Chelsea Mauldin, co-founder and executive director of the Public Policy Lab, dives into the intersection of design in the public sector, the struggles her nonprofit faces versus those in the private sector, and the growth of the civic design community. She also discusses government inefficiency, the role of taxes, funding sources for not-for-profit organizations, compensating highly skilled professionals in the public sector, the importance of values, and the power of poetry.

Lou sits down with Alex Schmidt, author of Deliberate Intervention: Using Policy and Design to Navigate the Harms of New Technology. They discuss the harms of modern technology, proactive approaches to counteract biases, and bringing design and policy closer together in the field.

Ahead of the 2022 DesignOps Summit, Lou speaks with guest Jon Fukuda, a co-founder of Limina where for 18 years he has been delivering UX and technical design to his clients. His focus is on facilitating the implementation of scalable research and design operations. Lou and John discuss the concept of digital transformation and explore what it looks like to walk a client through the difficult terrain of operationalizing their design processes, how to have those difficult conversations surrounding company culture, taking the lead as a change agent, and more. Jon is co-founder of Limina.co with 20+ years as a User Experience Specialist with a focus on UX Strategy, Design Thinking, and UI Design with experience leading human-centered requirements, strategy, interaction design, testing, and evaluation. Most recently, Jon has dedicated his efforts to Research & Design Operations facilitation for scalable/sustainable human-centered systems.

Lou sits down with Atlassian’s Design Enablement Coordinator, Jess Norris, to discuss her talk on ADHD that she’ll be presenting at this year’s Design Ops Summit. After being diagnosed with ADHD a little over a year ago, Jessica went on a journey to discover the secret superpowers that lie within everyone with a neurodivergent brain. She now urges managers to use these perspectives that team members may bring to the table to enhance their design ops work.

When it comes to design operations, it can be challenging to find the best method to provide the creative team with the tools they need that will eliminate some of their more mundane tasks to allow them more time to focus on their ideas and innovative work. Lou talks with Candace Myers, design operations leader with Netflix StudiosXD, about how she integrates technology and practices to optimize her efficiency in the creative and design fields. Candace will be speaking at the DesignOps Summit 2022 virtual conference, September 8-9. Candace recommends: I am obsessed with the Pivot Podcast with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. It has EVERYTHING that ops professionals needs to consider- human intent & emotion, business conditions, what good and poor leadership looks like, and brand strategy. It's a must listen for anyone in tech, but especially generalists.

Lou sits down with the Head of Design for the Data Team at Amplitude, Courtney George, to discuss her talk “Scale Your Organization and Grow Your Designers” that she is giving at this year’s DesignOps Summit. What is a Design Leader’s role in providing stability for their team? How has that role changed over the course of the pandemic? Over the past few years, the security levels employees feel at their jobs have fluctuated drastically. Are there tools we are already using that can help our teams feel more confident in these uncertain times? Listen as Courtney and Lou touch on these topics, and more. Courtney Recommends: The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier Courtney Maya George is a design leader, mentor, mom of two, and a sketchnote hobbyist. She is currently the Head of Design for the Data team at Amplitude, where she’s building up a new product offering and growing the design organization. Prior to Amplitude, she spent nearly eight years at Adobe, where she built a design team from the ground up focused on the Developer Ecosystem. She believes in creating an inclusive design culture and thrives on building relationships, solving complex and ambiguous problems, and coaching designers to take control of their own career growth. Follow her on Twitter @courtneymaya and LinkedIn linkedin/in/courtneymayageorge

With the surge in popularity and need for hybrid and virtual events, Lou sits down with Intel’s Director of Accessibility, Darryl Adams, to discuss how technology can make in-person and virtual conferences more accessible and inclusive to speakers and audience members with disabilities. He also speaks to how accessible conference design can be improved and fine-tuned for speakers with disabilities, and help those without disabilities feel more comfortable presenting. What kind of accessibility principles and design factors should conference hosts consider for audience members with disabilities and those without disabilities when setting up for in-person and virtual events? How does this technology increase engagement and diversity in attendance? Listen as Darryl and Lou touch on all these topics, and more. Darryl Adams recommends: Demystifying Disability by Emily Ladau Darryl Adams is the Director of Accessibility at Intel. Darryl leads a team that works at the intersection of technology and human experience helping discover new ways for people with disabilities to work, interact, and thrive. Darryl’s mission is to connect his passion for technology innovation with Intel’s disability inclusion efforts to help make computing and access to digital information more accessible for everyone and to make Intel an employer of choice for employees with disabilities. For the full transcript: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/announcements/podcast-making-conferences-more-accessible-with-darryl-adams-intels-director-of-accessibility/

Natalie Marie Dunbar joins Lou to discuss the lonely pursuit that is content strategy. She also digs into what it means to build a content strategy practice—whether you’re just starting out as a solo practitioner, scaling up in a large organization, or trying to make a case for your CS practice’s value. Her new Rosenfeld Media book, From Solo to Scaled: Building a Sustainable Content Strategy Practice, serves as a “companion” to address this loneliness as much as it is a guide to the resources needed to create a sustainable content practice. This episode offers a preview of what Natalie calls the Content Strategy Practice Blueprint. There are five components to that blueprint, including making the business case, building strong relationships, creating frameworks and tools, and establishing meaningful measures of success. For more, check out Natalie’s new book, From Solo to Scaled,—now available from Rosenfeld Media. https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/from-solo-to-scaled-building-a-sustainable-content-strategy-practice Natalie recommends: Jonathan McFadden, a content designer, copywriter + storyteller. https://mcfaddenj20.medium.com/

How can remote workers stay connected without burning out? At Wayfair, it quickly became clear that virtual happy hours and virtual team lunches were adding time to peoples’ schedules without really adding value. Rusha Sopariwala is a Senior Manager of Product Design at Wayfair, and she helped her team pivot to important new rituals for remote teams, like dedicated “focus times” to lighten meeting loads, mindfulness over different time zone differences, and “camera off” meetings to reduce employee exhaustion. In this episode, get a taste of what Rusha will cover during her presentation at Design at Scale 2022 this June 8-10 — from tips for helping remote employees share their passions, to creating remote connections without adding to potential burnout. Learn more about Rusha: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/design-at-scale-2022/speakers/rusha-sopariwala/ Rusha recommends: Hidden Brain Podcast by Shankar Vendentam which dives into human brains and just how we perceive and think and how our unconscious patterns drive our behaviors. It really makes science digestible in a beautiful story. It humbles me as we design human centered experiences, just how complex we are! https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain Follow Rusha on Instagram and LinkedIn www.instagram.com/rrrusha www.linkedin.com/rrrusha

How can individual designers use their skills to improve the experience of people in disaster situations? Emily Danielson, Senior Design Strategist at ExxonMobil, joins Lou to not only consider this question, but to reflect on past experiences—including the database she developed which was used by the FBI in a multi-million dollar federal corruption lawsuit—and look ahead to her talk at the upcoming Design at Scale conference this June. Emily recommends: Learn more about the benefits offered by mutual aid and ways for UX professionals to use their skills to support our communities: mutualaiddisasterrelief.org Learn more about Emily’s talk at Design at Scale 2022: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/design-at-scale-2022/sessions/i-mean-i-can-lift-a-shovel-design-skills-in-disaster-response/