Photo by Spencer Lowell for The New York Times
This month has unfortunately been overshadowed by the passing our my former colleague John, fellow crowdsourcing researcher who worked on the theory of Crowd Capital, and with whom we have explored the geography of Crowd Capital. He was a funny, smart and inspiring individual; may he rest in peace… I’m also sharing a dozen of articles that I found worthwile reading, starting with this fabulous NYT piece about KitKat in Japan.
Here 
are my 6 favorite articles of December 2018, the last of a great year 2018 (despite the problems in the world and the worries we all have, I like to look at it positively). You’ll find a couple of articles about branding and the Parisian startup scene, but also 2 longer pieces about “the Google friendship” and the future of books. Continue reading →
In July, we became FIFA World Champions and the Tour de France has provided us with 3 great, entertaining weeks of racing. In this post I share my 5 favorites articles of the month: why Wish sponsors the LA Lakers, how Dribble’s product team works, where Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku comes from, when Airbnb adopted storyboards and what “vaporware horseshit” product Zoox’s team is working on. Continue reading →
Happy new year to all my readers! I wish you a joyfull, fulfilling, stimulating and healthy year 2018. A propos healthy… one of my favorite January reads is a NY Times article that compares Facebook’s news feed to food (cookies or broccoli). Farhad Manjoo writes that no food is toxic in itself – and no feed is either – what counts is how much of it we consume and how relevant is it to our lives. Other articles I found worthwhile sharing are Campbell Flakemore’s testimonial about stopping his pro cycling career – food is part of it – and an article about Snapchat’s user data… and corporate culture. Continue reading →
April was election month in France. But my favorite articles shared this month don’t contain politics, because (1) we yet have to elect our President in the second round, (2) I believe it’s pretty obvious whom to favor, and (3) I’ll try not to turn this blog too much into a political tribune. This past month, I’ve read great stuff about brand building in the tech world (Airbnb), in-app user behavior (Uber) and why Facebook & Google should freak out (Amazon).
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This ad from Denmark’s TV2 station is really cool
I’ll try to make the future posts less political, and less Trump-focused (because smart blogging is not just bashing, and because I’ll need & want to become more constructive at some point). But resistance is necessary when revolting things happen, and it can’t be toned down, so February still was very much about defending political sanity. You’ll see in the links. Beside that, you’ll also find artificial intelligence playing poker, a beautiful ad from Denmark or a great article about Macedonian teens influencing elections just to buy themselves an BMW.
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“How did it get to the point where, when you disagree with somebody, you have to be their enemy?” Van Jones (click to watch)
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Pretty much what I thought when hearing the U.S. election results, wondering how a great country can legitimately elect a populist leader like Donald Trump. I still try to make sense of it. But I also try hard not to be patronizing or condescendent, because it’s the voice of the people, and the beauty of democrac is that everyone’s vote has the same value. Still, this result shakes up a lot in my head and heart. Let’s hope for the best, as Obama says in one interview included below.
This month is crumped with articles about the U.S. election, politically more engaged than I used to share, but not only. You’ll also find a great article about Twitter’s data, a funny video about French food and my personal favorite of the month: Van Jones. Life goes on and many other things are worth spending time on, so here’s my monthly selection of links.
Yannig Roth / This is my personal blog 