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Jorge Arango

Jorge Arango
Humanities Crash Course: Week 3 I’m undertaking a year-long crash course in the humanities. These are my notes for week 3. Following...
a month ago
33
a month ago
I’m undertaking a year-long crash course in the humanities. These are my notes for week 3. Following Ted Gioia’s curriculum, this week I read the remainder of the Odyssey. On the audiovisual front, I watched a movie that made me think differently about the poem’s...
Jorge Arango
LLMs Give You Power User Abilities LLMs are a general-purpose technology with seemingly endless use cases. Among my favorite is...
a month ago
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a month ago
LLMs are a general-purpose technology with seemingly endless use cases. Among my favorite is unlocking the potential of other technologies. For example, all modern “desktop” OSs come with shell environments. If you know a bit of scripting, you can automate tasks in ways that go...
Jorge Arango
New Podcast: “Traction Heroes” I’m excited to share with you a new podcast: Traction Heroes. The first episode is now up on the...
a month ago
25
a month ago
I’m excited to share with you a new podcast: Traction Heroes. The first episode is now up on the major podcasting platforms. You can also see show notes and get the RSS feed at www.tractionheroes.com. Here’s the backstory. My previous podcast, The Informed Life, originated as a...
Jorge Arango
Humanities Crash Course: Week 1 I’m embarking on a year-long crash course in the humanities. These are my notes for week...
a month ago
25
a month ago
I’m embarking on a year-long crash course in the humanities. These are my notes for week 1. Readings Following Gioia’s plan, I read six of Plato’s dialogues: Euthypro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, and Books I and VII of The Republic. I used the beautiful edition published (for free)...
Jorge Arango
Gall’s Law Strikes Again: the Sonos Debacle Update: in the afternoon of January 14, news emerged that Sonos CPO Maxime Bouvat-Merlin is also...
a month ago
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a month ago
Update: in the afternoon of January 14, news emerged that Sonos CPO Maxime Bouvat-Merlin is also leaving the company. Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is out, felled by last year’s disastrous app launch. I have no inside track on what happened, but from what I’ve read, Sonos’s leaders...
Jorge Arango
Humanities Crash Course: Week 2 I’m embarking on a year-long crash course in the humanities. These are my notes for week...
a month ago
18
a month ago
I’m embarking on a year-long crash course in the humanities. These are my notes for week 2. Following Ted Gioia’s curriculum, I tackled a small volume of early Greek poetry and the first ten books of the Odyssey. I also heard music from recent descendents of these ancient bards...
Jorge Arango
Humanities Crash Course: Week 4 I’m undertaking a year-long crash course in the humanities. These are my notes for week 4. Following...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
I’m undertaking a year-long crash course in the humanities. These are my notes for week 4. Following Ted Gioia’s curriculum, this week I read the Analects of Confucius. As I did last week, ChatGPT helped me select a movie to complement this reading – albeit...
Jorge Arango
Traction Heroes Ep. 2: Unprecedented In episode 2 of the Traction Heroes podcast, Harry shared an extreme personal experience in service...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
In episode 2 of the Traction Heroes podcast, Harry shared an extreme personal experience in service to exploring the question: How can we act skillfully in unfamiliar circumstances? I considered adding a trigger warning – Harry’s story made me wince. That said, we landed in a...
Jorge Arango
Horsey Horseless and the Challenge of AI-native Products Disruptive technologies call for rethinking product design. We must question assumptions about...
2 weeks ago
13
2 weeks ago
Disruptive technologies call for rethinking product design. We must question assumptions about underlying infrastructure and mental models while acknowledging neither change overnight. For example, self-driving cars don’t need steering wheels. Users direct AI-driven vehicles by...
Jorge Arango
The User Research Strategist Podcast Nikki Anderson interviewed me for her User Research Strategist podcast. Our focus was AI’s impact on...
3 weeks ago
12
3 weeks ago
Nikki Anderson interviewed me for her User Research Strategist podcast. Our focus was AI’s impact on research and informaton architecture – and how practitioners can take advantage of this new technology. See the episode page, which includes show notes. If you want to learn...
Jorge Arango
Traction Heroes Ep. 2: Unprecedented In episode 2 of the Traction Heroes podcast, Harry shared an extreme personal experience in service...
3 weeks ago
11
3 weeks ago
In episode 2 of the Traction Heroes podcast, Harry shared an extreme personal experience in service to exploring the question: How can we act skillfully in unfamiliar circumstances? I considered adding a trigger warning – Harry’s story made me wince. That said, we landed in a...
Jorge Arango
IA Fail: Which Kindle Edition? One of the goals of information architecture is making it possible for people to easily find what...
a month ago
10
a month ago
One of the goals of information architecture is making it possible for people to easily find what they’re looking for. As a large and complex information environment, Amazon.com provides lots of examples of how to do it right – and how to do it wrong. This post highlights one of...
Jorge Arango
Humanities Crash Course Week 6: Herodotus Week 6 of my humanities crash course included four books from Herodotus’s Histories and Plato’s...
a week ago
10
a week ago
Week 6 of my humanities crash course included four books from Herodotus’s Histories and Plato’s Symposium. I also listened to gorgeous music from exotic (to me) ports of call, learned about Persian art and architecture, and watched a new documentary about René...
Jorge Arango
One Year of “Duly Noted” Duly Noted just celebrated its first birthday. It’s an opportunity for me to reflect on what’s...
a month ago
10
a month ago
Duly Noted just celebrated its first birthday. It’s an opportunity for me to reflect on what’s changed since it came out. The book’s central premise is evergreen: thinking isn’t limited to the spongy mass between your ears. Instead, you think by interacting with your environment...
Jorge Arango
What’s the Object of Information Architecture? Ironically, information architects haven’t explained how we create value in terms most people...
a month ago
9
a month ago
Ironically, information architects haven’t explained how we create value in terms most people understand. If I tell someone at a party that I’m an IA, they won’t know what I do. It’s a problem: if others don’t understand how we can help, they won’t hire us. The main challenge is...
Jorge Arango
Prescriptive and Descriptive Information Architectures There are two stances you can take toward language in your website or app: prescriptive or...
a month ago
9
a month ago
There are two stances you can take toward language in your website or app: prescriptive or descriptive. Which you choose influences the system’s understandability and findability. The terms come from linguistics. I heard about them in a radio show (or was it a podcast?) many...
Jorge Arango
A Crash Course in the Humanities My education has lots of gaps. “Youth is wasted on the young” is an apt cliché: I wasted lots of...
a month ago
9
a month ago
My education has lots of gaps. “Youth is wasted on the young” is an apt cliché: I wasted lots of opportunities as a young person. After graduation, I committed to ongoing learning. Alas, it’s been scattered and undirected. This year, I’m doing something about it: immersing myself...
Jorge Arango
Humanities Crash Course Week 5: Eudaemonia In week 5 of my humanities crash course, I read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Poetics. I also...
2 weeks ago
9
2 weeks ago
In week 5 of my humanities crash course, I read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Poetics. I also listened to more Bach, looked at Italian Baroque sculpture, and watched a classic – if somewhat boring – movie. Getting through it despite the difficulties was part of the...
Jorge Arango
Book Notes: “Co-Intelligence” Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick Portfolio, 2024 Over the weekend, I...
a week ago
7
a week ago
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick Portfolio, 2024 Over the weekend, I caught up with a friend I hadn’t seen in years. When I explained that most of my work these days is focused on AI, he asked if there was one book he could read to understand how to...
Jorge Arango
Traction Heroes Ep. 3: Beyond Data In episode 3 of the Traction Heroes podcast, Harry and I discussed the relationship between...
a week ago
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a week ago
In episode 3 of the Traction Heroes podcast, Harry and I discussed the relationship between decision-making and data. Is it ok for some decisions to be made intuitively? What role do emotions play in decision-making? How do you deal with stakeholders who demand that decisions be...
Jorge Arango
Solsbury Hill Today is Peter Gabriel’s 75th birthday. He’s contributed much through his music and by bringing...
a week ago
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a week ago
Today is Peter Gabriel’s 75th birthday. He’s contributed much through his music and by bringing people together through the arts. But today, I want to celebrate one of his songs that’s had a profound impact on my life: Solsbury Hill. Solsbury Hill was Gabriel’s debut single as...
Jorge Arango
Humanities Crash Course Week 7: Gilgamesh Week 7 of my humanities crash course had me exploring ancient Mesopotamia with a side trip to...
4 days ago
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4 days ago
Week 7 of my humanities crash course had me exploring ancient Mesopotamia with a side trip to northern India. I also watched an Iranian film that had me pondering the meaning of life. Readings This week, I read two short ancient texts: the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Dhammapada....
Jorge Arango
AI Needs Architects – That’s Why I’m Pivoting In over thirty years in business, two technological shifts have fundamentally changed my work. The...
2 days ago
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2 days ago
In over thirty years in business, two technological shifts have fundamentally changed my work. The first was the web in the mid 1990s, which led me to leave architecture and focus on what we now call UX. The second is happening now – and it may be bigger. AI is poised to reshape...