I hope everyone enjoyed their Labor Day weekend as much as I did. We’re back in action with another fresh set of news, articles, and tips. Enjoy!

Industry

• With 1000+ people working on Alexa, Amazon is taking a lead in consumer AI. Artemis Berry shares 5 things to watch out for as they continue to innovate. Alexa, what should retailers know about you? [Chatbots Magazine]

• A key shopping season before the season is back-to-school as retailers can analyze the data for new features and programs to optimize in advance of the holidays. Dan O’Shea looks at mobile usage patterns as a key data point. How back-to-school shopping season puts omnichannel strategies to the test [RetailDive]

Culture

• Individuals don’t deliver software, teams do. Today’s environment warrants a fresh look at how we organize our teams, and what we can do to ensure everyone is collaborative, performing, and represented. David J Bland provides 5 characteristics for Designing Modern Teams [Medium]

• When we hear that ‘software is eating the world’, we often think of the new generation of startups that are disrupting the incumbents. This isn’t always the case, and a recent study shows that big companies can be more successful with new technology than smaller ones. Are Big Companies Really Innovative Dinosaurs? [DZone]

Technology

• The promise of PaaS has always been about developer empowerment, but early incarnations were either too complex to operate or didn’t meet Enterprise requirements. Is the next wave of application platforms up to the task? Ben Rossi shares Why businesses have reignited the search for a PaaS field of dreams [Information Age]

• PaaS or no PaaS, modern applications are being built with the cloud in mind. Brian Gracely walks through a Red Hat Summit presentation to break down the terms we hear when talking about cloud native applications. From Silos to Services: Cloud Computing for the Enterprise [TechTarget]

Experience

• Perfecting the search & browse experience is an ongoing effort for any e-commerce site, with a fair amount of trial & error. Greg Randall walks through a few important considerations when designing the browse experience. Ecommerce product filters: Best practice tips for a great UX [Econsultancy]

• It can be easy to push design aside when working through Agile delivery cycles, as the primary goal is to deliver working software. This doesn’t always have to be the case as Steven Lowe explains. Moving beyond MVP: 5 agile design practices you can't afford to ignore [TechBeacon]