Issue #09 — Q2 2021 Round-Up.

Hi there,

I hope you’re doing well and staying safe. As Q2 comes to a close, it’s worth taking the time to reflect on the halfway point of the year and how to move forwards for the second half of the year.

This year is a time of accelerating digitalization, and we are witnessing this in a number of ways:

Firstly, the type of projects we are working on. The focus on providing an excellent user experience via digital channels that are on par with a high-touch offline model is increasing. Digital experiences are no longer a “nice to have”, they are the cornerstone of the new strategies.

Secondly, the number of project requests has also grown, with 52 in total so far this year, which to put into perspective is more than the number of requests that we would typically receive in an entire year. This shows that an ever-increasing number of companies are considering a digital-first strategy or placing added importance on digital transformation.

Finally, remote work. Needless to say, most of all our projects have had to be completed via remote work for the past few months, and I believe that this is now become fully normalized. Garter forecasts that up to 51% of global knowledge workers will be working remotely by the end of 2021.

The precise long-term impact of how “business as usual” will work with this model is yet to be fully understood, but I think this can only mean increased global competition, as distance and timezones rapidly become irrelevant factors in hiring and procurement workflows.

So this means that organizations will think about just hiring the best team or partner possible — not the best possible team or partner within a 10km radius of their local office.

News.

• Convergence Tech. Following the launch of Convergence last month, a market leader in digital credentialing based in Canada, we put together a case study detailing our process.
• GIA Tower. We launched a new website for GIA (Garden In the Air) Tower—the latest addition to the kingdom’s rising skyline.  
• Arima Genomics. We’re happy to announce that we have been engaged by Arima Genomics, a Californian-based company whose mission is to accelerate the understanding of genome sequence and spatial structure using advanced technological breakthroughs

With this last project in mind, I’d like to recommend an interesting book that I’ve been reading in preparation as it has a significantly complex product and service offering:

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddartha Mukherjee, an Indian-born American physician, and oncologist. It tracks the history of the gene from the key basic questions (i.e. the musings of Plato and Aristotle on how hereditary features are passed on), all the way to the Human Genome Project and what will happen in the future. This is perhaps one of the most fascinating books that I’ve read this year. Mukherjee does an incredible job of making an extremely complex and abstract subject matter easy to understand and grasp in a concrete matter.

Finally, I am happy to announce that the Bloo API is now available. I strongly encourage you to check that out and see the possibilities available for your business, or to book a call with us to see what’s possible — this can lead to tens of thousands of dollars of saved costs and significantly faster time-to-market for certain types of applications — by leveraging years of our work on a platform that is used by thousands of people daily.

Insights.

• Green Tech. At Mäd we already contribute 1% of our revenue to fund innovative climate startups, and we’re committed to making our in-house tech and operations more green—one step at a time.
• Sanity Test. In product design and software development, a sanity check is a method of quickly and easily spotting fundamental logic and usability flaws without getting bogged down in rigorous test cases and documentation.

We are big believers in the power of Deep Work—a concept popularized by Cal Newport, and here’s our video explaining Eudaimonia Office and how it adapts to a modern working environment.

‍

As always, a thank you for taking the time to read our updates and feel free to reach out if there is anything we can do to assist your organization.

‍

Kind regards,

‍

Manny