Long Podcasts & Interviews

Top 50: Technology

The O'Reilly Design Podcast explores how experience design -- and experience designers -- are shaping business, the Internet of Things, and other domains.

O'Reilly Design Podcast

O'REILLY

The full version of "We All Become" from the Transistor Original Soundtrack. Get it here: http://bit.ly/TransistorOST

Transistor - We All Become

Please note: this conversation starts about 10 minutes in -- by this point my wife and I are both completely flustered by the oppressiveness of the rep.

So! Last week my wife called to disconnect our service with Comcast after we switched to another provider (Astound). We were transferred to cancellations (aka "customer retention").

The representative (name redacted) continued aggressively repeating his questions, despite the answers given, to the point where my wife became so visibly upset she handed me the phone. Overhearing the conversation, I knew this would not be very fun.

What I did not know is how oppressive this conversation would be. Within just a few minutes the representative had gotten so condescending and unhelpful I felt compelled to record the speakerphone conversation on my other phone.

This recording picks up roughly 10 minutes into the call, whereby she and I have already played along and given a myriad of reasons and explanations as to why we are canceling (which is why I simply stopped answering the rep's repeated question -- it was clear the only sufficient answer was "Okay, please don't disconnect our service after all.").

Please forgive the echoing and ratcheting sound, I was screwing together some speaker wires in an empty living room!

Updates:
7/15 - Comcast has issued an apology: http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-statement-regarding-customer-service-call
7/16 - I have continued to reiterate publicly that I do not want Comcast to terminate the rep, and that I believe the call itself belies a deeper, systemic dysfunction:
https://twitter.com/ryan/status/489576392250519552
https://twitter.com/ryan/status/489576399636676609
https://twitter.com/ryan/status/489576406301413376

Comcastic service disconnection (recording starts 10 mins into call)

For promotional use only. (c) & (P) 2015 Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

Buy Bloodborne

Bloodborne: Cleric Beast

"Everything you do or don't do leaves an imprint on your self-worth." - John Assaraf

If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/400

The School of Greatness: Exploring Greatness from Inspiring Business Minds, World Class Athletes and Influential Celebrities

On iTunes

EP 400 John Assaraf: Unlock Your Brain's Full Potential (and the Neuroscience Behind It)

This week, I sit down with Travis Lowdermilk senior UX designer at Microsoft, and Jessica Rich, UX researcher at Microsoft; Lowdermilk and Rich are also co-authors of the "Customer Driven Playbook." We talk about why failing fast is not always a good approach, sensemaking, and never losing track of the customer’s voice.

Travis Lowdermilk and Jessica Rich on Building a Customer-Driven Culture at Microsoft

Renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman shares his passion for translating the complexities of cognition into mind-blowing inventions and educational material for the masses. The public-television host, bestselling author and Stanford adjunct professor speaks with Tina Seelig of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program about his decision to leave the lab and dedicate his life to bringing scientific discoveries into the world.

David Eagleman, Tina Seelig - A Brainy Approach to Innovation

This week, I sit down with Cynthia Savard Saucier, director of design at Shopify and author of Tragic Design. Saucier also is keynoting at Velocity in New York, October 1-4, 2017. We talk about moving from working in design to leading designers, the real and sometimes negative impact that design decisions can have on users, and how design is organized at Shopify.

Cynthia Savard Saucier on Design at Shopify

In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Cheryl Platz, senior designer at Microsoft for the Azure Portal and Marketplaces. We talk about the challenges of working on a top-secret design project, the research behind Amazon's Echo Look, the skills you need to start designing for voice, and how studying improv can make you a better designer.

Cheryl Platz on Designing the Amazon Echo Look

In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with John Whalen, chief experience officer at 10 Pearls, a digital development company focused on mobile and web apps, enterprise solutions, cyber security, big data, IoT,  and cloud and dev ops. We talk about the “six minds” that underlie each human experience, why it’s important for designers to understand brain science, and what people really look for in a voice assistant.

John Whalen on Using Brain Science in Design

In this week’s Design Podcast, I sit down with Julie Stanford, founder and principal of user experience agency Sliced Bread Design. We talk about how to get in the rapid experimentation mindset, the design thinking process, and how to get started with rapid experimentation at your company. Hint: start small.

Julie Stanford on Vetting Designs Through Rapid Experimentation

Joe Rogan Experience #1080 - David Goggins

Three themes from Detroit: Become Human, each focusing on one of the title's main characters, and each scored by a different composer.

Detroit: Become Human launches May 25, 2018 on PS4.

Detroit: Become Human — Connor Main Theme By Nima Fakhrara

Demon's Souls (Original Soundtrack) - Flamelurker

Jon Bruner and Mike Loukides talk about the classical music publishing industry and how it's being disrupted by projects like the Petrucci Music Library (http://imslp.org/) that make public-domain scores available online.

The future of classical music

Jim Stogdill, Edd Dumbill and Roger Magoulas have a conversation about in-memory databases and the impact on real time analysis. Leave questions and comments for us at http://radar.oreilly.com/2013/05/talking-about-in-memory.html

Talking about in-memory

Jon Bruner, Mike Loukides and Jim Stogdill from O'Reilly Radar muse on the return of software to the physical world.

Software and the physical world

Jon Bruner, Jim Stogdill, and Roger Magoulas talk about anthropology in big data, advances in JavaScript, searching for ancient civilizations, the importance of context, and good sites for checking the weather.

Related blog post: http://radar.oreilly.com/2013/06/radar-podcast-anthropology-big-data-and-the-importance-of-context.html

Anthropology, big data, and the importance of context

Jon Bruner, Jim Stogdill, and Roger Magoulas talk about what's been on their minds this week: the NSA's surveillance programs, what defense contractors will do with their technology as defense budgets dry up, and a Californian who isn't doing what you think he's doing with hydroponics.

For more on these topics, and links to the things we talked about, see http://radar.oreilly.com/2013/06/radar-podcast-the-internet-of-things-prism-and-defense-technology-that-goes-civilian.html.

The Internet of Things, PRISM, and defense technology that goes civilian

O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators. At O’Reilly, a big part of our business is paying attention to what’s new and interesting in the world of technology. We have a pretty good record at having anticipated some of the big technology developments in recent history. For instance, we launched the first commercial Web site, GNN, in 1993; we organized the meeting at which the term “open source” was first adopted; we were early investors in Blogger, which helped launch the blogging revolution; and more recently, our Web 2.0 conference launched a world-wide meme. We call this predictive sense the “O’Reilly Radar.” And while we’re certainly not always right, we are, at least, good at making interesting guesses.

Our methodology is simple: we draw from the wisdom of the alpha geeks in our midst, paying attention to what’s interesting to them, amplifying these weak signals, and seeing where they fit into the innovation ecology. Add to that the original research conducted by our Research team, and you start to get a good picture of what the technology world is thinking about.