Category: 2024
Tomlinisms hit different when the Steelers are sitting atop the AFC North. Coach Tomlin responding to a question about motivational tactics used in a closed-door locker room after Sunday’s win over the Broncos:
I can’t give you all the ingredients to the hot dog. You might not like it.
William Peterson breaks the Long Trail FKT and becomes the first person to complete all 272 miles in less than 4 days:
On the morning of September 1, William “Sisyphus” Peterson reached the Vermont-Massachsetts border and set a new Fastest Known Time (FKT) on the Long Trail. Peterson completed the route in 3 days, 21 hours, and 10 minutes, breaking John Kelly’s previous record of 4 days, 4 hours, 25 minutes, 50 seconds. Stretching 272 miles (437.74 km) through the state of Vermont, the Long Trail climbs 67,000 feet (20,421 m).
I got out for a nice little sunrise city rip this morning. The weather has been absolutely perfect here for getting out on the bike lately. This is Pittsburgh’s Color Park, a short stretch of river trail on the city’s south side where graffiti and street art abound.
I missed the aurora last time around. Looks like tonight will be another chance to see it for people in 17 states and most of Canada. Sharing in case you’re north enough to see the northern lights tonight.
For the love, not the likes
A couple months ago, my GPS watch stopped syncing with Strava. For whatever reason at the time, I was unable to restore the connection. I was also not in a position to spend $$$ on a new GPS watch, so since this disconnect was introduced my activities have no longer been pushing out to the popular social network for endurance athletes. As an active daily user who dished out boku kudos, I was initially quite bummed. And because I wasn’t posting to Strava, I stopped opening the app and reviewing what my friends were doing.
In the days since, I’ve noticed my mindset has been much healthier with respect to my exercise activities. So much of my time spent in Strava was me comparing my stats, paces and distances to others'. This resulted (subconsciously) in feeling pressure to always push harder, faster and further. I was losing the joy associated with getting outside and moving my body through the natural world.
In recent weeks, it’s been refreshing to get out for runs, rides and climbs simply for my own personal enjoyment, rather than feeding the ego associated with throwing down something epic for the kudos. It’s funny how this small technical hiccup has allowed me to recenter on my love for movement outside instead of the dopamine that came from the likes after the fact.
Modern Retail blaming the Starbucks mobile app strategy for the increasingly poor, mosh pit-like customer order pickup experience:
Orders are coming in quickly, but there aren’t enough baristas behind the counter to prepare drinks. Wait times are climbing…about 8% of Starbucks customers waited between 15 and 30 minutes for a drink in the second quarter…and, Starbucks now has more than 170,000 possible drink combinations, making everything more complicated.
This doesn’t sound like an app problem, but rather an operational one. Technology & ops processes must work together in service of the customer experience.
A study performed by Amazon for the Australian government finds humans outperform AI in every way when summarizing information. In fact, the study posits that utilizing AI in it’s current state may even create more work for people doing certain tasks:
Reviewers told the report’s authors that AI summaries often missed emphasis, nuance and context; included incorrect information or missed relevant information; and sometimes focused on auxiliary points or introduced irrelevant information.
A good reminder that AI should be used as a tool to complement human work, not replace it.
RIP Sam Ash Music. After a hundred years in business, the east coast music retailer is going out of business. This view into one of their liquidating stores from Retail Dive breaks my heart. I basically lived in my local Sam Ash store as a young punk growing up in ’90s New Jersey.
As other retailers divest from curbside order fulfillment, Target continues to go all-in by deepening its ties into mobile ecosystems like Apple CarPlay:
Once connected to CarPlay, the Target app will automatically display the Target store where the purchase was made on the car display. Then, shoppers can view order details, get directions to the store via Apple Maps, and notify the store once they have arrived in their Drive Up parking space.
Target is the only place I do drive-up orders anymore, due in large part to how easy their retail technology makes the experience. Kudos.
Craig Berry on the political economy of the Oasis reunion and working class nostalgia:
This is folk music, at its best and truest. Stood in a field with your arms around the lads who bullied you at school singing about Sally needing to wait is pretty much the same as singing about dead relatives in a County Mayo pub while your pissed uncle plays the fiddle.
I was never really into Oasis, but this is a very interesting take on the economic and political undercurrents surrounding the group’s lasting popularity.
Looks like Russell Wilson will miss the Pittsburgh Steelers' season opener, which means it will be the Justin Fields show against the Falcons. I’m honestly really excited about this development. Question: If Fields plays lights out and brings home the win, how could they take QB1 away from him?
If You Love It, Set It Free
It’s release day for my team at REI. We’ve been working tirelessly for the past few months to build a tool that makes pricing product in our stores easier and less painful for employees. Our goal is to replace an archaic, manual & paper-based workflow with a modern, scalable, digitally-supported tool and standard operating process (SOP) that streamlines sales floor operations across the Co-op.
This morning, we deployed the tool to our first group of pilot stores. Exciting! As a data-driven product manager, these days are like Christmas morning. It’s like I woke up to some new datasets under the tree and I can’t wait to unwrap them to see what insights might be inside.
Every now and then I catch myself lamenting that I don’t work on products with millions of users or billions in revenue. But then I catch myself on days like this when I can see the thing we’ve built in the hands of REI’s amazing employees. I can see them using it and the positive impact it makes in their daily lives. I can hear the pain points surfaced in our feedback channels rapidly fade off into the distance. I can watch the thing we’ve built make our stores a better place to work for more than 10,000 people who wear the REI green vest with pride.
I think that kind of direct, measurable impact is something special.
The next few weeks will likely be hectic as the team analyzes and responds to usage data, fields feedback from employees, and optimizes for rollout to all 190 locations. When we get to that point, I’ll circle back with some insights.
The City of Pittsburgh has published it’s generative AI usage standards. (via Public Source)