Creativity and fun always win. No one engages with boring content unless forced, and no one champions non-critical technology they don’t enjoy. At Dexter, we learned early and well that the only successful bot is one that delights and surprises its users. Our most successful in-house creations have always been…

Ever notice how many challenges stem from safely making things bigger? Programmers fight to organize and streamline growing pools of software Novelists circle around branching plots to keep them consistent and well-paced Investors balance diversification against learning about target industries Entrepreneurs jump between growth and structure so that neither outpaces…

Covid-19 has turned the world upside down in an aggressive and unprecedented fashion. Time and time again, failures in foresight, communication, and will have amplified its effects on the general population, and as the situation worsens, such failures will become more common and detrimental if not checked. Hope, however, comes…

Many people use their Dexter bot tell their story via social media chat. By doing so, they change the basic nature of their account’s chat from person-to-person to person-to machine. …

Happy 2020, Internet! In the spirit of beating to death the already-overused theme of perfect vision, we’re going to be spending this year looking back on what’s made Dexter a success, where we’ve stumbled, and what we can do to make it even better going forward. Dexter came to life…

Back in the winter of 2011, I was at Northwestern doing a mix of reporting for my master’s degree. Some days I’d be talking to firemen in Avondale and others I’d be flagging down Portage Park residents for my latest MOS piece. …

How does your morning routine look? When I wake up every day, I hit the snooze button, brush my teeth, pour a strong cup of coffee, and reach for my phone. …

Believe it or not, when you call a company’s customer service line, the question you have is not unique. You’re looking for a price, you’re trying to figure out why your cable connection is down, or you want to find out how to delete a document from your file share…

If you are of a certain age, you remember what pre-internet travel was like. There were these places called travel agencies, staffed by professionals who had access to airlines and hotels and tour operators. These people had big boxy computers and clucky, loud keyboards, that they used to book flights…