
Metamuse
Tools for thought, product design, and how to have good ideas.
Latest episodes

6 snips
Oct 1, 2020 • 49min
14 // Onboarding with Jane Portman
Expert in onboarding for SaaS founders, Jane Portman, shares insights on why guided tours don't work, the legacy of Clippy, and more personalized drip campaigns in this episode. The speakers also discuss the importance of inspiring users in onboarding and the significance of email communication for building connections with users.

Sep 17, 2020 • 1h 9min
13 // Interface innovation with Josh Miller
Josh Miller from The Browser Company joins Mark and Adam to discuss how to make a better web browser in 2020. The conversation ranges from user agency in software to architecture to social capital to end-user programming.
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Show notes
Josh Miller @joshm
The Browser Company
Branch
Nate Parrott
Einstein quote
beginner’s mind
Evan Williams
Brownian motion
The Roots of Progress
Jobs to be Done
David Adjaye
Museum of African American History and Culture
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
HVAC
Bjarke Ingels
Abstract
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
Snap S1
Snapcodes
Evan Spiegel
Norton Commander
Electron
sociology
web browser as Figma canvas
CERN and the birth of the web
Taxi Magic
timing matters / Adam’s Heroku values
Robert D. Putnam
Bowling Alone
Scott Heiferman
Greasemonkey
Rust

109 snips
Sep 3, 2020 • 1h 14min
12 // Growing ideas with Andy Matuschak
Andy Matuschak joins Mark and Adam to talk about rituals for deep thought, how to develop an inkling over time, and the public goods problem of research.
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Show notes
Andy Matuschak: homepage Twitter Patreon
How can we develop transformative tools for thought?
Michael Nielsen
Bret Victor on representation of thought
Quantum Country
spaced repetition
Anki
IDEO
iBooks
deliberate practice
Solitude and Leadership
LiquidText
evergreen notes
exponential backoff
Heroku haiku names
positivism and existentialism
deontological ethics
intelligent tutoring systems
ALEKS
Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software
Ivan Sutherland / Sketchpad
Palladium Magazine
mechanical keyboards on Reddit
Pricing niche products: Why sell a mechanical keyboard kit for $1,668?
tech transfer
Genentech and recombinant DNA
Dolby
Pixar
Why does DARPA work?

Aug 20, 2020 • 43min
11 // Authentic marketing with Lisa Enckell
Lisa Enckell joins Mark and Adam to talk about picking a category, aspirational creativity, and the purpose of product launches.
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Show notes
Lisa Enckell
Antler
episode with Max Schoening
Patrick McKenzie on North Star podcast
Platform-as-a-Service
containerization
dynos
serverless
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
Points of Parity, Points of Difference
purple cow
N26
Circles.Life
silhouette iPod ads
Signaling as a Service
hey.com
library of Trinity College Dublin
The Substance of Style
Marie Kondo
Marc Benioff
“It’s not when people notice you’re there that they pay attention; it’s when they notice you’re still there."
DreamForce, Google I/O
Ubuntu release cycle
Wrapp
23andMe
DNA Day

79 snips
Aug 7, 2020 • 41min
10 // Tools for thought
The rich history of tools for thought stretches back to the 1960s. Adam and Mark talk about how today’s computing, from iPads to Twitch to AI, might help us gain knoweldge and develop novel ideas.
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Show notes
Tools For Thought
How can we develop transformative tools for thought?
bicycle for the mind
Doug Engelbart
Alan Kay
Vannevar Bush
As We May Think
the two-step process for developing ideas
Roam Research
Thinking, Fast and Slow
industrial-strength noise-canceling headphones
white-noise generators in a Muse email update
GPT-3
Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins
generative design
Twitch
Discord

Jul 23, 2020 • 56min
9 // The Information Age
This modern Information Age can make it challenging for a creative professional to keep their focus. At the same time, there are many benefits to being plugged in. Mark and Adam discuss.
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Show notes
A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age
the Information Age
The end of mobile
The Information Pathology
The Slot Machine in Your Pocket
digital detox
the Industrial Revolution
The Rise and Fall of American Growth
Thinking About Attention
RescueTime
Screen Time
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
Center for Humane Technology
Gell-Mann Amnesia
The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority

Jul 11, 2020 • 56min
8 // Principled products with Max Schoening
Max Schoening of GitHub joins Mark and Adam to talk about principled design, authentic marketing, tools for thought, and more.
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Show notes
Max Schoening
@mschoening
end-user programming
tools for thought
SQLite
US Library of Congress recommended storage formats
Read the Fabulous Manual
composability
The Twelve-Factor App
GitHub Actions
ivory tower
Trello / card aging
Zen of Palm
Google Chrome launch comic
Things
OmniFocus
Exponent / Principle Stacks
unix / everything is a text stream
Overcast
Marco Arment
free and open podcasts
Brave
Signal
Telegram
Fathom Analytics
the year of Linux on the desktop
flame war
khaki pants
Daring Fireball
Muse email updates
no spinners
Situated Software

Jun 24, 2020 • 38min
7 // From prototype to product with Lachlan Campbell
Lachlan Campbell of Hack Club joins Mark and Adam to talk about path from research prototype to released product.
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Show notes
Lachlan Campbell
Hack Club
interactive media arts at NYU
Real web development on iPad
Fonts on iPad
GoodNotes
iA Writer
Shortcuts
usability tests
Minimum Viable Product
Notion
software release life cycle
Gmail beta lasted five years
excerpting and wormholes
shelf
TestFlight
The Long Now
Steam Early Access
Kickstarter
Patreon
Future Fonts
Heroku Labs
Gmail Labs
iA Writer / Settings

Jun 12, 2020 • 50min
6 // Human-Computer Interaction
HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) studies how people relate to their digital tools. Mark and Adam discuss their journey into HCI, how others can get into the field, and its influence on Muse.
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Show notes
You and Your Research
The Art and Science of Doing Engineering
Stripe Press
Human-Computer Interaction
Ink & Switch
Xerox PARC
Microsoft Research
MeetAlive: Room-Scale Omni-Directional Display System
CHI 2019 proceedings
Peripheral Notifications in Large Displays
Sensing Posture-Aware Pen+Touch Interactions on Tablets
A Small Matter of Programming
Strategies in Creative Professionals’ Use of Digital Tools
The Science of Managing Our Digital Stuff
Associative memory
Ben Reinhardt and innovation orgs
Brett Victor and Dynamicland
Andy Matuschak and a new mnemonic medium
Johnathon blow and Braid, Jai programming language
Rich Hickey’s Hammock Driven Development
Dan Luu and Computer latency
Martin Kleppmann and Local-First Software

May 26, 2020 • 39min
5 // Gesture programming for the iPad
Developing an iPad app with a rich gesture space and unique spatial-zooming visual model is technically challenging. Julia joins Mark and Adam to break down the software engineering behind Muse.
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Show notes
Xcode
iOS Simulator
Swift
Core Data
Firebase
Zoom privacy issue with Facebook SDK
Ruby
Postgres
Heroku
Choose Boring Technology
Dataclips
Gestures as defined by Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines
Shannon Hughes / Detangling Gesture Recognizers
The Omni Group
GestureVisualization
UIGestureRecognizer
two-finger scrolling in Muse
Muse design goals
card-carry maneuver
the inbox
view hierarchy
loading screens
open-world games
stylus swipe from screen edge to switch tools
UIScreenEdgePanGestureRecognizer
unix terminal
ctrl-C to interrupt a program in unix
state machine