BradBerens.com
Thoughts about where our real and digital worlds collide.

  • First Thoughts on Amazon’s Echo and Alexa

    Based in large part on my friend Jeff Minsky’s enthusiast endorsement, I bought the Amazon Echo device that comes with its voice-activated, Siri-like, AI digital helper named Alexa.  “This is a no-brainer,” Jeff said.  “If nothing else it’s a terrific wireless speaker for under $200, and it does so much more.” I unboxed Echo on Wednesday,…

  • Don’t Miss Adam Grant’s new book “Originals”

    Of the many compliments that I can give to Adam Grant’s remarkable new book Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, a rare one is that I will have to read it again soon.  Grant is an unusual social scientist in that he’s also a terrific writer, a gem-cutting anecdote selector of real-life stories that illuminate…

  • My 2015 in Books

    This is the second year that I’ve kept a list of all the books I’ve finished, sharing that list on New Year’s Eve once I’ve realized that I won’t finish anything else before midnight.  I’ve read plus-or-minus 56 books this year (the +/- will make sense if you read on), not counting re-reads or partial…

  • A glimmer of hope for CBS’ “Supergirl”

    This TV season’s new “Supergirl” TV show confuses me. Over on the CW, producer Greg Berlanti has nailed both “Arrow” and “Flash,” but where those shows feel fresh and exciting “Supergirl” is forced and whiney. “Supergirl” oscillates between action and soap opera, rarely integrating the two. There’s too much talking among the characters but not…

  • On Meditation: a tweet drizzle in 11 brief parts

    On meditation: a tweet drizzle (1) #mindful OK, I get it. Morning mediation is important. It creates a shock absorber in my head for the day to come, gives me resources. (2) #mindful The chattering monkeys and skittering spiders of my thoughts need taming, stilling, calming, tranquilizing (3) #mindful Inner peace is probably beyond me,…

  • Don’t Call Them “Consumers”

    What you call people matters.  It tells them what you really think about them. Here’s an example: years ago my friend Jules shared how her Mom would call for her Dad in a never-changing escalation of urgency and decline of affection: “Sweetheart!” she’d trill, followed by, “Honey?” and then ending with “Bill!!”  The equation worked…

  • The FOMO Myth

    In my last post I wrote about how Facebook’s business need to have more people doing more things on its platform more of the time is in tension with how human satisfaction works. In today’s post, I’m going to dig a little deeper into the satisfaction math (for those of you with a “Math, ewww”…

  • The Problem with More: Coca-Cola, Electric Cars, Email, Facebook and Satisfaction

    I Pac-Man chomp my way through many articles each week, digesting most with a tiny burp and leaving them to the brass-knuckled mercies of memory.  Yet two recent pieces have stuck with me: Matt Richtel’s October 10th piece in the New York Times, “In California, Electric Cars Outpace Plugs, and Sparks Fly” and Roberto A.…

  • The Girl in the Spider’s Web isn’t terrible, isn’t great

    Over the weekend I zoomed through the new David Lagercrantz novel, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, which is the not-written-by-Stieg-Larsson sequel to the Millenium Trilogy that started with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I’ll start with some thoughts about the book itself — so you have your spoiler alert — but I’ll wind…

  • High Fidelity, Pillow Talk, The Music Man: on technology and on ideas that rhyme, but then don’t

    Hey, this looks like a piece about old movies, and it starts out that way, but it’s also about how to think about technology. I even throw in a little Douglas Adams at the end. Ideas can rhyme like words do. When words rhyme, the rhyme helps us position ourselves inside a poem: we know…