Surfacing

In this episode of Surfacing, Andy and Lisa talk to digital policy consultant Kristina Podnar. Kristina explains the difference between policies, standards, and guidelines. Then, she illustrates how a mature approach to policy can help teams design and deliver digital products and services with speed, safety, and quality.

Episode Transcript

About Kristina Podnar

Kristina Podnar is a digital policy innovator. For over two decades, she has worked with some of the most high-profile companies in the world and has helped them see policies as opportunities to free the organization from uncertainty, risk, and internal chaos. Kristina's approach brings in marketing, human resources, IT, legal, compliance, security, and procurement to create digital policies and practices that comply with regulation. More importantly though, they unlock opportunity, strengthen the brand and liberate employees to drive innovation.

Kristina has a BA in international studies and an MBA in international business from the Dominican University of California and is certified as both a Change Management Practitioner (APMG International) and a Project Management Professional (Project Management Institute). Her book, The Power of Digital Policy was published in March 2019.

References & Links

Resources

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

Kristina Podnar's Website

The Power of Digital Policy Podcast

Follow Kristina Podnar on Social Media

Twitter

In this episode of Surfacing, Andy and Lisa are joined by Ron Bronson. Ron has deep experience working at the intersection of digital policy, service design, and systems. They talk about why so many services are poorly designed and talk about what needs to happen to improve both digital and physical world services for people. Ron also gives Andy some advice on selecting the proper tea, and Lisa asks about Ron's interest in the Finnish sport, Pesäpallo. Episode transcript

About Ron Bronson

Ron Bronson is a design director who leads impactful initiatives at the intersection of technology, service design, and public policy. He speaks globally on consequence design. Outside of work, he coaches high school tennis and runs a skeeball league. Ron lives in Portland, Oregon.

References & Links

Resources

Ron Bronson's website

Tennis Polo (the game Ron invented)

Things Ron Talks About

Ron writing about his love of Pesäpallo – "How does a guy from America start following Finnish baseball?"

Indy Design Week

Why Skee-ball Doesn't Change

Follow Ron on social media

Twitter

In this episode, co-hosts Lisa Welchman and Andy Vitale speak to user experience design expert Laura Klein. Laura is the author of Build Better Products and UX for Lean Startups.

Laura spoke about how a lack of reflection and consideration during the product development life cycle contributes to some of our online low-quality experiences. She also reveals how her engineering background and love of logic impact how she approaches user experience design.

Episode transcript

About Laura Klein

Laura fell in love with technology when she saw her first user research session over 20 years ago. Since then, she's worked as an engineer, user experience designer, and product manager in Silicon Valley for companies of all sizes. She's written two books for product managers, designers, and entrepreneurs, Build Better Products (Rosenfeld Media '16) and UX for Lean Startups (O'Reilly Media '13), and she's a frequent speaker at tech conferences, including SXSW, Lean Startup Conference, and Mind the Product. She is currently Principal at Users Know, a UX design consultancy, and works as a coach and adviser to product teams and startups.

Resources

Laura Klein's Website

Build Better Products: A Modern Approach to Building Successful User-Centered Products by Laura Klein

UX for Lean Startups by Laura Klein

What is Wrong with UX Podcast

People and Topics Laura Talks About

Kate Rudder

How to Build a Task Flow

How to Build a Task Flow Part 2: Combining Modules

Follow Laura Klein on Social Media

Twitter

In this episode of Surfacing, co-hosts Lisa & Andy talk about the world of agile software development. They explore what it is, what it's meant to be, and the strengths and weaknesses of working with agility. Andy talks about his hands-on experience with agile, and Lisa wonders about the role executives and other leaders play in pushing their teams to work faster.

Episode transcript

Show Notes

Alex Edmans – Grow the Pie

W3C

Agile software development

Scaled agile Framework (SAFe)

In this episode, Lisa and Andy talk with Per Axbom. Most know Per as the co-host of the UX Podcast, but in this interview, we talk with Per about his research and work in design ethics, his first computer, and his experiences on one of the newer social media platforms, Clubhouse.

Episode transcript

About Per Axbom

Per has been working with computers since a child in the early 1980s and professionally with the Internet since the mid-90s. Today he is a consultant in UX, accessibility and digital strategy, as well as a speaker and writer on Digital Ethics. He has spent sent the last five years reading, teaching and having conversations around all the things that lead to negative impact in digital. The purpose being to become better at building and designing digital products that promote wellbeing and mitigate harm. It's not about hindering digital progress, Per says. It's about choosing the best direction for it.

He is the communication theorist born in Liberia. For two decades Per has educated digital professionals and helped organizations with usability, accessibility and UX. He has been blogging since 1997, podcasting since 2007 and is often invited to speak at international conferences. He teaches Ethics in design at vocational school Nackademin and is an advocate for responsible innovation.

Per makes technology safe and compassionate through design, coaching and teaching. You can hear his voice on UX Podcast, follow him on Twitter, read his blog and buy his handbook Digital Compassion. The book contains tools and models for developing digital solutions that contribute to inclusion, sustainability and wellbeing.

Show Notes

UX Podcast

Per's Clubhouse Overview

Per's Blog

Africa is Way Bigger Than you Think

It's Time to Admit That There's No Such Thing as a Digital Native

GDPR

Swedish Bank ID Daniel Kahneman

Richard Thaler

Per's Digital Compassion Handbook

In this episode of Surfacing, co-hosts Andy Vitale and Lisa Welchman talk to qualitative researcher and experience strategist Meena Kothandaraman. They talk about understanding qualitative research and why it's essential to be inspired by and learn from people when designing products. Meena also shares advice for teams who face challenges and constraints around getting research integrated into their development process.

About Meena Kothandaraman

With 25 years of experience, Meena has consulted to emphasize the strategic value of customer experience across product, space and service. She truly believes that businesses can achieve greater focus by better understanding the behaviors of their customers, and those who create the products from within the business. Experiencing the journey of conducting research can truly inspire! Apart from her core consulting practice, Meena has lectured in the Bentley University Human Factors and Information Design (HFID) graduate program in her 15 year tenure. She has helped the program to stand as one of the top human factors/user experience programs worldwide. She holds an M.S. in Information Resources Management from Syracuse University and a B.Com. in MIS from the University of Ottawa, Canada.

Apart from work, Meena has written a children's book, hosts a cooking show, and is a South Indian classical violinist. She has firmly maintained a strong work life balance, and has her two children and husband to thank for making life so rich.

Episode transcript

Show Notes

Meena's Twitter

Twig + FIsh Website

Twig+Fish Blog

Qualitative Research

Zarla Ludin Twitter

NCredible Framework

Bring Your Humanity to Work

Bentley University - Information Design & Corporate Communication Course

Fluxible

Hal Miller-Jacobs

In this episode, Lisa and And speak with MikeMonteiro, author, speaker, and co-founder of Mule Design. They talk about how change happens in companies, the early days of the web, and Mike's new talk, My People Were in Shipping. They also discuss what's next for Mike Monteiro, the difference between concerts and shows, and Mike picks the musicians in his all-time supergroup.

Episode Transcript

About Mike Monteiro

Author of Design Is a Job and You're My Favorite Client. Giver of barnburning talks about ethics and responsibility in design. Leader of workshops that fill people with the confidence to do the jobs they were hired for.

Show Notes

Mule Design

My People Were in Shipping

Image Maps

Table Layouts

Blink Tags

The Collected Angers (Bookshop)

Medium Designers Unionized

Music References

Corey Taylor Little Red Corvette

Chris Cornell One

Dave Grohl's Article about Concerts

Sam Goody

Electric Fetus

Amoeba

Knitting Factory

Floating Record Player (with JB Picture Disc)

Mike Monteiro's Dream Band

Vocals - Aretha Franklin

Bass – Mike Watt (Minutemen, Firehose)

Guitar – Prince

Harp & Piano – Alice Coltrane

Horns – John Coltrane

Drums – Questlove

In this episode of Surfacing, Andy and Lisa talk to the speaker, author, and creativity evangelist Denise Jacobs. They discuss Denise's evolution from digital maker to becoming a creative support system for the digital maker community, her book Banish Your Inner Critic, and Denise's latest project focusing on leaders of digital makers.

Episode Transcript

About Denise Jacobs

Denise Jacobs' expertise lies at the intersection of creativity, confidence, and achievement. Denise keynotes conferences and consults with tech companies worldwide, giving a Creative Dose™ – an injection of inspiration, relevant content, and immediately applicable tools to help people do their best work. Through her company, The Creative Dose, she helps individuals and teams to hack their creative brains, banish their inner critic, and develop powerful communication and speaking skills in order to enable them to unblock creativity, cultivate collaboration, and ignite innovation. Through working with Denise, employees become engaged contributors, synergistic collaborators, and authentic leaders.

Denise has presented at events and organizations worldwide such as Google, Facebook, Automattic, GitHub, FastWeb.It, the BBC, South By Southwest Interactive, Brand Minds, Forbes8, Mind The Product, The Agile Alliance, NDC Oslo, UX Week, The Society for Technical Communications, various chapters of The American Marketing Association, Creative Mornings, The Future of Storytelling, The Future of Web Design, Inbound, and TEDxRheinMain.

Denise is the author of Banish Your Inner Critic, the premier handbook on silencing self-doubt to unleash creativity and do your best work. A Web Design & Development industry veteran, Denise is also the author of The CSS Detective Guide, the principal book on troubleshooting CSS code, and is co-author to the Smashing Book #3: Redesign the Web, as well as the book, InterAct with Web Standards: A holistic guide to web design.

Denise is an instructor for the Stanford Continuing Studies Program and has been a guest lecturer in courses at Stanford University's Design Program. She is also a LinkedIn Learning course instructor, with two of her courses in the Microsoft and LinkedIn Global Skills Initiative's Soft Skills and Graphic Design critical learning paths.

Denise's passion projects include Rawk The Web, a movement focused on changing the face of the tech industry by increasing the numbers of visible diverse tech experts, and The Creativity (R)Evolution, a movement to spread the force of creativity as a vehicle for personal transformation and world-wide positive change.

Denise's website

Denise on Twitter

Denise on Instagram

Denise on LinkedIn

Denise's Facebook fan page

Denise Book – Banish Your Inner Critic

Denise Book – The CSS Detective Guide

Denise's LinkedIn Learning Courses:

• Banish Your Inner Critic
• Creative Collaboration
• Business Case for Creativity
• Creativity for All – Hacking

Denise's craft courses – bath product making, etc.

Artist Hilma af Klint

James Altucher on being an idea machine

Dashner Design & Restoration on YouTube

In this episode, co-hosts Lisa Welchman and Andy Vitale speak to Kevin Hoffman, a design industry veteran currently the digital services expert leading design for the Veterans Affairs administration. He is also a speaker and author of Meeting Design: For Managers, Makers, and Everyone. This episode covers a wide variety of topics: how meetings have changed since the shift to working remotely during the pandemic; what can be classified as a meeting--and the group explores different types of meetings, including the meeting where Kevin introduced Lisa and Andy to each other.

Episode transcript

About Kevin

Kevin M. Hoffman is an information architect and design strategist that has been building digital tools since 1995. He holds a deep belief that properly designed and executed time spent together, or a good meeting is a core element of good design. It puts necessary shared understanding and trust in place, enabling teams to make better experiences real. Kevin is regularly hired to facilitate design meetings for web and application design projects. He also speaks and provides workshops on the design of meetings and collaboration all over the world.

Show Notes

Kevin's Website

Kevin's Book

MURAL

Milanote

Miro

SAFe Agile

Marty Cagan

I Am Not a Cat Video

Department of Veteran's Affairs

Angela Colter Quilting (Twitter)

Social Links

Kevin Twitter

Kevin LinkedIn

In this month's Deep Dive, co-hosts Lisa Welchman and Andy Vitale explore a much-debated topic: should designers learn how to code? The conversation took an interesting turn as the two begin to consider how teams are structured around the web and discuss new possibilities about how design and technology teams can work together.

Episode transcript

Show Notes

"A Moment of Time with Editors" - On WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors.

Lisa's Execution Atom

If you're bored and want more of this debate