Damian McCabe @damianmccabe - Tumblr Blog

We Dropped “Lab” from Our Name — Here’s Why

Connected Lab is now Connected. Because building better products is about more than software.

By Mike Stern, CEO & Founder, Connected

When Damian McCabe and I founded Connected Lab in 2014, it was because we believed that a new category of firm was needed to help ambitious companies leverage the power of product: not a dev shop, or a design agency, or a strategic consultancy, but a uniquely integrated product development firm — one our clients could trust to help build impactful products.

That is why, on the eve of our 4th birthday, we have decided to drop “Lab” from our name. Because what we aspire to do, and in good measure do already, extends far beyond the experimental tinkering of a laboratory. Our mission, after all, is to build better products — products that drive impact for our clients and their customers — and that means forming deep, long-lasting, and strategic relationships with those we work with. We aren’t a lab, but a partner.

This difference is worth pausing over. Because to me, what we are “connecting” isn’t just devices, and what is required isn’t just agile software development. Our mission is to build better products, after all, and to truly make that happen, you need to connect disciplines, practices, and above all, people. Combining strategy, design, and engineering, impactful product development is truly a team effort.

What we are “connecting” isn’t just devices, and what is required isn’t just agile software development.

And so, no more “Lab.” The nostalgic in me will miss the word (and look back fondly on the days we could sit our team at a single MakeWorks desk, when the word really meant something). But at 150 and counting, this subtle but important tweak is a fitting metaphor for who we are and what we stand for. Because software-powered products are always evolving — and we, too, are committed to continuous iteration and improvement. We work within an ever-growing and ever-changing community of builders, and we hope the unfinished letters on our new logo suggest exactly that.

To celebrate our 4th anniversary, our new name, and our new brand to go with it, Connected is partnering with Elevate Tech Fest to host Elevate Product, a day-long program filled with product-focused content from world-class thinkers and builders. We hope you’ll join us on September 26 to think about the future of products and product development, and maybe even wish us a happy birthday.

CONNECTED RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF CANADA'S TOP SMALL & MEDIUM EMPLOYERS IN 2018

By Richard Yerema and Kristina Leung, Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Apr 12, 2018)

Here are some of the reasons why Connected was selected as one of Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers (2018):

Connected offers maternity and parental leave top-up payments for its new moms (to 70% of salary for 20 weeks) as well as flexible work hours and a telecommuting option to help balance their work and personal lives

Connected employees can unwind in the office lounge which features healthy snacks, hammocks, virtual reality headsets, chess, Legos, a dart board, Netflix and a beer fridge -- the company also hosts quarterly offsite company-wide team building events, such as a 3-day camping trip in Algonquin Park

At Toronto software product development firm Connected, regular "disconnects" are integral to the company's DNA.

The signature disconnect event every year is an all-staff, three-day summer excursion to Algonquin Park, the massive wilderness provincial park some 300 km north of Toronto. "We leave our laptops and cellphones behind and recharge our bodies and brains instead," says company CEO and Co-Founder Mike Stern.

Stern explains: "We all need to make time to disconnect from our high-paced tech world. While the Algonquin trip is for fun, the experience also develops self-reliance and teamwork. And we hope people learn something new about themselves."

Indeed, learning is a critical Connected value, in tandem with a desire to teach. There are no silos where people guard their skills and expertise. Knowledge-sharing even affects how the company is organized. Instead of designers and engineers occupying separate divisions, Connected brings them and others together in teams, in a Harry Potter-like house structure, where levels of experience are also mixed.

That willingness to share knowledge is what attracted Software Engineer Yasaman Marcu to Connected some 18 months ago. "I had heard about its open-mindedness, which is very important to me," she says. "At Connected, everyone shares their expertise and is willing to be taught. If someone knows something special, they tell others. Nothing is held back."

For Stern, learning and teaching is key to running a successful high-tech business, especially one that is only four years old and needs to continue growing by attracting the best and the brightest. "We compete with the big tech companies as well as those in our size category," he says. "We need the best people in their field, but that's not enough. We want people who are committed to getting even better.

"So we hire people who are ambitious. They come here to learn and build their skills. That makes for a more meaningful workplace, which in turn helps attract like-minded people."

He adds: "We are all on a joint mission to build better products, and everything we do, from our hiring practices, org structure and training opportunities, is centred on achieving that mission."

Connected also looks to recruit people who are "kind," an elusive quality that nevertheless is a core corporate value. "Kindness, among other things, means being respectful," explains Stern. "One way for managers to show it is by celebrating positive achievement in performance reviews as well as in our weekly and quarterly Values Awards."

For Marcu, kindness is also demonstrated in the company's receptiveness to new ideas. "All feedback is encouraged," she says. "Even after I first joined, I felt my ideas were valued."

Employee referrals play a big part in recruiting people who share Connected values. "Our people know what it takes to fit in here," Stern says. "They are such a valuable hiring resource that we have doubled the referral bonus to $4,000."

The office, as befits a start-up, is open concept with Stern and his executive team in the centre. To relieve the daily stress, there are disconnects such as onsite yoga sessions and "awesome" fresh healthy snacks, according to Marcu. Several times a year, the seven company "houses" compete over consecutive Friday nights to see who puts on the best socials.

The recreation room includes game consoles along with tables for pool and ping-pong. "Playing ping-pong for just 10 minutes is really refreshing," Marcu says. "You go back to your desk with your brain cleared and energized."

She cherishes the disconnects because the work at Connected is highly challenging. "We service major global clients on important stimulating projects," Marcu adds. "We have to be at our best."

While Marcu appreciates the company's concern for work-life balance, she is most motivated by the work, itself. "You really have a chance to grow here," she says. "You learn a lot, you won't get bored. And you have fun!"

CONNECTED LAB RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF CANADA'S TOP EMPLOYERS FOR 2017

By Richard Yerema and Kristina Leung, Mediacorp Canada Inc. staff editors (Apr 24, 2017)

You don’t have to be big to be best. Canada’s Top Small & Medium Employers 2017 offer competitive benefits that can rival any larger company.

This year’s winning organizations display a wide variety of best practices that you might not have expected to find in private-sector commercial enterprises with fewer than 500 employees.

Typically, these include strong support for ongoing career development, formal mentoring programs, maternity and parental top-up payments, flexible health benefits with wellness spending accounts, plus alternative work options that make personal life easier to balance.

Many also offer share purchase plans and the more daring have progressive initiatives, such as unlimited vacation policies – increasingly popular in this sector.

Additionally, many offer the same perks as the biggest employers. If you want workplace bling, you can find on-site fitness facilities with personal trainers, lunch-time yoga, employee lounges with fresh fruit and gluten-free snacks, popcorn, Popsicles, a beer and wine fridge, or even a full-service kitchen serving breakfast and lunch. Of course, table tennis, foosball and video games are de rigueur, along with the occasional volleyball court and outdoor skating rink.

Beyond the frills, you’re more likely to feel engaged at a smaller workplace where everyone counts and the boss knows your name. There may also be more opportunities to move up, as many are growing at an incredible pace, particularly tech companies, which are evolving from their startup phase. Some report nearly doubling their work force over the past year, so are truly the nation’s job makers.

Here are some of the reasons why Connected Lab Inc. was selected as one of Canada's Top Small & Medium Employers (2017):

Connected Lab employees can unwind in the office lounge which features healthy snacks, hammocks, hula hoops, virtual reality headsets, chess, Lego, Dungeons and Dragons and a beer fridge -- the company also hosts quarterly offsite "Disconnects" such as a weekend camping trip to Algonquin Park

Connected Lab encourages ongoing employee education with tuition subsidies for courses related and indirectly related to their current position, to $1,000 annually

As a smaller employer, Connected Lab offers maternity leave top-up payments for its new moms (to 70% of salary for 17 weeks) as well as flexible work hours and a telecommuting option to help balance their work and personal lives

#press

SHOPIFY’S TECH @ SCALE PANEL SAYS INTERNET IS NOT READY FOR LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF AI AND MACHINE LEARNING

Deep learning and artificial intelligence are set to be the next big innovations that change the way that people run their businesses. At Shopify’s Tech @ Scale in Toronto — an event that included a day full of talks exploring how developers and engineers could stay agile in a world of fast-moving technology — one talk included expert insights on exactly how these emerging technologies would impact both businesses and their customers.

Chris Matys, chief analytics officer at Georgian Partners, moderated a panel featuring Damian McCabe, VP of Engineering at Connected Lab; Hesham Fahmy, VP of Technology at ecobee; Inmar Givoni VP of Big Data at Kobo; and Karl Martin, co-founder and CTO of Nymi.

“A lot of business innovation took off when we started to get into the areas of predictive scoring and into the area of prescriptive actions, and that’s where we transitioned from human-built roles and analysis to more complex machine generated models and automation,” said Matys. “Today, virtually every business in every industry is taking steps to become analytically optimized so we’re at the height of that trend.”

Givoni agreed that the rise of machine and deep learning technologies and AI is a result of the technology becoming more accessible to people without specialized knowledge.

“It’s a combination of data, fast computing, and machine learning technology,” she said. “And what happened is an interesting phenomenon where people were able to build and start creating a lot of infrastructure — so with that infrastructure, it is so much easier for practitioners who don’t necessarily have deep knowledge of machine learning and AI to start building. We have an influx now of people trying to pick up big data and machine learning and AI.”

Chat bots are one of the hot developments in the tech space right now, as tech giants like Facebook announce their commitment to chat bots and companies across industries, from retail to news, explore how to use chat bots to reach customers. More people are moving away from the “apps are everything” mentality — and McCabe, whose work at Connected Lab requires him to apply emerging technologies to “first-of-its-kind” apps, said that conversational interfaces are the next must-have for businesses.

“AI and some of the aggregations happening around conversational interfaces are providing new opportunities for business to have a presence in some way inside these conversational interfaces,” he said. He gave the example of WeChat in China, which allows its users to launch services like ferry ticket purchases or controlling a TV all from one place, rather than skimming through various apps and having to fill out your payment information repeatedly. “[Aggregations] can be inside of a messaging client, or through a voice interface utility you have in your home. There’s lots of new opportunities for products and services to integrate themselves or part of their services into one of these AI agents, and deliver and reach customers in a new way.”

However, the technology may have its limitations. Martin said that developing this technology securely goes beyond establishing trust between entities. “The fabric of the internet is not ready to scale for what’s coming. If you think of the components we built our service on top of, the one part that is not ready to scale is security because it is the most centralized,” Martin said.

“When you want to move to a new type of ad hoc where your devices can show up and disappear, you want to have secure channels to those devices and you want to be able to authenticate if they’re the right device and if that signal is authentic. It’s not just about ‘Hey if I trust this service provider they’ll do better business’, they can’t even provide the services they want to until we come up with new approaches.”

And going beyond security, there is also an issue about who owns data that is stored in the cloud. As more people adopt IoT devices in their homes, it will become increasingly important to determine if people have sole ownership over their data.

“I’ve got all these IoT devices recording where I am,” said Fahmy. “But who owns it? Is it me? I think of something as innocuous as my thermostat, but knowing that my thermostat has a schedule of when I’m home or not home, who do I want to know that? Am I being hacked in terms of how data gets out?”

Normally, cybersecurity means locking people out of a system, detecting intrusions, and patching up any holes should any hackers get in. In contrast to Martin’s point, Fahmy gave an alternative, more positive view of how AI could help security issues.

“AI can come in, and it can watch in real time how the system and people are behaving, and how IoT devices are sending or receiving data. Could that become our perimeter detection?”

#speaking #press

Speaking at Canadian Tech @ Scale Conference

I’ll be speaking at this awesome event for Canada’s top tech leaders being put on by Jean-Michel Lemieux (Shopify), Boris Chan (Pivotal Labs), and Bruce Dorland (gdR).

Here’s the speaker lineup:

Ahmad Nassri - VP of Engineering, Mashape

Andrew Trossman - Distinguished Engineer, IBM Public Cloud

Monika Piotrowicz - Director of Front End Development, Shopify

Bruce Dorland - Managing Director - gdR

Chris Matys - Chief Analytics Officer, Georgian Partners

Dale Neufeld - Director of Production Engineering, Shopify

Damian McCabe - VP of Engineering, Connected Lab

Dave Simons - CTO, Points

Farhan Thawar - CTO & Co-Founder, Helpful

Geordie Hendersen - VP, Engineering, Hootsuite

Hesham Fahmy - VP of Technology, ecobee

Inmar Givoni - VP Big Data, Kobo

Jean-Michel Lemieux - SVP Engineering, Shopify

Jordan Christensen - Head of Engineering, Wattpad

Karl Martin - Co-Founder & CTO, Nymi

KL Wong - Engineering Leader, Digital Factory at Scotiabank

Kyle Hodgson - Market Technology Principal, Thoughtworks

Mazdak Rezvani - Founder & CEO, Shoppe AI

Boris Chan - Managing Director, Pivotal Labs

Stergios Anastasiadis - Director of Engineering, Shopify

Tys von Gaza - Director of Development, Clio

Warren Faleiro - CTO, Freshbooks

Chris Best - CTO, Kik Interactive

#speaking

"We're building interfaces where people can have conversations with computers using natural language," McCabe explained. "It understands what's being asked and responds back."

Damian McCabe being interviewed by Joshua Errett from CBC News

Hackers will use IBM Watson IoT Platform to enable people to interact with smart devices

TORONTO, May 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Today, Connected Lab, the fastest growing connected software company in North America, is announcing it will host a smart device hackathon, powered by IBM Watson IoT. The hackathon will encourage developers to create new experiences using conversational interfaces on the IBM Watson IoT Platform.

The IBM Watson IoT Platform allows people to securely and easily connect devices, from chips and intelligent appliances, to applications and industry solutions, and use cognitive services including natural language processing and machine learning for deep insights into hidden or "dark" data for innovation and transformation. The platform also provides the ability to analyze sensor data from billions of devices, to better forecast weather events, for example.

During the hackathon, developers will use IBM Watson IoT cognitive APIs and smart devices to create conversational interfaces like chatbots.

"People are excited about chatbots because they see the potential to interact with technology using conversational language," said Damian McCabe, VP Engineering at Connected Lab. "As an IBM alumni, I'm excited about the potential of the IBM Watson's cognitive capabilities including natural language processing and machine learning. At the hackathon, developers will use this powerful platform to build more human ways for people to use innovative technology."

The IBM Watson IoT Platform opens up new possibilities in how we interact with services and our environment. "People will always use a few standalone apps. But a lot of information and services can be more easily accessed through a conversational interface rather than hundreds of app icons on your home screen," said McCabe.

The theme of the hackathon, "Conversational Interfaces and Smart Devices," aligns with Connected Lab's mission to build better connected software experiences. This hackathon encourages developers to access the IBM Watson IoT Platform cognitive analytics expertise to build applications that can understand meaning, extract insights, and respond to complex questions.

For more information or to register for the event, visit: http://bit.ly/1ZjaTtn

WHAT: Connected Lab Chatbots for Smart Devices Hackathon, Powered by IBM Watson IoT WHEN: June 3rd to 5th, 2016 WHERE: Connected Lab Headquarters, 370 King St W. Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 1J9

ABOUT CONNECTED LAB Connected Lab is the leading and fastest growing connected software company in North America. Connected Lab works with the world's most ambitious brands to build the best connected software experiences. For more information, please visit connectedlab.com.

CBC The National - April 15, 2016

Tonight on The National, the latest big bet from Silicon Valley. Chat-bots. Programs that will talk with you, and help you with everyday tasks.

David Common from CBC’s The National visited Connected Lab this week to understand more about conversational “bots”, why they are an exciting, and what Mike Stern and Damian McCabe of Connected Lab are working on in Toronto.

#press #speaking

Connected Lab Hosts first #CLHacks event focussed on Amazon Echo and Alexa.

Over the weekend, more than a dozen programming teams came to Connected Lab’s head office in downtown Toronto to extend the capabilities of “Alexa”, the voice-based interface behind Amazon Echo.

“A product like [Echo] is really exciting because it’s the kind of thing that inspires people to want to build cool stuff,” said Damian McCabe, co-founder and VP engineering at Connected Lab. “Doing a hackathon around Alexa and the Echo is almost the perfect opportunity for us because we get to get a bunch of people in the room and get them inspired around a really cool product. It’s a great product, but there’s so much more that can be done with it.”

#press

Connected Lab to host Amazon Echo's first ever hackathon in Canada

TORONTO, Feb. 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Remember the 2013 film Her? The Oscar-winning science fiction rom-com featuring an intelligent computer operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson? This March, as part of Amazon Echo's first ever Canadian hackathon, co-hosted by Toronto's own Connected Lab, that idea will be one step closer to reality as Canada's best tech minds spend a weekend hacking the virtual personal assistant.

Their subject will be "Alexa", the voice-based operating system behind Amazon's latest consumer electronic device, the Amazon Echo. The Echo is a small cylindrical speaker that can perform an impressive list of tasks. Users can ask Alexa to play music, read news headlines, make to-do lists, order products from Amazon.com, or even dim the lights in a room. Not yet available in Canada, the hackathon will provide designers and developers the first opportunity to explore the Amazon Echo. Their challenge? "Hack" the Echo to develop new capabilities, called "Skills", for Alexa to perform.

To bring the event to life, Amazon has partnered with Toronto tech company Connected Lab to co-host the weekend-long event. Connected Lab, whose core team spent time in Silicon Valley helping multi-billion dollar giants such as Facebook and Uber transition to mobile and connected technologies, have proven themselves to be the tech company to watch in Canada. "Voice-based technologies will soon play a big role in how we use new products and services, from inside your car to your living room," says Mike Stern, CEO, Connected Lab. "This is an amazing opportunity to explore the future of connected technology through the Amazon Echo and Alexa." Connected Lab's Co-Founder and VP Engineering, Damian McCabe, will sit on the hackathon's panel of judges alongside Amazon executives and industry leaders.

This free event will include a comprehensive workshop where participants will receive an introduction to the Amazon Echo and instructions on how to build an Alexa Skill. In addition to working one-on-one with experts from Amazon and Connected Lab, participants will also have the opportunity to win a coveted Amazon Echo, as well as paid internships with Connected Lab.

For more information or to register for the event, visit the event page.

About Connected Lab

Connected Lab is North America's leading and fastest growing product development company in the 'Connected Software' space. Connected Lab helps the world's most ambitious brands build the best connected software experiences. For more information, please visit http://connectedlab.com.

Keep in touch with Connected Lab:

Twitter: @connectedlab Blog: https://medium.com/@connectedlab

#press

“Connected Lab, founded by former Xtreme Labs team, has exited stealth mode and moved to a new 10,000- square-feet office in downtown Toronto.

Connected Lab’s rapid growth from a small “software for the new hardware” shop founded by Mike Stern and Damian McCabe of MakeWorks and Xtreme Labs to a team of 50 people in just 16 months can be seen as a sign of the times. The rising popularity of hardware and connected devices, and the increasing number of interfaces from smartphones to wearables, smart cars, VR and AR, and the looming IoT leaves many brands confused about what to build and how. That’s the gap Connected Lab aims to tackle.”

#press

Developing a Killer app for the Apple Watch

The hotly anticipated Apple Watch dropped today, and for more on it's prospects and the wearable device app space, BNN is joined by Damian McCabe, Co-Founder & Vice President of Product, Connected Lab.

#press #speaking

Apple Watch a boon for app developers

Apple unveiled the specifics of its new watch at a hotly-anticipated event today. The watch is expected to be a game changer for app developers, including Toronto's Connected Lab. For more on the app development space for wearables, BNN is joined by Damian McCabe, Vice President, Connected Lab.

#press #speaking

Excited to be presenting @smartweek2014 today on Product Design for the Internet of Things! #IoT

#speaking

starting something new...

Today I'm excited to be starting something new with a good friend of mine, Mike Stern.

We'll share details soon at www.connectedlab.com.

Over the last six years, Xtreme Labs enjoyed tremendous success helping companies to better leverage mobile—giving them new ways to connect and engage with customers across a variety of platforms and devices. We, personally, have enjoyed working closely with some of the world’s most important brands to approach mobile in new and innovate ways and help solve modern business challenges.

Today, we’re humbled and excited to share that Xtreme Labs will join the Pivotal family, the company that has made a name for itself in a short amount of time as a leading provider of application and data infrastructure software, data science and agile development services.

Why Pivotal? Backed by EMC, VMware and GE, this “startup” shares our vision that the landscape of modern software development has changed. Pivotal’s mission is to help companies fuse data, analytics and the cloud together to create applications that will have tremendous impact on business, society and the world around us.

Pivotal builds on the rich history of Pivotal Labs, its agile software development business which established its reputation as a hotbed of innovation committed to thinking differently about modern software development. When the opportunity to explore a relationship with Pivotal came up, it immediately became clear that we shared a common vision. We truly believe that Xtreme Labs is a perfect complement to Pivotal, helping to extend their reach to enterprise companies who want to build rich, engaging and scalable mobile experiences for customers.

When combined, Pivotal and Xtreme Labs will be able to deliver the engineering prowess to build world-class applications and deliver them to customers across any device–web, mobile and others. Our customers will gain the expertise around big data, analytics, and PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) that Pivotal delivers to customers across the globe. Our employees are equally excited about the opportunity to work together with the Pivotal team to bring new mobile innovations to market.

The best of what you know about Xtreme Labs continues. We will operate as usual, building best-in-class mobile experiences for the world’s most influential brands.

This is not an end, but a start to a much bigger and better mobile world. We are excited about the next chapter for Xtreme Labs and the opportunity that lies ahead for us as a part of Pivotal.

Google’s grand design challenge

Acknowledging the high bar set for tech companies to release products that are beautiful in function and form, Google's Larry Page started Project Kennedy (design overhaul of their product suite). This video from BBC highlights some of the key aspects to their approach:

Enable product design collaboration across the company

Focus on problems with multidisciplinary teams with dedicated collaborative workspace.

Find ways to share teams' work across the organization to break down inherit limits of uniformity in large organizations

Present information clearly and with style

#design

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