In this episode we talk with the renown brand strategist Marty Neuemeier about a strategy framework he calls Agile Strategy. Marty’s written many strategy books - design strategy, brand strategy, business strategy - and his most recent book Scramble has a very unique approach to the business book genre. It’s set as a novel - Marty calls it a ‘business thriller’ I haven’t read any other business book like it. Marty tells us about why agile strategy is more likely to create innovation and bold change, what are some things to keep in mind if you want your brilliant strategy to see the light of day, and what anyone - from business executives to design leaders to individual contributors - how we all can use this framework for more effective outcomes.Marty is a keynote speaker at Interaction19 - learn more at interaction19.ixda.orgFollow Marty on Twitter @martyneumeierBOOKS & LINKSScramble: How agile strategy can build epic brands in record timeZAG: The #1 Strategy of High-Performance BrandsThe Designful Company: How to build a culture of nonstop innovationBRAND A-ZAn interactive dictionary of 1,000 essential brand termsConnect with UX Cake!Twitter Facebook Instagram www.uxcake.coYou can now support the future of the UX Cake podcast and be a part of the UX Cake community at Patreon.com/uxcake Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep #27: I’m really excited to share with you my conversation with John Maeda — about Reinvention. This episode covers a lot of ground John talked about why we should focus on recover fast vs. fail fast, why inclusive design is so important, and why we should be using Anpanman to train our AI platforms. John is well known for so many things, across design, tech, and business worlds. He wrote one of my favorite books, titled “The Laws of Simplicity.” He’s also written extensively on design, leadership, and technology, has been a professor at MIT Media Lab, the president of Rhode Island School of Design, he has been and is an advisor and board member of many startups and companies, and for the last 3 or so years he has been the global head of computational design and inclusion at Automattic. Whether you know who John is or not, you’re in for a real treat because he’s just so insightful, and truly enjoyable to listen to. John will be speaking at the Interaction19 conference in Seattle in February.John Maeda is an American executive spearheading a new convergence across the design and technology industries. He joined Automattic in 2016 as Global Head of Computational Design + Inclusion and previously served as Design Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), a world-leading venture capital firm. Maeda can be found on Twitter discussing technology, business and design at @johnmaeda, one of TIME Magazine’s 140 Best Twitter Feeds.View a transcript of this episode on our websiteJohn's Youtube channelRebrand Cities, Hajj Fleming, CEO  (build-a-thons in different cities) Helping small businesses build websitesJohn Gardner’s Essay “Self Renewal” Kahlil Gibran: Joy and Sorrowfrom his book The Prophet The Laws of Simplicityby John MaedaIn The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology, and design―guidelines for needing less and actually getting more.Redesigning Leadershipby John MaedaLessons for a new generation of leaders on teamwork, meetings, conversations, free food, social media, apologizing, and other topics.More resources from John available on his site https://maedastudio.comPortrait of John Maeda by Helena Price for Techies Project.Connect with UX Cake!Twitter Facebook Instagram www.uxcake.coYou can now support the future of the UX Cake podcast and be a part of the UX Cake community at Patreon.com/uxcake Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep #26: This week we are talking about designing the impossible, with Dr. Nelly Ben Hyoun, founder and experience designer of Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios in London. They create large scale, extreme experiences like being an astronaut, or erupting volcanos, or recreating natural disasters, for organizations as diverse as Nasa, the European Space Agency, Google, Mattel, Nike, Lego, the list goes on and on. So designing impossible things is just part of every day for Nelly and her teams — and even though it sounds kind of wonderful and magical, maybe the end result is magical but the process is what she calls Brutal. And for her, that is a critical aspect of anything that is good design - there has to be contention or friction in creating something meaningful, what you get from a plurality of thinking, through a multi-disciplinary team.Besides creating magnificent experiences at Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios, she’s also founded the University of the Underground in London, created an international Space Orchestra, recently completed a feature film about political theorist Hannah Arendt, she’s currently a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art, and that’s just a few of the things she’s up to. And next up, she’ll be working on becoming a mermaid…FROM THE SHOWThe beautiful song “Mermaids" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds​Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) taught political science and philosophy at The New School for Social Research in New York and the University of Chicago, widely acclaimed as a brilliant and original thinker, and author.​The Human Condition, by Hannah Arendt  Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understandingby Hannah ArendtNelly Ben Hayoun - Films (from ImDB)I am (not) a monster (Documentary) 2019 Disaster Playground (Documentary) 2015 The International Space Orchestra (Documentary) 2013The sport of being a mermaidYes it’s true - swimming like a mermaid is an 'extreme sport.’ You’re welcome.Follow Nellyhttps://twitter.com/weareNBHstudioshttps://twitter.com/NellyBenHayounConnect with UX Cake!Twitter Facebook Instagram www.uxcake.coYou can now support the future of the UX Cake podcast and be a part of the UX Cake community at Patreon.com/uxcake Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. #25: This week we’re talking about designing withdisability, rather than fordisability, with my guest Liz Jackson. Liz is a disability advocate who is trying to shift the disability narrative. We talked about how the way we currently approach disability in design can actually cause more problems that solutions for people with disabilities, and how language -  phrases we commonly use in design, like accessibility and inclusion, and even design thinking methodology - makes disabled people the recipients, rather than the drivers, of design. And what a product or design team can do to get the perspectives they need and make sure that disabled people are treated as the experts in disability.(Transcript available online)Follow The Disabled List on Instagram and TwitterFollow Liz Jackson on Twitterwww.disabledlist.orgFROM THE SHOWRie Norregaard- SY PartnersMedium article: Designing for Humanity: Do we need a new design frame?Workshop Proceedings: Aging and Disability - Beyond Stereotypes to Inclusion: Proceedings of a Workshop(2018)Why Vanilla is anything but boring!Real Vanilla Isn't Plain. It Depends On (Dare We Say It) Terroir (NPR)In Defense Of All Things VanillaBOOKSAccess: Universal Design and the Politics of Disabilityby Aimi HamraieBrief Answers to the Big Questions (Oct 16, 2018)by Stephen HawkingConnect with UX Cake!Twitter Facebook Instagram www.uxcake.coYou can now support the future of the UX Cake podcast and be a part of the UX Cake community at Patreon.com/uxcake Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. #24: Welcome to season 2! We are kicking the season off with a fascinating conversation about changing the world with design, with Don Norman. Don Norman has been a well-known name in the design field for over 30 years, and is currently Director of Design Lab at UC San Diego, where he spoke to us from, in between trips around the world spreading the practice of design to change the world. You might know Don from his book The Design of Everyday Things, or maybe you know him as a co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, or any one of the other many influential writingsand talks and work he’s created. Don is generally recognized as one of the early framers of the discipline we now call user experience, which is a term he coined while he was a VP at Apple, though he really doesn’t like how the term UX is being used -- it’s often misused, it’s overused and it’s lost its original intent. He talked about that a little in our conversation, but mostly we talked about why, and how, designers and researchers in our discipline should be changing the world. Don Norman is the founder and Director of the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego. The UC San Diego Design Lab does fundamental work in a number of different areas, with healthcare and public health being the largest. He is also cofounder of the Nielsen Norman Group [https://www.nngroup.com], a member of the National Academy of Engineering, IDEO fellow, and former Vice President of Apple. He serves on numerous company and educational advisory boards and boards of directors. He has published 20 books translated into 20 languages including Emotional Design and Design of Everyday Things. He can be found at www.jnd.org.Don is one of the keynote speakers at this year’s IxDA conference, Interaction19.Books by Don Norman:The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded EditionEmotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday ThingsFrom the show:The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor by William EasterlyERIC VON HIPPEL evhippel@mit.edu - Professor of Technological Innovation at MITFREE INNOVATION – (A book on how citizens create and share innovations) (free PDF download) Community-based design organizations for change:San DiegoDesign Forward AllianceSeattleDesign for Good | AIGA Seattle Design in Public Connect with UX Cake!Twitter Facebook Instagram www.uxcake.coYou can now support the future of the UX Cake podcast and be a part of the UX Cake community at Patreon.com/uxcake Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, I had the opportunity to speak with Ayse Birsel, a renown designer and the co-founder of Birsel + Seck, an award-winning design and innovation studio in NY, working with Herman Miller, IKEA, and Toyota, among others. Ayse is also the creator of Design the Life You Love, which is a guide for anyone who wants to create their very best life. Ayse developed this transformative process when she decided to try out a design methodology she created called Deconstruction-Reconstruction, on her own life. Also, we talked about how this is a process you can apply to designing anything - a product, a team, a company, even a family! We did not, however, sing a song. Next time.Ayse is going to be a keynote speaker at Interaction19 in February, IxDA’s global conference, which I’m excited to say will be held in Seattle this year! This year’s conference looks amazing - Go to interaction19.ixda.org to learn more and register.Show highlights:As designers and leaders, we should improve people’s lives and help people find more joy and simplicity in their lives.Ayse says she used to design products, and now she designs lives! Fear and excitement went hand in hand when Ayse made a shift in her career.There is something about the intersection of life and design that people are drawn to, as Ayse has discovered through meeting others through her workshops or who read her book.Deconstruction-Reconstruction teaches us the key to doing more with less, says Ayse. You can’t have everything, but you can be intentional about what you choose to have in order to create something unique. This process is for everyone – any age, any stage of life, no design experience required!Step 1: DECONSTRUCTION. Taking the whole apart.Step 2: POINT OF VIEW. Seeing the same things differently.Step 3: RECONSTRUCTION. Putting it back together.Step 4: EXPRESSION. Giving it form.Design The Life You Love shows people how to use proven design principles to curate the lives they most desire.Ayse’s method provides a roadmap of sorts for channeling your creativity and inspiration into steps that end with practical goals and action steps for creating a more personally fulfilling life.The Hero Exercise Ayse uses in her workshops is often a revealing process which helps people discover their values.Ayse shares that our values are the foundation of everything we do. Without them, we wouldn’t know how to make choices. This is important for any kind of design.Designing the Company You Love is based on using non-threatening tools to help businesses solve problems, and helps build trust and ownership.Ayse has a course on 42courses.com you can access if you do not have access to her workshops.Resources:Design The Life You Love, by Ayse Birsel (you really need the physical book for this one)Ayse’s websiteLink to Ayse’s podcast, Design the Life You Love, on salon.comDesign the Life You Love on ItunesAyse on Design Matters podcast with Debbie Millman Ayse on Twitter Design the Life You Love on FacebookMany thanks to UpTop user experience consulting firm in Seattle for use of their location for recording!Connect with UX Cake!Twitter Facebook Instagram www.uxcake.coYou can now support the future of the UX Cake podcast and be a part of the UX Cake community at Patreon.com/uxcake Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I recently joined a start-up called Spruce Up so topics related to startups have been top-of-mind for me. In this episode of UX Cake, I am joined by Phillip Hunter of Pulse Labs and Cassie Wallender of Invio, Inc. We really enjoyed recording live in Seattle and had a candid conversation about the challenges and benefits of being in UX at a start-up and shared the techniques we have found effective while working in this type of start-up environment. Phillip Hunter is VP of Products at Pulse Labs in Seattle, WA, and has designed and created strategy for voice-based products and services for hundreds of customer service systems, and has led, managed, inspired, trained, and mentored hundreds of UX and product management professionals. Cassie Wallender is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Invio, Inc in Seattle. Cassie is an effective senior contributor and team manager in both product and design for several successful startups (iLike, acquired by Myspace for over $20m in 2009, and Appature, acquired by IMS Health for over $100m in 2013). Show Highlights:Challenges of working at a UX start-up including often being the only designer, you often don’t have customers or users yet, and if you do have customers, you may have a very limited budget/resources.No one hands you a charter stating the problems, objectives, and how to solve them. Everything is ambiguous, and you have to be a part of the discovery/inquiry/problem-solving processes.Everything is on the line while working at a UX and pressure can build. The investors, founders, and employees are all counting on you. Despite all the challenges, we do it because of the special rewards and potential, and opportunities to be part of something new, and important.Techniques we use to address the challenges of startups.Leigh, Phillip, and Cassie tell their very different stories of how they got into startups.Check out Angel Lists or Techstars to find start-up job opportunities.Resources:Spruce UpPulse LabsInvio, Inc.@Cassie on TwitterYou can now support the future of the UX Cake podcast and be a part of the UX Cake community at Patreon.com/uxcake Connect with UX Cake!Twitter FaceBook Instagram www.uxcake.coSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on UX Cake I had a chance to catch up with David and Mary Sherwin about their new book, Turning People Into Teams. I love this topic — how do we go from being just a bunch individual people with different motivations, attitudes, working styles, communication styles, into a team where the whole is better than the sum parts? It’s about redesigning the way we work together. And the exciting thing about it is that it can happen in small incremental ways; it doesn’t mean a big re-org or overhaul. This is great for all kinds of working collaboration with very practical techniques you can put into place. David and Mary Sherwin are co-founders of Ask The Sherwins, LLC, a consulting and training firm that helps organizations around the world develop the capabilities they need for stronger teamwork. They have coached product and service design teams and developed innovation training for organizations such as Philips Oral Healthcare, Google UX Community and Culture, and Eventbrite. The Sherwins have collaborated on three books, including the bestseller Creative Workshop.Show Highlights:Mary shares a short synopsis of Turning People Into Teams. Teams have the ability to improve any aspect of their working process by creating rituals to create the outcomes they want. Teams have the power to create change without waiting for a budget, a great mandate, or another person in leadership. David defines what they mean by rituals and routines, for the purpose of the book.Mary shares how the new book can be useful to managers who want their teams to use the book, but may also be used by individuals on a team can benefit from the ideas in Mary and David’s new book.David elaborates on a section of the book dealing with when teams are stuck and offers useful tools in a “stuck” situation.Mary says teams need to acknowledge when they noticed something going wrong.“It’s really easy for a team to develop a robust vocabulary around all the crap that’s going wrong, but it’s difficult for them to talk about what is going well in a way that’s meaningful.”David shares that teams need to figure out where they are in a project and what the expectations are between the manager and the team.“If you’re going to have leaders participate in one of the rituals, everyone needs to have equal time and equal voice in sharing what’s needed throughout the ritual so that there won’t be a power imbalance.”Mary discusses the 4 Player Conversation by David Kantor which was referenced in their new book. This can can help individuals understand the differenent roles in team conversations.Getting the team to test an aspect of the ritual and sharing the data as proof of success can be important.Resources:The Sherwins The Sherwins on TwitterArticle about rituals Their new book Turning People Into TeamsTurning People Into Teams ToolkitDavid Kantor’s book, Reading the RoomYou can now support the future of the UX Cake podcast and be a part of the UX Cake community at Patreon.com/uxcake Connect with UX Cake!Twitter FaceBook Instagram www.uxcake.coSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Even if we consider ourselves advocates for diversity and inclusion when it comes to considering gender, race, age, LGBTQ or ableness, how do we stretch ourselves even further? How can we create a truly diverse team in thought, background, and culture, and how do we make sure we are creating products that are inclusive to all? How do we break the molds that are exclusive in their very nature? On today’s show, I have a candid conversation with Timothy Bardlavens, an outspoken advocate for equity, about cultivating a culture of diversity and inclusion, and what that really means.Timothy Bardlavens is a Product Design Leader, Cultural Strategist and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Specialist who approaches Organizational Culture challenges through the lens of of Design strategy. His work shifts the focus of DEI from a Human Resources to a User Experience challenge, helping business leaders to understand teams, organizations and companies are designed entities which need unique approaches to cultivate and thrive in an increasingly diverse space. Most importantly, Timothy works with business leaders to develop people-centric strategies with clear, actionable steps to increase diversity, retention, innovation and revenue. As a Sr. Product Design Manager at Microsoft, Timothy leads a team that focuses on core UX and Intelligent experiences in Outlook online in addition to platform experiences that span the O365 Suite and various endpoints.Show Highlights:Working with leaders at Microsoft, Timothy is able to teach them the actions to take relating to cultural initiatives, and how to create processes and actions around them.●      Tim explains how referring to himself as the “black guy” is an icebreaker when it comes to helping others feel comfortable and to be true to themselves.●      Tim speaks to how developing a culture of diversity relates to design and UX. How do we, the design entity, (the organization) help users (people within the organization) be effective, happy be productive and grow?●      Tim points out correlations between/among how we think about organizations, people and products, and relates all of this to a design challenge and tells how to meet the challenges.●      Tim says designers need to realize their own power, and need to provide others access to that power.●      For a designer or a PM who wants to create inclusive products, step outside yourself or outside what you’re trying to develop, and ask the questions from others. Watch others, ask for advice, and do the research. Tim says to go the extra mile to understand people unlike yourself. ●      Culture does not have to be initiated by leadership, but should be supported by it.Resources:Tim’s websiteIthink_idesign on TwitterIthink_idesign on InstagramTimothy on the Revision Path Podcast, episode 215Timothy on CtrlClickcast, episode 113The Borderlands - Pakou Her, Tseng Development Group — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pakou-her-tdgConnect with UX Cake!Twitter FaceBook Instagram www.uxcake.coSupport this podcast - become a patron on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. #19: Much of the time we like to work independently, maybe because of work environment, preference, or pride. And yet we know there are great benefits and advantages to working as a team and collaborating with other people. This week’s episode is a re-edit of episode 3, one of my favorite episodes, when I spoke with David and Mary Sherwin, co-founders of Ask the Sherwins, about doing the impactful work we want to do, through improved collaboration and effective teams. David and Mary work with companies and teach workshops around the globe about effective teamwork and affecting change within the workplace. In this interview we discussed how to affect change when there doesn’t seem to be much traction, how to get collaboration from teams across orgs, helpful resources like the Sherwins’ Team Words, and much more. The Sherwins help teams 'make better cake' (we love that!) and you can learn more on their website at askthesherwins.com where you can also find advice, info about their books and products, and get on their mailing list.• About Frog's Collective Action Toolkit: The Collective Action Toolkit puts design-thinking tools into the hands of local change agents to transform communities (which David helped create and which Mary helped edit) Download the PDF• Teamwords: The Working Deck - a simple way to align your teams. Fast. •: ‘Thanks For The Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well' by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen • Pre-order their new book Turning People Into Teams: Rituals and Routines That Redefine the Way We WorkConnect with us!Website: uxcake.coFacebookTwitterInstagramPodcast music by hip-hop band Eaters (song Cruziero, album Simian Samba) Hear their music on FacebookSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/uxcake. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.