Things worth noting, not for nothing, according to Sam Dresser.https://samdresser.com/https://samdresser.com/louis-cole-music-recommendation/https://samdresser.com/louis-cole-music-recommendation/Drummer, keyboardist, and singer, Louis Cole, has been at it for a while. Whether it's releasing music under his own name, with the band Knower, or as a rumored member of the mysterious and masked duo, Clown Core, he's been keeping very busy making interesting (and incredible) music. He is part of…Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:05:00 GMTMusic Recommendationshttps://samdresser.com/will-2023-bring-back-personal-blogging/https://samdresser.com/will-2023-bring-back-personal-blogging/As we head into the new year (Happy New Year! 🥳), hot on the heels of my own decision to re-commit to a personal blog and owning my own content, The Verge has posted an interesting article called Bring back personal blogging. One section addressed owning your own content and platform: If what is…Sun, 01 Jan 2023 17:28:03 GMTlinkedtechnologyblogginghttps://samdresser.com/viral-jazz/https://samdresser.com/viral-jazz/I've been a fan of jazz music for almost as long as I can remember. Whether it was dancing to the improvisations of Vince Guaraldi while watching Peanuts and Charlie Brown as a toddler, or grooving to the swing of the Count Basie big band in elementary school, jazz has been a part of my life from a…Sat, 31 Dec 2022 05:47:57 GMTmusiceditorialhttps://samdresser.com/lastpass-and-the-difficulty-of-being-safe/https://samdresser.com/lastpass-and-the-difficulty-of-being-safe/In case you haven't heard, popular password manager LastPass released an updated statement on December 22nd with some terrifying details to anyone who uses their product. Basically, customer's password vaults are now in the hands of hackers. Now that some security experts have had the chance to…Thu, 29 Dec 2022 16:10:30 GMTeditorialtechnologyNewssecurityhttps://samdresser.com/twitter-mastodon-and-owning-your-own-content/https://samdresser.com/twitter-mastodon-and-owning-your-own-content/You may have noticed that things look a little bit different around here. I decided to make a few changes. Maybe this is the result of holiday boredom, or maybe some new year’s resolutions, maybe I needed to scratch that proverbial itch that many technologists have for new projects, or maybe I’ve…Thu, 29 Dec 2022 04:41:31 GMTeditorialtechnologychangemastodonhttps://samdresser.com/coming-soon/https://samdresser.com/coming-soon/You may have noticed that things look a little bit different around here. I've moved, and I have some things to share. Stay tuned.Tue, 27 Dec 2022 17:14:23 GMTNewshttps://samdresser.com/i-tried-emailing-like-a-ceo-and-quite-frankly-it-made-my-life-better/https://samdresser.com/i-tried-emailing-like-a-ceo-and-quite-frankly-it-made-my-life-better/Came across this BuzzFeed News article by Katie Notopoulos and it really resonated with me. The gist is to essentially treat email more like text messages. Respond quickly and succinctly whenever possible. The way she described her previous approach to email really resonated with me: What trips me…Wed, 10 Jul 2019 16:09:23 GMTworkemailproductivitylinkedhttps://samdresser.com/finding-your-passion-at-work/https://samdresser.com/finding-your-passion-at-work/I really enjoyed this article from the Wall Street Journal (warning: paywall ahead) about getting burned out at work and following your passion. It gave me a chance to reflect on my own career path that brought me to where I am today. I started with a job at a great company doing work that wasn't…Sat, 13 Apr 2019 14:21:30 GMTworkpassionlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/peter-jackson-to-direct-new-beatles-documentary-from-let-it-be-footage/https://samdresser.com/peter-jackson-to-direct-new-beatles-documentary-from-let-it-be-footage/Jackson said: “The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio made available to us ensures this movie will be the ultimate ‘fly on the wall’ experience … it’s like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great…Fri, 01 Feb 2019 04:18:47 GMTmusicmovieshttps://samdresser.com/documenting-the-doomed-fyre-festival/https://samdresser.com/documenting-the-doomed-fyre-festival/No doubt you're aware of the now infamous Fyre Festival. You know, the one that ended up as a complete disaster? The story is so fascinating, that both Netflix and Hulu have released their own documenteries outlining the events that led up to the festival's demise. As someone who works with and…Thu, 31 Jan 2019 04:17:42 GMTmusicdocumentarymoviesfestivalhttps://samdresser.com/book-review-how-music-got-free/https://samdresser.com/book-review-how-music-got-free/Not long ago, I finished Stephen Witt's phenomenal book, How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy. Highly recommend it. Fascinating both from a technology perspective, as well as from the perspective of culture, business, and art.Sun, 29 May 2016 19:12:17 GMTbooksreviewbookmusicbusinessarttechnologyhttps://samdresser.com/nilay-got-his-mom-a-chromebook-pixel/https://samdresser.com/nilay-got-his-mom-a-chromebook-pixel/Nilay Patel is the editor in chief at The Verge and recently faced a predicament that many tech-savvy children of less tech-savvy parents face: Getting them a new computer. In many ways, now is the best time in history to buy a new computer. Never before have such powerful machines incased in such…Thu, 04 Feb 2016 02:22:36 GMTthinkinginnovationproductivitylinkedhttps://samdresser.com/exclusive-zappos-ceo-responds-to-reports-of-employee-departures-after-radical-management-experiment/https://samdresser.com/exclusive-zappos-ceo-responds-to-reports-of-employee-departures-after-radical-management-experiment/In case you missed it (which I did, apparently), there's been some recent press speculating about turnover at Zappos. Greg Ferenstein got an interview with CEO Tony Hseih and "non-titled executive" Fred Mossler. The entire post is worth a read, along with this article which goes into the details of…Mon, 25 Jan 2016 01:17:12 GMTinnovationthinkinglinkedhttps://samdresser.com/a-google-manager-on-time-management/https://samdresser.com/a-google-manager-on-time-management/I realize the irony of someone who let several months go by without updating his blog posting about time management. Let me defend myself by saying that, had I implemented this approach, I'm confident my posts would have been much more regular. “It’s been said there are two paradigms to scheduling…Sun, 17 Jan 2016 15:58:25 GMTproductivitymanagementlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/sorry-vs-thank-you/https://samdresser.com/sorry-vs-thank-you/A simple customer service technique I learned during my time at Apple was to say "thank you" instead of "sorry." The most common scenario was when we were running behind schedule at the Genius Bar. I'd instruct my team to start the interaction with something like "thank you for being patient,"…Sun, 17 Jan 2016 15:48:35 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/its-been-a-while/https://samdresser.com/its-been-a-while/This is the part where I apologize for not writing here in a while. Glad we got this out of the way.Sun, 17 Jan 2016 15:48:31 GMThttps://samdresser.com/two-types-of-thinkers-which-are-you/https://samdresser.com/two-types-of-thinkers-which-are-you/I tweeted this article out a few days ago, but wanted to link to it here as well. He treats employees, vendors, booking agents, publishers, and everyone else as if they were his best customers. He routinely invests in their success. It comes back to him in a thousand ways. Robert is my best example…Mon, 13 Jul 2015 13:29:56 GMTleadershipthinkinglinkedhttps://samdresser.com/thoughts-on-creativity-inc-part-1/https://samdresser.com/thoughts-on-creativity-inc-part-1/The idea of breaking down the incredible book, Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace, has proven to be a daunting effort. I am not here to write a review, but instead to share some thoughts and observations I made when reading the book. I've decided to break these thoughts up into several…Mon, 25 May 2015 18:42:32 GMTcreativitymanagementleadershipculturefreakonomicseditorialcreativity-inchttps://samdresser.com/the-messy-business-of-reinventing-happiness/https://samdresser.com/the-messy-business-of-reinventing-happiness/Very interesting read on how Disney's MyMagic+ MagicBands came to be. As someone who's visited Disney World and used one, it seems so obvious to me. However, it wasn't met with universally open arms. As I read this article, I admit it was hard not to look past Disney's massive resources when trying…Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:45:17 GMTchangedisneylinkedhttps://samdresser.com/why-productive-people-take-better-notes/https://samdresser.com/why-productive-people-take-better-notes/As we've discussed before, your mind can only handle so great of a cognitive load—people can only hold so many items in their working memory before they start to fall out. Active listening—that is, attending to the speaker and jotting down the things that catch your attention—lets us invest our…Mon, 20 Apr 2015 01:46:27 GMTnotesproductivitylinkedhttps://samdresser.com/coming-soon-thoughts-on-recent-books/https://samdresser.com/coming-soon-thoughts-on-recent-books/I've been away for a bit, but while I've been away, I've read two phenomenal books that I plan to write about here. The recent book I finished on vacation was Becoming Steve Jobs. The other book, which immediaely became one of my favorites, was Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull. Both books share a lot…Tue, 07 Apr 2015 04:12:37 GMTteasereditorial-teaserhttps://samdresser.com/why-slack-works/https://samdresser.com/why-slack-works/Stellar products are seldom just about usability and usefulness. They go a step further and strive to delight their users. Slack does this time and again, and it’s these little things that make it such a joy to use. We’re often quick to gloss over and dismiss these seemingly inconsequential…Fri, 13 Mar 2015 03:57:16 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/five-customer-retention-tips-for-entrepreneurs/https://samdresser.com/five-customer-retention-tips-for-entrepreneurs/According to statistics provided by Bain and Co. in the Harvard Management Update, 80% of companies surveyed said that they offer superior customer service, but only 8% of their customers agreed with them. Ouch. Good article overall, but this statistic definitely jumped at out at me. After a little…Mon, 09 Mar 2015 01:52:58 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/people-first-technology-second/https://samdresser.com/people-first-technology-second/This article is almost a year old, but still a great read. This is exactly how I feel. Working for a music-centric company, I like to think of IT as the roadies. The ones that ensure the gear is working right. Acting solely in service to the "performers," which in the case of enterprise, are the…Fri, 27 Feb 2015 19:58:07 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/speaking-of-virtual-assistants/https://samdresser.com/speaking-of-virtual-assistants/While we're on the topic of virtual assistants, this one seems particularly intriguing. We have trained operators standing by 24/7 to answer every one of your requests. Send us a text message, and we'll get you what you want. We'll order what you need from the appropriate service (e.g. DoorDash,…Tue, 24 Feb 2015 23:47:19 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/3-things-that-will-change-user-experience-design-in-2015/https://samdresser.com/3-things-that-will-change-user-experience-design-in-2015/I’m seeing a ton of evidence that IT leaders recognize this too. I hear story after story of IT rollouts that result in poor adoption. These failures are no longer being chalked up to poor planning, readiness, or technology. Leaders are acknowledging that their teams lack an understanding of the…Tue, 24 Feb 2015 16:20:44 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/julie-desk-your-virtual-personal-assistant/https://samdresser.com/julie-desk-your-virtual-personal-assistant/Furthermore, all of this takes place via email, using human-friendly language, as if Julie is a real person. This isn't the first virtual assistant application of its kind. A service called x.ai is in limited beta and their site is accepting emails to be added to a waiting list. And Clara Labs is…Tue, 24 Feb 2015 05:02:56 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/make-enterprise-software-people-actually-love/https://samdresser.com/make-enterprise-software-people-actually-love/Article author Jon Kolko, regarding traditional enterprise software: This category of software is typically characterized as “feature-rich.” In fact, these products are sold as lists of features to C-suite executives, and the conventional wisdom over many years has been that the package with the…Sat, 14 Feb 2015 13:40:00 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/whats-tech-podcast/https://samdresser.com/whats-tech-podcast/After this week, new episodes of What's Tech? will appear every Tuesday. And we're flirting with the idea of special episodes for big, important topics and events. You know, mini-episodes that would helpfully explain the real important, really confusing stuff, so that you can keep up with your…Fri, 13 Feb 2015 17:26:07 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/securing-your-personal-data-in-the-internet-of-things/https://samdresser.com/securing-your-personal-data-in-the-internet-of-things/Secure Your Home Network: - Change all default usernames and passwords on all devices connected to your network. - Enable Wi-Fi protected access if available, which creates a secure network via encryption. - Activate firewalls on your computer and wireless router. Use a comprehensive security…Tue, 10 Feb 2015 20:38:51 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/sling-tv-adds-amc-launches-in-u-s/https://samdresser.com/sling-tv-adds-amc-launches-in-u-s/Sling TV launched its streaming service on Monday, saying that it will soon add AMC to its basic $20 online bundle of channels, which would make it the most complete offering of sports, news, premium shows and lifestyle channels for the Internet. Exciting news. I'm a happy subscriber. There aren't…Tue, 10 Feb 2015 01:22:39 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/adobe-kickbox-good-idea-or-bad-idea/https://samdresser.com/adobe-kickbox-good-idea-or-bad-idea/Adobe Kickbox delivers an actionable process for discovering new opportunities, validating customer engagement, and evaluating new business potential. It includes tools that help innovators define, refine, validate, and evolve their idea. This is very intriguing to me. What I love; empowering and…Mon, 09 Feb 2015 23:49:21 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/hush-your-tv-is-listening/https://samdresser.com/hush-your-tv-is-listening/Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be…Sun, 08 Feb 2015 21:38:53 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/richard-branson-interview-regarding-the-virgin-hotel/https://samdresser.com/richard-branson-interview-regarding-the-virgin-hotel/Fun interview with Branson. This tidbit is his response to people stealing their salt and pepper shakers. Instead of trying to prevent people from stealing them, they use it as an opportunity to advertise. Adjusting your approach based on what people clearly want. What a concept!Sun, 08 Feb 2015 16:42:10 GMTlinkedhttps://samdresser.com/hello-world/https://samdresser.com/hello-world/That's typically how these things start, right? I want to begin in the same way every young man or woman should begin when meeting the parents of their girlfriend or boyfriend; with my intentions. What am I here for? What's the purpose of this blog? Who cares? Let me try to answer two out of three…Sun, 08 Feb 2015 06:53:43 GMTabout