The Informed Life

Michael Anton Dila describes himself as a “designer of conversation” and someone with a passion for starting things. Among the things he’s started are ventures in online learning, co-working, and mobile technology. He’s also held several leadership roles in an elite innovation unit in the U.S. Department of Defense. In this conversation, we discuss his latest initiative, Oslo for AI, which seeks to design better processes for governing artificial intelligence.Show notes

See full show notes at:
https://theinformed.life/2024/03/24/episode-136-michael-anton-dila/

Dave Elfving is an experience designer and educator. He spent eleven years at apple, where his last role was as Head of Interactive Strategy. These days, he’s my colleague teaching interaction design at the California College of the Arts. He’s also co-chairperson at Gray Area, a San Francisco-based nonprofit interdisciplinary cultural incubator. Gray Area is fostering fascinating work, and I wanted to discuss it with Dave.

See full show notes at:
https://theinformed.life/2024/03/10/episode-135-dave-elfving/

Joey deVilla describes himself as an experienced, engaging, accordion-playing, golden-voiced developer advocate looking for a new role. He’s had a long career in the technology space and writes about his experiences in two long-running blogs, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the Twenty-First Century and Global Nerdy. Recently, Joey became one of the many people in tech who’s lost their job in the last couple of years. That is the subject of our conversation today.

See full show notes at:
https://theinformed.life/2024/02/25/episode-134-joey-devilla/

Elizabeth McGuane is a UX director at Shopify and the author of Design by Definition, a book about the impact of language in user experience. As you might imagine, that’s a subject I’m keenly interested in, so I was excited to speak with Elizabeth about it.

See full show notes at:
https://theinformed.life/2024/02/11/episode-133-elizabeth-mcguane/

Pierluigi Dalla Rosa is an interaction designer at Humane, the makers of the AI Pin. But that isn’t the focus of our conversation today. Instead, we discuss novel computer interfaces in general, and interactive environments in particular. This is a subject that’s near to my heart, as it points to exciting possibilities for future digital experiences.

See full show notes:
https://theinformed.life/2024/01/28/episode-132-pierluigi-dalla-rosa/

Nathan Shedroff is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and educator. Like me, he teaches at the graduate interaction design program of the California College of the Arts. This conversation focuses on his new book, A Whole New Strategy, which teaches strategic thinking.

See full show notes at:
https://theinformed.life/2024/01/14/episode-131-nathan-shedroff/

This episode is a compilation of conversations from 2023. It’s not meant as a best-of collection, but an opportunity to highlight some themes that emerged during our conversations throughout the year. The episode is also an experiment, with the themes being curated partly by an AI.

Cover photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash.

Show notes

• Episode 107: Michael Becker on Knowledge Work
• Episode 108: Carrie Hane on Content Models
• Episode 110: Nicole van der Hoeven on Obsidian
• Episode 111: Andy Fitzgerald on Structured Content
• Episode 112: Jerry Michalski on Jerry’s Brain
• Episode 114: Dan Russell on The Joy of Search
• Episode 115: Are Halland on The Core Model
• Episode 116: Bob Kasenchak on Music, part 1
• Episode 117: Bob Kasenchak on Music, part 2
• Episode 118: Maggie Appleton on Digital Gardening
• Episode 119: Aidan Helfant on PKM for Learning
• Episode 120: Alex Wright on Informatica
• Episode 121: Chiara Ogan on Personal Libraries
• Episode 122: Sönke Ahrens on Smart Notes
• Episode 125: Karl Voit on Org Mode
• Episode 126: Nate Davis on IA Sub-disciplines

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Steve Portigal is an independent user research consultant. He is the author of Interviewing Users and Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries. Steve and I both have new books, so we thought it’d be fun to compare notes on writing non-fiction. In this, the second of two episodes on the subject, we focus on the process of writing. If you haven’t done so already, listen to our previous conversation, which focused on our motivations.

Show notes

• Steve Portigal
• Steve Portigal - LinkedIn
• Portigal Consulting
• Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights (2nd edition) by Steve Portigal
• Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories by Steve Portigal
• Duly Noted: Extend Your Mind Through Connected Notes by Jorge Arango
• Living in Information: Responsible Design for Digital Places by Jorge Arango
• Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, and Jorge Arango
• Scrivener
• Tinderbox
• The Informed Life episode 99: Mark Bernstein on Tinderbox
• Freeform on the App Store
• Shitty First Drafts by Anne Lamott (PDF)
• Jack Kerouac - Wikipedia
• The Informed Life episode 2: Gretchen Anderson on Writing

Show notes include Amazon affiliate links. We get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

If you're enjoying the show, please rate or review us in Apple's podcast directory:
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Steve Portigal is an independent user research consultant. He is the author of Interviewing Users and Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries. Steve was previously on the show last year, talking about research skills. This conversation is a bit different: both of us have written new books, and we thought it’d be fun to compare notes about the process. We decided to split our conversation into two parts. This episode focuses on the motivations for writing, and the second part will focus on processes.

Show Notes

• Steve Portigal
• Steve Portigal - LinkedIn
• Portigal Consulting
• Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights (2nd edition) by Steve Portigal
• Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories by Steve Portigal
• The Informed Life ep. 92 - Steve Portigal on Research Skills
• Louis Rosenfeld
• Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, and Jorge Arango
• Blogger
• The Informed Life ep. 118 — Maggie Appleton on Digital Gardening
• Maggie Appleton
• About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design (4th edition) by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, David Cronin, and Christopher Noessel
• Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick
• Obsidian
• Building a Personal Knowledge Garden (Information Architecture Conference 2022 workshop)

Show notes include Amazon affiliate links. We get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

If you're enjoying the show, please rate or review us in Apple's podcast directory:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-informed-life/id1450117117?itsct=podcast_box&itscg=30200

Audrey Crane is the Head of Growth at DesignMap, a product and strategy design firm. She’s also the author of What CEOs Need to Know About Design, a book that helps leaders understand and tap into the power of design in their organizations. In this, Audrey’s second appearance on the show, we focused on how organizations can ensure they’re getting the best design work for their money.

Show notes

• Audrey Crane - LinkedIn
• DesignMap
• What CEOs Need to Know About Design by Audrey Crane
• Banish Shadow Design with These Proven Techniques – DesignMap
• The Cost of Shadow Design Teams – DesignMap
• Levels of Organizational Design Readiness – DesignMap
• The Informed Life episode 37: Audrey Crane on Design in Organizations
• Dubberly Design Office
• Hugh Dubberly - AIGA San Francisco
• Marty Cagan - Silicon Valley Product Group
• Ben Horowitz - Wikipedia
• Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia
• Peter Merholz
• Design maturity: Yesterday vs. today - Inside Design Blog
• Leah Buley
• Hey designers, they’re gaslighting you. By Sara Wachter-Boettcher - Nice Work
• Jared Spool - Wikipedia
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Show notes include Amazon affiliate links. We get a small commission for purchases made through these links.

If you're enjoying the show, please rate or review us in Apple's podcast directory:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-informed-life/id1450117117?itsct=podcast_box&itscg=30200