The making of a manager by Julie Zhuo is an awesome book for designers and design managers. It sounds like it's written for a new manager but I found it insightful and helpful for all the professionals working with other people. You will learn the mindsets, goals, and struggles of a manager, and better collaborate with your own manager. Also, if becoming a manager is your career goal, this is a must-read.

A Designer can also learn some practical tips from this book, such as running a successful design critique, managing time and how communicating with different teams. I like the clear and easy-understanding language which makes the reading experience so good. It's also an inspiration for immigrants like myself: put some effort, determination and consistency into something you love/are good at, such as writing for Julie, and the result will be the best you can imagine.

7 #tips for presenting your design work like a pro! Presentation is an essential skill for designers, and sometimes it might be overwhelming. Last week, I did a presentation with a wider audience to share what I work at in last 6 months in 12 minutes. The result was great, and I found some of my personal design presentation tips might be helpful for other designers to share or presenting design work.

Confident career decisions? It's always hard to make career decisions, no need to say to decide confidently. How do I know if it's the right choice,? As a design mentor, I've been asked this question many times: what if I don't know which way to choose as my career direction?

My answer is to define what you should know and get the answers in the cheapest and fastest ways. You can do these 3 things for research in a short time, and be able to figure out if your dream job is actually worth putting effort into. After that, you should be able to make confident career decisions :)

We all know that uncertainties are something for certain in these years, and 2022 will not different at all. Any career tips 2022 for designer? I wrote a tips list for myself as a reminder for my career in 2022, and I think it might be helpful for many people here.

Why comics are so popular? What's the secret in comics? How to read comics and most importantly for designers: what's the top tip/secret we can borrow from comics to our work? In this video, I want to share a few thoughts on Scott McCloud's awesome book: Understanding Comics.

Finally read Just Enough Research by Erika Hall,, which has been on my reading list for a while. Wow! I feel bad after reading this book: why didn’t I read it when I started my UX design career!? I would avoid so many pitfalls and have many better outcomes if I followed some research suggestions from this book!

If you need a just enough summary for this book, Erika summarised it in this awesome video [https://lnkd.in/gRQcm__S](https://lnkd.in/gRQcm__S)SS). Five things that blew my design mind from this book:

1️⃣ Surveys are the most difficult research method of all.

2️⃣ Test a competitor’s product before you even put pencil to paper. Then test some sketches. And then test at every stage as much as you can.

3️⃣ When blue-sky thinking meets reality, reality always wins.

4️⃣ The first rule of user research: never ask anyone what they want.(You risk the scope of your ideas being limited by the imaginations of others. )

"How to get rich(without being lucky)" is one of the most popular Twitter threads, written by Naval Ravikant, a famous investor of Silicon Valley.

I love his tweet so much, that guided me to the book of his thoughts and comments: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. In this book, Naval talked about how to get rich, how to be a happier person, and shared many other insightful tips.

I think of getting rich as a wealth-building journey, and it can be designed and executed. It’s a bit late to realize it, but not too late. Actually, building fortune is never too late to do.

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft shared his thoughts about the leadership, career and culture of Microsoft in his book, Hit Refresh. I'm quite interested in the leadership part, as Satya's personal journey clearly shows how he built his leadership from the very beginning.

I have a YouTube channel, and I post videos about design, productivity and other things every week. I want more views and more engagement with my audiences. That's the drive for me to read Crushing it by Gary Vaynerchuk. As the well-known social media guru, entrepreneur and multi-time New York Times bestseller, Gary Vaynerchuk shares many tips and suggestions on Crushing it - you could be an influencer on social!

- Add value to your audience - it's the most valuable tip I've learned. I used to create content based on my personal interest, which is alright. But if I want to grow, I'll need to focus on adding value to my audiences.

- Create pillar content first, then micro-content. E.g. You can write a blog as your pillar content, then create YouTube videos, podcasts, Tiktok clips, Tweets, etc.

- Be a big fish in a small pool. Find out what you want to focus on, then go deep. Aim to own your place in that market.

5 books for designers in 2022 - I have kept reading 50 books a year since a few years ago, and this habit hugely changes my work and life. Since I started to work as UX/Product designer, I noticed that many non-design related books provide so much value for my career. So in this video, I would like to recommend 5 books for designers in 2022 - these books can hugely help you to improve your design skill.