Podcasts about hot studio

On this episode, Laura reflects on some of the highlights from interviews over the past year. Featured guests include Maria Guidice, best-selling author and founder/former CEO of Hot Studio; Fritz Clay, founder of Fostering Connections; Lauren Markham, journalist and best-selling author of A Map of Future Ruins; and Henry Shukman, Zen master and author of Original Love. Thank you for listening, liking, reviewing, and subscribing! For more information about these guests, you can visit their websites: hotstudio.com, hairplay.com, laurenmarkham.info, and henryshukman.com.

Happy Weekend! Abby and Morgan caught up on all things life in this episode, and they likely shared things they never would because the studio was so hot and they slowly became a little delulu. Abby shared updates on Cheese Head and Morgan shared her thought process for life right now. Also they discussed celebrity national treasures, and the thing that's been bringing them immense joy lately.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maria Giudice (Founder at Hot Studio) wrote the book Changemakers: How Leaders Can Design Change in an Insanely Complex World because she wished it was the book she had when she stepped into the catalytic and challenging VP of Design roles at Facebook, then Autodesk. She shares how she learned the hard way about the importance of humility and relationship building with those most resistant to change. In addition we discuss the critical role that mentors and peers have as guiding lights. As an Executive Coach today, she invites us all to identify our life's through line and joy. Original music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lynz Floren⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

A/C is out at 6th & Peabody and the crew and equipment are overheating...Hutt and Chad discuss the circumstances. OutKick Founder, Clay Travis joins the HOT BOX to share thoughts on the anti-Israel protests and Texas Governor, Greg Abbott saying his state will ignore ‘illegal' Biden Title IX revisions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of the podcast, Laura Chandler sits down with Executive Leadership Coach, Depth Hypnosis Practitioner, and the founder of Hot Studio, Maria Giudice. Maria is the co-author of Changemakers: How Leaders Can Design Change in an Insanely Complex World and Rise of the DEO: Leadership by Design. Maria talks with Laura about Maria's rise from budding art student to running one of the most successful design firms of its time. She shares her vision of future leaders and the necessary qualities they must possess to succeed in the ever-changing business environment. They talk about the necessary qualities of leaders that include, among other things, creative thinking, risk-taking, self-care, and optimism. They even venture into a discussion about the intersection of creativity, spirituality, and leadership. Maria coaches and leads workshops to train executives and their teams in business and design leadership. Maria is the founder and former CEO of the experience design firm Hot Studio, which was acquired by Facebook in 2013. At Facebook and later at Autodesk, she led global design teams that created human-centered experiences for millions of people around the world. Today she is helping shape future leaders to manage the complexities of ever-changing business and social environments with skill and compassion. Learn more about Maria, her workshops and coaching at hotstudio.com.

ABOUT TOGETHER DIGITALWe are a national community of influential women in digital – who choose to share their knowledge, power, and purpose by coming together to make meaningful connections and deeper conversations happen so we all move forward, faster.Join the movement.ABOUT THE LOUNGELooking for more purpose, fulfillment, and professional and personal development?Be a part of our LIVE podcast audience and end your week with Together Digital's Chief Empowerment Officer, Amy Vaughan as she hosts authentic conversations with women in digital who wish to see change or be the change within their industry.Register now and reserve your seat.THIS WEEK'S TOPIC:Have you ever wondered what it takes to lead with authenticity and inspire change? Maria Judis, the trailblazing former CEO of Hot Studio, joins me to share her transformative journey from childhood orchestrator to design and change leader. She opens up about the lessons learned along the way, highlighting the importance of real-world experiences and the power of embracing your unique story. As we navigate her career trajectory, Maria provides invaluable insight into the role of innate leadership skills and how they often trump formal education when it comes to making a genuine impact in the professional world.Leadership is as much about collaboration as it is about power, and in this episode, we tackle both. Maria and I dissect the complex dynamics of the workplace, particularly through the lens of gender. We confront the stark realities that women face while climbing the professional ladder, and discuss how design thinking can be a tool for crafting inclusive solutions. We also ponder the shift towards self-employment as a strategy to bypass systemic obstacles, bringing personal anecdotes and wisdom to the conversation about the importance of fostering an environment where competition is replaced with teamwork.This episode isn't just about reaching the top—it's about the growth that comes from stumbles and setbacks. We celebrate failure as a key component of learning, with a nod to Amy Edmondson's failure spectrum and the significance of transparency in leadership recovery. Laughter and growth go hand-in-hand as we look at the lighter side of missteps, and Maria shares her experience with public acknowledgment of failure. We wrap up with a heart-to-heart on decision-making and executive coaching, offering strategies to help women—and everyone—thrive in tech and beyond. Join us for an honest and empowering discussion that redefines leadership and personal fulfillment.LINKSMaria's LinkedInChangemakersHotstudioSponsored by: COhatchCOhatch is a new kind of shared work, social, and family space built on community. Members get access to workspace, amenities like rock walls and sports simulators, and more to live a fully integrated life that balances work, family, well-being, community, and giving back. COhatch has 31 locations open or under construction nationwide throughout Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.Support the show

Maria Giudice founded the iconic design agency Hot Studio and sold it to Facebook after an unexpected chat with Mark Zuckerberg. Now, Maria shares the top lessons from her time at the media giant, running her own agency and teaching leaders to embrace creativity for maximum success. Join us for our second episode of Creative Legends, the series where we talk to creative industry icons, and get inspired to continue growing as a design expert. For more leadership insights check our Design Leaders Programme: https://fla.wiki/47PS6j8

“I realized that design is about helping people make sense of the world. And I looked at the world differently then… treating everything like a design problem that's solvable [...] [Design leaders today] don't use the power that we have to engage people, to activate people, to help them believe in something bigger than themselves.” Maria Guidice, author of Changemakers: How Leaders Can Design Change in an Insanely Complex World, joins Erin May and Carol Guest in this episode of Awkward Silences. Together, they examine the qualities of effective change agents and discuss how designers, researchers, and passionate folks can hone and apply these qualities to drive change within their organization.  Throughout the episode, Maria draws on her experience leading global teams at Facebook and Autodesk and a decade of research into the interconnectedness of leadership, design, and change to offer practical advice on how to approach change through a designer mindset. In this episode, Maria, Erin and Carol cover: What is a “changemaker”? The qualities of effective leaders and change agents. How designers can employ their skills to drive change at scale. Treating design as a mindset. Building support and working with people who share a creative and open mindset. Why we need to believe in progress and continuous improvement. 00:04:23 – Design is about helping people make sense of the world 00:09:34 – Maria's research into the connection between leadership, design, and change 00:13:50 – The importance of understanding people's resistance to change 00:16:28 – What is a changemaker? 00:18:04 – Design as a noun, a verb, a mindset that can lead change at scale  00:24:30 – Qualities of effective change agents 00:33:19 – Why Maria hates the term “change management” 00:36:12 – Embracing failure as a learning opportunity 00:39:46 – The importance of passion, purpose, and a belief in continuous progress About our guest For three decades, creative teams and business leaders have sought the provocative vision and mentorship of Maria Giudice, GEW DEECE. After founding the pioneering experience design firm Hot Studio and leading global teams at Facebook and Autodesk, Maria's mission today is to build the next generation of creative leaders.  Through one-on-one coaching, group coaching, and team-building workshops, Maria unlocks the potential hidden in executives and the people they lead. A popular speaker at design and business conferences, Maria is also the author of four design books, including Rise of the DEO: Leadership by Design, and most recently Changemakers: How Leaders Can Design Change in an Insanely Complex World.You can find her on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter). --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/awkwardsilences/message

Topics discussed on today's show: Pop Quiz: Heidi's Hot Studio, EV's, China & Cuba, Sports News, Celeb Medical, Best Cities For Naked Bike Riding, The Perfect Margarita, Birthdays, History Quiz, Like To Be Greeted, JB Pride, Earliest Masturbation, Dad Jokes, Little Johnny's Growing Pot, 20 in 23, The Whole Show Showdown, SOG: Reina Malvada, New Music Friday, and Apologies.

Creative powerhouse, Maria Giudice, grew up on Staten Island painting portraits of dogs. Teens ushered in the wonderfully weird world of Rocky Horror Picture Show and the flourishing of her wildly independent, creative spirit. In the Bay Area she founded Hot Studio, a pioneering human-centered experience design practice. Now she's harnessing all her wisdom and experience to cultivate changemakers.Images, links and more from Maria!Please say Hi on social! Twitter, Instagram and Facebook - @CleverPodcast, @amydevers,If you enjoy Clever we could use your support! Please consider leaving a review, making a donation, becoming a sponsor, or introducing us to your friends! We love and appreciate you!Clever is hosted & produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Rich Stroffolino, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Four-time Author, Design Leader and Leadership Coach, Maria Giudice, joins the podcast to talk about her new book, Changemakers: How Leaders Can Design Change in an Insanely Complex World.Maria is a powerful and influential voice in the space of design and believes that design has the power to transform.Unafraid of change and ultimately, transformation, Maria Giudice shares with us the ways in which leaders can use design to produce meaningful change in a chaotic world.  Maria is no stranger to change, herself.  Having grown her own design agency, Hot Studio, and working in design leadership in Meta (formerly Facebook), Autodesk, and with other transformational leaders in the design space, Maria boldly champions the power you have in your leadership when you design as a core tool.Learn more about Maria.Get the book at a discount here or buy from Amazon here.Check out all things Dia Bondi.

In this scorching episode, Jake, Mike, Ali, and Eric try and battle a hot studio while talking about heat seaters(?), Saturday service, forward wheel drives(?), the differences between bolts and screws, unapplied labor and how it may apply to you, appropriate pay, the famous "Disappearing Porter Act", loaners and online scheduling, leftover repair orders, and going above and beyond the call of duty at times. Check us out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Cast, IHeartRadio, YouTube and many other streaming platforms! Twitter and Instagram @Customer_States, Email us at CustomerStatesPodcast@gmail.com to send us a voice memo, Listener Mail, topic idea or picture, or to get your very own #SellTheBell and our Customer States… Stickers! Check out our website at www.CustomerStatesPodcast.com! Find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/CustomerStatesPodcast, YouTube by searching Customer States… Podcast, and help support us at Anchor.fm/customerstates Big thanks to Bruce Vayn for the amazing original music! Check him out: FB @Bruce Vayn, @brucevayn on IG, @bruce_vayn on Twitter, and email him for all your musical needs at brucesvayn@gmail.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/customerstates/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/customerstates/support

If you lead a team of over 700 people, what skills would you need to bring to the table to help them collaborate effectively? In today's episode, we chat with Katrina Alcorn, General Manager of Design at IBM, about how she develops partnerships across her organization to resolve conflicts and get aligned. We also talk to Katrina about the challenges that large teams face in remote and hybrid environments, how her training in journalism influences her work as a leader, and what she learned about living a balanced life from writing her book Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink. Bio Katrina Alcorn spent the first decade+ of her career as a consultant, leading strategic design and research initiatives for startups, non-profits, and Fortune 500s in a variety of industries including financial services, medical devices, energy, e-commerce, the arts, and education.  In 2015 she went “in-house” and learned what it means to be a change-maker from the inside. Katrina built two successful design practices, the first at Hot Studio (bought by Facebook in 2013) and the second at Autodesk, centralizing all digital design and research functions, leading to major improvements in e-commerce sales and customer satisfaction.

What-- are we turning the JACK FM studio into a sauna now? Join Scotch as he endures an extra steamy studio on a Monday morning and discusses: Big Lottery Wins, Questions we should be Googling about the Olympics, a Canadian woman who found a naked man living in her trunk and more!! Yes, it's going to get even hotter when we talk about the grossest words and tell you all about the latest taco news. It's real... it's raw... it's real raw. It's the JACK SQUAT podcast! Have a listen. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all have those moments of uncertainty where we don't know if we should stay put at our careers or jump ship. And sometimes we don't have a choice and are forced to jump. It can lead to an existential crisis. Who am I now? Do I have anything left to offer? What's next? These are all questions pop up in our conversation with our guest, Maria Giudice, who has navigated career change many times with grace.  Maria Giudice is a design executive who has had quite the career in Silicon Valley. She had her own design firm Hot Studio for over 15 years, sold it to Facebook and then went on to lead global design teams at Facebook and Autodesk. After all that time working with executives and championing design, she started to reconsider what her next career chapter was going to look like. Her journey is relatable and honest and full of twists and as you'll find out towards the end of the discussion, also a surprising turn. Show notes and transcript: https://reconsidering.org/episodes/6

Hey there podcast listener! You're not going to believe it - The newest addition of The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X Podcast is ready for your listening pleasure! This week was packed full of exciting radio drama. Chris rants about the new intern calling him “Chrisbo” and the studio air conditioning breaks! Plus, we sought the wisdom of LBC legend, Theo Usherwood, and quizzed him about the new lockdown rules! And if that wasn't enough, here's more… Gambo Impression Jack Wood's Nicknames Beer Chart Enjoy! The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X

The AC is broken and the studio is burning up! Dave and Casey save the night and fixed AC. Tips on how to deal with Mental Health.

In which we are joined by Maria Giudice, founder of Hot Studio, former design executive at Facebook and Autodesk, for a whirlwind discussion of her career, design leadership, and coaching. Topics: Frank Frazetta; Working Girl; art school; white designer dudes; New York in the mid-80s; Richard Saul Wurman telling us we're all full of shit; designing guidebooks; command-and-control leadership style; San Francisco in the late 80s; becoming a design leader; hiring misfits; match between leader and the team; inheriting teams; the brutality of corporate America; learning from mistakes; change-making at scale; consulting vs in-house; the need for executive sponsorship; where we find joy in our lives; meaning and purpose in our work; leading and coaching in a fashion authentic to you; the value of coaching for senior leaders.

Design manager Gabe Wasserman in San Francisco shares some great ways he engages his team during the quarantine by having "Doodle Thursdays" and special birthday Slack channels, to keep the culture alive in his team. Design manager Gabe Wasserman in San Francisco shares some great ways he engages his team during the quarantine to keep the culture alive. Gabe manages the operations design team at Opendoor which is inventing a new platform to simplify real estate transactions. Before that, he worked at Facebook as a senior product designer leading a multi-year design effort to overhaul Facebook’s global advertising platform. Prior to joining Facebook, he worked at Hot Studio, the well-known SF agency that Facebook acquired. He enjoys learning new domains, synthesizing complex information, crafting compelling digital experiences, and driving consensus among stakeholders. Gabe is also my surf buddy and helped me come up with the name for this podcast Recliner Designer.

My guest today is Maria Giudice. Maria founded Hot Studio, a design consultancy that was acquired by Facebook in 2013. After leaving Facebook, she served as VP of Design at Autodesk. In this conversation, Maria reveals how she found her purpose, and shares with us the exciting next stage of her career. Listen to the full conversation   Show notes Maria Giudice on LinkedIn Maria Giudice on Facebook Hot Studio Richard Saul Wurman Information Architects by Richard Saul Wurman Cooper Union Fortran Massimo Vignelli The yellow pages CCA Cartography Macintosh IIci Adobe Photoshop Adobe Illustrator Times New Roman Helvetica Mosaic web browser Netscape Frank Frazetta Italic script The Speedball Textbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Pen and Brush Lettering by Joanne Fink Autodesk Clement Mok The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks Rise of the DEO: Leadership by Design by Maria Giudice and Christopher Ireland Rise of the DEO posts in Medium Some show notes may include Amazon affiliate links. I get a small commission for purchases made through these links. Read the full transcript Jorge: Maria, welcome to the show. Maria: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here with you, Jorge. Jorge: Well, I'm very excited that you've agreed to come on. So, for folks who might not know you, how do you describe what you do and what you've been doing; your trajectory? Maria: Boy, that's a good question because I feel like I keep changing and growing. So, I'll go from one end, from being a child. I considered myself a fine artist and now that I'm a woman in her fifties, I am a, a design leadership coach and consultant. And a lot of stuff happened in between. Jorge: I was about to ask. I think there's a lot of… There's a big gap between those two. I'll tell you what I know, because we've known each other, but my awareness of you proceeds my knowing you in person. And I knew two things about you before I met you. One was that you founded a design agency or consultancy called Hot Studio. Maria: Yes. Jorge: And I also know that at one point you worked with Richard Saul Wurman. Maria: I did. Yes. Great, then you got two data points in a sea of many years of data points. Jorge: I think that the first time that I became aware of you, I believe it was in the Information Architects book. Maria: Yeah. I was sitting my twenties when I was featured in that book. And you know, Richard coined the phrase “information architects” back in the day. Jorge: Absolutely. Maria: I started out as a fine artist, went to art school. I went to Cooper Union in New York City. One of the beautiful things about Cooper Union as an art school was it was art, engineering, and architecture. It was founded in the 1800s by Peter Cooper. And when I went to art school, I had no understanding of the interrelationship between art, architecture, and engineering. They just seemed like very discreet disciplines. But at Cooper, you could take an art class. I was majored in art, but I took an engineering class. I learned how to do Fortran; don't ask me why decided to do that. I could take an architecture class. And so, this interconnection between art and technology was there at the very beginning, even though I didn't realize it. And then out of school, I got to work with Richard Saul Wurman. And how I got to do that was Richard was a visiting professor in my senior design class. And I was taking graphic design classes, but I had very… I was just… I hated it. I was a painter and I took graphic design essentially to learn how to be more organized. And also, my painting teacher suggested that I do that so I don't become poor. So, I was taking graphic design for all the wrong reasons, really seeing no purpose to it. I felt like it was incredibly formulaic. It's like, “Okay, you got Bodoni, you got Helvetica, you got the classic typefaces, you got the Bauhaus. So, you create the grid. Everything should be flush left. And oh yeah, lots of white space. Throw an image out, slap it together, call it a day.” That was my version of graphic design, and I was struggling for meaning and purpose. And then Richard walks into our class, he's a visiting speaker for the day. He doesn't look anything like all the graphic designers from the 80s. It is graphic design, and we're tall. Men wearing black. Vignelli. Everybody looked so polished, and I'm a girl from Staten Island. Okay? So, I look nothing like a typical designer. And he walks in, and he looks nothing like a typical designer. Short, chubby, big scarf, and more importantly, cursing up a storm, which of course I fell in love with. And he walks in and he changed my life because he walked in, he looked at all of us. He said, “You're all full of shit.” He's like, “You're doing design for the wrong reason. Design isn't about you. It's about helping people make sense to the world.” Now, I don't know if he said that exactly, but that's what I took away, and that was like the gods coming down from the heaven telling me, “Oh. There's a purpose to this.” You know, design is about being in service to others. Our job is a service job. Helping people understand, be entertained, make sense, you know, make clarity out of chaos, all of that stuff. And that changed my trajectory for the rest of my life. And that idea about design being in service to others, carried me through my 30 year career to where I am today. That focus, that we are here to help make clarity out of chaos. So, I worked for him right out of school designing guidebooks, because that's what you did in the 80s. And another big milestone happened where he got the gig to redesign the Pacific Bell Yellow Pages. Now, do you remember the yellow pages, Jorge? Jorge: I sure do. Maria: Yeah. I mean, I teach at CCA now and I, and I ask people about the yellow pages. They don't raise their hands. It's like generationally, a gone concept. But the yellow pages was the only thing that connected people in communities together through the telephone. And he got the gig to reimagine what the yellow pages could be for all of California and Nevada, to rethink about what the value proposition could be for this. And I thought that was a) fascinating; a fascinating problem to solve at scale, and b) an easy trip to the Bay Area for a couple of months where I can hang out and enjoy the nice weather. So, I drove cross country, my best friend came here. There was no office set up, so it was like ground zero. I land, a few other people land, and then we actually have to put together a company. So, I was at the beginning of understanding how you put a company together from the ground up. And so, I worked on the yellow pages, and my specialty was cartography. I don't know if you knew that about me, but I was a master cartographer. And that came through working for Richard. And so, my job in the yellow pages was to redesign and build all the maps in all the yellow pages. And we're talking about hundreds of different yellow pages throughout California, for all of California and Nevada. So, you know, I started designing maps and I had to quickly build a team, because I couldn't do it all myself. So here I am, 24 years old trying to help bring a company to life and become instantly turned into a manager of people. And it was the dawn of the digital age. A computer landed on my desktop in 1987, it was the Mac IIci. And it had Photoshop and illustrator 1.0 and it had Times New Roman and Helvetica. And Richard embraced technology really early on, and we all were at the beginning trying to figure out how to integrate this new technology into our workflow. So, all these new things happened at the same time in my twenties. That entrepreneurial spirit was alive and well, I was part of this new horizon. And I flourished. I really took well to tech. I loved working with computers. I loved being part of the beginning of figuring out how this all works. And I turned out to be really great at managing and inspiring people to work really hard. And so, I wound up staying in California and I had a team of like 20 people. By the time I was 27, I was managing a large, large team of people. And then I got to a place where I could no longer grow. I hit the top of my game in that company, and that's when I went on my own and started freelancing. And then, the short answer here is I started freelancing, I got busy, I hired people, I got busy, I hired people. Suddenly I had a company. I had a small company. Then I had a medium sized company. Then I had a really large company. The other thing that happened was I was also part of the very early beginnings of the internet. So, my clients were like, “Hey, you think about design very differently than other people, and can you design a website?” And I'm like, “I don't know what a website is, but I'm sure I could figure it out.” And this was like 1993. Mosaic was there. Netscape was coming out. And again, we were all trying to figure out what is this new medium and how does it integrate with what we do? And that propelled my career to founding Hot Studio. Hot Studio grew to about a hundred people in two locations, New York and San Francisco. And then we sold Hot Studio to Facebook in 2013, the year I turned 50. And then I worked at Facebook for two years and went to AutoDesk to be VP of Design, and that takes me to where I am now. Two years ago, I left Autodesk, and now I'm a coach where I get to help grow the next generation of creative leaders. And that's been incredibly rewarding. So that's a long trajectory, long story. But the information design element, the design being in service to others is the consistent thread through all of those experience touchpoints. Jorge: That's great. I want to circle back on that, but before I do, I want to ask you about something you said. You said that when you were still a student, you got into it primarily because of a love for the arts. Maria: Yeah. Jorge: But it's like visual arts, right? Maria: Yeah. I started painting when I was seven or eight years old, and I used to go study painting every Friday… Every Saturday morning, I would go to Mr. [Inaudible] art studio and take a book out of his rack and paint seascapes and still lifes, and it was oil paint. My uncle is actually a very famous fantasy artists named Frank Frazetta. Jorge: I've seen Frank Frazetta's work. It's astonishing. Maria: Yeah. So, he was my uncle. And so, I was surrounded by this idea about, you know, art being something that you can thrive in. And also, the connection between painting and graphic design for me was calligraphy. I started doing calligraphy in middle school. My English teacher gave me a book on italic, and I was fascinated by the Speedball book that I bought in the art store that had all of these different, like… I wouldn't say they were typefaces, but they kind of were. And I was really good at drawing letters and I used to design band posters. So that's how I managed to peg with the cool kids, because I would design posters for bands. And also paint jean jackets. So, I was entrepreneurial at a young age, being able to apply my artistic skills to things that people needed. Jorge: You said something when you were describing your career at Cooper Union, where you said that when you made the switch from visual arts to graphic design, one of the distinctions between the two was that graphic design was more organized. Maria: Yeah. I was such a slob, and I thought that if I take graphic design classes, it would help me be a little bit more organized. Jorge: Why would that be? Maria: Because my impression of the graphic designers that were in art school, they seemed like they had their shit together. The fine artists, not so much. And so, I saw these graphic designers that were so buttoned up and I went, “Oh, I maybe could learn something about this.” Jorge: When you came to California and started a company, was that The Understanding Business? Maria: Yes, that was The Understanding Business. So, Richard had Access Press in New York, and he founded the understanding business, and the big client was Pacific bell yellow pages. Jorge: So that is an awesome overview of your career, and I've learned so much just from this short conversation. Maria: Yeah, we're done now. Right? Jorge: Yeah. No, but I want to focus on what you're doing now because you said that… Well, you've had the experience, starting out as a freelancer, and I don't want to say accidentally, but it's almost like the business grew organically. Maria: Yeah, it was accidental. Jorge: Right? By the time before the step where you find yourself now, you were running design at a fairly large organization that makes tools for designers, right? Maria: Yes. Jorge: So, you've been exposed to various different facets of the design industry, and in particular digital design, right? From being an individual contributor, all the way to being an executive in a large organization. Maria: Yeah. Jorge: And you've made the switch now to advising folks, is that right? Maria: Yeah, I have had the good fortune of being exposed to growing businesses, working in essentially startups. Right? Because The Understanding Business was a startup — my own company was a startup from the very beginning — and being in middle-sized companies, also having hundreds of clients, when I worked at Hot Studio. So, I've had this context about how people and organizations work at scale. And at Autodesk I was the VP of Design. I loved that job because I got to participate in culture change at scale, with 400 designers worldwide, and Autodesk had hundreds of products. So, the last two years of working for others, I was in corporate America. So from 2013 to 2017, end of 2017, I was essentially working in two large corporations. And I loved pieces of it, but I also hated pieces of it. And as I got older, this is what I say about people who get older: the amount of fucks you give goes to zero, right? When you get older, your priorities change. It's so hard to play the politics game. But I was fascinated by that, and I like looking at how people in organizations work together from the outside in. So I left Autodesk and I resisted jumping into another VP job. And that was actually one of the hardest things I've ever done, because I've spent my entire life building my brand and reputation. And I have a great story to tell. I've worked hard and I've accomplished a lot, and then suddenly I don't have a job anymore at the end of 2017. And I remember running into Clement Mok. He's an early mentor of mine. And he told me, “Maria, you have to promise me to take a year off.” I'd never taken a year off. Everything was one thing to the other. I had two kids. I raised kids; I have… I'm married. I did all of that nonstop. And it just, it stuck with me. He said, you need to take time to think and figure out what you want to do next. And that year was brutal because I kept saying to myself, “Who the hell am I if I don't have a name, a title, I'm not bringing in shitloads of money?” And it really made me question and challenge myself in terms of like, what's it all worth? Why am I doing what I'm doing? What's my purpose in life? All of these big, big questions. So, one thing I did in that time off is I made a list of all the classes I ever wanted to take but could never take them. My kids are teenagers now, so they ignore me. So, I have plenty of time on my hands. And I took like an improv class. I hated it, but I know it's important. I'm taking calligraphy classes again; I'm taking a watercolor class. I'm bringing back the fine art, but I also took a coaching class. And I took coaching classes because I, not necessarily wanting to be a coach, but I thought that, boy, those are great skills to have. I could always be better at listening and asking powerful questions. I'm working on another book project and I'm interviewing people and I thought that these could just really improve my listening skills. And then over the course of the year, I realized I was really good at it. That, you know, people are constantly asking me for advice. So, I said, well, if I'm going to be giving advice, I should a) be great at it, and b) get paid to do it. So, then I kind of committed and stepped over the line. I drew like an invisible line on the floor and I said, “What am I stepping into? What will I commit to?” And I committed to getting certified as a coach, which is a pretty rigorous training program. It takes about seven to eight months to do. And I should be done with my certification at the end of February, I have like over 20 clients worldwide and it gives me great energy to help people. I get to help people lead based on where they are in their career. So, it could be everything from emerging design, emerging leaders, all the way up to very senior leaders. And I get to support them without the bullshit of corporations and corporate America. I don't have to deal with their politics, they have to deal with their politics. So it gives me that insight to stay relevant and fresh in the industry that I love without dealing with the corporate bullshit. And that, that's been great. But what I want to say is, from a meta perspective — and I find this to be true with people who are leaving jobs in their 50s and asking the same kind of questions that I'm asking… There's these two phases in life. David Brooks wrote a book called The Second Mountain, and he talks about this. And the first mountain is the mountain that you climb to establish your identity, build your career, generate wealth, create status, raise a family. You know, that's the mountain. That's the trajectory that we're all climbing. And then something happens to people in their 40s and 50s, when they start really questioning what's next for them. They're at the peak, and then they're going to go down the mountain. Some of them retire, some of them get depressed, and some of them go into different careers. But what I'm finding is people in their 40s and 50s are staying in… are not retiring. They're reinventing. And they're reinventing through the context of purpose and meaning. They're starting to ask questions about what is worth doing in life? Why am I here on this earth? What can I do to support people, help people? You know, create a legacy that isn't about wealth and title. And that's the space that I'm sitting in right now. And it's like going from the outer world to the inner world, and that's been really satisfying. So, I'm doing a lot of work on myself, sort of inner work, like identifying what brings me joy and fulfillment, and making sure that I'm spending my precious time on earth in service. And it's exciting because I don't feel like I'm marching towards death. Right? I feel like I have, like… I feel lucky that at 57 years old, I feel like I'm at the beginning of a new path. Jorge: That's great. Maria: Yeah. What a gift, right? I mean, when I was in my twenties, I thought when you were 50, by the time you turned 50, you were like close to death, you know? And even though it sucks to get older, I have to say, the wisdom that you gained from your life experience is priceless. And then you have to decide how you're going to use that wisdom in, in really helpful ways. Jorge: It sounds to me like you had an experience when you were younger of someone coming into your life and helping you discover your purpose, right? You talked about Mr. Wurman and this idea that he helped you see that it was about helping people understand and make sense of things. And to bring it back to the folks listening to the show, as you go about advising people now, and helping impart this wisdom that you've gained over the years and your experiences. First of all, I'm wondering if you ever find yourself advising folks who maybe have not yet discovered that purpose, that can motivate them and that can get them to another level. And if that's the case, how do you move past that? Maria: Well, that's the part of coaching. The big part of coaching is not to give people answers, it's to guide them so that they find their own answers that resonate with them. And through those coaching sessions, we unpack values. What are things that are important to you? What are your own guiding principles in life, and how do you use those guiding principles, those values that you have, to make decisions, and to live your life authentically? A large part of the coaching journey is to help people uncover what they're meant to do on this earth, and how they can live in authentic life, and bring joy and purpose to it no matter where they are in the process. The other thing about finding Richard early in my life, who became sort of the linchpin to who I have become, we all have that. We just have to pay attention to it. I tell my students that all the time. Walk around life with your eyes wide open and pay attention to those moments. Be open to those moments that are going to… That may change your trajectory in life. And we all have them. Jorge: That is a fantastic takeaway for folks. And I think it's also a good summary of where you are now, and what you're doing to help folks. So, thank you for sharing that with us. I'm wondering, if folks want to follow up with you and perhaps reach out to see if you can help them with this, where can they reach out to you? Maria: Yeah. Well, if you go to hotstudio.com, which is still up, you could send me an email through there. Or you could just reach out to me on LinkedIn and send me a message that you're interested in coaching. That's how I found all my clients, by the way. I put out a call on LinkedIn and Facebook and I said, Hey, I'm doing this. And I got contacts from people all over the world, which was so humbling. And this is the other thing that I love about this work, that I get to be introduced to people from all over the world who want help, want coaching, and I could help them no matter where they are, whatever geography they're in. So that's been lovely. Jorge: We didn't get into this, but you're also the author of a book called Rise of the DEO, and I just wanted to mention it because I'm going to link that in the notes as well. Maria: That's great. Yeah. Actually, Rise of the DEO is my third book. The great thing about Rise of the DEO now is it's all available on Medium. So, if you are a subscriber to Medium, you can get the whole book on Medium for free. Jorge: That's great. I didn't know that. I'm going to link to that as well. Folks who are listening to this conversation, especially if they're in the design disciplines and looking to move up to leadership positions, it strikes me as something that they would be keen to follow up on. Maria: Yeah, it's actually, it's both for… I would say it's for designers, design leaders, but it's also for creative business leaders, because it talks about the interrelationship of design skills and qualities at the CEO level. And the rise of the DEO is about the rise of the Design Executive Officer. You don't have to be a designer in order to be a creative business leader, a DEO. And it talks about how you can be better at risk-taking, intuition, system design, people-centeredness. All of these things that we were trained as, as designers, are now incredibly relevant skills and characteristics in today's business world. Jorge: Well, fantastic. I'm going to link to that. Well, thank you so much for your time, Maria. This has been fantastic. Maria: Oh, it was great talking to you.

Rallying around a shared vision is one of the biggest challenges for design teams operating at scale. So how can you foster that vision and bring people together to execute it? In this episode, Hot Studio Founder and former Autodesk VP of Experience Design Maria Giudice talks about overcoming team silos and learning to lead with influence instead of authority. She also discusses why diversity is one of the keys to great product design, along with lessons she learned while working with fast-moving companies like Facebook. “Agile was not developed with design in mind—but we as designers can impact that process and bring our own processes in. I call it human-centered Agile...At the end of the day, it doesn't matter about being a designer, or an engineer, or a data scientist—it's more about ‘Did we ship a great product together?’” Listen as Eli and Aarron chat with Maria about everything from Hot Studio’s role in establishing the practice of DesignOps to how companies can reinforce their design culture foundation. If you enjoy this episode, we’d appreciate you leaving a review on iTunes.

A lot of companies are investing more in design. As they do, the organization scales. As it scales, it has to operationalize, become more efficient, and plug into the rest of the company—but what makes all that possible? In this episode, Pinterest’s Head of Design Operations Meredith Black talks about the emerging practice of DesignOps, and how she introduced it to Pinterest more than three years ago. Meredith covers everything from when it’s time to start building a DesignOps team to advice for getting started. She even reveals where she finds most of her best hires. Listen as Eli and Aarron chat with Meredith about starting and growing a DesignOps practice—and how she nearly joined the FBI before finding herself in a different kind of “ops” career. Meredith's bio Meredith Black is the Head of Design Operations at Pinterest, where she's pioneered the Design Program Management organization and grown it to 11 design program managers in almost four years. Within Product Design, she’s also responsible for operations, recruiting, resourcing and risk management. Prior to Pinterest, Meredith worked at design firms Hot Studio (acquired by Facebook) and IDEO. Her love for design runs deep. Real deep.

This time on the show the guys start off by talking about the extremely uncomfortable temperatures in he studio. The guys also take the time to thank some fans who donated. Mark then goes into his favorite bit, which is explaining a comedy sketch or video. The guys also talk about super powers, being immortal and  time travel. … Continue reading Being Immortal And Melting In The Hot Studio!-The Hotshot Whiz Kids Podcast Episode 611 → The post Being Immortal And Melting In The Hot Studio!-The Hotshot Whiz Kids Podcast Episode 611 first appeared on The Hotshot Whiz Kids Podcast Network.

In this episode, we’ll be talking about why traditional CEOs have been replaced by a new breed called DEOs, design executive officers, and how companies are basically being led by executives who embrace design thinking. To help us out, I’ve invited Maria Giudice formerly the founder of Hot Studio. Maria built and successfully ran Hot Studio through 3 tech busts, I’d say that’s enough of a reason for me to want to learn from this amazing design leader! Hot Studio was eventually acquired by Facebook. Maria’s latest role is as the VP of Experience Design at Autodesk and she has co-authored a new book called The Rise of The DEO. Whether you’re a leader or aspire to be one, you won’t want to miss listening to this episode, because Maria and are I are going to be talking about how DEOs: Are different from traditional CEOs Evaluate and take risks Are systems level thinkers Use their intuition to guide their decision-making Have cultivated a high level of social intelligence Care about getting shit done! Co-create with their teams and manage different roles Give employees permission to fail influence and shape a company’s culture through their unique leadership style

Awake 2 Oneness Radio with guest Lara Rubin Alexiou Friday September 25, 2015 Live at 7:00 PM EDT.  I began practicing Hot Yoga two months ago and met an incredible women, Lara Rubin Alexiou.  She is the owner of Steamtown Hot Yoga in Scranton, PA.  What is so amazing about Lara is she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2003 at the age of 25 and at that time she could barely walk up a flight of stairs.  The reason Lara's story resonates so deeply with me is because my daughter was also diagnosed with MS the exact same year when she was only 23 years old. Lara Rubin Alexiou has been teaching yoga for almost 15 years and has no symptoms of MS. She has trained and has been certified with Bikram, Jimmy Barkan and Zen Wellness in Yoga and Qigong.  She is currently completing certification as an Ayurvedic Yoga Specialist through the Himalayan Institute and NAMA.  She personally trains and certifies each teacher at Steamtown Yoga through a 200 hour program that meets or exceeds the standards at set out by Yoga Alliance. In 2007, Lara opened the doors to Steamtown Yoga bringing the healing transformation of Hot Yoga to NEPA. Steamtown Yoga is the first Hot Studio to open in NEPA and one of the first Yoga studios to open in the greater Scranton area. Lara travels the country and the world with her husband John, studying Yoga, Qigong and the Eastern Healing Arts.  Lara is excited to address the broader perspectives of space and architecture, space within the body and the mind, the architecture of the body, and how someone's outer world and what someone creates on the physical level is a reflection of their inner world. To learn more about Lara and Steamtown Yoga visit: http://www.steamtownyoga.com/