Design To Be Conversation

In today’s episode, I speak with Jessica Helfand. Jessica is the  founding editor of Design Observer and author of numerous books on visual and cultural criticism including her new book aptly called Self-Reliance. She is an artist, designer, writer and educator and has taught in Paris, Porto, London, Malta, the Netherlands, and across the United States. Jessica is the first-ever recipient of the Henry Wolf Residency at the American Academy in Rome and has been a Director’s Guest at Civitella Ranieri, a fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation, and an Artist in Residence at Caltech.

We dive into ways of illustrating what it means to be self-reliant by leaning on yourself for inspiration, finding ways to challenge your creativity and imagination, and how designing for emotion and keeping a daily practice can weave more meaning into your journey as a self-reliant designer.

In today’s episode, I speak with Aaron Walter.  Aaron is Acting Director of Product at Resolve to Save Lives where he explores how design and technology can help fight COVID-19. Formerly, he was the VP of content at InVision with 20 years of experience running product teams and helping companies enact design best practices.  Aarron founded the UX practice at MailChimp and helped grow the product from a few thousand users to more than 10 million. His design guidance has helped the White House, the US Department of State, and many Fortune 500 companies, startups, and venture capital firms. He is the co-host of the Webby-nominated Design Better podcast and has been featured in major publications like Fast Company, TechCrunch, and Vanity Fair among others.

We dive into what it means to practice seeking meaning in your career and life, how curiosity helps you to craft a more purposeful career, what it means to navigate a mission-driven profession that aligns with your values and beliefs, and how investing in your emotional intelligence can guide you to a more fulfilling career.  

In today’s episode, I speak with Nancy Douyon. Nancy is a Global Design Ethicist & Product Philosopher.  For more than fifteen years, she’s been leading as a Black woman at Google, IBM, Intel, and Uber working on human experience product design. Throughout her career, Nancy has gained a reputation for delivering big results in a culturally honest and purposeful way with hundreds of products deployed in over 80 countries. She consults globally on inclusive development in emerging markets, and has spoken at the White House and top universities, institutions, and corporations worldwide.

We dive into ways of navigating resilience and authenticity to communicate impact through your personal story, the importance of bringing out the value in everything that you do by speaking your truth, and practices you can adapt to improve your storytelling skills, and how you can communicate effectively to make an impact.  

In today’s episode, I speak with Jared Spool. Jared is the Co-Founder, Co-CEO, and Maker of Awesomeness at Center Centre – UIE.  For the past 43 years, Jared has been working with hundreds of organizations in the tech world. He has written two books, published hundreds of articles and podcasts, and has been touring the world speaking to audiences everywhere.

We dive into the important qualities of leadership and what it takes to be a true leader with a purpose and vision, the difference between a leader and a manager,  strategies and tactics to grow your skills to become a great UX leader in an organization, and how EQ contributes to being a successful leader.

In today’s episode, I speak with Chetana Deorah. Chetana is the Design Director at Coursera that empowers online education worldwide. As a product design leader and mentor, Chetana helps empower human-centered design to achieve high-impact business goals. In her most recent post as Design Director at Netflix, she has led product design for global acquisition and growth for emerging markets. Her career trajectory includes leading design at Yahoo, Scribd and Pentagram. 

We dive into the importance of intentionality, how leading and designing with intention can weave greater purpose into your career, how intention relates to self-awareness, as well as tactical ways of setting intention to create a safe space for yourself and your team to lead to increased productivity and collaboration.

In today’s episode, I speak with Jason James. Jason is the VP of Design at Instacart, a grocery delivery and pick-up service where he leads product design, brand, and research. Previously, he served as VP of Design at Thumbtack and was leading design early in his career  for Earnest, Intercom, Kin, and DoneDone. Jason is a mentor at Made in the Future, a program for emerging under-represented designers.

We dive into the competitive field of design and how it fosters hustle culture, the factors that contribute to burnout, and how meditation and therapy can help designers cope with burnout by becoming more mindful in their design process and interactions with others.  

In today’s episode, I speak with Dori Tunstall. Dori is the Dean of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design University, and the first black female dean of a faculty of design. She is a design anthropologist, public intellectual, and design advocate who works at the intersections of critical theory, culture, and design. Dori leads the Cultures-Based Innovation Initiative focused on using old ways of knowing to drive innovation processes that directly benefit communities.

We dive into the depth of design and its interconnectedness with meaning and purpose, the importance of aligning your values with what you do to create understanding and empathy for cultural differences, as well as tactical ways to practice inclusive leadership by listening deeply and responding with compassion and generosity.   

Today’s episode marks our 18th episode and the final episode of the first season of Design To Be Conversation. Season 2 will start back up the first week of August. We are beyond excited for what’s ahead!

Today, I speak with Pablo Stanley. Pablo is the Co-Founder and CEO of Blush. Pablo has a YouTube channel called Sketch Together and  gives talks and workshops around product design, animation, illustration systems, storytelling, behavioral economics, and the art of comics. He is also a writer and illustrator of “The Design Team,” a comic series that follows the lives of designers working at a startup.

We dive into the benefits of staying curious to spark your creativity, ways and techniques to fight creative block, how being curious can keep you grounded and motivated by questioning your assumptions and embracing new ways of learning through your design process, and how cultivating curiosity will help you become a more inspired designer.

In today’s episode, I speak with Jared Erondu. Jared is a design leader, investor, and advisor. He’s currently the VP of Design at Lattice where they are building people-first HR software to make the time we spend at work more meaningful. Jared is also the co-creator of Playbook and High Resolution, two projects dedicated to furthering knowledge-sharing in the design community.

We dive into the different aspects of growing as a designer, how developing a growth mindset helps you navigate a career filled with meaning and purpose, tactical approaches to design for impact by investing in life-long learning, the importance of adaptiveness and challenging the status quo in relation to people of color as well as benefit designers can have from a growth mindset.  

In today’s episode, I speak with Tiffani Jones Brown, Executive Editorial Director at Dropbox. Tiffani oversees an interdisciplinary team of copywriters, UX writers and graphic designers. She specializes in simple and emotionally intelligent branding and copy, defining the voice and tone for multiple startups, including Facebook and Pinterest. Tiffani currently helps lead the transition of Dropbox to Virtual First.

We dive into the importance of effective communication by finding your authentic voice as a designer, practical ways to communicate for brevity and clarity using human-centric language, how simple communication tactics can optimize productivity in a remote culture, and managing conflict to improve team dynamics and collaboration.