Beginner's mind

What does my day sound like? I wondered. So I put together a sound collage of one of my regular workdays. It consists of buying breakfast in the morning, staying in the office during the day, and listening to a street singer in the evening. What does your day sound like?

Last time we talked about Bo's career path, and this time we are going to talk about Bo's wife. She became a programmer after attending a boot camp, and got a job as a front end in a company in SF.  01:00 We sidetrack a bit and talked about cafe job in US and China. Then we started talking about what bootcamp is about.13:00 The coding bootcamp business in US: there used to be more, but now there are some busy acquisitions going on. And I compared the situation with the ones in Beijing.20:00 The main difference between bootcamps in US and China is the students. We also talk about how as programming languages become accessible to more people, how it will affect the industry.30:00 The value of more experienced designers and engineers in the future.

What do you want to do for your career? What do I want to do? What can I do as a career? I guess there are as many answers to the these questions as the population in Beijing or San Francisco. Though in the end, it's really up to each individual to figure out the path in front of them, it takes time and efforts, yet talking about it, to understand how we approach it from different perspectives, can be inspiring and encouraging. So here it is, our chat on career path. 00:00 Starting with Bo's startup, we talked about how he dropped out of college, and tried to start his business in Shanghai. From there, we talked about risk management.13:00 The first job matters, but it just takes time to learn and evolve. Sometimes, personality defines what we do and how we do. But does our personality evolve over time?27:00 Bo said, it's important to pick the battle to fight. Learn to be focus, means to find the best method to work.36:00 Joy talks about her career path so far and where it might go in a near future. And we talked about the cultural aspect in making choices. 

Beijing is massive, with a population of 21 million, 20 times bigger than New York City in size. It's crowded and as most modern big cities, can easily make one feel small. I was talking with a friend the other day, about how to build connection with this mega city. We reached the conclusion that it's important to carve out my own space in the city, physically and mentally. And looking back, it's how I gradually feel like a local after three years of living here.My top 3 in the city are: Jingshan Park, my own apartment and a hole in the wall cafe in the hutong. Jingshan is touristy. But with 2 yuan, you share the view of the whole city with generations of emperors, warlords, and common folks who come and go. But the city survive all of them. This episode was about one of my favourite spaces in the city. Enjoy :)

What's the deal of Uber credit card? How does millennials manage their finances with new apps? We talk about MONEY this time! 01:00 Bo got a Uber credit card and we talked about what's special about it. But can customers trust giving bank accounts to Uber? How does it compare to banks?12:00 How Uber is going to tab into the dining industry?19:00 Is it something special about American companies to issue credit cards to expand businesses?28:00 New startups to help people manage their money? Bo talked about Acron, Robinhood, and Wealthfront, but Joy was curious about how people can trust these new services.36:00 The top one financial advice from Bo to young people -- you would be surprised. :) But later we did talk about why it's worth investing in, and Bo shared his ratio on different options.

It's been a bumpy month.There were ups and downs, expected and unexpected, happiness and sadness.Life never cease to amaze me.Inspired by the spirits of Children's Day, I give you the singing bike.Be happy :)

This was supposed to be a sci-fi-ish episode, until we got to the point that we both agreed that this could go very serious and very deep. But it's also because Bo was not fully awake. So this is a pretty slow and scattered episode. We talked about bits of what might happen to one's data when someone passes away. We don't have a clear answer, but it's definitely something we can keep thinking about.Anyway, I cannot believe we made it to episode 40! 01:00 Following the topic of last episode, we started talking about what might happen to one's data when someone passes away. What if the tech companies have full ownership of your data afterlife? What if the data they own actually worth a lot?10:00 If you can make someone you love but who passed away into a chatbot, would you do that as a way to hold memory to? Is it still the person you used to know, or is it algorithm?19:00 What if Facebook turn someone's page into a graveyard, is it worse?25:00 What if the digital information can decay?35:00 Then we talked about the VR graveyard in Hong Kong (what!!!).37:00 The real show stops here, but I added some parts that we discussed in Chinese and English. 

Can you recognize a city by listening? I guess there are some signatures in some cities that are hard to miss, the public transport, the accent of the people, as well as the air. This episode is going to be a bit noisy, perfect if you are listening on your way to work. It might tele-transport you to another city :)This is Guangzhou. Enjoy the journey.

Did you receive a wave of Privacy Setting Updates from most of the digital services, like Instagram, Trello, Pinterest, etc? It happened to me, and I read some of them carefully. They provoke some new questions: what are these updates about? What are they protecting? What data does user own? This is what this episode about. Enjoy! 01:00 We sidetracked a bit and talk about funeral.06:00 Bo opens up the topic by pointing out four major points in these changes: a) about data deletion; b) about data portability; c) privacy by design; d) data protection officers;15:00 Can decentralization help with the data ownership problem? We started the discussion into what data you own and not own in digital services, and what data portability means.26:00 What if the technology works in a different way, what if I myself store all the data I created instead of digital service companies?33:00 A bit recap of what blockchain is and then we start the deduction of how centralization and decentralization services approach data storage from different paths.50:00 Data deletion on blockchain? And then we touched a bit on data legacy: how would you pass down your data if you are gone?

So there's something going on in San Francisco that's not happening in Beijing, sharing electric scooters!! I asked Bo on this topic. From there, we discussed about the bike sharing, the two company buyout deals happened about the same time in Beijing and SF, and the future of cities. 01:00 General intro of sharing electric scooters in SF.13:00 What's so interesting about Uber bought Jump?20:00 It's interesting to compare the two news in bike sharing in Beijing and SF. Meituan, the company that started as a copy of Groupon and grew into a tech giant covering restaurant reviews, and food delivery, bought Mobike, one of the leading bike sharing companies. This news is interesting when contrasted with Uber purchased Jump.31:00 Will Uber become the monopoly of transportation in the US? Bo mentioned it doesn't make sense for Uber to use self-driving cars for ride share.40:00 Opening up the imagination for self-driving cars and the future of cities.

Hey, this is a new project by Joy, Sound Snack (Edit on Apr 13).I didn't realise I had long history working with sound, until we paused the podcast for almost 4 months. I recall that I've been a host in my junior high school radio station, playing music and reading announcements; in college, together with 3 friends, I started a project, Sound Museum, to evoke the awareness of environment by showing people sounds from nature in a website. Two years ago, Bo and I started this really casual podcast, Beginner's Mind. There's something charming about storytelling by sound. The sound, voices, and also, most importantly, the silence in-between, tell stories that all your imagination allows. I'm a big fan of spontaneity, co-creation, and interpretation based on each person's experiences. Hope these 5-minute sound clips bring you peace of mind even when it's noisy. Be happy :)

01:00 Great ability comes with great responsibility. Why we feel betrayed by the social network?13:00 Are you more concerned about your own personal data being exposed or the data of a mass population being exposed? We talked about regulations, comparisons between US and China, etc.30:00 How will the news change you? Bo said no affect, but pointed out that maybe it's time to separate the company into smaller companies.39:00 What would the new social network look like? Decentralisation? 

Happy holiday! Quite a month! Joy has been travelling (again) and this time, Bali. So you will probably hear some background music from the resort. Joy got up at 11:30pm and Bo got up at 7am to make the call. Both were yawning until the conversation started. We talked about Alt-School and our view on education. Enjoy! 01:00 Catch up a bit. What is Alt-School? What's going on with Alt-School? Then we started the discussion of the business model -- where it's heading by shutting down two lab schools.15:00 Would you send your kid to Alt-School? Bo says yes. We further discussed that education startups take time to prove themselves. We digress a bit to another topic: design babies.24:00 Can selling programs to other schools help Alt-School make money? The program is pretty expensive for public schools.34:00 Bo is a dropout from college, and we talked about his view on education. Joy also talked about her education in China. Then we talked about personal choice to go through the path that everyone is going through. It was my favourite part of the discussion.45:00 By comparing our own education experiences, we discussed that the traditional education method might not be failing, and sometimes it's hard to know which way is right for the kids.

Joy was travelling in Tibet for two weeks, and thus the show paused for a while. Now we are back on track, the topic we picked is about Amazon's purchase of wholefoods. We found the topic really interesting because it relates to Alibaba's recent moves on "New Retail" movement. 01:00 We catch up a bit on work and life, and then jump right into the topic. Amazon purchased Wholefoods couple months ago. How does that affect Wholefoods? How will it affect Instacart, a startup that delivers grocery to people's doorsteps? Bo proposed that Amazon bought Wholefoods as an experiment to find out how to support retail industry.21:00 Joy talked about her experience in Alibaba's new supermarket store, Hema. We discuss why Alibaba started the New Retail movement, why they opened Hema, and waht's their next move.41:00 One thing keeps coming back in the conversation is that the genes of a company decides the direction of their products, Amazon calling itself a "Day One" company, and Alibaba trying to "make it easy to do business anywhere". But then why do they both get into the entertainment businesses?

Several days before the recording, Bo sent me few localbitcoins links and suggested that I could get in touch with these sellers, and ask them about bitcoin situation in China. I didn't do, because... I explained in this episode. The episode continues the conversation of bitcoin and the recent ban in China. 1:00 Bo suggested that I could get in touch with bitcoin sellers in China and interview them. His main question is how did Chinese get crazy about bitcoin. How the ban is going to affect the market in China?16:00 Bitcoin will only be popular when it becomes a daily use, but right now there's not much progress in this approach. Big corporates accept bitcoin for some transactions, but they are not keeping them. Coinbase is one of the products that is building up the industry, from making secure bitcoin wallets to maybe a merchant app. It would be promising if an e-commerce company is built solely on bitcoin transactions.35:00 What is ICO? Bo explains it by describing it as building a casino. The three characteristics of this casino is 1) the owner is a stranger; 2) the price of the chips is not stable; 3) whether the casino can be completed or not is unknown. And the ICO that Bo might invest is a penguin lap dance business (what???).49:00 Bo makes comparison between the two investment methods, venture capital and ICO.Bonus: I attached the part when we chat in Chinese on the topic for about 15 minutes.

Hello, World. We are back!In the past two months, we've been going through some life changes, like leaving a company and joining a new one, or building a new one (in Bo's case). For me, I've been working on a translation project for a while and it finally came to completion. So we start chatting, recording and keep the show going.The show begins with the latest news that China bans ICO and bitcoin exchange in Mainland. And then it goes on like a Q&A of bitcoin. 5:00 When did Bo start paying attention to Bitcoin and why? How will it change the banking system? What is blockchain, and the value of bitcoin?16:00 What does it mean when people are mining bitcoin? Bo says they are more like accountants than miners. How does bitcoin make future online transaction easier? It might change the tax system too.30:00 China bans bitcoin exchange and how it's going to affect the market. Is there still opportunities for late comers to the market? Why does it matter to people's life?44:00 Fun fact that a country in Africa (turned out to be Kenya) uses mobile phone minutes as currency. Then we talk about the caveat of investing in bitcoin, and it leads to discussion of new types of cryptocurrency coming up.References* "Old people buy gold, and young people buy bitcoin", comes from an episode of L2inc ("A Primer on Crytocurrency")* The title, Triple Bubbles, was a joke about Bo's life in Silicon Valley, living in the housing and startup bubble, while speculating the bitcoin bubble. I think it sums up the era we are at very nicely.

We came back after a long break. And the first topic relates to mobile working, artificial intelligence, new iPad pro, and a lot of other buzz words. 01:00 What's the prospect of future mobile working? Bo explains how narrow AI might play a role.14:00 Joy looked in to some of the hardware for mobile working, and raised the question, what makes iPad pro special. Bo answers the question from the new interaction patterns and the standpoint of being a programmer.28:00 iPad creates the new possibility for future interaction like gesture control, which is already being implemented in in-car interaction. Bo talks about his failed attempt to create a startup basd on gesture control.39:00 The future of mobile working depends on how likely big corporates are adapting to the new tools. Some companies are already handing iPads to their employees.43:00 How will the mobile working trend go in China? 

01:00 We chat about Bo's first visit to Forward, an innovative clinic just started in San Francisco. It tries to create a futuristic hospital experience with new machines and big data. It's similar to another enterprise, One Medical. We compared the two approaches on pros and cons.16:00 Forward gets my attention because it keeps track of health data of their members and offers 24/7 medical consulting. I feel the data-driven approach is going to change the future clinical experiences, so we dive a bit deeper into AI, deep learning, machine learning and other buzz words.28:00 We discuss the medical startup landscape. Forward is one of the approaches, others include the online marketplace, DNA testing, etc. But whatever the landscape, the trust seems the main issue that most people care about in this the medical startups. 

We paused the show for a month due to CNY holiday and some technical issues. We each had different experiences in the past four weeks. While Joy was in Nepal for the physically, mentally and emotionally challenging meditation bootcamp, Bo has been working very diligently on his side project in the calm and quiet Bay Area. Again, we didn't have a topic. It used to drive me crazy that we didn't have a set topic, but now I feel I am getting used to the flow that just comes up naturally. And it turned out well. We started with Joy's ten days of silence and chatted all the way to the inescapable reality that we are facing now.Enjoy! Be happy :) 01:00 How does it feel to live ten days without talking?10:00 The people who came to the mediation camp19:00 Why did I sign up for the meditation camp? And we discussed meditation from our own perspectives. Bo thinks it was just about breathing in and breathing out. Joy thinks it's helpful in helping her focus and better manage her emotions.32:00 What is the technology that creates most emotion roller-coasters?44:00 Nothing is new in the Bay it seems, and Joy raises the question: are people in the Bay Area jealous of the startup scene in Beijing? And we touched a little bit of mobile payment vs credit card. I wonder if US is going to rely on mobile payment one day as what's going on in China now.56:00 A little touch on the the situation we are facing today, does it empower you?

The English version is here 0:00 We changed our name to Beginner's Mind. The reason will be further explained in another post.2:00 On-demand bicycles in China is blooming. But first we define the three main concepts, O2O, on-demand services and sharing economy.12:00 How does the on-demand bicycles work from start to end? And who are the major users?22:00 What are the main differences among the bikes?33:00 What are the main pain points of the bikes?44:00 Will the companies do well in the Bay Area? 

It's 2017. We are back after the long break. This is a special episode, because we recorded twice, one in Chinese and the other in English. It was accidental. We usually spend 10 to 20 minutes running through the key points before the actual recording, so we talk in Chinese and put down some show notes to discuss later. But this time, while we talked about on-demand bicycle startups in China, we just went along. Though we recorded later in English, following loosely the previous structure, we felt the first run has a better flow than the second version. Yet, we think it's important to let non-Chinese speakers understand the craziness and innovation in this business. So here we are, with two new episodes for the new year! Chinese Version Here are the questions we discussed from the very beginning, roughly in this order. 00:00Why does the on-demand bicycle business bloom in China at this point? How does the government react to this new business? How did they receive five rounds of investment in one year and why did they need that much money from very early on? What's the biggest innovation of these bikes?How do these bikes work? How much do they charge?11:00 What's the difference between the two main competitors, ofo and Mobike?How do they maintain the bikes on the street?What are the main differences from a user experience's standpoint?What are the main use cases for these on-demand bikes?17:00Technical broken down. The screen was frozen for a while and you can hear it here. Have they made profit yet? What is the business model in the long run?How accurate is the GPS on bikes?25:00 It was called bike sharing sometimes, but we think it doesn't belong to sharing economy.27:00Defining the three terms, sharing economy, O2O and on-demand. What might be their next step?What are the oversea markets they are expanding to?37:00We tried to do the calculation of how many bikes are needed around some of the busiest metro stations in Beijing.

Bo started using AWS cloud service to stream games to his old macbook. The experience was really good and that got him thinking about the cloud computing a lot lately, the opportunities and the problems. For me, it's more like a learning process, to understand the different concepts in cloud computing. 01:00 Long story short, Bo explained how he started streaming games from AWS and got really awesome experiences, which led him to find out new personal cloud computing products like Sixa and Paperspace. 10:00 The differences between SaaS, PaaS, and Iaas, the last of which is what we are going to focus more in this episode. We went further to explain the difference between public cloud and private cloud.19:00 Will personal cloud computing be widely used in the near future? It depends on various elements, like the speed of the Internet, privacy issue, and other technical issues. On the other hand, to promote a wider adaptation of the technology requires a work-around with existing cloud structures in the companies, and to persuade CTOs or CIOs to buy the product. 40:00 Similar to the success of Slack, the adaptation of personal cloud computing is most likely to start with startups, or teams in big companies. Relating to Joy's experiences in China, we touched a bit on regulatory level.

Hello, December! We skipped November due to Joy's two-week visit to India, and the holiday season. We've been thinking about this topic for a while, startups in Iceland. There are a lot of interesting things going on in Iceland, besides games and the VR boom.Three major topics we are covering are: the overall startup environment, the reason behind the startup culture, and moving forward, what's the advantages and disadvantages. 01:00 Online gaming is one of the industries that Iceland is known for, but it's also the ground for startups in fishing, and renewable energy. 14:00 We spent some time discussing how the geographical and demographic elements are shaping the startup scene in Iceland (as compared to Southeast Asia we talked about before).26:00 Moving forward, not enough funding resources is definitely one of the disadvantages entrepreneurs in Iceland are facing.

The episode was supposed to be about startups in Iceland, which we both have read some fun articles and would like to share our findings. Yet, the election last week struck us so hard that we couldn't avoid. I was quite hesitated to share my thoughts on this topic: it's controversial, complicated, and until this point, I am still trying to figure out what exactly happened. We tried to go beyond our emotions – anger, depress, fear, etc, – and try to reflect on how the result affects us, and what we can learn from it. 01:00 We share about our feelings on this result. Then get into the reflection mode: the electoral college, the voting rates, how Americans exercise their political rights, etc. 11:00 Another main reflection occurs is the feeling that we've been living in the bubble, or tribe, which is constructed by the social media, like Facebook, Twitter, Medium, etc. How this can be changed?24:00 The election revealed that advanced technology, like machine learning or personalisation, is rapidly changing the way we consume information, as well as the media landscape. And it's going to affect us further in the future. More work can be replaced by machines, and people in the future need to find new ways to create value to get income.

Here it comes this time of a year, when temperature drops and layers are put on. We start the conversation with weather, like a lot of conversation goes, then we talk about weather apps, which leads to crowdsourcing and other related products. 01:00 It’s quite surprising that people have made so many different types of weather apps. The ones that caught our attention is Weather Underground, Dark Sky and Poncho. They are adding data collected by amateur meteorologist to the app to provide more accurate prediction. Besides official data and data collected by amateurs, what else can be added for future prediction?19:00 Other examples of crowdsourcing data, like Waze, Kickstarter, etc. We talked about the caveat of the crowdsourcing data and how people apply it in different areas. 40:00 Can crowdsourcing be scaled to more complicated areas, like healthcare?

There are a lot of things going on not just in the Bay Area or Beijing, but everywhere is witnessing certain changes brought by new technology, investment, etc. Last episode, we realized the way we consume the overloaded information today limits our reach to things happen in other countries, like Southeast Asia, or Africa. So we decided to do some research and talk about the startup scene in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and Singapore. 01:00 Why the region is getting attractive to foreign capitals and local startups? We listed some of the main points, including the large and relatively young population, the mobile penetration, the prevalence of English, the geographical difference, digital nomads, etc. 13:00 The region is hot for now, so what might be the hurdles or challenges to run businesses in this area? Joy listed some of the challenges in Indonesia, including language, logistics, banking, etc. all of which is on the infrastructure level. Political environment and regulations is also affecting how far the startups can go. 28:00 There’s concern that foreign investment might be major threat to the thrive of local startups, but it seems it’s not that easy for big tech companies to establish similar success in this market either. The business model applied to the Western markets might not be applicable to Southeast Asia. 36:00 Why knowing what’s going on in this region matters to us? And how about the future of this region?

Hola! Finally updated! We have been away for more than a month, due to a lot of things, such as Joy has gone for Burning Man for a while, some vacations in between, technical issues, and failed recordings. We did try to talk the last two weeks, but the recording was disappointing, so we decided to postpone the update. The original topic was Joy’s flight experience from China to US, and US back to China, what have changed, what can be changed, etc. Later we realised it would be better if we focus on one specific part of the travel experience, so we ended up with the ride-sharing experience in China and US, and how two products, Didi and Uber, offer different experiences. It’s also a timely topic since Uber exited China few months ago. We made comparison between regional and international business model. For us, this is a good start after a long break, and we hope you enjoy it as well. 01:00 Start from new proposal in Shanghai and Beijing on regulating the ride-sharing services in China. Drivers are required to have local residential identification to drive for Didi or Uber-like service. And extends the discussion into some features of how didi works in China.17:00 Discuss the different experiences that Didi and Uber offer. Didi provides more transportation services like taxi, carpool, designated drivers, etc., while Uber focuses mainly on ride-sharing. Didi designed more features specifically for local market while Uber offers the same experience worldwide.24:00 Digress a bit to talk about emerging market, like Indonesia and India. We came to the realisation that information in these countries are quite invisible to us because of increasing personalised or tailored information service. 36:00 Bo speaks from a passenger’s perspective and talks about which service makes more sense to him. It’s surprising that there are only few companies provide local services internationally. 48:00 We talk about the latest Uber pass in San Francisco. And wind back to the comparison between regional and international businesses from the perspectives of a designer and an engineer.  

Have you ever lost your phone somehow? And have you ever gotten your lost phone back? I have experienced lost my phone on a cab and got it back in about an hour by using “Find My Phone” feature. It was the most emotional hour I have ever experienced and we decided to talk about this experience in depth. 01:00 My first-time ever almost 10-min monologue, without any interruption by Bo :P We also talked about keeping chat history. I have been keeping my chat history on Wechat for a long time and it will kill me if I lost it. 10:00 We started to analyze what terrifies me most, losing the phone itself, losing my private data, or losing the record and files on the phone. There are three buttons (sound an alert, lock your phone and erase your data) on the Find My Phone app and it’s interesting how people under different scenarios use the three features differently.22:00 While iOS users enjoy the benefits of Find My Phone app, Android users seem a bit helpless when scenarios like the above occurs. 38:00 We get into serious debate whether Apple should backup the phone before user erase their data on the phone.50:00 How can people keep track of other things in their lives, like your wallet, a jacket, etc. ? And Bo talked about the new gadget he got for his other belongings, TrackR.

By the end of last episode, we were talking about Pokemon Go as a platform. The idea got both of us excited and we realized there are more we would like to explore. The keyword is platform. It’s like the word “location” to real estate agent as to the tech world today. 00:00 What is Pokemon Go providing or generating as a platform? How is it different comparing to Facebook? Facebook is considered a gigantic platform that hosts social interactions, connections, news, ads, games, etc. It has been taking our attention for such a long time. If Pokemon Go evolves the way like Facebook –– carefully craft everything to grab people’s attention and keep them on the platform, what will it be like?20:00 Will Pokemon Go last as a game if it’s not adding more features to make it beyond a game? 30:00 We kept saying “platform”, but what exactly is “platform”? Bo gives his definition: (1) high engagement; (2) a lot of users; (3) the service itself is free, but it generates profits from services sit on top of it. We also make comparisons between the platform thinking in China and in the Bay Area. We talked about common platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and also examples like Home Depot, the home improvement retailer in the States, and Haier, the once biggest home appliances company in China. 51:00 And whenever we talk about platform, one name is often mentioned: Wechat. When I think about platforms in China, usually I mean all those feature-compact and all-look-alike e-commmerce or service apps in my phone.

For two weeks, everyone has been talking about it. Pokemon Go swept the world and created buzz that none has done so far. Bo has been playing it in San Francisco for a while and is addicted to it. For me, although the game is still not available in China, I am able to witness friends around me trying every possible means to reach out to the game, especially engineers, who created easy-access location-simulator-loaded versions for people in China to feel the game. We talk from our different experiences and reflect on this pokemania that we are all experiencing. 00:00 It seems hard not to notice Pokemon GO around you. The players show up like mobs on the streets, into the shops, or by the Ocean Beach in the middle of night. All those seem suggest it’s location not AR made Pokemon Go this popular today. And speaking of location, it reminds me of two things: Ingress and Foursquare. Ingress, created by Niantic Lab, is a location-based game prior to Pokemon Go. The two share a lot in common as in game mechanics and business model, but Ingress didn’t get that much attention and active players.18:00 Though Pokemon Go as an app works terribly sometimes, it doesn’t stop people from using it. This reminds us of earlier version of Facebook, Twitter, etc. –– great products that didn’t look perfect from the very beginning, but there’s something unique about these addicting products. And also we talk about the business model of Pokemon Go and how it’s similar to Foursquare. 38:00 Everyone has also been asking the question: how far is Pokemon Go going? The question itself makes us think that in the future, Pokemon Go is going to be part of people’s life. It becomes a local-related platform that will support a lot more social interaction.

I saw this middle-aged man using a live broadcasting app on the bus one day, and it got me thinking: why do people watch strangers talk, eat, or sing all day? Why it has become so popular in China as well as in the States? That was the beginning of the topic, live broadcasting. Bo is really serious about the two definition: live broadcasting and live streaming. You will know more in the end. 01:00 Our talk starts from a video on Vice. The video is only available in Chinese, but the gist of it is the economy of beauty or live broadcasting in China. It has become full-fledged streamlined business, running by agencies and online platforms. From there, we discuss the notion of live broadcasting, and the multiple format and diverse content on live broadcasting platforms.11:00 It seems the content on Chinese live broadcasting apps is more general, while the western ones is more focused, like Twitch for gaming, live coding, etc. Yet, the connection between the genre of the content and the platform is not as deep as I thought. 17:00 The economy of gifting on live broadcasting: we compared the different business models between Twitch and Chinese live broadcasting apps. 22:00 We try to differentiate live broadcasting and live streaming. Then we got into serious discussion of the ethics of live broadcasting, which relates closely to what happened lately in the US. 38:00 I asked Bo again to clarify the two concept: live streaming and live broadcasting. And also why does it matter? 

In last episode, we ended our talk with a new topic: how wearables are helping users to better manage information? How do people feel about wearables that are always on? We continued the discussion this time. Sometimes I feel the talk we are doing here is not about getting the answer to questions, but instead generating more questions from the talk. If you share similar interests in whatever we are talking about, feel free to share your thoughts with us. 01:00 Bo got his first Echo last Tuesday, and he’s been using it for a week. The first part is like a how to use Echo for dummies. Another interesting question came up is about how voice assistant like Alexa will be able to create some type of “TL;DL” of podcast. 15:00 How do people process information? Or narrow it down a bit, how do people prioritize information? For Bo, the solution is using Apple Watch to help him set the boundaries of notifications. What interests me most is the idea of watch face switch. What if the face switch relates to mode switch, setting different scenarios for notifications? 36:00 As I read somewhere in the news that kids are competing their parents’ attention with mobile phones, that worries me. And thus we have the discussion whether wearables are taking people away from pocket computers, which might be some improvement.46:00 What do you think about wearables that are always on? Now that we have smart phones on 24/7, it seems we are so used to have all these gadgets around us without thinking about how they’ve been listening to us and collecting data all the time.

Apologies for skipping one week. We actually recorded the talk, but it didn’t go well. We had a fight, because of lack of preparation and miscommunication. The talk has always been casual conversation between two friends, but knowing there are actual listeners makes us feel stressful. We both get more concerned about whom we are talking to and how listeners are going to understand the show. Still, we are going to be who we are and talk about what interest us, but we do need to spend more time for preparation and setup better structures of the talk. We are working on it! Till now we have no idea who have been listening to our podcast, we want to thank you for the attention, and we hope to hear from you for any feedback. 1:00 We start slowly by talking about Slack has been down for a while and people complained about it on Twitter. Bo’s company has been using Slack and it works pretty well for a 60-person company. In China, most companies communicate over Wechat groups. It’s interesting to see some new mobile apps have designed hidden surprises for users, like Slack and Snapchat. 9:00 The problem this time that we are interested in is working IMs (instant messenger) has been blurring the lines between work and life. We are receiving emails or work-related notifications 24-hour a day. Bo thinks it’s not because of the IMs, but because of the smartphones, or pocket computers, as Bo spontaneously coined the word. 16:00 We dive into some features in IMs that make us stressful, like “typing”, “have seen the message”, etc. 32:00 While it’s quite common for users from the West and the East to have multiple IMs installed on their phone, users in China seem rely mainly on Wechat for communication for social and for work. This might be because of the heavy-feature nature of apps from Asia. We side-tracked a bit and discuss the cost of living in the Bay Area and Beijing. 50:00 As we returned to our topic, we also realize how it relates to wearable, a topic that Bo has always enthusiastic about. We discuss the notion of information triage and wearables that are always on, which we will talk more about in the next episode.

We were out for two weeks, mainly because of technical issue. Last week, it took us half an hour to start the conversation. By the time we started to talk, we both felt exhausted because of the on-and-off calls. It was frustrating and discouraging. So we continue the conversation about coffee shop this week. 01:00 How do you like coffee shops? They are part of our lives, and we are curious about coffee shops as a product. Why has it been so popular internationally, and how is it going to evolve into the future? We discuss the topic from the location, the interaction in the coffee shop, etc. 17:00 “The future of coffee shops might still be coffee shops. The new future space is actually co-working space”, according to Joy. Coworking space is mainly about the network and supporting infrastructure. And there’s more connection between coffee shop and co-working space –– Starbucks has great potential in becoming the giant network of coworking space. 36:00 If Starbucks expand their business into coworking space, how does it work? How do they make money? Bo said, by renting out lockers instead of charging customers by the space they are taking. The reason that Bo thinks Starbucks can be coworking space is that they offer good experience for customers, which is essential for coworking space. Then we got into this really interesting question as to the globalization of coffee shop –– why it became global trend that people start hanging out in coffee shops nowadays?49:00 So would the next trend of globalization is the co-working space?

Have you ever tipped someone on the Internet, for an article you read, or for an answer you get? For me, it’s always interesting why people pay for the content, while majority of the information on the Internet is free, Wikipedia, Quora, or articles on New York Times, Buzzfeed, you name it. So what we are actually paying for? What do you think about the tipping model? 01:00 Have you heard about Jelly? It’s a platform that you can ask questions anonymously, and get answers from users on the platform. The company brand the product as the new way of search on mobile. We started with Jelly, the online Q&A platform, and then slowly get into the topic of content monetization. Bo talks about his main point: nothing on the Internet is free. We talked about soft advertisement, sponsored content, Instagram and Medium.24:00 An interesting feature that I’ve been interested in is tipping articles on Wechat. I am interested in why people decide to tip articles they read, and how people feel about paying for information on the Internet. Bo explains the rationale behind it in his nerdy way – calculate how much every minute worths when you read the article if you decide to tip something online.40:00 Another perspective that I am interested in is paying to get answers online. Products like this includes Quora’s new feature: Knowledge Prize. 50:00 We also look into the subscription model vs pay by each piece of content, like membership on Spotify vs buying individual song on iTunes. And we reached the conclusion for this episode: when looking at content monetization on the Internet, one should go beyond the content itself, but think about the cost of the content producer, the server, and etc. Those are what we are actually paying for on the Internet.  

Warby Parker is an online eyeglasses retailer, and was named as the most innovative company in the past years by Forbes. Casper creates award-winning mattress for the decade and also new ways to deliver and sell mattress, renewing the traditional industry. We like both companies a lot. Bo is a loyal customer to both companies too. He bought the mattress and a pair of glasses, and talked about them all the time. It’s a fun talk, as we started from this two companies and extending into other topics.  1:00 Instead of calling Warby Parker one of the most innovative companies of the decade, Bo thinks its business model is similar to old-style mail-order catalogue model.10:00 As I was researching on the two companies, I came across Amazon’s retail shop in Seattle. We discussed if there’s any connection between this move and the two companies. 17:00 Bo points out one thing the two companies share is how they address privacy. Trying out eyewear and trying out mattress are something pretty private. People would like to try by themselves instead of being exposed in the public to feel how the glasses look on them, or how the mattress feels. 22:00 Then the topic extends to subscription model. We try to draw the comparison between some monthly clothes subscription model to Warby Parker.32:00 At some point, we digress and start talking about Wikipedia, because Bo think Wikipedia has not been mentioned enough lately. It's interesting to think about this question: if you can re-innovate wikipedia to make it more modern, what will you do?43:00 If Wikipedia exists as a non-profit organization is based on the assumption that information is free on the Internet, then why there's a new trend coming up that people have to pay for information on Quora or Facebook? 

Everyone is talking about chatbots lately, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. We’ve looked into this realm since last year, so we think maybe it’s a good time to revisit the topic. 1:00 Why all of a sudden does it become so popular? Facebook, Microsoft and Wechat all have started to become a platform of chatbots. To some extent, they are like the new little “Internet sitting on top of the Internet”. Partially it’s because of mobile as the new form factor and new way to interact.13:00 The limited screen space seems the main limitation from a designer perspective. But chatbots are not limited to text messages, sending videos, or sending red pockets on wechat can also be considered as bots.25:00 Still, as there are more and more bots coming up, there remains the question: how do you find out what bots to follow? Bo compared that to the history of website and google, saying it’s going over the same cycle.34:00 When talking about conversational design, one thing that we haven’t talked about is voice. It’s interesting and seems have a lot more potential in interaction. Another approach in built-in search on mobile is through keyboard, like Slash and Input. Besides sending out silly gifs, people can also search videos or location right in the input area. Though it takes some time to switch between keyboards.44:00 How about Luka? We’ve noticed Luka since it first launched last year. And we noticed they’ve pivoted a bit lately after another round of investment. It’s still a bit premature at this point. I got lost and not knowing what to do while trying the app.

Bo has been talking a lot of good things about Snapchat. I never understood that until I start using it. I learned to use Snapchat for a week. It was fun, but also confusing. That’s how we start the conversation. 0:00 How does Snapchat actually work? I learn to add friend on it, or to watch live event, but still it’s confusing to use it. Bo draws the comparison between Snapchat and the old Facebook when news feed was not live. 13:00 The main difference between Snapchat and Facebook is about the time. Snapchat is more like day-to-day conversation, in which you say something, and it disappear. While on Facebook, it’s like a digital gallery that stores everything you post. We talk about the editorial or curation on Snapchat.28:00 Another thing about Snapchat is how casual users communicate with others, like how I text message with my friend, or how Everlane communicate with their customers. 33:00 Bo emphasizes that what makes Snapchat unique is that it captures people’s attention. He shares his experience after watching the interactive film, the Room. 43:00 Why is there only handful of channels in Discover? Why doesn’t it provide personalized channels like other services do? Is it good design or bad design? We had a fight over this topic.

0:00 Starting from the last issue of Wired Magazine. The cover features Lei Jun, the CEO of Xiaomi, and the title of that issue says “It’s time to copy China”. Xiaomi’s success is because of its business model and marketing strategy. 13:00 The Internet got lost somewhere, and we didn’t record part of our conversation. So we started talking about other things related to the Chinese market. The new batch of companies from YC 2016 Spring some similar business models from China. Bo says cities in China might be the model of future cities, because they have the most and best resources.30:00 Given the fact that China is so different and unique in so many ways, it seems impossible to copy the O2O business models from China. Bo argues that if the trend is that more people are moving to the cities, big cities like NYC, SF will learn something from the Chinese companies in how they serve large population.41:00 I mentioned Indonesia couple times, and Bo spots that, so we start to talk about emerging market as big opportunities for Chinese companies.

We started talking about VR and related devices again. 0:00 Bo thinks VR is not going anywhere, because people are pretty cautious of what to put on their body. He draws comparison among VR, Apple Watch and Google Glass.14:00 There are other devices that we are wearing now that people are pretty comfortable with, like watch, headphones. These might have bigger potential in the future. Start from there, we start to imagine the future of smart headphones. 26:00 When talking about wearables, Bo thinks that style is really important to think about. It’s part of the appearance, and people pay attention to that. And wearables with specific purposes are going to be more popular than wearables with general purposes.34:00 People like to associate themselves with the brand image. From there, we shift gears and start to talk about new trends in men’s wear is getting much smarter.40:00 Speaking of fashion, Bo talks about one of his favorite brand, Everlane. What amazes him is their marketing strategy, especially on Snapchat and Instagram. He then explains how Snapchat works for me. He compares today’s Snapchat with the old Facebook when newsfeed was not live yet.46:00 This is the part when the conversation gets interesting. Though I always know Snapchat is interesting, I still don’t have the motivation to use it because I am already using Wechat. Bo explains how he has six messenger apps, and why he needs all of them.54:00 No one shares their real feelings on Facebook. What we both realize is that most people are just sharing posts or photos on Facebook now, but not that many people share their feelings or stories. It’s interesting to see something that used to be so addictive turns into something more like news platform. Maybe that’s why we have new social networks every year.65:00 Bo’s prediction/understanding of the future of social networks and we end up with our title for this episode: VR is the face tattoo. 

The part that was not recorded is this: Bo was hanging out with a bunch of new friends, one of which works in a hotel as a manager. So Bo asked her if she knows a new app called “Overnight”, which is kinda like “Airbnb for hotels”. And to Bo’s biggest surprise (which I still don’t understand why), she heard about it. He is surprised because he always believes himself to be the first person in his social group to get hand on new information, like new companies, new products or new technology. That’s how we started the show. 03:00 From Overnight, “Airbnb for hotels”, to the trending term in China, O2O (online to offline). We spend some time discussing the on-demand valet service in San Francisco, Luxe. How the business runs, or how the service works for customers? 13:00 Services like Luxe is going to compete with Uber, Wash.io, and other services on human resources. So Bo proposed the idea to provide a service for the freelancers to maximize their income by helping them schedule their day for on-demand services. 25:00 But will people be willing to do several services at the same time? Joy described how Didi Dache (Chinese version of Uber), and deliver service work in China. Bo argued that if the services help freelance workers make more money, people will use it. 53:00 More and more services in the future will not be using flat rate any more. Like Sprig, they are charging differently at different time in a day. For busy hours, they charge higher delivery fee.P.S. Apologies for the choppy voice, the slow Internet is the one to blame.   

We started with backpack. Bo has always been interested in backpacks with high quality and great features. At first, I think i would just be quiet and let him do the talk, yet, we started talking about customization, VR, 3D printers, drones and other things. And in the end, we ended with smart suitcase. It’s an interesting talk. 01:00 How we switched from talking about backpacks to customization of software.11:00 Bo started talking about the value of mass customization. If it adds value to users, then making the interfaces customizable to every user will be on the top priority to companies. But the reason why customization is not popular is that people are too lazy to do that. Bo drew the connection with the popularity of VR. We extended the topic a bit further to include 3D printer and drones. 24:00 A lot of products from the beginning are toys. 34:00 We returned to the topic of backpacks again. Bo raised an interesting question: there are so many new design of backpacks on Kickstarter, why is that? And also we started talking about a smart suitcase from Kickstarter. We mainly discussed about the use cases of the product.55:00 A better suitcase of better Internet of things of products require better battery in the future. And we also talked about beacon and QR code for a bit. 

What is hover board? Why is it important? While Australia, the whole nation, banned hoverboard, Bo thinks that hoverboard is the future of transportation. 04:00 The safety concern: hoverboard on fire in several places in the States and other parts of the world; and it doesn’t seem to be safe riding outdoor. 15:00 Bo quoted Ben Thompson’s predictions on the future of transportation: electric powered, self-driven, sharing the ownership of vehicles.21:00 The skateboard or hoverboard is to solve “the last mile problem”. But to me, it sounds like a “first-world problem” –– everything is about efficiency. Why the rush?34:00 What if the hoverboard becomes a robot, it follows you when you are not stepping on it and your hands are not available to hold it?41:00 Then we extended a bit into the delivery service in China, drones, etc. All future transportation tools now are still toys, but in the future, they might become something crazy. 

The recording started with a choppy "hello", due to my crappy connection at home. But as we started talking, things got better. The topic we discussed was furniture rental: how it became a problem to modern people, who have to move couple times before they finally settle down somewhere; and how new approaches can be applied to solve some problems in the process. In the end, we got into a small fight about users. It was a bit embarrassing to listen back, but I decided to leave it as it is. Well, it's part of the communication process. Side note: We’ve tried several recording tools. Cast.fm is a great tool, but too bad the connection in China doesn’t support it well. So we switched to Skype Recorder, and so far it works great. My voice has been so much clearer!  

We continued the topic on personalized search. In this talk, surprisingly, both of us sound so calm and chill.  01:00 We started with Slash the Keyboard. It allows users to search while typing while use some symbols “/” and the channels to search in. It works like coding.08:00 From technical perspective, how does Slash the Keyboard work?17:00 We continue digressing on the topic and started talking about “How Apple is Giving Design a Bad Name”.28:00 As we slowly get back to the topic, Bo asked us to take a step back and think about the right context for mobile search. We spent some time talking about the trust issue of searching results: results from people you know to strangers from the Internet, or from Magic the service.39:00 How do we envision the future of mobile search?50:00 Bo mentioned the concept “opinionated data” and how difficult it is to collect data from users to get insight from it.  

Bo and I have been working on Umi Search, a personalized search related product, for about half a year. It didn’t turn out well in the end, but we realized it would be helpful if we can talk about the idea from the very beginning, and visualize how it could be in the future.  05:00 How Bo started the idea from four to five years ago. He sold everything to start business in China, and met Umi, his wife there. Without phone or Internet connection, she became the source of information to him.13:00 The problem can also be rephrased as how to do mobile search more efficiently. Umi Search try to solve it by searching within your social accounts, like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Wechat.21:00 If the search results are most often UGC, some results might be redundant or of low quality, how could Umi Search solve that?33:00 Technical problem might be one aspect that we were not proceeding with Umi Search, but it seems from the conversation, there are more issues to it, like the definition of personalized search.49:00 We talks about Slash the keyboard as an interesting approach to the problem. It seems interesting if some shortcuts can be applied in the mobile search process, just programmers use code lines to create actions.53:00 If the search product actually comes out, the user group might be pretty limited.   

Before actually getting into the topic that we were ready to talk about, we spent almost an hour talking about random “first-world problem”: hot water heater, smart water cup, tickle machine, etc. Though the two items sound really random and low-tech, but if you really look for it, people are actually working on them. And there are snippets of how we made this show. Most of the recording is just crazy laugh sound. Just for fun.

What can we do? In this episode, we discussed some of our proposed solutions. 0:00 We share the research results from asking our family and friends on how the seniors use mobile phones. The use cases in the senior user group are pretty diversified and different than people at our age (late 20s to early 30s). The major apps that the seniors are using (in China) include Wechat and some games. 07:10 As usual, we digress a bit and get into the discussion of Wechat as a platform for new products.11:00 Three directions on the possible new products: Information-related, service-related, and technology-related solutions. We propose some ideas and criticized on it. 23:00 Joy talks about most of the current mobile design is not friendly to the senior users.27:00 How about creating an integrated app specifically for the seniors, with completely new technical writing, new iconography, like a stripped-down version of Uber? We had back and forth discussion on the approaches, which is how sometimes product manager or engineer argue with designers. 37:00 What is the problem we are targeting? And who might be our target audiences?47:30 How about the need for looking for caretakers? There’s difference among China and the US. Then Bo suggests how about getting on-demand tech support like you call an uber?01:00:00 What’s the next step?

What have been done for the senior user group? 03:00 Recap from last episode: we’ve discussed about the problem, the situation, and came up with our own solutions.04:35 Joy shares her research on existing products, like wearables, and apps. But everything seems designed to protect the senior groups instead of letting them to leverage the technology to learn and to grow.07:55 The copy in apps is written for the younger generation, which is a higher level of accessibility than font size or font color. 09:40 Community level senior care in San Francisco and other places, like Japan, China, and Hong Kong. 16:50 Existing apps seem focus more on the physical wellness of the seniors, and it seems more can be done to help connect the senior users together.23:20 The concept of an app might not be a good solution to the seniors, because they have to jump between apps to accomplish tasks. So what are the services that needed to provide?31:00 How about a joint account for the kids and the parents? It seems rather confusing for the senior to manage different accounts and passwords. 49:00 We talked about business model of startups and then we digressed. Bo got the idea that we can work on a project for certain topics and talk about it in the podcast, like a scum meeting. 56:30 Wrap-up of the episode. 1:05:00 We digressed a bit further to discuss the format of podcasts (with the eternal call for sponsorship).

In the pilot episode, we talked about a problem that we, and friends around us are facing now or soon: How to take care of your parents when they are far far far away? How to leverage the technology nowadays to better communicate with your family? Is video call enough? Is on-demand caretaker the solution? Let's find out!  Show notes:02:40 Let’s talk stuff. –– That’s how we started the podcast ITiL.12:41 Questions to explore: how to take care of parents when they are far away (not in the same city or the same country)? The question arose from Bo and his friends’ experiences. 15:00 Building communities among seniors might be a solution to approach senior care, such as religious communities.23:21 But the problem might be bigger than what we are facing. It’s a global issue, it’s a wicked problem that some people have already started solving by creating apps or building new services, like Honor (Bo made a mistake here saying the service called Honest).31:01 The senior users are not tech-savvy, so it might be better to leverage traditional communication channels, like phone calls instead of emails or text messages. (We kinda took a side walk and talked a bit about innovation in China. ) 41:10 How can we make changes? Joy is looking at the big picture and Bo suggests how about finding an aspect of the problem and thinking about the possible solutions. We discussed wearable solutions, meetups for the seniors, assistant account for seniors in apps, etc. But one thing for sure, the product is not going to solve everything for the kids, but to remove the frictions in communication with the seniors. 01:00:00 What’s next? Drill deep into one topic and talk more about in three to four episodes. And the name for the show? We decided it to be ITiL. You will find out the meaning of it if you can listen to the end. Music Credit: "dodge thisss" by Tenacity