Technically Speaking with Harrison Wheeler

Summary

Mic test. 1, 2, 3.

You know, this interview should have been done in between karaoke songs. Why? Because Harrison and his guest share a love for singing.

As a creative since the age of 3 and a pioneer in the field of UX and design, Mindy Duong is an eyewitness to its challenges and improvements, one of which is being the only woman in the room.

So to give back to the community and show strong support to women in technology, she's been trying to help the younger generation, especially women, get into technology through Advancing Women in Technology.

By helping promote technology, explaining, and sharing her experiences, she helps inspire the younger generation of women to stay creative. So listen to this episode to get to know more about Mindy, her advocacy, as well as her love for the arts.

Highlights

About the Guest:

As a creative leader, UX innovator, and strategic brand builder, Mindy Duong has proven experience building high-performing teams and bringing bold strategies to life to position top-tier brands for maximum growth.

She has led marketing, UX, and digital initiatives in various industries throughout her career. These include financial services, fashion, retail, consumer products, technology, telecommunications, and events/live entertainment.

Since 2012, she has led all aspects of user experience, digital, and brand design for US & China-focused financial institution East West Bank — coaching a cross-functional team based in the US, India, and China through the delivery of brand-aligned assets and content.

Earlier, she played a key role in elevating the e-commerce capability and digital presence of LA-based fashion brand BCBGMAXAZRIA — successfully building a staff of four (4), boosting brand awareness, and significantly growing customer engagement.

She began her career with creative roles at Ticketmaster/Citysearch, TelePacific, and Big Zoo while also leading two organizations as an entrepreneur.

As a passionate creative, she thrives on aligning technology, vision, culture, and design thinking to solve critical challenges and enhance the customer experience. With impeccable relationship-building skills, she brings the best out of teams, drives transformational results, and consistently achieves success.

Connect with Mindy Duong:

• Website: http://min-d.com/
• Email: [email protected]
• Form: http://min-d.com/contact.html
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mindy-duong/
• Reach Further Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reach-further-podcast/id1612153380
• Advancing Women in Tech
  
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Summary

If you were told you were about to die, how would you respond? Steven Wakabayashi didn’t wait long to use it as opportunity to turn his health, life, and career around. His three programs are his best approach to prevent others from going through the same thing he did.

Do not wait until something bad happens to start taking your health seriously. Steven's story provides valuable information and support to help you make lasting changes in your life, so that you can become your best self today.

You would love what he said about how there isn't only one way to work and talk about things. By providing a space where people can observe other options, we can help empower them. The world needs more stories like these.

So check out this week's episode where he shares not only his accomplishments in UX, but also his vulnerabilities. Discover how he changed how his team works, processes, and still produced impactful results.

Highlights

Timestamps

(00:47) - Leading by example; showing up for himself and his community while weathering COVID

(01:49) - Icebreaker: The mind-blowing pandemic hobby he developed, how it benefits him, and his plans for it in the future

(04:01) - Icebreaker: The two words synonymous to Steven Wakabayashi     

(08:05) - Icebreaker: Why it's important to talk about institutionalizing changes needed in DEI 

(08:37) - Who Steven Wakabayashi is: The unabridged version

(11:37) - Why he took a step back to reflect after achieving success

(15:12) - Resuscitating not only his love for creativity but his heart as well

(16:09) - How his identity played a role in his work on inclusion and equity and his three programs thay support it

• (17:47) - QTBIPOC
• (19:55) - Stranger Creative
• (30:13) - Mindful Sights

(21:07) - Changing institutionalized inequity one word at a time through self-expression

(24:25) - Methods to use to approach more equitable problem spaces

(30:13) - The beauty of mindfulness and presentness in two perspectives: his as an individual and the society's

(32:22) - How to approach a new project 

(36:03) - COVID recovery advice

About the Guest:

Steven Wakabayashi (he/him) is a queer, first-generation Taiwanese-Japanese American based in New York City. He's a Creative Director, Changemaker, and Founder of mission-driven organizations empowering historically marginalized communities within the design, tech, and mindfulness industries.

After leading creative teams at many notable brands and agencies, including Apple, Google, Walmart, Huge, and Razorfish, he is now creating pathways for queer BIPOC creatives into the design industry through QTBIPOC Design, creating safe spaces for BIPOC communities within mindfulness through Mindful Sights, and designing equitable products and experiences for clients with his creative agency Stranger...

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Summary

One positive thing about the pandemic is quarantine scheming.

Many innovative ideas were born out of it, one of which is HmntyCntrd. What the industry needs are finally being addressed, thanks to Vivianne Castillo and her team. They are passionate about it and can call it out for what it is: How to be human-centered. Because to be human-centered, you must go above and beyond being relevant and performative.

For issues as systematic as this, no matter where we end up on our corporate journey, there will always be things that aren't right. Not everyone is willing to think about these things.

So check this episode out to learn more about Vivianne, her team, their work within trauma's context, its cycles, and how to be a trauma-informed leader with HmntyCntrd.

About the Guest:

Vivianne Castillo, who has over 8+ years of experience in psychology and research, founded HmntyCntrd in 2020. Several media outlets have featured her work and opinions, including Slate, Fortune, Huffington Post, Fast Company, and ELLE Magazine.

Throughout her career, she has influenced executives, taught others about trauma-informed care, and empowered others to challenge the status quo in Fortune 500 companies. As a human services professional with a multicultural upbringing and with a love of cognitive behavioral psychology, she brings a unique perspective to her work as an entrepreneur, organizational designer, and innovator.

Connect with Vivianne Castillo:

Website: https://hmntycntrd.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vccastillo/

Timestamps

(01:44) - Icebreaker: How Vivianne's desire to break free of her unhealthy, toxic, codependent relationship with corporate America led her to help other professionals fight back against capitalism

(04:59) - Icebreaker: How to learn and explore new things through reading, playing with babies, traveling, and riding a bike

(06:14) - Icebreaker: Sitcom over reality TV, which show she’d like to be on, and why

(07:48) - How she bridged her love of people with business and helping others

(10:20) - Her realization of how broken the industry is after attending the O'Reilly Design Conference and the one speaker that gave her hope

(16:38) - Creating her own voice, brand, and thought work instead of over-indexing on her relationship with any of her employers

(19:21) - How losing herself felt like versus how healing from workplace trauma and hardship looked like

(23:04) - HmntyCntrd’s beliefs and three areas of content

(25:29) - The huge differences between burnout and trauma

(28:53) - What the great resignation is really telling us and how to prepare for the new generation of workforce in the next 10 years

(30:14) - The future of work: Trauma-informed and healthy workplace relationships

(31:13) - What's on the horizon for HmntyCntrd

(33:10) - 4 tips on how to build dreams, fulfill desires, and develop interests

Resource:

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David Silva is a web developer and founder of Techqueria, the largest community of Latinx professionals in the tech industry, with over 18,000 members. In this episode, we explore his tech path, from learning to code as a young child in Colombia to studying religion in Israel, working in startups in San Francisco, and finally settling in New York. We also talk about how difficult it can be to start a business as a minority and how important it is to find and create a community.

Jump straight into:

(01:27) - Icebreaker questions: David’s philosophy and mindset, his latest obsession, and the two words that describe him the most. 

(10:46) - Introducing David Silva: a man who is always around education and goes wherever his curiosity leads him. 

(14:45) - David’s journey to engineering. 

(17:14) - The biggest challenges of owning a consulting firm and working as a freelancer. 

(23:21) - The motivation behind TETA: a safe community for Latinos who work in tech. 

(30:17 ) - The importance of finding a community to encourage and empower one another. 

Episode Resources:

Connect with David through Instagram and Twitter.   

Techqueria | Homepage  

Temi Adeniyi is a design leader and product designer who’s making wonderful things for the internet. In this episode, she takes us through her journey into the design industry, from London to Berlin, always following her curiosity. We also dive further into her four principles, which are: collaboration in all directions openness, giving trust, and fairness. Join us to know more about leadership in the field of design!

Jump straight into:

(00:54) - Introducing Temi Adeniyi: a former product and current design leader who happens to be a candy lover.  

(04:09) - The design scene of the creative and innovative city of Berlin.

(06:16) - Icebreaker questions: her latest obsession, what she thinks people should know more about, and why people describe her as funny and thoughtful. 

(14:09) - Beginnigs, motivations, and next challenges in Temi’s design journey.  

(19:00) - Temi’s four principles of lead can be applied to any industry. 

(25:28) - More information about Temi's article: Do designers who claim to have the impostor syndrome actually have it? How to get out of that?. 

Episode Resources:

Connect with Temi through Twitter. 

Temi Adeniyi | Website.

What we misunderstand about imposter syndrome as design leaders | Article. 

Kevin Bethune is an author, designer, and entrepreneur. He is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Dreams Design + Life, an agency that offers design and innovation services with a human-centered approach. In this episode, we explore his remarkable background, which ranges from engineering to finance to design, while maintaining a creatively curious eye. We also discuss the future of design in an increasingly interconnected world. Listen and learn how to help the world by delivering important innovations that will benefit everyone.

Jump straight into: 

(00:57) - Introducing Kevin Bethune: his dream and vision of shaping the future that led to the creation of the agency DreamsDesign + Life.

(4:21) - Getting to know the creatively curious person Kevin: his love of music, where he finds inspiration, and his creative heroes. 

(8:44) - Kevin's soul-searching journey: from engineering to finance to startups and, eventually, to running his own agency and publishing a book. 

(16:33) - DreamsDesign + Life: the motivation to start an agency where multidisciplinary collaboration and innovation coexist. 

(20:27) - More on Kevin's book, "Reimagining Design, Unlocking Strategic Innovation": the connection of design and business, and the value of multidisciplinary collaboration.

(24:02) - What's next for design? More representation and diversity is needed in the field to break through and have a better future.

Episode Resources:

Connect with Kevin Bethune through LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. 

Dreams Design + Life |  Homepage 

Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation | Book 

Chasing Trane | Documentary

Technically Speaking is a podcast by Harrison Wheeler about BIPOC designers, entrepreneurs & technologists sharing their unique stories of triumph and resilience.

Episode description

Monique Wray is a San Francisco-based animator, illustrator, director, and the founder of Made by Small Studio. In this episode of Technically Speaking, we discuss Monique's path as a black artist and the challenges that come with it, as well as her art style, which is heavily influenced by her Jamaican roots. Join us to discover more about her introspective and creative journey, which resulted in some great projects with a wide variety of clients and content.

Jump straight into:

(01:36) - Getting to know Monique Wray: the cartoons and books that inspired her to start a career as an artist, as well as her current studio elements, and the digital art technology that she uses in her work. 

(9:45) - Monique Wray’s career journey: the challenges she faced as a part of a minority, and the start of her creative business. 

(17:32) - Monique’s art style: a glimpse of her Jamaican heritage.

(19:40) - The people and events that encourage her to embrace her work's art and style while always having fun in the process.

(22:08) - Monique's favorite part of her job: the ability to work with a wide variety of clients and content.

(27:41) - Having a goal, while remaining flexible, and being open to discovering and trying new things are the elements that will lead to success. 

Episode Resources:

Connect with Monique through Instagram

Made by Small Studio Homepage  | Instagram

Eva PenzeyMoog is the author of "Design for Safety," the founder of The Inclusive Safety Project, and the principal designer at 8th Light. She is a strong supporter of protecting the weakest, particularly when it comes to interpersonal violence. In this episode, we addressed design ethics, how technology may harm other people, and the most frequent and alarming violations. Join along and learn more about how the Process for Inclusive Safety may be able to resolve the problem.

Jump straight into:

(01:43)  - Introducing Eva Penzey Moog: Her journey to protecting the most vulnerable and how technology contributes to domestic violence.  

(06:36) - The possible technological angle for policy is to begin connecting vulnerable groups with technology.

(10:02) - Eva's book 'Designed for Safety' explores the uncomfortable topic of people in technology causing harm and how to address this issue through a safety process.

(16:40) - The most efficient and quick method of implementing the process for inclusive safety.

(19:24) - The three most common and very concerning tech violation issues.

(23:07) - New technologies like Metaverse, NFTs, and cryptocurrency have the potential to reproduce injustices in a system without regulations.

(26:24) - More about Eva’s Inclusive Safety Project: a space to educate about preventing tech from facilitating domestic violence and other interpersonal harm.

Episode Resources:

Connect with Eva through Twitter and LinkedIn. 

Eve PenzeyMood |  Homepage.

The Inclusive Safety Project |  Homepage. 

Book Design for Safety

Episode description

In this episode of Technically Speaking, the Experience Designer at NWEA (and my Clubhouse friend) Chris Thoms joins the show to unravel the events that led him into the creative business after dedicating his life to soccer coaching. We touch upon the value of transferable skills and creating safe spaces to reframe the conversations inside a work environment. Plus, he shares how he got in touch with the children and communities that he is designing for and how that is part of his purpose.

Jump straight into:

(01:18) - From soccer fields to experience design: Discussing biased preferences and systemic racism within sports coaching, design industry and entrepreneurship.

(11:23) - The offseason: Get to know more about Chris’ life and the events that led him to the creative business.

(21:01) -  Switching industries: Why it’s important that all companies recognize transferable skills?

(25:48) - The landmark work: How does Chris approach design and the creation of equitable outcomes?

(32:32) - Safe spaces in business: How does Chris enable safe spaces for opinion and power inside his work environment?

(36:42) - Aggressive collaboration and teamwork: On locker room communication, reframing conversations and individual success.

Episode Resources:

Connect with Chris through LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter

Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes

NWEA

Timothy Bardlavens is a Product Design leader that works to combat misinformation and harmful content inside Meta apps. In this episode, Timothy has some interesting advice and views around chaotic-good leadership, transparency and accountability. Join us while we discover more about how integrity manifests itself organizationally and within a product inside Meta!

Jump straight into:

(01:13) - Introducing Timothy Bardlaves: Learn how this chaotic good soul is battling misinformation and harmful content on Meta platforms.

(10:40) - A celebration of Black art: How is Timothy approaching his new house renovation?

(14:39) - Where are Timothy’s aspirations focused on? What attracts him to leadership roles?

(20:06) - The multiplier effect: What are other ways to evaluate good leadership impact that aren’t necessarily based on deliverables?

(24:07) - The balance between being a counselor and a coach: What’s Timothy’s best advice for aspiring managers?

(26:05) - Transparency and openness: How does integrity manifest itself organizationally and within a product inside Meta?

(30:39) -  Safe for the individuals (and the leaders): How does Timothy envision building equitable organizations in 2022? How does that show up in Meta?

(37:30) - Building an All-Black team: How was it for Timothy to demonstrate to the world the power of a work team formed exclusively by black people?

(41:18) - Timothy's advice for people looking to find their voice (and why he finds his job so energizing).

Episode Resources:

Connect with Timothy through LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter