Experiences of Insight

In this episode, Lee and I speak with Bill Alexy from Fort Worth, TX. Bill is an entrepreneur, a product designer, and principal at Alexy 19. A few years ago, Lee and I were fortunate enough to work with Bill on a volunteer basis and were immediately impressed by the whole package. He is actively involved in the design community and the larger community. We are very lucky to have had the time to sit with Bill and have this honest conversation. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Episode 13: For this episode, Lee and I travelled to SF to sit with Kai to ask her some deep questions. We discuss her background, where she goes for inspiration, what she does for fun, what she is curious about, & what gives her balance in her life. Kai Haley is the Head of Design Relations at Google. She is a founder of the Sprint Masters Academy. Kai is a community enabler. She builds platforms & programs to inspire, educate & grow the global community. She is a representative and mentor for the global design community. This passionately creative thinker also balances her family life and shares some insights with us on this topic. Kai discuss some of her current work & aspirational work which focuses on sustainability and finding ways to solve the big important problems of our time. Kai has a BA from Vassar College in Anthropology and dedicated a portion of her studies focusing on the impact of tourism on the Yucatan in Mexico. She also hold as Masters in Fine Arts from the California College of the Arts. She has worked as an entrepreneur, freelancer, creative director, & designer. Lee and I are happy to share this candid discussion with Kai. The conversation was inspiring for us and we hope you enjoy it.

On this episode, we are joined by Esme Gonzalez Pillado, an educator from Parsons School of Design in New York. Esme is also a contributor to the Platform Design Toolkit. Esme’s journey is fascinating to hear. Lee and I loved speaking with Esme about design, branding, marketing, her work, and her students. Her personal journey is something to marvel. Esme’s insight on a wide range of topics based off her experience in the classroom and with clients will be helpful and insightful to all listeners.

On this episode we are joined by Michael Tam. Micheal is a speaker, mentor, & storyteller within the global creative community. He is also the Chief Creative Catalyst for IBM iX based out of Hong Kong. Michael shares with us some thoughts and insights on facilitation and innovation. He also shares with us his journey as creative catalyst. Lastly, Michael discusses his positive thoughts and hopes on how empathy can be used to help people find a middle ground in even the most complex situations confronting societies.

Dan is a human centered design expert. Sprint facilitator and coach, advisor, & consultant. He is also a Principal at Move Space for Light, an advisory and consultancy that helps clients move this forward and innovate. He also trains clients to leverage similar tools and methodologies to work better and more effectively. Dan shares with us some insights on being an entrepreneur, his journey as a creative, and discusses some of his passions and interests outside of work.

In this episode, we are joined by Mariano Suarez-Battan, Co-Founder and CEO of Mural. Mariano talks with Lee and I about his early days as an entrepreneur, his influences, innovation, company culture, and the future of remote working.

Jade Zhao comes to us from Suzhou, China. He is the co-founder of Design Sprint China and TEDxSuzhou. Jade also served as community manager and co-founder of YoMail.com. Jade has a deep design background and spent many years at the epicenter of the global textiles industry as a designer. Jade has advanced degrees in Computer Applications (Suzhou Art & Design Technology Institute), Management Information Systems (Suzhou Vocational University), International Finance and Economics (Dongbei University), & a Master's in Communication and Media Studies (Shanghai University).

Nelson Javier Mejia is a human centered engineer based in Frankfurt, Germany. He is also an innovate coach and founder of weSpark, an innovation agency in Frankfurt. Nelson was trained at Hochschule Furtwangen University, where he received a MBA and degree in Industrial and Product Engineering. Nelson began his career as a consultant focusing on business intelligence and service engineering. He eventually ended up at Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cargo, where he described his work as everything innovation. Recently, Nelson launched weSpark and innovation agency where the team provides experiences to help clients innovate. We were very excited and happy to sit down with him and her a little about his journey and early influences. Also, to hear a few tips that he finds useful to help innovate.

On this episode of Experiences of Insight, we are joined by Robert Skrobe, Owner of Dallas Design Sprints & Mastermind of the Global Virtual Design Sprint. Both Lee and I have been following Robert's work closely over the past couple of years and are thrilled and grateful to have had a chance to sit with Robert and capture some of his thoughts and insights. Also, to hear from him about his background in building communities and setting a stage for people to work together and build community. He is a true empowerer of people. Prior to his personal venture with Dallas Design Sprints, Robert was engaged as a user experience and information architect professional for a number of top tier organizations including Cingular (ATT), Classmates.com, Amazon, Razorfish, Fox, Slingshot, and Sabre Airlines Solutions. Robert studied studio art and telecommunications at Michigan State as well as user-centered design at The University of Washington.

In this episode, we are joined by Jeb Altonaga, Chief Operating Officer and Head of Marketing at Sandon Capital in Sydney, Australia. Sandon Capital is an Australian-based activist investment firm. Jeb is responsible for day-to-day oversight of the non-investment functions including Business Development, Technology, Operations and Investor Relations. Prior to his experience at Sandon, Jeb was a COO and executive director of an Asia based hedge fund, where he was responsible for risk management, compliance, & fund raising. He was also Senior Vice President for the Northern Trust Hedge Funds Services (NTHFS) division. He was a member of Northern Trust's Regional Management Team & Risk Committee. Also, we sat globally on the NTHFS Management and Executive Leadership Team as well as the Hedge Fund Services Risk Committee. Before his time in Asia, Jeb working in Chicago, for Citadel Investment Group, where he managed the BUC team and was responsible for all valuations, price verification, trading P&L, & risk sensitivity analytics. Additionally, Jeb helped design, test, & implement the middle office technology platform used by Citadel and clients of Omnium, which became NTHFS. Jeb holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from CSU Los Angeles & a Certificate in Accounting from the University of California, Los Angeles.

We are thankful and happy to be able to speak with Dr. Diana L. Ascher from UCLA. Her work focuses on information, technology, and decision making in organizations. Dr. Ascher's interdisciplinary research interests draw from her work in a variety of fields, including financial communication, journalism, and public policy. Dr. Ascher is the director of the Information Studies Research Lab (IS Lab) at UCLA, where she develops resources and programming to support the curriculum of the Department of Information Studies. Dr. Ascher, is also the founder of the Information Ethics & Equity Institute (IEEI), which translates data management priorities for information workers, the ethics, economics, and politics of long-term data management, and information ethics with respect to identity, privacy, power, and freedom. Dr. Ascher earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Information Studies in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles; an M.B.A. from the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University; and a B.A. in Public Policy with concentrations in journalism and international policy from Duke University.

We are joined by Ross Chapman. Ross is the Head of the Design Sprints at Etch. Ross started as a video editor following formal training at Southampton Institute in Media with Cultural Studies, Cinematography, and Film/Video Production. He then spent some time honing his skills in post-production, new media, and IT at Connected Pictures. In 2008, Ross started to freelance as a UX designer and in 2012 moved back to London to continue to develop his skills as a Lead User Experience Designer. For the next 5 years, Ross would move through the United Kingdom and Germany working with organizations such as Ericsson, CareerFoundry, and Wiggle. In 2017, Ross joined Etch as a product design lead. In Oct 2018, Ross launched Etch Sprints and is currently helping product managers, CEOs, CTOs, team leaders, and marketers to focus on learning what to work on. Professionally, Ross can be found designing products, facilitating design sprints, or training teams to do this themselves. Etch is a Design Sprint agency based in London, United Kingdom. Etch is committed to creating the best products on the market with the best teams around the world. The larger Etch Group, is a collection of people, agencies, and partners that exist to redefine how traditional consultancies operate.

In this episode, we are lucky and thankful to have with us, Jacob Lief. Jacob or Jake, as he is known is the Founder and CEO of Ubuntu Pathways. Jacob brings over two decades of experience to conversations on philanthropy and social entrepreneurship and has actively called for redefining impact, sustainability, & the theory of ‘going-to-scale’ in the nonprofit sector. After visiting South Africa to observe the country’s historic elections, Jake returned to the Eastern Cape to co-found Ubuntu in 1999. He has since developed the organization from its humble beginnings in a broom closet to a world-class institution that supports 2,000 children on individualized pathways out of poverty. Currently, Ubuntu’s 70 employees work across three continents,. Ubuntu has grown into an internationally-recognized model for community development. In 2016, Jacob appeared in Fortune Magazine’s ‘40 Under 40’, a list of the most influential young people in business. He has served as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative Advisory Committee. He has also been named one of the world’s 101 Most Innovative Visionaries at the Decide Now Act Summit and recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. Jake is an Aspen Institute Global Fellow. Jake is a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and is a visiting fellow at the University’s new global policy research center, Perry World House. His book, I Am Because You Are, chronicles his journey in South Africa and sets forth a new & bold vision for breaking the cycle of poverty.

“We believe through open dialogue, we offer ourselves, our guests, & listeners a chance to hear a perspective on how learning & innovation are incorporated into divergent lives.” In this episode, Lee and Dave introduce themselves and give some context around what Experiences of Insight means to them. They also share some insights and lessons learned. This was recorded to give the audience an introduction to what our general mission is and what they expect as listeners.