Babelfish Articles July-Dec 2015 10-12-15

Babelfish Articles July 2015-Dec 2015 10-12-15
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Articles #13
July-Dec 2015
Brian Crotty
Babelfish.Brazil@gmail.com

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Summary
Ten Career Lessons. ...................................................... 11
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace................ 13
Why Brands and Agencies Want to Interpret Pizza Slice Smiley Face ......... 14
Don’t Be Dated When It Comes To Data: 8 Types You Should Understand ....... 15
U.K. Marketers Will Use Fewer Agencies by 2020,........................... 16
App attack............................................................... 17
The World in 2025: 8 Predictions for the Next 10 Years.................... 20
Replacing Personas With Characters ....................................... 21
Why gamification is broken (and how to fix it)............................ 26
How Ads Work In Multiscreen Viewing, ..................................... 30
The Missing Media Metric: Reach Velocity — Part 1......................... 33
The Missing Media Metric: Reach Velocity — Part 2......................... 34
Data, Data Everywhere in the Upfront: An Overview -- Part 3............... 35
Data: A Negotiator's Point of View ....................................... 39
In ten years time your agency will be an algorithm........................ 40
Amid DMP Merger Mania, Brands Face A Changed Marketplace.................. 42
Can Programmatic Solutions Help Solve Agencies' Bandwidth Problem? ........ 43
Facebook video ads for new markets ....................................... 44
Brazil’s economy Broken lever ............................................ 45
Is TV Currency Dead? Predictions from AOL Open Series..................... 47
Why Beats 1 Could Be a Visionary Media Move .............................. 48
Our Smartphones, Ourselves ............................................... 49
Beauty Products are Best Showcased Through Library Format................. 50
Why Netflix Is Spending $5 Billion To Win The Fight For Your Screens—And How It
Plans To Do It........................................................... 53
TV Isn’t Dead - It's Evolving and Evolving Quickly........................ 54
Using Search Data To Personalize Prices, Discounts Online................. 54
TBWACHIATDAY’s Vaino Leskinen on Storytelling in Mobile Advertising ..... 55
One year in: 7 ways Time Inc. has gone digital post-spinoff............... 56
10 C-Suite Jobs Of The Future ............................................ 57
How a Warm-Up Routine Can Save Your Knees ................................ 59
Coca-Cola's Hybrid....................................................... 60
TV companies waste data potential ........................................ 61
The Uber of Agencies: Why Marketers Want to Ride With a New Kind of Shop .. 62
The CEO of WPP's massive advertising trading desk Xaxis explains the 3 biggest
myths about his company .................................................. 64
9 Year-Over-Year Data Points Every SEO Should Monitor..................... 65
Five Key Milestones In The Digital Analytics Journey...................... 67

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Guia rápido de sobrevivência para líderes Não-Y........................... 69
New employees arrive at the campus of Amazon in Seattle. The company holds
orientation sessions on Mondays. ......................................... 72
BT is attempting to buy EE for a reported £12.5bn......................... 79
Google Makes Search Analytics Data Available Through API.................. 80
9 Year-Over-Year Data Points Every SEO Should Monitor..................... 80
There's Data in Those Emojis -- and Marketers............................. 86
Should every advertiser be a programmatic advertiser?..................... 86
Automated Guaranteed. Part 1: What does it mean for buyers?............... 87
Red-State Algorithm Vs. Blue-State Algorithm.............................. 88
Programmatic TV: Lines Of Demarcation .................................... 89
US cord-cutting at record high ........................................... 91
Saving The TV Business Model ............................................. 92
Programmatic Pain Points And The Measurement Cure-All..................... 93
Video Viewability Dips On Exchanges As Measurability Increases ............ 94
Time Inc.'s digital chief: 'Transitioning takes time'..................... 95
New Data on Large Marketers - Tepid Growth, Stable TV Share (But More Digital
Spending To Come?)....................................................... 96
Context Vs. Targeting: Which Matters More For Programmatic TV? ............ 98
Execs From Facebook, Microsoft and More Will Help Guide IAB's Digital Video
Center of Excellence ..................................................... 99
Retail: Divining shiny objects from true trends.......................... 100
GOOG, AAPL Video Measurement Initiatives Won't Hurt NLSN................. 101
LatAm digital TV to double .............................................. 102
Yahoo fails to impress with digital magazines............................ 103
A publicidade vai chegar ao Netflix (e você nem vai se importar) ......... 105
All of Facebook's revenue growth since it went public comes from one source:
mobile ads.............................................................. 106
Programmatic TV: In Their Own Words ..................................... 106
In OTT market, subscriptions beat ads ................................... 108
9 great examples of content from online retailers........................ 109
Content Tips for an E-Commerce Website .................................. 115
A First Look at Nielsen's Total Audience Measurement and How It Will Change the
Industry................................................................ 116
Why you should give your partner a ‘performance review’.................. 119
Retailers lag consumers by two years .................................... 120
Theater owners are furious about netflix’s new movie..................... 120
Facebook has revealed its new multi-pronged plan for online video domination121
Telstra TV launch date and price revealed ............................... 121
Facebook to Test New E-Commerce Marketplace, Shoppable Ads............... 122
What Facebook's new emojis mean for marketers............................ 123
Dissecting Virality—The Mathematical Formula............................. 123

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Coke sponsors new eSports show .......................................... 126
Why Tesla’s Autopilot and Google’s Car Are Entirely Different Animals .... 126
Aos poucos, mercado publicitário descobre potencial dos gamers ........... 127
Virtual Reality is Coming Directly to Your Living Room................... 128
Programmatic faces threats .............................................. 129
One in five are 'cord-nevers' ........................................... 129
Digitally disrupting the habitual shopping routine....................... 130
Mars prioritises data ownership ......................................... 131
Number of OTT users growing slowly ...................................... 132
Will Apple TV End Endless Search For Content?............................ 132
Rede Globo, Ibope e manipulação de audiência............................. 133
Twitter Plans to Adjust Its Trademark 140-Character Limit................ 134
APAC cautious on Facebook's TRP plan .................................... 134
Yahoo’s Top Tips for Writing Copy That Converts.......................... 135
How we cleaned up our platform and fixed more than “fraud"............... 136
5 reasons why ESPN pulled the plug on Grantland.......................... 137
What running a marathon taught me about business development ............. 138
Copyranter on the 'shit copywriters really think'........................ 139
YouTube Fake Viewer Study, Bloomberg Expose Highlight Key Digital Ad Flaws,
Importance of 3rd Party Measurement ..................................... 140
Google to match Facebook by giving advertisers better data targeting ..... 141
Native Mobile Video Lifts Upper- and Lower-Funnel Metrics................ 142
Ambitions Hinge on AOL's Ad Tech, Verizon's Data and Their Combined Scale 143
Mobile App Report Provides Insights, Highlights Subjectivity In Assessing
Digital Media Trends .................................................... 146
Netflix takes gamble with Epix film cull in US........................... 147
Face analysis can tell what you’ll buy after watching ads................ 148
Tourism video ads boost hotel bookings .................................. 149
3 Tips for Mapping the Customer Journey ................................. 149
DMexco Commentary - Marketing Tech, Ad Blocking, Nielsen, Agencies and More150
The Future Of Luxury Wearable Tech? ..................................... 152
The Skinny on Programmatic TV ........................................... 153
O fim da linha de montagem .............................................. 153
Digital Ad Viewability Good, Blocking Bad ............................... 155
DMexco Day 1 - Walled Gardens for FB, GOOGL, Strong Presence For AMZN, With
Agency Concerns and Opportunities ....................................... 156
Video effectiveness on the rise ......................................... 157
MasterCard pursues purposeful innovation ................................ 158
Tesco and Scottish Widows consider a newsroom approach to ‘always-on’ marketing
........................................................................ 158
Why the Marriage of Data and Creativity Is Critical for Improving Brands' Bottom
Lines................................................................... 159

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Carat sets out bold, five-year programmatic goals........................ 160
Netflix will never have everything you want, and neither will anyone else 161
CX vital to brand advocacy .............................................. 162
Social media drives Nissan .............................................. 163
Deutsch’s Chief Digital Officer on How to “Kill It” in Mobile ............ 164
'Relentless relevance' drives J&J ....................................... 165
Train stations can become sales rooms ................................... 165
The Evolution of Advertising in the Food and Beverage Industry ........... 166
Why There’s No Turning Back from Data-Driven Advertising................. 167
Data Drives Programmatic Advertising In-House and Draws Publishers Together168
Mobile is a 'new ecosystem' ............................................. 169
Third of all viewing is on demand ....................................... 169
App future beckons...................................................... 170
Q&A: IPG SE Asia on Automation, Programmatic and TV...................... 170
B&T Salary Survey: What’s Holding Adland Back From Asking For More Money? 172
5 tendências de varejo baseada em dados ................................. 173
RTB Insider: Is Programmatic Being Used By Big Agencies To Bash The
Independents?........................................................... 174
Winning in 2020......................................................... 175
Brand loyalty shortcuts the paths to purchase............................ 176
Mobile TV Streaming More Likely at Night ................................ 177
GE finds benefits in 'shiny objects' .................................... 177
The Mobile Web Is Alive and Well ........................................ 178
OOH audiences grow across Australia ..................................... 179
Sheep are transformed into billboards to help cut traffic deaths ......... 179
Five predictions for the future of publishing............................ 179
After #60YearsTVAds, will programmatic dominate the future of the small screen?
........................................................................ 181
Online shopping metrics misleading ...................................... 183
Cinema makes people happier ............................................. 183
Five Future Looking Trends in Media and Marketing........................ 184
Conteúdo patrocinado chega às séries de televisão........................ 186
Telefônica caminha para ser uma 'OTT' ................................... 187
Media mix needs to be 're-weighted' ..................................... 188
SVOD steals Aussie broadcast audience ................................... 189
Verdade ou mentira? ..................................................... 189
Q&A: Videology's Managing Director Is Making Programmatic Ad Buying More Exact
........................................................................ 190
Instagram’s New Boomerang App Helps Capture and Share 1-Second Loops of Life191
Ignore all the sensationalist hand-wringing about YouTube Red............ 192
Globo anuncia entrada no mercado de streaming............................ 193

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My life in advertising .................................................. 194
“Most Agencies Are Sh*tting Themselves About Digital:” Bold Media’s Toby Hemming
........................................................................ 195
Dish Launches Programmatic Strategy to Lure Digital Advertisers to TV .... 196
P&G Hikes Media Spending Despite Currency-Driven Sales Plunge............ 197
Dunkin', McDonald’s And ADT Debate: Can We Trust Tech Platforms With Our Data?
........................................................................ 198
John Wren on Viewability: Publishers Should Not Grade Their Own Homework . 200
Inside PwC’s $750 million ad agency ..................................... 201
New TV Data: Cord-Cutter and Cord-Shaver Viewing Trends.................. 202
Your Job Title Is … What? ............................................... 203
Gamification and the Process of Game Thinking............................ 204
Volkswagen App-Connect, o mais avançado sistema de infotainment disponível no
país.................................................................... 204
Ann Handley’s Fight For Good Content vs. Good Enough Content ............. 206
New TV Data: Traditional Viewing Stable On L7 So Far in 2015-16.......... 208
Internet Advertising: IAB Data Accelerates, Facebook and Google Dominate . 208
Microsoft é a nova líder do Quadrante Mágico de Bancos de Dados do Gartner 209
Itaú quer mais escala na ConectCar ...................................... 209
Why is it so hard to find the perfect agency in a pitch?................. 210
Please Agency, do not thank me when you win a new business pitch ......... 212
Rede social quer mais gente assistindo mais vídeos nativos............... 213
The 3 best books about the future of television and what the authors would add
if they could........................................................... 214
After VivaKi Disperses, Publicis Releases A Tool To Consolidate Programmatic
Functions............................................................... 216
Emotional Connections As A Science ...................................... 217
The New Science of Customer Emotions .................................... 217
Algorithms Don’t Feel, People Do ........................................ 220
50 free apps to make you an incredibly productive person................. 223
Brazilian Programmatic Creative Campaign Takes Customization To New Level 230
Millward Brown Study Shows Pitfalls Of Targeting......................... 230
Netflix launches prepaid in Brazil ...................................... 232
Five smart questions you should ask during every job interview ........... 232
How Facebook Can Shine In Digital Video ................................. 233
Let The Blame Games Begin! .............................................. 233
Apple has four years to change our minds about electric cars ............. 234
When Should You Say No To Your Boss? .................................... 235
Why Your Best Employees Should Be Paid a Lot More........................ 236
In Latin America, App Downloaders Look to Games.......................... 236
Data Drives Programmatic Advertising In-House and Draws Publishers Together237
What Are Millennials Up to with Digital Video?........................... 238

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Saving The TV Business Model ............................................ 239
Broadcasters, Cable Companies and MVPDs Unite to Form the New Video Advertising
Bureau.................................................................. 242
Why Amazon Says It Doesn't Care 'What Netflix Is Doing'.................. 243
When TV Is Obsolete, TV Shows Will Enter Their Real Golden Era ........... 244
SVOD threat 'exaggerated' ............................................... 246
Streaming disrupts linear TV ............................................ 247
The Rise Of The SSP For Programmatic TV ................................. 247
CMCSA Set Top Data - Good for NBCU, Unclear Implications for NLSN, RENT .. 248
Programmers' Paradoxical Positive ....................................... 250
Video Measurement: Keeping SCOR of the Leader............................ 251
Linear TV viewing will peak in 2015 ..................................... 252
Media Planning Toolkit: Planning TV ..................................... 253
Advertising in context: Make real-time the right time.................... 256
Advertising in context: Use algorithms, not segmentation................. 258
Advertising in context: Create context and relevancy..................... 260
Connected TVs Alter Face and Path of Addressable Advertising ............. 263
Google's core business explained in two charts........................... 264
How to dramatically improve your memory ................................. 266
Mobile internet top dog by 2017 ......................................... 268
ESOMAR: Digital Dimensions, June 2014 ................................... 269
Making the case for mobile research: Tips from Johnson & Johnson ......... 284
The Great Market Research Debate: Are mobile insights better than online? 286
New approach key to tapping new tech .................................... 289
The Future of Branded Education and the Opportunity for Brands ........... 289
Consumer Segments of Consequence in 2020: Are you prepared?.............. 291
What Are 'Micro Mobile Moments,' and What Do They Mean for Your Brand? ... 293
Wearables, drones and beacons: Where is technology taking marketing? ..... 294
Four "mobile truths" from Heineken ...................................... 296
TV companies waste data potential ....................................... 298
Media Planning Toolkit: Planning TV ..................................... 298
Friboi alcança resultado recorde em campanha que sincroniza anúncios na TV e
digital, com tecnologia TVSync da DynAdmic .............................. 302
Future Trends Volume 13: The Future of Money............................. 302
Talking Mobile with Intel’s David Veneski ............................... 303
For Advertisers, It's Mobile Game Time .................................. 305
Mobile Phones Strengthen Lead for Mobile Video Viewing................... 306
Mobile Coupons: Don't Push Without Permission............................ 306
How Mobile Service Providers Are Driving Mobile Web Use in Brazil ........ 307
Digital Brazil 2015: Mobile Paving the Way for a More Connected Country .. 307

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NLSN Total Audience Data: TV Trends Persist, Better Tablet Data Provides Better
Digital Context......................................................... 314
How Mobile Changes Everything ........................................... 316
The Research Fallacy that Refuses to Die ................................ 317
Reckitt Benckiser looks to mcommerce .................................... 318
Generation that lived full employment drops the approval Dilma ........... 319
Mark Zuckerberg: the future of facebook is sharing thoughts.............. 320
5 daily habits to improve brain growth .................................. 320
YouTube: a nova grade televisiva ........................................ 321
TVData ganha o ProXXima Startup ......................................... 322
Novas tecnologias desafiam a indústria da publicidade.................... 322
4 trends in programmatic are really heating up this summer............... 323
A Big Step for Set Top Box Data ......................................... 324
When a promotion is a bad thing ......................................... 325
Big Data Management Requires a Big Makeover ............................. 326
How a Warm-Up Routine Can Save Your Knees ............................... 327
Why I Skipped Cannes: Dave Morgan ....................................... 328
Agency Commoditization – Lost in Translation?............................ 329
Publicidade: tendências do mercado em debate............................. 330
Behold, the Hierarchy of Marketing Content .............................. 331
Mobile affects family relationships ..................................... 331
Mídia Programática: O que é e como negociar?............................. 332
Global Ad Forecasts - Magna and Zenith Updates and Comparisons ........... 333
Por que saí do Brasil – e por que não vou voltar......................... 334
Twitter (TWTR, Buy) announced yesterday that it would be selling auto-play video
ads..................................................................... 337
SMG Acquires Digital Shop AKOM360, Boosts Content Channels............... 337
ShopStyle brings e-commerce to Snapchat, with an assist from influencers . 338
The state of mobile ad spending in 5 charts ............................. 339
How to Staff an Analytics Team .......................................... 340
What the New BMW 7-Series Reveals About the Future of Luxury Cars ........ 341
Data drives Washington Post ............................................. 342
Brazil’s middle class starts to lose ground ............................. 343
Australia’s three free-to-air stations face significant challenges if they don’t
change their business models. ........................................... 345
Do More Faster: 10 Best Apps & Tools .................................... 345
Salesforce Steps Into Ad Tech Via 5 Partnerships......................... 347
Cross Channel And Multichannel: Fraternal, Not Identical, Twins .......... 347
Brain Research: What's The Best Length For A Super Bowl Spot? ............ 348
A guarantee for targeted TV ads ......................................... 349
Shopper marketing: Motivations on the path to purchase................... 350

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Mobile Video: Key Trends for a Fast-Growing Medium....................... 353
Pinterest Debuts Buyable Pins for Mobile Shopping........................ 354
Pinterest............................................................... 354
Madison & Wall: Facebook and Google: Digital Media’s Brick Walls ......... 355
WTF is agency transparency? ............................................. 356
Is It Smart Digital Marketing - Or Is It Creepy?......................... 358
YouTube Unveils New Research and Insights Before NewFronts 2015 .......... 359
Advertisers Focus on Original Digital Video Programming.................. 360
The Sharing Economy: Users Desire 'Access Over Ownership'................ 361
Connected TVs Alter Face and Path of Addressable Advertising ............. 361
Vindico Unveils Video Ad Trends: Shorter, Smarter........................ 362
Além e à frente dos desafios de programático na América Latina ........... 363
Anthology: Helping Brands Tell Stories through Video Ad Content.......... 364
Cadreon Chief: 'Trade Desk Decentralization Is The Wrong Thing To Do' .... 365
Ad Tech Salespeople Need A Common Parlance For Brands.................... 366
CEO Bill Demas Is Out At Turn ........................................... 367
Carat’s Anthony Rhind On His Jump From The Agency World To Ad Tech ....... 368
The Programmatic Waterfall Mystery ...................................... 369
Programmatic TV: Further Ahead, Further Behind Than You Think ............ 371
PubMatic CEO: "Media Arbitrage Models Aren't Profitable"................. 372
Facebook: Quietly Killing The Remarketing Industry....................... 373
Google is bringing DoubleClick to billboard ads for the first time - which could
be huge for outdoor advertising ......................................... 375
Why Change Agents Are Destined To Fail .................................. 376
How to use mobile as a bridge between digital and physical............... 377
Hulu Offers No Commercial Interruptions for Viewers Who Interact With One Ad
Upfront................................................................. 381
Welcome to the Red Cell: The CIA unit that asks the awkward questions .... 382
How Grocery Stores Are Evolving To Meet Mom's Needs...................... 386
Comcast Is Merchandising Its Data: Does This Change the Game for Targeted TV?387
5 Best Free Team Management Tools ....................................... 388
How To Make Long-Lasting Changes To Your Unconscious Habits.............. 390
Viacom Viewing in DISH Proxy Homes Shows Co-Dependent Relationship ....... 392
Quer um conselho da Renata Serafim? ..................................... 394
Facebook Tests “Local Market,” .......................................... 394
Finding a way out of analysis paralysis to achieve digital transformation 397
Case study: will new domain extensions provide an SEO boost? ............. 399
New tools leverage location, provide insight into online-to-offline consumer
behavior................................................................ 402
How Facebook controls your moods ........................................ 405
Google Couldn’t Survive with One Strategy ............................... 407

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The Double Game of Digital Strategy ..................................... 408
Forrester's 2016 Predictions: Audience And Viewership Aren't The Same Thing412
Retailers rein in brands' digital spend ................................. 413
Adobe Debuts Its Data Exchange .......................................... 414
Connected TVs Marry New and Old Viewing Habits........................... 414
DMP News Highlight ADBE Strength, GOOGL Fears............................ 416
The Problem Isn't Redefining the Ad Agency, It's Redefining the Word 'Ad' 416
Frito-Lay backs marketing technologists ................................. 417
While procrastination gets a bad rap it could actually be positive ....... 418
Global Data Bank Announces Launch in Brazil ............................. 420
Mindshare: Broadway Debuts in Your Living Room........................... 420
Confused by the idea of programmatic TV? Here is a handy guide ........... 421
McDonald’s is on a mission to implement ‘mass personalisation’ ........... 422
eCommerce in 2015....................................................... 423
Apple Forays Into Payments: Could The US Finally Have Easy Peer-To-Peer
Payments?............................................................... 429
TV perde espaço para conteúdo via streaming ............................. 431
How to Present Data to People Who Are Scared of Numbers.................. 431
YouTube Music para Android e iOS ........................................ 432
Give social to PR....................................................... 433
Brands move programmatic in house ....................................... 434
Understanding The True Attribution Value Of Your Content Marketing ....... 434
Automating and Optimizing Local TV Planning ............................. 441
6 Ways Analytics And The Internet Of Things Will Transform Business ...... 442
An Epitaph For Broadcast TV ............................................. 443
Mad Women or Math Women? ................................................ 444
Six marketing trends for 2016 ........................................... 445

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Ten Career Lessons.
Sep 20, 2015 Rishaad Tobacowala
Originally published on my blog...https://rishadt.wordpress.com/
Often when asked for career advice from students coming out of school or individuals early in their own careers
here is what I share.
A. The First Decade
1. Find the least sucky job you can: Early on in your career your initial assignments being those of the starter
variety will be filled with a certain rote drudgery as you being the lowest of the low will be delegated work that
no one wants to do themselves.
Do not delude yourself that in your early years that you are going to find “your purpose”, “your passion” or
“your identity”. Nope. You have found yourself a job in a competitive landscape and you will be learning
valuable lessons on showing up even if you do not feel like coming to work to do stuff “beneath you” , how to
deal with a spectrum of characters and personalities, how to present and write, and what it feels like to being
bossed around.
These elementary skills will turn out to be essential in that communication skills, empathy and discipline will
carry you far and be your friends forever even if you constantly change industries or the world changes around
you.
Unreal expectations must be controlled in the early years or you will be seen as a sniffling blow hard in need of
attitude adjustment.
2. The Trend is your Friend: If you are fortunate to be able to pick between jobs or find demand for your skills
that allow you to choose between opportunities in a company do not select the higher paying one but the one
that is aligned with the future. Shakespeare wrote “we must take the current when it serves. Or lose our
ventures” which in modern vernacular is “go with the flow my friend”. A majority of career success is to be
aligned with trends and industries that are rising and even mediocre players can succeed in an unstoppable tide.
Aligning with a trend and particularly aligning early is critical because not only will the force be with you but
your skills will be in demand as the area grows and if you have joined early you will be experienced and
become well known in the field.
3.Plan and make decisions over a long horizon: Most people coming out of school and early in their careers will
work for nearly 50 years. With life expectancies nearing the mid eighties, social security being pushed back and
health holding out till the seventies it is unlikely that you will be parked on a beach in your mid fifties. Maybe
in your mid sixties or later. Thus do not make job or career decisions with three to five month horizons but
three to five year horizons. Try to give each company or assignment or adventure at least three years and if it is
an industry or company at least five. Your decision making will be better, your skills will mature and you will
take daily and weekly gyrations in perspective.
4. Even the best jobs are only good seventy percent of the time: If you have a great job you will find yourself
wondering three days out ten you what you are doing, why you are doing it and if you are any good. The
reasons for this are three fold. First. do recognize that you are being paid for what you do and the more you are
paid often the harder the job is and the problems and troubles you must deal with. Often the challenges or the
situations or the people you have to deal with require you to steel yourself with a drink or more. Second, if you
have a great job it is one that is growing you and sometimes throws you challenges that require you to build
new muscles and do new things. Learning is never easy and if you are growing there will be days that the pain
will feel more like a signal that you dislike your job rather than you are building new expertise. The best jobs
have flow which is a combination of competence and challenge and sometimes the challenge can be quite
daunting. Finally, we are all living in a time of great change, chaos and velocity which is filled with uncertainty
. The most relevant and most transformative industries are in the eye of the storm and this can make a day at
work feel like a day in the high speed spin cycle of a laundry machine.
5. Compete against yourself rather than with others: The trick is not to try to better than every one else which is
neither possible nor attainable for long or with everybody who is doing the grading. Rather it is to be better
every day than you were yesterday. Perpetual improvement by learning from those you admire and respect or
expertise you appreciate is not only fulfilling but one that you can control free of petty politics or pissing of

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people that you will need to work with. Oddly it is more competitive than external competition because you can
win externally often by bamboozling and sleigh of hand but you cannot really fool yourself. Get better because
in it there is reward.
The Middle Years
6. Who you work for is critical so choose your boss well: Once you get past the first decade of your career and
you have learnt essential skills including how to keep learning, built an early reputation and if lucky aligned
with a growing trend, the key to success is to find and hold on to the right boss. Over the next decade or two
who you work for will be the determining factor in your success more than anything else you do. The middle
years are really about being given new opportunities to learn and grow and linking with someone who is both
growing themselves and is mentoring your own growth. A successful boss increases their remit and thus makes
new opportunities for you, but also ensures that they have your back while being very upfront and
straightforward with you face to face. They challenge you but cover for you when necessary. Find one or more
of these and hold on tight. It makes all the difference and every successful leader has been fortunate to have
someone who mentored, challenged and looked after them.
7. Find Fit: In your middle career you should begin to specialize. You now know what you enjoy and are
passionate about. You also know where you have comparative advantage. And you can see where there are
growing and declining opportunities. Continuously adapt your job and find ways to start doing more and more
things at the intersection of passion, comparative advantage and market demand. Today, more than ever before
it is experts who love their jobs that are happiest and successful. Stop thinking that everyone can or should be a
CEO. And for a lot of people the CEO job makes zero sense. Stop doing and pursuing things just because other
people think they are cool jobs. Stop living in other peoples mind and start living in your own life. It is only
then that autonomy, purpose and mastery come together and you fit your role and your role fits you.
8. Build a Personal Brand: As you get to the last third of your career it is very crucial to enter it with a stellar
reputation. As Jeff Bezos said a brand is what they say about you when you are not in the room. In addition to
being generous and working with integrity which are key to being a successful brand it is important to be well
positioned niche (what are you world class at or what is your special expertise?), have a distinct and clear voice
(who are you and what do you stand for) and have a story (why should people believe you). Here is anexercise
on how to build a personal brand
The Later Years
9. Unlearn. Transform. Re-Invent: A quarter of century or three decades into work still leave a decade or more
of career ahead and this is where things can get really dangerous or interesting.
If you have been successful you are being set up for a fall because without you knowing it the Industry you
grew up in is being transformed and there are new technologies and approaches that make what you learned
obsolete and just when you think you have arrived you have to unlearn what made you successful. Now you
have to start learning and changing and making mistakes that you long thought you no longer have to do since
you are a leader and not a rookie. You are too cool and too senior to actually make a fool of yourself but if you
do not want to become as irrelevant as you fear privately you will have to change.. Now all this talk about
“change is good”that you have been stating to your teams has to be applied to yourself and you begin to realize
that change actually sucks since you have to learn and trip and re-grow.
The really successful folks in the last third of the career are students and learners again and if they have built a
brand and have worked with integrity and helped others along the way, a swarm of people come to help them
adjust. They reverse mentor, form a trampoline and ensure that you do not fail since they recall the days you
helped them.
10. Build a portfolio career and start giving back aggressively : Anyone successful in addition to working hard
and playing the long game has been helped immensely by other people and of course been blessed with luck.
They have been given chances and now is the time to give those chances back.
In addition it is time to build a portfolio career that expands from a job to one that includes a job, consulting,
advising and giving back. Sooner or later the job will end but meaningful and purposeful work will continue.
Successful older people end up being consultants part of the time and serve in advisory roles on boards or as
mentors and they start teaching and helping non- profits. The folks who have ended their jobs most gracefully

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began these alternate streams during their last decade at work by volunteering, by teaching classes by mentoring
and advising younger folks. This way they have a new road ahead when their full time job ends and because
they do they move on gracefully into a new phase.
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace
Amazon employees entering the company’s offices in Seattle. It recently became the most valuable retailer in
the country.
RUTH FREMSON / THE NEW YORK TIMES By JODI KANTOR and DAVID STREITFELD
August 15, 2015
SEATTLE — On Monday mornings, fresh recruits line up for an orientation intended to catapult them into
Amazon’s singular way of working.
They are told to forget the “poor habits” they learned at previous jobs, one employee recalled. When they “hit
the wall” from the unrelenting pace, there is only one solution: “Climb the wall,” others reported. To be the best
Amazonians they can be, they should be guided by the leadership principles, 14 rules inscribed on handy
laminated cards. When quizzed days later, those with perfect scores earn a virtual award proclaiming, “I’m
Peculiar” — the company’s proud phrase for overturning workplace conventions.
At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings, toil long and late (emails
arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that
the company boasts are “unreasonably high.” The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send
secret feedback to one another’s bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others. (The tool offers
sample texts, including this: “I felt concerned about his inflexibility and openly complaining about minor
tasks.”)
Amazon is building new offices in Seattle and, in about three years, will have enough space for about 50,000
employees.
Many of the newcomers filing in on Mondays may not be there in a few years. The company’s winners dream
up innovations that they roll out to a quarter-billion customers and accrue small fortunes in soaring stock.
Losers leave or are fired in annual cullings of the staff — “purposeful Darwinism,” one former Amazon human
resources director said. Some workers who suffered from cancer, miscarriages and other personal crises said
they had been evaluated unfairly or edged out rather than given time to recover.
Even as the company tests delivery by drone and ways to restock toilet paper at the push of a bathroom button,
it is conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers, redrawing the boundaries
of what is acceptable. The company, founded and still run by Jeff Bezos, rejects many of the popular
management bromides that other corporations at least pay lip service to and has instead designed what many
workers call an intricate machine propelling them to achieve Mr. Bezos’ ever-expanding ambitions.
Interactive Feature | Inside Amazon A look at the experiment in how far to push white-collar workers.
“This is a company that strives to do really big, innovative, groundbreaking things, and those things aren’t
easy,” said Susan Harker, Amazon’s top recruiter. “When you’re shooting for the moon, the nature of the work
is really challenging. For some people it doesn’t work.”
Bo Olson was one of them. He lasted less than two years in a book marketing role and said that his enduring
image was watching people weep in the office, a sight other workers described as well. “You walk out of a
conference room and you’ll see a grown man covering his face,” he said. “Nearly every person I worked with, I
saw cry at their desk.”
Thanks in part to its ability to extract the most from employees, Amazon is stronger than ever. Its swelling
campus is transforming a swath of this city, a 10-million-square-foot bet that tens of thousands of new workers
will be able to sell everything to everyone everywhere. Last month, it eclipsed Walmart as the most valuable
retailer in the country, with a market valuation of $250 billion, and Forbes deemed Mr. Bezos the fifth-
wealthiest person on earth.
Tens of millions of Americans know Amazon as customers, but life inside its corporate offices is largely a
mystery. Secrecy is required; even low-level employees sign a lengthy confidentiality agreement. The company

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authorized only a handful of senior managers to talk to reporters for this article, declining requests for
interviews with Mr. Bezos and his top leaders.
Interactive Feature | Bo Olson “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”
However, more than 100 current and former Amazonians — members of the leadership team, human resources
executives, marketers, retail specialists and engineers who worked on projects from the Kindle to grocery
delivery to the recent mobile phone launch — described how they tried to reconcile the sometimes-punishing
aspects of their workplace with what many called its thrilling power to create.
In interviews, some said they thrived at Amazon precisely because it pushed them past what they thought were
their limits. Many employees are motivated by “thinking big and knowing that we haven’t scratched the surface
on what’s out there to invent,” said Elisabeth Rommel, a retail executive who was one of those permitted to
speak.
Others who cycled in and out of the company said that what they learned in their brief stints helped their careers
take off. And more than a few who fled said they later realized they had become addicted to Amazon’s way of
working.
“A lot of people who work there feel this tension: It’s the greatest place I hate to work,” said John Rossman, a
former executive there who published a book, “The Amazon Way.”
Interactive Feature | Tony Galbato “It would certainly be much easier and socially cohesive to just compromise
and not debate, but that may lead to the wrong decision.”
Amazon may be singular but perhaps not quite as peculiar as it claims. It has just been quicker in responding to
changes that the rest of the work world is now experiencing: data that allows individual performance to be
measured continuously, come-and-go relationships between employers and employees, and global competition
in which empires rise and fall overnight. Amazon is in the vanguard of where technology wants to take the
modern office: more nimble and more productive, but harsher and less forgiving.
“Organizations are turning up the dial, pushing their teams to do more for less money, either to keep up with the
competition or just stay ahead of the executioner’s blade,” said Clay Parker Jones, a consultant who helps old-
line businesses become more responsive to change.
On a recent morning, as Amazon’s new hires waited to begin orientation, few of them seemed to appreciate the
experiment in which they had enrolled. Only one, Keith Ketzle, a freckled Texan triathlete with an M.B.A., lit
up with recognition, explaining how he left his old, lumbering company for a faster, grittier one.
“Conflict brings about innovation,” he said.
Why Brandsand Agencies Want to InterpretPizza Slice Smiley Face
By Kate Kaye. Published on July 06, 2015.
Consumers are communicating in broken hearts and bananas -- and brands are listening. As use of emojis
proliferates, brands and their social media agencies are devising ways to interpret the cute icons that form
emotive statements in text messages and more recently on Instagram and Twitter. Digital stickers and brand
logos are also up for interpretation.
"The use of emojis is kind of like were observing a new language right in front of us," said Tony Clement, VP
analytics at independent shop Big Spaceship. The agency is working with technology firms to develop
definitions for brand tracking through emojis. The goal, essentially, is to apply some of the same techniques for
quantifying value and measuring brand sentiment based on words in social media to metrics for imagery.
A heart, after all, doesn't always represent love. Social-media agencies want to learn the nuances in meaning
and sentiment between a blue heart and a crimson one, for instance.
"Basically I'm adopting a new language…how does that inform an advertising strategy?" said Mr. Clement.
Social agency Crimson Hexagon has been evaluating social posts containing digital stickers and logos in photos
for clients including O2 Telefonica UK, Campbell's and Allstate.
"We're missing where people are sharing photos that have our brand in it or our competitor's brand in it," said
Errol Apostolopoulos senior VP-product for Crimson Hexagon. The company uses image detection to identify
coffee or apparel-brand logos that show up in photos people post on Instagram or their Tumblr pages. It

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evaluates the volume of brand imagery in addition to context. For instance, if someone is smiling alongside a
branded coffee drink, it would be perceived as a positive sentiment.
The image detecting, said Mr. Apostolopoulos, is not challenging. "It's the application of it within social
analysis and trying to correlate that with what people have said in text."
Measuring the brand value of speaking in cartoons may seem like a mere novelty, but as adoption of this picture
parlance grows, agencies recognize the need to figure out how to analyze imagery as though it were text.
Instagram has tracked significant increase in use of emojis on its platform since Apple introduced its emoji
keyboard for iOS in 2011 and Android launched its own in 2013. The photo sharing firm said 10% of text on
Instagram contained emojis after the iOS keyboard was made available; that portion has increased to "nearly
half" as of March, according to the company, which published the first of a multi-part blog post series on its
internal emoji research.
"The vocabulary of Instagram is shifting similarly across many different cohorts with a decline in internet slang
corresponding to rise in the usage of emoji," wrote Thomas Dimson, a software engineer on the company's data
team, employing the also-acceptable irregular plural form of the term. Instagram places emojis into a variety of
categories such as food, facial expressions, marine animals and wedding emojis.
Some marketers even are attempting to master the emoji lexicon. On June 23, Chevrolet hinted at its launch
later that week of the 2016 Chevy Cruz with a video and Twitter campaign featuring comedian Norm
McDonald.
"I am excited to translate an emoji announcement on behalf of Chevrolet," declared the former Saturday Night
Live Weekend Update anchor and all-around curmudgeon. He went on to translate tiny icons that popped up on
a TV screen behind him. A mobile phone icon represented the word "technology." The phrase "striking design"
was visualized with a bowling ball and pins followed by one of those triangle rulers kids use in geometry class.
The joke, perhaps, was that a somewhat stodgy guy who live-tweets golf tournaments was translating these
new-age hieroglyphics.
"I can see brands doing that, sort of having emoji battles," said Mr. Clement. Still, he suggested the use of emoji
in marketing campaigns likely will be short-lived since consumer fatigue could set in as it did with gifs and
memes. "They need to be careful about how to deploy it and to what extent," he said. "If we see that at the
Super Bowl then it's definitely peaked"
It's finally 🎓🕐 at #EmojiAcademy. Oh, did I mention I'm really famous? #ChevyGoesEmoji @Chevrolet #ad
🍞🚙😻 https://t.co/Yw4eHUIAAm
— Norm Macdonald (@normmacdonald) June 23, 2015
Andrew Perry
Don’t Be Dated When It Comes To Data: 8 Types You Should Understand
Jul 28, 2015 Diaz Nesamoney
Today, we have more data sources than ever before, so it’s critical for marketers to familiarize themselves with
the ones that are most valuable and most relevant for their brand. Whether these terms are new to you, or you
just need a quick refresher course, the list below is a comprehensive guide.
1. Profile Data
Thanks to profile data, multi-brand marketers may use a single campaign and media buy to ensure focused
messaging to specific audiences. For example, Mercedes could use profile data to show the Mercedes GL, a
high-end SUV, to moms who live in higher-net-worth geographies while showing the entry-level CLA cars to
younger males who are more likely buyers of the CLA.
Profile data could also be used to message different aspects of a car to different audience segments. For
example, men might respond better to messaging about the ruggedness of a car in mountain terrain and specs of
the engine, while women may respond better to messaging about cargo space, safety, etc.
2. CRM Data
A broader set of profile data is available to brands that have a direct relationship with their customers. This is
especially true for brands that offer products directly from their websites and/or their branded retail outlets. The

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data in these cases is much richer and detailed, including things like purchase history, loyalty, average purchase
amounts, and even demographics and wealth brackets.
But integrating CRM data with advertising can be challenging. For example, such profile data often belongs to
the operations team and is managed by corporate IT. It can often be a long and difficult process for the
marketing team to gain access to the data. Companies should consider the privacy implications of using such
data so that they don’t damage the trust relationship they have with customers.
3. Environmental Data
Geographic data can be used to deliver very effective engagement by customizing an ad for local audiences. For
example, auto companies used to have to go through the very cumbersome process of allocating marketing
funds and managing creative integrity for large dealerships across the country. Today, they can simply enable
ads to display creative messaging customized for each local market.
4. Real-Time Events
Social media allows companies to relate marketing messages to events happening in real time. Now, Facebook,
Twitter, Vine, Snapchat, Instagram, and others have taken the idea further by allowing brands to message
directly to consumers.
There are two kinds of event-based dynamic ads. The first type are pre-programmed ads, for events that are
scheduled ahead of time, such as football games or the Grammys. These campaigns are easy to manage because
creative assets can be approved ahead of time.
The second type of event-based dynamic ads is real-time ads. Real-time event-based advertising has primarily
been in the realm of social media because the real-time messaging nature of Twitter fits well with the idea of
real-time “sponsored tweets” or other kinds of messaging that leverages data about the user to tailor messaging.
5. Social Media Data
Social media reveals a lot about a person’s interests and is a rich source of data for personalized advertising.
Most social media platforms offer various targeting segments that an advertiser can use to create precise
messaging. Social media platforms often allow advertisers to pick interests (sports fans), demographics (single
men), as well as friends of fans (with similar interests), and so on.
6. Site/Cookie Data
As users browse websites, they indicate preferences and likes in an indirect way. For example, users visiting the
Car and Driver site would select the kinds of cars they are likely to be in the market for. In some cases,
consumption of content on a site does not directly correlate to purchase intent. Nevertheless, site data can
provide very important insights into consumer interest.
Several startup companies have also recently introduced personalization software for websites. Rather than a
website being static and one-size-fits-all, it’s dynamically configured for the user, based on a continuous
process of learning about the consumer’s interests.
7. Search Data
Search data is the hardest type of data to come by. Since Google switched to secure search, which hides the
referrer URL’s search term, it has become impossible to use a search term to personalize ads on a site.
However, some data providers (e.g., DMPs) do provide aggregated search data that can be used to customize
advertisements. Search data is very personal and should be used with a lot of caution as it can directly reveal
things about the users that they may not want others to know about.
8. Contextual Data
Most media publisher sites have various sections that may have different kinds of context. Many news sites
(e.g., CNN, USA Today) have sections for sports, finance, lifestyle, etc. Often a media purchase is done for the
whole site and runs on all pages. But it’s also possible to have dynamic personalization of an ad, based on the
section or context in which it is running. Such contextually driven personalized ads can be very effective at
creating customized messaging for the audience profile of visitors to a specific section of the publisher’s site
and can be done without creating a lot of complexity in terms of individual ads and ad tags.
U.K. Marketers Will Use Fewer Agenciesby 2020,
'Too Risky' to Outsource Customer Relationships and Data

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By Emma Hall. Published on September 10, 2015.
More than half of U.K. marketers expect to use fewer agencies in the future, according to a new report from
MediaSense and the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, the U.K.'s advertiser group.
The Media 2020 report, put together by advisory firm MediaSense with ISBA and Ipsos, is a survey of 200
senior marketers. It includes 30 in-depth interviews with participants from ISBA's executive committee – which
counts Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Kellogg, and Vodafone among its members.
Graham Brown
Graham Brown, founding director of MediaSense, a media advisory firm that specializes in media performance
and agency relationship management, said, "The areas that marketers are looking to bring in-house are around
management of current and potential customers. Outsourcing customer relationships – and the accompanying
data – is not something that marketers feel confident with."
The in-depth interviews revealed that, although some marketers said they find that outsourcing is the only way
to deal with the complex set of different skills required, others – particularly the larger companies -- said they
are prepared to invest in technology and data management, because it is too risky to allow third parties to
manage customers and prospects.
"This is not the death knell for creative agencies," Mr. Brown said. "Media agencies don't have a creative
culture and neither do management consultants. Creativity is still a valued mindset and the creative agency is
still king. But increasingly, marketers require an agility which is not done well by creative agencies."
Nearly 60% of marketers surveyed said that they anticipate that content development will move in-house or go
to alternative agencies within five years. "Lots of marketers say they value their creative agencies but they can't
afford to get them to do SEO and social content," Mr. Brown said. "By 2020, creative agencies will have to be
very different entities if they want to hang on to their status as trusted advisers. They have the opportunity to
win, but they need to reduce costs."
The report also found that 73% of marketers said they expect to be contracting directly with media owners and
technology companies by 2020. "If that isn't disintermediation, I don't know what is," Mr. Brown commented.
"For clients it's about taking greater control."
According to the report, greater self-reliance, new agency models and performance-based remuneration are the
top three priorities for CMOs as they prepare for the next decade; while data analytics, content development,
and omni-channel planning are the top three disciplines they consider critical to success.
The report was compiled between March and July 2015, with respondents from a broad range of industry
sectors including food, media, technology, insurance, retail banking, travel, pharmaceuticals, toys, transport,
drinks and confectionery. Together they represent more than $1.5 billion in advertising investment.
App attack
By Nilay Patel
"The future of TV is here."
It is not the world’s most understated tagline for a new product, especially one from Apple. If you want to set
sky-high expectations around a new TV product after years of rumors and sly winks and shelved plans, well,
that’s exactly how to do it. You say that you’ve invented the future of TV, and that it is here.
You say it while knowing full well that Steve Jobs set the stage for a radical new TV from Apple in 2011 by
directly telling his biographer that he’d "finally cracked it," and that he wanted to create "an integrated
television set that is completely easy to use," with "the simplest user interface you could imagine."
You say that the future of TV is here even though every attempt to place a computer at the center of the living
room experience has bombed catastrophically for nearly two decades, and that rivals like Microsoft and Google
have each been floored by the challenges of television.
You take the weight of those expectations, you bring the power of the Apple brand to bear, and you lift the
entire entertainment industry out of the chaotic technological mess it’s built for itself and right into the shiny
new future of voice control and touchpad remotes, just like we were always promised.
The future of TV is here.
Or is it?

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Here’s the basic blueprint for a modern media streaming device: a smallish black box that runs a zillion apps
from various TV networks and service providers like Netflix, all indexed into some sort of universal search and
controlled by voice.
CONVERGENCE
If you squint, the revolutionary new Apple TV actually looks like one of the oldest ideas in tech: convergence in
the living room. People have been trying to stick computers under TVs for 20 years now — there’s a straight
line from the 1996 webTV to Windows Media Center to Google TV to Android TV to the Xbox One. They’re
all just little PCs; the Google products have Intel processors and the Xbox One is getting a Windows 10 upgrade
in a few weeks. The tech industry (well, mostly Microsoft) has been trying and failing to bring the PC and TV
together for so long that it’s no wonder Apple called the Apple TV a hobby until last year: you can’t fail at a
hobby.
But the new Apple TV is an interesting new riff on the idea of convergence: instead of a little PC under the TV,
it’s a little iPhone. And just like the iPhone and apps ushered in a mobile revolution, it’s entirely possible that
the Apple TV and apps can finally usher in the convergence revolution.
That’s the $129 Roku 4, the $99 Amazon Fire TV 2, and the $99 Google Nexus Player, each to varying degrees
of success. And it’s also the new Apple TV, which is more expensive than all of those with a base price of
$149, although of course Apple’s added some of its typical flourish to the mix.
Take setup, which usually requires some painful entering of Wi-Fi passwords and iCloud credentials and so on
— with the new Apple TV, you just get your iPhone with iOS 9.1 and Bluetooth on near the unit, and it grabs
everything it needs to get online and get started. That’s pretty cool.
Or take the remote, which is a sleek black rectangle with a glass touchpad at the top; home, menu, play, and
volume buttons; an accelerometer and gyroscope; and dual microphones for voice commands that are triggered
by holding down the Siri button. It’s basically all the hardware interface elements of an iPhone reworked for a
10-foot television experience; it even charges over Lightning.
Or take the visual flair of the interface, popping with subtle 3D effects and interesting ideas about how the
multilayered glass aesthetic of iOS should translate to a TV. It’s not radically different than the previous Apple
TV interface or any of its competitors, but it’s far sleeker. The combination of the remote and interface feels
tight and polished and futuristic in a way that makes Roku and Fire TV feel plastic and utilitarian. I will say that
the touchpad can be more flashy than useful — there isn’t a single part of the main interface that actually
requires it, and you can get around just fine using a universal remote with a D-Pad.
But it’s really what’s underneath that’s the news here: tvOS, a new Apple OS that is basically iOS reworked for
television. Previous Apple TVs ran their own weirdo riffs on iOS, but tvOS is a proper part of the Apple
platform family alongside OS X, iOS, and watchOS. Most importantly, tvOS brings support for Siri and the
App Store to the Apple TV, which means any app developer can create apps for the system. The potential here
is massive: this thing is basically a computer under your TV.
But while iOS on the iPhone and iPad is a mature, capable operating system with tons of flexibility and a huge
variety of apps, tvOS is very much a first-generation product. In day-to-day use, it’s basically the same as the
previous Apple TV with the addition of a drastically stripped-down Siri and ported iPhone games.
the execution here is among the best in the game
Seriously: you won’t notice many changes from the previous Apple TV, save those fun 3D effects and the
switch from a black background to a whitish-gray version, until you hold down the Siri button. Then you can
ask any number of interesting questions about shows and movies in pretty granular detail — I asked for "‘80s
movies with Tom Cruise on Netflix" and Siri found me Top Gun and Risky Business, for example. Delightful.
Once you select a movie or show, Siri will open a universal landing page that deep links you right into the
various services that offer the content. So if you search for Game of Thrones, you’ll see that you can buy it on
iTunes and stream it on HBO Go or HBO Now, and you’re off to the races. In terms of iterative improvements
to the Apple TV, this is the most important thing Apple could have done, and the execution here is among the
best in the game.
But limitations are everywhere. Only a small handful of apps work with Siri search right now — iTunes,
Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Showtime — so finding something in, say, the ESPN or CBS apps isn’t possible. Siri

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can’t find you a funny YouTube video, which seems like a shame. Tim Cook says a Siri search API is coming,
but I get the feeling Apple wants Siri search to be a differentiator for the more premium services, so we’ll see
how wide open that API is when it gets here. And once Siri drops you into a streaming app from that universal
search, it’s a free-for-all — they all have different interfaces and recommendation engines, and none of them
talk to each other. Shouldn’t Siri pay attention to what you’re watching and suggest content across services? Or
at least give you a Most Recently Watched list across all your services, like the Fire TV and Roku? One of the
best things about traditional TV is the serendipity of flipping it on and seeing something you like, or finding
something new. There’s a big discovery piece that really ties all these services together that’s missing here. TV
isn’t all about demanding things from a robot.
Siri can also launch apps and get you sports scores, stocks, and weather, but that’s about it. There’s no voice
feedback. There’s none of Siri’s trademark attitude — asking it to divide 0 by 0 gets nothing — and it can’t set
timers, convert units, or look up random facts on Wolfram Alpha or the web. When you ask Siri to play "my
favorite movie," it brings up a 2015 indie movie called… My Favorite Movie. This would be hilarious if this
version of Siri had a sense of humor.
4K
So the new Apple TV doesn’t support 4K, which is particularly funny when you consider the fact that the
beautiful new aerial-loop screensavers are exactly the sort of demo reels used to show off 4K displays. I would
bet a lot of money that they were originally shot in 4K, in fact.
But even though most mid- to high-end TVs are now 4K, there still isn’t isn’t a ton of 4K content out there. So
unless you’re intent on watching Breaking Bad and YouTube in 4K (and some of you surely are) you’re not
missing out on much because the Apple TV is 1080p.
That said, Apple is one of the few companies that runs a TV and movie service at scale, and if it wanted to push
a 4K upgrade cycle by adding tons of 4K content to iTunes and making it a feature of this new Apple TV, it
could do that. But it didn’t. I would assume that’s coming in the next version, but we’ll see.
Siri is also totally disconnected from Siri on the iPhone — you can’t tell Siri on your phone to play a song or
video on your TV, which seems like another huge missed opportunity. And bafflingly, Siri can’t control Apple
Music, so asking to play a Taylor Swift song results in nothing. "Sorry, I can’t help you with music," says the
screen. Siri says sorry about a lot of things.
And in the biggest oversight, Siri can’t search for apps in the App Store, or even take dictation into the text field
of the App Store search screen. If you thought App Store discovery was kind of messy and bad on iOS, tvOS
won't do anything to change your mind: there will be a few featured categories, a top list, and search. Unless
they get featured, app developers will have to convince people to search for new apps by swiping back and forth
along the terrible on-screen keyboard, which means their apps are going to have to basically cure disease and
print free money to get noticed.
And… that is not what the currently available apps in the App Store do. Most of them are just gigantic iPhone
apps. The Periscope app seems like it would be brilliant, but lacks the ability to log into your Periscope account,
so you can’t see your friends’ streams or leave comments. The Zillow app appears to be an aggressive attempt
to highlight the crime-scene aesthetic of most interior real estate photography. Descriptions for featured games
like Shadowmatic and Mr. Crab talk about plugging in headphones and tapping on your screen. Laziness
abounds.
Now, these games and apps can be fun, and some of them make the jump from the small to big screen so
incredibly well that it seems like they’ve always belonged there. Watching people around the world pour their
hearts into the Sing karaoke app is amazing on the Apple TV. Does not Commute turns into a totally different
game on a much grander scale. The Zova fitness app and Yummly cooking apps are both terrific examples of
how large web video libraries can be turned into focused and useful television.
Most apps are just gigantic iPhone apps
But I am going to be 100 percent crazy honest with you: the single most interesting app in the Apple TV App
Store right now is the QVC app.
The QVC app is the only app that really and truly blends television with interactivity: it shows you a live feed
of QVC, and it overlays the familiar information box on the left side of the screen with a buy button. So you’re

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watching the regular QVC TV channel, and you can just click to buy, or swipe down to see more photos of the
item and related items while the video keeps playing.
That kind of interactivity is the real future of television, and nothing about the Apple TV outside of the QVC
app really leans into it. Now that tvOS is an actual platform, I’m really hoping TV networks lean into the crazy
science fiction possibilities of interactive TV within their apps — think live voting on The Voice, or instant
reaction polls during debates. Or hell, just let fans decide what an NFL catch is, since no one else seems to
know. There’s so much promise here, but it’s all just potential. At this moment, there’s not a single app on the
Apple TV that enhances the experience of watching TV nearly as much as simply opening Twitter on your
phone during an awards show.
If it sounds like I’m holding the Apple TV to a higher standard than every other product, it’s because I am.
Once you really start thinking about the Apple TV and what it is today, it becomes very clear that while Apple
was able to significantly improve the parts of the streaming media experience that it can directly control, it
wasn’t able to use its leverage to really fix the little annoyances and disconnects littered throughout the TV
landscape that it can’t control.
Take setup again: yes, the tap-to-get-settings-from-an-iPhone feature is cool, but you can’t restore anything
from a previous Apple TV, so when you first get started you have to head into the App Store and search for and
download every streaming app you use. Then, once you’ve got them all, you have to authenticate all of them
individually — even apps like HBO Go and Watch ESPN that require the same cable provider TV Everywhere
username and password. And the iPhone Remote app doesn’t work with the new Apple TV yet, so you’re stuck
either swiping around the onscreen keyboard or digging up a laptop to enter an activation code. It’s frustrating
— I found myself reluctant to download new apps because I didn’t really want to log in yet again. If the future
of TV is really apps, adding new apps has to be virtually frictionless.
the very best version of television's present
Not having a single sign-on for apps that require a cable subscription is exactly the sort of piddly nonsense that
needs to get solved before the future of TV actually gets here. And solving exactly this sort of piddly nonsense
for people again and again is what turned Apple into the richest company in the world. I will go so far as to say
that the television market is so complex and so insane that only a company with Apple’s power and influence
can force meaningful change. So the pressure is on.
The streaming boxes on the market right now all compete to do very few simple things: get everything you want
to watch in a single place, make it all easy to search and discover, and get out of the way. And the Apple TV
does that as well or better than anything else on the market. It has virtually every streaming app save Amazon
Prime video, Siri works reasonably well and can answer a wider range of questions across services than the Fire
TV 2 or Roku, and playback is super fast. If you just want a new streaming box, you can happily buy a new
Apple TV. (I would buy the $149 base model.) You’ll like it.
But all of that is very much the best version of television’s present. Apple has a lot more work to do before the
future actually arrives.
The World in 2025: 8 Predictions for the Next 10 Years
By Peter Diamandis May 11, 2015
In 2025, in accordance with Moore's Law, we'll see an acceleration in the rate of change as we move closer to a
world of true abundance. Here are eight areas where we'll see extraordinary transformation in the next decade:
1. A $1,000 Human Brain
In 2025, $1,000 should buy you a computer able to calculate at 10^16 cycles per second (10,000 trillion cycles
per second), the equivalent processing speed of the human brain.
2. A Trillion-Sensor Economy
The Internet of Everything describes the networked connections between devices, people, processes and data.
By 2025, the IoE will exceed 100 billion connected devices, each with a dozen or more sensors collecting data.
This will lead to a trillion-sensor economy driving a data revolution beyond our imagination. Cisco's recent
report estimates the IoE will generate $19 trillion of newly created value.
3. Perfect Knowledge

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We're heading towards a world of perfect knowledge. With a trillion sensors gathering data everywhere
(autonomous cars, satellite systems, drones, wearables, cameras), you'll be able to know anything you want,
anytime, anywhere, and query that data for answers and insights.
4. 8 Billion Hyper-Connected People
Facebook (Internet.org), SpaceX, Google (Project Loon), Qualcomm and Virgin (OneWeb) are planning to
provide global connectivity to every human on Earth at speeds exceeding one megabit per second.
We will grow from three to eight billion connected humans, adding five billion new consumers into the global
economy. They represent tens of trillions of new dollars flowing into the global economy. And they are not
coming online like we did 20 years ago with a 9600 modem on AOL. They're coming online with a 1 Mbps
connection and access to the world's information on Google, cloud 3D printing, Amazon Web Services,
artificial intelligence with Watson, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, and more.
5. Disruption of Healthcare
Existing healthcare institutions will be crushed as new business models with better and more efficient care
emerge. Thousands of startups, as well as today's data giants (Google, Apple, Microsoft, SAP, IBM, etc.) will
all enter this lucrative $3.8 trillion healthcare industry with new business models that dematerialize, demonetize
and democratize today's bureaucratic and inefficient system.
Biometric sensing (wearables) and AI will make each of us the CEOs of our own health. Large-scale genomic
sequencing and machine learning will allow us to understand the root cause of cancer, heart disease and
neurodegenerative disease and what to do about it. Robotic surgeons can carry out an autonomous surgical
procedure perfectly (every time) for pennies on the dollar. Each of us will be able to regrow a heart, liver, lung
or kidney when we need it, instead of waiting for the donor to die.
6. Augmented and Virtual Reality
Billions of dollars invested by Facebook (Oculus), Google (Magic Leap), Microsoft (Hololens), Sony,
Qualcomm, HTC and others will lead to a new generation of displays and user interfaces.
The screen as we know it — on your phone, your computer and your TV — will disappear and be replaced by
eyewear. Not the geeky Google Glass, but stylish equivalents to what the well-dressed fashionistas are wearing
today. The result will be a massive disruption in a number of industries ranging from consumer retail, to real
estate, education, travel, entertainment, and the fundamental ways we operate as humans.
7. Early Days of JARVIS
Artificial intelligence research will make strides in the next decade. If you think Siri is useful now, the next
decade's generation of Siri will be much more like JARVIS from Iron Man, with expanded capabilities to
understand and answer. Companies like IBM Watson, DeepMind and Vicarious continue to hunker down and
develop next-generation AI systems. In a decade, it will be normal for you to give your AI access to listen to all
of your conversations, read your emails and scan your biometric data because the upside and convenience will
be so immense.
8. Blockchain
If you haven't heard of the blockchain, I highly recommend you read up on it. You might have heard of bitcoin,
which is the decentralized (global), democratized, highly secure cryptocurrency based on the blockchain. But
the real innovation is the blockchain itself, a protocol that allows for secure, direct (without a middleman),
digital transfers of value and assets (think money, contracts, stocks, IP). Investors like Marc Andreesen have
poured tens of millions into the development and believe this is as important of an opportunity as the creation of
the Internet itself.
Bottom Line: We Live in the Most Exciting Time Ever
We are living toward incredible times where the only constant is change, and the rate of change is increasing.
Replacing Personas With Characters
Resolving the destructive effects of Personas.
Actors rehearsing their characters. Photo by David Bukach
Read the Persona* (please see note below) below and then learn what your brain does.

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Alan is a 30 year old white male living in New York. 6 months ago, he got married in Miami Florida. It was a
big event where lots of friends and family attended.
He graduated from University with an MFA degree, but was also always into engineering and has begun writing
software programs when he was very young.
He’s really into fashion, his mother was a fashion stylist, and doesn’t mind spending money on designer clothes.
He doesn’t buy clothes too often because he chooses to only buy pieces he really likes and thinks is a good
color & fit for him.
Some of his hobbies include tennis, playing flamenco guitar and reading.
Alan is someone who needed a tux for wedding and just bought one at a Sandro store.
The tux Alan bought..sort of
The above story of someone buying a product (a new tux) is in the format of a persona. Now… for everyone
who read this persona, 1 of 3 things happened. Their brain either:
1. Instantly assembled the bits into a story explaining why Alan bought this particular tux -adding in
whatever parts it felt were missing.
2. Made an attempt to create a story, but just gave up: probably because it’s tired or just don’t care enough
to figure it out.
3. Consciously decided to make an effort to understand the story, slowed down, and downshifted into a
more critical mode of thinking; however, since the information is too sparse to make sense — it goes back to #1
or #2.
Your brain did one of the above scenarios because it took in these somewhat disconnected facts and then was
left with a result: Alan bought the tux. However… it was unsatisfied- it was left thinking:
‘How did these attributes lead to this particular purchase?’
Because personas focus on creating a story made up of a customer’s attributes, instead of a story that explains a
purchase, personas leave the brain in a unsatisfied state. To fix this, in just a split second, the brain decides to
make up it’s own story about why Alan bought a particular Tux.
The reason why the brain work like this, has to do with cognitive biases; specifically, a phenomenon Daniel
Kahneman calls What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI).
The above story is an abbreviated Persona… and the gap filling WYSIATI effect it has is not what the inventors
of Personas intended. Because of this, Personas have destructive effects on an organization. As each team
member reads a persona, they will subconsciously fill it with their own assumptions which differ from everyone
else.
The way to mitigate these unintended effects is to replace Personas with models that enable cohesive stories.
These models are called Characters.
Personas, Missing Gaps & The Team
Watch out! You’re about to read a persona! Don’t try to figure anything out…everything you need to know is in
there…trust me…
Over the years, many people have recognized that Personas can cause more problems than they solve. To fix
this, designers began making Personas bigger and more rich. Some Personas can be 1-2 typed pages which
meticulously describe attributes of these imaginary customers.
Yet, no amount of colorful attributes can fill the gaps our brains will automatically fill when reading Personas.
These missing gaps are the causalities which drove the customer to consume a particular product.
When reading a Persona, the brain craves a story that ties everything together. If the story lacks causality, it will
struggle to create that story, and will eventually just make up it’s own causalities — the WYSIATI effect.
The brain works to tie what it takes in so it can create a story — but usually just makes things up ‘cause it’s
lazy…
The brain acts this way because it’s hungry for causal stories which neatly explain why things happen. If it feels
there are any missing gaps, it will subconsciously fill those gaps with it’s own assumptions. Our brains have
evolved this way to keep us safe; if something that looks like a predator suddenly jumps out at us, our brain
would rather quickly assume we are in danger rather then slowly evaluate the situation.

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The problem with this behavior for organizations and teams is: as each member of a team starts subconsciously
creating their own reason why customers are ( or not ) consuming a product, the team will fragment. Even
worse, they will be fragmented and not even know it.
There is hope. There is one important thing that Personas do which make them helpful: They enable a way for a
team to quickly reference what has been learned about customers. However, everything else about Personas
needs to go.
The answer is to take the good, a way for a team to quickly reference insights about a customer, and to add
what’s needed: causality**.
To get the brain to accept a story which explains why a consumer bought a product, it needs information
presented in a particular way. The best way to deliver this information is to explain a customer’s anxieties,
motivations, purchase-progress events, and purchase-progress situations.
When combined, they form what I call Characters.
The Customer Becomes A Character
Let’s consider the above scenario when Alan ( I ) bought a new tuxedo. Everything in that story was true (I did
just buy a tux); however, your brain knew something was off. It recognized that it didn’t make sense for these
attributes to suddenly compel me to buy that tux… and it also picked up some information in there that just
seemed like noise — such as the part about Flamenco guitar playing.
What would make sense for the brain is a believable story which explains that purchase. This is what we can
use Characters for.
A Character is someone who:
1. Has anxieties & motivations.
2. Experiences purchase-progress events.
3. Encounters purchase-progress situations.
Let’s use my story of a tuxedo purchase to create a Character, beginning with anxieties & motivations.
Anxieties & Motivations
Here are some of my anxieties and motivations regarding a tuxedo purchase:
I had been considering buying a tuxedo for years. Some reasons I hadn’t bought one in the past are:
I don’t wear black and most tuxedos for sale are black.
I had only been to a few formal events over the years.
I didn’t want to waste money.
Even though I hated the look and fit of rented tuxedos, I just would feel guilty about buying something I didn’t
need.
If you’re familiar with the Jobs To Be Done concept, you’ll recognize those as some forces which pull and push
consumers.
Customers’ anxieties & motivations are discovered through interviewing them. How to uncover them is beyond
the scope of this article. A good place to start would be to learn about the progress making forces diagram, this
udemy course as well as some techniques explained by David Wu.
With some anxieties and motivations defined, let’s move to Purchase-Progress Events.
Purchase-Progress Events
While your Characters are going about their life with their motivations and anxieties, they are going to
experience particular events which will pull them toward a purchase. These are Purchase-Progress Events.
Here are the Purchase-Progress Events I experienced:
Lately, male celebrities and actors in movies have been wearing more alternative tuxedos — most notably
created by Tom Ford. This has had a ripple effect within the fashion industry and mainstream culture. Now,
alternative styles and colors for tuxedos are more socially acceptable.
Leading up to the purchase, I saw advertisements for the latest James Bond movie. In this movie James Bond,
famous for being dapper and wearing tuxes, wears a non traditional midnight blue tux. He also looks more like
me (blond hair & blue eyes) than previous James Bonds (who all had dark hair and dark eyes).
I recently read an article in GQ magazine on how to buy a tux. The article also showed contemporary models
and actors wearing tuxedos in more casual ways — usually a tux jacket with jeans and a button up shirt.

Page 24
So far, I’ve been experiencing Purchase-Progress Events through the lens of my anxieties and motivations. On
their own, these aren’t enough to lead to a purchase. What will tip the scales will be the Purchase-Progress
Situation(s) I encounter.
Purchase-Progress Situations
Purchase-Progress Events are passive. They are things which the customer sees, hears, or has happen to them.
At some point, all customers who end up making a purchase did so because they experienced one or more
Purchase-Progress Situations.
Here are the ones I encountered:
I had just got married and I met a lot of people. I learned that some of these people had their own weddings
coming up and they were inviting me. This meant I would need to wear a tux at least 2 times over the coming
year.
While walking down the street, I walked by a Sandro store and saw a midnight blue tuxedo on sale for a limited
time. After a quick calculation, I realized that buying the discounted tux would cost about the same as renting a
tux twice.
In both cases, I had to make a decision:
1. I have to use a tux in the future, will I buy or rent it?
2. The sale is for a limited time, will I buy now or choose to ignore the discount?
Characters For Your Product
As you begin interviewing more and more customers, you’ll begin to hear them:
1. Describing the same anxieties & motivations.
2. Describing similar purchase progress events.
3. Encountering similar purchase progress situations.
As an example, lets assume that Sandro interviewed customers and found that many of them expressed the same
motivations, anxiety and situations I did. We’ll use this as a basis for a Character.
A Character
Download a Character template here.
Because Characters evolve from a series of interviews, as more interviews occur, you’ll begin to notice
customers expressing similar anxieties, motivations, events and situations; you’ll also start noticing clumps of
them happening together.
Characters For Sales, Promotion & Product Design
Everyone involved with a product will benefit from Characters. Sales can use them to ease a customer’s
anxieties. Promotion & Marketing can use them to create copy and when to deploy advertising.
Product designers can use Characters to improve their product by reducing anxieties, building upon motivations
and navigating them through situations.
Anything Missing From Characters?
Now, even Characters are not immune to the effects of WYSIATI…but that’s ok. The parts which the brain are
going to fill are the non-critical parts about the story. Interestingly, these non-critical parts are those which
Personas traditionally focus on; e.g. what the customer looks like, what they do in their spare time, likes and
dislikes…..
There is another part which is missing from the Character: the product they purchased. This is done by design
because solutions are opinions whereas Characters are facts. Writing ‘The Reluctant Tux Customer needs a tux
that looks like A, B, C…’, will turn the Character into a one time product requirement.
Characters persist throughout your product’s lifecycle. They are places which solutions fit into. Sometimes the
fit works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Lastly, the Character model described in this article is one that is considering a purchase, a buyer Character.
This is different than a Character who is using product. The most notable different is that instead of Purchase-
Progress Events & Situations they are defined by situations & expected outcomes.
The Stars Of Your Product
The term Character was explicitly chosen to describe this model:
Your customers are actors who play different Characters.

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Your product is the story which these Characters take part in.
Sometimes your customer will only play one Character, sometimes they can be multiple Characters. Maybe the
tux customer is considering buying a tux:
1. For themselves.
2. For a son, brother, father or friend.
3. For a group of people.
4. All of the above.
Another way customers assume different Character roles is when they move from someone considering a
purchase (a buyer Character) to someone who is using a product ( e.g. a SaaS ) in an ongoing way (a user
Character).
Use Characters Today
Change is hard for everyone. People who are used to Personas may resist if they feel a new process is being
thrust upon them. To avoid this, begin talking about your customers using the language of Characters. You
don’t need to say the word ‘Character’, but you can start asking everyone to think about:
What anxieties & motivations do you think our customers have / had when purchasing our, or a similar,
product?
Do you suppose there were any events that happened which reminded our customer about the problem our
product solves?
What situations might our customer encounter which would put them in a position where they had to decide to
buy our product or not?
If you’re using Personas, you can sneak Characters in by amending the information to your Persona documents.
Maybe start at the back of the Persona doc….then work the info to the beginning…then maybe drop all the
Persona attribute parts… then one day ask:
Ya know, I think these Personas we’re using are not the typical Personas…let’s call them something else…how
about….Characters….?
A Better Way To Work
Speak directly to customers.
Our goal in product design, marketing and promotion is to be able to relate to our customers in a way which
speaks directly to them: as if they are in a dark room and our product shines a spotlight on them.
We should always reconsider how we think about products and customers. Currently, not enough of the product
process is devoted to understanding situations and causalities which drive product consumption.
Right now is such an exciting time to create products; so much has changed over the last 15 years. It’s time we
look at what hasn’t changed and see if it can be improved as well.
Replacing Personas with Characters is one of those improvements we can make.
[update May 30, 2014]
*Proponents of Cooper style Personas have correctly pointed out that the abbreviated Persona in this example is
far from what a ‘correct’ Persona should be like; thus making the entire article invalid. The goal of the article is
to explain the destructive effects of adding non-pertinent, subjective qualities when creating models of customer
consumption. Because of side effects like WYSIATI, adding subjective and fictional details ( as Cooper
Personas suggest ) to a customer model will unwittingly distract and fragment a team as each team member
subconsciously brings in their own prejudices & confirmation biases into the design process.
**The problem highlighted here isn’t that Personas do or don’t include causality; rather, the problem is that
Personas & Goal Directed Design lack a process to correctly model causalities. Instead, as suggested in ‘About
Face 3', designers should “[imagine] and [develop] scenarios from the perspective of personas” — an
encouragement to add fictional, interpretive attributes & causality to customer models. When reading this
fictional input, the brain will subconsciously begin creating causal relationships between those attributes and
why consumption occurred. E.g. If a Persona created around an iPhone describes the customer as 35 years old
and having a cat name Claude, our brain will subconsciously begin making up reasons why & how being 35
years old and having a cat contribute to the iPhone purchase…WYSIATI strikes again. Our goal is to

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understand how real customers make real decisions and real tradeoffs; adding fictional information to this
process is disinformation.
Thanks to Ervin Fowlkes and David Wu.
Alan Klement
Product designer and engineer who loves to create and grow products.
Why gamification is broken (and how to fix it)
by SERGIO NOUVEL Tweet — 16d ago in DESIGN & DEV
2 Comments
Gamification was not long ago the darling of business talk.
Successful initiatives like Volkswagen’s campaign The Fun Theory proved that incorporating elements of
games can help achieve tangible goals while increasing customer enjoyment. At some point, when Foursquare
had its glory days, it seemed that almost anything could be turned into a game by adding points, badges and
rankings.
But it turned out that gamification wasn’t a piece of cake. Most gamified systems produced mild results, and
some caused the opposite effects to those desired.
Early poster children of gamification even started to detach themselves from it.
Foursquare, for instance, ended up delegating all gamification features to a separate app named Swarm that
never really managed to stay as relevant as its parent. Stack Overflow explains its success as having nothing to
do with the points and badges. And according to Gartner, the penetration of gamification in enterprise last year
was no more than 10 percent.
Even gamification companies acknowledge that it isn’t the panacea everyone thought it was in 2011.The mere
mention of gamification sounds a bit outdated and tired these days.
Where gamification went wrong
But how did it turn into this?
As I explained in UX Design Trends 2015 & 2016, there are four factors to blame:

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The very notion of a “game”. I really dislike the name “gamification”. It conveys the erroneous notion that
everything should look and behave like games. Many companies, product leaders and consultants, eager to jump
on the buzzword wagon, have taken “gamification” literally, creating a pile of goofy products, apps and
systems.
(Ab)use of points, badges and leaderboards. This is the most visible and annoying aspect of gamification.
Product designers started to attach virtual currencies to anything, under the silly premise that if you offer people
something to collect, they will try to collect it no matter what. But virtual economies add cognitive noise,
introducing unwanted distortions both when they are worth too much and when they are worth nothing.
Displacement of rewards. It’s been demonstrated that offering any kind of reward on behaviors that should
happen spontaneously puts people into “transaction mode”, altering the original motivations system and leaving
them less motivated than before. This includes, of course, virtual currencies and rewards.
Condescending tone. Many gamified systems, for the sake of keeping users motivated, adopt a patronizing
treatment, congratulating people in an overly cheerful voice for everything they do. Here, “user-friendly” was
somehow interpreted as “toddler-friendly”, something that I suspect most adults won’t appreciate. A system that
assumes that you need to be constantly led by the hand makes you feel sort of disabled (Clippy, anyone?). No
one likes being treated as a puppy.
Having said all of this, gamification as a design approach has introduced very valuable insights and
methodologies to product and system design, which if leveraged, can make a difference on the user experience.
I’m not interested in determining whether these insights should be called gamification or not; but identifying
these good parts will certainly allow designers and strategists make good use of them.
Examples of Gamification Done Right
Let’s forget for a while all the points, badges and rewards stuff, so we can observe some unlikely examples of
game mechanics producing quite good results.
Duolingo: Adding fun to something that people already wanted to do
This is the only example of a properly gamified system I included. Learning languages in Duolingo is really
fun, light and motivating. Its effectiveness in helping people learning a language from scratch has been
scientifically proven.
The key is that it provides a fun way of learning something that people already wanted to learn. People really
want to learn languages for fun, for travel, for business, for relationships, etc. It’s so important to us that we’re
willing to learn it the boring way – through courses, reading books, and taking tests.
Duolingo is superior because it tackles a tough subject (learning a new language) with a light approach, and
provides the student with a sense of progress. By making you advance through levels, it gives you an objective
measure of your advancement. Passing these levels is just the right amount of difficulty, so you will probably

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