Fall has arrived. Personally, I’ll miss summer but I am ready for it. Hope this ~monthly-ish issue of Elaboration finds you well. What’s top of mind?

(1) Computer Vision For Anything & Everyone: I was excited to participate in the latest round for Roboflow, a company that lets any developer create and train a working computer vision model in less than 24 hours starting with just a few dozen images. In future world of immersive experiences (like, when we’re all wearing AR glasses with cameras), we’ll want to be able to identify everything we see - from raccoons, to every playing card in a deck, to a raccoon eating a playing card (?!?). I think it is a cool idea to let anyone with knowledge or interest in a deep but narrow part of the world to unlock artificial intelligence for it, starting with computer vision.

(2) Startup Hardware Never Works, Unless It Does: One of the very few hardware teams I have ever worked with is Whoop. I met Will Ahmed and team when they were raising the seed round for “Bobo” which eventually became Whoop. I loved the vision of a high performing fitness device, despite the looming threats from Apple and others, because I believed that a growing market would want world class insight and control over their health and fitness. I was especially excited about the digital experience that Will imagined back in 2013, and we agreed the visualization of the data would be a major factor. One of the very first connections made was with a Behance member named Martin Oberhäuser based in Hamburg. Martin is one of the best infographics designers I’ve seen, and he ultimately became a key partner in the Whoop journey. Well, fast forward to a week ago, the Whoop team unveiled version 4.0 (it is amazing), and I especially loved this little shout-out to the inevitable crew of big company competitors that will take v4 apart and try to copy them… ;-)

(3) Educating For The Creator Economy: I was back on the road for the first time in a while last month in San Diego at the ASU+GSV Summit, perhaps the premier event for technology in education. Here’s a video of my conversation with EdTech investor Kevin Zhang about how we set up the next generation to stand out, start businesses, and succeed through creativity.

(4) Upcoming Product Releases For The Creative World: Ok, this isn’t really an idea, but hope it well you make your ideas happen! Every year my teams at Adobe - from Lightroom and Photoshop cracking the future of photography and imaging, to the video teams, to 3D & Immersive teams building for future mediums - all come together to share our updated vision for the future of creativity…as well as updates for our products. This year we’re shipping some exciting new features as well as sharing a sneak of what’s to come in 2021. Little quick shout-out here to join us! It’s free to tune into Adobe MAX and watch the keynote on October 26th as well as other sessions with some creative luminaries we admire.

You know that iconic scene, at the end of The Matrix (the original!), when Neo suddenly “gets it.” He picks bullets out of thin air as if they are cute and curious little things. As the next installment of The Matrix comes out I’ve been thinking, what’s the equivalent of “seeing the matrix” for product leaders? This question prompted me to jot down a few things i’ve observed or learned (and a lot that I am still trying to learn) that I feel very strongly about, but I thought it would be a fun brainstorm: what essential realizations cause product leaders to see every challenge and opportunity differently?

I had about ten others that came to mind, you can read them all here - and let me know what you feel is missing…