The Human Centered Design Podcast (Premium)

I recently caught up for coffee with John Collins, also based in Dublin, and the former Director of Content for Intercom and now an independent consultant working in content marketing for businesses around the world.

In this conversation we chat about the role of Content Marketing vs Product Marketing and chat about the massive growth of Intercom over the 7 years that John was there. I put John on the spot (you’re welcome John!) and asked him for the 5-key learnings during this period and also the things that they did that led the business to generating over 1/4 million business leads in that time. 

In this episode I chat with Marzia Aricò, Design Director at Livework in London, and based in the stunning city of Rotterdam. We chat about service measurement - and some of the new work that Marzia and her colleagues at Livework have been working on to help move the dial forward for organisations in this space.

It’s a fantastic conversation and totally enjoyed connecting with Marzia - let’s jump in!

If you like what we do at This is HCD and want to help us - there are a few things you can do;

The episode you are about to hear is with Felisha Araniti, from SCAD University in Savannah. Felisha connected with me several years ago when we ran the first Doing Design Festival and recently published a visualisation that caught my attention. Titled ‘Neurodiversity’ within Human Centered Design Practice, I connected some of the dots between a conversation or episode with Brigette Metzler about how certain neurodiverse minds may well be better suited to aspects of design. It was a throw away comment by me at that time, but Felisha has been researching in this space for a while, following her own diagnosis with ADHD.

If you like what we do at This is HCD and want to help us - there are a few things you can do;

Let’s jump in!

Hello and welcome to This is HCD. Our goal is to have conversations that inspire and to help move the dial forward for organisations to become more human-centred in their approach to solving complex business and societal problems.

If you like what we do at This is HCD and want to help us - there are a few things you can do;

In this episode I chat with one of the leaders in the Content Design space, Rachel McConnell. We chat about the work that they are doing in Flo Healthcare, and touch of some of the work that they did whilst at Deliveroo. We chat about the learnings at Flo, where the organisation is going through another iteration on how to connect the dots between Product Design, Content Design etc. Rachel now finds herself in such an exciting position as Design Director with Flo, that allows her to apply much of the knowledge within their second book titled ‘Leading Content Design’ published by the wonderful people at A Book Apart. 

We chat about the work Rachel is also doing with Lead with Tempo Conference too.

Rachel was such a wonderful guest, we had so much fun making this episode - I’m sure you’ll enjoy it too!

Hello and welcome to This is HCD. My name is Gerry Scullion and I am a designer, educator and host of This is HCD, based in the wonderful city of Dublin, Ireland.

Our goal here is to have conversations that inspire and to help move the dial forward for organisations to become more human-centred in their approach to solving complex business and societal problems.

This is a new type of episode that I am looking to explore more over the coming years, and that is looking laterally into other fields where we as change-makers can find inspiration. And inspiration you are 100% about to feel and hear in this conversation with one of the finest singer-songwriters around anywhere today, and that is Mark Geary.

The music you hear throughout this episode, is from Mark’s first album, released in 2002 and has accompanied me on my journey as a designer and an ex-patriot whilst living in Australia. It wasn’t until recently though that we really got to sit face to face, in front of turf stove, and drink countless coffees and sing and play guitar together in Mark’s gorgeous cottage in the wilds of a rainy Autumn day deep within a forest on the outskirts of Dublin. 

In this conversation we talk about the remarkable journey Mark has been on over the last 2-decades that has seen him play all over the world. 

Mark doesn’t play music to be adored, he plays to exist - it’s part of who he is. It’s part of his fabric. He constantly tours around the world, often with Glen Hansard, another phenomenally talented Irish musician. 

We speak about his roots in Sin-E in New York, a place where he cut his teeth - a free flowing cafe that many music lovers will automatically connect with Jeff Buckley, but this was a community of like minded people, that cheered and nurtured their own. A community, much like our own within This is HCD, that is trying to figure it all out and get ahead.

There are points in this conversation where we chat about Mark’s environment, and how having the space set up and ready to channel whatever it is that we call ‘it’ - how this affects the process. Mark’s guitars are all around the place, and he’s constantly playing, experimenting, trying and testing out ideas. He’s a master crafts person.

We even talk how this environment is shaping his music, or maybe his music is shaping his environment. How living within a forest is permeating into his latest release, with his latest single being called The Forest.

Let’s get into it!

Aluminum mining: jobs and death in rural Ireland

Aluminum is a critical material for digital. Since 1970, there has been 559% increase in its mining. A typical smartphone can be 14% aluminum, while a up to 50% of a laptop can be made up of steel and aluminum. 

Pat and Nuala Geoghegan are farmers from Askeaton, County Limerick. Soon after the Aughinish Alumina aluminum mining factory established itself nearby, their cattle began to get sick and die. And the Geoghegan family got sick. Their beautiful farm became “the killing fields”.

My name is Gerry Scullion and I am a designer, educator and host of This is HCD, based in the wonderful city of Dublin, Ireland.

Our goal here is to have conversations that inspire and to help move the dial forward for organisations to become more human-centred in their approach to solving complex business and societal problems.

If you’re new around here, let me tell you a little bit about This is HCD. It started life in Sydney, whilst I lived there for nearly 14-years. We have been creating content for over 5-years - all for the love of sharing knowledge to the global design community. At the moment, this podcast is my main focus in my career and growing it is my number 1 goal. If you want to leave a review (preferably a 5-star one!), I’d really love it - it takes a couple of minutes, but it’s one of the most important thing you can do to show support - every little helps. 

Also we launched our College on This is HCD.com where you can take courses now on visualisation, design research, UX and Service Design - check it out

In this episode I speak with Lydia Hooper, a humanity centred designer based in Colorado, US. We connected recently off the back of my stakeholder mapping essentials course, which is proof that I am always open to connect and interviewing people! Even on support tickets :-)

We chat about non-violent communication, Lydia’s own design principles and values that she uses to guide her career, and how she managed to form these at such an early stage of her career. We touch on Lydia’s work at the fantastic Design Justice Network also.

Let’s jump in..

Hello and welcome to Bringing Design Closer. Our goal is to have conversations that inspire and to help move the dial forward for organisations to become more human-centred in their approach to solving complex business and societal problems.

Before we jump in, I have a favour to ask. Ive been creating content for This is HCD for over 5-years or so, all for the love of sharing knowledge to the global design community. One thing you could do is leave a review (preferably a 5-star one!), as it helps us grow our community - every little helps. 

Even if you don’t review, you can go one better by telling people you work with about the podcast. 

We launched a space on ThisisHCD.com where you can take courses now on visualisation, design research and more.

In this episode I speak with Peter Lofgren, Head of Design for Service NSW in Australia. We chat about Design at Scale, what this means, and how Peter has approached his work across several large organisations, Atlassian, ABC, Westpac and now Service NSW. 

Let’s jump in...

Hello and welcome to Bringing Design Closer. Our goal is to have conversations that inspire and to help move the dial forward for organisations to become more human-centred in their approach to solving complex business and societal problems.

Before we jump in, I have a favour to ask. Ive been creating content for This is HCD for over 5-years or so, all for the love of sharing knowledge to the global design community. One thing you could do is leave a review (preferably a 5-star one!), as it helps us grow our community - every little helps. 

Even if you don’t review, you can go one better by telling people you work with about the podcast. 

We launched a space on ThisisHCD.com where you can take courses now on visualisation, design research and more.

In this episode I speak with Ricardo Martins, Professor of Service Design at SCAD, of Savannah College of Art and Design in the US. In this conversation we speak about the parts of design that are often trivialised somewhat, and that’s the implementation of our designs into sometimes seriously complex systems made up of people and processes. We also speak about how we can educate the future Design talent better, and chat about where Ricardo feels Design Leaders are lacking.

It’s a fantastic conversation and totally enjoyed connecting with him - let’s jump in!

Thea Kleinmagd is a Circular Material Chains Innovator at Fairphone. When you are buying your next smartphone, please consider Fairphone. They make excellent, modular and repairable products that are built to last. I started our chat by asking Thea to describe the potential toxic impacts of some of the over 50 different materials found in a typical smartphone.