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Explore the evolving world of design with Cameron Craig and Keith as they tackle the challenges of complex, monolithic products and the critical role of human-centered design. Each episode dives into topics like organizational change, the future of design in tech, and the emerging influence of agents on user experience. Perfect for designers, strategists, and leaders, this podcast offers insights on adaptability, communication, and the strategic thinking needed to thrive in a rapidly changing landscape.
Cameron Craig (00:00.323)
See if I can do full screen.
Keith (00:03.714)
Cameron, what's happening, man?
Cameron Craig (00:04.844)
Okay
Well, mean, technical difficulties on both of our hands.
Keith (00:12.684)
Dude, so you're in a new office right now, which is cool.
Cameron Craig (00:16.867)
I am, I'm in my, actual office at home, which is nice.
Keith (00:22.456)
get an upgrade from the garage.
Cameron Craig (00:24.105)
Upgrade from the garage and a whole new podcasting setup, which is also pretty cool. but you know, who knows? We'll see if it holds up.
Keith (00:37.302)
Yeah, it's looking good so far. Picture looks good. Camera looks great. Lighting solid.
Cameron Craig (00:42.627)
Well, that's good. See now all of a sudden, like I say that and I've immediately lost you in this fun bit of screen. All right. There you are. Great. Yay. Bear with us where we get our technology together.
Keith (01:00.622)
Yeah, for I'm running on a Mac studio and it's like the USB bus in the back is have as a lot. It has a lot of issues when you have a sound card, a hub, a capture device. It's like getting a an actual machine, not a laptop was supposed to help this, but we'll see.
Cameron Craig (01:22.231)
Hey, did I just drop my video speed? my God.
Keith (01:24.81)
Yeah, see? It says actual recording is higher quality. I don't know if it's gonna like record you locally, but I can't see you now. Can you not see you either?
Cameron Craig (01:34.839)
I can't see me.
Keith (01:37.26)
Maybe your internet is like, did you ever get that internet speed sorted out?
Cameron Craig (01:42.403)
No, I mean, I did as much as I could do. I'm going to have to run a cable from one side of the house to the other, which is like going outside and doing all that. Unless I quickly.
Keith (01:56.462)
Can you, what if you open a browser and run speed test real quick, see how fast it goes? It's probably gonna kill it because you're uploading video at the same time.
Cameron Craig (02:01.059)
Yeah.
Yeah, probably. Hang on. Let's see.
Keith (02:09.976)
We must be onto something really important for the fucking internet to whatever to tech to keep because it was like half an hour for me to get my crap ironed out.
Cameron Craig (02:19.843)
Well, and then everything was working totally fine until we started doing this. Hang on, let's see if it just brings everything to a grinding hall when we're running a speed test. It's so slow, it's like eight megabits per second.
Keith (02:35.046)
my god, dude.
Keith (02:40.214)
Where is your Wi Fi access point like far away?
Cameron Craig (02:45.111)
I have a mesh network and then what I did thinking that this was going to be okay was instead of using the mesh network, I am jacked in with ethernet via one of those like ethernet extender things. goes through your like power line or whatever. Yeah.
Keith (03:05.611)
Peewee.
Cameron Craig (03:09.153)
Which I thought, yeah, I'm sure that's what's bringing it down in speed, it, I don't know. But I mean, I'm going to fiber basically after that. So it should, I'm a little surprised at how slow it is, but.
Keith (03:09.24)
That's why.
Keith (03:28.384)
It might be using the POE as the main connection instead of the wifi. Cause is the wifi, is the mesh that bad? Like that's slow.
Cameron Craig (03:39.711)
It must be, I don't know. But I kind of think in the camera.
The camera is the issue. Like I can, I can tell already. Like the lens has disappeared. Hang on.
Keith (03:56.046)
The led has disappeared. I think there's some quantum technical issues over there.
Cameron Craig (04:00.651)
Well, it's gone back. You know, it's closed.
Keith (04:04.869)
so the camera turned off?
Cameron Craig (04:07.583)
No, the camera's on, but it has decided that it is not.
Keith (04:17.358)
There it goes. Is it hot?
Cameron Craig (04:17.581)
See? Hang on.
Cameron Craig (04:23.135)
It's warm. It's not. I wouldn't say it's hot.
Keith (04:26.272)
It might have a overheat temperature thing set to like turn it off.
Cameron Craig (04:32.5)
It might. But it's not that warm.
Keith (04:34.574)
my god.
Cameron Craig (04:38.197)
Okay. The other thing that it could also be is maybe the mode that it's in. And well, I don't know. just flicked it on and you know, it might be in the, the preview mode for the, the still camera and it might just be like timing out right versus.
Keith (04:40.824)
Dude.
Keith (04:46.04)
What mode is it in?
Keith (05:00.492)
I see what saying.
Cameron Craig (05:01.485)
Do you know, like what do you do with yours?
Keith (05:05.036)
Mine's in just movie mode. And then I have it set to...
Keith (05:13.394)
think shutter priority. So I keep the shutter speed consistent. And then I have it change the aperture based on because sometimes if it's daytime, it's more light here. But and I think I have the ISO cranked way down, I have to check it and change it. The thing that's weird is like, I started feeling like terrible during COVID because I had like really cool LED lighting. And that's actually terrible for your circadian rhythm. So I was like poisoning myself basically, I mean, this
Cameron Craig (05:39.553)
Yeah.
Keith (05:40.3)
The new literature says, I change everything to like warmer light. But when it's daylight, everything's blue. So everything's balanced to like warm light right now to get like a better white balance. But it.
Cameron Craig (05:49.783)
Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to still play with the camera and get the settings. Like that is part of it, I think.
Keith (05:57.452)
Yeah, well, it came back on, so that's good.
Cameron Craig (06:00.019)
Yeah, we'll see if it goes out again. If it does, then who knows.
Keith (06:05.646)
I think we're onto something. Usually when these kind of gremlins come out and there's more hiccups, like, what is this thing? I know it's like a Buddhist thing, but it's like when there's more resistance, like you're close to like a really big breakthrough or something. Hopefully, this has been a crazy fucking week, man. This has been insane with work and trying to get things like... Dude, immigration is really hard to systematize and to automate and to put AI into.
I'm like, man, this is, it's a hard job sometimes. That's not even being the lawyer part either, but.
Cameron Craig (06:39.297)
Yeah, I bet. mean, I would imagine outside of like AI for legal things, meaning, you know, research and helping write briefs and things like that. There's probably a lot to think through with that, but that seems nascent. I would say, you know, I haven't really heard a lot of people in that space.
Keith (06:52.012)
Yeah.
Keith (07:01.25)
Well, legal SaaS, like they price the hell out of it on purpose and it's just designed terribly because they're like, lawyers, they're to charge $500 to $1000 an hour regardless. We're just going to charge up, you know, whatever. But the real issue is, it's a lot of PII that you can't just drop into the monolith. Cause it's like affidavits, it's passports, it's all the stuff to prove that you are who you are. And it's like, you can't just toss that into an AI. It's like, you
Cameron Craig (07:20.855)
Huh.
Keith (07:30.656)
know what's going to happen to it. And then the principle I work for a client, she's not technical at all. So I can't just go basically build a box with an H100 or whatever and just be like, that would be awesome. That'd be the thing to do because everything's totally self hosted. we're still trying to get the case management system set up. So it's like the billing part and the invoicing, well, that's kind of automated, but it's like, as a whole, this is the design
Cameron Craig (07:37.827)
in
Keith (08:01.26)
beyond the interface kind of thing that we were kind of talking about initially before where it's not just the interface, but, yeah, what, so you were talking earlier about designers need to get out of their own way. I think this is a good segue for that.
Cameron Craig (08:06.947)
Yeah, well, mean, I think go, you go.
Cameron Craig (08:18.881)
Yeah. I mean, I can't deny my frustration this week and, and a lot of it felt not self-inflicted necessarily by me. mean, I'm, I'm sure I contribute as well, but it felt very as a practice self-inflicted. Like we just couldn't get out of our own way on a bunch of things this week. And you dive into it and you're talking in and kind of doing the
I don't know if you want to call it the critical analysis of what's happening or the corrective action, whatever, you And it was like, wow, we're the problem right now. Like, we're not thinking about this the right way. We're literally in the place where we can't seem to figure out what it is that we actually need to do.
And it was like at every level, right? Like part of it is, is the org design. Hey, if things are changing and we are on one end funded to do less, but on the other end, incented to do strategic work, like how do we reorganize? Right? That, that was one end on the other end is, you know, more, more critical down at the, the products that we're trying to build. was like, you know, it,
I you know, I'm a car person. it's kind of like the Henry Ford thing, you know, during the industrial revolution, which in some ways people are saying like, we're at a new industrial revolution. This time it's around knowledge and, and intelligence. And it's like, if I listened to what my customers wanted, I would have made faster horses. I, I, I, I mean, shit, not Keith. Like I felt like I had that moment this week where I'm like,
my God, you guys just designed a faster horse and you're thinking this is amazing.
Keith (10:17.358)
When I think back to when I was doing like UX, UX like a decade ago, you had to do everything. You had to write the error statements, you had to do the research, you had to like, it wasn't just like now there's like 50 sub jobs of like UX research and like a planner and like, I think a lot of people got into it because it was like a creative systems kind of thing. And now that
Cameron Craig (10:42.22)
Yep.
Keith (10:45.314)
we've been over capitalized in, you know, cause to kind of data it's like, dude, Figment went public, I think today, right? Is today they actually go public? Yeah. yeah. So it's, I think it was a way for people to kind of get creative enough to push the interface around, but it just started becoming self referential or self replicating because it was like, you know, all these, boot camps pop up.
Cameron Craig (10:52.449)
I think so, yeah.
Keith (11:12.814)
And they weren't real portfolio projects, but everybody was like, I'm to make Uber for dog biscuits or something, or, you know, some other delivery. And it was like all the same thing. Cause there was a frame that they could see and they could like map something to it that other people also knew. But we're at a point now where it's like, from what we're just talking about, like there is no interface anymore. Like it's going to become data that's going to adapt and react to you. So it's like that level of creativity and thinking is going to go to like.
Cameron Craig (11:17.804)
Right, right.
Keith (11:42.626)
What does it do? How does it solve your needs simply? How does it make you feel? And then how does all those things bridge together to like really solve a business case? Like what can you wrap a business around? Like what is something sustainable that is an actual value exchange? I think that's.
Cameron Craig (11:57.687)
Right. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, you're a hundred percent right. I think the concept of no interface is a really hard thing for people to get because we've spent 25 plus years building standards around web delivered interfaces, right? Like we've actually, we've thrown over higher fidelity and more performant interfaces and stuck with HTML.
Like at every turn we've done that, right? And so it's really hard to get people to break out of that and say, what activities Keith is doing at work, what activities Keith is doing in his free time, and what activities Keith is doing in his life that are aided by the internet, if you will, or some sort of...
web delivered information is going to be different than cams version of those exact same activities. And, you know, I think you and I harken back to the retail thing because one, I joke about this. Like the killer app for PCs is email. think the killer app for the web is shopping. Like I really think
Keith (13:18.648)
Yeah, 100%.
Cameron Craig (13:19.967)
that is where most people spend their time outside of, you know, social media and porn. And, you know, I mean, I think the interface for porn is basically like a television with a bunch of channels and, you know, the interface for social media, I think, is just basically like scroll and tap. But
You know how you choose to shop and how I choose to shop like that was the holy grail at Macy's right? Like we wrote whole presentations on that. Like, you know, what is your personalization strategy? I mean, I remember this like yesterday because people got pissed at you and I, we're like, if Keith doesn't like brown shoes, never show him a pair of brown shoes ever again. And they were like, no, you can't do that. And it was like, why it's like, well, it's technologically damn near impossible. And what if Keith's
preferences change and he wants brown shoes, he's going to have to go into the interface and switch that all around. It's like.
Keith (14:18.84)
Or just type Brown in search and just be like, now he wants Brown. It's like.
Cameron Craig (14:24.501)
Again, there's no interface.
God damn it.
Keith (14:29.427)
You know,
Cameron Craig (14:32.642)
Keep talking.
Keith (14:34.37)
Yeah, was gonna as as you were talking about interface and shop like shopping was a killer app for the internet. I'm wondering if like her like like companionship and fake companionship is going to be the killer app for AI. I think the first unknown killer app unless you're kind of like a hacker and a systems thinker. It's like AI was written to rewrite history. Like that's what it's doing all around the world. Right now people need like even think about like
If it speeds up production to do movies, like how many more different versions of like Star Wars do we need? It's like stop fucking editing the film, like leave it the way it was in the seventies and like, it sucks. Like it's getting worse. And it's just a reason, a reason to rerelease something, to extract more revenue. And it's like, it's terrible, but I digress.
Cameron Craig (15:19.427)
Agreed. mean, I think you're right. where the where the no interface thing comes from is the mental model of what we're trying to do with the web has never been right. Like the the core premise of the web is like information delivery wherever you want it, whenever you want it and
collections of data and knowledge sitting around the world that are now accessible by anybody, right? Like the protocol to do all that and the unifying languages to make all of this work is really where the brilliance of the web and the internet actually is. But instead we're like, huh, I've got a markup language and a way of presenting static information. And we've just gone deep on that when in reality,
You know, the promise and the value of it is, that information delivery or the decisioning or, you know, data to drive other, other applications that are not necessarily tied to that static page delivery, if you will. Right. And that. Yeah.
Keith (16:30.734)
It's funny you kind of mentioned static because I was thinking about print and books. You can print infinitely different books, but it's still fundamentally the same vibe, same experience. Printed pages, it's static, it's text. You can make it look different, but it's still fundamentally the same interface. think because these revolutions, these technical revolutions happen like
orders of magnitude faster for every like cycle. I think it's like we speed ran it so fast that now we're like, okay, it's almost like what's next beyond that because there are too many people in design interface right now, the code is coming up real fast to basically make it you know, anybody interface designer, including our parents or grandparents or whatever. And, you know, it's got to push the demand somewhere else.
So maybe that's coming back to the business part of having design actually solve business problems rather than design focusing on interaction problems where it's like, it twirls or it blinks or whatever. It's like, OK, fine. that's not like it gets in the way after a certain point because you're focused on the gilding lily but making it move kind of thing. You know what mean?
Cameron Craig (17:48.987)
Yep. Yeah. I mean, I think you're right. I think you're right. I think that that is where I am beginning to land, right? Because I think I get asked that question a lot. Like we've done interface at scale for a number of years in my current job. And as you said, like throughout our history doing this stuff, I think in some ways, you know, design schools have done
New designers that disservice by throwing them in with the tools. And I think, you know, you had mentioned this a few weeks back and. We don't spend a lot of time teaching designers, developers and product people how to actually think about the problem. We spend a lot of time teaching them how to use tools to solve problems, but the problems are like, and you know, it's systems thinking diagram. They're near the top. They're very reactionary.
Like build me an interface to do the following set of activities, enhance this interface to like make sure that these things can be done faster.
Yeah. And, you know, in reality, like where we used to be taught how to think about problems, like, you know, the camera going out every three and a half minutes.
Keith (19:04.984)
I think it's a heat thing with this.
Cameron Craig (19:07.373)
It's great. Anyway.
Keith (19:10.862)
There's probably a setting that you can change to let it get hotter. I think it's cutting it out automatically.
Cameron Craig (19:20.801)
Yeah, it's fascinating. We'll solve problems in real time.
Keith (19:27.788)
I mean, we're certainly not going to fix it in post.
Cameron Craig (19:30.869)
No.
Keith (19:33.462)
Okay, changing the auto power off temp setting to high within the camera's menu can help mitigate the issue by allowing the camera to operate at higher temperatures before shutting it down. Can you see the screen behind it?
Cameron Craig (19:41.091)
Great.
not without taking it out of the rig.
Keith (19:48.28)
Can you turn it off and do it?
Cameron Craig (19:49.911)
Yeah.
Keith (19:53.996)
This is so okay, this is perfect example. It's like, maybe what designers need to do is like cut off, like a sensory input. It's almost like the Apollo missions where they had to prototype something on a little spacecraft guy in real time before they ran out of oxygen.
Cameron Craig (20:12.226)
Yeah.
Keith (20:13.358)
You know what I mean?
Cameron Craig (20:15.041)
Yep. I mean.
Cameron Craig (20:24.355)
and we get hang on now gone
Keith (20:26.108)
my god.
Keith (20:29.774)
Yeah, I'm not editing this. I'm going to post this.
I mean, you know, it is what dude this and this is totally like, your honest is going to go into Gemini and like four days, like right after the fourth on the seventh. And it's going to be throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks and just trying lots of new things. Some people are going to go absolutely bananas because they're going to want stability. Other people are going to love it depending on kind of what their ascendant is. But I'm excited. mean, God, man, even since COVID it's been just weird, like this weird kind of like
language, foggy, unknown kind of like technological maze. It's just like, like a fractal panopticon kind of thing. I don't know if that even makes sense.
Cameron Craig (21:17.613)
I mean, I'm in the menu, where do I go?
Keith (21:17.826)
Let me know when you get to the menu. Okay, go to the setup menu often tab 5.
Keith (21:30.114)
Find and select Power Setting option.
Cameron Craig (21:34.687)
Is that what the suitcase set up? Yes. Got it. And then what power setting options? Is that what I'm doing?
Keith (21:45.356)
Yep. And then choose Auto Power Off Temp and set that to high.
Keith (21:56.642)
This is part of my day job as a chief of staff to with my attorney I work with. Where's the off switch?
Cameron Craig (21:59.075)
Yeah, I want to reboot
Keith (22:05.58)
Or talking to my dad about tech support. Daddy, you unplug the cable modem. That's bullshit. Like, dad, unplug the cable modem. Fine, unplugs it. My house mom, she's fine. Plugs it back in. it's great. Okay, thanks, Keith. Later.
Cameron Craig (22:20.547)
you
Keith (22:21.774)
That'll be me someday, Cameron, when I have kids. Turn the hologram back on, Dad.
Keith (22:31.554)
Did you find the auto power off temp?
Cameron Craig (22:33.429)
I did, but I was also like looking at the other things if there's anything. Power save start time.
Keith (22:37.57)
Okay.
Keith (22:42.946)
Yep, that could be, yep.
Cameron Craig (22:43.981)
I'm gonna turn that off.
Alright, let's see what happens. Everything but this. I said everything but this.
Keith (22:48.398)
Ahem.
Sony ZV-E10 is still a great camera to do these kind of recordings on. again?
Well, mean, you gotta like, you gotta drive the thing, dude. You gotta, you know, you gotta put the car on the track and then, you know, put some gas and miles through it and see what happens.
Cameron Craig (23:11.139)
Yeah, I mean, you know, I feel like we're doing we're doing things, you know, we're learning things. Yeah, I mean, this will be a hilarious episode. It's like, you know, I can just imagine the YouTube right up for this. Look at these knuckleheads trying to figure out their technology while they're building the podcast.
Keith (23:19.8)
As long as we're making steps forward, like, we're good.
Keith (23:32.93)
And they're supposed to be technology experts too.
Keith (23:38.38)
No one's an expert, especially what's coming.
Cameron Craig (23:41.635)
Now, I mean, again, back to this may be the only job worth doing soon, right? It's like figuring out the tech.
Keith (23:50.658)
I mean, if it pays, dude, even...
Cameron Craig (23:56.613)
I got it.
Keith (23:57.218)
It makes me wonder if we're going to have like half a dozen large monolithic corporations that are just going to eat everything and basically become nation states.
Cameron Craig (24:05.697)
very well be. Could very well be. I feel like I worked for one of those.
Keith (24:12.952)
But is working there going to be any better than if it's effectively like their own little, not fiefdom. What was it? What was the pre Renaissance? Surf's surfed him. There we go. Techno feudalism.
It's been a long day, I'm like, I know it was like surf. yeah. Feudalism.
Cameron Craig (24:39.113)
Okay, it's
Keith (24:43.342)
There we go, we got tone.
Cameron Craig (24:46.17)
jeez. Alright. Hang on.
Cameron Craig (24:52.579)
It's It's now all of sudden, before it wouldn't allow me to use the on-camera screen for anything when it was plugged in, and now all of a sudden it does.
Keith (25:06.2)
That's good.
Cameron Craig (25:08.523)
very close. Hang on.
Cameron Craig (25:14.492)
Keith.
Keith (25:16.546)
Good times,
Cameron Craig (25:18.155)
I'm the best.
Keith (25:25.632)
And now you know like you're losing daylight now.
Cameron Craig (25:28.203)
Yeah.
Keith (25:31.918)
There's a lot of stuff to think about when you do this kind like, dude.
Cameron Craig (25:35.851)
There is a lot of stuff to think about.
Keith (25:38.956)
I've shed many tears over trying to get this up look. One third is what it does now. It's not even that done yet. I mean, the capture card I have is dropping frames when we started coming on earlier, like Cameron couldn't even hear me even because it was do it was putting audio from this USB mic and then going out another audio interface because I got powered monitors over here. I just didn't want to work. But
Cameron Craig (26:01.291)
Yeah, I, I stopped short of using the, the Bluetooth, like in-ear monitors that I got because I was like, like, for those of you thinking about making a podcast, these things are rough on your head after an hour. And, know, like Keith and I like to rant and I ended up with a headache afterwards. Cause I'm like, I've been squeezing my head like in a vice. I had to switch headphones. Like these are my old headphones, which are actually, you know,
Keith (26:17.532)
yeah.
Cameron Craig (26:29.995)
Not as nice as the other ones, but they actually fit better and hurt less, but still you end up feeling like you got your head in a vice. Anyway, where the hell were we?
Keith (26:35.523)
Yeah.
Keith (26:40.462)
Dude, designers getting out of their own way. Now you're in the... you have like a light you can put on too?
Cameron Craig (26:43.883)
hahahaha
Cameron Craig (26:50.326)
is it like, am I still dark?
Keith (26:52.58)
dude it's dark dark, yeah.
Cameron Craig (26:55.203)
That's really weird because yes, the sun has gone down.
Keith (26:59.363)
There you go.
Cameron Craig (27:00.355)
Look at that. Now I look like I'm in mom's basement. Yeah, it's all good.
Keith (27:03.384)
dim your switches.
Keith (27:07.662)
That's all right. This is interesting. Yeah. So that's warmer. Yeah, dude. Like this is all just an experiment. So like maybe that's the problem, dude. So designers getting out of their own way, focusing only on the interface and like trying to make it perfect rather than just being like, okay, just like push it ahead. You know, it's, I think that the, maybe it's because of being a corporate, it's been like the, the, the solution can only look a certain way.
to be palatable to the masses, like the panacea of mental management. And that's kind of what, you know, what's helped keep people in the box.
Cameron Craig (27:38.786)
Yep.
Cameron Craig (27:44.275)
Well, and I mean, again, like, I'm not going to let us as a practice off the hook either. Like, honestly, a lot of it, and you said it earlier, it's like you're gilding something that we may not need to guild anymore. And instead of embracing that, and, and also to your point, being curious and experimental, like people are hanging on to that and it's emotional and
Keith (28:10.702)
100%.
Cameron Craig (28:11.597)
And I feel for that. that's not me being cold hearted and saying it doesn't matter. Like I really feel for it. And you know.
As hard as it is in my own work environment, I have to imagine it's, it's really hard for people in other environments that aren't seeing the pros and cons of, what's going on. Cause I do see that daily. I continually am blown away by the possibility of certain things. And I do believe it's going to be an elevation of the design practice in time. but man, for the people that are just like waiting.
for the tsunami as everybody keeps saying to come, like that's just gotta be not amazing. Like it has to be stressful.
Keith (28:58.808)
They've already given up, dude. It's a my I think it's a mindset thing. I think that's like a hangover from COVID to where it's like, what am I going to do? I'm totally part. Yeah. I mean, I get it, but
Cameron Craig (29:02.817)
Yeah, maybe, maybe.
Cameron Craig (29:08.161)
I can't do this anymore and yeah.
Keith (29:19.18)
I don't know man, I don't think this is just design. think it's everybody, no matter who you are, what you're doing, there is some semblance of kind of like, when is the other shoe going to drop and what's going to kind of happen? And I don't know, getting echoing what you were saying, I still think this is like very bullish for designers in the future because if you can get out of the mindset of like, it's only an interface that I published on the web or it's like an app or whatever, it's
Cameron Craig (29:31.917)
Yep.
Keith (29:50.094)
It's like the root, it's got to actually solve at some point, it's like you got to solve a problem and make things work, you know.
Cameron Craig (29:55.895)
Well, yeah. And I think you were heading, you were heading there earlier, which is, you know, designers are uniquely trained to think about problems. And again, this is where I was kind of heading with the education side of it. Like, I, I'm pretty sure that most designers, even in modern design school still had some of that training, but I, know, also to your point about companies like Figma going public, if you didn't go to traditional design school and you went to a bootcamp and you had some other practice before doing that,
you're probably going to have to expand your horizons and, and learn some of the foundational design skills, right? And a lot of that is taking in information and understanding it, applying that information, coming up with a design solution to solve that problem. And oftentimes those problems are not interaction problems and they are not, they're not interface problems. are designing the actual service, designing
the response, whatever that response is. And I don't know that we've biased towards that type of thinking for a really long time. So I can definitely see why people would have just given up.
Keith (31:12.27)
You think people have been too comfortable for too long?
Cameron Craig (31:14.827)
I do. I do.
Keith (31:16.814)
I think that's part of it too, because as you were talking about design and solving problems, I'm like, okay, how? And I thought about like, we, so a payroll, right? You, you, you're supposed to pay your payroll based on like where you're working, right? Like you're in like New York, whatever, but sometimes somebody lives in New Jersey and they work in New York. And then some, know, if you have to, let's say you set up payroll incorrectly, like you're paying it in New York, in New Jersey, and it's not, she'll be in New York.
There's no way to just like turn that off. Like you can like stop, have to like call them and try and get a hold of somebody. And then when they do turn it off, they don't send you a confirmation that's like a, you know, like a notarized thing. They just put a note in your fucking file, attach your EIN number. But it's like, how do you know when to call? How do you know how to get a hold of somebody? How do you maneuver the phone tree? Like that's the design solution problem.
Cameron Craig (31:47.5)
Right.
Cameron Craig (31:51.095)
Yep.
Keith (32:13.838)
to make things happen. And that gets back to like having a hacker mindset and being curious. today I called Amtrak, we told them we're to get $175 refund because the train busted. It was an Accela train, but business class on Accela is like coach class. So if you, if the Accela breaks and you get put on coach on like a shit train and you still get there, they don't give you a full refund. So they have all these sub business rules of like how they qualify a refund, but
Cameron Craig (32:31.677)
Yeah
Cameron Craig (32:39.037)
Yeah.
Keith (32:43.808)
If you call them and you ask nicely, you can get a voucher. So you get something back, which is that great, but it's like one level above like Spirit Airlines at this point. But you know, also it's like, like, it's a, I don't even know how these things, these businesses, they stay in business. Think about like the electricity, the insurance, like whatever. So finding a way to maneuver that and like talk to the actual people like that. That to me is the design that's not in the design that that's there. There is no interface.
Cameron Craig (32:51.897)
Right.
Keith (33:10.158)
part of the design because as you're putting these things together and hacking these solutions together, it's not just Figma anymore. And I think people just like got so into it because that's what they could show for it. You know?
Cameron Craig (33:19.809)
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think even your amp. So let's stick with the Amtrak example. what made them decide on that system design, right? That you have to call, you have to do all these things. You got to jump through hoops. You get somebody, if you ask politely that person, you know, you get the refund plus the voucher, which is probably going to make you somewhat whole for whatever you lost.
Like who decided that that was an efficient, cost-effective process. bet you they lose more money on that for each person that calls than if they just made some self-help thing and they're like, put your ticket number here. Tell us what the situation was. You know, without AI, like do your pull down for what you're complaining about. Right. And like, you know, you're like, I was 30 minutes late. It's like,
Here's a full refund. I guarantee you Amtrak would lose less money doing that than if they thought this through and relaxed their design process around probably trying to prevent people from screwing them.
Keith (34:32.206)
wonder if they had like actuarial tables set up to like minimize the payout though, because there was like a complex maze of like this is because if you look at like what you can refund, it's like, it's extensive about how they kind of break it down.
Cameron Craig (34:37.839)
Probably.
Cameron Craig (34:45.901)
But I mean, you know, even that Keith, could, they could make it complex enough in an interface so that you would need to figure out what the golden path is. And if you figure out the golden path, you get a full refund, right? Like gamify that. I, I, and I don't, I guess I don't mean that in the full sense of like make it a game and then somebody is going to figure it out and, and be in a place where, you know, they can keep hitting the machine and getting a refund every time, but it's like,
Set the barrier at a reasonable level and then step out of the way because like, you know, the mass public is not going to be trying to hack that if you've set reasonable controls, right? Like you have to have a ticket. You have to prove that you had a ticket on this particular day. You know, they have that information, but you know, it's like one of those things again, somebody probably went to town on that and they're just like,
Keith (35:35.896)
Yeah.
Cameron Craig (35:43.337)
We need all these controls in place to make sure that we don't get screwed. And they do.
Keith (35:49.656)
It makes it worse over the long run.
Cameron Craig (35:51.232)
It makes it more expensive probably for them to maintain that system. I mean, absolutely.
Keith (35:57.342)
It's like check out, it's probably a couple to so many other things that they can't just unbundle it without totally destroying like, you know, two dozen other things it's connected to that they would lose in the process.
Cameron Craig (36:09.643)
Yeah. Well, mean, you know, again, back to the retail example, like I think about, I think about your reel of shame that, we created in New Jersey where we watched every, every program and every ease of use type mechanism that digital had designed just get lumped on a store associate.
And the human interaction between a customer trying to navigate this stuff in the store associate was crippling in terms of cost, like absolutely crippling that poor woman stood there. One, we should put a.
Keith (36:49.902)
She was a seasonal associate. There's one regular seasoned associate and one seasonal associate who like was like, I don't know what the hell's going You could tell she was like freaked out.
Cameron Craig (36:59.587)
Well, and then, you know, the, woman, this woman had her own hacker mindset and was hitting hit. She, she figured out every single program, the digital had on offer and she was going to use them all. Right. And you know, what Keith ended up capturing was, I think it was like more than 45 minutes, wasn't it? Like 47 minutes of, of like one train. was continuous role.
Shot from multiple angles, but it was one transaction. One person dealing with one store associate for 47 minutes while this woman's just hitting the jackpot of like every single thing. Yeah. And I mean, like those things are where again, you send somebody who's a designer to understand the problem and then you let them dissect it and you let them come up with a better process. Like those things.
Keith (37:37.558)
It was long. forget, but it was, yeah, it was a while.
Cameron Craig (37:58.551)
That's high value, right? Like that saves the company money. saves customer frustration. It allows you to pair out a bunch of nonsense that some product person or, you know, other designer thought was a really great idea, but didn't bother to go through the, the understanding of like, what contextually are you firing this feature into?
Keith (38:20.802)
Yeah, I think in that case, it was the designers who wanted to like fix it and they have the ideas but it's like the monolith was so big and opaque that it was like you had to deal with the culture of Macy's which was like marketing and merchandising driven and the marketing teams we talked to they're like, listen, if I put another program in front of like I walk up I get greeted.
Cameron Craig (38:36.727)
Yeah. Yeah.
Keith (38:45.486)
Do you want a credit card? Do you want a Macy coupon? Like all this stupid crap that they just... Like if I front load one more thing and it moves my needle like 0.2%, I get a bonus. I don't care. I'm going to do it." And we're like, this is fucking terrible. This makes it worse for everybody because you're exponentially increasing the time for everybody behind you. And she's like, I don't care. She's like, that's what I'm going to do. They were honest about it, but I was like, that's... So I don't think it's all the designer's fault. I think there definitely is.
Cameron Craig (38:55.533)
Yep.
Cameron Craig (39:05.303)
Yeah.
Keith (39:17.782)
a proclivity to want to stay in Figma or whatever interface thing because it's like, oh, I'm making interfaces. It's fun for a little while until you have to like really do it and it's a pain. there's a whole, mean, if there's a system around the designers that are preventing them from doing good work, then would that mean that designers have to learn to branch out of design to actually affect the change and to go into sales and other other
pieces rather than just doing the interface.
Cameron Craig (39:46.402)
Yeah. mean, like to what you and I were talking about before we started recording, I the basic mentality of being curious about the problem is where it starts. And that is a very hacker mindset, right? Like you're like, what, how do I take advantage of this situation? And to do that, you have to research, you have to experiment.
You have to try things, pen tests, whatever your, your corner on the hack is. And then you have to design what your actual like call and response is going to be. Like I want, I want this action to happen. I'm going to design, you know, a call to try and elicit that response, right? Either from another human being or a system or whatever, whatever it is that you're trying to hack and.
We don't do that. We're not curious about those things. We don't look for the context. We're not trying to figure out like to your point, we're motivated by producing the thing that either we, we have decided we should design and produce or the thing that we've been asked to design and produce. And we don't think about the context for what it's going to do or how it's going to work. And that limits like at that moment.
You have limited your success. You may be successful in delivering. You may be successful in building that particular feature or function, but in terms of its actual use, adoption and value, you've like dramatically like dropped your probability of that actually being valuable. And that like back to the design school thing and you know, not, this is not me like damning current design school or the graduates that come out of them, but
You know, I've hired these people in mass to come and work for me and they are excellent, excellent practitioners with the tools. They all come out knowing how the tools work. They know and do some crazy stuff. It's kind like business students in the early 1990s with Excel. was like, you know, pivot tables and all these things to do analysis. It's like exact. Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly that with these design tools where you're like, I didn't know you could do that. Like, yeah, I could change this into a prototype and look at this. And you're like, that's amazing. Now.
Keith (41:55.502)
discounted cash flow analysis. Yeah, exactly.
Cameron Craig (42:07.117)
Does anybody care? Like, what do we do with the prototype?
Keith (42:10.072)
What do you do exactly? That's like the whole art school thing is like, what do you do with it? It's like, so what?
Cameron Craig (42:15.187)
And we've forgotten that and we've forgotten that, lot of what we're there to do is to analyze and understand and then tell stories and narratives. Right. And I, and I do strongly believe that in a future state where the interface plays a lot less of an important role in what we're trying to do.
These are the things that kind of come in in their place. It's, you know, you need the ability to storytell, you need the ability to take the knowledge that you've gained and have somebody actually care about it, right? Like you're not, you're not going to move the needle in a in a corporate environment if you can't get somebody to pick it up.
And again, designers are uniquely qualified to do those things, tell those stories, develop those narratives, like think through the ramifications and the context of things. Like we're trained to do that. And that's the piece that I'm like, double down on that nonsense at this moment, because nobody else around you is doing that. I can tell you that like nobody else is even remotely incented to do that.
Keith (43:26.766)
I mean, if, if we're at a point where everybody's heads on the table, product, the chopping block, because the AI or whatever, you have nothing to lose at this point.
Cameron Craig (43:36.631)
I think that's fair. I think that's fair. But you know, again, like these skills are unique in some ways, right? Like, and this is not me downing another practice, like being a developer or being a product person, like they each have their advantages, but one of the big disadvantages.
Keith (43:38.094)
You know what mean? So it's like.
Cameron Craig (43:54.539)
truly I think of being a developer is you are working in the context of a system that's been defined. You're just manipulating that system and AI is going to be able to manipulate that system much faster and much better than you can. And it's going to adapt quicker than you're going to be able to learn.
Keith (44:12.504)
So if they had the monopoly on the skill to build and they're going to lose that now because of the AI, the thinking box.
Cameron Craig (44:21.559)
What do you do with them? mean, like, again, if you are a designer with all of the skills that we were talking about, you're not retraining for your job. You're literally just redefining your job. And you're like, this is what we do now. And here's where the value comes in. I'm massively, massively oversimplifying, but like as a design leader at my level, that's my job now.
is to convince the organization that there is another value for designers outside of interface, right? And where I have won in those conversations is reminding them that I'm not asking to retrain my designers, the humans, I'm not asking to retrain them. What I'm asking to do is actually use skills that they've had inherently that we've devalued. I'm like,
Keith (45:09.782)
in new ways.
Cameron Craig (45:14.731)
If you want to explain how something works, get a designer to design the narrative and show you how it works. They can simplify it. They can figure out exactly like what's important for the given audience and they can present it. You know.
Keith (45:28.91)
it, you know, there's a guy random recruiter, I think on Twitter x, he's talking about a lot of reasons people don't get hired is because you consider too high risk. I think what we're talking about now is high risk now for the establishment or the monolith. But it's going to be essential moving forward, because it's actually if you have the key ingredients,
Cameron Craig (45:39.425)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Keith (45:56.728)
to move people and see things before they happen and seed ideas to different groups based on kind of like the cultural wavelength, whether it's like a development driven org or design org or whatever, you are an incredibly dangerous person. And people will see that because you just, they can't anticipate what you're doing. But that's almost kind of like what you need to be. Not to be like nefarious or whatever, but I mean...
It's a really it's really understanding the complexity and learning how to break things down. And it's almost like intuitive probability with kind of what you're doing. It's not just like I do that. I got three weeks to make a business plan and then I submit it. It's like do it in passes. And I met somebody that she wants to make an app. I'm talking through all this and I'm like, it's not I don't think it's an app. I think it's it might even just be like
a thing you text message into like this black box and even see because it's like what's the least friction like you don't want to go download an app you want to know cool things that are happening nearby it's like all these companies have tried this for the past two decades right but why did they fail like what can you learn based on what they've done rather than just spinning your wheels learning how to build a new app again you know I mean so I don't know I mean
Cameron Craig (47:14.244)
Yeah, yep.
Keith (47:19.448)
There's something to be said about the human element as well that I think is going be important. think you're going to see a lot of people intentionally turning off their devices or not using social media or leaving phones at home because it's it's too much. It doesn't stop at that point.
Cameron Craig (47:34.561)
Yeah. It's overwhelming. And you know, there is an addictive nature to it, but I think much like smoking or drinking or any of these other addictions that we have, eventually there's a backlash to it and people realize like, it's not great for their health. You know, I mean, again, keeping with our theme of there is no interface. You know, I think.
We're probably going to also see new devices. And you predicted this 10 years ago. You're like, the device is going to get closer and closer to the wetware of your brain. And things will, will be delivered in that way. And again, when we're talking about things like that, the wetware of my brain is going to want to see it in a different way than anybody else's. And it's also going to need to be consumable by me with my.
Keith (48:13.614)
100 % yeah.
Cameron Craig (48:31.093)
abilities and limitations. again, I think thinking that we are going to understand how to design that interface, like maybe the framing for it. But outside of that, like, I think you're putting that power back in the hands of the user where the user's like, I need it this way. Right? I need it all in text. I need it. I need it with no text and all pictures. I need it read to me.
You know, I, I struggle with reading generally because of, you know, my own neurodiversity and. know, there's a combination of things that are the magic combo for me to understand things quickly. And, you know, what I'm finding is by using AI to break things down, both if I have to read it right with dyslexia.
Keith (49:10.709)
Hahaha
Cameron Craig (49:28.375)
There's ways of breaking things down for me visually that I can quickly understand them and take in the same amount of information in a much faster timeline. Right? It's not that I can't read. It's not that I can't understand the words put in front of me, but there are certain things that I've trained my brain to do to allow me to read things at a higher rate of speed. And I can teach and I have taught my own AI like, break things down in the following ways.
And then I'm not in there like double spacing, certain things and highlighting certain things. It's like I'm saying any major topic switch, I need you to highlight the first two words. And then that's the key that tells my brain. Like there's another, there's another concept coming and then I can slow down and read. Conceptually the thing that's coming after, you know, the bolded text or
Keith (50:10.562)
That's cool.
Cameron Craig (50:23.319)
the double space text or, you know, the text in a different color that I've said, like, Hey, when you are like, big context switching, you know, give me two full line breaks and then, you know, do something to change the text. Right. And, and that's, that's a very rudimentary example of that. But again, it's made the consumption of information for me much quicker, much more like accessible and
And no one had to go in and meet an accessibility guideline to do it. I met my own accessibility guidelines for my own neurodiversity, which is going to be different than anybody else's neurodiversity. And that's like, again, back to the power of these things and where the excitement of these tools and this technology comes. Like what a great unlock for humankind generally. Like I'm no longer subject to how the man has decided I need to, I'm being funny, but you know.
How somebody has decided I need to consume the information, which really doesn't work for me.
And no designer solved that problem, right? Like the technology solves the problem. as a designer, I'm like, hey, maybe there's something I can do to make this easier on myself.
Keith (51:26.734)
This is really interesting.
Keith (51:36.664)
How did you prompt or think about reverse engineering that problem to like design the solution?
Cameron Craig (51:43.651)
I just experimented. It was like, Hey, I wonder if this thing understands, you know, if I feed it a document, it, can it quickly get to the point? And of course it can. Right? Like it does summaries all day long. Like many people are just like, I can't read this. Give me the TLDR. And you know, it's like turning a six page document into like 75 words. Right? So I'm like, it's a large language model. Yeah.
Keith (52:00.152)
Yeah.
Keith (52:07.458)
It probably wrote the document. Yeah, it probably wrote there for the other person who made it like, give me a six page summary of six page thing.
Cameron Craig (52:12.855)
But I started feeding it concepts like that, like, hey, give me something visually that indicates that I am about to switch topics. That was like the first prompt, like, hey, scan this doc, and at every paragraph, highlight the first two words of every conceptual context switch.
Keith (52:30.616)
Cool.
Cameron Craig (52:43.011)
it just like paragraph, like bold text, paragraph, bold text, paragraph, bold text, sometimes within a paragraph, like bold text, bold text, you know, where it's like, like, I'm switching context within the paragraph. You know, and then I just got more and more refined with those things like, hey, when, you know, there's a highly technical concept, can you, you know, give me a line break there for each
point in the technical concept. you know, and obviously most of these documents aren't written as like one, you know, X to Y. And it's kind of visually like given me white space to basically have that broken out, you know, it's kind of made the one, two for me without changing the doc, you know, it just breaks it up.
Keith (53:34.584)
Yeah, it's learning how to use the LLMs to like enhance your own kind of cognition or to kind of like patch the blind spots and almost bridge them in a way for you. It takes some time and some skill to kind of like figure out. But I think that that's like a huge, that's a really big area to kind of like expand on. And it just, takes time and curiosity to do it.
Cameron Craig (54:00.323)
Can I toss one other thing out that's related that I just kind of thought about back because you and I love retail Which is so funny because when you and I were doing retail we hated retail and thought it was like the lowest form of design But So You know, I think we talked about this on one of the previous podcasts about me playing around with the LLM and it was like hey give like I'm shopping for I'm shopping for Sony alpha lenses and You know, I was like
Keith (54:04.343)
Yeah, go for it.
Keith (54:11.406)
It was just old mentality.
Cameron Craig (54:29.603)
build me an interface, like this is my problem. I'm shopping for Sony alpha lenses and I want, you know, prime lenses, 50 millimeter, you know, 18 millimeter, whatever. And it, it understood that and it gave me a list of links like, Hey, here's where you go for this. This one has the best price. This one has the best selection. I'm like, okay, great. I don't want that. What I want you to do is build me an Amazon like interface with, you know, the lenses that I'm looking at.
And show me that in a big list that that was the only prompt I gave it. It went away for about two and a half minutes. And it came back with an Amazon like interface, you know, it even had the whatever design system are they, you know, it had the right colors. had largely the right typography, but it came back and it gave me a category page. Like lens lens lens. And it was like, I wonder if I tap through this, if I get a product detail page. And I did.
Keith (55:18.488)
That's cool.
Cameron Craig (55:27.031)
I got a product detail page. was like, no way. It's like, I wonder if I can add to cart and you could add to a cart, not an Amazon cart, but you could add to cart. And then was like, the only thing I can't do is buy this. But if Amazon like opened up their API, their shopping cart API to
Keith (55:42.168)
Hmm.
Cameron Craig (55:52.477)
LM chatbots at this point versus making me go to the Amazon website. Just think of how many lenses I'm going to sell through chat GPT or through Claude, right?
Keith (56:02.478)
I mean, it's crazy because it's almost like.
AOL 2.0, but through an LLM, where it becomes its own kind of walled go, but they're almost all kind of the same in the way. I mean, they're not the same because it's different models and data. But it's fundamentally the same kind of like interface where it's like, you speak to it, you tell it what you want, and it kind of spits something out. And, you know, it's like, Porsche versus Jaguar, maybe not Jaguar now, but you know, I'm talking about it's like, I don't know, man.
It's like it is expansion and contraction of kind of like the aperture of which you interact with. The reality or I mean data at this point, but I mean shopping such a great example, cause it's like I want that thing. And then it's like the physical and the virtual like it shows up at your door or like maybe you like hit the button and your 30 prints it prints it like two hours later or something.
Cameron Craig (56:49.432)
Yeah.
Cameron Craig (56:53.997)
But mean, but imagine that, know, like in some ways in two and a half minutes, I essentially replaced the, the mental model of, of Amazon. And at the same time, I also, if you think about it in a very primitive way, also,
disrupted the mental model of Google shopping, right? Cause in some ways, Google shopping, like it brings up all the different options from the different places and you're like, bye. But then it jumps you to the website. Like all of that in a world where the information is coming to me in multiple different ways, whether it's the chip, you know, printed on my arm or the, you know, thing in my glasses or whatever else, like all of a sudden.
Keith (57:40.31)
Yep, it's coming.
Cameron Craig (57:45.717)
What is important is the information and the action. The interface is not important and it's going to like keep hammering on this. It's going to be different for me than it will be for you. And like to prove the experiment.
I was like, okay, this is amazing. Thank you for this. And you know, now can you do this in eBay? And I thought, it's going to just take, it's going to take the content that it gave me and just spit back the eBay interface. It didn't, it spit back the eBay interface with all the different buying options and everything, which is obviously dramatically different than what you would have in Amazon. But it actually went and got the content from eBay.
Keith (58:29.358)
I was like, okay, interesting.
Cameron Craig (58:30.357)
It did the full like context switch. like went away from the Amazon product catalog and it went to the eBay catalog.
Keith (58:37.262)
Huh. That was my next question was like, who gets the sale if you're basically pulling, you know, because you can buy the same Sony lens at like 600 different places.
Cameron Craig (58:47.169)
Well, yeah. So I mean, like, you know, it's going to be interesting, right? Because in some ways, Google, Google and Amazon have cornered their various walled gardens and, you participate in Amazon or you don't like, mean, I see B and H photo lenses right next to Amazon lenses in Google shopping, right? Like they are kind of the equalizer. So like, what's going to equalize like is
Keith (58:54.894)
Take the new SEO.
Keith (59:10.894)
Ahem.
Cameron Craig (59:13.855)
Is chat GPT and Claude, are they going to then, you know, have their own ad networks and their own probably, right? Like advertising's the other model that we can't seem to get rid of in, our modern life. You know, it's like, you need an ad network to actually have the B and H photo lenses show up against the Amazon lenses.
Keith (59:36.12)
So is it always like the same old problems with the new solutions then at that point, it's all just cycles.
Cameron Craig (59:42.563)
I mean, again, if you're thinking about retail and advertising, probably, right? Like you're going to, you're going to have ways of monetizing that information, but you know, first you need to figure out again, back to the designers. Like you have to figure out how you're going to deliver the information. And in a world where we're saying like, don't worry about the interface. You better figure out new ways of delivering the information. And again, like my point there was not.
Keith (59:46.498)
Yeah, I guess it's a retail thing.
Cameron Craig (01:00:12.085)
really hammer on the retail thing, but it was more to hammer on on the the primitives of of thinking like a designer. It was like I just sat down and started playing. It was not hours of research. It was not exhaustive playing. was like end to end. The entire experiment was less than 15 minutes. And I learned so much in that moment. The first thing that I did was I called somebody in retail at Amazon. I'm like,
Hey, I got this crazy idea for you guys. What if you were trying to sell and have certain aspects of our experience available in the chat bot of an LLM. And they were like, what it's like, imagine not having to build the interface anymore and just delivering the product catalog to an LLM. And they were like, Hmm. It's like, all right, here's my experiment. I just set them a link like.
You know, I I've saved these things as projects and it just for them loaded the prompts and they went and did it. And they're like, yeah, you know what? That's fascinating. Like if we just exposed an API to catch that and put it into a cart. Next thing you know, you know, we're selling. We're selling out of an LLM. I'm like, I wonder if something in, in chat GPT is going to prevent you from doing that or something in anthropics. Claude is going to prevent you from doing that because they're going to want to monetize that later on.
Keith (01:01:12.536)
Yeah.
Keith (01:01:40.692)
But then it's like, it's the trust thing of like, who mean, does it matter whose card is at that point?
Cameron Craig (01:01:45.643)
Well, I mean, again, like there's, there are all these aggregators that are out there that, you know, have made a lot of money, right? Like Google, Google ads to get you to the location is one of them Shopify, you know, shop is probably the other one, right? Like they don't care about, is it B and H or is it. Whoever else they're like, we'll throw it into a cart and we'll process the order. We'll take a little cut off the top and call it done. You know,
Keith (01:02:11.935)
Google just offered buyouts to all these employees across search and stuff. So I don't know.
Cameron Craig (01:02:18.295)
I think they know that's that paradigm is going away. Right. I mean, I like very non-technical people are coming to me all the time. Like, I don't use search anymore. just like, my wife's a great example. She doesn't use Google anymore. She just goes straight to chat GPT and she's like, here's what I'm trying to do. And she gets a result, you know,
Keith (01:02:39.202)
Yeah, dude, for troubleshooting, it's been way better because I'm just like, here's what I'm hitting. Here's the error statement. Here's kind of how I kind of get the thing to kind of reproduce it. It's like, dude, do this, this, this. If you're on old outlook, if you're on new outlook, because you don't know what the hell this stupid bullshit is called. Outlook or what? know, it's like I highlight the text and it crashes. like, why? What's going on? It's like, it's like a memory thing or whatever. Yeah. And it's like, you know, you don't want to go and read like some random
Cameron Craig (01:03:03.392)
Yep.
Keith (01:03:09.656)
you know, like stack overflow. I don't care. I don't have time for that anymore. So, I don't know, maybe, maybe future episodes, breaking down like, what it means to make things like simplified and like reducing friction and like kind of making it just very simple of like, okay, if I go back to basics, how do you teach somebody who's like a designer, whatever that word means, like what that skill set of the future is going to be.
Cameron Craig (01:03:14.551)
Yeah. Yeah.
Keith (01:03:38.446)
talk about like, okay, there's a narrative part, how you tell the story, that's a piece there is like, how you analyze a company understand the kind of like cultural formation conditions that are kind of like the tides of that ocean of that, like, you know, that planet or whatever, you know, what it what it means to be a hacker, some basic hacking stuff about like, what's a man in the middle attack versus like a brute force attack versus, you know, it's not to be, again, nefarious, but it's to understand, if you're three people who are really sharp,
Cameron Craig (01:03:50.625)
Yeah. Yeah.
Keith (01:04:06.74)
you have 1000 guys coming after you, like you're not going to be in a miracle superiority. Maybe, you know, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Or you know, you leverage, you know, there. But then it's like, okay, we know they're coming. Maybe there's a way to like, do you like psychologically outsmart them? Who knows? Whatever. But that this is kind of like, what we always did. And we thought about these kind of things is that it was always just like an opportunity, even if somebody stole it was
Cameron Craig (01:04:10.399)
No, and you need, yeah, you need a strategy for that. Yeah.
Keith (01:04:34.914)
It was stressful. So you need to have like a pair, I think, and it helps. like, it was never deterministic is always just kind of like a constant evolution. I think that's going to be a big mindset shift for a lot of designers were just like, okay, I ship the thing. I did a coke project, I get to put up my resume. Yay, I get the merit badge. You know, that's gonna change.
Cameron Craig (01:04:55.031)
Yeah. But I mean, I think you're also bringing other like nuance in there that we should also talk about, which you helped me understand this when we were working on, you were like, know the thing that you want to own. And that, I mean, it is a current state topic that I am, I am.
trying to get my current staff to understand. like, do you want to own the product or do you want to own and understand innovation? Do you want to be the purveyor of innovation or do you want to be the purveyor of a tool? And that is a really hard mindset because we want to put our name on things. We want to be recognized for them and we want to own them. And at times we forget
again, that our practice is about ideation and coming up with new things and refining things and changing them. And that is what our value is. Owning something is not our value, right? Like it's also a really hard place for designers to excel in time. And that mindset shift, you mentioned something else that was related to that, but that's one of the things I think.
again, to the numerical superiority, if you are always constantly moving and you are always constantly innovating, your value becomes undeniable in that space. And there isn't really another practice that does that.
Keith (01:06:32.984)
the ever adaptive interface, the ever adaptive designer.
Cameron Craig (01:06:40.547)
But you have to believe that you're not tapped out after one good idea, right? And I have designers that are holding on to the products that they work on because the innovation that they've had in that particular space is important and it was meaningful and it delivered a business result. It did all the things that we're talking about, but where they sell themselves short is by...
The longer you own, the more reduced your role becomes. And especially in the design world, because eventually you're going to be asked to produce a bunch of assets. Well, maybe not in a world where there's no interface, but in the world where there is an interface, you're going to get reduced down to the guy that's like producing the visual assets that power the thing. Unless you're on a team of like a hundred people. And even then the team's going to get pushed and devalued down to that. Like we forget that the
Keith (01:07:38.222)
You gotta operationalize
Cameron Craig (01:07:39.947)
Yeah, absolutely. And we forget that like where designers add value and they get, they get the pat on the back. And sometimes the promotion is in the upfront part of the definition and trying to figure out what the thing is, the backend part where you're like producing the interface. No one cares. In fact, most of the time they're just frustrated because it takes too long.
Keith (01:07:58.35)
You're a pixel janitor. That's a bad thing to be like a janitor, but you don't say it's like
Cameron Craig (01:08:00.255)
For sure, for sure.
Keith (01:08:06.636)
but the good news is all that's going away. Like it sucks because we're to have to like there's going to be a massive culling of like a lot of jobs, but it's also going to lead to like, you know, no one wants horses anymore. They want electric cars and they want testiles that drive you someplace. I don't even want to drive anymore. They want, you know, play video games in the car or whatever. So there's a lot of a lot of opportunity. It's just.
Cameron Craig (01:08:22.327)
Yeah.
Keith (01:08:31.66)
These next few years are going to be extremely formative for everybody in the whole world.
I don't talk about this a lot on this because it's designed, but I got to look at astrology as like cycles, but we're going through every major war transit the US has ever been in, and it's starting on the 7th of July. And it's like, it's been ramping up, but it's, it's gonna be electronic warfare, it's gonna be bits of information, it's gonna be drones, it's gonna be things we've never thought of, like, I mean, what was I just reading about?
I think perplexity gave me a notification that Apple's factory forays into India are having like hiccups or having failings. I'm like, oh, China's probably sabotaging that shit or whatever. Because they're like, yeah, you're go move away? Yeah, too bad. We're just gonna hack the machine. So it's like, and it's not hard to do at scale because I don't know. like those kind of things are going to be cut. I don't know if it happened or not. But that's, that's where we're going.
And so design isn't just going to be like, it a cool interface? Does it feel good? It's going to be like, it's got to be secure. You got to like, find a way to like, block the data down or make it, you know, if something gets out, how do you respond to that? Because it's like, the more we interface these things, and it becomes in our wetware. And that's what COVID was. mRNA was literally like computer antivirus as a biologic into everybody, the whole fucking world. Like, we're there right now. And it's like, there's a brave new world that's going to move really quick.
But it's, you I again, think it's an amazing time to be alive. It's just.
Keith (01:10:09.89)
turning the phone off sometimes and like not being so terminally online I think is part of survival.
Cameron Craig (01:10:18.347)
Yeah, for sure. Resilience is really important. mean, like personal resilience and resilience in a system of things that you're working in, you know, with your colleagues. Yeah. With your colleagues, with your friends. Yep. All that is really important. And I think we take that for granted as well. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Hey, one question about that, what you said. So how long is that cycle? And, and I also couldn't.
Keith (01:10:28.342)
Relationships dude. People, partnerships, kids, yeah.
Cameron Craig (01:10:47.521)
really get a read on like, is this shit going to hit the fan? Is this, is there like a positive side to this cycle? Like what, what else? Give me the bigger picture.
Keith (01:10:59.8)
So every 84 years, Uranus comes back to where it was. So it takes 84 years to come all the way around the sun back to wherever you're starting the point. Where it's starting now, it started during the Revolutionary War. It hit during the Civil War, hit during World War II, and now we're 84 years after that. So that's one big cycle. But Uranus is about revolution. It's the flash of lightning that goes off. If you're in a dark room and a light goes on and it turns off,
Cameron Craig (01:11:04.941)
Okay.
Cameron Craig (01:11:09.879)
Got it.
Keith (01:11:29.452)
You know where everything is, even though you can't see anymore. It's awareness. It's like random things. like it's the hacker mindset that comes sideways. It's a thing you don't think about that comes and catches you. So back in World War II, it was like going from prop planes to like jet aircraft and like V2 rockets and like all this crazy, you know, radar, all this like tech jumps that now it's going to be like quantum computing, mixing with AI.
Cameron Craig (01:11:32.279)
Mm.
Cameron Craig (01:11:38.925)
Yeah.
Keith (01:11:55.456)
mixing with everybody's data all at the same time. It's going to be totally bananas. It'll be amazing and it'll be terrifying at the same time. nuclear technology, the nuclear bomb is old now. Yeah. And that's what think Iran was really about. I don't think they actually were building a nuclear weapon. think they were nuclear powering tech for China to innovate on, not on China's land.
Cameron Craig (01:12:08.523)
Yeah, yeah, splitting the atom is not novel. Yeah.
Keith (01:12:24.974)
And that's why the US had to hit it because they're like, no, no, no, we don't want you to take that because what happened after World War Two? We took all this German technology and we incorporated into the US. We took all the scientists like this is those patterns. This is why I like astrology because you look at these patterns and then we're to repeat again right now. And so you look for like this is how you I think you can determine where the rhymes are for the future to kind of see what's going on. So the shit has hit the fan in a way. But if you know how to look at like
where the innovation and the weirdness and this kind of new things are coming from, that's what you can leverage. I think in a way right now, I think we're really early. I think you and I were like a decade early thinking about like AI and data and trying to get Mesa to change. But it was like, go to Pluto, don't even go to Mars. It was like, you should go to Pluto. And they're like, you guys are crazy. know, there was almost too far ahead. But that's where the future innovation is going to be. And because the change is exponential, it's not just like an ad.
Cameron Craig (01:13:12.865)
Yeah.
Keith (01:13:23.086)
$100 or $1,000 every month. It's going to be it's like a hundred X-ing every month and We're linear creatures. We're not exponential. We don't think about that. So that's 84 years, but you know It's a big technical Revolution and then with Pluto and Aquarius, it's the transformation of people in groups in society So the old ways are gone the old industrial like the physical thing. It's not gonna matter as much anymore. It's gonna be like
Cameron Craig (01:13:26.508)
Hmm
Cameron Craig (01:13:30.943)
Right.
Keith (01:13:52.942)
the value system with the people to build the resiliency and it's going to be about power and networks, not power through wealth or power through status. And it will always matter to some point. you it's like you you hack together this crazy little interface in 10 minutes on cloud or whatever, just by talking to it. And it's like you built your own like Amazon clone. And it's like all of a sudden, it's going to actually build it with real compute behind it. It's like, do you want to pay for this? It's going to cost some serious money to move these,
Cameron Craig (01:14:01.741)
Hmm.
Yeah
Keith (01:14:22.296)
to move all that bandwidth, but it's doable now. So if anybody has that kind of capability anywhere in the world, then all this technology is effectively like a tactical nuclear weapon if deployed properly. And anything is a weapon if you hold it right. And that's why this is really important. This is why, you know, why I'm interested in talking about this stuff more with you, because it's like, it's not just about survival. It's like, no, there's, you know, there's a way to make this work. The pie is going to get bigger for everybody. It's just...
Cameron Craig (01:14:35.011)
Right.
Keith (01:14:51.648)
It's not the old pie. It's a new kind of pie somewhere else that's coming here now that it's, you know, it's foreign. I don't want to I don't have a foreign thing. I want what I'm comfortable with. And that's the biggest challenge.
Cameron Craig (01:15:01.355)
Yeah, that's fascinating. Because I mean, it's interesting because I feel I feel those things like a lot of what you're saying. And and I believe that it probably is related to like where we are, like our position in the universe at this moment. And it's fascinating because like, you can't really put your finger on it. And again, probably. I mean, you can predict certain things about it, but there are certain things that, you know.
Keith (01:15:15.726)
100%.
Cameron Craig (01:15:30.825)
They're there and they're happening inherently. We just don't understand them. And yeah, it's fascinating. I definitely want to talk about this stuff more.
Keith (01:15:38.538)
it's it's a new way. Yeah, I do too. And I think people are going to be really into everything like this is total bullshit. And I think when you have a strong reaction, either way, I think you're on to something, because you're inducing change or some kind of like, sharp resonance or clear, like very deep resonance, right. But people, everyone feels something, dude, I walk around and I can feel people's like, like the magnetic field around them feels different. Like there's not
They're not there. Like they've been on their phone for so long. It's almost like you been looking at those magic eye puzzles for so long that you can't uncross your eyes and they don't have like a depth perception. And it's like, if they don't see you, you don't exist. Therefore they can like walk through you and you lose the humanity of being in the same physical space together.
Cameron Craig (01:16:26.757)
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that going on I definitely feel that too, which is really strange
Keith (01:16:31.214)
You know? So I don't know. we're going to see like blackouts. I think we're going to see really weird hacks happen. dude, it's like half the internet turns off every quarter, every once every few months or whatever, or once every half a year. And it's like, all right, guess I got to... know, actually, awesome. I got a break. I can't work right now. I don't have email. Sorry, boss. It's like you actually go and touch grass at everyone's site. They don't freak out about it. That's why it's not like an economic thing because they actually...
need to turn their brains off. So I don't know. I'm into this. I want to talk about this more too. But I don't want to like make the design thing about this. like it's, it's helped the last 20 years just seeing emergent cycles because like the things that are happening now just from like a mathematical perspective of like, if it's like a giant clock, these things haven't happened in like 10s of 1000s of years. And now you're talking about like geologic and like glacial like very like
Cameron Craig (01:17:02.689)
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Keith (01:17:29.838)
know, early glacial periods, because it goes to millions of years, but it's like, we're not built for that kind of time scale. And I'm like, if most stars are like binary star systems, I'm like, what if the earth is like a Dyson sphere, and it's actually like covering a star, but the thing became so unstable. And that's what's actually causing climate change, because it's it's super heating from the inside out. It's gonna be crazy. But it's sci fi. But most stars are binary star systems. So I'm like, who knows? I don't know. That's why I'm curious about
Cameron Craig (01:17:48.107)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. mean, potentially I think, you know, there's a lot of.
Keith (01:17:56.704)
if Elon Musk was really about trying to make the government more efficient, or if he was just trying to put the cart in the fucking LLM dude, he was just trying to like, X to the government to get better data.
Cameron Craig (01:18:13.699)
I don't know. I don't, I don't even know if I can call it nefarious. Like, I mean, it was all kind of done in public. It's a good hack though. I mean, he's, he's definitely a good hacker.
Keith (01:18:21.389)
I mean
Keith (01:18:25.71)
But we'll think about this too. It makes me wonder, getting back to the narrative, is the thing with him and Trump real or is that just a ruse? Or if China invades Taiwan, is that just going to be a movie like Wag the Dog? And yeah, maybe some people die, but maybe people believe that it's this crazy great war. And it's just like, yeah, it's bait and switch. like no one's really over there checking them out and being like, hey, this didn't really happen. No one's really going to know. And so much changes from day to day.
Cameron Craig (01:18:51.053)
Yeah.
Keith (01:18:54.168)
That like you, have like this change blindness that you lose your relative perspective of where you are from like a day ago or like a month ago. It's like, I don't know, man.
Cameron Craig (01:19:04.279)
I mean, the best you can do is we kind of be situationally aware. And again, ask questions like, you know, you're not, you're not necessarily saying you've got an answer, but like by asking the question, it expands your thinking. Like that's, I think all any human being can really do.
Keith (01:19:20.93)
Yeah, you made a point about.
people who thought they were crazy or like, I seeing this too? And having this be like a spot for like, this is important. I think this is a good callback to that of like, asking questions is okay. It's not just about like, you know, what you're seeing kind of what's happening. It's, there's a lot changing and going on. And you're probably not crazy if you're seeing something that's like, it's kind of a little weird, like, what's really going on? I think it's important.
Cameron Craig (01:19:49.793)
Yeah. I mean, I definitely felt that, like you said, 10 years ago, was like, we're seeing some stuff and nobody was like, everybody was like, no, there's no way. Okay. Okay. And here we are 10 years later.
Keith (01:20:01.196)
And sometimes it's a good signal too. It's like, you know, it's, it's, it's the having the adaptability to maintain a contrarian mindset.
Cameron Craig (01:20:10.731)
Well, and there's, you know, there's opportunity to be found when somebody tells you you're crazy. It's like, okay, I might be crazy, but like all these things are possible. So what do we do to drive towards that? Right. Like, and if nobody else is thinking about it, that's an opportunity.
Keith (01:20:24.11)
100%. Yeah.
Cameron Craig (01:20:26.231)
All right. Should we wrap it? Like we're at, you know, hour 20. yeah, it's definitely all over the place. mean, highly experimental filled with technical difficulties and, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Keith (01:20:29.91)
Yeah, this is a good episode. This is all over the place.
Keith (01:20:40.014)
But we powered through, made it happen. See, it's a metaphor for the future. All's well that ends well.
Cameron Craig (01:20:47.083)
All right, man. Appreciate it. All right. Thanks.
Keith (01:20:49.186)
Yeah, man. See you next time. All right. Later.