Rosenfeld Media

Amy Bucher is VP of Behavior Change Design at Mad*Pow and author of our newest book, Engaged: Designing for Behavior Change. Amy has a PhD. in Psychology, so you’d be forgiven for assuming that she works in academia. Instead, she ended up at an agency where she focuses on healthcare and the many different motivational factors that are at play in the way people live their lives. In this episode, Amy and Lou Rosenfeld discuss the ethics of data collection, self-determination theory, fitness apps, her new book, and more. Get Amy’s book: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/engaged-designing-for-behavior-change/ About Mad*Pow: https://madpow.com Amy’s recommended reading: Whisper Network by Chandler Baker https://www.amazon.com/Whisper-Network-Novel-Chandler-Baker/dp/1250205360 More about Amy: amybucher.com Follow Amy: twitter.com/amybphd

Lada Gorlenko, Director of UX Research at Smartsheet in Seattle, is the lead curator of this year’s Enterprise Experience conference (August 31-September 3, virtual, rosenfeldmedia.com/enterprise2020). Lada began her career in prison, spending lots of time with murderers and drug dealers! Not what you think, though: she was a psychologist researching the personality changes caused by long-term imprisonment. The experience led her to a better understanding of how universally transferable the principles of research and design are, whether in a prison or at an enterprise. In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Lada shares her career path and the story of how she ended up in UX, and the themes she’s developed for the upcoming Enterprise Experience conference. Lada recommends: "Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping" by Paco Underhill, an urban anthropologist. https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Buy-Science-Shopping/dp/0739341928 See the themes, theme leaders, and program here: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/enterprise20

Mariano Suarez-Battan is the co-founder and CEO of MURAL https://mural.co/, a tool for remote collaboration—and longtime partner/sponsor of Rosenfeld Media’s conferences. MURAL was founded in 2011 after Mariano experienced first-hand the struggle of working remotely with a large, distributed team while designing video games. In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Mariano and Lou discuss the challenges of collaboration among remote teams and how platforms like MURAL can level the playing field between coworkers, often flattening hierarchies and changing culture in the process. Mariano also shares his predictions about how workplaces will operate five years in the future. Learn more: mural.co/ebook Mariano’s shoutout - IBM’s Phil Gilbert, one of MURAL’s early adopters, and Tim Brown, former CEO at Ideo who introduced Mariano to Phil. Follow Mariano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/batmelon MURAL is sponsoring all three of Rosenfeld Media conferences this year: Advancing Research https://rosenfeldmedia.co

Brianna Sylver, founder of Sylver Consulting and speaker at the upcoming Advancing Research conference (March 30-April 1, NYC), joins Lou to break down the importance of insight. At its core, insight is about shifts in perspective and can come from anywhere—user research, market research, psychology, mining big data; according to Brianna, it doesn’t really matter. Rather, she emphasizes the importance of capturing all the threads in one container. Lou and Brianna dive into what an insights container can look like, and best practices for making insights actionable. Brianna’s shoutouts: Heather Dominick, her business mentor, and the impact of her work with “highly sensitive entrepreneurs” (https://www.businessmiracles.com/), and Dr. Elaine Aron’s work on “the highly sensitive person.” https://hsperson.com/ Learn more about Brianna’s upcoming talk at Advancing Research, then get your tickets: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/advancing-research-2020/sessions/the-intent-to-effect-pathway-how-design-and-designers-can-d

Order Writing Is Designing: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/writing-is-designing/ Michael Metts and Andy Welfle, authors of the new Rosenfeld Media book Writing Is Designing, get meta and discuss writing about UX writing with Lou Rosenfeld. They also stress the importance of looking through the “lens of language,” when solving problems – reworking your existing language to make things clear from the outset, rather than fixing problems by adding more copy later. Their book will help those responsible for digital copy communicate more effectively—from designers to marketers who might never have considered themselves “UX people.” Andy Welfle and Michael J. Metts are the co-authors of the upcoming Rosenfeld Media title, Writing Is Designing, available January 14, 2020. Order Writing Is Designing: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/writing-is-designing/ What Andy’s reading: Strategic Writing for UX https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Writing-Engagement-Conversion-Retention/dp/1492049395 What Michael’s reading: Con

Christian Madsbjerg is the cofounder of ReD Associates, and author of Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm and The Moment of Clarity. We’re also so pleased to announce that he’ll be speaking at our inaugural Advancing Research conference (March 30-April 1 in NYC). In this episode of Rosenfeld Review, Christian and Lou discuss the differences between social sciences research and data science, and the challenges that arise when organizations try to align them. Christian and Lou also touch on academic chauvinism, the shortcomings of anthropology (despite how much Christian appreciates the subject), and the importance of looking at “people as people.” Register for Advancing Research 2020: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/advancing-research-2020/register/ Christian’s recommended reading: Radical Empiricism by William James and The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff (the book is

Four members of our Advancing Research curation team join Lou to discuss the research they did to help shape our inaugural Advancing Research conference (New York City; March 30-April 1, 2020). The team analyzed over 700 survey responses (including about 10,000 answers to open-ended questions!) to learn about user and customer researchers, their learning behaviors, and what they want from conference experiences. Read their summary of the results here: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/advancing-research-community/archive/who-does-research-and-how-do-they-learn/ ; you can also explore the study’s quantitative data yourself via Tableau: https://public.tableau.com/profile/lou.rosenfeld.rosenfeld.media#!/vizhome/WhoDoesResearchandHowDoTheyLearn/StoryDraft1 Podcast guests: Abby Covert (principal investigator), Staff Information Architect at Etsy Sean Oslin, Consultant at Aventine Hill Partners Rocio Werner, Senior User Experience Researcher at ZS Patricia Thommi, User Experience Researcher at ZS The rest of the team:

Current Design and Research Operations practices face three huge, overarching challenges: •Proving value and measuring outcomes •Partnering outside design •Change management In this episode of Rosenfeld Review, four DesignOps and ResearchOps leaders—Jose Coronado, Crystal Yan, Guneet Singh, and Rachel Posman—tackle these challenges from a rich set of perspectives, ranging from heading up DesignOps at a large, long-established corporation like JP Morgan Chase, to launching a whole new department at a young company. Panel Members: •Jose Coronado, VP Design Operations | Head of DesignOps at JPMorgan Chase & Co. •Rachel Posman, Head of Design Operations, UberEats •Crystal Yan, Product Lead, New Initiatives, Remitly •Guneet Singh, Director of Customer Experience Programs, Docusign

Our closing keynoter at DesignOps 2019, Dave Malouf a veteran design leader, strategist, facilitator, researcher, and educator who has worked with some of the largest and fastest growing organizations globally. He was also one of the creators of the very first DesignOps Summit in 2017. Hear from him about the evolution of DesignOps, and his belief that we need a new framework that emphasizes the topline—the creation of value—over bottomline fixation on resource optimization. This new framing is at the root of DesignOps framework that Dave Malouf will share in his closing keynote. Get a taste of what’s in store for Dave’s keynote “Amplify, Not Optimize” at this year’s DesignOps Summit in New York City, October 23-25. • Hear from Dave in his past appearance on Rosenfeld Review: https://soundcloud.com/rosenfeld-media/malouf-podcast • Follow Dave on Twitter: www.twitter.com/daveixd • Dave’s shoutout: Harry Max, upcoming Rosenfeld Media author! Sign up for updates on his book “Prioritization” https://rosenfeldme

Managing an effective design system program is a challenge. In his new workshop “Operating Design Systems” at this year’s DesignOps Summit (October 25), design systems guru Nathan Curtis will explore the operational topics that matter most: defining a system’s vision, forming a core team, scoping and making features, and communicating and contributing across a community. He’ll also zoom out, taking on higher-order challenges of multiple systems that overlap and conflict with one another, and the competition for capacity and attention that every system craves. On this episode of Rosenfeld Review, you’ll get a taste of Nathan’s workshop on operating design systems. Learn more and register here: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designopssummit2019/sessions/operating-design-systems-curating-a-product-serving-products/

Our opening keynoter at DesignOps 2019, Amy Thibodeau is a UX director at Shopify, where she’s responsible for UX Operations. In four years there, her role has changed dramatically, broadening from an initial focus on supporting content strategy. Hear her story, and get a taste of what’s in store for Amy’s keynote “Process and Ambiguity” at this year’s DesignOps Summit in New York City, October 23-25. Follow Amy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/amythibodeau More about Amy: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designopssummit2019/speakers/amy-thibodeau/ Amy’s shoutout - Lara Hogan, author of Resilient Management https://larahogan.me/

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

In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Lou and Angelos Arnis, Producer of the Joint Futures Conference in Helsinki, Finland (September 2-5, 2019), discuss the evolving landscape of design professionals’ needs, and how the Joint Futures Conference has changed to suit them. Rosenfeld Media is pleased to partner with Joint Futures this year to offer four full-day workshops on September 5, 2019. For more about the workshops: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/public-workshops/helsinki-ux-workshops/ For more about Angelos: www.Arn.is Follow Angelos on twitter: www.twitter.com/angelosarnis

Jessica Ivins is a UX designer and facilitator at the Center Centre in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Jessica discusses the methods and philosophy employed by the Center Centre to produce industry-ready designers. She shares the story of how, after speaking with hiring managers in the industry, co-founders Leslie Jensen-Inman and Jared M. Spool saw a need for an educational program that prepares designers to enter the workforce and start contributing from Day One with minimal onboarding. The Center Centre achieves this by offering a full-time two year program that more closely resembles a workplace experience than a traditional school. Students work on real world projects from large companies that span 3-5 months, and graduate with a portfolio of real world experience. More about the Center Centre: http://centercentre.com/about

Matt Duignan manages HITS—Microsoft’s Human Insight System, a web-based platform that captures market and data science insights, serving as a cross disciplinary database. He chats with Lou about how his team democratizes the process of arriving at new insights by offering access to researchers’ knowledge and data from different silos across the whole company. He also touches on the challenges of making such a system work in the absence of a cultural commitment to curation, and getting disparate teams to remember that they aren’t only researching for their own departments, but for the benefit of others as well. Learn more in “Skip User Research Unless You’re Doing It Right — Seriously” on Medium: https://medium.com/microsoft-design/skip-user-research-unless-youre-doing-it-right-seriously-15494e5ee033

Kristina Halvorson is the author of Content Strategy for the Web and producer of the Confab Conference, presented by her Minneapolis-based company Brain Traffic. In this episode of Rosenfeld Review, she discusses the best ways to deal with content chaos, navigate the changing nature of conferences (spoiler: they’re not dying!), and more. Kristina’s content framework, Brain Traffic’s Content Strategy Quad: https://www.braintraffic.com/blog/new-thinking-brain-traffics-content-strategy-quad

Luke Wroblewski, Product Director at Google (and author of Rosenfeld Media book Web Form Design), discusses his perspective on how better user interface design can make a huge impact. With a degree in graphic design and experience teaching at the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, he brings a range of experiences and perspectives to the problem of how a design craftsperson can become more strategic and have a bigger impact. Finally, he shares what’s on the horizon - the next “web form design” to be solved. More about Luke: www.lukew.com

Dave Sifry is one of our curators for this year’s Enterprise Experience 2019 Conference – the 5th edition, which will be more focused on cross-functional collaboration. Dave brings a background in computer science, has launched and advised an impressive variety of startups, and now works in the Bay Area with a focus on organizational design. After getting a computer at the age of 9, Dave realized he was hooked on programming, and the joy of figuring out problems to help create solutions for products and companies. After founding several companies and learning from both mistakes and failures, Dave shares the insights he gained from those experiences. From how creativity in an institution can create more innovation company-wide, to the importance of team diversity, Dave brings a wide range of perspectives to this year’s conference curation team. Follow Dave on Twitter @dsifry ‏ More about Dave: www.sifry.com

Ellie Wu, Senior Director of Customer Experience Transformation at SAP Concur, chats with Lou about what exactly “customer success” means, her work with TedX SeattleWomen, and her contributions to this year’s reimagined program for June’s Enterprise Experience conference. What Ellie’s reading: James Clear, Atomic Habits More about TedXSeattleWomen: http://tedxseattle.com/events/tedxseattlewomen/ Attend Enterprise Experience: www.rosenfeldmedia.com/enterprise2019

In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Karen McGrane and Lou address the growing concerns over sexual harassment at the IA Conference and other industry events. Karen and Lou explore the #metoo movement's impact on the industry and what steps we can all take to address what’s happening. Learn more about Karen McGrane: http://karenmcgrane.com/