Michael Leis

If you’ve ever asked yourself, “After about 20 years of work, will someone pay me to watch game shows?” The answer in my experience is a resounding, “Yes. Yes they will.” Seeing Andy Baio at SXSW give his game mechanics talk led a chain of learning to look more seriously into cognitive psychology, variable reward [...]

Figured that this space has gone quiet long enough, it deserves something to preface the articles which will follow. Since April, I’ve left my own practice to join DraftFCB as Vice President, Digital Management Director. Clearly, you can see right in the title that if there’s digital management that needs direction, or directors who need [...]

David Berkowitz posted the question today on AdAge with “Agencies Will Be Tempted by IPad’s Sizzle, Not Strategy,” and as you’ll see in the article, laments Apple basically creating a new semi-category of electronic device and ad platform, in turn making marketers lives somewhat worse. I feel like every time a new technology product starts [...]

In one of the sadder moments of SXSW, as I was feverishly typing away on a live post about Gaming the Crowd: Turning Work Into Play presented by Andy Baio when the WordPress iPhone app crashed. Worse yet, Mr. Baio has not published the slides. Hope he will soon, because he presented a lot of [...]

This panel is exactly why I come to SXSW. I know vaguely about Expression engine, know that it has been gaining momentum, but that’s it. Now I get the chance to hear from real programming rockstars who are using it, and get some use cases, insights and tips on how to best use the platform. [...]

Though our wide-ranging crepe-based discussion panel on Saturday morning was a highlight, I’m seated in the cavernous ballroom A for Brynn “No relation to Will or Bob” Evans is sitting on this panel, so I really wanted to hear it. Brynn is kicking things off. She is concerned with the interaction design of search and [...]

Only got to see the tail end of RWTW part one. Fred opens by saying it’s time to nut up, He also admits that he loves prototyping, and can’t think of a situation where prototyping can’t help your design. As designers, we’re not making solutions, we’re making hypotheses, and building towards a solution. So the [...]

As noticed by Amy Cueva as we walked around Austin, looking at this bunch of oddly adorned bicyclists, there seems to be a trend this year by brands to be as silly as possible, ultimately humiliating themselves before this audience in the hopes that (I guess) people take some pity on them and buy something? [...]

Psyched since yesterday to watch Margot Bloomstein open SXSWi with her presentation on content strategy, how to include it in a workflow, and budget appropriately for it. She is absolutely brilliant and a great choice to open the conference with. She’s also a JUXer, which means she’s been training a lifetime in how to structure [...]

If you know me, you know that I volunteer my time to lead sponsorship and marketing for the IDEA conference because I believe it’s an incredibly valuable learning experience for the UX community. Designing for complex information spaces melding the physical and virtual is critical knowledge for anyone with a stake in designing digital today, [...]