Device Squad: The Podcast For The Mobile Enterprise

You'll finally understand what the deal is with Blockchain and Bitcoin once you listen to this interview with Andy Ofiesh, comedian and former Software Engineer at Bitcoin Armory (his brother's company).  We discuss how Bitcoin utilizes Blockchain as a distributed ledger to provide a trustable peer-to-peer currency that requires no central authority. Further, Andy explains the Byzantine General's Problem, what "hashing" is all about, how Bitcoin was created and by whom, how Bitcoin's value is determined, and how new Bitcoin are generated.  Plus, we discuss why Blockchain is such a hot enterprise buzzword these days. Does it really offers any utility outside of Bitcoin or is it just a big ol' bandwagon everyone's trying to jump upon? Tune in and find out! Links in the episode: IBM Think Academy: Blockchain, How it works Don Tapscott Ted Talk on Blockchain Blockchain 101 - A visual Demo Blockchain in Healthcare by Ted Tanner Why Blockchain is Going to Disrupt Customer Retention & CRM Maersk And IBM Are Brin

Get your game on! In this episode of Device Squad, the podcast for the Mobile Enterprise from Propelics, Steve discusses Gamification Strategies with Nick Bogovich, former Mobile Executive Director of GSN Games and CoFounder of Causemo and mStyle.  We discuss the role gamification already plays in our everyday lives (though you might not even know it), the future of gamification (think AR), and how gamification can be leveraged to help motivate, titillate, and reinvigorate employees and users for increased profit, productivity and job satisfaction.  Plus, the podcast episode itself got gamified! How'd we pull that off?  Tune in and find out (and maybe even win a few bucks)! Links in this episode: Jane McGonigal - Gaming can make a better world    

In this episode of Device Squad, the podcast for the Mobile Enterprise from Propelics, Steve discusses Health Care Mobility Strategies with Ivo Janssen, Solution Engineering Director with Kinvey, and fellow Propelics Mobile Strategists David Enarson and Todd Chusid. Get your Mobile Checkup! Join us for The Health of Health Care Mobility - a Strategists Forum covering today's most pressing shortcomings and most exciting advancements in Health Care Mobility.

In this episode of Device Squad, the podcast for the Mobile Enterprise from Propelics, Steve discusses UX Design Research Strategies and methods with his old friend, Lisa Renery Handalian, now Sr. Design Researcher at Uber.  We discuss Testing Strategies, User Research vs. Design Research, the benefits of Uber's internal Day in the Life program, and Lisa's particular focus: driver ratings and compliments. Further, we get into the very cool concept of Strategic Ethnography as Lisa recounts her experiences at Ancestry and Bank of America and how Research Strategies there differed from those at Uber. Also, Steven has a bad cold. What other juicy tidbits did we get into? Tune in and find out!

In this episode of Device Squad, the podcast for the Mobile Enterprise from Propelics, Steve gets futuristic with MERL Senior Principal Research Scientist, John Hershey. The conversation centers around the current state of Neural Networks and artificial intelligence as John brings us the news from the recent NIPS (Neural Information Processing) conference in Barcelona.  We discuss voice recognition and replication strategies and what role they'll play in our everyday lives—along with John's current project, deep learning for signal separation, speech recognition, language processing, and multi-modal semantic representation learning. In other words, John has solved the problem of isolating a single voice in a crowd, a process known as Deep Clustering. Specifically, we discuss: the Universe Project - a software platform for measuring and training an AI's general intelligence across the world's supply of games, websites and other applications. WaveNet - a deep generative model of raw audio waveforms - able to ge

In this episode of Device Squad, Steve interviews his old friend, Anand Rao, Lead Counsel at Google on the Self-Driving Car Project. We talk about the different levels of 'autonomousness' and the technological differences between cars developed by Tesla, Uber, and Google—as well as their respective marketing approaches. We also get into the impact that autonomous car technology will have on the world once it's finally perfected (hint: it's bigger than you think). And lastly, we discuss the legal and technological issues around building a car that can drive itself in the first place.   

To fans of the USA Network hit show Mr. Robot, the name James Plouffe may seem strangely familiar. But who is the real-world James Plouffe?? Stay tuned and find out! In this episode of Device Squad, Steve and Glenn interview James Plouffe, Lead Solutions Architect, ServiceConnect Ecosystem at MobileIron. We talk about the present state of the IoT (and where we should be heading), common challenges around MDM (and how quotations from our favorite comedians fit into all this). Plus a bit about what's in store for MobileIron, and of course the inside scoop on Mr. Robot and techniques for blowing-up data centers.   

This week, Propelics Mobile Strategist James Hoshor talks with us about best practices in Mobile Device Management and Mobile Application Management.  Do you have the right solution? This podcast also covers: Challenges of enterprise mobility today and tomorrow The differences between Mobile Device & Mobile App Management Best practices in delivering and supporting enterprise apps Choosing the best mobile app delivery option for your business A checklist to ensure the security of your mobile app foundation   Hosted by Propelics Sr. Mobile Strategist & UX Architect Steven Brykman   Coming up in our next episode, MobileIron's James Plouffe!

In this episode of Device Squad, Steve interviews Russell Johnson, Enterprise Architect at Cintas. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Cintas Corporation provides highly specialized products and services to over 900,000 customers. They talk about why the company sought out Propelics in the first place and how the Propelics ideation process helped them quickly identify and solve their biggest problems.   The two also explore how the recent release of RouteBook—an Enterprise Mobile App developed by Propelics and Cintas—has improved the lives of their SSRs (Service Sales Representatives) by simplifying their workflow, making them more productive as a result. Lastly, they discuss the direction Cintas is headed and which additional technologies the company is considering pursuing moving forward.

In this episode of Device Squad, Steve interviews Maribel Lopez, founder of Lopez Research, author of "Right-Time Experiences: Driving Revenue with Mobile and Big Data" and co-founder of the Mobile Research Council. They discuss right-time experiences, enterprise mobility trends and patterns of need, plus the significance of emerging technologies like the IoT, including which Wi-Fi door lock will make Steve's wife happy.  Maribel helps companies understand and navigate digital transformation by analyzing today's most powerful tech trends, including mobile, cloud big data analytics, and IoT. Her company, Lopez Research, offers strategic advisory, speaking and market research services. You may contact her at mlopez@lopezresearch.com or @maribellopez on Twitter.  

In this episode of Device Squad, Steve and Glenn interview Bernard Desarnauts, Founder & Principal of Wristly, a Smartwatch User Research Firm, and discuss Apple Watch trends and user impressions, Apple's strategies for the Watch, UX and performance improvements in the new WatchOS and also spend more time than we planned to talking about the magic of Apple's watch bands. 

In this quickie episode of Device Squad, Propelics' strategists and PMs take you on a tour of Boston's TechJam conference. Enjoy the snarky commentary and the reviews of products and services that run the gamut from sublime to so lame.  Hosted by Propelics Sr. Mobile Strategist & UX Architect Steven Brykman Links from the Episode: Amazon Robotics Care.com edX Oomf SmartSwapp  

In this episode, we speak with Crimson Hexagon CTO Chris Bingham about the world of social media analytics. Or as Chris describes it, the "democratization of consumer insight." Crimson Hexagon helps brands utilize insights derived from social data to drive strategy across their organizations. Chris and I discuss everything from how today's largest corporations are benefitting from analyzing social media to trends in manscaping and the rising popularity of Sherlock Holmes-o-erotic fan fiction.   Hosted by Propelics Sr. Mobile Strategist & UX Architect Steven Brykman Links from the episode:Crimson Hexagon Website  

This week, Propelics Mobile Strategist James Hoshor talks with us about what insurance companies are currently doing in mobile along with his assertion that many insurers need to rethink their existing UX strategies.  This podcast also covers: How mobile is disrupting traditional user experience methods and engagement processes for agents and customers. What insurance companies are doing well—and not doing well—in mobile. Why every company needs a mobile strategy that includes a clear roadmap and an organizational plan to support mobile. The expanding role of social media in the insurance industry Hosted by Propelics Sr. Mobile Strategist & UX Architect Steven Brykman Links from the episode: Bain & Company’s 2015 Global Digital Insurance Benchmarking Report

Tune in as two old college buddies, Neal Kaiser and Steve Brykman, reminisce about the scams they pulled in the glory days of the internet and discuss the 20-year evolution of Neal's eCommerce platform, Upshot Commerce. As promised in the episode, here are links to some of Steve & Neal's earliest websites (circa 1995) in the Internet Archive:  Make A Store (now Upshot Commerce): https://web.archive.org/web/19980207090739/http://make-a-store.com/ Joke City: https://web.archive.org/web/19961221003117/http://jokecity.com/ Joke City: Main eCommerce Menu: https://web.archive.org/web/19961108053338/http://jokecity.com/cgi-bin/jokecity/Shop/frontpage.pl Feldheim Publishers: https://web.archive.org/web/19990922042915/http://www.feldheim.com/aa/index.shtml Click the Wayback Machine timeline to follow the evolution of these early designs.   

In this episode of Device Squad—the Enterprise Mobility podcast from Propelics—Sr. Mobile App Architect Cesar Cavazos and I discuss the Propelics protoyping process, the impact Mobile Application Development Platforms (MADP) will have on your Enterprise Mobile Strategy, along with our own new, home-grown App-Cost Estimation tool. We'll also touch upon the expanding role Swift will play now that it's gone cross-platform, and the importance of maintaining code quality in general. Lastly, we'll check-in on iBeacons and Virtual Reality and discuss the relevance of these emerging technologies when it comes to Enterprise processes.

If your organization is thinking about taking the plunge into Enterprise Mobility, you won’t want to miss this podcast from Propelics Partner, Eric Carlson. He’ll cover the basics of Enterprise Mobility, including why it’s so important, and how it can streamline and simplify your business processes to save time and money and produce happier, more productive employees.  If your business has yet to develop an Enterprise Mobile App, the question is: what’s holding you back? There is no downside! The initial investment is manageable and the benefits are huge. “[Propelics] has truly improved the quality of life for our Field Leadership team. You have provided them with a tool that makes their job easier, improves communication, and lays the foundation to advance our team significantly farther and faster than ever before in our history.”— Josh Jewett, Family Dollar CIO  

This is an update on our earlier podcast detailing the situation between Apple and the FBI. As you’ll recall, Apple rejected a judge's order to help the FBI hack into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, calling the action "an overreach by the U.S. government.” The FBI had now dropped its case against Apple, claiming they were able to successfully break into the phone. LA Times just reported Apple wants the FBI to reveal how they hacked into the San Bernadino phone but so far the FBI hasn't said how they did it or who they hired for help, though the consensus is it was the Israeli cybersecurity firm, Cellebrite.  "One way or another, Apple needs to figure out the details," said Justin Olsson, product counsel at security software maker AVG Technologies. "The responsible thing for the government to do is privately disclose the vulnerability to Apple so they can continue hardening security on their devices.” “There is very little debate that it is in everyone’s best interest that Apple find out abo

What's all the buzz these days in the world of Agile software development? It's Scaled Scrum! In this conversation with Propelics Project Manager Scott Abate we discuss the basics of Enterprise Mobile App Development practices, compare Agile and Waterfall software development approaches, and answer the following questions: How does scaled Scrum apply to mobile app development? What is Scrum, and what does it mean to scale Scrum? How does a company go about scaling Scrum? Why is scaling Scrum suddenly so important? What are the differences between each version of Scrum?   What's the next big thing in Agile software development?

Despite all that Propelics is doing to deliver gorgeous, intuitive Enterprise Mobile experiences, the fact remains: for the most part, Enterprise UI/UX is still struggling to match the sophistication of B2C mobile interfaces. Why is this still the case when flat design and native controls already give designers such a large head start? Propelics Design Lead, Andres Reaza has some answers. Tune in and find out!