Living in Central PA, bullshit wafting through the air around the farms is a sure sign of planting season. Also another sure sign of planting bad ideas is the bullshit surrounding design thinking. This episode is my take on this hot take as I believe that design thinking isn't the thing that stinks...but rather it's the people espousing it and calling it design thinking. We discuss the famous Natasha Jen talk at Adobe 99U and the subsequent articles from FastCompany that discuss differing points of view. My own take is that design thinking is the tool we need to help shape the conversations at the table that we designers have been wanting to be at for while, but we must take care to ensure others don't destroy.

Design is a job...and to get a job you need some experience, but you can't get any meaningful experience without a job, right? It's the classic chicken and the egg story...but does it have to be so cut and dry? Can you get a job in design without a college degree? Can you pull together the knowledge and experience needed to get a job as a designer? Yes, yes you can.

It takes a plan to get educated and get experience, but that plan doesn't have involve costly college. You can create a path for learning that fits your needs and investment by creating a realistic timeline and smart investment into your education in design skills and business acument.

In this episode I break down a path for self-initiated education for anyone who wants to become a designer (Visua, Front-End, and UX). I talk about the following:

While I mention a lot of learning platforms and tools, I don't advocate one over the other...your experience may vary (even with the bootcamps). I am also not sponsored by any of these companies either.

I have a lot of jobs in my life...but it wasn't until I became a knowledge worker that I interfaced with job recruiters. As a designer, it's been interesting to see the different types of jobs that recruiters are actively hiring for and seeing the mismatch of knowledge and expectations. Conversely, some of my best experiences with a company have started with internal recruiters. So this episode is focused on how recruiters operate from the internal and external perspectives, how the industry is setup, the challenges recruiters face, and wondering about a different approach to recruiting.

Too often, many people let life happen to them instead of working towards something. Having a vision of what you want your life to be and how you are going to acheive it is key to realizing it and making your goals attainable. This episode discusses having a vision for your life and by having a vision how you can control the levers to your success. I discuss some backstory of mine about being a professional musician and how I had a vision to make that a reality and how shifted into design. This episode hopefully will have you think about what you want to do and identify what steps you need to get there.

Courtland Ellis is a man of many talents. Currently, he works at BankMobile, a fintech startup where he works on social media strategy, app design, and email marketing. He's previously worked at Aspire Ventures being a lead designer developing company brand assets, app UI design, and illustration and he got his started at The Fictory and Post-Age where he first interned and later was hired as illustrator and design doing game design, motion graphics, post-production, and concept art. In the last ten years, Courtland has honed his skills to be a succesful concept artist, all sprung from his love of comics and cartoons. He sat down with me to discuss his career path, insights on being a professional creative, and advice to young designers coming up in the field.

Failure sucks...no one likes to fail. But really, what is failure? Isn't the journey of getting good at something paved with the learning opportunities you go through? Is failure a bad thing? And what truly is failing at something? This episode is all about failure and reframing the conversation. To fail is to learn, to truly fail is to give up and not try. I share a story from early in my career about failure and how changing my mindset has helped me grow in ways I never thought possible at the beginning of my career. My hope is that this episode will help reframe things in your mind and face life, work, your relationships with more positivity.

Ten months. Not a terribly long time ago, but a lot of things have happened in those ten months. This episode is mainly about the journey so far with the show and some of the new things I'm going to implement for the future. These include:

Having PMP after your name is more than a fancy credential. Project management might be something you innately do as a designer or business owner and not even realize. In this episode I discuss my interest in becoming a PMI-certified project manager and how project management works for designers and the project managers who work with designer, whether in the marketing side of design or the technology side. We also go into the difference between project manages and product managers as well as discuss some resources to help grow your project management skillset.

I am trying not to be overly dramatic, but the United State of America isn't united. It's a fractured mess of shit. Over the last month, my growing tension and attitude towards how we conduct ourselves in society has both infuriarating and depressing. In this episode, I focus on Black Lives Matter and creating the society we should all be proud to be a part of. I recap some personal issues that have lead to my hyper-focus on where we are as a nation, and I share a damning lesson of mine that has helped me grow as a person and become more mindful and open to others. This isn't an episode about design or business...so feel free to skip if your prefer...but I couldn't in good conscience not speak up and share my thoughts and beliefs on how our society has failed to live up the values and aspirations we should have in this country. This episode is quite personal and hopefully shows that a world were truth, openness, welcoming, and solidarity is possible.

Digital accessibility came into my concern five years ago when I designed the user interface for a physical product. I wondered how people with disabilities may actually use this thing I just designed. Fast forward five years and I sit with clients and partners on developing universal design strategy to embed accessibility standards through the entire product lifecycle. Digital accessibility lawsuits are on the rise and Beyonce and Dominos are only just the beginning. This episode talks about my history with digital accessibility, legal considerations and history, maturity of teams to embed accessibility standards into your design systems, and where you can go and learn about digital accessibility. I start off this episode pissed off because as a design professional, this is a no-brainer. But in this age...I can't take anything for granted.