Welcome to the everyday p.m. podcast of how castlereagh
discuss project management principles for your everyday
life. My name is Anne campea and I am
a certified projects last program manager with a kind of
years of experience working for healthcare retail.
Consumer, goods Tech marketing. I've been kind of all across the
industries here in In the p.m. world, I am so excited to
welcome. David Rose who is an
entrepreneur, MIT lecturer author and expert on digital.
Innovate product Innovation. He is also going to introduce us
to some of the more recent books that he has written.
But David, before I do your intro anymore, Injustice, please
take a brief moment to introduce yourself to our audience.
Sure. Hi on.
So, I am a product leader and have Alton number of products
that are being used by many, many people.
I my career started off when I was at the media, lab at MIT,
worked on the LEGO Mindstorms project, which was a robotics
invention kit that hopefully has taught.
A lot of people how to kind of Be Inspired to build things with
Legos that they that they imagined, but then also to put
behaviors into those into those things so that they could.
Build robots that have the can animate and respond to sound and
lights. I worked on Guitar Hero early
also in my career which tried to kind of democratize making music
and jamming with other people. I know a lot of people use that
I started a company called ambient devices, that created
little Wireless objects that make you aware of information
throughout the day. So the ambient or by have
actually an ambient word here lights up to show you things
like What the stock market is doing or what the weather is
doing or what when the next bus is coming or how many steps
you've walked or other kind of glanceable information and I
wrote a book called Enchanted objects, all about iot and
recently I've been really interested in augmented reality.
Like that is how to kind of create a metaverse out of the
real world and superimpose information that could be useful
throughout people's day. And one of those things that we
can talk about is boating. Because I'm kind of taking the
world of self-driving technology and applying it to the marine
environment. Great awesome.
You know, when there was an Outreach from your team on
whether or not you would be a great fit for the everyday p.m.
the everyday project manager, I saw your bio and I thought holy
crap, there are a thousand things that are a great fit for
this podcast. I mean we could have gone every
which way with this interview in terms of talking about product
that Asian talking talking about AR.
I just want to start off by entry Ali.
Introducing yourself to the audience in terms of your
professional Journey. Because it's so fascinating.
How people get to where they are and their space today?
And I looked at your bio BP of Warby Parker at one point.
I mean, there's just a lot of steps and Milestones that I
learned about you, that I'm so fascinated to share them with
our audience. So, take us through the
professional journey and how you got to where you are today.
Day. Sure will, I think I've always
been kind of open to finding new opportunities for Innovation.
Many of them have been kind of made possible with new
technologies. So when I graduated from
undergrad, I grew up in the Midwest and did a physics major
and a fine arts major because I was kind of equally interested
in science and and designed the credible.
And you know, when I was Thinking about what to do as a
career. You know, obviously architecture
came to mind but when I went and did a lot of informational
interviews and architecture firms, I found a lot of people
pretty frustrated because they said, you know, this this is
such an established field. That as a new architect you
really end up doing a lot of things that aren't very creative
for the first 10 years of your of your career because there's
so many people that are Architects and into architecture
and trained as Architects that it's it's not really a
Greenfield opportunity. So instead I got very excited
about Museum exhibit design which oftentimes if you're
working for a science museum or even a history museum trying to
do a simulation like you are FDR, are you going to jump into
World War Two and and you know respond to Churchill that was
one of the simulations that we created.
You know, you kind of get to learn a lot quickly about either
scanning electron microscopy for the for this.
For that for the Boston Museum of Science which was one of our
first projects that I did as a created.
A my first company to do Museum exhibit design and that was one
of our first projects was helping to explain this very
technical thing to a very broad audience.
And so we got to use kind of the tools that were available at the
time, which were touch screens and expensive, computers, and
animation and multimedia. And then the web emerged and And
like that offered another set of potential and Technologies.
And I created one of the first photo sharing websites kind of
this was before. It was a good idea because it
was already your digital photos online.
But I would say kind of with with every with every chapter of
new technologies and the democratization of, you know,
what we could do with embedding sensors and to everyday.
X or creating new musical instruments or creating iot, you
know, connected connected objects and now with glasses
that can embed information in terms of, you know, kind of are
pods in the temples of the glasses.
Like what bows is doing or even project information into
blending, what you see in the real world with information
though. That's another advancement Vance
and technology that You know, as a designer gives us kind of a
new field to explore and design. I love it.
And there's to your point there seems to be some connectivity
between all of the choices that you made in your professional
Journey with Innovation and creativity and the evolution of
just the things that are available to us.
And and that was the first connection point that I made to
our project management Community.
Is that even in project management as Anna boring, Our
profession sound sometimes is that with Innovation comes new
ways of being a p.m. as well and and how you're saying, you know,
each product kind of came as an idea from something that
happened before it, you know, and p.m. there's always this
evolution of the way we do things and very very often and
actually in 2023 in particular as we talk about the trends that
are happening in our industry, a lot of what's going to evolve at
least what's projected is that. It's going to To progress with
AI and and this introduction of Automation and and theme tools
that PM's can use to mimic the repetitive behavior and what we
do so that we can start to get creative and Innovative and and
other areas that we often don't have time to even think about
our look at. So I love that there's this
Synergy between kind of the way that you've portrayed your
professional journey and with everything that you've created,
I'm just in awe that and I think that there is something to say
about The way that can show project managers how we can also
evolve with the tools that are available and and when there are
not tools available, you were still able to create some
amazing things. So thank you, David.
That was great. It was rarely, I mean to your
point about project management, like it's rarely me, it's merely
only me. Like, if we take this product,
which this is an internet-connected medication
cap that goes on ordinary pill. Vials So if somebody has a heart
transplant or a liver transplant and they really need to take
like the immunosuppressant so they don't reject the new kidney
or heart or liver. It's there are some medications
that are incredibly important to you know, they're prescribed but
not taken very regularly and so we kind of we understood that
this was an issue. I put together a team of people
that included people that were industrial designers that Could,
you know, kind of craft beautiful forms mechanical
engineers, that could figure out kind of how it could attach
electrical engineers. That could figure out how to
create, you know, how to make a watch battery that you could
insert in this last for nine months and make sounds.
This makes a kind of arpeggios when it's time to take your
meds. That kind of tap you on the
shoulder or acoustically. It also blinks like a bike
lights to kind of try to get your attention.
Attention without being too obnoxious.
And we had to work with AT&T about Telco in order to connect
it to the Internet. So this just jumps to a night
light, which is really a cellular modem, you know, the
guts of a cell phone that you plug into the wall.
Just like you plug a nightlight in.
And so, it was kind of the combination of people that knew
specific things about their craft and then being led by
somebody who had a vision of How do we make, you know, medication
adherence something that is that is easier and something that
people will welcome into their lives, you know, that will be
given away for free at the pharmacy, the business model was
look Pharma companies. You're going to sell a lot more
meds because people going to be taking them more regularly.
So, there's a big lift in the potential for Pharma companies,
when medical insurance companies win.
And because you don't go to the office, you don't have
unnecessary hospitalizations people are healthier because
they're taking the medications that they're prescribed and you
know so it was kind of it was a vision.
It was designed, it was packaging design.
It was an earring like kind of assembling all those people.
That's been the story for anything that I've built over.
Time is kind of how do you know enough, technically about the
Process that each of these disciplines needs to go through
in order to coordinate the kind of vision and make sure that
everyone is has a fire under there.
But in order to make it happen. Yeah.
Very often we got it be the ones, lighting it.
Yes, absolutely. And for those that are listening
or watching that was such a wonderful use case for you.
I would recommend if you're listening to this episode, go
back to the beginning of what David just said because he
starts with With we identified a gap or we identified a problem
or some sort of use case, that would be beneficial if we could
solve for our end users. And in this case, it's people
who are in medic medication. And I have worked in the product
development space and been able to see the brain storing
storming sessions, the engineering of products and then
ultimately seeing that in the end users hands.
But some of the project managers may be in different Industries
where you don't necessarily get to be in the Up front part,
maybe you're just kind of in the back and working on the
logistics of everything. So David can you walk us
through? How that brainstorming Works?
How do you come up with the use cases?
Because you have so many that you've shared already with us
that are so fascinating that they were able to go to market.
So can you talk to us a little bit about how that works and how
do you work with the team on that?
Sure, I think oftentimes, when a new projects, the Genesis of a
new project is May Come. From something that you don't
know a lot about you have a kind of a hunch, right?
You have you think, huh? Like, for example, with the
Boating project that I'm currently working on, I had this
hunch that maps of the Appalachian Trail, and of the
woods. Like are just these kind of
beautiful, beautiful representations, that pack.
A lot of information in and help you understand kind of the grade
of something, or the risk of Of falling or the how difficult it
will be and these topo maps. Thanks to other companies like
arcgis, which has this GIS is graphical Information Systems.
They are now available more and more because of satellite data.
So I thought, well could we take these kind of maps of the
mountains and project them with augmented reality into and
through the water to give you a sense of being able to see
through a water surface. You know, it's kind of This
magical inspiration of like could have X-ray vision, you
know, in this situation, you know, I've the augmented reality
world has has been kind of doing projects that have to do with
seeing into a machine for for being able to see what needs to
be fixed. Like into an aircraft engine or
through the streets of a city to see infrastructure.
So I got really excited about this idea of, could you just
hold up your phone and see through the water?
Surface anywhere in the world to see kind of data elevation
models and where to fish. And we're not a boat, it's a
good background. So it was kind of it was first
kind of inspiration and I didn't know if it was a very good idea.
So I immediately sketched I'd be happy to show you or maybe a
send you afterwards you can cut it in.
Sure. I worked with a graphic designer
and we kind of sketched a bunch of situations where it would be
useful. Full to see underwater
topography superimposed in a harbor or in a lake or that kind
of thing, and we didn't write any code at all.
We just, we sketch stuff. We showed it to people and then
we started this kind of customer research project and went out on
boats and interviewed boaters and said what are the Marine
Electronics that you use today? And how and do you ever run
aground and do ever like, how do you find fish and how do you
keep track of where other boats are?
So you don't run another? And what about the fog?
And what about Twilight? When you're coming home and it's
dark out, like how do you, how do you navigate?
So we kind of Unearthed a lot of needs and tried to kind of map
those to what the existing tools that boaters had were, and what
the price of all of those were too, kind of just prove to
ourselves like is there a, is there a business here, is there
kind of a cool idea? This new and novel.
And then we wrote a patent for anchoring 3D topo maps, over
bodies of water. And then we hired a team and
developed an app that would do it.
And then after being out on a lot of boats with an app like
bumping up and down in the waist and trying it with a our
glasses, trying to put the information like into your field
of view and realizing well it's doesn't really work very well
because these aren't waterproof These are waterproof yet and
they, yeah, you know, that like the projection technology is not
bright enough yet. We eventually decided, Well,
actually to solve this, we really need to make out of
camera system that goes high up on the boat.
This is called the lookout cameras.
This is the current the current. Wow.
It's like so this this sits way up high on the boat and has a
360-degree camera system, like a lot of cars have these these
days that sees out with stereo vision?
Asian in front of you and can try to find small craft or
things that are in the water or people and then it takes that
information and has a video feed that just shows it on the
screen, which is right at the helm.
And so now that I've got about, that's the system were building
and it turns out it's like Hardware plus a game engine.
We're using Unity as a game engine and vision.
And so from a cup from a project management perspective, it's
kind It's a lot right now. Yeah, because it's, you know,
it's a relationship with a contract manufacturer in Norway.
Who's going to build the product?
It's a engineering team that's based in Cincinnati.
It's a software development team that does a game engine.
He's the based in London, it's a, it's a interaction design
firm and a graphic design firm, and a branding firm that's based
in Florida. So, it's like can Working with a
boating company that's based down in Florida.
So it's a lot of moving Parts. I think for me, one of the kind
of aha's for the for this project.
It's called Clearwater is create these kind of moments, that
things must be delivered, because we're going to go to
Khan. We're going to fly everybody to
con, and we're going to show this to boating companies.
It's kind of gotta work, you know.
So yeah, I'm always trying to kind of create a deadline moment
that can also be a summit kind of experience that somewhere
between, you know, three weeks and seven weeks out.
So that everyone feels like, oh well, let's figure out what we
can achieve in that Sprint of time.
So yeah. And we can all come together and
work together and solve problems and get out of the water
together. In order to, you know, kind of
take the product to the next level, which won't be done, but
it will again, will be the next important Milestone that
everyone's really working and cramming for sure.
So setting realistic deadlines as best as you can being being
realistic about this materialistic.
It's more. Just like it's just, it's
setting. These kind of intermediary or
intermediate Intermediate deadlines like intermediate kind
of Sprint. Sprint points.
Yeah, because I can imagine with a project this big and then
there's just so many moving pieces and you don't know what's
going to work and what's not that that helped settle the team
in a way that you know there's there's smaller more consumable
B of the project that they can work towards.
I think a lot of what comes with being a project manager.
Is there's a finite, there's a defined and To a project then
that most most people that go into project management.
That's where they find their satisfaction is when they
actually finish something accomplish something and have
that feeling of, hey, I made this or I had contributed to
this project and for you to set those intermediary steps as
probably very helpful for the team to feel like they're
progressing towards the bigger picture.
So I think one of the things that I'm trying to think about
transitioning into because I want to ask you, About another
innovation of yours is when dealing with the Boating project
right now I'm sure communication across all of the multitude of
teams that you're working with is key, making sure that people
are communicating and understanding where everything
is at. Now, there's an invention that I
saw that you created which is the conversational balance
table, and I don't know how long ago that was done but you
created it for Salesforce to increase team, communication and
collaboration I'm fascinated by that, just because a lot of what
we do is Project managers is Shepherd, and communication.
We are harboring the communication between the teams
breaking down the silos and that sort of thing.
So, when it comes to this particular thing that you have
created, the conversational balance table.
How, how did that come about? How did it work out?
Do you find that it was effective?
Did it give you the results that you are looking for?
Would love to learn more about that.
Yeah, I so the inspiration really for this came from a book
by Susan, Cain called quiet and it makes the point that in
organizations and teams, you have extroverts and introverts.
And usually, they have just as many good ideas.
As each other, the introverts have plenty of good ideas, but
the extroverts tend to kind of Dominate.
And like not let out those good ideas that the introverts have
and through You know, through my work with ambient devices.
You know, the orb is like a feedback device.
No, it gives you, it helps you see like have I walked as many
steps as I want to walk and that is expressed through a color.
And the the information is really good like glanceable and
so the feedback loops are fast so you don't have to have, you
know, have to go to an app at the end of the day and say how
many steps did I walk but instead like you kind of want
feedback loops to to motivate a In behavior in the moments, you
know, or rather than having to do a big retro at the end of the
week. You'd rather have teams provide
feedback to each other, and kind of subtle ways, I think, as
we're like, if you're a facilitator in a meeting, you
kind of want to do things that subtly encourage people who
aren't contributing to kind of, you know, say something.
And so, if you're in a facilitator, you might like use
your hands and gesture and say, you know what about you You or
or ask or ask somebody who's speaking too much, like you
might even kind of put your hand on their shoulder, maybe there's
something kind of. Yeah, push them down.
So, the inspiration came from, how could we embed feed a
feedback mechanism into furniture that people are
already sitting at. So this was a six-sided table
like a table for six people that had six kind of facets around
it. Yeah, it lights up this kind of
beautiful, almost like a star constellations.
Section underneath the veneer of the table as people speak in
front of them. So you can at any point minutes
into the conversation, you kind of just looked down at the table
surface and it shows you graphically like the
contribution of each person over the last 20 minutes and the, the
behavior is very slow. So it's kind of not shocking
anyone but it's also evidence. So you can see like this this
this person has Been dominating this person hasn't said, much at
all and hopefully people kind of glance down and kind of
subconsciously see this and can moderate and regulate their own
behavior. And maybe it's appropriate for
certain types of meetings for certain people to say a lot in
for certain, but at least you have like, kind of a little bit
of evidence of what's happening. And and so it can be clear, like
that feedback mechanism can be clearer.
And so we I worked with an Architecture Firm.
One of the biggest in the world called gansler they were
designing the new Salesforce offices and they were kind of
interested in. How could you make more sensing
and kind of passive feedback mechanisms that were embedded in
the space itself? Another thing we did was a
brainstorming table that would listen to the conversation and
put them images almost like a how tenuous Google image search
just as like a as to kind of get people to think.
Think more nonlinearly kind of out of the box.
But the balance table was really about this, you know, giving
people just feedback on Contraband on kind of
contribution percentage. And right now I can tell like,
I'm talking way too much. No, no, that's a bad.
My mouth is probably open because I'm just so fascinated
by that. I always, I often think of how
great would it be to introduce more innovative ideas to things
as mundane. It's a weekly status call,
right? And so the what you're
describing is just something that would completely break the
mold of what we're used to. And I was so in awe of that and
where that came from. And I'm I would be interested to
see if I use it in my own space. If what would come out of it,
but you're right. I think, I think we usually
leave meetings thinking. Oh, well, there was only one
person contributing or why was it?
Why was Is that a meeting that could have been an email type of
conversation so it's those things that come to mind on our
day-to-day that can often lead to something as really cool and
Innovative as what you've described.
And hopefully the folks that actually got to test it out or
currently using, it are finding the beneficial but I would
imagine it would it would if there's like a sociology or
psychology to it as well in terms of how people interact and
them understanding, if they're, if they are extroverts and
introverts or Or what not in a meeting space.
So, that's that's really cool. David now, have you if people
want to see a video of it, there's a there's a website that
goes with my book that's called haircut supersite dot world and
it has videos of the conversational balance table and
the Boating application. And some project that's about
redesigning with algorithms Landscapes outside people's
homes to have more shade trees more.
Natural. Pollinators less grass to to
poison with with your chemicals. So that's another that's another
project called home outside. That's, um, I'm really proud of.
That's that's also at that same, that same URL supersite, that
world, that's great. I'm glad I will definitely make
sure we include all the links and images or whatever.
You're willing to share with the audience and you perfectly
segwayed into what I was going to ask you, which was, you've
got all these Innovations out in the world and now you've been
working on it. It's like you're publishing yet
another book but tell us about all the all the literature that
you put out into the world as well.
Well, I've only done two books. The first one was called
Enchanted objects. Kind of all about the Internet
of Things. There's an umbrella that knows
when it's going to rain, if it's on the cover and kind of the,
the hilt of the umbrella makes this kind of rain pattern.
Cool, remind you to bring it and this is really all about kind of
what The human desires that are age old desires that are
revealed in fairy tales and myths.
And how those those desires for omniscience or telepathy or
other kind of wishes can be satisfied through.
Internet-connected things. That keep us healthier or
whatever the case may think. Wow.
In the most, the most recent book is called super side, and
it's really about as it as a species like what?
Should we be seeing, you know like what is the thing that we
really are myopic about today? That would really be useful to
see. And month argument that I make
here is that we have a hard time seeing the future, like we have
a heart like we kind of live in the moment and it's hard for
people to kind of Imagine a more sustainable landscape or a more
walkable city or a more or environments that That you know,
aren't has dominated by cars or by chain stores or whatever.
So one of the things that are demented, reality can do is to
show us kind of a different vision of what the world could
be around us. That would Inspire that change
that's great amazing. I'm looking forward to picking
up both of those books actually I just feel super inspired but
what you've shared with us today and and there is for sure,
Synergy across what you've put. Out there in the world.
And what project managers are product, managers are currently
working on. So I'm sure they'll also feel
inspired by everything that you've shared.
So David, I have one more question for you, maybe it's a
challenging one or maybe, you know, this right away but of all
the Innovation you put out there which one is your favorite?
Well. I mean, the kind of Victory the
heuristic for favorite is I think something that really
responds to human needs and human desires that has like an
Elegance or Simplicity to it, where people see it and they're
like, of course, like what this didn't take, this didn't already
exist and that also kind of folds in the creative work of
not only one discipline. But you know, kind of people
that are skilled at Information that design and wireless and
data and design. So I guess I don't know for me.
Yeah, I am fascinated by camera systems and computer vision and
all of the things that the world can see around you.
The one that I would, I think I'm going to mention is there's
it's a new company, it's called Xander.
They just want to seek an award at CES.
And basically, Captions for the world.
So imagine you're talking to somebody and they speak a
different language. It translates the language and
then put and then shows you the text of what they're saying as
if you're as if you have. Wow.
And those are those are superimposed over the other
person so out like over their body and it's especially good
for people who have a hearing deficit and because even hearing
aids like kind of suck in loud environments.
And so, it has been-- Informing microphone array and and can
listen to the person, you know, in a very narrow way of who
you're talking to and then be able to project captions on
people as you as you glance at them and conversation.
So with their a lot of how old a lot of Aging people in my life,
my mom and my mother and father-in-law, they're all
wearing hearing aids, the hearing aids, all suck.
And I don't like, I really want to help people because it's
important for their own for their own You know, to avoid
dementia to a engaged in conversations.
Like you want them to be more social and more social with, you
know, in spaces that are not just one-on-one kind of
interactions. And so the ability to have a
technology that helps them continue to engage is something
that I'm really proud of and want to see a part of the world.
Gosh, that's just incredible and II might where my mind went was
just beyond kind of the using it for you know my mother.
Her is, you could use that to break down communication
barriers that exist in the workplace right now.
Especially as we see, a lot more people losing that in person
touch because many companies have gone to remote work.
I see that that could potentially help in the
communication channels that are often lost because we are
communicating just by text, or by email more frequently than we
are via in person or virtual. So, There could be something
there as well and so I could easily see that breaking down
some of those barriers to so that's great.
Thank you so much David for sharing that.
So I mean I think we've taken up enough of your time today but I
think we've learned so much about you and what you put on
the amazing things that you put out into the world.
So David if folks want to follow you continue the conversation
with you. Where can they find you online?
Yeah. Super site.
Dot world has a lot of design principles for augmented
reality. T.
I definitely encourage. You can download the first first
and last chapter of the book for free.
I'm at David Rose on Twitter, on LinkedIn.
People can reach out to me. My MIT email is DLR at mit.edu,
so they can also reach me that way.
Thank you. Thank you.
And I'll make sure all the appropriate links are below this
posting, as well, just a quick plug to support the everyday
p.m. podcast by giving The five star review on Apple podcasts or
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On the podcast is available on Spotify.
Google Play overcast. You name it just search for the
everyday p.m. You can also find the video
version of this conversation with David on my YouTube
channel, youtube.com forward, slash and campea.
While you're there, leave us a comment.
Let us know what you thought. Ask David all the amazing
questions, maybe Inspire us or inspired a woodwind more of your
incredible. Thinking and ideas and
Innovation and then leave any questions that you may have for.
Either of us on there, that will do it for you David and I should
have used more Snapchat filters and I realized video like I've
got a bunch of snap filters that like work and zoom you know
David I'm surprised you haven't invented something that we could
have used today in the zoom conversation but I'm sure it's
coming from you. I would expect nothing less.
So David, thank you so much for joining us on this installment
of the everyday. I'm podcast.
And until next time, take care.