American author and speaker
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Welcome to another fantastic crossover episode! This time we have the amazing podcast “Made for us” hosted by Tosin Sulaiman.Made For Us is an award-winning podcast for anyone who's curious about how to design for inclusivity. Join us each week for conversations with founders, designers, product inclusion leaders and other creative minds who are challening the status quo of how everyday products are designed. Each episode will bring you insights from people who've spent years thinking, perhaps even obsessing, about how to develop products or build companies that are inclusive from the start. In 2024, they were a Bronze winner for “Most Inspirational Podcast” and a 2024 International Women's Podcast Award winner.This episode is called “Why isn't all design inclusive?”Over the past few months, guests on this podcast have shared some great examples of inclusive design and innovation, but these kinds of products aren't the norm (yet). Joining me to explore some of the reasons why is Scott Berkun, author of How Design Makes the World, a book that aims to demystify design for everyone. We discuss why it's so hard to design well and what organisations can do to accelerate good ideas. Enjoying the show? Subscribe to the free Made For Us newsletter for exclusive content. If you haven't yet left a 5-star rating or review, this would be the perfect time to do so (it will help others discover this podcast while Season 2 is in the works). In today's episode, Scott and I discuss:- Business and cultural reasons behind design choices- Key questions to ask early on in the design process- Why we should think twice before using words like ‘intuitive' and ‘user-friendly'- The ROI of inclusivity
Welcome to another fantastic crossover episode! This time we have the amazing podcast “Made for us” hosted by Tosin Sulaiman.Made For Us is an award-winning podcast for anyone who's curious about how to design for inclusivity. Join us each week for conversations with founders, designers, product inclusion leaders and other creative minds who are challening the status quo of how everyday products are designed. Each episode will bring you insights from people who've spent years thinking, perhaps even obsessing, about how to develop products or build companies that are inclusive from the start. In 2024, they were a Bronze winner for “Most Inspirational Podcast” and a 2024 International Women's Podcast Award winner.This episode is called “Why isn't all design inclusive?”Over the past few months, guests on this podcast have shared some great examples of inclusive design and innovation, but these kinds of products aren't the norm (yet). Joining me to explore some of the reasons why is Scott Berkun, author of How Design Makes the World, a book that aims to demystify design for everyone. We discuss why it's so hard to design well and what organisations can do to accelerate good ideas. Enjoying the show? Subscribe to the free Made For Us newsletter for exclusive content. If you haven't yet left a 5-star rating or review, this would be the perfect time to do so (it will help others discover this podcast while Season 2 is in the works). In today's episode, Scott and I discuss:- Business and cultural reasons behind design choices- Key questions to ask early on in the design process- Why we should think twice before using words like ‘intuitive' and ‘user-friendly'- The ROI of inclusivity
In this episode of the AIGA Design Podcast, hosts Lee-Sean Huang and Giulia Donatello and guest Scott Berkun, author of Why Design is Hard, discuss the complexities of design, touching on themes such as the challenges designers face, the importance of understanding business contexts, and the role of curiosity as a superpower. We explore the concept of 'gravity problems' in design, emphasizing the need for designers to navigate organizational politics and influence effectively. The conversation also explores the myths surrounding design, the evolving identity of designers in the workplace, and the impact of AI on the future of design. Takeaways Designers often assume they know better without understanding the context. Gravity problems are unsolvable issues that designers must learn to navigate. Understanding the business context can enhance a designer's influence. Curiosity is a vital skill for designers to build relationships. Designers should focus on the value they bring beyond aesthetics. The myth of the 'eureka moment' oversimplifies the design process. Designers can influence decisions by visualizing problems and solutions. Career paths should prioritize fulfilling work over job titles. AI will change the design landscape, but human oversight remains essential. Building trust and relationships is crucial for designers to succeed. References & Recommendations Why Design is Hard (Scott's book) - https://amzn.to/4amlzUb Jaguar Rebrand Video, “Copy Nothing” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLtFIrqhfng Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life (reference for “gravity problems”) - https://amzn.to/40yeM6D Netflix documentary about Paula Scher referenced in the episode - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCfBYE97rFk Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life - https://amzn.to/3C7icUA Scott Berkun's website - https://scottberkun.com/ Watch the video version of the AIGA Design Podcast on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/AIGAdesign
As designers, we sometimes get caught up in our egos. I'm the creative one on the team. I'm the one who should have the final say on these designs. I'm misunderstood, and I feel like I'm always having to teach people a new language. Find full show notes and bonus content on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/scott-berkun-why-design-is-hard Author Scott Berkun has a new book called Why Design is Hard, which dives into why this “ego trap” limits designers' effectiveness in their roles. We welcome him back on the show to discuss this new book, and also discuss how designers can learn to navigate organizational power structures and gain more influence over decisions that affect their work, how the myth of the “design hero” shapes young designers entering the field, and why design schools often fail to prepare students for the real-world dynamics of organizational culture and power. Bio Scott Berkun is a bestselling author and popular speaker on UX design, innovation, leading teams, public speaking and other subjects. He's published nine books, including How Design Makes The World, The Myths of Innovation, Confessions of a Public Speaker, and The Year Without Pants. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, Wired magazine, USA Today, Fast Company, National Public Radio, CNN, NPR, MSNBC and other media. His popular blog is at scottberkun.com and he tweets at @berkun. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This ad-supported episode is available to everyone. If you'd like to hear it ad-free, upgrade to our premium subscription, where you'll get an additional 2 ad-free episodes per month (4 total). ✨New benefits: Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books, as well as our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. Upgrade to paid *** Visiting the links below is one of the best ways to support our show: Masterclass: MasterClass is the only streaming platform where you can learn and grow with over 200+ of the world's best. People like Steph Curry, Paul Krugman, Malcolm Gladwell, Dianne Von Furstenberg, Margaret Atwood, Lavar Burton and so many more inspiring thinkers share their wisdom in a format that is easy to follow and can be streamed anywhere on a smartphone, computer, smart TV, or even in audio mode. MasterClass always has great offers during the holidays, sometimes up to as much as 50% off. Head over to http://masterclass.com/designbetter for the current offer. DUER: Eli and I are busy people. When we're not in the studio producing the podcast and publishing new articles, we're often doing something active—building, cooking, or on an adventure with family. Work and life blend together, and DU/ER makes clothing for people like us. DUER creates performance denim and lifestyle apparel that is made for doing. Check out DUER's flagship stores in LA or Denver, or order now at shopduer.com/DESIGNBETTER. When you use our exclusive URL, you'll get 20% off your first purchase. If you're interested in sponsoring the show, please contact us at: sponsors@thecuriositydepartment.com If you'd like to submit a guest idea, please contact us at: contact@thecuriositydepartment.com
Scott Berkun is the bestselling author of nine books on design, innovation, remote work, and more. His most recent book, Why Design Is Hard, is the second of a pair on why design makes a difference and how designers can best go about it. That is the focus of today's conversation.See full show notes at:https://theinformed.life/2024/10/06/episode-150-scott-berkun/
Over the past few months, guests on this podcast have shared some great examples of inclusive design and innovation, but these kinds of products aren't the norm (yet). Joining me to explore some of the reasons why is Scott Berkun, author of How Design Makes the World, a book that aims to demystify design for everyone. We discuss why it's so hard to design well and what organisations can do to accelerate good ideas. If you haven't yet left a 5-star rating or review, this would be the perfect time to do so (it will help others discover this podcast while Season 2 is in the works). And did I mention our listener survey: https://bit.ly/madeforuspod. Plesdr fo share your feedback there. In today's episode, Scott and I discuss: Business and cultural reasons behind design choicesKey questions to ask early on in the design processWhy we should think twice before using words like ‘intuitive' and ‘user-friendly'The ROI of inclusivity ---About Scott Berkun:Scott Berkun is a bestselling author and popular speaker on UX design, innovation, leading teams, public speaking and other subjects. He's published eight books, including How Design Makes The World and The Myths of Innovation. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and other media.Learn more about Scott Berkun: http://www.scottberkun.comLearn more about How Design Makes the World: https://designmtw.com/ ---Connect with Made for UsShow notes and transcripts: https://made-for-us.captivate.fm/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/madeforuspodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madeforuspodcast/ Made For Us was produced and hosted by Tosin Sulaiman. Special thanks to the following people who helped to keep this podcast running:Design & social media management: Valentin Grimoux Audio engineering: Justin Orive at Reliable Sounds, Alex Van Rose & Rishi DasPost-production & marketing intern: Soumaya El Filali
Muchas veces confundimos administración de proyectos con algo relacionado a producción o construcción pero ¿Qué piensan si les digo que la metodología de gestión de proyectos o Project management también se utiliza al momento de diseñar y vender un nuevo proyecto, al planificar la cultura organizacional del negocio o crear un mejor embudo de ventas? En este episodio de la serie “5x5 5 aprendizajes de los 5 mejores libros” hablaremos de los libros que relacionados al tema de gestión de proyectos que son: · "Una guía para el cuerpo de conocimiento de la dirección de proyectos (Guía PMBOK)" por Project Management Institute · "Gestión de proyectos: un enfoque de sistemas para la planificación, programación y control" por Harold Kerzner · "The Lean Startup: cómo los emprendedores de hoy usan la innovación continua para crear negocios radicalmente exitosos" por Eric Ries · "Hacer que las cosas sucedan: dominar la gestión de proyectos" por Scott Berkun · "Gestión ágil de proyectos con Scrum" por Ken Schwaber
Au programme de la conversation entre Yann et Mony : 01:09 Les grands défis dans le marketing B2B pour 2023 10:17 Décloisonner les équipes ventes et marketing 12:20 Comment pouvoir tirer le meilleur de cet alignement des équipes 15:50 Les erreurs fréquentes dans le marketing B2B 22:58 Les opportunités dans le marketing B2B aujourd'hui 33:50 L'IA et génération de contenu, jusqu'où c'est une bonne idée 35:38 Quelques retours d'expériences 38:50 Les livres à lire Mais aussi beaucoup d'autres sujets ! Références abordées : LinkedIn de Yann : https://www.linkedin.com/in/ygourven/ Site web : https://visionarymarketing.com/fr/ Myths of innovation - Scott Berkun : https://www.amazon.fr/The-Myths-of-Innovation/dp/B08JRLR4LD/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=1357897795526073&hvadid=84869076370897&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=125745&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=p&hvtargid=kwd-84869136998315%3Aloc-66&hydadcr=19806_2267295&keywords=myths+of+innovation&sr=8-1 Le Contagious - Jonah Berger : https://www.amazon.fr/Contagious-Why-Things-Catch-On/dp/B01CV5DABW/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?keywords=contagious+burger&s=audible&sr=1-1-fkmr1 -- ⚡ Connectez-vous à Mony ici. -- ❤️ SOUTENEZ LE PODCAST 1. Abonnez-vous
Les mythes de l'innovation sont si nombreux que Scott Berkun a même déclaré que le concept d'innovation était « surestimé » ! « La chair est triste, hélas, et j'ai lu tous les livres », … Lire la suite The post 10 mythes de l'innovation mis en pièces par Scott Berkun appeared first on Marketing & Innovation.
Scott shares his founder's story of how we went from working on one of the first independent content distribution platforms on the Internet, to Tinder and on to founding his own company.Scott and Brandon talk marketing, churn and building a company.You'll enjoy this episode because Scott is a peak performer in the product and marketing world and drops tips on how you can build a better product and reduce churn.About Scott HurffScott is an entrepreneur, product creator, designer, writer, and dad. He has seen it all in Startupland: VC-backed rocket ships, VC-backed rocket explosions, marketplaces, consumer apps, and one of the first independent content distribution platforms on the internet. He was on the founding team of Tinder's first acquisition, where he created some of the app's most successful early revenue features. Previous to that he was on the founding team of Casa, the world's first consumer-friendly Bitcoin self-custody provider. O'Reilly published his book, Designing Products People Love, which Scott Berkun called “a thoughtful and charming guidebook for making great things.”Scott now helps SaaS operators build healthier subscription businesses with his latest company, Churnkey.CONNECT WITH USSign up for our NewsletterOver 17,200 listeners and countinghttps://edge.ck.page/bea5b3fda6SHOW NOTES 00:00:00 Intro and beginning of Scott's Story00:07:25 Marketing Analysis at AOL and Churn Management00:24:18 Back to Scotts story01:16:00 Scott's High Percentage Tips (HPTs) for YouEPISODE LINKS:ChurnKeyhttps://churnkey.coEDGE PODCAST INFO:Apple Podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/edge/id1522407349Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/7a3WcnSn9PlvwwF5hn4p4SYouTube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCabV9Rcw4MohWvTGr3OTzFwWebsitehttps://MyEDGEPodcast.comEDGE Podcast A top podcast for entrepreneurs!https://myedgepodcast.com Other Great Podcasts From the Best Podcasts NetworkOn Business Podcast On Business Podcast is an unscripted, brutally honest, candid, sometimes ugly, conversation about running businesses & successful companies, for aspiring entrepreneurs, current startups, or experienced business owners looking to elevate their business. https://OnBusinessPodcast.comMARKETING PodcastThe MARKETING podcast brings you marketing science, case studies that reveal successful marketing techniques and teach strategic marketing analysis where we model the data and turn it into financial forecasts so you have predictable revenue.Brandon can't promise you instant marketing success after each episode. But...he guarantees that you will find each MARKETING episode always reliable, always actionable, and always useful for your marketing efforts. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing/id1653276478
The myths of innovation are ubiquitous. Everyone thinks they know what innovation is and means yet in fact innovation is probably one of the most overrated business concepts. ‘Poor is the substance, … Read on The post Must-read: Scott Berkun Spells Out The Myths of Innovation appeared first on Marketing & Innovation.
Vamos continuar falando do Teatro de UX que vivemos a cada dia? Escolhemos estar nessa simulação? Essa história de que tudo é falso e estamos encenando tem impacto real? Uma breve introdução para estrear essa nova série que começou no Bom dia UX (link dessa conversa está aqui https://open.spotify.com/episode/4FIrTj8BwYN4FOsKigyzar?si=8579c09fd8cb4160) e vai se estender por alguns vídeos com foco em explorar mais o assunto do teatro e acrescentar ideias ou sugestões para solucionar, resolver ou apenar lidar com o contexto. Esse papo tem como base alguns artigos e conteúdos já publicados em artigos, livros e videos, e você pode conferi-los abaixo: https://www.fastcompany.com/90686473/… https://uxpodcast.com/267-ux-theatre-… Livro citado: How design makes the world de Scott Berkun, https://amzn.to/3L0mcWv Good Morning UX citado com Abby Covert: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Y6Yt2Y9041QrPRZYxin0G?si=a87d129a143b47d6 ——————————————— Passe no canal ou clique no link aí na frente e assine o canal https://www.youtube.com/c/designteamb…. E escute o PODCAST do canal DesignTeam https://open.spotify.com/show/0yE3kkK… Torne-se membro de conteúdo exclusivo do canal https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTkZ…
Vamos continuar falando do Teatro de UX que vivemos a cada dia? Escolhemos estar nessa simulação? Essa história de que tudo é falso e estamos encenando tem impacto real? Uma breve introdução para estrear essa nova série que começou no Bom dia UX (link dessa conversa está aqui https://open.spotify.com/episode/4FIrTj8BwYN4FOsKigyzar?si=8579c09fd8cb4160) e vai se estender por alguns vídeos com foco em explorar mais o assunto do teatro e acrescentar ideias ou sugestões para solucionar, resolver ou apenar lidar com o contexto. Esse papo tem como base alguns artigos e conteúdos já publicados em artigos, livros e videos, e você pode conferi-los abaixo: https://www.fastcompany.com/90686473/… https://uxpodcast.com/267-ux-theatre-… Livro citado: How design makes the world de Scott Berkun, https://amzn.to/3L0mcWv Good Morning UX citado com Abby Covert: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Y6Yt2Y9041QrPRZYxin0G?si=a87d129a143b47d6
015 - We're kicking off Season 2 with Design Director of IBM Consulting, Founder of the Quiet Achiever and proud introvert, Tim Yeo. In this episode, Tim shares his personal journey in his career as an introverted designer and design leader and the learnings he picked up along the way to be comfortable with his introversion and do the things that don't come naturally to him as an introvert. Tim now helps other introverts like himself have impact and influence without pretending to be extroverts in a world that desires the extroverted ideal.In this episode:We're all ducks, calm on the surface, paddling furiously underneath and that's okEmbracing your introversion rather than pretending to be an extrovertHow experience helps you recognise repeatable patterns and increases your confidenceWhy our definition of what a successful leader looks like is flawedWhy you don't have to wait to speak up till you think you're 100% rightBuilding a strong design team remotelyAnd much more!Links and resourcesThe Quiet Achieverwww.thequietachievr.comTim Yeo on Twitterhttps://twitter.com/timyeoTim Yeo on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/timyeo/Susan Cain's Book ‘Quiet'https://susancain.net/book/quiet/Scott Berkun's Book ‘Confessions of a Public Speaker'https://scottberkun.com/the-books/confessions-of-a-public-speaker/Christina Wodtke's books ‘Radical Focus' and ‘The Team that Managed Itself'https://cwodtke.com/writing-2/Patrick Lencioni's Book ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable'https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21343.The_Five_Dysfunctions_of_a_TeamSituational Leadership® Modelhttps://situational.com/situational-leadership/Oliver Burkeman's Book ‘Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortal'https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54785515-four-thousand-weeksShow creditsIllustrations by Isa Vicentehttps://www.instagram.com/isadezgz/Music by Brad Porterhttps://prtr.co/
"Há um fenômeno estranho no mundo do design de experiência do usuário." Uma expressão que tem crescido na industria do UX é o tal "teatro de ux" ou "teatro do design", e sem dúvida é um contexto que temos debatido aqui nestes quase 2 anos de Bom dia UX, culminando na citação do caso pela própria Abby Covert em nossa série especial do Good Morning UX. Esse tal teatro acontece quando os designers são solicitados a fingir fazer o trabalho de design e não têm permissão para fazer o trabalho de design. Mas será que acontece apenas por solicitação, ou nós mesmo fazemos isso nos enganando que estamos aplicando o design pela experiência? Outro profissional e autor que cita o termo é Scott Berkun em seu conceituado How Design makes the world, onde ele fala sobre a paixão que os designers têm, mas como eles raramente têm o poder de agir, pois o poder está em outro lugar, discutindo o “teatro do design” e o que faz o design bom versus o design ruim. Isso acontece quando somos solicitados a realizar, ou realizamos por escolha, pesquisas que nunca são usadas. Quando entregamos descobertas que são arquivadas porque não se alinham às expectativas dos executivos ou acionistas. Quando nos pedem para facilitar workshops em que os funcionários fingem ser usuários porque é mais barato e mais rápido do que fazer pesquisas com usuários reais. Ou quando só conseguimos revisar o design quando o produto está prestes a chegar às ruas e é tarde demais para qualquer melhoria de design real. Essa é uma livre tradução adaptada do artigo da FastCompany: https://www.fastcompany.com/90686473/ux-design-has-a-dirty-secret Convidamos os queridos e já da casa, Rogério Fratin e Thoz para tratar dessa polêmica, com um café sem açúcar, logo cedo. Links úteis: Artigo citado por Abby no Good Morning UX: https://www.fastcompany.com/90686473/ux-design-has-a-dirty-secret Livro citado: How design makes the world de Scott Berkun, https://amzn.to/3L0mcWv Good Morning UX citado com Abby Covert: Is Information Architecture dead? With Abby Covert | Good Morning UX UXpodcast com Scott Berkun: https://uxpodcast.com/261-design-makes-the-world-scott-berkun/ Qual a sua opinião sobre isso? Esse é o Bom dia UX, um programa feito ao vivo no canal do youtube do Design Team, toda quarta-feira de manhã às 7 horas. * Acesse nosso site * http://www.designteam.com.br * Junte-se ao Telegram * https://bit.ly/3dOea2Y * Assine nosso podcast * https://anchor.fm/designteambr Rafael Burity Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafaelburity Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rafaelburity/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/rafaelburity Rodrigo Lemes Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodrigolemes Twitter: https://twitter.com/rodrigolemes
In this episode the Strategic Institute team talks about "innovation," a buzz term that has become ubiquitous in the federal government. Using an article as a basis of discussion, the team relates and connects it to Other Transactions authorities and federal government acquisition. Article: Stop Saying Innovation - Here's Why - by author Scott Berkun "People with good ideas and who do good work solve problems. They let their ideas be defined by the importance of the problems their ideas solve. It's the solving of the problem that gives ideas power, not an adjective slapped onto PowerPoint slides or into job titles.Great teams know this and drop pretense in favor of simple words like prototype, experiment, problem, solution, user, customer, lesson and design. Simpler language accelerates progress. Inflated language slows it down and confuses people. Calling yourself tall doesn't make you tall. A word is just a word. It's your actions that matter, not the labels you use."For the full article: https://scottberkun.com/2008/stop-saying-innovation-heres-why/For more on Other Transactions and other federal government flexible contracting authorities purposefully created to support and facilitate true innovation, visit: https://strategicinstitute.org/
Do you have a colleague who just doesn't get what design is all about? Or maybe you've tried explaining it to your parents, but they just respond by asking you to fix their printer. If that's the case, then Scott Berkun has written a book for you, to give to them. It's called How Design Makes the World, and it's a great beginner's guide to how design shapes just about everything we interact with in modern society, for better or for worse. It is also a good refresher for those of us who are more well-versed in design. Scott—who has written other bestselling books like The Myths of Innovation and Making Things Happen—does a great job of distilling design concepts down into everyday examples that are accessible and engaging. In our conversation, we chat with Scott about the differences in thinking between designers and engineers, what UX design has to do with deep-sea anglerfish, and how good design is often shaped by understanding the constraints on a product. Bio Scott Berkun is a bestselling author and popular speaker on creativity, leading projects, public speaking, design and many other subjects. He's the author of eight books, including How Design Makes The World, The Myths of Innovation, Confessions of a Public Speaker, and The Year Without Pants. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, Wired magazine, USA Today, Fast Company, National Public Radio, CNN, NPR, MSNBC and other media. His popular blog is at scottberkun.com and he tweets at @berkun.
Show highlights: - An overview of Scott's new book, How Design Makes the World - Remote work for design, UX and product teams - How to create a workplace for UX professionals to get their best work done - How to explain the value of design to executives and stakeholders - What to do when your product managers, executives and engineers “just don't get” design - Builder culture, what it is and how to work within it to promote higher quality UX - Effects of industrialization on building products and how it translates to software management culture
Innovation is messy. Because of that, there are many myths that have been built around innovation and innovators. In the book The Myths of Innovation, Scott Berkun does a great job of addressing many of those myths. It's a great read for product people, since we are often at the forefront of innovation, creating the next generation of products and experiences for users, breaking ground on technology that hasn't been tried. We know the myths better than most. And fall victim to many of the myths. So it's great to look at the examples in this book and remember that the process is messy, and there is no single right way to innovate. Book: The Myths of InnovationDon't forget to subscribe at productthinking.ccWeekly newsletter: The Myths of Innovation Book ReviewOr just want to leave a tip: buy me a coffee? ★ Support this podcast ★
Author Scott Berkun joins the Local Maximum to talk about his new book How Design Makes the World. We cover the relationship between design and engineering, design ethics, failure modes, and organizational behavior.
Author and speaker Scott Berkun visits the PolicyViz Podcast to talk about his new book How Design Makes The World. The post Episode # 198: Scott Berkun appeared first on PolicyViz.
Author and speaker Scott Berkun visits the PolicyViz Podcast to talk about his new book How Design Makes The World. The post Episode # 198: Scott Berkun appeared first on PolicyViz.
Everything you use, from your home to your smartphone, from highways to supermarkets, was designed by someone. What did they get right? Where did they go wrong? And what can we learn from how these experts think that can help us improve our own lives? In How Design Makes The World, bestselling author and designer Scott Berkun reveals how designers, from software engineers to city planners, have succeeded and failed us. From the airplane armrest to the Facebook “like” button, and everything in between, Berkun shows how design helps or hinders everyone, and offers a new way to think about the world around you. Whether you spend time in a studio or a boardroom, an office or the outdoors, How Design Makes the World empowers you to ask better questions—and to understand the designs in everything that matters. Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network's Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at r.garfinkel@yahoo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
Everything you use, from your home to your smartphone, from highways to supermarkets, was designed by someone. What did they get right? Where did they go wrong? And what can we learn from how these experts think that can help us improve our own lives? In How Design Makes The World, bestselling author and designer Scott Berkun reveals how designers, from software engineers to city planners, have succeeded and failed us. From the airplane armrest to the Facebook “like” button, and everything in between, Berkun shows how design helps or hinders everyone, and offers a new way to think about the world around you. Whether you spend time in a studio or a boardroom, an office or the outdoors, How Design Makes the World empowers you to ask better questions—and to understand the designs in everything that matters. Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at r.garfinkel@yahoo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Everything you use, from your home to your smartphone, from highways to supermarkets, was designed by someone. What did they get right? Where did they go wrong? And what can we learn from how these experts think that can help us improve our own lives? In How Design Makes The World, bestselling author and designer Scott Berkun reveals how designers, from software engineers to city planners, have succeeded and failed us. From the airplane armrest to the Facebook “like” button, and everything in between, Berkun shows how design helps or hinders everyone, and offers a new way to think about the world around you. Whether you spend time in a studio or a boardroom, an office or the outdoors, How Design Makes the World empowers you to ask better questions—and to understand the designs in everything that matters. Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at r.garfinkel@yahoo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society
Everything you use, from your home to your smartphone, from highways to supermarkets, was designed by someone. What did they get right? Where did they go wrong? And what can we learn from how these experts think that can help us improve our own lives? In How Design Makes The World, bestselling author and designer Scott Berkun reveals how designers, from software engineers to city planners, have succeeded and failed us. From the airplane armrest to the Facebook “like” button, and everything in between, Berkun shows how design helps or hinders everyone, and offers a new way to think about the world around you. Whether you spend time in a studio or a boardroom, an office or the outdoors, How Design Makes the World empowers you to ask better questions—and to understand the designs in everything that matters. Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at r.garfinkel@yahoo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
Everything you use, from your home to your smartphone, from highways to supermarkets, was designed by someone. What did they get right? Where did they go wrong? And what can we learn from how these experts think that can help us improve our own lives? In How Design Makes The World, bestselling author and designer Scott Berkun reveals how designers, from software engineers to city planners, have succeeded and failed us. From the airplane armrest to the Facebook “like” button, and everything in between, Berkun shows how design helps or hinders everyone, and offers a new way to think about the world around you. Whether you spend time in a studio or a boardroom, an office or the outdoors, How Design Makes the World empowers you to ask better questions—and to understand the designs in everything that matters. Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at r.garfinkel@yahoo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art
Everything you use, from your home to your smartphone, from highways to supermarkets, was designed by someone. What did they get right? Where did they go wrong? And what can we learn from how these experts think that can help us improve our own lives? In How Design Makes The World, bestselling author and designer Scott Berkun reveals how designers, from software engineers to city planners, have succeeded and failed us. From the airplane armrest to the Facebook “like” button, and everything in between, Berkun shows how design helps or hinders everyone, and offers a new way to think about the world around you. Whether you spend time in a studio or a boardroom, an office or the outdoors, How Design Makes the World empowers you to ask better questions—and to understand the designs in everything that matters. Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at r.garfinkel@yahoo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/architecture
How do designers craft the perfect book cover? In this episode, Sam learns more about how book covers are designed. He is joined by Scott Berkun, an author and popular speaker whose talks range in topics from creativity, leadership, public speaking, design and more. Scott chats about the collaboration process and the surprising reality behind book cover design. Later on in the show, they are joined by Jon Key, an artist, designer, writer and educator who co-founded the Brooklyn design studio Morcos Key with Wael Morcos. Together, Jon and Wael designed the long-awaited Black Futures book by New York Times journalist Jenna Wortham and art curator Kimberly Drew. Jon chats about how he uses writing during his design process and landing on the cover for the Black Futures book. For links to resources we discuss on this episode, visit our show page: The Story Behind Designing Book Covers
Scott Berkun joins us to talk about how design makes the world. Everything in your life has been designed by someone, and this insight is a powerful way to understand the world, and everything that happens. In his book, Scott tries give designers better stories, better language, better metaphors, to explain what we do –... The post #261 Design makes the world with Scott Berkun appeared first on UX Podcast.
Back in 2010, Scott Berkun had a ‘wonderful and a horrible' idea. He thought he'd go get a job as project leader at WordPress. This is his story… For more great talks and articles from the leaders of SaaS, sign up for the BoS newsletter at businessofsoftware.org/updates --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/business-of-software/message
Has it ever intrigued you to stand up and speak in front of an audience? Do you have a certain niche you feel comfortable speaking about? Want to make money talking about that certain niche? Join me in this rabbit hole and find out the history, skills, and important tips on how to make speaking a Plan B income. https://walton.uark.edu/business-communication-lab/Resources/downloads/The_Five_Canons_of_Rhetoric.pdf https://study.com/articles/Be_a_Professional_Public_Speaker_Step-by-Step_Career_Guide.html https://blog.printsome.com/big-speakers-and-why-they-rock/ The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun If you'd like to connect with me or learn more about On Call Capital, make sure to find me on FB, LinkedIn, Twitter, or visit my website at www.oncallinvestments.com
What soft skills are necessary as a software developer? How can writing in your free time help you advance in your career? Meet Lokajit Tikayatray, an IT Architecture consultant at Dell Technologies from Bangalore, India. With 15 years of experience as a software developer, Lokajit is passionate about helping business users understand requirements, creating optimal solutions, and helping developers implement the best product. In his free time, he writes about software engineering on Medium, helping budding software engineers learn how to succeed in their careers. Several of his articles have gone viral and have been read by thousands of people around the world. In this episode, we talk about soft skills necessary in software development and the power of having a good attitude. We also dive into the importance of a hobby like writing in helping your career as well as the specifics of what it's like to write on Medium, a platform with tons of technology content. Mentioned in This Episode: Medium: medium.com Medium Bad-Assery Course: medium-bad-assery.teachable.com/p/medium-bad-assery Quora: quora.com Medium Partner Program: bit.ly/3sxwi7G Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun: bit.ly/3m1b7IB Lokajit's Medium Articles This is Why Software Developers Fail to Succeed in Their Career:
Scott Berkun can help you understand design. His new book, How Design Makes the World, helps both practitioners of the discipline and consumers of the products that they create understand of how design shapes our world. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/scott-berkun/
Scott Berkun Scott Berkun can help you understand design. His new book, How Design Makes the World, helps both practitioners of the discipline and consumers of the products that they create understand how design shapes our world. We talked about: his journey from computer programming to UX design his early switch at Microsoft from UX research to project management the distinction between building things and designing things the hazards of building things that don't solve a problem his take on the concept of "design maturity" how the rise of the consumer web and then the rise of mobile apps accelerated the growth of UX practice the lag in the adoption of UX practice in enterprise products how being right and having a good idea is not sufficient to actually change organizational decision-making the importance of being able to persuade others of the relevance and desirability of your design ideas his intent to give designers tools to democratize the design profession how truly hearing and empathizing with key stakeholders works better than evangelism to get them to appreciate your work the "aha!" moment when he discovered systems theory and thinking how allegiances to UX practice specializations can impede the progress of good design the superiority of non-binary thinking Scott's bio Scott Berkun is a bestselling author and popular speaker on creativity, leading projects, culture, business and many other subjects. He’s a former interaction designer and project manager who worked for many years at Microsoft and WordPress.com. He’s the author of eight books, including The Myths of Innovation, Confessions of a Public Speaker, and The Year Without Pants. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, Wired magazine, USA Today, Fast Company, National Public Radio, CNN, NPR, MSNBC and other media. His popular blog is at scottberkun.com and he tweets at @berkun. Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgy1KyEWzfU Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 91. Scott Berkun is a prolific author. He's written books on project management, public speaking, creativity, innovation, and remote work. His latest project is How Design Makes The World, a really accessible book that can help anyone better understand and appreciate design. If you're a professional, it can help you explain your work to friends and colleagues. If you're just curious about the field, it can help you understand how the things around you came to be. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode 91 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us, Scott Berkun. Scott is a well known author, he's author of eight books now and the reason I asked him on the show is his eighth book, his latest book, How Design Makes the World really caught my eye. It's kind of a companion now for me right alongside Don Norman's books and then my other design shelf as sort of a really accessible book about how to explain design and how it shapes the world. Welcome, Scott. I'm curious about, I think a lot of people know you as a product guy and an old school Microsoft PM sort of person, but you have over the years, you left Microsoft, became a book author and now you're writing this brilliant book about design. Tell me how that came to be. Scott: Sure. Thanks for coming on the show to begin with. Wanted to be on the show for a while and I couldn't make it happen. I'm excited that I'm finally here. Yay! Go us. Larry: Likewise. Scott: Yeah, the story is a circle. I was in college. I studied computer science. I learned, I discovered I was not a very good programmer. I was a mediocre programmer. I was good at the first part. I was good to figuring out what the problem was.
Scott Berkun Scott Berkun can help you understand design. His new book, How Design Makes the World, helps both practitioners of the discipline and consumers of the products that they create understand how design shapes our world. We talked about: his journey from computer programming to UX design his early switch at Microsoft from UX research to project management the distinction between building things and designing things the hazards of building things that don't solve a problem his take on the concept of "design maturity" how the rise of the consumer web and then the rise of mobile apps accelerated the growth of UX practice the lag in the adoption of UX practice in enterprise products how being right and having a good idea is not sufficient to actually change organizational decision-making the importance of being able to persuade others of the relevance and desirability of your design ideas his intent to give designers tools to democratize the design profession how truly hearing and empathizing with key stakeholders works better than evangelism to get them to appreciate your work the "aha!" moment when he discovered systems theory and thinking how allegiances to UX practice specializations can impede the progress of good design the superiority of non-binary thinking Scott's bio Scott Berkun is a bestselling author and popular speaker on creativity, leading projects, culture, business and many other subjects. He's a former interaction designer and project manager who worked for many years at Microsoft and WordPress.com. He's the author of eight books, including The Myths of Innovation, Confessions of a Public Speaker, and The Year Without Pants. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, Wired magazine, USA Today, Fast Company, National Public Radio, CNN, NPR, MSNBC and other media. His popular blog is at scottberkun.com and he tweets at @berkun. Video Here's the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgy1KyEWzfU Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 91. Scott Berkun is a prolific author. He's written books on project management, public speaking, creativity, innovation, and remote work. His latest project is How Design Makes The World, a really accessible book that can help anyone better understand and appreciate design. If you're a professional, it can help you explain your work to friends and colleagues. If you're just curious about the field, it can help you understand how the things around you came to be. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode 91 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us, Scott Berkun. Scott is a well known author, he's author of eight books now and the reason I asked him on the show is his eighth book, his latest book, How Design Makes the World really caught my eye. It's kind of a companion now for me right alongside Don Norman's books and then my other design shelf as sort of a really accessible book about how to explain design and how it shapes the world. Welcome, Scott. I'm curious about, I think a lot of people know you as a product guy and an old school Microsoft PM sort of person, but you have over the years, you left Microsoft, became a book author and now you're writing this brilliant book about design. Tell me how that came to be. Scott: Sure. Thanks for coming on the show to begin with. Wanted to be on the show for a while and I couldn't make it happen. I'm excited that I'm finally here. Yay! Go us. Larry: Likewise. Scott: Yeah, the story is a circle. I was in college. I studied computer science. I learned, I discovered I was not a very good programmer. I was a mediocre programmer. I was good at the first part. I was good to figuring out what the problem was.
Today we will be discussing what company culture really is. Randy Brown, an executive career mentor at the Lacy School of Business at Butler University, will help us answer the question. References: [:46] Today we will be joined by Randy Brown, executive career mentor at the Lacy School of Business at Butler University. [1:26] Question of the day. [2:05] Greg shares story about working at a law firm in Chicago. [3:02] The No Asshole Rule Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't, by Robert I. Sutton PhD. [4:15] Caroline introduces Randy Brown. [5:08] Randy explains his definition of company culture. [10:16] Randy starts conversation of acquiring companies. [14:56] What did we learn? [15:10] Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, by Simon Sinek. [16:42] Greg talks about Doctor Cameron Sepah's “Values Improvement Plan.” https://medium.com/s/company-culture/your-companys-culture-is-who-you-hire-fire-and-promote-c69f84902983 [18:05] Caroline mentions a critique of “Don't Fuck Up the Culture” by Scott Berkun. [19:10] If you enjoyed this podcast please remember to like, subscribe, and share. You can find more information about us and all of our episodes on our website, Arcamed.com. You'll find us under the “what's new” tab.
Raúl Álvarez y Patricia Dávila son diseñadores. Sobre datos personales, política, algoritmos, redes sociales, salud mental, libertad de expresión, democracia y la gran concertación. Con @aparachiqui Shownotes New Dark Age – James Bridle (https://jamesbridle.com/books) “El año sin pantalones” de Scott Berkun “Devs” que presenta el mundo Silicon Valley/big tech/tecnología como toda una religión sustitutiva Extremo centro: https://twitter.com/extremo_centro_ Jorge San Miguel: https://twitter.com/JorgeSMiguel Pedro Herrero: https://twitter.com/aparachiqui Otros capítulos también en podcast. Extremo Centro - Avatares de la no izquierda #4 Hoy, lo LGTB Hablamos de armarios ideológicos, silencios en wassap, identidades rígidas y de Ebaby. Con @juan_mas @alberto_jg @theseamedpencil @marselinouu @erraticorunhes @irunearino. Y @JorgeSMiguel y @aparachiqui iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/es/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6SD0... Ivoox: https://www.ivoox.com/en/extremo-cent... Extremo Centro - Avatares de la no izquierda #5 Derecha Mediterránea vs Neoperonismo vasco Intuiciones morales, la belleza, el amor, la trascendencia y el pacto girondino contra el MYLE. Con @nachoraggio @SubmergedTrader y @JorgeSMiguel y @aparachiqui iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/es/podcast/extremo-centro-avatares-la-no-izquierda-5-derecha-mediterr%C3%A1nea/id1439823637?i=1000475756061 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4T2MLhM1PnRneohua184y9 Ivoox: https://www.ivoox.com/en/extremo-centro-avatares-no-izquierda-audios-mp3_rf_51413468_1.html Suscríbete y dale a laik, pikachón. Podbean: https://extremocentro.podbean.com/ iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/es/podcast/extremo-centro/id1439823637 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3vvCrTqG0oF605zIKvB9OP Ivoox: https://www.ivoox.com/en/podcast-extremo-centro_sq_f1627328_1.html
The podcast for project managers by project managers. How can practitioners incorporate sustainability and social value into their current practice? Karen Thompson and Nigel Williams are the co-creators of Responsible Project Management, an initiative that aims to accelerate achievement of sustainable development goals, encouraging responsibility in the context of projects and project management. PLEASE REFER TO OUR ‘CLAIM PDUS' PAGE TO NOTE THE CHANGES TO THE PDU CLAIM PROCESS. Table of Contents 02:12 … The History of Responsible Project Management06:42 … Comparing Responsible Management to Corporate Social Responsibility07:45 … Changing the Role of the Project Manager10:43 … Correctly Defining Sustainability12:24 … Who Might I be Hurting through This Work?16:38 … Questions to Ask as a Responsible Project Manager19:51 … When it's Not about Success or Failure22:19 … How to Raise Awareness amongst Stakeholders24:48 … A Manifesto for Responsible Project Management29:40 … 2021 The Year of Responsible Project Management32:02 … Learn More about Responsible Project Management33:13 … Closing WENDY GROUNDS: You're listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. I'm Wendy Grounds, and with me is Bill Yates. And we'd like to wish you a very happy New Year. This is 2021, and we hope it's going to be a good one. BILL YATES: Oh, yes. It's got to be. WENDY GROUNDS: It's got to be better. We like to talk with experts who are doing new and exciting things in the world of project management. And that brings us to today's guests. Dr. Karen Thompson is a senior academic at Bournemouth University Business School in the U.K. She's a project professional turned innovative educator.who has done a lot of research and education in managing projects sustainably. And we have Dr. Nigel Williams, the Reader in Project Management and research lead at the University of Portsmouth. Karen and Nigel co-lead the Responsible Project Management Initiative, which is aimed to encourage sustainability and social responsibility in an ethical manner by project managers. BILL YATES: Yeah, sustainability is a topic that we've hit on a few times. And I know just recently we interviewed Scott Berkun, and we focused on his book, “How Design Makes the World.” Berkun talked about four questions in that book, and the fourth question: Who might be hurt by your work, now or in the future? This conversation that we're going to have today just goes right in line with that. I think some projects produce amazing things, could be a product or a service. But we don't really think about the fallout. We had conversations with Henk about the ocean cleanup project; right? Episode 106. Orbital space debris. We talked with Dr. Heather about that problem in Episode 75. We all want our cell phones to work. We want to have GPS. But what happens when the satellite dies? Sustainability is something that we're passionate about. This kind of takes it to another level. It's challenging to me as a project manager to think about, okay, in my day-to-day work, how can I be considering these questions? So I'm excited about this conversation. WENDY GROUNDS: Not so long ago we spoke to Kaitlyn Bunker about the Islands Energy Program. And that was also an incredible program where they're really thinking about what is the good that we are bringing in our projects. And with that, let's get talking to Karen and Nigel. The History of Responsible Project Management Karen, could you tell us a little bit about the history of Responsible Project Management, how you started it? KAREN THOMPSON: Yes, certainly. Well, how it started was way back in 2017 I'd just finished my Ph.D. And one of the things that I uncovered while doing that were all the claims that project management research – there were criticisms around it not being relevant enough to practice. So in 2017 I held a sort of networking event where ...
Back in May, I spoke to author Scott Berkun about Design Thinking, and we touched on some of the ways it can be used in talent acquisition. I now wanted to dig a bit deeper into some of the practicalities of this and explore the value that design thinking can bring to recruiting. My guest this week is Jodi Brandstetter, talent strategy consultant and author of the book Hire By Design. Jodi has previously worked as a Director of Talent Acquisition and has some great experience of applying design thinking to recruiting challenges. In the interview, we discuss: ▪ The current state of the market ▪ What is design thinking? ▪ How can design thinking be applied to talent acquisition? ▪ The importance of empathy ▪ Improving the candidate experience ▪ Journey mapping ▪ The role of technology ▪ What should talent acquisition leaders be doing now to prepare for the future Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts
Jeremy Clopton led the Big Data & Analytics and Digital Forensics practices in one of the top accounting firms in the US. He created the SQ Method, a framework designed to help firms overcome challenges and more successfully leverage technology and move firms forward. He is a faculty member for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and believes in data and technology's potential to transform firm practice management, leadership, and culture. Shownotes: How forensic accounting is trying to keep up with fraud with rapid advancement of technology How accounting firms have stepped up in agility, resilience and an advisory mindset in these challenging times Where technology is on the agenda of board room meetings in professional firms The biggest mistake firm leaders and managing partners make when making the best tech decisions Why a focus on efficiency stops accounting firms being more effective in productivity and performance How automation and technology is going to enhance rather than minimise the value of accounting advisors Whether there is too much expectation of accountants in becoming technologists and geeky in order to serve clients The biggest challenge software and tech companies have in successfully selling their products to accountancy firms What is coming up for accounting firms in the technology world over the next few years and how it will impact services and processes The importance of technology in generating new revenue streams for accounting firms, especially in analytics The outlook for accounting firms who have tech-adverse or change-resistant leadership teams Busting the myth that the older baby boomers are less tech-savvy than the younger millennials The power of the many data points generated by accounting firms and how to leverage it Words of encouragement to accountants who want to elevate technology on the agendas of their firm's senior meetings and strategies Shout out to Data Story by Nancy Duarte and how stories resonate with people and help the numbers come alive. Jeremy is also passionate about employee engagement and the value brought by each generation in the workforce. An avid reader, he says Patrick Lencioni, Brené Brown, Daniel Pink, and Scott Berkun have influenced his leadership style. Beyond books, he is a fan of TED curated content and cites Shonda Rhimes' TED2016 talk 'My Year Of Saying Yes To Everything' as one of the most influential talks of his career. Outside of work, Jeremy enjoys spending time with his wife, Katie, three innately curious daughters, a lazy golden retriever, and two energetic toy Australian shepherds. He enjoys running, golf, and helping his wife run a non-profit organization. Contact him here: http://upstreamacademy.com/ (Website and blog) https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyclopton/ (LinkedIn)
Scott Berkun on How Design Makes The World.
Some people think of design as the afterthought of a project. It's about making things look good, tweaking the usability, or simply making a product or service more appealing. However, those who understand the value of design know that it must be baked into the very fabric of a product or service. Design is not an afterthought, it's a starting point. On this episode, Scott Berkun shares principles from his new book How Design Makes The World, and offers some tactical insights for how we can be more intentional about approaching our everyday interactions and work through the lens of good design. This episode is sponsored by Patreon. Creators — are you tired of being paid in clicks and likes? Patreon lets you build real, sustainable income through the direct support of your fans. Sign up on patreon.com now and start building the steady income stream you deserve.
Tonight's #BusinessatBedtime reading is taken from Scott Berkun's brilliant, and now iconic, "The Year Without Pants". Enjoy and sweet dreams. Buy the book at scottberkun.com/yearwithoutpants
In his new book, How Design Makes the World, Scott Berkun explores how good and bad design impact our daily lives. In this episode we examine the big questions Scott asks in the book: What are you trying to improve? Who are you trying to improve it for? How do you ensure you are successful? And how do you avoid unintended harm? Table of Contents 01:09 … Meet Scott 04:23 … Scott's New Book: How Design Makes the World 07:04 … Q1: What Are You Trying to Improve? 11:12 … Ideas Generation Rule: Yes, And 13:57 … Ideas Generation Rule: No Half-Assing 16:43 … Ideas Generation Rule: No Blocking Questions 18:42 … Ideas Generation Rule: Make the Other Guy Look Good 20:28 … Q2: Who Are You Trying to Improve It For? 25:21 … Q3: How Do You Ensure You Are Successful? 30:15 … How Do We Overcome Bias? 34:17 … Q4: How Do You Avoid Unintended Harm? 41:20 … Advice to Project Managers 43:07 … Get in Contact With Scott 44:00 … Closing SCOTT BERKUN: So something as simple as idea generation, if you're not in a roomful of people you trust, none of these methods or techniques are going to help you because no one's going to feel safe enough to offer what they really think. And often the problem is that these brainstorming meetings are done with 20 people, 15 people. There's no way, even in a healthy organization, the likelihood there's that much trust among that many people, that someone's going to feel confident raising their hand against something they know is probably really weird. And that's why often brainstorming and idea generation happens the best in smaller groups. BILL YATES: Yeah, mm-hmm. SCOTT BERKUN: Four people, five people. BILL YATES: That's a great point. SCOTT BERKUN: Because even if they don't know each other, in 10 minutes they can get a sense of each other and develop some trust. And that's often a problem with project management is that it's done at this large scale, and the stakeholders and committee members, and we're going to brainstorm. But there's 50 people in the room. It's like, no. That's a dog-and-pony show. That's not where the real brainstorm is going to happen. WENDY GROUNDS: You're listening to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. I'm Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates. So in today's episode we get to sit down with a special guest, Scott Berkun. Meet Scott BILL YATES: Scott Berkun is an author, and he has had a big influence on me. He wrote a book called “Making Things Happen” that I got a hold of early in my project management career, and just loved it. Just ate it up. Since then he wrote a book that I really enjoyed also called “Confessions of a Public Speaker,” which I recommend to all our instructors when we bring them onboard. It's so good, so funny, great advice, and the book that we're going to focus on today he just wrote this year, in 2020, and it's called “How Design Makes the World.” WENDY GROUNDS: I actually had a look at one of his other books that's called “The Year Without Pants.” The topic, it intrigued me, the title should I say, and then I saw it was written about working remotely. So if anybody has questions about that, I'd recommend that book. BILL YATES: Okay, good. WENDY GROUNDS: Scott, welcome to Manage This, thank you so much for being our guest. SCOTT BERKUN: It is a pleasure to be here. WENDY GROUNDS: Before we get into the nitty-gritty of your books and what Bill wants to talk about, I have a question. So you transitioned from project manager into becoming an author and a speaker. Why and how? How has it worked out, and why? SCOTT BERKUN: Well, the how has worked out well, so I quit my job as a tech project manager guy in 2003, and it's now 2020, and I've been doing this for 17 years. I've written eight books. And this is the only way I make a living. So I've been very fortunate and lucky, it's worked out great. I mean, I've been successful enough,
In his new book, How Design Makes the World, Scott Berkun explores how good and bad design impact our daily lives. In this episode we examine the big questions Scott asks in the book: What are you trying to improve? Who are you trying to improve it for? How do you ensure you are successful? […] The post Episode 114 – Scott Berkun: How Design Makes the World appeared first on PMP Certification Exam Prep & Training - Velociteach.
I recently had the chance to talk with Michele Chaboudy.She is an experienced senior executive, serial entrepreneur, consultant, and angel investor.Michele is vice-chair of the north bay angels and teaches innovation at Santa Rosa Junior College.Her background and experience are wildly diverse giving her insights broad applicability.In this interview, she shares tons of useful advice for any founder or CEO.In the course of our conversation, we talked about:how many young entrepreneurs misunderstand networking. It is not handing out business cards over drinks and hors d'oeuvres. It can happen every day, all the time.her favorite analogy, taken from her experience racing motorcycles. You need to be looking at least two turns ahead because you go where you look.her process for evaluation companies as an investor, and what matters most to her.how she teaches founders to develop a strategic mindsetwhat entrepreneurs need to know about researching their intended customersFeel the Boot Founder’s Alliance: https://ftb.bz/allianceMichele’s startup consulting website: https://macabbey.com/blogMichele’s suggested resources for founders and entrepreneurs:https://helloalice.org---co founded by Elizabeth Gore, who was also interviewed on Feel the Boot.Simon Sinek— https://simonsinek.com/ particularly his “Start with Why” (book) and any of his speeches.Scott Berkun— https://scottberkun.com/ - “Dance of the Possible” book and “Saving My Creative Soul” (video). All of his books and talks are excellent.Malcolm Gladwell, recommend all of his books including his latest, Talking to Strangers.Tina Seelig— http://www.tinaseelig.com/ - Stanford prof in engineering dept teaching innovation. Favorite book: Ingenius. Recommend any of her books and Ted Talks.Jason Calacanis— https://thisweekinstartups.com/ Interviews Start-up Founders/CEO’s. Recommend his book on angel investing for tech start-ups.Range by David Epstein. Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. —The worst thing you can do is ask a kid what he or she wants to be when they grow up. Try to keep all your options open and don’t worry about starting “late” in a pursuit.Lean Impact—How to innovate for radically greater social good by Ann Mei Chang. Takes the Lean Start-up concept and applies it to non-profits.
I recently had the chance to talk with Michele Chaboudy.She is an experienced senior executive, serial entrepreneur, consultant, and angel investor.Michele is vice-chair of the north bay angels and teaches innovation at Santa Rosa Junior College.Her background and experience are wildly diverse giving her insights broad applicability.In this interview, she shares tons of useful advice for any founder or CEO.In the course of our conversation, we talked about:how many young entrepreneurs misunderstand networking. It is not handing out business cards over drinks and hors d'oeuvres. It can happen every day, all the time.her favorite analogy, taken from her experience racing motorcycles. You need to be looking at least two turns ahead because you go where you look.her process for evaluation companies as an investor, and what matters most to her.how she teaches founders to develop a strategic mindsetwhat entrepreneurs need to know about researching their intended customersFeel the Boot Founder's Alliance: https://ftb.bz/allianceMichele's startup consulting website: https://macabbey.com/blogMichele's suggested resources for founders and entrepreneurs:https://helloalice.org---co founded by Elizabeth Gore, who was also interviewed on Feel the Boot.Simon Sinek— https://simonsinek.com/ particularly his “Start with Why” (book) and any of his speeches.Scott Berkun— https://scottberkun.com/ - “Dance of the Possible” book and “Saving My Creative Soul” (video). All of his books and talks are excellent.Malcolm Gladwell, recommend all of his books including his latest, Talking to Strangers.Tina Seelig— http://www.tinaseelig.com/ - Stanford prof in engineering dept teaching innovation. Favorite book: Ingenius. Recommend any of her books and Ted Talks.Jason Calacanis— https://thisweekinstartups.com/ Interviews Start-up Founders/CEO's. Recommend his book on angel investing for tech start-ups.Range by David Epstein. Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. —The worst thing you can do is ask a kid what he or she wants to be when they grow up. Try to keep all your options open and don't worry about starting “late” in a pursuit.Lean Impact—How to innovate for radically greater social good by Ann Mei Chang. Takes the Lean Start-up concept and applies it to non-profits.
Today is Design Museum Everywhere’s 11th birthday — so we have a special episode to celebrate. We talk with two special guests on how design shapes the world around us, how we can all be designers, and all be better designers. Our guest co-host is George White, Chief Innovation Officer at Cantina. George gives his definition of design, why it’s important, and where the field is going. And we discuss some great design examples. Then we bring in Scott Berkun, best-selling author of the new book How Design Makes the World. Scott’s book perfectly aligns with our mission to make design accessible to everyone. We chat with him about the book, strategies for telling design stories, and much more. Plus Sam and George each share their weekly dose of good design. For links to resources we discuss on this episode, visit our show page:Design Makes the World! Design Museum’s 11th Anniversary Episode
Hilary and Roger discuss using data to prove someone wrong and then embark on another book club discussing Scott Berkun’s How Design Makes the World. And Hilary has an important coffee update! Show Notes: How Design Makes the World by Scott Berkun Support us through our Patreon page Roger on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rdpeng Hilary on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hspter Get the Not So Standard Deviations book: https://leanpub.com/conversationsondatascience/ Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/not-so-standard-deviations/id1040614570 Subscribe to the podcast on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Izfnbx6tlruojkfrvhjfdj3nmna Find past episodes: http://nssdeviations.com Contact us at nssdeviations@gmail.com Podcast art by Jessica Crowell
Scott Berkun is the bestselling author of eight books on design, creativity, public speaking and more. He sits down with Scott Hanselman to talk about his latest book, "How Design Makes The World." Everything you use, from your home to your smartphone, from highways to supermarkets, was designed by someone. What did they get right? Where did they go wrong? And what can we learn from how these experts think that can help us improve our own lives?How Design Makes The World
Good design often goes unnoticed, but not for Scott Berkun. In his new book, How Design Makes the World, Scott delves into how both good and bad design affect our daily lives. On this episode, Scott lays out the big questions you must ask about your users: Who do you design for, and why? And how do you avoid unintended harm when designing products? Links: Scott Berkun How Design Makes The World Scott Berkun Twitter
Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun provided by www.nateliason.com it's about public speaking. —————————————————————
Special guest and best selling author Scott Berkun joins the show. His new book, “[How Design Makes the World](https://scottberkun.com/books/)” is just out and we discuss how we can learn to ask better questions of everything we buy, use and make.
What's the best way to develop a content strategy that reflects the reality of today's buyer journey? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Ashley Faus, who is the Content Strategy Lead for Software Teams at Atlassian, shares why she thinks a playground provides a better analogy than a funnel for marketers looking to develop their content strategy, and how to use the concept of a content playground to provide your customers and prospects with a better buying experience. Highlights from my conversation with Ashley include: Many marketers use the concepts of the linear funnel and the looping decision journey to develop their content strategies, but Ashley says that those don't reflect the reality of how people buy. Much like in a playground, where there isn't a singular goal (get to the top of the jungle gym!), your prospects aren't always ready to buy and may have other interests. For this reason, a playground offers a better analogy. Rather than forcing prospects to follow a specific journey that we as marketers have determined is ideal, Ashley recommends focusing on creating strong content depth that allows your prospects to follow their own journey, wherever it takes them. For smaller teams that are just getting started, Ashley recommends identifying your "hedgehog principle" - that one thing you do better than everyone else - and creating a very in-depth piece of content on that. Then, you can use that content to repurpose into a variety of assets that can be used on social media, for your trade shows, in the sales process, etc. The key is to find a topic that is substantive enough to support the development of this amount of content. In terms of how this content gets presented on your website, Ashley recommends ungating it, and then being very explicit with your CTAs so that your website visitors know exactly what they will get if they click a button. She also suggests adding a related content module on your site to encourage visitors to browse through your content. The best way to begin measuring the impact of your strategy is to use simple tools like Google Analytics in combination with UTMs. As you grow, you can use more sophisticated marketing automation software like HubSpot or Marketo. Resources from this episode: Visit the Atlassian website Connect with Ashley on LinkedIn Follow Ashley on Twitter Check out Atlassian's Team Playbook and Agile Microsite Listen to the podcast to learn why envisioning your buyer's journey -- and their interactions with your content -- as a playground is a more effective way to approach the development of a content strategy. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week my guest is Ashley FOSS, who is the content strategy lead for software teams at Atlassian. Welcome Ashley. Ashley Faus (Guest): Nice to be here. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so happy to have you here. Ashley and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: And, and for those who are listening, you can't see it. But Ashley has an awesome virtual Zoom background of the golden gate bridge. That's one of my favorite things about the pandemic is that it is revealing people's personalities through the Zoom backgrounds that they choose. Ashley: It's been interesting. I actually think didn't have the latest version of Zoom. I got scared that if I upgraded and something went wrong, I wouldn't have access to it. So for a long time I was the lame person that didn't have a background and it was just my kitchen the whole time. So yes, I finally upgraded. Tell any of the listeners that are hesitant, you can upgrade. And it's not going to ruin your computer. And you, too, can have a nice virtual backgrounds. Kathleen: Oh yeah. For our all hands meetings at my office. We've been having so much fun with just seeing the backgrounds that people come to these meetings with. It's, it's awesome. It reveals so much about their personalities. About Ashley and Atlassian Kathleen: But so we have so much to talk about. And the first thing I want to talk about is really have you explain to my listeners what Atlassian is, and then also your background and what led you to your current role as Content Strategy Lead. Ashley: Sure. So Atlassian is a collaboration software maker. A lot of people are very familiar with JIRA, Confluence, Trello, Bitbucket, Status Page. We have a number of different products that people use all the time. JIRA especially is a staple for software teams. So I actually started at Atlassian two and a half years ago and I moved among a couple of different teams. My background is primarily marketing, but I actually started on the corporate communications team, moved over to editorial, doing a mix of content strategy, social media, thought leadership for the corporate side, and then just recently made the move over onto software teams. One thing that's kind of interesting and great is having that diverse background has given me that ability to move across different areas and go where my skills can be most useful. So I'm excited to dive in. I'm fairly new to the role, so it's been an interesting transition to try to onboard from home and then also start to get up to speed both from a content standpoint and a strategy standpoint, and then also from a tactical standpoint of where are all the different boards, where's the JIRA tickets? Like what's the process, what are the meetings? So, um, it's been fun. It's been fun. Kathleen: I will definitely say as far as Atlassian is concerned, I've been a user of so many of the company's products. I've used Confluence and JIRA. I'm currently using Trello. I know our dev team uses a number of products as well. It's a great company and a great suite of products, especially for anybody who's practicing agile, which I have done a few times. And so that was another reason I was excited to talk to you. But one of the things I think is really interesting is, you know, you mentioned you're relatively new in the role and we were just talking before we came on and you were explaining how your fiscal year, it's going to change over pretty soon. And so not only are you relatively new in the role, but you're being thrust into the situation of having to plan and strategize for a whole new year in the middle of the pandemic, no less all of these things happening at once. Your current focus is on content and I was really fascinated by how you think about content and content strategy planning and this concept of the content playground. So could you talk a little bit about that and what do you mean when you say a content playground? What is a content playground? Ashley: I started thinking about it because I needed a new metaphor. Everybody that I talked to was talking about primarily the linear funnel. And you know, you've got your three phases with your editorial calendar and you say, "I need three content, three pieces of content per phase. I'm going to do one per month. Cool. Now I have nine months of content strategy, if my math works out". Most of your listeners are probably sitting there going, "That's not how you do content strategy. You can't just say one piece of content per phase and then call it". Kathleen: Wouldn't it be nice if you could though? Ashley: You bought a calendar, write three articles and you're done. Then, you know, I know a lot of people have moved on to the looping decision journey where you basically add a fourth phase in there. And you're kind of almost recycling these people, but now there's a cross sell or upsell, but somehow you're dumping them back into that awareness phase from the linear funnel. If you look at the Google results for both the linear funnel and the looping decision funnel, it's kind of terrifying. It's very confusing. It basically just shows that we all agree that humans don't work this way. Nobody just goes politely down our little funnel. The 10-3-1 conversion was kind of the standard for a long time. You get 10 people in awareness. A certain amount of drops. So you get three into consideration to be able to get one to that kind of purchase decision. I was really wrestling with this because I was like, how do you create content in a way that allows people to do what they actually do, which is enter and exit and go sideways and all of that? So I had originally come up with this idea of a jungle gym. But there's two problems with that -- mainly that there's only one objective. It's either to get to the top or, if you're my three year old nephew, it's to go across without touching the lava below that. It's still me as a marketer forcing you into what I want you to do and it's taking all these touch points and saying, what's the fewest number of touch points that I can use to get you to a purchase? And yes, ultimately we need to sell products. Ultimately we have to make money as businesses, but it feels bad to everybody to just constantly be like, are you just trying to sell me something? Like what's the catch? I don't really trust you because I know you're trying to sell me. So if you look at an actual playground though, what's the point of the playground? Is the person who's sitting on the bench just enjoying the sunshine? Are they enjoying the playground the wrong way? No, actually perfectly acceptable. Sit on the bench. Again, you know, thinking about what the right way is to play on the playground for the adults and the playground designers, going down the slide is the right way. Three year old nephew, every time wants to go up the slide. If you translate that to content strategy, I recently had an example of this where in the traditional funnel, pricing is considered a very bottom of funnel action. If I'm asking you about price, man, I'm ready to buy. Well, in my case, I needed to go ask for budget before I could even do the RFP and I had no idea what that budget should be for. It was going to be a SaaS product. So understanding, you know, the subscription, SLA, the licensing tiers, all of that. And so I started reaching out to some vendors in the space asking them for just ballpark pricing so I could go get budget. And so many of them were like, well, allow me to send you a white paper about why this matters a lot and you know, Oh, you need to do a demo. And I'm like, Nope, I don't want to waste my time going through your traditional funnel when I don't even know if I have a budget yet. Kathleen: I have to just interject there and say amen because this has been a frustration of mine for so long. I had this recently with a marketing software product. It was exactly what you're talking about. It was last November and I was working on my budget and I knew that I was not going to purchase this product until halfway through 2020. And that was even before all this craziness with the pandemic hit. But I needed a placeholder number for it in my budget. So there's no chance I was going to engage in, like multi meetings and demos and hours long calls with people to pitch me what I know I'm not ready to buy yet. I just needed a price. There's nothing more frustrating than companies that make it that hard and it wasn't a one time thing. I just found myself doing this yesterday. Somebody started talking about email signature software and they mentioned the name of a new company, and I literally Googled the company name and pricing because I was like, I don't even want to waste my time looking at everything else and getting excited about it if I can't afford it. Ashley: Yeah, well, and it's interesting too because once I got the budget approved, I was already completely sold that this problem needed to be solved. I just needed to get management on board that yes, we are committed to solving this problem. So then I actually got into the sales process and you know, I started kind of at the top of that and I just said, look, I'm bought in, draw me all the way down to the bottom of the funnel and I want you to just pitch me. Kathleen: Yeah. Ashley: It blew the sales people's minds. And they're like, well, let me just go through the deck. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I don't know how many slides you have, but I'm telling you I'm bought in, I agree with you. This has impact. It solves a problem that I have. I have money, here's what my budget is. I'm BANT qualified. I need you to drop me all the way in and I need you to sell me. A majority of them just froze because they didn't know how to go through there. They only know how to do this step by step. And that's where I think the content playground comes in. Obviously there's a sales component to this too. When you do get people who just want to jump right in, I wouldn't send them to play on the swings. That's what we're doing right now. We're spending all our time on the swings. Let's just do it. Quit trying to force them to go down the slide. It's so funny because people have this idea that there's a specific way that you're supposed to build the relationship and you're supposed to, you know, okay, let's get you through the marketing funnel and get you through MQL and then SQL and then a sale. And it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you meet somebody and they come at you and they're like, no, I'm literally ready to sign on the dotted line, whether it's you or one of your competitors. So why should it be you? Kathleen: Yeah. And not only is that an issue, but it's like I'm going to sign and it's going to be fast. So if you can't meet my fast timeline, just get out of my way. Exactly. That's so interesting. I love that concept. How to use the concept of a content playground to develop your content strategy Kathleen: So give me an example of, conceptually, how does that play out in terms of developing and executing your strategy? Ashley: I've done this at a number of different companies and then we also, you know, do this similar type of thing, whether you see whether you recognize it and call it a content playground or not. When you start to recognize companies that do it because you go through and there's a nice experience to say, Oh, I've kind of landed in this problem space or solution space and now I have the ability to go explore. So we've done that quite a bit in it last year and moving into this content strategy role on software teams, I'm getting exposed to some great ways that they've done it. So for example, we have this agile microsite and then we paired that last year with this agile coach series. This is all work that has been done that I'm excited to come in and kind of optimize and see how can we replicate this across other content types. And it basically says, you know, yes, JIRA helps you run in an agile way, but if you don't have the right practices set up and you don't have that mindset in those processes, a tool is not the thing that's going to fix it for you. And so sure we can sell you JIRA, but if we don't show you the right way to set up the workflows, if we don't help you have acceptable standups, if we don't help you improve your retros, having these things on a board is not going to solve, you know, your agility problems. And so putting that together, if you look at it from a content depth standpoint, instead of organizing around specific phases of the funnel, organizing it around content depth. So from a conceptual standpoint, what the heck is agile? Why does it matter? What kinds of success, you know, have people seen with it, what are the problems from a strategy standpoint, what are the practices and rituals? So that's where you get into some of the standups. That's where you get into some of the retros. And then from a tactic standpoint, how do you actually do those things? And so we have a number of things from the agile coach series, from the agile microsite and also our team playbook, which talks about things like my user manual. So how do you work together as a team? Um, putting together project coasters for kickoffs. And then yes, there's some product demos in there. There's some guides in there, there's some tutorials, there's here workflows that you can set up to do that in JIRA or to do that in Trello. But it's really that full content experienced to say, I just need help figuring out how to run my standups or my retros. And then, cool that I can do that in JIRA as well. So I previously worked at Duarte, if you're familiar with Nancy Duarte's work. Um, she wrote Resonate, which was, you know, a big game changer for a lot of people. They do workshops, they do presentation design for tons of big names and Fortune 500 companies. So we did this in a number of ways. When we launched her slide decks book for example, we put that as a free, ungated version on SlideShare. And then we linked over to this kind of more traditional inbound strategy page where you've got a landing page with a form, you give away a free piece of content, show good faith that this is good quality, and then you've got a form fill out to download some templates that people could use that would then drop people into a drip campaign where we would showcase more templates, we would showcase some use cases that we had built and give them more content to ultimately lead them to say, "Hey, if you want to buy a workshop to learn how to do this at a pro level, here's how you can do that." Getting started with your content playground Kathleen: So if I love the whole concept here, and I love the notion of content depth because I do think that there are so many marketers that almost try to cover too much and they skim the surface on everything and it doesn't work. I think the thing that could be challenging about this is hearing that, like, where do you start and how do you, how do you get there? Because you can't snap your fingers and have a lot of depth in all these topics right away. And also, how do you know what those top level topics are? If you were teaching this to somebody, how would you walk them through that? Ashley: So there's a couple of ways that, uh, we've been able to do it at Atlassian. Obviously we're fortunate we have a large team and a ton of experts that have complimentary skills. So for example, we have done a ton of keyword research to understand both search intent and the specific wording of that. From a market standpoint, agile came in and changed the game, and it turns out that JIRA was actually a really good fit to run agile. So we already kind of were keeping a pulse on the market and we started to see that agile is becoming this very mainstream thing, that our tool and our technology is really useful in helping people run. So let's focus on agile. Okay, where do we focus? And that's where things like SEO and keyword research, that's where focus groups, that's where digging through the feedback that your customers are giving you and asking like, what are the top questions in terms of workflows? How do those map to things like running scrum teams or running Kanban boards? How does that now map to workflows and guides and onboarding tutorials that we would share with somebody who starts with your product or working with Trello products, for example? So I would say I'm doing a listening exercise and there's a number of tools. You could do it on social media as well, particularly for software devs, which is one of our core audiences. They hang out on Hacker News, they hang out on Reddit. And so go look there. That's, that's another core tenant I think as marketers is loving the whole human and not just who are you as a buyer? I only care about you as a buyer or user. How do I get you to engage in the product every day or buy more of the service? Okay, these people have lives. And so if you can figure out what do they love, what are they passionate about outside of the one thing you're trying to sell them, that also gives you an entire new space to explore for thinking about what topics could you engage in. And so, when you think about engineers, efficiency, optimization, clean and concise process is something that's very important to them. Well what are some of the frameworks or what are some of the topics that deal with optimization that could potentially lead you to lead you to something like Six Sigma or manufacturing for example, right? There's a lot of ways that you could think about it if you just know what do engineers generally like? And it's like, they really like efficiency. They like optimization, they like tight, elegant solutions and just jump off from there to see, okay, what are the specific topic areas that would coincide with your product offering? And with the things that they generally care about, what does that mean? Kathleen: And if you don't have an enormous team and you want to take this approach, how do you do it? Because I imagine you'd have a choice of like, okay, I've identified 10 areas that I want to go deep on, you know, and I could either take area number one and fully play it out and develop all the content. Or I could do one article for each of the 10 areas and then go back and do the second article. Like how would you tackle it? Ashley: Yeah. So one of the things that Nancy Duarte actually talks about a ton, from Jim Collins book Good to Great is this concept of the hedgehog principle. And that's if you can do one thing and be the best at it, just do that one thing. So instead of trying to spread yourself too thin across all of those 10 topics, I would be ruthless initially in what is the thing that we actually have the ability to talk about without having to spend a ton of time and energy going and finding that expertise? What's the thing that leads most to the product market fit, or the service market fit, whichever of those that you're selling? And then what's the thing that has depth? This is something that I see a lot, is people start throwing topics on the board and you're like, okay, but how many words can you actually say about that thing? And for the most part, people were like, "Whoa". And it's like you can't even say one sentence about it. How are you going to write a full article? And then that also gets into, it's not just one article, it's okay, how do we also turn that into a video? How do we turn that into an infographic? How do we turn that into a social media post? Because this thing has to live for a lot of time. Nobody has time to keep creating net new content all the time. And so if this piece can't be repurposed or broken apart, it probably doesn't have enough depth to chase. So I would say if you're very first, starting from scratch, to limit it to probably two, maybe three topics that are related to each other and that you know, have depth. And I would say especially if you're dealing with a small team, like you're at a start up and the founder is kind of the only person who could talk about this, I'm definitely limiting that to two topics that you know you have in house expertise and then doing a good job to capture that from a conceptual, strategic and tactical standpoint the first time. And then go with the repurposing strategy. So instead of saying, "Oh my gosh, we have to cover it, a thousand words or a 20 minute video every single time", think about it as, no, nobody wants to read that, nobody's going to scroll through all of that. So let them pick their journey of how deep they want to go. Repurposing your content Kathleen: So can you dig in a little bit more to that repurposing topic because I was interested to hear you discuss all the different ways that the content can manifest, because I think a lot of people might hear this and think it's a bunch of blogs, but it's, it's really not. Ashley: One of my favorite campaigns that was super successful, there was a startup that I worked at that got acquired by Oracle called Palerra. Palerra was a cloud access security broker, which, you know, doesn't matter as much to the majority of the audience if they're not in tech, but, basically they're kind of a complimentary security product to a lot of cloud offerings. We were primarily an enterprise solution. Technology is a really heavy topic. And so what we did, when I came in, there was this raw word doc of just random customer interviews, and problems that they had faced. And so for example, we all know on a personal level we should update our passwords regularly. A lot of companies have that installed where it's like 72 days time to change your password. So at an enterprise security level, there's a similar concept for your keys to your different cloud services. And so we had a scenario where there was a customer that hadn't rotated their keys in like two years. It blew our minds. So our product actually found that. So we actually were talking about cautionary tales and focusing specifically on AWS because that cloud offering is quite ubiquitous among our customers and these are a lot of common pitfalls that our products can help solve. So we called it a cautionary tale. We turned it into an ebook first that then became the basis for our booth graphics at AWS Reinvent. And then we had a booth giveaway. We put an Amazon Tap in a clear box and then we had a bowl of keys sitting next to it and they looked identical. And so you drew a key and if it unlocked the box, you won the Tap. And so that was able to lead us into, "Have you rotated your keys? How are you doing password management?" But not just those basic tactical issues, but also like how do you know there's even a working key in the bowl? How do you know that Kathleen is supposed to have the key and not Ashley? What happens to the keys after the show? So let's say Kathleen and Ashley both leave and the bowls just sitting there. Now what happens to the keys? Right? And our product can help with that. And from a security standpoint, those are a lot of blind spots that at the time people were missing. And then the nice thing about that being at a security conference, people were very skeptical that there were any working keys in the bowl. Right? There's no keys. Yeah. So every time someone won, we took a picture and then we put it on the company Twitter feed. And then if they had a Twitter handle, we tagged them and ask them to retweet. And so there were people, and I mean we had people, well, again, they're very methodical about this. They're like, okay, it looks like roughly once an hour people are winning. So the last time somebody won, they just won. Okay, well I'm going to come back and try again later. Kathleen: Like people play slots. Ashley: Yeah. It's like slots. But that was a great way. And then we were also able to share that ebook on Twitter as well to say, "Hey, if you're curious why we're taking pictures of the food, you can read this ebook." And then we were able to send that as well with some deeper case studies to anybody that we had scanned at the booth. So it was a really nice integrated online, offline and social media experience. That's another one of my pet peeves is people who are just like, come to booth 123. I'm not at the conference so you're just going to spam me for three days. So making sure that you have content that tells a story to your social media audience, whether they're attending the conference or not. Kathleen: That's great. That's a really good point about the shows too. Because yeah, you do so much marketing. And if somebody is not going, it's just annoying. How to share your content on your website Kathleen: So if you've created all this content, what does that look like on the website from an experience standpoint? Are there content hubs? Is it a resource center? How do you organize this all for presentation to your audience? Ashley: I think it really depends on the audience. I think HubSpot, obviously from the hub and spoke model that they've done, is amazing so that you can kind of see, you can dive in deep per topic, you could dive in deep from an integrative marketing standpoint, you can dive in deep from a tech stack standpoint and obviously they have solutions for that. So the way that they've organized it is actually really great because it allows people to kind of slice and dice how they want. One of the things that we've done that I think is really great and it lasts and is, for example, on the work-life blog, which is like a corporate level, so deals with things like teamwork, practices, leadership, et cetera. We've got a related articles function. And so when you get to the bottom of the article, yes, there's a CTA. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, you want to um, go talk in the community. Or in some cases where we're doing product focused content, it's go to the product tour or something like that. But then at the bottom there's related content. And so we have a mix of collections, a mix of tags, and then those get fed into the related content. And so there's always a next step for people to take. I think that's the biggest thing, whether you organize it as a hub, whether you organize it as a resource center that's done by topic filtering or content tagging, that ability for somebody to always take the next step and to, to only force that next step to be a buying action if they're in a head space for buying action. So if you're on a product tour, the request a demo or the sign up for free, or the do an evaluation for seven days or 30 days, whatever it is, that makes perfect sense. But if you've just read an article about productivity, it's a really hard landing to talk about five tips to manage your time and then all of a sudden be dropped into, you know, by the way, you need to buy Trello. It's like, why would I do that? So making sure that there's always a next logical action that either takes them deeper toward a purchase or deeper tool, words and practices that will help them or allow them to say, I don't know how I landed here. How do I get back to the first thing that I clicked so that I can get back on the path where I think I should be? Kathleen: Yeah. How do you execute that? Because you just gave the example of somebody who's just poking around and then they're all of a sudden getting pushed to buy. You know, being that it's a playground and people can go in any number of directions, how do you craft those next steps so that they make sense? Ashley: I think the biggest thing is, there's obviously an ideal customer journey and that does include some post-sale engagement. That could be things like documentation. It could be a support community. But really, I mean even from like, um, practically accessibility, labeling your buttons with what it is you're doing. Are you downloading this? Are you reading this? Are you clicking to do an evaluation? Are you starting a trial for free? What is that? And then that way people are very clear whenever they get down there, they know what they're clicking on. I know I've had this experience a few times where it's like, see more. And I'm like, yes, I wish to do that. And it automatically takes me into this form where it's like put in a credit card. And I'm like, you didn't tell me that's what I was doing. That's not, I didn't agree to that. So having really clear navs and in the resource center, not having buy CTAs all over the resources. For example, Intercom does a great job with this. They're a messaging, communication growth platform. You can go over to their journal section or their resource center and it's all thought leadership. It's all very high level and they state at the top, "This is free content. It's educational, no sales." And so, you know, when you're that part of the website, you're not going to get sold to and there's a nice handy button at the top. It's like go back to home. And that's where, you know, you could either be directed down an education path or sales path and you can kind of choose. So I think just being really explicit. We're past the point of I'm going to trick you into sales. It might've been on LinkedIn. I saw a discussion that maybe you and somebody else were having about, "Oh, I got a thousand leads from this form. And the question is, are they qualified?" Jay Acunzo actually has a whole rant about this. Stop gating your best content and then pretending whoever fills out that form is a lead sales lead. That's not what they agreed to. And so don't try and trick your audience. If they want to buy, they'll let you know. If they want to be educated and they want to form a relationship with you, they'll do that. And so giving them a clear path to let them either do sales or build a relationship makes them feel empowered. It gives everybody good feelings and it doesn't clutter up your sales process with people that are junk, that are not qualified or that are not actually interested in buying. Kathleen: So true. I find it's counterintuitive because, I started a few years ago ungating as much content as I possibly could and just putting it on the page and then adding like a little field just for email saying, "Want to get the PDF? Put your email in." And that was it. What was fascinating to me is that not only did conversion rates not go down, in many cases, they went up. It's really psychology if you think about it. There's so much crappy gated content out there and the problem with gating it, first of all, is people are very jaded and a lot of them will think, I'm not giving up my email only to find out that this is junk. And so then they don't convert at all. Whereas, if you give the content away and then give them the option of downloading, you're basically allowing them to try before they buy. You're proving that what you're giving them is really good and if they do think it's really good, they are going to convert because they're like, "Well, it's no skin off my back. This is great content. I don't mind giving up my email address for it." And so the people that wind up converting on the ungated content are more qualified because they've self qualified. The other thing I've found, it goes back to your thing about being explicit, is especially when you don't have things gated, like on the page before or in the marketing you're doing for it, just coming right out and saying, "No need to fill out a form to get it." Ashley: Yeah. Kathleen: You don't have to give us your email address. People are so naturally almost defensive or they're like, Oh, Nope, Nope, Nope. They're going to ask for something. And if you can just come out and say, I'm not going to ask you for anything, that goes a long way. Ashley: Well, and I think what's interesting in this, in this thought about building relationships and giving that content away, a great example, there's a company that I worked with, they were an agency for us. We were a startup. We were using, you know, a lot of agencies and freelancers and they host these dinners and it's basically, you know, just get five, six, seven people together, have dinner, nerd out about marketing topics. And yes, we all know full well some of us are current customers of this company. Some people are prospects of the company. But I don't have budget or need to work with them anymore. But every single time I meet somebody that says that they have the need that this company services, I refer them and I refer probably three or four clients to them. I would continue to do that and we have a great relationship. They still invite me to the dinners. I sent one of my colleagues to a dinner to basically make a connection to say this might be relevant for you to meet some people that we might want to put spokespeople on panels with in the future. And so that willingness to connect with each other. I'm loyal to that company even though I have no budget and no need to buy from them right now. But I'm referring, I'm still giving them revenue because again, it's, it's fine for, for me, when I meet somebody at a conference and they're like, how would you do this? I'm like, actually this is a great company. Would you like an intro? And so a buying action may not necessarily be the person who downloaded the content buys. It may be, I mean, again, I talk about Intercom. I love the content that IDEO puts out. Again, I have no need to buy their services at this point, but I tell everybody, go look at HubSpot's content or go look at Intercom's content. And so there's no way for them to measure that. I'm just another random name on their list that hasn't converted, but I'm a brand champion for them and they don't even know it, you know? Measuring the ROI of your content playground Kathleen: That's awesome. So speaking of measuring, you get this all set up. You deploy it. How do you track and measure whether it's working, how it's working, et cetera? Ashley: So I've done this in a number of different ways depending on the company and the strategy and the bandwidth and all of that kind of stuff. If you're just starting out in your tiny little team, and you don't have the ability to do, you know, Tableau or Databricks or kind of all of these fancy data pipelines, at minimum just start out with your Google tracking. Google has free stuff that you can put on. Use your UTM codes to understand if these things are getting tracked from a social media standpoint, what's the referrals, if you are using any pages with forms from any of the marketing automation providers. Again, I'm pretty partial to HubSpot just because I think they do amazing content. The platform is great. We've used Marketo in the past, and other companies. So any of those are great to really understand what are the trends. I think that's the biggest thing. Making sure that you're looking at a correct trend level. I've worked a lot on the social media side and people get freaked out per post. "Oh my gosh, we did 10 posts last week and this one did, you know, half a percent better than this one." And it's like, let's zoom out and look monthly. How are things trending? Let's do some testing to see if we post more. Does our engagement rate go down if we, um, the other big thing is optimizing the CTA is for what you want to happen. So it's going to be really impossible for you to get somebody to like, comment, retweet, follow, and click through all in the same posts. Like there's not enough words for that post. And so making sure that each CTA belongs where it should be. So if you're asking for a poll on Twitter or Facebook, that's the goal. Responses in feed is the goal versus explicitly asking someone to click through. Make that explicit and you need to make sure that you're putting in some sort of hook or benefit. I see this a lot with people who are just starting in social media, for example, that they just give the title of the article or they just say, read these five tips. Well, what are they? On the opposite extreme, they give it away and they say, here's the five tips. And then they laid them out. And I'm like, well, now why do I need to read the article? You already gave me the tips. Give me the first tip that you think is the most interesting and then say, click through to read the next four tips. Kathleen: Right? Ashley: So, from a measurement standpoint, being very clear on a per post basis about what your goals are, if you're looking at click through rate or engagement rates and what type of engagement. So that's kind of more from a social media standpoint. If you're doing YouTube, if the answer is subscribe to the channel, if the answer is watch the next video, if the answer is go visit the page, those are very different actions. And so making sure you're optimizing those. And then obviously looking at things like organic traffic is always great. Looking at whether you have emails or product tours. From an email standpoint, looking at the open rates and the click to open ratio. So a lot of people look at the CTR, but that's a little bit out of whack. If there's a thousand people that opened it, but you sent it to 5,000, it's not very fair to say what's the CTR on the 5,000? Use it on the thousand. In some cases we've gotten really granular to look at which pieces of content get the most clicks. And so that helps us to understand, it's great that you want to put 10 pieces of content in the newsletter, but if only the first five ever get clicked, you need to find something else to do because you're not amplifying those things. Kathleen: How do you get people down further? Ashley: Yeah, exactly. What kinds of results can you expect? Kathleen: So any examples of like, what kinds of results does taking this approach yield in terms of pipeline or engagement or revenue or any of the above? Ashley: Yeah. From a scale standpoint, it depends. It's not very fair to say like, Oh, you'll get a thousand leads. It's like, okay, well if your revenue goal is 10,000, that's a struggle. Or if you're a billion dollar company, a thousand leads doesn't do you any good, right? So, we've done content pairing for example, where we've done a mix of gated content and ungated content. When we did that at Duarte, the ungated piece has over 300,000 views. Now it's been up for a couple of years, but it's got over 300,000 views. We were getting roughly 10 to 15% download rates of people going and getting that content. And so that's something where you're still getting the benefit of the people looking at it for free and ungated, but then you're starting to see higher engagement, you know, 10, 15% on that. Whenever I've done newsletter sends that have been more thought leadership focused with very light touch sales, we've been able to see 20, 30% open rates, 15 to 25% CTOR rates. Again, because we're serving that content that they've requested, not trying to shoehorn in sales. Whenever we've done sales, as a piece of content, like, "Hey, get a trial" or "Use this code" or "Refer" or "Here's an eCourse and then we'll give you one module for free because you've signed up for this newsletter" or something like that, those do have a much higher conversion rate for whatever the next buying action is. Again, it depends on the scale. So like the Palerra one at the time, you know, that ebook and we were a tiny little company. I mean we only had, I think when we got acquired, we had maybe 60 employees total. So very small company, 10 by 20 booth at AWS Reinvent, which is a massive conference. And we got, you know, almost 2000 views on that small ungated ebook. And then we got substantially higher open rates, and then our lead scans at that booth, I mean it was ridiculous. I want to say we scanned like 500 people and at most shows we were only scanning probably a hundred to 112 and so it was huge because it all tied in. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: That's awesome. Well shifting gears because we're gonna run out of time. I have two questions that I like to ask all my guests and I'm really curious to hear your answers because you've worked with some really interesting companies who are very good at this. Is there a particular company or individual that you think is really killing it with inbound marketing right now? Ashley: So I will do the shameless plug for Atlassian, A, because I work there so of course I think we're doing a good job. But truly, I think one of the biggest examples of this, we have our team playbook and this is something again where we connected our work futurist Don Price, has done a number of different keynotes around the world and always promotes the team playbook and that has led to this health monitor -- the team health check, understanding where your blockers are. That led to a large engagement with ANZ bank, which is a huge bank in Australia and they have now done a case study with us. They're huge champions that come for our conferences and speak about how this one tiny little interaction with this health monitor has led to this entire agile transformation across their business. It's a mix of the tools, the people, the practices, it all came together perfectly. So, yes, that had a revenue result for us, but it started with that ungated content at a conceptual level about how do you do your team work better and that's what Atlassian really tries to empower. I mentioned Intercom as well. They have a ton of great content. They've got sales manuals, they got marketing manuals that talk about a variety of different ways to think about content marketing, sales, the interaction between sales and marketing. Highly recommend their content for both sales and marketing practitioners. And then, IDEO, just like if you want to elevate your creativity and you want to kind of think outside of a traditional business or products. I work in tech, so of course I'm in this little bubble that everything is SaaS and everything is ARR. IDEO has none of that. And so every time I go to IDEO and just like, this is fascinating, how does the world work when you're not in your little bubble? And so I would say, no matter what bubble you're in, IDEO will help you get out of it. That would be three that are a mix of marketing focused, tech and then a design consultancy that's just completely out of my wheel house. Kathleen: I can't wait to check some of those out -- particularly IDEO. It sounds really interesting. Well, second question is, the biggest pain point I was here from marketers is that digital is changing so quickly and they feel like it's drinking from a fire hose to try and keep up with everything and stay educated and on the cutting edge. So how do you personally do that? Ashley: Yeah, so from a broader view, kind of outside of marketing or just business chops, which I think is really important, it's how do we fit in and especially as you move up in your career and you become COO or something like that, understanding that business acumen is really key. I love MIT Sloan review for that content and they've been killing it lately. Every single thing that's come out from them over the last probably six or seven months, I'm like, "Yes, one hundred percent fascinating". So I love MIT Sloan from a business standpoint. There's a couple of marketers that I think are a little bit contrarian and I joked about going on rants about things and I'm like, "Yes, ranting. I love it." Katie Martell is somebody that I've been loving her content lately. Jay Acunzo I think is great. He's really honing in on podcasting and show running over the last year or so. But just in general, his thoughts on content marketing and strategy are great. I love Scott Berkun. He is primarily a designer, and more on that design thinking. He has a new book out that I need to get because it looks amazing. It's like How Design Makes the World, I think is what it's called. And it's looking at how all of these interactions and everyday things influence our path, our actions, et cetera. So Scott Berkun is great. And then I would say just like a book that I always come back to is this book called The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson. It's primarily about intersectional thinking and divergent thinking. And so yes, there's an element of understanding the tactical nitty gritty from a digital standpoint. I think there's a number of, you know, Marketing Profs, CMI, HubSpot, all of those do a really great job of that. But how do you think about change? How do you think about a problem space? How do you think about a solution space? The Medici Effect is just every, it's like I come back to it kind of annually. It's like, okay, somewhere in there I'm missing something. I should probably just reread the The Medici Effect. In fact, I should probably just to think about the concepts and The Medici Effect to jolt myself out of being so focused on, okay, what does this button on Twitter do or what does this ads do? Like are we doing AB testing? We're doing multivariate testing, what's our competence interval, whatever. We're pulling those things down. Like I don't know what the best practice is. It's like I'm clearly thinking about it in the wrong way. If I'm so twitchy about such a small detail, you get lost in the weeds pretty easily. Kathleen: Those sound like some really good resources. I will put links to all of them in the show notes. How to connect with Ashley Kathleen: If somebody is listening and they want to connect with you online or follow you or learn more about this topic, what's the best way for them to do that? Ashley: I would love to connect on LinkedIn. I'm Ashley Faus. For the most part, I think I'm the first search result for that. And you can also follow me on Twitter also @AshleyFaus. Kathleen: Great. I will put Ashley's links to her social accounts in the show notes. So head there if you want to find them. You know what to do next... Kathleen: And if you are listening and you liked what you heard today or you learned something new, and how could you not because Ashley shared so many good ideas, head to Apple podcasts and please leave the podcast a five star review. That helps us get found by more people. And if you know somebody who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork, because I would love to make them my next interview. Thanks so much for joining me this week, Ashley. Ashley: Yeah, thank you for having me. It's always fun to nerd out about marketing. Kathleen: Yes!
Contact: matt@metashift.co.uk Despite years of discussion and many excellent initiatives to attempt to fix the issue, recruiting still has an experience problem. As talent acquisition leaders around the world re-evaluate their strategies moving forward, incorporating design principles into the reimagining of experiences, services and processes is something that will bring considerable competitive advantage. My guest this week is best selling author and speaker, Scott Berkun. I've been a fan of Scott’s work for a really long time and his new book "How Design Makes The World" is a fantastic introduction to design principles and thinking. It was great to hear Scott talk about the book and also share his thoughts on fixing the recruiting experience problem. In the interview, we discuss: • What makes something well designed and why it is essential not to take things at face value • Thinking the actual problem you want to solve • Design thinking versus design doing • Design principles in organisational and service design • The mismatch between candidate wants, and recruiter wants • Applying design knowledge to solve recruiting's service design issues • Scott’s favourite story from the book and how it illustrates the hidden forces that often sit behind design choices Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts
Ryan and Lach discuss the The Year Without Pants by Scott Berkun. What they cover in this highlight reel: Would you rather a duck sized horse or 100 horse sized ducks? | Where good ideas come from | Work meetings are broken | Berkun retell's the year he spent in Automattic, Matt Mullenweg's company who brought the world Wordpress. Whilst it is almost a decade old, much of its wisdom holds true, particularly as many of us find ourselves shifting to more remote work. We hope you enjoy. --- Subscribe to receive new episodes weekly. Find us on Instagram at @theabstractable or watch video of episodes on our YouTube channel - Abstractable.
In this episode of all things #Abstractable, Ryan and Lach discuss the book The Year Without Pants by Scott Berkun. Berkun recounts the year he spent in Automattic, Matt Mullenweg's company who brought the world WordPress. Whilst it is almost a decade old, much of its wisdom holds true, particularly as many of us find ourselves shifting to more remote work. As with each episode, we pluck out what most resonated with us from the book and how we are going to implement these into our day-to-day. --- Scott Berkun - The future of work (Ep.006 The Abstractable Podcast) 00:00 - Opening remarks 02:53 - The Book: The Year Without Pants 10:45 - The author: Scott Berkun 12:53 - How important culture is 20:24 - What role the language is playing 26:29 - Would you rather a duck-sized horse or 100 horse-sized ducks? 39:25: Will we go to the moon any time soon? 42:30 - Scientifically the world has not progressed since the '70s 58:57 - Where good ideas come from 1:06:00 - Meetings are broken – and other common fallacies in organisations 1:07:09 - Wrap up --- We hope you enjoy. Subscribe to receive new episodes weekly. Find us on Instagram at @theabstractable or watch video of episodes on our YouTube channel - Abstractable.
Let's cope together. Jen and Becky talk about self-care, boundaries, how to support your nervous system, and the many lessons to be found during this unprecedented public health crisis. For more about Jen: http://www.magicalmindfulness.com/ For more about Scott Berkun: https://twitter.com/berkun Learn more about executive coaching: https://virtualexecutivedirector.com/index.php/ Join the Executive Director Mastermind Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ExecutiveDirectorMastermind/ Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/virtualexecutivedirector
RCA book review editor Kay Corry Aubrey interviews Scott Berkun. Scott is the author of best selling Myths of Innovation, which explores the truths of creativity and innovation. Scott was a project manager at Microsoft from 1994 until 2003 and worked with the development teams on the original versions of the ubiquitous Internet Explorer (v1-5), Windows, and MSN. An author, consultant and software industry veteran, Scott Berkun writes books, consults with managers, and teaches creative thinking at the University of Washington. He is also the author of another best-selling business book The Art of Project Management (O'Reilly 2005). Over the years Scott has shared his wisdom on topics ranging from "How to manage smart people" to "Good,evil, and technology" and dozens of other thought -provoking essays on his blog.
Our host Matt Mullenweg gets together with an old colleague, Scott Berkun. Scott’s an author and tech industry veteran who in 2013 wrote a book about his experience with distributed work at Automattic. Now he’s catching up with Matt to talk about what’s changed since they worked together back in the day. For more, go to Distributed.blog. Produced by Mark Armstrong and the team at Charts & Leisure: Jason Oberholtzer, Whitney Donaldson, Cole Stryker, Levi Sharpe, and Michael Simonelli. Theme music by Jason Oberholtzer. Cover art by Matt Avery.
Kristin Skinner and Peter Merholz, co-writers of Org Design for Design Orgs, are teaching a full day workshop at the DesignOps Summit this year. On this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, they discuss the career milestones that brought them to the realization that there was a book to be written about the challenges they faced when coordinating and managing across teams. What Peter’s reading: Uday Gajendar’s “Rise of the Meta Designer” in Interactions Magazine https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3338285 What’s inspiring Kristin lately: Scott Berkun’s work http://scottberkun.com More about the workshop: As the move to establish in-house design teams accelerates, it turns out there’s very little common wisdom on what makes for a successful design organization. In their full day workshop at the DesignOps Summit on October 25 in New York City, Peter Merholz and Kristin Skinner will draw from their groundbreaking book Org Design for Design Orgs, and address this lacuna by shining a light on the unsung activities of actually running a design team, the organizational and operational challenges and considerations, and what works and what doesn’t.
Innovation. We love to talk about it, everyone wants it. Innovation is critical for people and organizations to grow. But we all mean different things when we say it. Today I have a conversation about how innovation is a conversation with Brian Ardinger. He's the director of Innovation at Nenet (which owns my student debt! Hi Nelnet!) and the host of InsideOutside.io, a community for innovators and entrepreneurs that produces a great podcast and a conference that brings together startup and enterprise organizations to talk innovation. There are three key conversations worth designing that we discuss and I want you to have your ears perked up for each as you listen to this episode. Each conversation can help you navigate the innovation process inside or outside your organization. These three are the pre-conversation, the conversation about where to look for innovation and the conversation about patience. Brian specializes in a unique perspective on where to look for innovation. More on that in a moment. The Pre-Innovation Conversation Before you even start to talk about ideas or technology, it's essential to start with the end in mind. What kind of innovation is the company really looking for? Skip the pre-conversation and you have no idea of where you're heading. As Brian points out “without having that definition, then it's sometimes hard to know if you're playing the right game to begin with...the process itself of level setting... I don't think it takes a long time.” Brian and I didn't dive into tools to help with that conversation, so I put a few into the show notes. Mapping the innovation conversation can be done in lots of ways. One is thinking about evolutionary vs revolutionary change, another is about tangible vs intangible change, like rethinking policies or business models vs remaking product or space design. I *just* did a webinar on this topic with my partner in the Innovation Leadership Accelerator, Jay Melone, hosted by the amazing people at Mural. Templates of the two innovation leadership frameworks we outlined are there in Mural for you to download and use, along with the webinar video to help you along. Also check out Mapping Innovation, by Greg Satell. You can download his playbook free in the show notes. Where to look for innovation Brian's Inside/outside perspective is that innovation can be a conversation between the inside of a company and the outside world. Some innovation will happen internally, and some innovation can be brought from the outside in: the exchange and acquisition of ideas and technology from outside your organization is an important conversation for enterprise organizations to be having. When you're trying to innovate, it can be tempting to look in familiar places. If you're a financial technology firm, it can be tempting to look to fintech startups for what's next and to try to innovate through acquisition. But you'll also be looking were your competitors will be looking. Try an innovation approach based on Horizontal Evolution - look to the sides and edges of the landscape. Brian describes this approach as “playing a different ball game”. The conversation about patience Innovation does not happen overnight. Real change takes time and that takes real patience. Brian also points out that organizations need to be having a bigger conversation, about what else needs to change to make real innovation flourish inside the organization. Hint: it's generally more than you bargained for. As he says “Corporations are doing exactly what they should be doing...They figured out a business model that works and they're executing and optimizing that particular business model...And to radically change that, the people, the resources, the compensation, all of that stuff has to kind of morph or change to play in a different environment. And so I think that's where the challenge really begins.” Often people think innovation is about the idea, but it's a much, much longer conversation. That is, in fact, the first “Myth of Innovation” from Scott Berkun's excellent book: The Myth that innovation is about an epiphany, not hard work. It was a real treat to have a conversation with Brian about some of these key issues...I hope you enjoy the episode and happy innovating! Brian on the Web: https://insideoutside.io/ https://twitter.com/ardinger https://www.nxxt.co/ Innovation Leadership Models from the Mural Webinar https://blog.mural.co/innovation-leadership Mapping Innovation by Greg Satell https://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Innovation-Playbook-Navigating-Disruptive/dp/1259862259 Download the Playbook for Free: https://www.gregsatell.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Mapping-Innovation-Playbook.pdf Horizontal Evolution https://evolutionnews.org/2015/08/horizontal_gene/ An amazing summary from Scott Berkun about his solid book, Myths of Innovation: https://scottberkun.com/2013/ten-myths-of-innnovation/ A few more gems from Greg Satell on the Rules and questions central to innovation: https://medium.com/@digitaltonto/on-december-9th-1968-a-research-project-funded-by-the-us-department-of-defense-launched-a-ee063b7585f0 https://hbr.org/2013/02/before-you-innovate-ask-the-ri Transcription: Daniel: Welcome to the conversation factory. Brian, I'm glad we made the time to make this happen. Um, the reason I'm excited to talk to you is, is that not everybody is, is open or interested in the, the analogy that a company has to have a conversation with the outside world that they can't just, you know, put up some walls and just figure everything out inside those four walls that they have to go outside and have a dialogue with the world in lots of different ways. And the way you do that is, is through helping companies think about inside innovation versus outside innovation, which is my way of like teeing up the how you, how do you talk about what you do with people when you, when you meet people, like how do you contextualize what it is that you do? Brian: Well, I think a lot of things, uh, Daniel around this particular topic, it's this whole inside/ outside innovation. It's kind of come to us over the years of working first on the outside with startups and trying to understand how do they develop new ideas and, and build things. And then, uh, you know, as I was having conversations with startups and helping them navigate that, I kept having conversations with corporations and bigger companies saying, you know, how are you doing this? How are you taking these early stage companies and through an accelerator program and that, and, and kind of getting them traction in that faster than we can do in our own walls. And so that started to have conversations with the corporations and the people inside organizations and saying, hey, how can we interact with the outside world and, and think and move and act more like a startup or, uh, become a little bit more adaptive in how we do that. So I think it was an evolution of just having conversations and figuring out what's working, what's not working in this world of change and disruption that we're living in. Daniel: Yeah. So like there's two layers here, which I think are interesting to unpack. I've learned this new term, the idea of an accelerated work environment and this idea of like, let's speed up the conversation about innovation and let's not just put our feet up and look into space and hope a great idea comes to us. Like, let's structure it and let's do it faster. And so can you talk a little bit about like how you structure an accelerator? Like what does it mean to accelerate people through the innovation process from your approach? Brian: Yeah, so I think a lot of it, like when I go in and talk to bigger companies, first thing I like to do is kind of do a level set of what does innovation even mean to the people in the room. Uh, because innovation has become such a word that's, you know, so limp, so to speak. It can mean anything to anybody. Uh, and so kind of understanding that level set of what does innovation mean to the company? How do they define it? Um, is it transformational innovation where it's, you know, we've got to become the next Uber and disrupt our industry? Or is it a innovation from the standpoint of value creation where we're looking at ways to optimize and incrementally improve what we're building? And so from that perspective, you know, it's, once you have that level set, then you can start thinking about, well, how, what are the particular tactics that you can work through depending on what kind of objectives you want to have and, and what you're trying to accomplish. Brian: So I think that's the first place we start. And then how we do that. Um, again, I think a lot of is trying to help them understand that you've got to place a lot of bets on innovation and innovation is not, um, you know, it's by default working in the new, it's working in this area of gray and this area of uncertainty, Daniel: which means there's got to be failure, right? Like there's going to have to be failure. Brian: Yeah. So, yeah, this uncertainty by default, requires you to figure out and make assumptions and, work through this... Areas of the unknown. And that's very difficult for, a lot of folks to work through. You know, especially at companies and people who are used to having a plan or having an execution model that, that they just execute on. Corporations are doing exactly what they should be doing...They figured out a business model that works and they're executing and optimizing that particular business model… Brian: And to radically change that, the people, the resources, the compensation, all of that stuff has to kind of morph or change to play in a different environment. And so I think that's where the challenge really begins. Daniel: So...I'm comfortable with taking this seemingly simple question of like, we want to innovate more and turning it into this, really stretching it out into a much more complicated conversation. Like I'm wondering if people you deal with ever get frustrated with, (you): "well, Brian, you're just making this complicated. Like, we just want to innovate. Just teach us how to innovate. Let's get started." Versus like, let's talk about your strategic goals. Like I can see how some people might get a little impatient with the, with the bigger picture, with the strategic thinking approach. Brian: Sure. Yeah. And I think, and I think it doesn't have to take a long time on to go through that particular process, but I think if you don't start off on that common definition, then you run the risk later on. And you know, why are we doing this? Why is it not working? You know, we said that, uh, you know, we need to have x, Y, z outcome and these brand new bets that you're putting on the table are not getting us an outcome that we want. Um, but you know, without having that definition, then it's sometimes hard to know if you're playing the right game to begin with. So I think, so the, the process itself of level setting I don't think takes a long time to, to make that happen. And I think, but I do think in general, to change a culture or to move the company towards having that innovation mindset set or innovation as a competency to so to speak, does take a long time. Um, but you can do that through a variety of tactics and in ways that doesn't, um, change, change it all overnight. You know, it doesn't have to be something where, um, you know, you're basically creating something brand new and, and throwing out everything that you've done in the past and, and hoping that the new thing works. Uh, it's really a series of iterative bets that you kind of de-risked these new ideas as you're, as you're approaching them into the world and seeing what happens. Daniel: Yeah. Now, now here's the, the piece that I think that, that we were talking about that's interesting is that companies can innovate through outside acquisitions or through outside collaborations, like through working with startups. And maybe that makes it seem "like, wow, that's neat, there is an easier way to do this". we don't have to do it all ourselves. We can, we can turn outwards and see, uh, not just learn from other people, but actually like bring that outside innovation inside. Like, and that seems to me like, uh, a complicated process to navigate. Like how do you facilitate, how do you facilitate that conversation and make it smooth for people? Brian: Yeah. So I think, at least for a lot of folks, you know, the idea of looking outside is not become, it's not a novel concept anymore. You know, maybe five or six years ago it was like, oh, what's one of these things called startups out there? And you know, we're, we're seeing more and more hearing more and more about it. So it's, it's not a novel concept that, hey, the ability for two women in the garage or in a dorm room to spin up something and get some traction and create something of huge value in the world...that's, that's there and that's not going away. And that's speeding up. And so I think, uh, that, uh, first part of the conversation happening, having people understand that, people have the power and tools and capabilities and access to markets and cheap technology, et Cetera, to really disrupt things is there. Brian: So if we understand that, then what can we do to kind of help navigate that? And, and I think the first thing is just, you know, raise your hand and say, Hey, there are things going on outside. Let's, uh, let's take an inventory or a map on discover what's going on...and one of the, pitfalls I see a lot of companies jump into is let's look in our industry. You know, what's happening in our industry. And that's great, and that you should do that of course. But, um, that's also probably where 99% of your competitors are also playing in that same field. And so I find a lot of times it helps to look at adjacent industries or industries far and away, uh, different from your own to see what's going on, and look for clues or models or technologies or, or talent that may give you a different advantage, if you put those pieces together differently than playing, in the same ball game as your competitors are playing. So, you know, I, I see a lot of people going to these conferences and looking for startups in the fintech space and all you have are corporations in the Fintech area looking at Fintech startups where a lot of times I think, it's better to maybe go to a more of a horizontal conference and looking at AI or uh, you know, different types of data conferences and that would give you a different perspective on how those technologies could be used in your industry or in somebody else's, industry, for example. Daniel: Do you have a story like, cause it's funny as you're telling me the story, like I'm realizing this is, this is the classic innovators trick, right? Which is, yeah, it's, and it's a classic trick from nature, right? Which is, people don't realize that evolution isn't just, um, vertical where you adapt and survive. But there's horizontal transfer of, of genes in nature. Like literally the reason we have mitochondria is because we ate them, you know, a billion years ago. And all of the energy in our bodies is made by an alien organism that has its own DNA, which I find a very, it's always just like an extraordinary fact. Um, but you know, and I've been telling my clients this for a long time too. Like what do you, do you have, uh, a story to share of a surprising transfer of, of innovation from industry to industry in case there's any doubters in the world. Brian: Yeah, it's, let, I'm trying to think of one off the top of my head, but I know I've seen it on the reverse side. For example, we've seen, because I run a conference called inside, outside/innovation. And, one of the things we do is we, uh, go out and find startups in a variety of different markets, bring them to a showcase and then bring corporations around to kind of see what they're building and why and hopefully make some connections for that. And where I've seen it happen is a lot of times where, a startup will be working in a particular vertical market, early stage, uh, and they think they've got a solution in, you know, retail or whatever, and a corporation conversation will come around and they'll say, hey, I love your technology, but you're looking in the retail space. Did you know that you could apply this to insurance? Brian: And the light bulb will kind of go off in the entrepreneur's mind. It's like, oh, this is an opportunity for me to potentially go into a different market or get traction with an early customer that I didn't have before. And so I need to happen that way. Um, and I'm sure the reverse could happen as well where a corporation, uh, is, you know, looking at a variety of startups out there and say, hey, that startup's, not in our industry, but we could definitely apply that technology to what we're doing and leverage it in some way. Daniel: So that actually sparks, I mean, I definitely, I want to make sure we talk about the conference before we, before we leave, but in a way, like you said, this thing that was really interesting about startups, you know, they're, they're trying to, uh, you know, iterate and build their own, um, you know, their own growth engine. Right? Um, I would imagine that some of them are not necessarily open to this idea of like, well look, we're, we've got our roadmap and we're trying to build our own flywheel and move it, get that moving. This, they may not be open to this, this pivot or this expansion. Uh, there's like, oh, you know, well, we're just focusing on market X and like, do you want me to also like expand our, our code base so that we can also take advantage of, of why and collaborate with these guys. Like I how do you sort of, I know you've done a lot of work on building community through, through the conference. Like how do you find startups are expanding their perspectives to being open to this collaborative conversation versus like, nope, we're just doing our thing. Brian: Yeah. And I think a lot of it depends on where the startup is in their lifecycle. A lot of the folks that we bring in are probably seed stage and so they, they haven't figured out their business model. They haven't figured out the exact markets sometimes. Uh, and they're looking for that early traction. And you know, one of the reasons we hold this in the Midwest is because, you know, venture capital and the traditional ways of kind of scaling a business in Silicon Valley don't exist out here. And so you've got to find customers. You've got to find ways to, um, to, to get that early traction. And a lot of that means, you know, getting out and finding those early customers. And so having conversations with customers, uh, real people out there and trying to define what problems are out there in the marketplace and then create a solution, uh, to meet those problems and then meet the market where it's at, I think is more effective way a lot of times in the Midwest here or in places outside of your core tech hubs that don't have the, the against the, um, the advantage of getting a venture capital and being able to have a year or two young, two year runway to figure out, uh, how, where that market is. Brian: So I think, I think so part of that is that, um, I think when I'm talking to start ups, you know, I put my "accelerate" hat on and working as a person who is helping startups through that process, a lot of times I'll quite frankly tell them to stay away from corporates until they, until they figured out some of that stuff. Cause it's very easy to go down the rabbit hole of um, hey, if we just get this one big customer on our plate, we'll be good to go. But a lot of times you know that the timing of the two types of organizations don't match up and it can very, very easily kill start up really pretty quickly. Daniel: Yeah. And it can kill them in that what they're, they're focusing, they'd lose their focus or their, they spread themselves too thin. You know, so like what, what sort of, I think beautiful about what you do is that there's this symmetry in a way you have a community driven approach to innovation through the conference you do building community, but building community so that you have a group of startups who are interested in this type of thinking so that companies can have an innovation community. So they're not just going it alone, that they have a view to what's, what's open in the world for them. I mean, I guess my question is like, have you always been so community driven? Like how did you come to value community as an approach, as in a solution to, to these challenges that you're seeing? Brian: So, I mean, I guess I've always felt community is, is a way to accelerate your learning. Uh, and I think early stage ideas, no matter what they are, whether they're inside a startup or inside a corporation, the key to a lot of those taking place in actually taking hold is that the speed of learning. How fast can you, um, take your assumptions and navigate those and understand where you're on the right track or not, and, um, get to that next stage that you need to get to. So, um, community's always been away from me, uh, personally and otherwise to help accelerate those learnings, whether it's, you know, again, connecting somebody to somebody else who can, uh, an expert in a different field or, um, someone who can help me navigate to something else that I didn't know I needed. Um, and so I think it started from that perspective and it started because, uh, you know, quite frankly, when I started a lot of this stuff seven, eight years ago, uh, the, you know, entrepreneurship and startups were, were smaller, uh, both, you know, nationally as well as in our own backyard. Brian: And so part of it was like, well, if we're going to do this, we're going to, we can't do it all are ourselves. So how do we create a community that allows startups to raise their hand and first say, Hey, I want to be entrepreneurial. I want to try some things. I want to build something. In my backyard. Yeah. And then what do I need and what am I missing and how do I then can be that catalyst to help, um, folks figure that out. Uh, and so it was an evolution of just having conversations, going to different cities, uh, meeting different people, starting a podcast, you know, telling stories, um, you know, starting a new newsletter and then, uh, eventually a conference and everything else around it. Um, and then all the while, you know, consulting and helping companies kind of figure it out on both sides. Brian: And, um, it's been fun. It's been fun to see that journey and continue to figure out what the, what the next phase is as we build it out. Daniel: Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess I'd begs the question, what is, what's the next phase? Can you talk about it? Is it Secret? Brian: Yeah, no! Um, so yeah, so inside, outside innovation, you know, we started four years ago actually with the podcast and the original idea was it was called inside, outside, and it was an inside look at startups outside the valley with the idea that their stories, outside the tech hubs that need to be told and how can we help our entrepreneurs, uh, figure that stuff out. And so that's where it started. And again, it'll happen with further conversations as, as we built that particular audience and had conversations around those particular topics, we kept getting asked by innovators in bigger companies, you know, it's like, how are we doing this? Brian: How, how's this working? We want to be connected to startups. We want to understand this new way of innovating things like design thinking and lean startup in that work, uh, becoming methodologies and tactics that could apply to, you know, start ups outside of a big corporation or, or startups within a corporation that were trying to spin up new ideas. So through that we started the inside outside innovation podcast as the, as the way to have those conversations and talk about corporate innovation and how we're corporate matching with startups and how corporate venture play out differently and how we're internal innovation accelerators popping up all around. And what were the different tactics that folks were using through that. We've kind of created this weird community. It's almost like two communities, but the, the advantages by bringing them together, they both learned from each other. So that's kind of how, that's how it's kind of evolved. What's next? We're trying to figure out the third year of the insight off the innovation summit. Uh, we haven't got the dates and, and that solidify, but it's looking like we're probably going to do it sometime in the end of October. I'm in the process, I'm looking at writing a book around this concept of collaborative and innovation and this innovation as a competency. And then, um, we'll just continue with the podcast and the newsletter and keep growing our conversations with great people out there. Daniel: You know, Brian, it's really, it's, I mean it's, it's lovely to talk to you about this stuff because, you know, the, the ecological approach you have to this, to this processes, you know, it's, it's clearly organic. Like, like anything else, it's starting a conversation and then you've gotten feedback from the world and over time you've, you've built more than you've added to it. Like it's, it's a, it's just guy. It's a wave that is sort of, it has its ups and downs clearly. But you're just continuing to, to ride that wave, which was really awesome. Brian: What the, it comes back to, you know, my feeling is that obviously with the world changing in the, in the speed of change that's happening out there, everybody is going to have to take on some of the skillsets of, of the early innovator. You know, again, a startup entrepreneur or, um, or innovator are going to have to have kind of core capabilities or characteristics that allow you to adapt and be nimble and, and, uh, execute. Daniel: Unless you want a robot to do your job! Brian: Yeah. That's executing different ways that, that you didn't have or that were different in the way that you could execute in the past. So things like, you know, curiosity having a bias towards learning characteristics like having a, an a customer focus and this bias towards problem solving for that customer. You know, the, the skill of collaboration and you know, knowing that you can't build everything yourself. Brian: There's bias towards team, um, you know, some of the characteristics of just speed, you know, how can you have this bias towards action and experimentation. And then finally having kind of the reverse of that you are having patience and that bias towards that long term value creation. You know, I think those are some of the core concepts that make up, um, this new world that we're living in. And the more individuals, whether you're, you know, a traditional manager or a entrepreneurial founder, those are the skillsets that are going to take you to the next level in the world that we're living in. Daniel: It sounds like a good book already, Brian. I don't know. I like it. Brian: I'm still outlining. Daniel: It sounds like a pretty good proposal to me. Um, so listen, I, I, we're, we're up against our, our, our time together. Uh, is there anything I haven't asked you about that I should, that we should talk about? Any, any, any final thoughts? Brian: Yeah, I'm curious for, you've obviously been in the space of helping people have conversations and that I'm always curious to understand what have you learned from helping companies and people kind of navigate a, this world of change, uh, and in this world of innovation, what are some of the things that are obstacles or things that stand out that, uh, I could take back to my audience as well? Well, Daniel: I mean, do you have a hard stop in the next three minutes because, no, go ahead. We can go over a little bit. Well, I mean, for me, what really resonated in what you were talking about is the necessity for patients. And I think this is one thing that's really, really hard, um, for people because we want to go fast and we want to have results. Um, but we also need to slow things down. So one of the things that like I'm becoming more aware of in my own work is psychological safety, which people, you know, Google identified as like the main characteristic of effective teams. The ability, the willingness, the openness to saying what's happening, to be able to speak your mind, to say what's right or to say what's wrong. And that, I don't know, that stuff doesn't really come for free. Uh, it's a really, you have to cultivate that environment. Daniel: And so for me, you know, my angle and entry point is always that somebody, somebody has to design that conversation. Um, if a group of, you know, if a group of people is gonna talk about what we're going to do next and how to innovate, we can either contribute content or we can contribute process. Um, if the, to me, the most important and precious conversation is when a group of people is coming together, the fact that you're willing to, that you have a framework, I'm guessing, to stretch out the conversation about what's our innovation roadmap and where are we placing our bets allows people to say like, okay, what's my holistic view of this? It creates, it creates safety, right? It creates a moment where, where we can have the conversation about innovation, we can have the conversation about how we're gonna brainstorm. Daniel: We can have the conversation about how we're going to, uh, evaluate ideas and how we know if they're good or not. Um, and so for me, I think, um, I feel like I'm ranting now, but I was at a problem framing workshop, uh, with my, my friend Jay Malone, who has a company called new haircut. They do a lot of design sprint training and he was teaching a problem framing workshop. And at the end of the workshop, he presented, uh, you know, on one hand, a very straightforward, like, here, this is what problem framing is in the essence. Like, uh, who has the problem, uh, why does it matter? Um, when does it happen? Uh, like, you know, think about like, where to play and how to win. And this one woman said like, well, yeah, what about, uh, uh, how do we know when it's been solved? You know, how do we know if it's working? And this is, I think one of the biggest challenges with, with companies is we don't know like what good looks like. We don't know when to start. We don't know how to stop working and grinding it out. Um, well, and the metrics Brian: are so different from existing business model versus a new business model that you don't even know who the customers are and the value proposition you're creating at the beginning. Daniel: Yeah. So I mean, for me, like I find the, one of the biggest challenges of innovation is that people bring me in to say like, okay, let's help this team coach through this process. Meanwhile, they've already got a job that takes 100% of their time. Um, and they look at me and they're like, this guy has just given us extra work to do. You know, the workshop that I come in is taking them away from their quote unquote real job. The, the work that I asked them to do to go out and do the interviews and to, to get customer contact looks like it's taking away time for them. And so this idea that that innovation's like something you can buy or pay someone else to do. To me, I want people to be earning their own innovation. But the problem is that most people are at 110% capacity. Daniel: And You bring in somebody like me who says, okay, let's do some design thinking stuff. Let's do a, you know, even if it's a week long sprint, which doesn't give you everything you need, you know, if it's a six week process, it's people are like, Oh man, that was great, but oh, that was hard and I never want to do that again. It's like, it's really, really challenging to get people to find time to innovate. And that's frustrating to me. Brian: Absolutely. Daniel: As a person who just really wants people to get their hands dirty with it so that they value it and, and participated in it. So, I don't know. I don't know what the balance is there. That's... I don't know. I don't know if that's a question with an answer, but Brian: I don't know if there's a clear answer for that one. No, no. Daniel: that, oh, so, yeah, I mean that, that's, that's, that's my perspective. I don't know if that, if that's helpful to you at all, but that's, that's… Brian: Very much so, very much so. Daniel: Is there, is there anything else we should I this, this is definitely the shortest episode. You know, I'm, I'm sort of enjoying or slash you know, floundering in the, in the 30 minute time zone. So I just want to make sure that we've covered everything that you want to cover … Brian: No, it's been great, thanks for having me on the show and the opportunity to talk about insideoutside.io and everything we're doing. Daniel: Yeah. So like that's the, that's the final question. Like where, uh, where can people find all things insideoutside and Brian Ardinger on the Internet. Brian: Yeah. Thanks Daniel. Yeah. So, uh, obviously you can go to the website insideoutside.io that has our podcast, our newsletters sign up for that. Um, and obviously I'm very, um, out there on Twitter and Linkedin in that happy to have conversations. So reach out and say hi. Daniel: Well we will do that. Um, Brian, I really appreciate you taking the time. It's really, it's always interesting to have some patience and just slow down and have some of these conversations about this stuff, that's I think really, really important. Like you said, the future is unwritten and uncertain and all of us need to have skills of adaptability, the inside and I think both sides of the ecosystem that you're a co-creating - the innovator, the startups need to learn from big companies how to scale and big companies need to learn from startups, how to be more nimble. So I think it's really a really important dialogue that you're facilitating. It's really cool. Brian: Thanks for having me on the show!
My guest today is design executive Kim Lenox. Kim is Vice President of Product Design at Zendesk. In her 20+ year career, she's also led design teams at top global organizations such as LinkedIn and HP. In this episode, we talk about the difference between management and control, leading geographically dispersed teams, and taking handwritten notes on digital devices. Listen to the full conversation https://theinformeddotlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/the-informed-life-episode-12-kim-lenox.mp3 Show notes Kim Lenox on LinkedIn @UXKim on Twitter Zendesk Zoom Slack Google Docs WhatsApp The Year Without Pants: WordPress and the Future of Work by Scott Berkun JIRA The Zendesk Suite OneNote Trello GoodNotes Notability Zendesk Design Blog Read the full transcript Jorge: Kim, welcome to the show. Can you tell us about yourself? Kim: I am leading a product design team at a company called Zendesk and we create software for customer support companies. Companies that use customer support software, and I got into this particular role about a year ago, but I have been working in software product design for over 20 plus years. Jorge: We've been friends for a while and I've been following your career as you've moved up to higher levels of responsibility in your career path, and I'm very intrigued on how someone who is leading teams of designers in organizations, how you go about managing your information and making… helping make it make sense to you. Kim: Yeah. I think it actually starts way back when I was a child. My home environment was rather chaotic growing up and I found that I was… in order to handle that chaos, I was organized, I was structured even as a child and I would be able to kind of maintain the calm by having things organized, and I wasn't a messy child, I wasn't a rebellious child. I was a “getting things done” child which sounds kind of strange, but that… when I hit my college years, I found that I was the one managing the photography lab, managing the gallery, always taking leadership roles, and I thought that that was because I was good at it and it actually was because I wanted to control things because as a child I didn't have a lot of control over things, and so what I found in my first software design or software company role, I was a international product manager, and so there's a lot of control there, right, you're managing the schedules, you're managing the features, and so I found that I leaned more towards controlling type of work. Again, I wasn't necessarily very good at it in the beginning because I took the approach of kind of command and control, which is not how you motivate people, which is not how you get things done, but I can thread back the leadership all the way to my childhood. Jorge: Well it's fascinating. I was going to ask you about this difference between managing and control. Can you elaborate on that? Kim: Yeah, that's interesting. There is no control, I have learned and it is… for me now it's more about paying attention to the right things at the right time and letting the other things go. There's so much information when you think about social media, when you think about the news. I find that I will have media diets where… especially when I was pregnant, I didn't want to know what was going on in the world because I was so emotional with who's growing beings in me that I needed to protect my emotional state, and so I find that that plays into how much information I have day to day is really about what is the right thing that I need to know right now and planning for the future, but not trying to consume it all. I have to be very selective. Jorge: What I hear you describe is setting up the conditions that allow for things to evolve in a desired direction as opposed to try to force them somehow. Kim: Yeah, that's a good observation. Yeah. Jorge: I'm also hearing that focus is a very important part of that, and I'm wondering, in this time when we are exposed to things like social media and the news and the influence that that has in our lives and we have some degree of agency on how much we do that, right, like we can say, well, I'm leaving Facebook or whatever, but I'm curious how that plays out at work. Like how do you determine what to pay attention to and what not to? Kim: Yeah. Throughout the different companies that I've worked at, I found that having a shared understanding of what our goals are, not just my team's goals, but the goals of my partners. Once we have that in mind, we can think about things in a long term, this is the vision, this is where we're all headed together, and then here's the near term things that we're going to do and here's the short term things that we're going to do and then being in agreement and then we all head in that same direction, and then being able to do check ins with each other to make sure that we are still aligned as new information comes about, maybe we had a plan and the technology stack won't allow that or we want to accelerate something that we can't achieve on our own, and so how do we mitigate that. I think it's really about… the focus is really about finding alignment first and then reminding each other continuously of, this is what we said we are going to do, are we still in agreement that this is what we're going to do? Okay, let's pawl ahead. Jorge: As a leader, I know that you are dealing with teams that are all over the world, right, and I'm wondering about when you say finding alignment, that requires communication, right, and it requires getting everyone to understand what the vision is so that you can all move forward in alignment. I'm wondering about communication styles… interpersonal communication styles, and getting alignment especially with folks who are remote. How that works. Kim: Yeah. Where I am now at Zendesk, I have eight offices around the globe, only two are in the US and so it's seven different countries, so there are a lot of cultural differences as well as just differences in work styles and… so it's all very different, and so what I try to do is adapt my style to the group that I'm working with. I think that helps to find empathy for one another and recognize that we are different and that we communicate differently and try to understand how we communicate and what our communication styles are that I think setting that precedent is really important, and then the tools that we use, we rely heavily on virtual tools. Zoom, Slack, Google Docs, and the expectation of my team and most of the other teams at Zendesk that I'm aware of, all the ones that I'm aware of, require you to have a core business hours and be flexible in your time to maybe have an early morning call or a late evening call, but those are the exceptions, and so we function in an asynchronous manner, and so I will post something perhaps on a Sunday night in preparation for my staff who's in Melbourne and Copenhagen, my managers are there, and by the time I wake up they have responded and then the rest of North America and other areas will respond, and by maybe Tuesday morning we will have a solution together. From Sunday night to Tuesday, we're not… if we're all in the same room we could solve this quite quickly, until we allow for that time to make decisions and there's no stress, there's no pressure. If there's something really critical, I will WhatsApp somebody or they will WhatsApp me especially if there's a travel engagement and something didn't get approved and they are heading to the airport, of course, reach out to me at a crazy hour, that's completely acceptable. Generally we let people work in their business hours, which I think is really important. As far as the communication, we have an annual get together, an offsite where all of the designers, all of the researchers, front end engineers that are on my team, content strategist, we all get together and we spend time together. We have meals together, we do workshop ideas together, and that's something that culturally Zendesk has encouraged since before I arrived, and so it's really important to be able to break bread and get to know one another so that when you are in those asynchronous communications and you're not necessarily having a voice conversation where you can refer intonation and you can infer what somebody is meaning through their voice or through their body language on Zoom, you don't necessarily see that in Slack. Emojis help, but it's not necessarily enough. Knowing people well enough to know when they're joking or know when they're upset is really important, and that happens because we actually spend time together. Jorge: I remember reading this book called, The Year Without Pants by Scott Berkun. It's a great title and it's about a year that he spent working for Automattic, the company that makes WordPress, and they're a fully distributed company. I think they don't even have a headquarters anymore. Kim: Yeah. Jorge: They do the same thing, or they did when that book was being written, and I remember him saying that they pick an exotic location every year for the team to meet at, to like to…. like entice them, and for much of the same reasons, right, like this idea that you get a better sense for who people are by interacting with them in a physical space as opposed to something like Slack. Kim: Yup. Jorge: That goes a long way to helping build alignment. I would expect… one challenge that a lot of folks have is keeping track of commitments, so the things that you have committed to or that other people have committed to you, and I'm wondering if that's something that is kind of top of mind for you and if so how you manage that? Kim: Yeah, in the work context we have program managers, we have design operations folks and we have annual planning, quarterly planning, we have all of the design work in JIRA because that's something that our engineering counterparts have, and so we can just… they can scoop up our work and bring it into their roadmaps and it has a natural flow to it, and so I can see from my leadership team what's happening on all of their teams. When we have…. occasionally we'll have somebody… one of our product partners that needs something that was unexpected and we can look at what everyone is working on and be able to say, oh, this person is rolling off of this particular project in another week or so, we can now move them to this urgent matters for just a few weeks. We generally will allow the designers to… because they're in their isolated location, we will have them paired with their engineering product partners in those locations, but occasionally we do have something where a project comes up that doesn't have an eng… it doesn't have a designer assigned to them and the design work still needs to get done. We've had somebody in Montpellier doing work for the Copenhagen team or we've had the San Francisco team helping the Dublin team and that is enabled to happen because we are tracking who's working on what. Jorge: That's great. One of the challenges that I have seen folks deal with in those systems is that… in systems like the one that you're describing is that some folks are more proactive about updating their status and updating projects, and I'm wondering if that is a challenge that you've encountered and if so if you have found ways of getting the information that gets put into those things to become consistently useful. Kim: Yeah, for Zendesk when I arrived a little more than a year ago, they weren't doing the tracking. They were assigning a designer to a product manager and they were working in… they're isolated products, but we announced the product suite called the Suite, which is a collection of products, and so we've been doing a lot of product integrations since the announcement. It's been a year now since the Suite came out, so now we are really required to work in the same design space and work on the same scrum teams and do a lot more alignment, and so because of that, I introduced JIRA last year and the team has been evolving it over time, and at first there was some resistance and then I tried to explain that we can be more adaptable when we have staff members who are stalled on a project, we can keep them busy with something interesting somewhere else on the team, but if we don't know that they're stalled, if we're not visually being able to see that, then it's hard to know. Now they are doing regular quarterly planning and we're able to really see what's going on, and most of the management piece of it that you were describing is done by my direct reports, the managers that are leading the teams, and so that makes I think it easier for the designers who don't necessarily want to work in it, but some of the designers are very organized and structured and prefer to track things and others are less so, and so again, it's about adapting your style to that person's style to see what works for them and what works for you. Jorge: I'm thinking back to the opening part of our conversation where you talked about this drive you had when you were little to organize things, and it sounds like, man, this sounds so organized. It sounds fabulous, but you've been describing so far the operation of your team and that is one relationship or one set of relationships that you have to deal with at work. Call it like the folks who, kind of report in to you, and I'm wondering if and how the systems vary with your communications to the folks that you report to, so your stakeholders, the people who are kind of up the organizational ladder from you. Kim: Yeah. The communication usually comes through program management. They will have our corporate top five initiatives that they track regularly, and so those… that information gets reported I think weekly statuses and within those are the design work that's being achieved or blocked or whatever might be happening, and it's a typical program management email that has a green check mark for something going well, a triangle that's yellow if there's some concerns and then a red x box, if there's like this is a problem, and so for the executive team they can quickly skim and see that, okay, what we said we were going to do, everything's on plan or oh this thing has a triangle, what's going on here? Oh there was a delay with some technology. There was a delay with… we didn't hire somebody fast enough perhaps, and so you can get kind of a visual of that. The design leadership team is able to see quite frequently regular design work that's in progress, and then we have regular check-ins which are specifically on the direction of the overall program, so in those design critiques we see little bits of information, a snapshot of a current project, but on a… probably a quarterly basis we see the bigger programs and those bigger programs are where my chief creative officer is attending and he's able to see what's happening, and then I also meet with him weekly. I meet with the global head of design weekly, and I also have monthly and bimonthly and quarterly meetings with the engineering execs and the heads of product and all of those things. I have a full calendar of one-on-ones to make sure that what my team is doing is meeting the expectations of my partners. Jorge: If I were to summarize what I'm hearing from you, it would be that it's essential to tailor the means of communication and the places where that communication happens to the needs of the audience who you, or the interlocutors who you will be communicating with, right? So you interact differently with the folks who report to you than you do with your stakeholders around the world base, and set up the conditions so that that works. Kim: Yeah, and my peers in product… the product executives, the engineering executives, we meet twice a year and we'll do planning and strategic alignment and we're always looking at what's happening in the competitive landscape and how we need to adapt and how our… what our plans were and how we're actually building up to that plan. Are we actually meeting those expectations or do we need to pivot in some way? Jorge: So it's about visibility and accountability. Kim: Also, I think really critical is just finding alignment, making sure that we are all in alignment. The company Zendesk was founded by three Danish founders, and the Danish culture is very consensus driven, and so we spent a lot of time in building relationships and having conversations around our shared vision, so it's not a top-down mandate. It's really about it coming from all directions and great ideas. It comes from every direction, it's really about us making sure that we're aligned, and that comes through conversation. Jorge: That's great. Like if I were to draw a little diagram of it, sounds to me like there are at least two dimensions here to the form that the information environments take. One dimension is who you're communicating to within the levels of the organization, right, so whether it's folks in your team or whether it's stakeholders and the other dimension has to do with culture. This idea that you're bringing up that some organizations because of contingent reasons like the culture of origin of the founders or whatever have particular cultures that lead to different styles of communication. Kim: Yeah, absolutely. Jorge: Before we started recording we were kind of joking around and talking about how we had just seen our respective set of kids off to school, right? Kim: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jorge: One of the things that I'm always interested in is how we take these things that we learn at work about managing our information and apply them to our personal lives and things like dealings with our families, the folks that we live with, our friends, et cetera. Have you taken any of the things that you've learned in your career managing folks in organizations and applied them to your personal life in some way? Kim: I suppose I have, but I know that I use some of the software tools. I was using OneNote for a while at work and I'm still using it as a home based to do list. I was using Trello for a while for work and I also had a Trello board for personal things as well. I definitely try different software, and I'm not answering your question yet, but I just recently got an iPad Pro so it has the stylus and I'm taking notes for work on that now because what I was finding is… first of all I have to write my notes. I have a lot of memory recall when I am writing conversations down, and it's really a visceral, very important part of my work style, and what I was finding was on paper, I wasn't… every three months I would change notebooks, and so I would walk around with two notebooks because most of the things that I'm doing don't get done in three months, and even if it's the end of the month and you start a new month you still have to reference back, so I got this iPad to be able to help my work style, and so that's my latest tool. It's not Trello, it's not OneNote, it's this new thing of taking notes, and I'm finding it very useful because I will have a conversation with someone and they will say, “Oh, what's going on with this particular project?” And then I say, “Hold on, let me look.” And I can reference back to the conversation that I had with another stakeholder, and I've got my notes there. There's still a few little glitches that I want to be able to have check-boxes and check things off the to do list, but it doesn't actually… I can't do a search for a checkbox and I can't do a search for a checkbox that has completed, so I've got some ideas for the software company that worked on them, but to your question about what things in my work life have I brought into home life, I- Jorge: Or vice versa, right, I made it by… It might go the other as well. Kim: Yeah, I think it is a blend. I can't say that I necessarily have certain things that I've brought into the home life, but there are things that are… the way our family functions is definitely to accommodate my role as the VP of product design. My husband became a stay at home dad when the twins were one and now they're nine and a half, and so he's going on quite a few years of being a stay at home dad, and that has really enabled me to take on these additional levels of leadership as my career has grown, and I could not do this role without having a stay at home dad. Absolutely not. When something comes up and I need to hop on a plane or I need to stay late or whatever might come up, I know that I don't have to juggle his career as well. We don't have to worry about hiring people outside that might change their career paths and leave us. He's a fixed, very important person that can help me succeed and help the family succeed, so that's been really important for us, and I can hop on a plane in a moment's notice and he's got it. He can take care of things. Jorge: Well that's great. I want to come back to something you said just because I'm also an iPad Pro note taking nerd and I'm curious as to what app you're using for your notes on the iPad. Kim: Yes. Well, based on my Facebook requests that you responded to, I ended up getting… there was a couple of different ones. One was GoodNotes and the other was Notability and I ended up buying Notability first and so that's the one that I'm still using, but I kind of like some of the different templates that good notes have, but I haven't been able to play around with it yet. I want to… what I found worked for me with the iPad Pro is I bought it before I went on vacation and so I could try it out without having to really listen to somebody, I could just test it out and so I got Notability first and so far that's been working pretty well. I'm not a fancy sketch noter by any means. I envy the folks that do that, but I have found that I'm able to reference back to sketches that I do and have a conversation face to face and be drawing together with someone, and then later on, say I'm sketching with a designer and then later on I meet with their manager and I say, “Oh, this is what we talked about.” And we can reference back to that. I can do that on paper too, but this seems a little easier and I'm having some of my direct reports ask me to send my notes to them, and so they say, “Hey, can you send that?” And I can just turn it into a pdf and send them whatever I've jotted down. I want to get to a point where I don't have my MacBook anymore. I want to use just the iPad Pro, but what I've found is that in a Zoom context, I can't necessarily put up a video and be sketching at the same time, and so I still need to have my laptop, but my laptop is turning into more of a Zoom device and there are a few things in the iPad, Google calendar that I can only do on my Mac and the other device, and sometimes I cannot share my screen when I'm at the offices, share the screen onto the conference monitor. That's more of a technical thing than I need to talk to IT about, but overall I've been really pleased with it. I do find that when I'm meeting with somebody in a video, which is frequent, I feel the need to let them know that… I show them my iPad, and I say, “Hey, I'm taking notes, so if you see that I'm looking down, it's actually me referencing the notes.” And I didn't actually tell people that when I was writing on paper, and I think it's because I'm a little more enamored by the technology. As I'm writing I can see that I've… they'll add some more color to something and I'll try to squeeze some words in and so my notes are quite messy, but now I can actually select that text and move it and then make room for the new stuff, and so as people are talking, I'm selecting stuff and moving it around and laying out my page basically that I ordinarily couldn't do on paper, and so I'm finding that I am looking down more. I need to do a little retro with my staff and see if how annoying that is or if it's actually noticeable or not, because when I was on paper, I was always… I can look at somebody and take notes on paper without looking at my notes, but on the iPad I'm looking down more often. Jorge: Well, Kim, this has been really fabulous. If folks want to follow up with you, where should they go? Kim: I am on Twitter, uxKim, K-I-M and LinkedIn. Those are… You can go to the Zendesk design blog page as well. I think it's design.zendesk.com and, yeah, that's pretty much it. Jorge: Well, fabulous. It's been wonderful having you here. Thank you for your time. Kim: Yeah, thank you so much, it's been great chatting with you.
ความเข้าใจผิดเกี่ยวกับ "นวัตกรรม" ทั้ง 10 เรื่อง ที่ต้องเรียนรู้เพื่อให้เรารู้จักกับคำๆ นี้มากขึ้น สรุปจากหนังสือ The Myths of Innovation เขียนโดย Scott Berkun แปลโดย คุณสฤณี อาชวานันทกุล 5 มายาคติใน ตอนแรก ความคิดดีๆ หายาก / หัวหน้าย่อมรู้จักนวัตกรรมดีกว่าเรา / ไอเดียที่ดีที่สุดชนะเสมอ / การหาทางออกสำคัญกว่าการตั้งโจทย์ / นวัตกรรมย่อมดีเสมอ
For our first episode, I thought it would be fitting to sit down with Scott Berkun, Ignite Seattle's MC and speaker coach. We talk all about what it's like to be...an MC and speaker coach. Scott shares some critiques of a talk he gave all the way back at Ignite Seattle #6, "How and Why to Give an Ignite Talk". He also speaks about what he's learned in the ten or so years since then, and how he passes that knowledge on to our speakers.Lastly, he gives his thoughts on the importance of being an MC, and answers a question we're all dying to know, "Where did those red trousers come from?"If you have any feedback, or fashion tips to pass on to me, or Scott, please email them to podcast@igniteseattle.com or leave a comment below.
Este episodio es la tercera y última parte de la entrevista a Tonia Maffeo responsable internacional de marketing de la empresa Voxnest, empresa matriz de la conocida Spreaker.com. En la entrevista, que está dividida en 3 partes, nos va a contar entre otras muchas cosas: Qué son las empresas líquidas Cómo se gestionan eficazmente equipos virtuales Cómo es el día a día de un trabajador líquido Pros y contras de un entorno de estas características Y muchas, muchas más cosas… Entre otros, se mencionan estos links en la entrevista: Web para cambio horario Google Meet Slack Libro: Tiempos Líquidos de Zygmunt Bauman Libro: Un año sin pantalones de Scott Berkun Compárteme tus reflexiones Me encantaría que me compartieras tus reflexiones sobre este episodio ¡juntos podemos aprender mucho más! Puedes escribirme en este link: https://www.desdelatrinchera.com/contactame/ Bájate el eBook gratis Y no lo olvides, si quieres multiplicar tus resultados, ve a desdelatrinchera.com/x100/ y descárgate gratis el ebook donde te muestro más de 100 acciones que te ayudarán a mejorar en el área profesional y personal. Más contenidos para mejorar tus resultados Este episodio de Código Emprendedor, ha llegado a ti gracias a DesdeLaTrinchera.com, donde podrás encontrar muchas más técnicas, estrategias y trucos, para mejorar tus habilidades profesionales y llevar tu negocio mucho más lejos.
Este episodio es la segunda parte de la entrevista a Tonia Maffeo responsable internacional de marketing de la empresa Voxnest, empresa matriz de la conocida Spreaker.com. En la entrevista, que está dividida en 3 partes, nos va a contar entre otras muchas cosas: Qué son las empresas líquidas Cómo se gestionan eficazmente equipos virtuales Cómo es el día a día de un trabajador líquido Pros y contras de un entorno de estas características Y muchas, muchas más cosas… Entre otros, se mencionan estos links en la entrevista: Web para cambio horario Google Meet Slack Libro: Tiempos Líquidos de Zygmunt Bauman Libro: Un año sin pantalones de Scott Berkun Compárteme tus reflexiones Me encantaría que me compartieras tus reflexiones sobre este episodio ¡juntos podemos aprender mucho más! Puedes escribirme en este link: https://www.desdelatrinchera.com/contactame/ Bájate el eBook gratis Y no lo olvides, si quieres multiplicar tus resultados, ve a desdelatrinchera.com/x100/ y descárgate gratis el ebook donde te muestro más de 100 acciones que te ayudarán a mejorar en el área profesional y personal. Más contenidos para mejorar tus resultados Este episodio de Código Emprendedor, ha llegado a ti gracias a DesdeLaTrinchera.com, donde podrás encontrar muchas más técnicas, estrategias y trucos, para mejorar tus habilidades profesionales y llevar tu negocio mucho más lejos.
En este episodio entrevisto a Tonia Maffeo responsable internacional de marketing de la empresa Voxnest, empresa matriz de la conocida Spreaker.com. En la entrevista, que está dividida en 3 partes, nos va a contar entre otras muchas cosas: Qué son las empresas líquidas Cómo se gestionan eficazmente equipos virtuales Cómo es el día a día de un trabajador líquido Pros y contras de un entorno de estas características Y muchas, muchas más cosas… Entre otros, se mencionan estos links en la entrevista: Web para cambio horario Google Meet Slack Libro: Tiempos Líquidos de Zygmunt Bauman Libro: Un año sin pantalones de Scott Berkun Compárteme tus reflexiones Me encantaría que me compartieras tus reflexiones sobre este episodio ¡juntos podemos aprender mucho más! Puedes escribirme en este link: https://www.desdelatrinchera.com/contactame/ Bájate el eBook gratis Y no lo olvides, si quieres multiplicar tus resultados, ve a desdelatrinchera.com/x100/ y descárgate gratis el ebook donde te muestro más de 100 acciones que te ayudarán a mejorar en el área profesional y personal. Más contenidos para mejorar tus resultados Este episodio de Código Emprendedor, ha llegado a ti gracias a DesdeLaTrinchera.com, donde podrás encontrar muchas más técnicas, estrategias y trucos, para mejorar tus habilidades profesionales y llevar tu negocio mucho más lejos.
I will talk about tech stuff on Tuesday. It could be an app, a gadget, etc. I recently did a talk at a podcasting conference in Stockholm, Sweden. I then used the presentation tool called Haiku Deck. As I searched Google News, I found out that Haiku Deck is now acquired by BookRags, an ”edtech” company in Seattle. I am interested to learn about Adam Tratt’s new ventures in the future, and how BookRags will develop Haiku Deck in the years to come. What kind of presentation tools do you use? Show notes: Martin Lindeskog’s presentations on Haiku Deck Haiku Deck - Crunchbase After roller coaster startup journey, presentation app Haiku Deck sold to edtech company BookRags - GeekWire Following Sale of Haiku Deck, Adam Tratt Reflects on Startup Life - Xconomy Haiku Deck: a simple way to make better presentations (review) - Scott Berkun Episode 65 (2 minutes) was recorded on January 8, 2019, by podcaster, Martin Lindeskog, with Backpack Studio app, IK Multimedia iRig Mic Cast podcasting microphone, PreSonus HD7 professional monitoring headphones, and SnapRecorder portable recording booth. Post-production through the podcast maker, Alitu. Notes written in Ulysses app. Bumper and jingle by Jim Jonsson, JTunes Productions.
I will talk about tech stuff on Tuesday. It could be an app, a gadget, etc. I recently did a talk at a podcasting conference in Stockholm, Sweden. I then used the presentation tool called Haiku Deck. As I searched Google News, I found out that Haiku Deck is now acquired by BookRags, an ”edtech” company in Seattle. I am interested to learn about Adam Tratt’s new ventures in the future, and how BookRags will develop Haiku Deck in the years to come. What kind of presentation tools do you use? Show notes: Martin Lindeskog’s presentations on Haiku Deck Haiku Deck - Crunchbase After roller coaster startup journey, presentation app Haiku Deck sold to edtech company BookRags - GeekWire Following Sale of Haiku Deck, Adam Tratt Reflects on Startup Life - Xconomy Haiku Deck: a simple way to make better presentations (review) - Scott Berkun Episode 65 (2 minutes) was recorded on January 8, 2019, by podcaster, Martin Lindeskog, with Backpack Studio app, IK Multimedia iRig Mic Cast podcasting microphone, PreSonus HD7 professional monitoring headphones, and SnapRecorder portable recording booth. Post-production through the podcast maker, Alitu. Notes written in Ulysses app. Bumper and jingle by Jim Jonsson, JTunes Productions.
Ep #5: Generating, sustaining, and selling creative ideas requires a lot more than inspiration.There is process and structure - which doesn't sound or even always 'feel' creative. It isn’t always easy or straightforward. As author Scott Berkun says, it’s a dance, which he talks about in his latest book, The Dance of The Possible. In this episode we talk about some of the tools you can use for staying creative, selling creative ideas, or motivating your teams' creativity. Which may or may not include getting locked in a closet. And which Scott definitely does not recommend that you do, just to be clear. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Best-selling author of The Dance of the Possible, The Year Without Pants and other books, Scott is a former Microsoft project manager, a creative-thinking teacher, and a popular speaker. Episode Description: We return to the oft-neglected role of creativity in project management as Scott shares insights on bringing fresh-thinking and innovative problem-solving to your projects and teams, regardless of the work environment. For an easy way to stay up-to-date on Projectified with PMI, follow our podcast at: iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or Pmi.org/podcast. Episode Notes: @01:15 — overcoming 'creative block' by lowering the bar @04:26 — keeping a journal to spark ideas and solutions @09:21 — bringing creative thinking to traditional work cultures @12:29 — balancing quick solutions with deeper exploration @16:40 — an idea-generation technique using 'opposites' Links: Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management, by Scott Berkun
Scott Berkun is a bestselling author, sought after speaker, and former Microsoft project manager. Stephen W. Maye is your host for Projectified with PMI. In this episode Stephen discusses creativity withScott explains creativity’s often misunderstood and neglected role in project work, how to foster and apply creativity in process-oriented environments today, and why it will become even more important in the future of project professionals. Scott describes creativity as a creation and problem-solving process within project roles. He emphasizes that the process of creation and being creative is to not only create something new but to maintain and improve pre-existing ideas. Scott discusses the importance of defining ‘good’ when it comes to creativity, the relevance of creativity in the project management role, the benefits of applying creativity to any role, and where creativity fits in an increasingly automated and digitized world. For an easy way to stay up-to-date on Projectified with PMI, follow the podcast at: iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or Pmi.org/podcast. Key Takeaways: [:28] Stephen provides some background on Scott and welcomes him to the podcast [1:09] What’s the deal with Scott’s hair? [2:49] Scott’s definition of creativity [5:12] Scott’s early project manager role with Microsoft [6:04] Reflecting back on his role as a project manager: Where was creativity relevant? [7:34] The importance of defining ‘good’ and who gets to define ‘good’ [11:08] Where creativity fits in a world that is becoming increasingly more automated and digitized. [14:14] Who is at greatest risk for losing their job to automation? [16:02] Creativity’s relevancy in projects in an ever-increasing automated world and how project managers can better bring creativity to their job. [20:15] The opportunities and benefits of applying creativity in the role of project management. Links: Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Managem
This podcast features Scott Berkun, author and speaker, and his keynote, “The Dance of the Possible” from the design leadership conference Prototypes, Process & Play on August 10th, 2017. [Prototypes, Process & Play][1] presentation podcasts are sponsored by [Balsamiq][2] - with Balsamiq Mockups, anyone can design great software.
A lot of speakers want to write books and be recognized as best-selling authors - but not many speakers call themselves a writer who happens to speak. But our guest for episode 136 of The Speaker Lab does! Scott Berkun, author of Confessions of a Public Speaker and his latest book, The Dance of The Possible, joins us to talk about why his books drive his speaking career, how his career has evolved over the years, and how he chooses his book topics. Scott has authored 7 books in the last 12 years and in that time his speaking career has evolved from workshops and consulting gigs to lectures and keynoting conferences. You'll hear how he did this, where his speaking career began and how to develop your expertise in one area. You'll even hear his worst speaking moment! Join us for that and more on today's The Speaker Lab! THE FINER DETAILS OF THIS SHOW: How much of his income is from speaking vs book sales? The two ways he narrowed down his speaking topic and his audience. What does he recommend to speakers just starting out? Do you need to publish a book in order to be a speaker? Does he ever speak for free today? Why did he write Confessions of a Public Speaker? What Steven Soderberg can teach you about creativity and profitability. What is the test of whether or not an idea is valid? And so much more! EPISODE RESOURCES Scott Berkun's web site The Dance of the Possible, by Scott Berkun Confessions of a Public Speaker, by Scott Berkun Scott's other books Scott Berkun on Twitter 7 Proven Steps to Finding And Booking Paid Speaking Engagements The Speaker Lab Summit The Speaker Lab Facebook group Top Speakers Tips Ready for more speakers? Join our free speaker workshop Got questions? Send them in here Email me! Subscribe on iTunes, and leave us a rating or review
Scott Berkun, bestselling author and popular speaker on philosophy, culture and business, introduces a fresh way to understand creative thinking, how ideas work, plus how to be more productive. He's recently published a new book, The Dance of the Possible with challenging chapters on topics like creative confidence, making bold decisions, and separating the need for feedback from the desire for encouragement. Scott shares with you fundamental principles and useful tips to use in your business. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/business-of-software/message
2000 Books for Ambitious Entrepreneurs - Author Interviews and Book Summaries
4 ways to get better ideas and execute on them: 1) The interplay between divergence and convergence 2) Why we need to let the conscious mind to go idle 3) How to fill the gaps of effort, skill and quality 4) The key to discipline Get complete show notes at: www.2000books.com
Episode 171: Scott Berkun - Big Ideas For Curious Minds Scott Berkun is a bestselling author and popular speaker on creativity, philosophy, culture, business and many other subjects. He’s the author of six books, including The Myths of Innovation, Confessions of a Public Speaker, and The Year Without Pants. His work has appeared, or been mentioned, in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, Wired magazine, Forbes, USA Today, Wired, Fast Company, National Public Radio, The Huffington Post and other media. Born and raised in Queens, NYC, he studied philosophy, computer science and design at CMU, was a manager at Microsoft (’94-’03) and WordPress.com (’10-’12), taught creativity at the University of Washington, was a co-host of CNBC’s The Business of Innovation TV show, is named on 5 U.S. patents, blogs for Harvard Business and BusinessWeek, and has appeared as an expert on various subjects on CNN, CNBC, NPR and MSNBC. He’s also the MC and speaker coach for Ignite Seattle, a finalist in the Amtrak 2014 writer’s residency program and the director of the short film We Make Seattle. Episode 171: Scott Berkun - Big Ideas For Curious Minds Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show “The first tip to pitching well: Learn about the other persons environment" In This Episode, You Will Learn: Having a sports background to learn a work ethic and set goals can lead to sustained excellence The process for Scott to quit his job at Microsoft to become a full time writer/author -- And why he did it Writing process #1 Don't chase headlines - Don't chase traffic... Write good content Write about evergreen topics that people will always want to read Consistently write and produce content -- Stick to a rigorous schedule (he released work Tuesday & Thursday) Understand your habits over time -- Plan your day (when to wake up, eat, workout, write) The topics he covers when he gives a keynote speech: Innovation and creative thinking Management/Leadership Why he likes to prepare and not give the same speech over and over Time spent on preparing vs. delivering = 10x1... Meaning he spends 10 hours to give a 1 hour talk Teaching a creative thinking class at a University The importance of "combining ideas" "Passion is self perception of your interests... There is a need for self awareness" Self discovery --> You need to try different things/ideas Street smarts vs. Book smarts -- Can be a false dichotomy "How to call BS on a Guru" Have higher expectations How you read - Every chapter stop and plan for situations. Apply what would I do differently Read with a different intent Have a willingness to experiment Why Scott hates speed reading "How to pitch an idea" "How to run a brainstorming meeting" -- It's about volume. You must be very clear about intended results and action plans Have a good facilitator who says "Yes, and..." "It's very important to understand that all ideas are made up of other ideas... We need to combine ideas like "Uber for Laundry."" Continue Learning: Read Scott's book: Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds Read Scott's book: Confessions of a Public Speaker Follow Scott on Twitter: @berkun To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 You may also like these episodes: Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon Episode 071: Nate Boyer - Green Beret, Texas Football, The NFL Episode 073: Jay Bilas - World Class ESPN Basketball Broadcaster, Toughness, Fixing The NCAA Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why Did you enjoy the podcast? If you enjoyed hearing Scott Berkun on the show, please don’t hesitate to send me a note on Twitter or email me. Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell The Learning Leader Show is supported by Daor Design - Daor Design will help you build your brand like nobody’s business. Most of their work falls into one of four categories: Logo Design, Print Design, Web Design or Digital Marketing. They pride themselves in being a trusted, valued resource for their growing family of clients.
After nine years at Microsoft, Scott Berkun left to become an author. One of his books on project management was read by Matt Mullenweg, the creator of the WordPress blogging tool that runs a large percentage of the internet (including Software Engineering Daily). Scott became friends with the WordPress founder, who is also the CEO The post Remote Work with Scott Berkun appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.
After nine years at Microsoft, Scott Berkun left to become an author. One of his books on project management was read by Matt Mullenweg, the creator of the WordPress blogging tool that runs a large percentage of the internet (including Software Engineering Daily). Scott became friends with the WordPress founder, who is also the CEO The post Remote Work with Scott Berkun appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.
In this episode Pilar and Lisette talk about what they enjoyed most and learned from "Work Rules" and "The Year Without Pants". A short introduction today with some housekeeping and a big thanks to Saros Research! If you want to give your opinions on products and get paid for it, follow this link: https://www.sarosresearch.com/participate/join-saros-research/?id=100243 Virtual Coffee with Lisette: "Work Rules" and "The Year Without Pants". 04:50mins Lisette tells us about her terrible morning commute. Pilar talks a little bit (just a little bit) about post-Brexit and a little bit about the last Spanish elections. (You can listen to Pilar's rant about Brexit here: http://wlpodcast.libsyn.com/yes-i-too-am-talking-brexit) 17:58mins We start to talk about "Work Rules" and "The Year Without Pants". (Please note these are amazon affiliate links.) "One of the nobler aspirations of a workplace should be that it's a place of refuge where people are free to create, build and grow." Laszlo Bock in 'Work Rules' "There's nothing wrong with tradition until you want progress. Progress demands change and change demands reevaluation of what the traditions are and how they're practiced." Scott Berkun in "The Year Without Pants" "Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins." Zechariah Chafee Jr "The key to balancing individual freedom with overall direction is to be transparent." Laszlo Bock in 'Work Rules' When is an idea a good idea? Separate development conversations from appraisal conversations. The difficulty in getting feedback when you are remote. And the big question: can you be as great a company when you operate remotely as when you are co-located? The jury is still out.
Did Malcolm Gladwell really get it wrong? People love to point out when a writer shares an idea that's oversimplified or could be misapplied if not interpreted wisely. Why don't they pick on the readers who are dumb enough to misinterpret it instead? Do ideas come first and bring about changes in technology and social institutions or do those changes come first and bring about new ideas? What does the answer mean when it comes to creativity? Can you control your ideas without stifling creativity? What does it mean to have 100% equity in the startups in your head vs. 5% in those you actually create? Mentioned in the episode: The Nirvana Fallacy, Kristen Stewart, Twilight, Malcolm Gladwell and his detractors, Scott Berkun, Agere Sequiter Credere, Paul Cantor's Commerce & Culture, Blake Lively, Sir Mix-A-Lot, The Waking Life, Apparition, The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Bruce Levine, Thundersqueak, Youth Pastors, and more that I'm forgetting. This and all episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, YouTube, and Stitcher.
In honor of the return of Serial, this week we’re looking at Truth - well, truth and lies. Sometimes we lie for good reasons and sometimes we lie for bad ones. Which is which and why does it matter? Also, Author Scott Berkun also talks to us about The Myths of Innovation. Note: This is part one of a two-part episode. Make sure to come back next week! * * *If want to support the show and help keep it going, please check out Support WTS.com for our Patreon campaign. Also, help others find the show by LEAVING AN ITUNES REVIEW! Thx. Connect with the show on Facebook: www.facebook.com/wtspod and Twitter: @exploreWTS. * * * This week’s guest is Scott Berkun. Visit him at www.scottberkun.com. Twitter: @Berkun Book: The Myths of Innovation * * * JOIN our MAILING LIST by texting the word SMOKE to 66866, or go to our website (www.wheretheressmoke.co). DOWNLOAD & LISTEN directly from iTunes here: http://tinyurl.com/wts-itunes Find us on Pocket Casts here: http://pca.st/smoke You can also go to www.wheretheressmoke.co for links to Stitcher, SoundCloud, and/or to stream online.
For this Snippet, we discuss Five Questions That Decide If Facebook Crossed The Line by Scott Berkun. (http://www.pagebreakpodcast.com/snippets/five-questions-that-decide-if-facebook-crossed-the-line)
It's Episode 25 and our book this time around was The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work by Scott Berkun. (http://www.pagebreakpodcast.com/podcast/25-the-year-without-pants)
This week, Dave and Gunnar talk about: cleaning out the attic, transparency in companies, new RHEV release, and Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. Subscribe via RSS or iTunes. That’s Dave on the right. Lauren’s new article: Like Arduino? Miniaturize your project with TinyCircuits EFY Times’ version, now updated to include a little attribution Now use sound to levitate and do neat things with water HT Dan Walsh: Learn Spanish using SELinux Announcing New Amazon EC2 M3 Instance Sizes and Lower Prices for Amazon S3 and Amazon EBS Amazon’s ‘schizophrenic’ open source selfishness scares off potential talent, say insiders Amazon is a hornet’s nest of malware Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates Red Hat Summit sessions now live — 160+ sessions in 15 parallel tracks! Gunnar tells us How APIs will drive agency PaaS adoption RHEV 3.3 is now out! Self hosting helps further Dave’s vision of Secure virtualization for tactical environments Red Hat Storage adds new data protection features too Robin Price and Ted Brunell get CAC enabled OpenSSH to push code into OpenShift using git! See also: Dan Risacher‘s most awesome PuTTY-CAC A Customer We Like: The Lockheed Martin Cyber Security Alliance Gunnar’s version of AMSR: Hellekson Syndrome or “things fitting perfectly into other things” HT Erich Morrisse: Cow tunnels are the subterranean part of Manhattan’s lost meat infrastructure Michael Bay freakout lesson: there is no such thing as winging it D&G Book Club Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun Packing for Mars by Mary Roach Jump to Android’s Quick Settings with a Two-Finger Drag The Sims Changelog is amazing Cutting Room Floor Using sprintf() is a decision you can never take back North Korea knows what’s up Art sadly imitating life: A conference call in real life Awesome infoviz: Google’s Music Timeline: A Visualization of 60 Years of Changing Musical Tastes 16 Stupid Tech Job Interview Questions: Show Your Snark Q: If you could throw a parade of any caliber through the Zappos office, what type of parade would it be? A: I would return the money for the parade to shareholders. We Give Thanks Dan Risacher for making PuTTY-CAC, the constructive feedback, and being a good sport! Dan Walsh for helping us brush up on our Spanish. Robin Price and Ted Brunell for their CAC work! Erich Morrisse for adding “cow tunnel” to our vocabulary.
Total Duration 33:32 Download episode 103 The Year Without Pants Scott Berkun has written one of my favorite books in recent months. Despite the provocative title, The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and The Future of Work offers some refreshing insights on the world of work that all of us can benefit from. In this episdoe you'll hear Scott's insights about the workplace of today and the future of work. Learn more about Scott at http://www.scottberkun.com/blog. You can find all his books and his blog there. Join our Facebook Page I invite you to stop by our podcast Facebook page! "Like" it and the join the discussion. Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week! EUPHORIC by Podington Bear is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License. NO PANTS FRIDAY by Lee Rosevere is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial License.
In his new book, The Year Without Pants: Wordpress.com and the Future of Work, author Scott Berkun outlined what he learned while working as a manager at the major blog company. On today's Morning Media Menu, Berkun shared insights that can help editors, publishers and writers cope with the rapidly changing digital workplace.
Everyone wants to be innovative, to be the next iPhone, or Google. Innovation in itself is a tricky proposition. There’s really no way to aim for it as a goal and it’s not something you can declare you’re going to achieve. Many companies and products have been innovative though, so there must be some way to do it.
キクタス早川とケニーさんがお送りする洋書紹介ポッドキャスト第3回。帰国子女のケニーさんとともに人生を変えるような「洋書」を紹介していきます。今回はScott Berkunの著書、『Business Stripped Bare』にクローズアップします。【ダウンロードはこちら】【amazon.comでの購入はこちら】【ご注意事項】毎月1回、洋書を紹介するこの特別版も配信スタートは、スライドショー形式で配信しています。この形式をフルでお楽しみいただくには、必ずPCでダウンロード、PCかiPhoneでお楽しみください。現状、iPadではその仕様上、フルで機能をお楽しみいただくことはできません。私自身も、アップルの機能改善を待っている状況です。。。ということでみなさん、それまではPCとiPhoneでお楽しみいただけますようお願いいたします!
This week's episode features a surprise guest for Jared and Robert. Actually, every guest is a surprise, but this one is a surprise and an ambush by a friend of UIE, the always entertaining Scott Berkun. Scott wanted to know, why twenty years beyond The Design of Everyday Things, why so many usability failures still abound?
This week's episode features a surprise guest for Jared and Robert. Actually, every guest is a surprise, but this one is a surprise and an ambush by a friend of UIE, the always entertaining Scott Berkun. Scott wanted to know, why twenty years beyond The Design of Everyday Things, why so many usability failures still abound?
Innovation has become such a buzzword, it's nearly meaningless. But that doesn't mean innovation itself is dead. In this week’s show, we sat down with Scott Berkun, the dynamic speaker and author of "The Myths of Innovation."