Blog

In Which We Take a Stand

We believe it’s okay to break a few eggs to make a great omelet.

 

Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

Executive Overconfidence Meets Opportunity in AI

Regulated industries have higher AI trust rates but are stuck on chatbots (and saddled with a case of executive overconfidence). Learn why healthcare, finance & insurance need better AI strategies.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

Three Rules to Create Better Tech, Faster

Learn why a lack of deadline rules causes most digital transformation projects to fail and how proper timeline management forces decisions, prevents scope creep, and delivers results.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

iOS 26 is coming whether you like it or not

Apple releases a new operating system every fall. However, it’s been several years since one garnered as much pre-season speculation and hand-wringing as iOS 26. Read on for what to expect, and a link to our exclusive readiness guide.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

Softening User Rage Moments

User rage is something most leaders don't like to think about. Handle it well (like KFC did with their FCK campaign) and you can generate goodwill. But ignore it and watch your churn rates skyrocket.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

What Drives the Highest ROI When Developing Tech Products?

This article provides a framework for thinking about ROI decisions and some concrete things to look for. If your organization could benefit from help with designing exactly what that could look like for your situation, that’s something we do for clients a few dozen times per year, and you can learn more here.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

The greatest visionary in the world

It’s satire. It’s a love letter. It’s a light roast with notes of disruption.

Meet Everest Kale, the visionary behind KNOWN2MAN—a product designed to solve every problem known to man in just six weeks. What could possibly go wrong?

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

Magnetic Tech: What Insurance Has Been Missing

If you’ve made your career in insurance (or another highly regulated industry), you may have resigned yourself to the idea that those aesthetic, user-friendly digital experiences you see in the best consumer apps aren’t for you. Not only are they available to insurance, but they drive customer loyalty and brand connection.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

The 5 essential team members you need to build a revolutionary tech product

Are you expending a lot of energy trying to force yourself to do everything–even things you’re not good at? Are you delaying bringing the team into your vision? Way too many visionaries try to carry more than they should, stretching themselves into roles they aren’t well-suited to. However, products that succeed do so because they incorporate a team that hits all of the right angles by letting each person do what comes naturally to them.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

What to build first: the hardest question in product strategy

Roadmapping is one of the most underrated factors in highly regulated industry product success.

The greatest product idea, the most eye-catching marketing plan, and the most well-coded, secure, compliant product will fail if it lacks a thoughtful roadmap.

A roadmap isn’t just a list of features—it’s your strategy for surviving the constraints and still delivering something users care about. For founders, the question isn’t just what to build—it’s what to build first, and what to leave out for now.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

Apple vs. BlackBerry: People Don’t Buy Features, They Buy Feelings

There’s a trap visionary founders fall into all the time: assuming users are buying the same thing you’re building.

They’re not buying secure email. They’re not buying multitouch screens. They’re buying a story about themselves. They’re buying a feeling.

In this installment, we’re looking at one of the clearest case studies in tech history: Apple vs. BlackBerry. Both had vision. One built a product. The other built an identity.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

AI, UX and a dash of SMH

What captivates visionaries about the latest crop of AI tools is the promise of combining the best of technology (speed, accuracy and consistency) with the best of human ingenuity (compassion, creativity and nuance). That’s what users want and hope for from AI. It’s supposed to be like a computer, but softer. Like a human, but more knowledgeable. The very best we, collectively, have to offer.

Of course, as with any tech revolution, the path to achieve this is not trouble-free.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

In finance, healthcare, and insurance, launch strategy is UX

You’ve poured heart, soul, and probably a few too many late-night snacks into your next big release. But launch it the wrong way, and brace yourself for the Two Weeks of Ire — that stretch of time when users react like you’ve rearranged their kitchen drawers during a dinner party. There’s fascinating psychology behind this resistance to change (especially when it’s forced), and a near-magical technique that can flip the script. In high-stakes industries like finance, healthcare, and insurance, it can mean the difference between angry support tickets and genuine adoption.

Bonus: A Venn diagram, Sade, and why your neighbor won’t stop talking about his new truck.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

Why emotional design wins in insurance and highly regulated industries

If you’re like many people, you may think of UX (and by proxy, emotionally connected design, which is a big chunk of what we mean when we talk about UX) as the domain of ‘fluffy’ products like social media apps, games and self-improvement products. If you’re in a highly regulated industry like insurance, finance or healthcare, you may have assumed this wasn’t your sandbox in which to play.

To that I say, sit right down and grab a bucket shaped like a tower. We’ve got a castle to build.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

The real reason visionaries panic before launch

There comes a time in every visionary’s life when the ever-present gentle push in the back of the mind to make it bigger and better becomes instead an oily whisper of “You haven’t done enough.”

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

Are you a Green Shirt or a Red Shirt?

There was an awkward pause. Our visionary, the client organization’s CEO, was uncomfortable. I could tell by the way she drew up her shoulders and tried to steer the conversation in a different direction as quickly as possible.

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Erin Rollenhagen Erin Rollenhagen

Stop Caring So Much About Approval

The truth is, to make an impact through tech, you simultaneously have to care a whole lot and not at all about the audience. You have to care deeply about their problems but not at all about their praise.

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