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A world class expert in data management, Dr. Mark Brady has served as Chief Data Officer for the Space Force, Chief Data Officer for the Air Force Space Command, Data Architect for The Department of Justice, and Information Architect for the National Marine Fisheries Service.He also helped established electronic trade standards as U.S. delegate to the United Nations, served on the White House Data Cabinet, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Big Data Council.Mark is the author of, "Next Generation Data Management: Using Your Data Assets to Drive Mission Success" Listen NOW to discover, "How To Turn Data Into Mission Success "
Greetings OOUXers! In this New Years episode of the podcast, we welcome Content Designer, Information Architect, and Certified OOUX Consultant, Karen Hewell. Sophia and Karen discuss the power of naming your feelings and thoughts, the difference between feelings and thoughts, mapping your polarizing traits can make you more confident, & how to get started OOUXing your life. This is a fantastic discussion. We hope you enjoy. LINKS: New year, new you. Level up your career with The Self-Paced OOUX Masterclass. OOUX Happy Hour: Extending the Nested Object Matrix YouTube Video: NOMing My Joys Read the article that started it all: OOUX: A Foundation for Interaction Design Continue the conversation over on The OOUX Forum! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ooux/support
Bio Jeff helps organizations build better products and executives build the cultures that build better products. He is the co-author of the award-winning book Lean UX (now in it's 3rd edition) and the Harvard Business Review Press book Sense & Respond. Starting off as a software designer, Jeff now works as a coach, consultant and keynote speaker helping companies bridge the gaps between business agility, digital transformation, product management and human-centred design. His most recent book, Forever Employable, was published in June 2020. Social Media · LinkedIn · Jeff Gothelf - coaching, consulting, training & keynotes · OKR-book.com · Twitter · Instagram · Jeff Gothelf - YouTube Interview Highlights 04:50 Early career 16:00 Thought leadership 19:10 Outsource the work you hate, it shows 23:00 Defining a product 24:35 Product Managers as navigators of uncertainty 28:15 Succeeding as a Product Manager 37:25 Strategy, vision and mission 42:00 OKRs 48:00 Leading and lagging indicators 54:10 Do less, more often Books and resources · Forever Employable - how to stop looking for work - Jeff Gothelf · Best product management books - Lean UX, Sense & Respond... (jeffgothelf.com) · Lean vs. Agile vs. Design Thinking: What You Really Need to Know to Build High-Performing Digital Product Teams: Gothelf, Jeff · Sense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously: Gothelf, Jeff, Seiden, Josh · The role of a Product Manager: Product Managers are Navigators of Uncertainty https://jeffgothelf.com/blog/product-managers-navigate-uncertainty/ · Information Architecture, Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, Jorge Arango · The Lean Startup | The Movement That Is Transforming How New Products Are Built And Launched · Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making, Tony Fadell · The Creative Act: A Way of Being: Rubin, Rick Episode Transcript Ula Ojiaku Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. So I have with me the legend, Jeff Gothelf, who is an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, highly sought after keynote speaker I must add, coach and much more. So Jeff, really honoured to have you on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast, thank you. Jeff Gothelf It's my pleasure, Ula, thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Ula Ojiaku Oh, good. Well, I usually start with a question for my guests to find out more about themselves as individuals. And during our pre-recording session, you mentioned something that was intriguing to me, that you actually played piano and you were part of a touring musical band, could you tell us about that? Jeff Gothelf Absolutely. I've played piano my whole life, my dad plays piano, there was always a piano in the house, and I had pretty big rockstar dreams as I was a kid growing up. It's really all I wanted to do. I can remember in high school everybody's like, what are you going to go to college for? I was like, I'm going to be a rockstar, figure that out. And, you know, I played in bands in high school, I played in bands in college, and towards the end of college I started playing in a couple of relatively serious bands, serious in the sense that they were decent bands, in my opinion. They were touring bands and they, you know, they made enough money to sustain themselves. They weren't jobs, they didn't sustain us as individuals, but they sustained the band system. And it's fascinating because, you know, at the time I was 19 and 20, I did this really until just about the time I met my wife, which, I was 25. And so I did it until about, I was about 25, and, you know, in hindsight you don't see it when you're in it, especially if you've never really done anything else. I'd always had jobs, but the jobs were always, you know, I delivered newspapers and I made sandwiches and I was a, you know, worked for a moving company, whatever, right? But in hindsight now it's clear to me that I was being entrepreneurial. In those days, the bands, each of them, especially the touring bands, were startups, you know, it's a bunch of folks getting together with a crazy idea, thinking that everyone in the world will love it, it's going to change the world, and doing everything they can and putting everything into helping folks realise that, and building that vision and, and executing on it. And, you know, scraping by and hacking things together and hustling and doing what you can to build a successful, in this case it was a musical group, but it was essentially a startup. And these days, not only do I look back fondly on those days and all those, all those guys that I played music with are my best friends to this day, we still talk almost every day, but I learned so many skills about being entrepreneurial, about experimenting, about learning, about failure, about iteration, about, you know, what's good, what's good enough, when do you call it quits, that's a really tough thing to do, you know, letting something go that you love is really difficult. And I know now, you know, 20 years later, that so much of that experience figures into my day-to-day work today. You know, even to this day, like if I get a new speech to give, if I get, a new client or a new, you know, assignment, I call them gigs. You know, I got a new speaking gig, I got a new consulting gig, I got a new coaching gig, that type of thing. It's impossible to remove that. And it's, it's amazing to me really, because at the time, you know, I could not have told you what I just said to you and, but in hindsight it's super clear to me what I was doing and what I was learning because I've put it to use over and over and over again in my life. Ula Ojiaku That's fascinating. It reminds me of what one of my mentors said to me, and he said, whenever you are given an opportunity to learn versus, you know, get more money doing what you already know, always choose to learn because there's no wasted knowledge. So it's more of tying it back to your days that, you know, as a musician, as a part of a touring band, you were learning and you're now using those transferrable skills, right? Jeff Gothelf Yes. Ula Ojiaku And would you, well, I don't play any instruments, but I used to be part of, you know, different choirs and my daughter also now does that, you know, kind of sings. But there are times when, you know, things would go wrong and you're finding yourself having to improvise so that the audience wouldn't know, okay, this isn't part of the script. Would you say that has also played a part in your experience as a band member did such? Jeff Gothelf I mean, the thing that comes immediately to mind is just comfort on a stage, right? Comfort in front of people and being able, you know, being comfortable in front of a room and performing to some extent or another. I think that that's, that came from that, the ability to, you know, hide or improvise, mistakes that happened. You know, I remember I was, we did this as a band all the time, and nobody ever knew really, unless they knew a particular song of ours very, very well. And you know, some things like that happen all the time when you're, giving a speech or teaching a class or whatever it is. I mean, I remember giving a speech in Budapest one time at Craft Conference in front of 2000 people, and the screen kept going out, my slides are up there in front of, and they kept flickering and, and going out. And it was just a question of, you know, what do you do? Do you just sort of collapse and be like, well, the slides are gone, I can't do anything, or do you keep going? And I think a lot of that drive and that ability to land on my feet in those situations came from being in that band and putting on so many shows. Ula Ojiaku And I'll say it helps that you knew your content as well, because if you had just read it 10 minutes before and you got on the stage, then it would be a different thing. Jeff Gothelf It would not have gone well. Ula Ojiaku Yes. Okay, now I understand you have a BA in Mass Communication and you also went on to do a Masters in Human Factors in Information Design, and in your previous life you used to be a software designer. Jeff Gothelf Correct. Ula Ojiaku How did the winding road go from band member, you know, through the academics, to Jeff we know today, I mean from software designer to now. Jeff Gothelf Yeah, it's interesting, it's a great question. The, look, the rockstar thing didn't work out, you know, there's a thousand reasons, but I think the bottom line is we just weren't good enough, that's, that's probably where it netted out, but… Ula Ojiaku And you were getting married, you said you met your wife. Jeff Gothelf I was getting married, yeah. You know, and having no money doesn't, those two things don't really play well together, you know, and so the band thing was ending and, you know, the web was starting, so we're looking at the late nineties at this point, just to kind of date myself a little bit, we're looking at the late nineties and in the late nineties as the band was, the last band that I was in, was winding down, the internet was coming up and I'd always been prone, you know, to computers and a little bit of computer programming, just very basic stuff, you know, and I started building websites, basic, you know, brochure websites for my band and for other bands, and I taught myself HTML to be able to do that. And then as the band was winding down, web 1.0 was happening and, you know, back in 1999, if you could spell HTML, you could get a job, you know, and I could do a little bit more than that, I did a little bit of graphic design, a little bit of, of HTML, and so I got a job, I got a job because it was easy to get a job back then, they took a lot of risks on people, and we learned on the job and that's what kicked things off, that got me doing web design and shortly thereafter I moved into Information Architecture, which was a brand new term and a brand new field as defined in a book by Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville called Information Architecture for the Worldwide Web. And that book really changed my life because it gave me a sense that I, instead of just doing kind of the last step in the process, which was the markup and the design portion, I could move further up the waterfall, if you will, in the website creation process and do a lot of the Information Architecture, and that was great, and that was really, that really spoke to me and having sort of landed in that position, as the web evolved and became more interactive and Information Architecture expanded into, well, more fields showed up in interaction design, UI design, UX design, I expanded my skillset into that world. And then that really began the trajectory of starting to build design teams and then going into product management, eventually launching our own studio, our own firm, and then finally after selling that studio, going out on my own and teaching all this stuff. But that's, that's sort of like how I went from band, to the web and everything, and there's, you know, there's a lot, I skipped a lot of steps there, but that's the story in general. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that, Jeff, and I think you also told part of your story in your book Forever Employable, How to Stop Looking for Work and Let your Next Job Find You. Since we're already on this topic, could we just delve into that? So you said something in that book about, you know, in your job as a software designer, you know, Information Architect, I can't remember the exact role you had, but you had an aha moment where you felt you, quoting this in my own words, I'm not quoting your book exactly, but you felt like you could always be replaced in that role and you wanted to carve out a niche where you are always in demand. Do you want to tell that story in your words so that I stop butchering it. Jeff Gothelf Yeah, I mean, look, it was interesting, you know, I progressed in my career in the same way that, you know, most people progress in their career, the way that my parents told me the world works, you know, you go to college, you get a job. It took me, and there was a little, you know, band break in there for me, but, you know, I got my first job, and then you work hard for a few years and you get a promotion, and then you, maybe you move to another company and you get a raise and, you know, you just kind of move your way, you climb your way up the corporate ladder. And that's what I did, I did that for a decade and I, you know, I clawed my way up into middle management like everybody does, or like most folks do. And when I turned 35, on the morning, in fact, of my 35th birthday is how the story goes in the book, I kind of woke up in a panic. I was concerned, like you said, that this wasn't going to last. I was going to become more expensive, the number of opportunities available to me as you climb, available to anyone, as you climb the corporate ladder gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Right? Exactly. Right. That's by design, right? You want fewer managers and more people doing the work. And I was genuinely concerned that I was going to run out of, I was going to get fired, I was, there's, I was hiring people at the time and the people that we were hiring were younger than me, they were smarter than me, faster than me, they were better than me, and they cost a lot less than me. And so I was really worried, and I saw this with my friends too, I had friends who were maybe five years older than me who were struggling with this very thing. They were struggling to find a job or stay employed, and stay relevant. And I was terrified. I was terrified I wasn't going to be able to feed my kids, you know, that was the big thing for me. And so I made an explicit decision when I turned 35 that I was going to stop chasing jobs. Like, as the subtitle of the book says, How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You, I was going to stop looking for work, and I was going to create a situation where jobs were constantly finding me, where opportunities were finding me, because that way if something happens to my current job, well there's a stream of inbound opportunities available to me. And to kind of cut to the chase here, the way that I decided to do that, and the way that I write about it in the book, is through thought leadership. That's it. Like, that's the, you know, recognised expertise, personal branding, right, becoming somebody who people know and somebody who can help solve specific problems, and that's what I did. And look, it took me years, a lot of years, to really build up my reputation and my profile, and I've done it to an extent, and it's impressive to me today to see how many people are doing it so much faster than me. Now, you can credit it to the tools that's available to them, the nature of conversation online these days that's fundamentally different than it was 10 or 15 years ago, and these folks have just kind of nailed, nailed the system here. But it's thought leadership is what's worked for me to do that. Ula Ojiaku And I'll say, I mean, yes, there are people who might have done it faster than you did, but there is this saying that people are able, if I'm able to see as far as I did, it's because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. I'm just saying it's credit to you for sharing your experience because it's helping us to know what to do moving forward. Jeff Gothelf Look, and that's, I think that that's the benefit here, right? I think I talk about this in the book, right? About sharing generously, giving back to the community, helping people avoid the mistakes that you made, helping them skip a step. And to me that's, you know, a lot of folks would see that as, well, aren't you enabling the competition? No, I'm helping the community get collectively better. And eventually I hope that if I get to a position of need, the community will help me, that's what I hope. I don't expect it, but that's what I hope happens. Ula Ojiaku So how, how did you go about setting up the systems then? Because you, you got this realisation, oh my gosh, I am going to be, I may be obsolete in my current role faster than I'd rather admit, so you said you now went, you said, okay, you're going to be a thought leader. How did you decide on what area to start from and how did you then go about setting up the systems and the structure you have right now that are helping you? Jeff Gothelf The first thing was really to decide what I wanted to be known for. You know, in the book we call it planting your flag, but it's a question of what is, if I'm going to be a thought leader, if I'm going to build a personal brand of some kind, if I'm going to be known for something, what is that thing? And, and you know, our natural tendency is to go for professional things. What do I know best at work? What do I do best? I'm a Project Manager, a Product Manager, I'm an agile coach, I'm a software developer, I'm a designer, but doesn't have to be professional. Could be personal, right? I told you I play piano and I happen to really love old vintage electric pianos. And I used to have a fairly large collection of vintage electric pianos. I could have built my thought leadership around vintage electric pianos, right, and it's viable to an extent, but the target audience here, so this is where kind of the product management hat comes on, right? The target audience is tiny. It's tiny. Like, even if you took all the keyboard players in the world, right? And, and then all those keyboard players who play vintage electric pianos, which is a subset, and all the people who care about this kind of stuff. I mean, it's still an infinitely smaller audience than say, web design, or product management, or even agile software development or things like that where I ultimately ended up. And so I chose that I wanted to be known for User Experience Design, and more importantly, UX design with Agile, because that's the problem that I was solving at the time, or solving for at the time, and nobody had a really good answer for it when we started solving for it, and that to me felt like an opportunity. And then that was what I, so then I started doubling down on that. And what that meant was starting to write, starting to share generously, speaking at conferences, getting on podcasts, things like that. And really starting to, at the very least, tell the story of the work that we were doing at the time, as I was the Director of UX at TheLadders in New York City at the time, and we were working on a daily basis, on a Sprintly basis, to tackle the challenge of good user experience design and agile together. So that's what I was writing about. And that eventually led to Lean UX, the book. But that's how it all started and that's where the focus was. Ula Ojiaku Okay. And how have you then set up the structure? Do you have a team currently or do you work in a lean manner? Jeff Gothelf So these days there is a system and there is a team. It's interesting, years ago I did a gig in the UK, see I said gig, comes out naturally like I told you. I did a gig in the UK for rentalcars.com in Manchester. And at the time, their Head of Product or Chief Product Officer, was this fascinating woman named Supriya Uchil. And she was a fantastic client. I really enjoyed working with her. And when the gig was over, she emailed me, she said, hey, would you like to hear some feedback about what it's like to work with you? No client has ever done that, by the way, not before, and not since. And I said, absolutely. I would love to get some feedback about what it was like to work with me. And she gave me a bunch of feedback, a lot of the work. And I took a lot of notes and I took a lot of post-it notes. One of those post-it notes has stuck with me for years now. It still sits here on my whiteboard, I still have it here, and it says outsource the work you hate, it shows. Right. And that's what she said to me. And she said, look, it's obvious to me that you hate doing sales. She goes, every time we had to have a sales conversation, you were clearly uncomfortable and not really into it. Right. She was right. I hate doing sales, I really do, and so over the years, as I've built this business, as it's grown, as it's become a, you know, a viable, successful business, you know, business of one per se. I have built a team of outsourced professionals to support a lot of the work that I do today. So, for example, I have a content marketing team. Now that team takes content that I create and they repurpose it across multiple channels, and they help me build, you know, my email newsletter and they help me build my LinkedIn presence and other things like that. It's my content, but they do all of that work. In addition to that, I've outsourced all my accounting. I have a fantastic accountant who works with businesses, only with businesses like mine, and so they understand my business and my way of working, everything's online, everything's digital, and that's super helpful. There is a woman that works for me part-time who basically handles the entire logistics of my business, scheduling, calendaring, travel. And then on top of that, she also handles BusDev and sales for me. And so that, to me, all that does is it removes all the things out of my way that I hate doing, and it leaves me with a tremendous amount of free time to do the things that I love doing, which is content creation and delivery. And that has made the ability to generate that content and distribute that content far more efficient and successful. And I'm super grateful to be able to, you know, to be in a position to be able to do that. And it supports the lifestyle that I'm trying to create and it allows me to, again, to focus on the things that I truly enjoy doing. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for sharing that, that's really insightful. Now, going back to something you said earlier about putting on your Product Management hat, there are some people in the audience who might be wondering, okay, what would you define a product as? Is it always something tangible or could we expand that word to mean anything that someone consumes, which might also be intangible, for example, going to a show, would a show be called a product? Jeff Gothelf That's a great question. The simplest definition that I've used and that I like for product is the way an organisation delivers and captures value. To me, that's a product. Now, that product could be a service, right? And I don't want to open up that can of worms. So if you're a band and you deliver a show, you cap you. that's how you deliver value. And if you capture value, like you sell tickets to that show, and merchandise, and maybe streaming revenue, then your product is the music and the show. So, yeah, absolutely, right, that's the way that you capture value. And so to me that's the simplest definition, the way an organisation delivers and captures value. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that definition, and this leads me to my next question, which is, so how does it relate to the discipline of product management? What does a Product Manager do then? Jeff Gothelf I believe that Product Managers are navigators of uncertainty. So a Product Manager's job is to take an idea, right, or, you know, the way an organisation delivers value, and to take it from concept, to market, to successful business. Now, the challenge with that is that we live in a continuously changing world. The pace of that change is increasingly faster, and this idea that you can confidently predict exactly what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and be right all the time is false. There's just too much change in the world. I mean, think back three years ago, right? The world was radically different three years ago than it is today. Radically different from 10 years ago, we could, we could not have predicted the things. I mean, I started my job at TheLadders in New York City, I talk about this, in October of 2008. Everything was going great in October, in the early part of October 2008. Right, we had a roadmap, we had plans, you know, in three weeks after I started my brand new job as Director of User Experience, Lehman Brothers melts down, and the financial crisis ensues, right, and we, you know, we're a job market site and all of a sudden the whole ecosystem's upside down. And so, and so I believe that the Product Manager is a navigator of uncertainty. They take a specific set of skills, a specific set of qualities, like curiosity and humility, and they build a process for de-risking the product idea and maximizing its chances for success. That's what I believe Product Managers do at a very high level. How that manifests will vary from Google, to Bank of America, to Boeing, to whatever, to, you know, I'm thinking, I'm trying to think of something like Cisco, the food service people or whatever, right? Like every organisation is going to do Product Management differently for a variety of reasons. You know, domain, industry context, corporate politics, blah, blah, blah, you know, technology stack, whatever. But at the end of the day, I think if you're looking at sort of fundamentally what a Product Manager does is they help a team navigate the uncertainty of product development. That's their job. Ula Ojiaku I dare say that even within a sector, even an industry, the way it's carried out could also vary from company to company, would you? Jeff Gothelf A hundred percent, yeah, I mean, a hundred percent. I mean, it's absolutely true. And so I think to say like, oh, I did Product Management at Google, so I'm a great Product Manager. Well, you might have been a great Product Manager at Google, congratulations, right? Does that mean that you're going to be a great Product Manager at, you know, Barclays, I don't know. You're going to bring that skillset to bear in a completely different environment, in a completely different industry. So I think if you've got the fundamentals in place, you'll do great. But trying to sort of copy and paste what you did at Google very tactically into a different environment, I don't think it's going to work. I mean, happy to be proven wrong, but I don't think it's going to work. Ula Ojiaku So what are the fundamentals then that a Product Manager would have that would give them a higher chance of success? You know, transferrable success from one area to one another. Jeff Gothelf I'm going talk about two qualities that are, I believe are fundamental to the success of a Product Manager, and then kind of four things to keep in mind. And I think those are, I think that to me, those are the fundamentals. I think that the two qualities that a Product Manager needs to have is humility and curiosity. I think all successful Product Managers are humble and curious. And those are really two sides of the same coin, let's be honest, okay. There's really, there are two different ways to describe a very similar quality in a person. Now, humility simply means, people misunderstand humility. People think humility is a lack of vision or a lack of conviction or a lack of ideas. Or being a doormat. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And it's not, humility simply says that, look, I have, uh, I'm going to use my expertise and my experience to come up with a strong opinion about what we should do. However, in the face of evidence that contradicts my strong opinion, I'm willing to change course. That's humility. That's saying, you know what? I was wrong about this. The evidence proves that I was wrong, so we're going to change course. The curiosity side of the story is the excitement in finding out if you were right or wrong, and to me, those two fundamental qualities of a person make for excellent Product Managers. Somebody who's willing to admit that they were wrong about their strong opinion, and somebody who's excited to find out if they're right or wrong about their strong opinion, and curious to see if maybe there's a better way, right? I think this is a good idea, but there's got to be a better way, no, let's go find it. To me, that makes for excellent Product Managers. So those are the fundamental sort of personality qualities. I think those are really hard to teach. I think you can train people to some extent but, you know, ego's tough and humility challenges the ego a lot. And so do the facts for that matter, facts challenge the ego a lot, the evidence you collect from the market. So then there's that. And I think the four sort of things to keep in mind for excellent sort of transferrable product management are customer centricity, agility, evidence-based decision making, and continuous learning and improvement. So a lot of agile concepts in there, you'll hear sort of a lot of agile concepts. You can argue all of them are agile concepts, although not exactly how all agile is implemented these days, but nevertheless, so customer centricity first and foremost, right? As a curious and humble Product Manager, your primary focus is making the customer successful, not shipping features, making the customer successful. That means understanding the customer, understanding the problem that you're solving for them, understanding what's getting in their way, understanding what they're doing today, understanding how the competition is solving this problem for people, understanding technology and how you might apply it to better solve this problem, understanding where the market is going so that you get ahead of it, you don't get caught behind, right? But it's all about understanding the customer. What are customers looking for? What are they trying to achieve? What's getting in their way? And really knowing them, not just quantitatively, but qualitatively, meeting them, talking to them, having regular conversations. To me, that's the first sort of key quality of a successful Product Manager. The second is agility, and that stems directly from those qualities of humility and curiosity. Agility is the ability to change course, it's the willingness to change course. It's the flexibility to say, you know, we started going down this path and I know we've spent a couple of Sprints heading down this path, but it doesn't make sense anymore, and so we're going to change course. And yeah, we burned two Sprints on this and that sucks, and I'm sorry, but we didn't burn two months on it, we didn't burn six months on it, right. And so we're going to shift to something more successful because of what we've learned in the past. And that brings me to the third point, which is evidence-based decision making. So those course corrections are being made based on data that you're gathering from the market, qualitative data, quantitative data that lets you know that, yeah, this is a good path to go down. Or, you know what, we really need to pivot here or to completely change course into something else, but you're making decisions based on data and not just opinion. And then finally, this continuous learning and improvement. This, again, this is that curiosity that says, we did a good job, we solved the problem, the product's successful, great. How do we make it better? How do we keep learning whether or not this still makes sense? Right? To me, that's what makes for successful Product Managers, right? Those multiple focus areas and two core qualities of humility and curiosity. I think that's what makes for good Product Managers. Ula Ojiaku That's awesome, thank you for that. And would you have, I mean you do, in your books, you've shared lots of war stories where you know, you had experience with product management or product leadership and to the audience, I'll say read the books, but is there any example maybe that comes to mind of someone who was a Product Manager that, you don't have to name names, you don't have to share like details, but that kind of brought to life all these personal qualities and focus areas and how that affected the work? Jeff Gothelf I mean, look, I've worked with a ton of remarkable folks over the years. I think I started really meeting folks who were working this way when I met folks like Janice Fraser who, in fact came up with the phrase ‘strong opinions, loosely held', which is exactly what I was just describing a few minutes ago. Janice has built multiple businesses and has really helped pioneer these ideas into sort of the mainstream. And I've seen her repeatedly do this. Eric Ries, you know, with The Lean Startup, really brought a lot of these ideas to light in a very easy to digest way, hence the success of his work in the past, and he lived this stuff in the businesses that he's built over the years. I had a colleague and co-worker and co-founder in a business named Giff Constable. Most recently, Giff was the Chief Product Officer at Meetup, but he's been a serial entrepreneur his whole life. Giff really embodied these ideas, like he's a smart guy, tons of experience, really great ideas, but he would test them all, and if he didn't get evidence that convinced him that they were right, he was willing to change course. And I learned a ton from working with him and building businesses with him. And it was inspirational because in many ways, you know, I appreciated his ruthlessness. You know, we all, it's hard, you know, this is personal stuff, this is my idea, all my ideas are great, I love my ideas, right. And he loved his ideas, but he was very, very good at separating emotion and evidence. And I really learned a ton from him as well. So those are three folks that kind of come to mind immediately. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for that, it reminds me in terms of what you said about Giff being ruthless, I think is a term in journalism to “kill your darlings” because you could write an article or, you know, write your first draft and you're so in love with it, but by the time the editor brings out their red pen or something and starts striking it out, you have to separate emotion from the love. Jeff Gothelf That's exactly right, kill your darlings is the reality of this, of good product management. It's, you know, if the data doesn't prove it, and the data we're looking for is changes, meaningful, positive changes in the behaviour of the customers that we're serving. And if the data doesn't show it, then no matter how brilliant this idea was, how much you love it or how much you thought it was just revolutionary, it doesn't make sense to continue to invest in it, we've got to find, figure out a different way. Ula Ojiaku That's awesome. I'd love to get to your take on the terms, you know, vision and strategy. How would you define these terms would be my first question, and my second question, and I'm happy to, you know, share this again, is how would you then tie this to, you know, for example, product development? How would they, how should they influence product development? Jeff Gothelf Yeah, so look, a couple things. There are, I'm not going to lie to you, you know, I struggle a little bit with, you know, vision and mission. Strategy is clear to me, but differentiating between vision and mission, some will say a vision is like what will the world look like in five years or something like that? Or if you're successful, what changes will you see in the world? That type of thing. Whereas a vision is sort of like the big motivational, like what was it for Google? Cataloguing all the world's data, that was their vision. Right? Ula Ojiaku Can I give you my own take? So my understanding mission is more like, okay, what do we stand for? We're going to save the world? And vision is like, okay, in this amount of time, you know, this is how we're saving the world. So it's kind of a picture from the future, say if we travel five years into the future and we see our customers, what are, how are they behaving? You know, what exactly does the world look like for us? While mission tends to remain constant. That's my understanding anyway. Jeff Gothelf Okay. Yeah. And so to me, look, it's directional, right? In the sense of like, we are, you know, we're going to make sure everyone is clean drinking water, like clean drinking water for everybody, right? That's our, is that our mission or our vision? I don't know. But like, or maybe that, maybe that's the mission and the vision is, you know, a world where no one's thirsty. To me, those are like you, I think you need that in the sense that like, you need to know sort of at a high level what problem is the company solving for in the world? I think that's important, right? Because I think that inevitably there are going to be initiatives that seem to stray from that. At the very least, you can point and say, look, is it our mission to bring clean drinking water to everybody in the world? And why are we like investing in a sports website? Right, doesn't make any sense. So at the very least, it gives us that perspective. Strategy, however, and I think strategy is really, really, really important. Strategy is super important for aligning the organisation so that everybody is pulling in the same direction, so that everybody is clear on what the short term goals are for the organisation and it gives people, if done correctly, it gives people the freedom to experiment and learn to figure out the best ways to achieve the strategy, because I do believe that strategy is a hypothesis. Our hypothesis is that we want to expand into the North American market in 2024. Okay, great, let's figure out all kinds of ways where we might start to build some market share in North America in 2024. Right. And to me, I think that that is the true benefit of strategy. I think that it can also be misused, at least, for alignment, that's very specific. Our strategy is, you know, North American market share and we're going to do it this way. And you can get very prescriptive with that. Now everybody's aligned, everybody knows what we're doing, but it doesn't allow for the flexibility and that push and pull that ultimately reveals a better way to do something or is more creative or more innovative. And so I think strategy is key. It's key to articulate it clearly and simply, it's key to disseminate it clearly and simply across the organisation. And I think no team in the organisation should have their project approved if they can't clearly state how they believe this might help achieve the strategy. That's what I believe. Ula Ojiaku And on that note, so you said no project or team should have their initiative approved unless they can show how it helps move the needle towards the desired strategy, the direction of travel, the organisation, I suppose that's what you mean, the organisation's direction of travel or what they want to achieve. Now how, because one of the shiny new objects, or, well, not an object per se, but more like a buzzword is OKRs, objectives and key results. So how can we use that? Or, let's say, can it be used to help with tying strategy with the work that, you know, the lower levels of the organisation might be doing? Jeff Gothelf I think it's critical to be able to tie the pieces together. Now, I don't expect an individual contributor necessarily to be able to do that, but certainly their manager can say, hey team, we're working on this very tactical thing because it's a component of these five other tactical things that when you put them together, they roll up and they achieve this much more meaningful thing together. Right, and so I, again, I think that there needs to be a clear, and it's rare, look, let's be honest, right? Everyone in the organisation needs to understand what the strategic focus is for the next six months, six to 12 months. Okay. And again, if you can't speak directly to why you're working on the thing that you're working on, then your boss should be able to answer that question for you. Ula Ojiaku So it's really about, what I'm hearing you say is that there needs to be a strategic focus for an organisation at least that looks ahead six to 12 months into the future to say, okay, this is what we're going to be doing. And for teams, they have to find a way of articulating how they are contributing to that strategic focus, to the fulfilment of that strategic focus. Now, how can OKRs be used? I know you said, okay, individual contributors may not necessarily use that, but in the situations where you feel they apply, how could they be, and by they, I mean OKRs, objectives and key results, how could this format help? Jeff Gothelf OKRs to me, are the key to bringing this alignment. So if there's a clear strategy. Without a clear strategy, the OKRs don't help, okay. But if there's a clear strategy and we've set success criteria for that strategy, for that strategic hypothesis, then, or we can start to say, okay, great. We are, our strategic focus for 2024 is North American expansion, we'll know we've achieved it when, you know, we've got 10% market share, this much revenue and a, you know, new customer referral rate of 20%, something like that. Right. All of a sudden, the organisation knows what it's targeting, not only what the strategic focus is, but the actual behaviour change that we're looking for. So fundamentally, every team in the organisation can then start to say, okay, we work on X, and X is a leading indicator of Y and Y is a leading indicator of market share. Okay. So the objective, while it should be local to the team, as well as the key results, they function as leading indicators for the strategic goal, right? So let's try to make an example on the fly, right? So we're talking about North American expansion in 2024. Let's assume that we are in the, you know, online furniture business, something along those lines, right? And so if, maybe you work on a merchandising team, right? And so there, in order to do proper merchandising, you need access to specific suppliers, right? And so there is a team that does supplier and vendor relations. Right. That team understands that for the merchandising team to be successful, they've got to build these relationships with these vendors. So their OKR is going to be about building those relationships, right? Those relationships in turn allow the proper merchandising to take place, which then allows for the proper, you know, for market share to grow in the North American market, for example. So, but that connection can be, you can literally draw it on a board because people understand the strategy. And so objectives and key results become the, sort of the tactical strategic beacons for each of the teams. Each team knows exactly what they're targeting and why, and they understand, in theory, how it might help achieve the overall strategy, which again is a hypothesis, it might be wrong, but at the very least, they've got a shared direction. Ula Ojiaku Thank you for that example. There's something you said about the leading indicators. So I assume that would fall under the key results part, because we'd have the objective which is like the, you know, ambitious statements and then the key results are like, this is what success looks like in terms of achieving that broad statement, the objective. Now, would you, I've read articles from respected thought leaders who say, okay, yes, leading indicators are good, but there also needs to be, you know, the lagging indicators, kind of a balance of, will I say measures, you know, leading, lagging and quality indicators. I don't know if you have any, I mean, I'd love to hear what your view would be on this, because if we're only looking at leading indicators, there might be a temptation to just be short term in our thinking and not also try to measure the lagging indicators, like okay, the actual revenue of the profit that you get versus our likelihood of getting that revenue. Jeff Gothelf Yeah. So look, so short answer is both are important, I think, obviously, and I think both are required. Slightly longer answer is the lagging indicators in an organisation often tend to be the, what we call the impact metrics for the organisation, the high level measures of the health of the business, like you said, revenue, sales, you know, customer satisfaction, etcetera. Right. So yeah, those things need to exist. Typically, they exist at the leadership level, and so then whatever's happening within the teams, tends to function as a leading indicator ultimately to those sort of high level lagging indicators. Right? So we're going to, you know, I've got a team working on email marketing, and they're working on email market opening click rates, right? Those are leading indicators of eventual sales, and those sales are leading indicators of revenue, which is a lagging indicator of the health of the business. And so those, that's,to me, both are needed. Typically the lagging indicators tend to be at the strategic and the leadership level. Ula Ojiaku I read on your blog post that you have another book coming up, whilst we're on the subject of OKRs, and you're going to be, or you are in the process of co-authoring yet another book with your co-author Josh Seiden. Could you tell us about that? Jeff Gothelf Absolutely. So, yeah, so Josh and I have been working and writing together for a long time. We have been talking about outcomes and OKRs together for a long time, and we feel there's an opportunity in the marketplace to build, to write a tactical how-to implementation guide for all, organisations of all size. And that's what we're doing. It doesn't have a title yet, we do have a website at okr-book.com where you can sign up and learn a bit more about it and then kind of be on the mailing list when we do have more info about it. We're writing it right now. To be honest, I've been writing it in public for the last two years on my blog every week at 500 to 700 words at a time. All those just kind of getting those ideas out there and experimenting to see what works and what doesn't and what gets feedback and what doesn't, and that's been super helpful and I expect this to be a popular book, and I expect this to be a very helpful and tactical book for organisations who are going through the process of implementing OKRs and are trying to make them work both as a goal setting framework, but also truly understanding the kinds of changes to ways of working that come after you've implemented OKRs. Agility, or agile ways of working, product discovery, Lean UX, right? Those types of activities as well, to help teams build that evidence-based decision making that we talked about earlier. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. Is there any timeframe or do we just go to your, to the website you mentioned and sign up to get more updates on the book as they unfold? Jeff Gothelf okr-book.com - that's the website? Ula Ojiaku Yes. And when do we expect it to be released? Jeff Gothelf October. Ula Ojiaku This October, awesome. So that would also be in the show notes. Are there any books or materials that you have found yourself gifting or recommending to people that have impacted or shaped the way you think right now? I mean, that is in addition to your, you know, Sense and Respond book, Lean UX. Unfortunately, I don't have the physical copy of the Forever Employable ones and, but yeah, are there other books that you could recommend to us? Jeff Gothelf Yeah, I think so recently I've read Tony Fadell, his book Build, the Tony Fadell of Apple and Nest and various other fame, Build is a really good book and really interesting insight as to how he works and builds products, and most recently I just finished the new book by Rick Rubin, legendary music producer Rick Rubin, it's called The Creative Act, and I found that book to be fascinating and really inspiring. I mean, it's, you know, he is very like, listen to this, you know, get into the zone and just the flow and, you know, there's a lot of that fluffy guru kind of stuff in there too. But I agreed with 90% of what I read in there about creativity, about, you know, working with an idea, about developing an idea, about getting feedback on an idea, about letting an idea go, about changing context and constraints to create more creativity and innovation. And I really enjoyed it. So it's called The Creative Act, it's by Rick Rubin, and it's an easy read and I would recommend that if you're looking for that kind of motivation, I think it was really smart. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. Is there anything else you'd like to ask of the audience? Jeff Gothelf I just hope that if you've got anything you'd like to ask me, don't hesitate to get in touch via Twitter or LinkedIn or my website. If you're interested in OKRs, do sign up for my newsletter, and go to okr-book.com and sign up there. And beyond that, I hope to see you online or in person sometime in the future, because it's nice to meet people in person again these days. Ula Ojiaku Great. Thank you very much, Jeff, for these. Any final words of wisdom for the audience before we go? Jeff Gothelf The pithy phrase I'll close with is this, do less, more often. That's the phrase that I would recommend for you. Ula Ojiaku Wow. Do less, more often. I am going to be pondering on that statement. Thank you so much, Jeff. It's been an honour speaking with you, learning from you, and I hope we would get the opportunity to do this again, hopefully. Jeff Gothelf Thank you, Ula. This was amazing. Thanks for having me on the show. Ula Ojiaku That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless!
I podcasten TEKNOLOGIOPTIMISTENE møter Pia Kristensen Moe og Chul Christian Aamodt beslutningstakerne for de store IT-investeringene i bransjen, personene som leder de mest fremoverlente IT-selskapene, personene som løser de viktigste samfunnsoppdragene og menneskene i investeringsselskapene som muliggjør rask vekst hos IT-selskapene. Menneskeskapte klimaendringer er vår tids største trussel, og det grønne skiftet er avhengig av teknologioptimister.Målet vårt med podcastserien er å gi beslutningstakerne innenfor IT i energibransjen kunnskap for bedre beslutninger.Medvirkende:Trond Strømme, Technical Expert, Elhub Jonas Lindholm, Technology Architect, Statnett Lillian Viken Helsegreen, Information Architect, Statnett Tore Skjulstad Bryhni, Seksjonsleder, Statnett Pia Kristensen Moe, Teknologioptmist, EuropowerChul Christian Aamodt, Teknologioptimist, EuropowerSendingen er produsert av Europower Partner. Redaksjonen i Europower har ikke medvirket i produksjonen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
For this, we invited Jorge Arango an information architect, author, and educator. For the past 25 years, he has used architectural thinking to bring clarity and alignment to digital products and services. He's the author of Living in Information: Responsible Design for Digital Places (Two Waves, 2018), co-author of Information Architecture: for the Web and Beyond (O'Reilly, 2015), and host of The Informed Life podcast. Besides consulting, writing, and podcasting, Jorge also teaches in the graduate interaction design program at the California College of the Arts. ————- The past year we decided to start this new project called Good Morning UX, an extension of another show called Bom Dia UX, with such special-international guests. Actually, we invited a lot of professionals who are references for us and that have so much history in our industry. Follow Jorge Arango on these links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarango/ https://jarango.com/ Jorge Arango's book: Information Architecture: For the Web and Beyond (English Edition) https://amzn.to/3PHTI4R Living in Information: Responsible Design for Digital Places https://amzn.to/3dNQ9wR Related Links: https://vimeo.com/255007543 https://vimeo.com/255007543 https://youtu.be/WRb1ETINaQg —————————– This is the Bom Dia UX, a live show produced and launched on the Design Team channel every Wednesday at 7 am, in the Brazilian time zone.
Conversations That Matter: A Podcast For Contact Center Professionals
Today's guest is an entrepreneur and Information Architect. He's the host of the Earley AI Podcast and author of the book AI Powered Enterprise. Welcome to the show Founder and CEO of Earley Information Science, Seth Earley. On this episode of Conversations That Matter, Seth joins Host Randy Ksar for a livestream interview. Seth shares the behind the scenes on implementing AI, the importance of good data, the value of building vs buying, and the future of chatbots.Takeaways:A lot of companies think that simply implementing a chat bot or virtual assistant will solve all their problems. Those AI systems are only as good as the knowledge you give them.When building chatbots, you can't assume something you don't have.There is no AI without IA. You can build the best algorithm in the world, but without the proper data set, it will be useless. When implementing AI, you can't automate what you don't understand. Start by understanding your processes, mapping the processes, and identifying the gaps. While modern chatbots and AI can leave much to be desired, we know that they will continue to improve. We can expect AI to advance to the same degree as the improvement from the palm pilot to the iphone. When using AI to detect anomalies, you need to determine what the baseline is, what you are looking for in terms of detection, and how you flag that anomaly to be resolved.When AI is part of your competitive advantage, it makes sense to build it in house and tailor it to you. For more generalized applications, a bought solution is a good fit, however your competitors can also buy the same solution.Quote of the Show:“A customer journey is a knowledge journey.” - Seth EarleyLinks:Twitter: https://twitter.com/sethearley LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethearley/ Website: https://www.earley.com/Book Link: https://www.amazon.com/AI-Powered-Enterprise-Ontologies-Business-Profitable/dp/1928055508 Podcast: https://www.earley.com/earley-ai-podcast-home Ways to Tune In:Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-that-matter-podcast-for-contact-center/id1525650658 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Xx9G8w6bntQayIpbkgxc5?si=cNeVuJicSHagsftlpL8-tg Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb252ZXJzYXRpb25zdGhhdG1hdHRlcnBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M
Why do we race to implement trending solutions without intimate knowledge of the state of the data? Jessica Talisman (Senior Taxonomist and Information Architect) joins to show to chat about data hubris, dirty data, and much more.
In this episode, John Tjon Sien Kie, Information Architect at Origin joins Parveen and Charonne to discuss the power of data management in the health care industry. John also shares his views on ICT functions that are high in demand and how to prepare for ICT career opportunities in organizations such as SZV.This episode of Me & SZV featured SZV hosts: Charonne Holder & Parveen Boertje.Guest: John Tjon Sien Kie, Information Architect at OriginFor more information about SZV: www.szv.sx Follow us!LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/social-&-health-insurances-szvFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SZV.orgYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeE1fPIDAmA0qzHJ6oOUFWwContact us: info@szv.sx
Digital Strategy e Information Architecture: sono gli ingredienti base di questa puntata con ospite Alessia Musi (Digital Strategist & Information Architect appunto).
In this episode, Vinita and Molly, we are talking to Mags Hanley about why it's important to think beyond your role as a designer, why you should be taking notice of aspects adjacent to our role like data, and why learning about other people's business needs to improve your sphere of influence. Mags is a career and Information Architect. She works with designers at all stages of their careers, help them identify the path to go on, be more effective at work and support them in leading their design teams. Her recently published career architecture, analyse structure and plan your design career, a guidebook for designers working out where to go next in their careers. We dive into the following themes: Making the differentiation between mentoring and coaching. How to go about expanding your craft in transitioning to a leader, it's not always managing people! How to influence and teach others the value of design. Navigating your way through differing design maturity levels throughout your career. If you want to learn more about IxDA Sydney's events and mentorship programs, please visit: www.ixdasydney.org/mentoring
How can you democratize data from Norway's public services?What does it mean to have a user centric approach to public services?What needs to be in place to organize your organization, the public services as a whole, while maintaining focus on good services to your citizens?I had the pleasure of chatting with Gustav Aagesen, Chief Data Officer at Lånekassen. The Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund, who is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2022. Gustav started as Information Architect in Lånekassen in 2012, became analysis manager before taking the position as CDO at Lånekassen. Today, he sees his responsibility in supporting the entire organization and to institutionalize information management. We looked at 3 different Perspectives on “Orden I eget hus” a Data Governance framework for public services and Democratization of data in Norway: 1. Lånekassen. An internal view on automation and structures, data citizenship, and culture.2. Public Norway. A perspective that includes valuable work on the common data catalogue, “orden i eget hus”, common concepts and datasets.3. Citizen perspective. Thoughts about finding ways to make use and consumption of data easier and with less barriers, and provide citizen-centric services.Here are some of my key takeaways:- Information Management is not a goal by itself, but a way to create and gain value- Information Management has to start with a purpose!- Data and Information has a longer lifecycle then applications.- Data Lineage is important, with the objective in mind to create services and gather data based on consumer demands, or the needs of the citizens. - The value for the citizen is an end-to-end- value stream that is traceable and can create trust in the data.- If you want to give the citizens access to proactive public services, information has to flow between different institutions.- It seems easier to get funding for technology then work-processes. That is also a reason automation is in high demand.- Data Sharing needs to be balanced with trust and privacy to ensue good solutions for the consumer and citizens.
Abby Covert is an Information Architect, writer and community organiser. served as President of IA Institute, co-chair of IA Summit, and Executive Producer of IDEA. She is a founding faculty member of SVA's Products of Design program, Design Operations Summit and Advancing Research Conference. She invented World IA Day, bringing IA education to thousands in local communities annually. In our latest XXEquals podcast, we speak to Information Architect, Writer and Community Organiser, Abby Covert. Our conversation explores Abby's introduction into information architecture, how the craft and theory of diagrams led to the inspiration of her new book 'Stuck', and, Abby also shares the advice that she would give to her 25-year-old self.
Bringing another hiring manager perspective, Denise Kadilak says "show that you've got knowledge about the field and that you are self-motivated, and you're willing to pivot, embrace change. If you can demonstrate that in any way on your resume. That's always going to be a big win."We talk about what to do in an interview and what not to in this fun and fast-paced conversation. Tune in if you are curious about what out-of-the-box hiring looks like. Learn more about what innovative and forward-thinking managers look for in a candidate, and how you can gain that edge as well.Guest BioDenise Kadilak is an Information Architect and Senior Manager with Blackbaud. Her interests include content and knowledge management, information technologies, and researching just about anything associated with technical communication. In addition to her full-time job with Blackbaud, Denise is a part-time college instructor, teaching technical writing, English composition, and Intro to Literature, and she is a regular presenter at international conferences.
In this week's episode, we talk with Dawn Anderson, Managing Director at Bertey, International Technical SEO Consultant and Speaker.We talk about how she went from owning a construction company to transitioning into web development, digital marketing, and then becoming a self-taught SEO. We talk about what it's like to go through the challenge of initially learning SEO when there are so many grey areas and opinions, and how she learned SEO from an Information Architect,.Additionally, Dawn shares her thoughts on traditional education as it relates to digital marketing preparedness, why she started her own company, and her passion for information retrieval and indexing which has led her to get her Masters in the field of Computer Science, AI and Machine Learning.For our core topic, we discuss Google's BERT and how it incorporates natural language understanding, AI, machine learning, and just what – if anything – you can do to optimize for it (spoiler: it's not simple to optimize for).Finally, we answer Twitter questions of the week and award some more Page 2 Podcast swag.So get your popcorn ready as we tell Dawn's SEO story and have another great roundtable discussion.
Hello folks! Below you'll find the original description for the first episode we ever released. It was this day three years ago that this adventure started. So let's sit back, listen, and take stock in how far we've all come since then. Our inaugural episode features a panel discussion with [Kristi Leach](https://twitter.com/kristil), an independent Design Researcher and Information Architect, [Tom Dooner](https://twitter.com/tomdooner), a Developer Evangelist for Code for America, and [Cyrus Sethna](https://twitter.com/c_sethna), a Digital Services Expert with the United States Digital Service. We'll talk about what Civic Tech is, where the movement stands, and how you can get involved. ### Web Resources mentioned in the episode - *Code for America Brigade*: [brigade.codeforamerica.org](https://brigade.codeforamerica.org) - *Code for America Public Interest Tech Job Board*: [jobs.codeforamerica.org](https://jobs.codeforamerica.org) - *Open Uptown*: [uptown.codes](http://uptown.codes) -
In order to measure what matters, it is important to have the data available to help. Sarah Lin is the Information Architect & Digital Librarian at RStudio, PBC, and is also a law librarian. RStudio wanted someone to help them manage their digital morass and to Marie Kondo their digital information. Is there anyone better than a law librarian with some tech skills to do just that? Sarah discusses what the R Programming language does, and how she got interested in the profession of statistical computing. While some may not see a direct link between being a law librarian and an R programmer, there are actually a number of skills librarians possess which make them well suited for data analytics. One skill is our ability to understand, clean, and organize information. For RStudios, the Chief Scientist, Hadley Wickam created Tidyverse which helps in handling the clean data tasks. And there are also resources like Shinyapps.io to help organize. Throw in a law librarian to have it all make sense and tell a story and you have a fantastic combination of skills and tool. To learn more about the R language check out: Carpentries.org education.rstudio.com Or go to Sarah Lin's website Information Inspirations Roy Sexton from Clark Hill lays out what law firm marketing does as opposed to what law firm business development does in the latest episode of Steve Fretzin's Be That Lawyer. Roy's advice of the "Rule of Three" when it comes to promoting yourself and your marketing products makes this a must-listen episode. Adam Smith, Esq. covers the new initiative by our friend Phil Flora and Leopard Solutions on ranking law firms by their vitality and resilience, not just once a year, but in real-time. Feeling the effects of COVID, the election, the environment, or the hundred other stressors in your life? Maybe take Prof. Eric Janssen's advice and put down your phone and go for a walk. Did you know there was a Pirate who was a 17th Century Anthony Bourdain? Marlene teaches Greg about this culinary outlaw, and also teaches him about breadfruit. Listen, Subscribe, Comment Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcast. Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. You can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.
Welcome once again to a new episode of Architacora! .
We are officially a 1/4 of the way done with the NBA Regular Season and how tough and depressing of a 1/4 of the season has it been. The Celtics with 21 games in their schedule done now sit at . Since our last show the Celtics played 4 games 1 at home and then 3 on the road. The first game which was the home game saw the Celtics lose to the Knicks in a game that saw them go down by 26 and saw the Celtics faithful booing the team and shouting negative comments at the players throughout the game. The Celtics did managed to get within 3 before losing it 117-109. The Celtics would then head to Atlanta taking on and defeating the Hawks 114 to 96 without the services of Al Horford who sat with knee pain. This was the first game of the year the Celtics never trailed. The Celtics put the game away early with a 45-23 scoring edge in the 1st quarter. This allowed head coach Brad Stevens the opportunity to sit the starters in the 4th and preserve their energy for the next night. The Celtics would then head to Dallas however the Celtics would be without Gordon Hayward and lose to the Mavericks 113-104 dropping the Celtics to a record of 10-10 and towards the bottom half of the Eastern Conference Playoff standings. This loss prompted Marcus Smart to have some harsh words saying teams dont fear us anymore. The Celtics 2 nights later faced off the Pelicans. Brad Stevens put Smart and Morris into the starting lineup with Brown out and Hayward coming off the bench and the Celtics dominated the Pelicans wining 124-107 in a game that saw the Celtics lead for all but 1:48 of the game. This was arguable the Celtics best game this season. We will be joined by Michael Dyer @Mike_Dyer13 Videographer/Editor/Producer for MikeDyerSports.com, Rich Conte @richconte Proud Dad, Information Architect, Rockabilly fan and lucky husband of a nice Southern girl. Also Producer and Host of @TechLifePod podcast as well as Kevin Dixon host of N-the Zone Sports Talk Radio.
In this episode, Aaron Mangal explores the concept of User Experience (UX) with Vitalik Demin, Software Program Manager, and Information Architect at ZenCash. Vitalik Demin, Software Program Manager, Information Architect at ZenCash "My passion is to fix and improve processes and technologies that are broken and not intuitive to use. I see process end-to-end and drive inefficiencies out by re-engineering the flow, building technology solutions, and ensuring the user experience is impeccable." User Experience (UX) and design are separate (albeit greatly related) disciplines. The science of UX has not always been as obvious as it seems today and has shifted into such force that it has it's own specialization and job role in today's startups. According to usability.gov, a website on UX maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services: User experience (UX) focuses on having a deep understanding of users, what they need, what they value, their abilities, and also their limitations. It also takes into account the business goals and objectives of the group managing the project. UX best practices promote improving the quality of the user’s interaction with and perceptions of your product and any related services. Peter Morville, veteran UX and information architect made a User Experience Honeycomb to visually explain the concept: User Experience Honeycomb We greatly enjoyed learning about this super important yet often overlooked construct not only within Cryptocurrency but the digital (web) experience as a whole. We hope you enjoy learning more about the philosophy and principles behind User Experience (UX). After listening to this episode you will learn: How Vitalik first learned UX and developed his craft The origin story of Vitalik discovering ZenCash and how he decided to work for them (due diligence process) What some great (and not so great) examples of UX are What ZenCash is and what they do The connection between ZenCash and IOHK The difference between designers and User Experience professionals Why brands should maintain control end-to-end for their marketing (see Samsung S9 phone ad example) Best practices and other insights around approaching User Experience (UX) For show notes and more please visit: LAB Radio
With new federal laws in place, accessibility is a huge priority for government agencies and organizations that receive federal funding. But accessibility is more than just technical specifications. Information Architect and Usability Engineer Jason Nakai joins the show to discuss the practical aspects of accessibility projects — for websites and software. We share experiences from a “simple” website accessibility project to a large-scale, federal software accessibility effort. We detail the importance of setting expectations and training, and discuss different approaches for project management. < Download MP3 > < Listen on ctrlclickcast.com > Show Notes: Fuerte: Supporting Relief Efforts in Puerto Rico WCAG W3C Guidance on Applying WCAG 2.0 to Non-Web Information and Communications Technologies (WCAG2ICT) United States Access Board ADA Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Final Standards and Guidelines Meaningful sequence VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) Microsoft Visual Studio Team Servies Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization: Overview W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Review our show on Stitcher Sponsored By
Our inaugural episode features a panel discussion with Kristi Leach, an independent Design Researcher and Information Architect, Tom Dooner, a Developer Evangelist for Code for America, and Cyrus Sethna, a Digital Services Expert with the United States Digital Service. We'll talk about what Civic Tech is, where the movement stands, and how you can get involved. Web Resources mentioned in the episode -Code for America Brigade: https://brigade.codeforamerica.org/ -Code for America Public Interest Tech Job Board: https://jobs.codeforamerica.org/
UX-Radio is happy to announce Chris Chandler as the new co-host of UX-Radio. Their first guest is Lynn Boyden who is an Information Architect at USC Information Technology Services. Lynn also teaches Information Architecture at UCLA’s library school and is co-founder of LA UX Meetup, the largest local meetup for UX Professionals in the country. UX-radio hosts podcasts about Information Architecture, User Experience and Design. Listen to inspiring conversations with industry experts. The purpose of this show is to educate, inspire and provide valuable information architecture and user experience resources.
It was a lot of fun interviewing Curtis Johnson for this episode. Not only do we learn about what it takes to be Vice President of Creative Services for Weidenhammer Creative - we learn what an "Information Architect" is. We also discuss his early career, his aspirations of being a filmmaker, and just why the heck there are so many toys in the Creative Department. Put whatever comic book you're reading down and join us for Episode 5.
Stage One Startup: Interviews with Influential Entrepreneurs & Innovative Startups
This Week's Guest: Justin Wu Welcome to our 60th episode! This is another huge achievement for us, and we're glad that you could be apart of it. That's why we had to pull out all stops for you with this week's featured guest. We bring to the show, Justin Wu. Justin is an Information Architect & Growth Marketer. He recently founded Growth.ly which is a growth marketing agency straight out of LA (Los Angeles). We mentioned that he has been crowned the king of hacking social media to boost growth for not just himself, but for his clients as well. Running parallel to his agency, he also creates content on a daily basis which consists of inspiration and insights on how to generate growth across a number of channels. Justin has been fortunate enough to work with some of the worlds most illustrious brands. Including the Wall St Journal, CES, NASA & NASDAQ whilst also being sponsored by Samsung, Intel & New Balance. The numbers that Justin shared with us are equally impressive, having helped start-ups achieve over $3m in Kickstarter campaigns, 500k downloads in the app store and has taken many SaaS companies to over $100k MRR / $1MM ARR. Having started his journey at the age of 12, he has come a very long way, and we're honored to be hearing his wealth of knowledge 15 years in the making. For full show notes; http://stageonestartup.com/ep060
Shawn Wilhite sits down with Rick Brannon to discuss his interests in the Apostolic Fathers and New Testament Apocrypha. Rick is Information Architect at Logos Bible Software.
Jeffrey Zeldman's guest is Abby Covert, Information Architect; curator of IA Summit; co-founder of World IA Day; president of IA Institute; teacher in the Products of Design MFA program at New York's School of Visual Arts; and author of How To Make Sense of Any Mess, a “brilliant introduction to information architecture” (Peter Morville) that is frequently purchased at Amazon with Don't Make Me Think and The Design of Everyday Things, the two classics of usable design. Discussed: why IA matters now more than ever, the difference between IA and content strategy (IA is building the vehicle, CS is putting fueling it and making sure it won't run out of gas), writing and designing a book, building agreement among stakeholders, “not having opinions, not having ideas of one's own,” IA's origins in language and structure, the fun of the IA Summit, the creation and growth of World IA Day, the joy of teaching, and more.
Jeffrey Zeldman’s guest is Abby Covert, Information Architect; curator of IA Summit; co-founder of World IA Day; president of IA Institute; teacher in the Products of Design MFA program at New York’s School of Visual Arts; and author of How To Make Sense of Any Mess, a “brilliant introduction to information architecture” (Peter Morville) that is frequently purchased at Amazon with Don’t Make Me Think and The Design of Everyday Things, the two classics of usable design. Discussed: why IA matters now more than ever, the difference between IA and content strategy (IA is building the vehicle, CS is putting fueling it and making sure it won’t run out of gas), writing and designing a book, building agreement among stakeholders, “not having opinions, not having ideas of one’s own,” IA’s origins in language and structure, the fun of the IA Summit, the creation and growth of World IA Day, the joy of teaching, and more.
Abby Covert is an independent Information Architect and also the President of the Information Architecture Institute. She's the author of "How to Make Sense of Any Mess" and spends her life trying to make the unclear be clear. In this episode, she explains the difference between UX and IA, and sets Scott straight about some common misconceptions about information architecture.
Another DAM Podcast interview with Abby Covert on Digital Asset Management and Information Architecture Here are the questions asked: -How are you involved with Digital Asset Management? -As an Information Architect, you recently authored a book titled How to Make Sense of Any Mess (http://amzn.to/2pX7dTs). Tell us more about what we can learn from this book since many DAM professionals need to do the same. -What are the biggest challenges and successes you've seen with Digital Asset Management? -What advice would you like to share with DAM professionals, and people who are aspiring to become DAM professionals? For a transcript, visit http://anotherdampodcast.com/2015/05/14/abby-covert/ Questions? Email them to anotherdamblog@gmail.com #reDAM #UX #information #mess #IA
Abby Covert, Information Architect and Author of "How to Make Sense of Any Mess", talks with us about the integral role IA plays in every aspect of our lives. In regards to business, she discusses how the concepts of ontology, taxonomy, and choreography m Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chicago Camps interviews Kamaria Campbell, Information Architect & User Experience Design consultant at IBM in Chicago. Kamaria is presenting at Prototype Camp on September 13th, 2014 about how to manage all the many requests that can be made of a prototype and the prototyper.
Open Data in the Chicago Region: Leaders, geeks and grassroots
Mike Atyeo, co-founder of Neo Insight and an Information Architect and Usability guru sits down after his presentation on Usability and Ajax with Jeff Parks, Vice-chair of CapCHI and President of I.A. Consultants, to discuss the key points of his presentation; including how this new approach to developing Web 2.0 services will help and hinder programmers and designers.