The Social Media Trends Bandwagon – Do you “do you”?

Posted on December 8, 2022 by Fresh
I have a friend I met online about 15 years ago, right around the time I began podcasting. Some years later she decided she wanted to do her own podcast and wanted to leverage my little experience in that area of preparing audio media for such. The name of her show was “Let’s Talk About It”, so that being said..let’s do that..let’s talk about the trends that are born and die on social media (sometimes die) and how people participate… or not.

Without going deep (simply because I have not that time in the least bit), many of us have used social media in some shape or form since it’s been created (remember when the term was called “social networking?). All the old messenger platforms, like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Window Messenger, MySpace, Facebook, BlackPlanet, Asian Avenue, 2600, Usenet Groups, Compuserve, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Periscope, Vine (which I miss…LOL) Mastodon, and the longggg list goes on.

What is inherent to all social media/networking platforms are trends, and I don’t mean “such-and-such hashtag” is trending. What I do mean are actions people take, trends that started than many participate in.grab on to that catch on like wildfire. There have been sooo many that’s I’ve seen come and go that I’ll try to remember some to discuss. Incidentally, this topic came to mind because the approach I generally end up taking is: If everyone is doing it, I’m definitely not doing it LOL

To avoid being wordy, I resolve to my usual list to give some example and touch on a few.

  • The use of stable fusion technology to create AI Art (particularly of selfies)
  • TikTok Invisible Body Challenge
  • Wordle
  • Age prediction photos (this is how I’ll look X amount of years from now)
  • Milk Crate Climbing Challenge

Why these trends emerge, last for some time, then die off, can be for many reasons. I’ll venture to say that many of them do so for the simple reason of what social media perpetuates: reach and exposure which hopefully results in follows and likes of one’s social media feed. Though I make a point not to follow any of them, I do notice what the algorithms throw onto my feeds. Let’s start with the first one…

#AIArt – I’ve been noticing a bunch of people using whatever this stable fusion technology is to create very realistic and accurate drawings of themselves. With that, I’ve seen a fair number of people criticizing this as technology that takes away from the most talented artists that can do the same by hand (nothing new here with AI taking over in instances like this). I’ve seen a few people I follow posting selfies of themselves in this manner.

TikTok Invisible Body Challenge – This one is particularly interesting to me because of the cybersecurity issues that many are clueless about. What is this challenge, you may ask? It goes like this: challenge requires you to film yourself naked while using TikTok’s “Invisible Body” filter, which removes the body from the video and replaces it with a blurry background and this challenge has led to people posting videos of them allegedly naked but obscured by the filter. First of all, why would ANYONE have no issue with “film yourself naked while using TikTok’s “Invisible Body” filter” (someone, help me on this … please). It gets even “better”…”hackers are capitalizing on this trending challenge named to install malware on thousands of devices and steal their passwords, Discord accounts, and, potentially, cryptocurrency wallets. To capitalize on this, threat actors are creating TikTok videos that claim to offer a special “unfiltering” filter to remove TikTok’s body masking effect and expose the TikTokers’ nude bodies. However, this software is fake and installs the “WASP Stealer (Discord Token Grabber)” malware, capable of stealing Discord accounts, passwords and credit cards stored on browsers, cryptocurrency wallets, and even files from a victim’s computer.” This is pretty much what I’m referring to by jumping on the social media trends bandwagon – doing things just because it’s a trend and you know clue of what the implications could be (especially in a case like this) because you’re essentially acting like sheep. You can read more about this challenge and the hacking approach here.

Wordle – I have no idea what this game is or how it’s played but I number of people I follow on Twitter pepper my feed with their daily Wordle results

Age prediction photos – This one’s seem to die off but, boy, I’ve seen a ton of followers jumping on this one BIG time. Sort of the same use of AI thing as #AIArt. Lately I’ve seen the same approach but applied to dead celebrities who’s been deceased for some time now, but showing how they would look if they were still alive today.

Milk Crate Climbing Challenge – One of the DUMBEST, ignorant, and most dangerous challenges I can remember seeing in some time. I’m glad that one is dead and gone….(isn’t it?).

As said above, if the proliferation of such is even noticeable, you won’t catch me involved (can you say TikTok? – that’s an entire different story that I don’t even understand regarding the continual security concerns with the platform).

Anyway, do you indulge? No judgement here, just asking for a friend 🙂

Have a great day!

Fresh

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The ever evolving mobile phone technology 

Posted on December 7, 2022 by Fresh

“Can you hear me now? – Verizon

Greetings all. Hope your December is going well. Another work day is behind me. I just finished dinner and have retreated back to my home office to compose this blog post, with (based on my post from two days ago) the Fluid channel streaming some cool chill step, chillout, and liquid trap on somafm.com.

“What’s up with this graphic above?”, you may be asking. Well, it represents my entry in to the world of mobile phones. Let’s go back….way back. The Motorola TeleTac 250 was the first mobile phone I ever purchased. I got it from, then, Bell Atlantic Mobile which is now Verizon. I graduated from keeping a beeper on my belt to this hefty, chunky phone with a removable battery that had to be placed in a cradle for charging. Let’s talk a bit more about it. I have a leather case, complete with a belt clip, that allowed me to carry it that way, when it wasn’t stored in a bag somewhere. The one line amber LCD display is only large enough to display full ten digit phone number and other types of messages, like diagnostic codes and pager codes (yeah those things that pre-dated todays emojis BIG TIME lol), remember those? https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/samir/11-pager-codes-that-you-need-to-know

I was very much, by default, used to using that phone, pager codes and all. In fact while it was far thicker than my iPhone 12 mini of today, its height (with the antenna retracted – yes an antenna you had to pull up) wasn’t taller than my current phone. What’s the biggest difference between the Teletac 250 and any mobile phone today? It’s simple – you can only do to things with it: make/receive calls and pager (text message) codes with it..in other words…zero distractions come with modern day mobile phones. That, in itself, is an entirely different and long topic of discussion.

As the evolution continued, I when from the Teletac 250 to the much smaller and very sleek Motorola Razr V3M flip phone. Outside from its form factor and totally different design, the big and new thing was a built in camera. While the picture resolution compared to today’s phone was pretty much garbage, there was nothing better to compare with, so that WAS big. I actually miss that phone for its size and features even though the introduction of a camera was the gateway to the city of Distractionville. I will tell you this, I’m pretty certain that if this phone were able to operate on the 5G network today and at a decent price, I would seriously consider dropping my iPhone….for sure.

From the Razr, ended ups with the Blackberry Curve, with Blackberry being all the rage during the last 90s. The Curve was, of course, a step up in technology, just as the Razr was to the Teletac. From the Curve, I finally switched to the iPhone 4S in 2011. Being (and still am) a fan of Apple products, it was only a natural progression. It was then that voice recognition was introduced into the iPhone line up with the creation of Siri (hence the “S” in “4S”). I kept the 4S for a few years, jumped to the iPhone 6, then 7 in 2017. I used the iPhone 7 until it was on its last leg and finally jumped all the way to the iPhone 12 in June 2021.

The gist of this post is really about how mobile phone technology, especially the iPhone, has advanced so far away from just “making sure the call goes through”, and (to me) the biggest feature set and selling point has been the camera. While we all realize that mobile phones and all the built-in technology can and does easily replace all the separate devices we used to have to carry around – recorders, audio players, laptops, GPS devices, and….cameras. Being an engineer for my entire career (both in software and hardware development), I totally get it like there is no tomorrow but I’m glad to have seen the birth and growth/evolution of this tech as it gives me broad perspective in terms of experience usage, a perspective that allows me to assess the pros and cons of such evolution ESPECIALLY regarding the ubiquitous grip it has on us.

It’s interesting, as one example, I still have a digital camera – an old Nikon D3100 DSLR that I actually brought for cheap from a photographer that was upgrading. While the pixel resolution is nowhere NEAR what current mobile phones give, it takes exceptionally fine photos, but as you know, the convenience factor, from a use factor, is waaaay down compared to taking everyday photos (and video) with my iPhone12.

Sometime ago, I read an article about the accepted use of mobile phone technology in our daily life. In the midst of the article, a question was posed to who use said phones now but are old enough to have grown up in times prior. The question was: “Back in the 60’s and 70’s, If you could put a device in your pocket that would essentially allow you to be tracked at any given time, but you were free to use it and all its beneficial technology at will, would you use it? I’ll let you assume what the answers were.

…and the beat goes on.

Thanks for the read.
Fresh.

PS: Yes, I still have the Teletac 250 🙂

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where does your creative thinking seem to thrive?

Posted on December 6, 2022 by Fresh
Arashiyama Bamboo Grove

Good morning, I hope the reading of this post finds you well. You are a creative thinker, even in the least bit, whether you are prolific music composer, hobby artist, NewYork Times best-selling author or finger painter. There are certain places where your creative thinking seems to flourish best, or there are certain scenarios involving those places that are a catalyst to it.

This has a direct alignment to problem solving as well. Many times I’ve read (especially in articles of productivity) that if you’re stuck on a problem, seeking a solution, the best thing to do is remove yourself from your current environment and take a walk. Removing yourself from the focus of what your dealing with, in order to gain clarity, can often be just what is need to find (or at least better approach) a solution. A familiar scenario is writers or composition block. At times, a total shift in mindset, even momentarily, could be just the thing to get back on track.

As for me, being a musician since I was 14, songs that I write, music that I compose often pops in my head. In doing so, I need to be able to some how get it out of my head and onto, into, some sort of medium so I won’t forget the foundation of the idea. The weirdest thing with me is that for as long as I’ve been a musician, these ideas seem to always come to me…in the shower, LOL! I’ve lost track of the times, over the decades, when this has happened, even to the point of me hopping out, throwing a towel around me and either running down to the studio or grabbing a portable cassette recorder and humming, even beat boxing the idea in so I don’t forget the “virgin idea” (which often times happens to be the best foundation for the final song)…hilarious times.

Things are a little different now, with the advent of mobile phones, as I can just grab the phone and record said ideas into the voice memo for recollection. Even more convenient is the ability to export that audio into my digital audio workstation, if need be, and continue from there, building more of the track around it.

As for writers who suffer the same, I suspect it’s far easier just grabbing something to write with and some sort of paper, but you get my drift!

If you deal with this in anyway, shape, or form – how do you handle capturing your creative thoughts while in an environment not readily conducive to maintaining them?

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Fresh!

Posted in Arts, Daily Musings, Technology | Tagged | 3 Comments

Whistle while you work – what’s your fave genre?

Posted on December 5, 2022 by Fresh

Greetings all.

Yesterday’s topic about workspaces kind of leads into today’s topical pretty nicely – when you work (be it at a desk or anywhere else) what kind of music do you like to listen to (if any at all). Many times, unless I need to really concentrate (or just want quiet) on work items, I listen to music. The sources range from streaming platforms to minidisc to mp3 players to CD players.

My genres vary, but let me see if I can generally categorize them via the type of work done:

  • Housework/yardwork – 90’s era hip-hop (especially instrumental boom bap), funk, jazz (UK, contemporary), UK Garage (2-Step), Deep House, Rock, liquid drum and bass, atmospheric drum and bass, jungle
  • Deskwork (day job/other) and coding: Downtempo, chillout, ambient, chill step, lo-fi hip hop, jazz

I pretty much grew up on R&B, R&B which is considered as “old school R&B”. While it’s classic and legendary, it’s a genre that I listen the least to, probably because I’ve heard it day by day, decade after decade. The interesting thing about this is that it was highly commercial then with far more substance, across the board, than contemporary R&B. My reasoning for not engulfing myself in listening to old school is for the very simple reason being that as great as it is, it’s boring now. What I would love to hear is that same substance return with the same commercial heavy rotation it used to have BUT done my newer artists – commercial artists. I was telling a younger listener who is searching for such that she will mostly like find it in the realm of indie R&B artists, but definitely NOT in urban contemporary radio/streaming platforms today.

Ironically, I am typing this blogpost in utter silence…LOL. Sometimes I just want quiet…like now. 🙂

Thanks, as always, for the read.

Fresh!

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Deskspace Decorum – What’s your style?

Posted on December 4, 2022 by Fresh
Image courtesy – twitter.com/jeorgepaulo_

Greetings all, Happy Holidays to you.

It’s Sunday night about 9:28pm as I write this post and sip on some hot chocolate. For many of us, it’s back to work tomorrow. Fortunately for me, it’s a scheduled workday from hime, but a workday nonetheless.

When it comes to the space in which you work (your personal workspace), whatever that work may be, what kind of environment do you create, what is your preferred decorum? Are you somewhat (or definitely) a stickler for ergonomics that help your productivity actions flow better – such as desk and chair type, lighting, monitor size, desktop vs laptop or both? Do you desire a clean and neat workspace, or is the opposite not an issue?

For me, I’m far from a Felix Unger type (for those of you that recognize that name) BUT I strive and prefer to keep a very neat desk space when I work. Stuff all over the place speaks disorganization and mess to me, the clutter is a mental distraction big time. All of my personal desks at home are of the legendary IKEA Jerker desk, which has been long discontinued. I happened to have three of them: one in the guest room/office and two in my recording studio. You can see a drawing of the standard Jerker without the accessories below:

Here’s actual picture of one assembled (not mine, but I have the same color wood):

Here’s a very close shot of one of the two in my recording studio, of which use the two swivel shelves shown above, along with a second shelf:

In any event, yes, I’m all about the ergonomics as well – having everything easily reachable, etc. I’m not one that has the cash to burn on one of those expensive Herman Miller Aero chairs but a good office chair definitely helps the flow. Lighting whether a desk lamp or overhead lighting (of the right hue/intensity – I don’t like bright light working conditions) is definitely important as well. All in all, gotta keep it neat and clean.

I won’t get into the desk and computer accessories, but an attractive visual aspect is one I generally try to keep. As for the office at work, they gave us nice, adjustable standing desks, so I take advantage of that during the day. Talk about workplace ups and downs! (Ok, yeah that’s corny!!)

How about you? What’s your environment like?

Thanks for the read – have a great week.

Fresh!

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I Want My MTV (and other music based shows)

Posted on December 3, 2022 by Fresh

Remember that very popular track by Dire Straits? (listening to it as I type this post, as a matter of fact, it’s on repeat). I grew up watching MTV religiously, as well as BET’s Video Soul, VH1, and other similar music video shows broadcasted all day and into the late night. It was an era when such shows bridged the hit songs you heard on commercial radio with their video debuts that we were all very excited to see. This videos, many times, were everything from conceptual works of art to live performances of the singer and/or band that performed the song. There was a certain excitement brought by the host of the show segment that sometimes had you on the edge of your seat clamoring for this hot debut. As a bonus, your host would actually interview the artist or band. Here’s a favorite video of mine – Donnie Simpson on Video Soul interviewing The Time, Pt 1. Donnie Simpson on Video Soul interviewing The Time, Pt 1.

This video shows not only brought the visual aspects to the records we loved, right into your living room, so to speak, but gave the records an entirely different dimension of the song, but there were also the live music shows prior to the “MTV era”. I was a musician growing up in the 70s, picking up the guitar in 1977 and having these following shows on TV were paramount to my early development and growth as a guitarist:

  • Soul Train
  • Soul Alive (the local NYC Soul Train copycat)
  • Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert (DKRC)
  • Midnight Special

All these shows brought the live artist/band concert vibe, again, into your living room. I can remember watching both DKRC and Midnight Special well into 1am when they were finishing up. What I liked about both those programs were that they featured many rock acts that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise had either show not existed. After some time, both DKRC and Midnight Special began to feature more R&B/funk acts but it was Soul Train and Soul Alive that held the trophy for featuring R&B/SouL/Funk and disco acts regularly. It was actually Soul Train that made me want to become a guitarist.

Fast forwarding to today, it’s evident that YouTube killed the MTV/live music show era. The 24/7 format is obviously convenient but many things have changed along the way, including the charm that inhabited that same era. It was definitely a fine time of musical and cultural development across the board.

Oceans of rhythm,

Fresh

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Where on earth…have you been?

Posted on December 2, 2022 by Fresh

Hello…

I hope this post finds you well. Right now, I’m finding myself wanted some hot chocolate because my daily water intake is that of 32 ounces of being ice cold, so I definitely need to warm up (even with this hoodie on).

The other day I was thinking about all the places I’ve been able to visit on this earth and there are many more I’d like to visit in my time allowed here.

I was born and raised in the US, New Jersey to be exact. I started traveling to an early ag, many times, to the island of Jamaica, for reasons you can probably guess. At that same time frame, but for not as often, I also traveled to Guyana. In my younger years, those were the two places outside of my homeland, that my feet were planted in. As I got older, there were many states in North America that I frequented, they are as follows:

  • New York
  • Connecticut (where I attended college)
  • Florida
  • Massachusetts
  • North Carolina
  • California (mainly for business travel)
  • Texas
  • Illinois
  • Virginia
  • Marlyand
  • District of Columbia
  • Rhode Island
  • New Mexico

I think that sums it up. After starting my career, I spent a fair amount of time travel back and forth to Canada, as I was in a long distance relationship with a woman who worked in Toronto. Working for Continental Airlines, at the time, made it quite convenient (and cheap to fly SA), so no complaints there. I even contemplated moving there at one point.

Later on, I spent my honeymoon in Aruba for a week and years later was afforded to travel to Guam on business and that trip also afforded me to visit Japan and Hawaii, so I’m glad I was able to add those to my list of places I got to trod. The Guam trip is quite memorable. Alas, those places round out the list of places my feet trod. There are still many places I’d like to visit on vacation but I haven’t given it much thought as to where the next stop would be. Maybe, one day I will.

Hasta…

Fresh!

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AV (Autonomous Vehicles) – A Threat to US security??

Posted on December 1, 2022 by Fresh

Good day all, I hope you’re well.

Today, Wednesday, was my first day back to the office this week, as I usually work from home on Monday and Tuesday. The morning commute (and sometimes the evening commute) generally means one thing – catching up on listening to my favorite podcasts. This morning, I listened to a very interesting episode of Wired Security, which talked about the use of autonomous vehicles from China in the US and how they can pose a threat to national (cyber) security. Should you want to read the story and listen to the podcast, you can find both here.

One thing rang out to me in this article – the potential use of Chinese AVs as “cameras” that could record and send data back to China that relates to national infrastructure that can be studied to develop future cybersecurity attacks on it. I never gave that any thought until today. It seems that the US has never given any thought to this until recently, after allowing said automobiles to be used here. As a related note, the ubiquitous use of surveillance tech still freaks me out, especially putting in my home address and seeing different versions of my property taken by what ever Google camera cars roam past unbeknownst to me. The article also talks about, on the other hand, Chinese restrictions on using Telsa in its country.

The US has already banned the use of Huawei products here for security reasons. I wonder if they will follow suit in this case.

I like to mildly follow the development of AV technology, not only with Tesla but via what Waymo, Einride (for shipping), Cruise, and other manufacturers are doing. On a smaller scale, I’ve yet to see any food delivery bots roaming around, but a friend of mine tells me he’s seen them used on the campus of George Mason University.

I think this topic may turn into a future episode for my Tech Times podcast.

Be well…

Fresh

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Digital Day Off (DDO) – An exercise in virtual abstinence

Posted on November 30, 2022 by Fresh

This blog post was originally published back in May 2010. Over the last 12 years, a lot has happened in the world of digital consumer technology in the area of social media and mobile devices, though I believe the grip of such has not lessened. I’ve had many discussions with people about said effects and read many articles and one highly recommended book – Deep Work by Cal Newport that has allowed me to rethink and strive to succeed in lessening my “digital footprint”. I will admit that the results of said rethinking haven’t been as successful as I’ve hoped but as my friend Darrenkeith says “…that’s all on me”. With that, I thought it was fitting to repost the weblog. The dates and times have changed for the subject content hasn’t.

——————

Hello Readers…

I hope all is well with you. and that your Memorial Day will be or was spent, to some extent, doing what the holiday was created for – in memory of the men and women in our armed forces. Those that are currently serving and have served for us in all capacities.

Well, it came to fruition this weekend, an experiment I’d been wanting to conduct for about a month now. Yes, the DDO (dedicated day offline) happened yesterday. There are a few of you that I had mentioned this concept to in the last month. I had two particular conversations with Deb Lee, @dallisonlee, professional organizer, on this topic (some of you may know I’ve been a contributing author to her Organize To Revitalize blog on the subject of my adventures in time management and the technology that can aid it). I initially called it a “Digital Day Off”, but thought the term was too broad, broad enough that it would have to included most, if not all, things digital (video games (though I’m not a gamer)), the use of mobile phones, HDTV, etc). My reason for conducting this exercise of “virtual abstinence” was to assess the amount of time I do spend online and how much of it, spent doing certain activities (largely related to social networking), is actually robbing me of time better spent reaching goals. Interestingly enough, the day I had the conversation with Deb, this article appeared in The Post.

My first foray into social networking came back in 2000 via membership to Blackplanet. I actually joined by way of helping a coworker design her site page. I was then that I began to learn the basics of website design (within the HTML code constraints for what Blackplanet would allow). After getting a taste of social networking there, it was basically onto Myspace and Yahoo 360, Vox, blogging from my own website, various IM clients (AIM, Yahoo IM, MSN Messenger), then Twitter, and finally FB (the latter I’ve since left about two weekends ago). Along with the social networking, I always used the net for two basic things – work, and as a learning tool for basically five areas of interest – music production, technology, photography, financial literacy, and web design. Let’s now add the mobile web, and there you have it, a communications medium, now in the palm of your hand, deeply woven into the course of our everyday lives. A communications medium, whose benefits (as well as its negative aspects) range far and wide Looking over the last 10 years of being a regular passenger on the information highway, but growing up through college my first two years of college WITHOUT the internet (fancy that, huh?), I began to remember what life was like without it, and how I spent my time without it. While I can only speak for myself, my assessment was that more time was wasted on the info highway than not. This assessment caused me to purposely conduct the experiment during a normal day – not a day or timeframe where I would be away from the net for whatever reasons (vacation, family visits, etc), but during a time where it was always a mouse click (or similar) away. It created a great challenge in overcoming the temptation to connect. As inferred above, it was done as a matter of habit assessment more than anything else, but the correlation to time management is there. In looking back on my regular online activities, I saw that I could have altered them to achieve what always seems more impossible than not (with my busy schedule) – knocking tasks off my to-do list. Was a DDO really necessary to make this assessment of time management? No, I could have just decided to allot only a certain amount of time online of every aspect of my online daily routines (which probably could have been easier).

The outcome of the experiment allowed me to use a good part of my regular online time time to improve my financial budgeting/investment literacy and revamp a financial improvement SPD (systematic plan of development) for savings, investing, debt reduction and retirement . I also got a great nap in during the early hours of the afternoon ;-). In retrospect, it made assess the extent of my habitual behavior and constant temptation to be “connected”. I won’t say that all possess it to an extent (my wife is a good example of one who spends very little time on the internet – but get rid of the TVs in the house and …never mind…you see the point I am generally illustrating – 🙂 ).

Now that I’ve taken my first DDO, purposely, I feel it’ll be something that I’ll regularly do, maybe more than just once a week. Curbing time daily spent online is, of course, something to throw into the mix as well, but it wasn’t until today that I really see how a forced day off (for me) is beneficial. The time is currently 11:44 EST, and this DDO will officially be over in less than 16 mins, but I’ve learned some valuable things on a personal level. That’s always a good thing. Back to the SPD. Forget the government, I want to create a stimulus package for my own economic situation.

peace.
F!

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GOT (‘Til It’s Gone): Gamification Of Things

Posted on November 29, 2022 by Fresh

You Janet Jackson fans will recognize what I did there in the post title (wink).

Greetings all. We humans have been presented with methodologies and processes aimed at motivating us to to things for a reward, for decades. Oxford’s Dictionary defines gamification as :

gam·i·fi·ca·tion/ˌɡāmifəˈkāSHən/

noun

  1. the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.

Think of the many times you’ve been presented with gamification through your own desire or via presentation from services tied to your occupation, etc. It is purely psychological, yet can have, sometimes, profound effects on how one approaches things based upon the reward outcome.

The greatest effect of gamification on me (from what I can remember) came from awards given via fitness tracking devices. It really started for me back in 2009 when I started tracking my runs with the Nike+ Fitness app via the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit. This continued through the use of the Nike Fuel Band, and onto my current method of tracking fitness – the Apple Watch. All three entities provide awards, aka badges, for completing a myriad of daily, monthly, and special challenges. Out of the three, I will wholeheartedly say that Nike fitness tracking ecosystem and advertising deeply drew me into striving to gain those rewards. I haven’t tried the same with Garmin or FitBit, and Apple really doesn’t do it for me, like Nike did…it’s kind of hard to explain the draw with what Nike did, but if I could, this would end of being a TLDR post.

I’ll go on to admit that the entire marketing design, the aspects, the developed ecosystem (when done “right”) can provide that motivation for winning beyond anything else – and this is the only thing that matters when it comes to desired engagement and the same return on investment that a product seeks.

This entire process, at least from the digital approach to gamification, finally made me think back to the days prior to the rise of gamification, especially with digital fitness tracking techniques, I began to realize that there were (and still are) many that focus on the discipline vs the motivation, and that is very key.

Today, my approach to gamification is different. The collection of rewards is not important as it once was, particularly once I realized that the Apple Watch Activity algorithm for tracking fitness goals is flawed, I call it dumb, for reasons by which I won’t go into explaining in this post, but are quite obvious by the many posts I’ve seen regarding individual monthly challenges issued at the beginning of each month for everyone. If I get said challenge award for said goal based on my regular routine, that’s fine – if I don’t, that’s fine too. This is a far more realistic approach to take and it keeps you in tune to how to effectively track your goals.

What has gamified you?

Thanks for the read,

Fresh

Posted in Apple Watch, Fitness/Training/Nutrition, Nike Fuel | Tagged | Leave a comment