TileMaker™ is Going to DevCon!
I mean… Claris Engage!
TileMaker™ is named after another productivity tool that is near and dear to my heart — Claris FileMaker. I’ve been writing FileMaker solutions for the last 20 years (give or take), and have watched it revolutionize businesses, delight users, and grow with the times.
The premiere gathering for FileMaker users and devs, Claris Engage (née Devcon), is finally back in its first post-pandemic in-person form, and is happening at the magnificent Apple campus in Austin, TX.
I’ll be presenting TileMaker™ on Thursday, February 8th, along with a companion solution written in FileMaker Pro. We’ll explore how tools like TileMaker™ can cut down the cognitive costs of context-switching and decision-making, something so many software devs are familiar with.
Watch this space for links, updates, and post-conference ideas.
Update — Day 1
Engage 2024 doesn’t quite have the scale and grandeur of DevCons past, but for a first post-pandemic, in-person outing, put together on relatively short notice, it’s amazing. The team at Claris, with huge help from the FileMaker community, put together a great event at the Apple Campus in Austin. I had a blast hanging out in the Proof+Geist booth and talking to fellow devs about OttoFMS and Ottomatic hosting, and of course, explaining TileMaker to fellow productivity nerds. Watching folks drop a tile into a cup of water and immediately “get it” as they imagined their tasks melting away was so satisfying! Can’t wait to share more tomorrow.
Day 2
As my talk comes together and I have lots of conversations with people about their organizational challenges, I find myself wanting to do a deeper dive into the human cognition, focus, attention, drive, and reward dimensions of TileMaker. But since I only have an hour and don’t have a PhD in neuroscience, I’m going to refer folks to some resources that have helped me gain at least a rudimentary understanding of why my brain works the way it does.
First, here’s Getting Things Done, by David Allen. This is the productivity nerd’s bible. Lots of great intuitions in here and practical tips that I still use today.
Next, here’s Willpower, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney. A very accessible survey of research around focus and cognitive resources
And here are some selected Huberman Lab Podcast episodes about dopamine, attention, creativity and working memory (tbh, I don’t think there are any Huberman podcasts that don’t discuss dopamine in some way):
Leverage Dopamine to Overcome Procrastination & Optimize Effort
The Science of Creativity & How to Enhance Creative Innovation
A Tinkercad for my NFC clips is here.
NFC stickers are here.
And here is a copy of the paper clock from my demo:
I enjoyed your session at Engage. I have tiles all over my desk now! I was hoping to rewatch the recording but I can't find it in the session recordings that were released. Did the session get recorded? I'd love to chat with you more about this sometime.