC Marc Andreessen. In it, Andreessen exhorts Americans to innovate and blames our lack of preparation for the pandemic on a lack of desire to do so. We reflect on the current state of America and how apparent the holes in our social governance have become since COVID-19 (especially the education system). Is there...

Brand Safety: Parse.ly founders Andrew Montalenti and Sachin Kamdar chat about their analytics platform and share the content trends they are following during the global pandemic. They discuss how publishers and media outlets are being impacted by COVID-19, and the myriad ways that advertising and brand safety are changing. They also share how to give clarity to clients in a time of uncertainty: w...

Scripted Interactions: On this week’s episode of Track Changes, Paul, Rich, and Gina chat about ways to keep your team focused and on track when working remotely. How do you create urgency to make sure things get done? How can you keep people focused during remote calls? They discuss the need for clear communication and accountability, and share some tools to help structure meetings and interactio...

This isn’t remote, this is pandemic: On this week’s episode of Track Changes, Paul and Rich chat with friend and client Tim Meaney about when things could return to normal and if they should return to normal. We reflect on some of the positive changes that have come from this pandemic, like more time with family and getting rid of inefficiencies. We also talk about the importance of resilience and...

Excelsior: In this episode of Track Changes, Paul and Rich discuss the new Apple-Google contact tracing app aimed at tracking the spread of COVID. We explain what contact tracing is and how the app works. We chat about the potential difficulties of onboarding these types of apps and whether the app will be able to help the most vulnerable. We also discuss how we can best combine technology with go...

Priorities as a leader: On this week’s episode of Track Changes, Paul and Rich sit down to discuss how the pandemic is impacting business and mental health. Priorities are changing, so what comes first? In juggling health, family, and work, it’s important to give employees space and empathy. But work can be a welcome distraction from the news and rising COVID-19 numbers. Links:  Yeti Nano  Screen...

The Grind: This week on Track Changes, Paul and Rich chat with Postlight’s Head of Engineering Jeremy Mack about all things video games. Jeremy teaches us about current video game trends. We learn about loot boxes, battle passes, pay-to-win games and the controversy surrounding these types of monetization. We also get some great indie game recommendations and chat about the future of gaming. Warni...

Specify like a caveman: This week on Track Changes, Paul and Rich are joined by Gina Trapani, a managing partner at Postlight, to talk about statements of work (SOWs). We chat about Postlight’s unique SOW process. We talk about why we base our approach on trust and relationships rather than just time and money. We also talk about managing risk, what to do when someone oversteps their original dema...

Craft and Quality: This week on Track Changes, Paul and Rich chat with Vice President of Partnerships and Community at InVision, Mike Davidson. We chat about everything from tomato seeds, to shower heads to how to lead a remote team and the ups and downs of remote work. Mike shows us that the one thing these all have in common is they can help simplify your life to help you dig deeper into the thi...

Work from home: This week on Track Changes, Paul and Rich chat with Postlight’s head of engineering Jeremy Mack about ways to improve your remote work setup. From basic tips like getting dressed in the morning and using wired headphones to tips on how to navigate remote meetings, Jeremy shares the best practices he’s developed after 6 years of working remotely. He also gives us some examples of no...

Big thoughts: This week on Track Changes, Paul and Rich sit down to discuss how branding impacts product design. We chat about how branding is critical when designing products, and how helpful it is when the brand comes first. Of course, that’s not always the case. We talk about the challenges of developing brand and product simultaneously and ways to deal with the complexities that come with this...

There’s no secret knowledge: This week on Track Changes, Paul and Rich are joined by Postlight managing partner Gina Trapani to do a follow up on our previous episode about intranets. Gina explains why she was annoyed that we didn't know we had an intranet. From there we discuss why management and employees often need different tools and talk about what makes a good leader. Protip: a good leader i...

Campaign Design: On this week’s episode of Track Changes Paul and Rich chat with political reporter Hunter Schwarz about political design trends. He breaks down the forms of visual design he’s seeing in political campaigns today and gives us an overview of the evolution of political design. He also tells us about how the Obama campaign in 2008 changed political visual branding and about the rise o...

People want to be heard: This week on Track Changes, Paul and Rich bring on their design team to talk about The Design Elephants -- Poslight’s quarterly event dedicated to tackling difficult issues within design. From there we go onto discuss one of the main ways agencies find their clients, the RFP. Paul and Rich share their thoughts on the process as a whole and how they prefer a more genuine an...

Keep it simple: There are a million different to-do apps, what makes one stand out? This week on Track Changes Paul and Rich chat with Doist founder Amir Salihefendic. He tells us about how he grew Todoist from a side project he would work on in his dorm room to an app that now reaches 20 million people. He also tells us about his struggle with venture capitalists and about the importance of persi...

Action Items: On this week’s episode of Track Changes Paul and Rich sit down and share their top 5 tools that keep them productive. We chat about our favorite to-do apps, calorie counting apps and about apps that will make your meetings more productive. From simple tools to complex tools, we share our secrets for staying sane and productive at work.  Whimsical   OmniGraffle  Visio  Navigator  Bloo...

Control your data: This week on Track Changes Paul and Rich sit down to chat about storage and subscriptions. We talk about Paul’s new network attached storage setup and why we consider it to be the third wave of computing. We also talk about ongoing and annoying online software subscriptions and Rich gives us some good tips on how to remember to cancel those subscriptions before your free months...

Tools to manage your tools: This week on Track Changes Paul and Rich discuss the best way to keep track of company communications and tools. Our verdict, an Intranet. We lay out what an Intranet actually is, what it should and could look like and why it’s so important in an age of using too many apps at once. We also make a pact to build a functional intranet in the next six months. Wish us luck! ...

Still in reactive mode: On this week’s episode of Track Changes we continue off from last week to talk about broad trends in information technology in 2020. This week we dig into the more unsettling trends, like foreign interference in elections, a need for better and more proactive laws that govern internet use and cloud service confusion. We also chat about the return of bundled content creation...

The year to come: On this week’s episode of Track Changes, Paul and Rich sit down to discuss some of the top trends to look for in 2020. From codeless platforms to Product Led Growth we chat about some of the biggest trends in tech right now. We share our thoughts on new products and discuss whether some of these trends should actually be trends. We also talk about the craziness that could be 2020...

Friction is introspection: How did the iPhone come to feel like an intuitive thing to use? This week on Track Changes Paul and Rich sit down with UX designer Cliff Kuang and co-founder of Dalberg Design Robert Fabricant to talk about their new book User Friendly: How the hidden rules of design are changing the way we live, work and play . We discuss the history of the concept and how it’s become s...

Catering to the masses: On this week’s episode of Track Changes, Paul and Rich sit down to discuss the mess that is app stores. We chat about how the race to produce more and more content and why trying to cater to as wide an audience as possible is making for frustrating user experience. We also discuss our dreams of getting rid of in-app micro-purchases and the need for better app reviews.  Link...