For our final podcast of 2015, we chat about the big themes on the show and our favorite episodes over the past year. We had conversations on design and tech with some wonderful guests including Niti Bahn, Madeleine Price Ball, Uday Gajander, Kelly Goto, Bill Hartman, Suzanne Livingston, Jon McKay, Scott N. Miller, Juhan Sonin, Scott Stropkay, Scott Sullivan, and Giuseppe Taibi.

From UX in the enterprise to emerging technologies like wearables and robotics to the disruptive nature of creative class work, we covered a wide range topics on The Digital Life in 2015. So what did we learn from a year talking design?

Enterprise UX is on the rise
Enterprise users — from employees to customers to managers — face experiences that are antiquated and needlessly complicated when compared with the experience of consumer-facing software. For those large, complex businesses, government agencies, and other organizations, UX research and design can provide enterprise products with a competitive edge. What is the current state of enterprise software when it comes to UX? What is the scale and complexity of enterprise UX problems? And, most importantly, how is UX changing the way the enterprise works?

Episode 104: Enterprise UX with Kelly Goto
Episode 113: The consumerization of enterprise software with Suzanne Livingston
Episode 127: Design for Enterprise UX

Emerging technologies require design to be successful
From robotics to wearables to bio-inspired materials, emerging technologies represent a future that desperately needs design. There are immediate, significant opportunities for emerging technologies in energy, health, and manufacturing. Designers working in these areas will need to help identify the major challenges in these areas and seek proactive solutions — not an obvious or easy task.

Episode 89: Smart Cities and the IoT
Episode 92: Designing Bio-Inspired Technology
Episode 114: Hacking Cars
Episode 115: The Future of Food
Episode 119: UX for Robotics
Episode 124: Open Humans
Episode 125: The Wearables Revolution

The innovation economy is changing the way we work, collaborate, and live our lives
How do we separate work from play, busyness from leisure in the digital age? Is South by Southwest the big tent tech revival for the American creative class? What is the connection between creative routines and output? Creative work and digital automation are changing the economics of the American middle class. The need for meaningful work is an essential one for humanity, and one that increasingly is falling prey to technological change.

Episode 84: Is Leisure Dead? Exploring Time Poverty in the Digital Age
Episode 94: SXSW and Social Organization for the Creative Class
Episode 103: Creative Routines
Episode 112: Automating America
Episode 121:On Open Organizations
Episode 129: Innovation and Crowdfunding

This week on The Digital Life we chat about our tech predictions for 2016, from the Internet of Things to genomics to open organizations.

This week, on The Digital Life we chat about the top science and technology stories of 2015.

From new net neutrality rules to evidence of flowing water on Mars, Amazon’s cut throat corporate culture to outrageous drug price increases, hacking exploits to genetically altered designer babies, we explore the biggest and most impactful news events of the year.

Resources
White House Approves Sanctions Against North Korea for Sony Hack
FCC Passes Net Neutrality Rules, Reclassifies Broadband as Utility
Working for Amazon Can Be Awful. Is It As Awful As the New York Times Says?
A Huge Overnight Increase in a Drug’s Price Raises Protests
NASA Scientists Find Evidence of Flowing Water on Mars
Chinese Experiment Which ‘Edits’ DNA of Human Embryos Ignites Ethical Controversy

On The Digital Life podcast topic this week, we chat about philanthropy and patronage in the digital gilded age.

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife recently announced that they were giving 99% of their Facebook stock to charitable causes over the course of their lifetimes and were rewarded by the public and the media with equal parts praise and criticism.

With a select few mega donors helping to drive the agenda on everything from education to politics to climate change, is the billionaire philanthropist of today, the new patron of progress, or just another manifestation of elite control? Join us as we discuss all this and more.

Resources
Mark Zuckerberg Vows to Donate Over 99% of His Facebook Shares for Charity
Facebook’s Zuckerberg Responds to Criticism Over Donation Plans 

On The Digital Life this week, we chat about media decline in the digital age. In its current state, media has ceased to be the gold standard and alarmingly, is becoming just another kind of noise in the cacophony of the 24-hour always on news cycle.

The media appeals to the lowest common denominator. And, it’s a valid question as to whether it’s a well-designed product at all anymore. Worse still, in the Internet age, our smorgasbord of media choices perpetuates the dangerous world of self-validating viewpoints. We can’t remember things correctly. We edit our memories. Has it always been like this? Or are our minds being transformed by the age of information?

Resources
America Is Too Dumb for TV News