Power of Ten with Andy Polaine

Power of Ten: design at every level of zoom, from thoughtful detail to organisational and societal change, hosted by Andy Polaine.

In this episode, staff product designer, game maker and developer Catt Small, author of The Staff Designer: Grow, Influence, and Lead as an Individual Contributor, talks with Andy about what it takes to keep growing as a designer without moving into management. Drawing on sixteen years at companies including Asana, Etsy, SoundCloud, and Dropbox, Catt explains where the staff role came from, how it differs from senior, and why communication became the “final boss” of her career. They discuss defensive calendaring and focus, swapping “no” for “yes, and”, letting go of glue work, managing up, where AI helps and hinders at the staff level, and why taking agency rather than waiting to be told made the biggest difference.

Catt
Catt's website: https://cattsmall.com/
The Staff Designer book: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/the-staff-designer/
Catt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cattsmall/?isSelfProfile=false

Andy
Website: https://www.polaine.com
Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws
Podcast: https://pln.me/p10
Design Leadership Coaching: https://polaine.com/coaching
Courses: https://courses.polaine.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/andypolaine.bsky.social
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine

Power of Ten: design at every level of zoom, from thoughtful detail to organisational and societal change, hosted by Andy Polaine.

In this episode, journalist and author Lisa Bennett, Harvard Fellow, co-author of Ecoliterate, and author of the forthcoming Savor the World: Why Wonder, Not Worry, Will Save Us, talks with Andy about restoring human agency in an overwhelming world. Drawing on a career spent studying how people rise to crisis, Lisa unpacks the E.B. White line that underpins her book: the daily tension between wanting to save the world and choosing to savor it. The conversation moves through the psychology of overwhelm and the "polycrisis," why humans aren't wired to care at global scale, AI's effect on trust and authentic communication, and why savoring with real presence and attention might be a more sustainable and more effective form of care than constant fighting.

Lisa
- Lisa's writing and newsletter: https://lisabennett.substack.com
- Lisa's website: https://lisabennettwrites.com
- Lisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisabennettwriter

Andy
Website: https://www.polaine.com
Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws
Podcast: https://pln.me/p10
Design Leadership Coaching: https://polaine.com/coaching
Courses: https://courses.polaine.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
Blueksy: https://bsky.app/profile/andypolaine.bsky.social
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine

My guests in this episode are Josh Clark and Veronika Kindred, co-authors of the book, Sentient Design: Crafting Intelligent Interfaces with AI, published by Rosenfeld Media.

Our conversation ranged across the history of interaction design (Zork, MUDs, branching narratives), Josh and Veronika's "four postures" of AI systems (tools, chat, agents, co-pilots), the dangers of leaning too hard on physical metaphors, the idea of "casual intelligence" as a counter to AI maximalism, and the responsibilities designers have right now to shape how this technology gets implemented before money and Big Tech make all the decisions for us.

Listeners can use the code SENTIENTPOT for 20% off the book at at rosenfeldmedia.com from June 9th to July 9th.

Josh Clark is principal of Big Medium, a digital agency that helps complex organizations design for what’s next. Josh has over 30 years of experience in emerging technology, user experience, and design innovation. His projects include future-friendly interfaces for AI, connected devices, and websites for many of the world’s biggest companies.

Veronika Kindred is designer and researcher at Big Medium, where she defines and solves design problems alongside some of the world’s biggest companies. She travels internationally to lead Sentient Design workshops and speak to teams at startups and Fortune 100 companies alike. Her research has ranged from AI’s effect on user experience to mobile technology’s impact on African political engagement to the nuances of congressional climate hearings.

My guest in this episode is Martin Dowson, a design and transformation leader who’s passionate about elevating the role of design as a strategic force for business growth.

With over two decades of experience across Financial Services, Telcos, Media, and more. He’s built and led design teams, established Centres of Excellence, and guided organisations through complex transformations that align design with commercial outcomes.

Martin went from reading our service design book hoping to solve a logistics problem (you couldn’t order lobsters on a Wednesday at Sainsbury’s) to spending six years leading design strategy at Lloyd's Banking Group.

We talk about what happens when consultants go in-house, why experienced internal voices often get heard less than external ones saying the same thing, and whether AI has the same fundamental scaling problem as the car.

Timestamps
00:00 Intro — Martin's background across financial services, telecoms and media
01:00 How Martin and Andy first met at RBS in 2015, and reading Service Design to solve a lobster logistics problem at Sainsbury's
04:30 Going in-house after consulting — why your voice gets heard less the moment you cross the threshold
07:30 The question organisations never ask: why isn't this happening spontaneously already?
14:00 What it actually takes to embed design capability in a large organisation versus leaving behind blueprints and concepts
28:00 Measuring design's contribution to business outcomes — the gap between outputs and impact
45:00 Design leadership in the AI era — what changes and what doesn't
55:00 Why organisations mistake motion for progress, and how incentive structures block transformation
01:05:50 AI has the same fundamental problem as the car — it doesn't scale cleanly, and success makes the resource problem worse not better
01:10:30 The one small thing with outsized impact: our definition of success in education

Martin
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/designled
- Web: https://liminaldesignoffice.com
- Podcast https://beingliminal.com

Andy
- Website: https://www.polaine.com
- Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws
- Podcast: https://pln.me/p10
- Design Leadership Coaching: https://polaine.com/coaching
- Courses: https://courses.polaine.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
- Bluesky: https://andypolaine.bsky.social
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine

My guest in this episode is Joel Bailey, product and service director at Arwen.ai, a four-year-old marketing technology startup that uses AI to help brands to manage and moderate their social media comments at scale.

Joel brings 25 years of experience working in service design roles, leading change and building new stuff for a diverse range of organisations. We talked about his journey into Service Design, Service Design and AI, navigating AI and social media, the future of design and much more.

Note: Given the fast pace of developments in AI, I should point out that we recorded this in June 2025. I had a big backlog...

00:00 Introduction to Service Design and AI  
04:50 The Journey to Service Design  
10:00 Understanding Service as an Outcome  
15:08 The Role of AI in Social Media Management  
20:11 Challenges of Moderation on Social Media  
25:32 The Evolution of Business Models  
26:36 The Role of AI in Startups  
29:13 Navigating AI and Content Moderation  
30:20 Understanding AI Bias and Ethics  
31:43 Engaging with AI in Social Media  
35:11 The Future of Design and AI  
40:21 Creativity in a Fast-Paced Environment  
44:56 The Importance of Service in Design

Power of Ten is a show about design operating at all levels of zoom, from thoughtful detail to changes in organisation, society and the world, hosted by design leadership coach, Andy Polaine.

In this episode Andy Polaine speaks to design leader, Alan Colville, exploring the nuances of design leadership, the importance of embracing conflict, the dynamics of communication, and how small changes in how we communicate can lead to significant positive outcomes.

Links
====

Alan
========
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alancolville/

Andy
====
- Website: https://www.polaine.com
- Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws
- Podcast: https://pln.me/p10
- Design Leadership Coaching: https://polaine.com/coaching
- Courses: https://courses.polaine.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
- Bluesky: https://andypolaine.bsky.social
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine