Trailblazing

CSJ is a dear friend + first internship manager, co-founder and CEO of UX+ University, and my partner in organizing the UX+ Conference. In this episode, we talk about the problems and potential solutions in UX education, why there aren’t a lot of good design managers, and did a quick discussion on a designer-first job board wireframe.

✨ Topics with CSJ

• Why becoming a design manager is a huge ask
• Empowering designers within organizations
• Consequences of product-oriented environments
• The ideal perception of design in organizations, and the flip side
• Creating more design managers and learning manager skills
• What enables more design-centric companies
• Improving the design ecosystem
• Origin story: what problem is UX+ solving?
• Hiring, upskilling the design ecosystem
• Focusing on the early part of the career transition in design
• Creating forcing functions for learning
• Ideas from CSJ in evolving UX+’s model
• Discussing CSJ’s designer-first job board wireframe
• Empowering the candidate in the hiring process
• Getting companies to up their game

💎 Notes

• UX+ University
• UX+ Conference
• Job Board Wireframe

Dexter is my co-founder and partner at Swarm. He's one of the best founders I can think of — he's smart, funny, strategic, humble, and design + community-oriented. On this episode, we focused on what it means to be a second-time founder and his journey during the first one.

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✨ Topics with Dexter:

• Being a second time founder
• Creating a culture of ownership
• Probing for ego when hiring
• Finding the right co-founders
• Founder break-ups
• Saying no and being committed to your goals
• Not creating the necessity to take investor money
• Taking care of your investor line-up
• Thinking through what your product needs to achieve
• Humor and how Dexter was traumatized by Paul Graham
• Games and being a founder
• and lots more, TBH

💎 Notes

• Swarm
• On Deck Community
• Kalibrr
• Y-Combinator
• Dane Howard
• Joan Magno
• Aivin Solatorio
• Manny Ayala
• Endeavor
• Aaron Lee
• Paul Graham

Here's a quick introduction to what I think the show is about! For now, follow the show on Twitter for new updates!

https://twitter.com/trailblazingfm