
Power of Ten with Andy Polaine
In the Power of Ten podcast, Andy Polaine talks to guests from a broad range of disciplines about the intersection of design, technology, psychology, organisations, culture and society. The show looks at how design operates at many levels and in many forms, from thoughtful detail through organisational transformation to the changes in society and the world.
Latest episodes

May 15, 2025 • 37min
S4 Ep11: Meltem Naz Kaso - UX Career Coach
Power of Ten is a show about design operating at all levels of zoom, from thoughtful detail to changes in organisation, society and the world, hosted by design leadership coach, Andy Polaine.
My guest in this episode is my friend Meltem Naz Kaso, a Barcelona-based UX Career Coach with a background in UX Research. Her last full-time position was at Glovo, where she served as a UX Research Manager and Staff UX Researcher.
She works with Senior UX professionals to unblock their careers by boosting their leadership and communication skills.
LINKS
=====
Mel
====
- Career With Mel: https://careerwithmel.com
- Mel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meltemnaz/
- Mel's Newsletter and Coaching Services: https://melbarcelona.substack.com/
- Leadership Atelier, BCN: https://leadershipateliers.com/facilitators/meltem-naz-kaso-coskun
- World Usability Congress: https://worldusabilitycongress.com/agenda-2025/
Andy
====
- Website: https://www.polaine.com
- Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws
- Podcast: https://pln.me/p10
- Design Leadership Coaching: https://polaine.com/coaching
- Courses: https://courses.polaine.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
- Mastodon: https://pkm.social/@apolaine
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine

May 1, 2025 • 43min
S4 Ep10: Lisa D. Dance – Unpaid Customer Labour
Power of Ten is a show about design operating at all levels of zoom, from thoughtful detail to changes in organisation, society and the world, hosted by design leadership coach, Andy Polaine.
My guest in this episode is Lisa D. Dance, an experienced UX Researcher whose 10+ years of work has spans UX Research & Strategy to Interactive Prototyping & Usability Testing. She has created award-winning work for enterprise organizations and also helped small to mid-sized businesses improve their websites and apps so they do not frustrate or harm customers.
LINKS
Lisa
- Lisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ldance/
- ServiceEase: https://serviceease.net
- Today Is the Perfect Day book site: https://todayistheperfectday.com
- Newsletter: Tell a Friend tinyurl.com/TellaFriendTuesdaySignUp
Andy
- Website: https://www.polaine.com
- Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws
- Podcast: https://pln.me/p10
- Design Leadership Coaching: https://polaine.com/coaching
- Courses: https://courses.polaine.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
- Mastodon: https://pkm.social/@apolaine
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine

Mar 26, 2025 • 43min
S4 Ep9: The Materials of Service Design
Power of Ten is a show about design operating at all levels of zoom, from thoughtful detail to changes in organisation, society and the world, hosted by design leadership coach, Andy Polaine.
My guests in this episode are Johan Blomkvist and Stefan Holmlid who, along with Simon Clatworthy, wrote the book The Materials of Service Design, which discusses materials (broadly framed) as a means to explore what service design is and could be.
LINKS
==Guests==
The Materials of Service Design: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/the-materials-of-service-design-9781802203295.html
Stefan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefan-holmlid-b402683/
Stefan on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stefan-Holmlid
Johan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blomkvist/
Johan on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Johan-Blomkvist
== Andy ==
Website: https://www.polaine.com
Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws
Podcast: https://pln.me/p10
Design Leadership Coaching: https://polaine.com/coaching
Courses: https://courses.polaine.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
Mastodon: https://pkm.social/@apolaine
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine

Nov 27, 2024 • 46min
S4 Ep8: Marzia Aricò - Design Leadership Maverick
Power of Ten is a show about design operating at all levels of zoom, from thoughtful detail to changes in organisation, society and the world, hosted by design leadership coach, Andy Polaine.
My guest in this episode is Marzia Aricò, an independent consultant for organisations seeking to integrate design strategically, and works as a design leadership coach for individuals aiming to advance in their design careers.
We talked about her journey to where she is now, service design and organisational change, the importance of diversity within organisations and how her guests on Design Voices Elevated have navigated their own journeys. And we talk about her new book, The Design Leadership Chronicles.
== Show Links ==
== Marzia ==
Marzia’s personal site: https://marzia.studio
Marzia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marziaarico/
Design Mavericks: https://designmavericks.substack.com
Design Voices Elevated podcast: https://designmavericks.substack.com/podcast
Design Voices Elevated on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@marziastudio
The Design Leadership Chronicles book: https://www.bispublishers.com/design-leadership-chronicles.html
== Andy ==
Website: https://www.polaine.com
Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws
Podcast: https://pln.me/p10
Design Leadership Coaching: https://polaine.com/coaching
Courses: https://courses.polaine.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
Mastodon: https://pkm.social/@apolaine
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine

Oct 7, 2024 • 57min
S4 Ep7: Julian Simpson: The life of a screenwriter and director
Power of Ten is a show about design operating at all levels of zoom, from thoughtful detail to changes in organisation, society and the world, hosted by design leadership coach, Andy Polaine.
Andy's guest in this episode is Julian Simpson, a London-based writer and director who has worked in film, TV and audio for the past 25 years. He made his directorial debut annoyingly young in his mid-20s with The Criminal and more recently worked on Spooks, New Tricks, Doctor Who and more. He created the Lovecraft Investigations, the Aldrich Kemp audio series and the Pleasant Green Universe. He runs a writer-led company called Storypunk and writes an excellent newsletter about the screenwriting life called, Development Hell.
== SHOW LINKS ==
== JULIAN ==
- Development Hell: https://developmenthell.substack.com
- Julian on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0801065/
- Pleasant Green: https://www.pleasantgreen.co.uk
- The Lovecraft Investigations: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06spb8w
- Cartoon Gravity https://www.cartoongravity.com
- The Virtual Production of The Mandalorian Season One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk
== ANDY ==
* Website: https://www.polaine.com
* Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws
* Podcast: https://pln.me/p10
* Design Leadership Coaching: https://polaine.com/coaching
* Courses: https://courses.polaine.com
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
* Mastodon: https://pkm.social/@apolaine
* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine

Jun 28, 2024 • 38min
S4 Ep6: Hansi Singh: AI-accelerated environmental forecasts
Power of Ten is a show about design operating at all levels of zoom, from thoughtful detail to changes in organisation, society and the world, hosted by design leadership coach, Andy Polaine.
My guest in this episode comes from a very different field to design. Dr Hansi Singh is a former Professor of physical climate science, University of Victoria. A US Department of Energy Office of Science fellow and awardee. Specialist in Earth system modeling and high performance computing. Working group co-chair of the Community Earth System Model, funded by NSF.
And she uses all those amazing skills as CEO of Planette, a company specialising in AI-accelerated environmental forecasts to help inform decision making.
== LINKS==
== HANSI ==
- Planette: https://www.planette.ai/forecasts
- Hansi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hansi-singh-phd/
== ANDY ==
Website: https://www.polaine.com
Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws
Podcast: https://pln.me/p10
Design Leadership Coaching: https://polaine.com/coaching
Courses: https://courses.polaine.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
Mastodon: https://pkm.social/@apolaine
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine

Apr 10, 2024 • 59min
S4 Ep5: Indi Young - Mental Models and Thinking Styles
Indi Young, a solution strategist, talks about the importance of understanding mental models and thinking styles that are not fixed personas. She discusses the challenges organizations face in adapting to different ways of thinking and addressing user needs. Indi shares insights on bias, cognitive understanding, decision-making post-pandemic, and working with AI models.

Mar 30, 2024 • 1h 1min
S4 Ep4: Keeping it real when writing with AI – iA Writer's Oliver Reichenstein
Power of Ten is a show about design operating at all levels of zoom, from thoughtful detail to changes in organisation, society and the world, hosted by design leadership coach, Andy Polaine.
While every app rushes to add an AI assistant, iA Writer's Oliver Reichenstein asks, "Why should I bother reading what you haven't written?"
Here he talks tells about the deep thinking behind the latest version 7 of IA Writer and the new feature that dims the text you paste from AI tools, keeping track of what is yours and what isn’t.
SHOW LINKS
OLIVER
iA - https://ia.net
iA Writer - https://ia.net/writer
iA Presenter - https://ia.net/presenter
Writing with AI - https://ia.net/topics/writing-with-ai
Oliver on Mastodon - @reichenstein@mastodon.net
iA on Mastodon - @ia@mastodon.net
ANDY
Website: https://www.polaine.com
Newsletter: https://pln.me/nws
Podcast: https://pln.me/p10
Courses: https://courses.polaine.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
Mastodon: https://pkm.social/@apolaine
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine

Mar 30, 2024 • 55min
S4 Ep3: Jaimes Nel - Do design frameworks lead to boring products and services?
Power of Ten is a show about design operating at all levels of zoom, from thoughtful detail to changes in organisation, society and the world, hosted by design leadership coach, Andy Polaine.
Has the product and design obsession with frameworks and process led to everyone working on autopilot, churning out a bland monoculture of design? When are they useful and when do they simply become a crutch? Have we hit "peak framework"?
My guest is Jaimes Nel, founder of Path, a consultancy that helps organisations play the long game through design-led strategy. Jaimes was Head of Insight for pioneering service design agency Livework in the early years of service design practice. He’s worked on service transformation for brands such as the NHS, BBC, Aviva, Johnson&Johnson, Ebay, GOV.UK / HMRC and led a transformation design team at Westpac in Australia, delivering their digital mortgage service.
SHOW LINKS
JAIMES
• Path Ventures - https://pathventures.io
• Jaimes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimesnel/
ANDY
• Andy's website - https://www.polaine.com
• Andy's coaching practice: https://www.polaine.com/coaching
• Subscribe to Power of Ten - https://pln.me/p10
• Subscribe to Andy’s newsletter Doctor’s Note - https://pln.me/nws
• Andy's YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@apolaine
• Andy's online courses - https://courses.polaine.com
• Andy on Mastodon - https://pkm.social/@apolaine
• Andy on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/apolaine/
• Suggestions? Feedback? Get in touch! - https://www.polaine.com/contact

20 snips
Feb 26, 2024 • 1h 2min
S4 Ep2: Peter Merholz - State of the Design Nation
Peter Merholz and Andy Polaine discuss the burst bubble of design, the state of the design nation, mediocrity in design industries, the evolution of in-house design teams, and the impact of corporate cultural shifts on craftsmanship and apprenticeship in design.