Joe Natoli Design consultant. Coach. Speaker. Author. Risk, Rules and getting Real

Start with the work, not the theatre. That’s the heartbeat of this candid, fast-moving conversation with a veteran designer who cut his teeth in a brutal design school, built a career in enterprise UX, and still believes tiny details move mountains. We dig into the early lessons that never faded—defend every decision, design for the person on the receiving end—and how that rigor translates to the unsexy, high-stakes world of internal products.

The story widens to what really breaks products: fear, politics, and the absence of leadership that has bled and still cares. We talk about rules you must know before you break, the power of vulnerability, and the habit of asking braver questions. AI gets a pragmatic treatment—less prophecy, more practice. Use it to unstick thinking, prototype options, and remove admin drag; keep judgement and ethics human. Along the way, we tackle regulation lag, the myth of the seat at the table, and why you should lead as a value category of one.

If you’ve ever felt trapped in process theatre or siloed roadmaps, this one gives you a way out. We share concrete moves: put every department in the room on day one, co-create with engineers and database architects, speak to margins and risk instead of methods, and ship decisions that make financial and human sense. Tools matter less than the choices you make with them. Careers accelerate when you translate outcomes, not when you list software. Come for the hot takes; stay for an honest blueprint to earn trust, dissolve silos, and deliver work that actually changes things.

Enjoyed this conversation? Follow, share with a teammate who needs it, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Your feedback shapes what we explore next.

Transcript

Origins And Design School Fire

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Excellent. All right. Well, thank you. I know I have spoken, reached out probably a little time ago. Um, so forever grateful that yourself um making this time. Sure. Um, would you like to tell anyone who might be listening who you are and what he is that you do? Let's see.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Professional troublemaker, um shit stir, uh all the above. Uh, I mean, I've been a I've been a product design slash US consultant for the last um 30 years of my life. I've been in design for 35 years at this point, um, going on 36, and it's it's all been an interesting path. Um I was lucky. I always frame this as I was extremely, extremely lucky. I I went to graphic design school in Kent, Ohio, tiny little town. And at the time it was one of the top five design schools in the country, and it was hard. It was like just beyond brutally hard. And I will tell you honestly that I didn't appreciate it at the time the way that I do now.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Um did you expect it to be hard, or was that something evolved and you thought, well, no, I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

I mean, I I was a sensitive artist kid growing up in a tiny town in Ohio. And um I picked graphic design out of a catalog uh on a wimp because I thought, okay, this is it seems artistic. I have a artistic talent, visual talent. Um, and it sounds like something I can make a living at. So it was, and my father was on my back about like, you have to decide what you're gonna do with your life. So I was like, uh that. Right. And I went. And the the most wonderful thing happened to me is that my the very first instructor I had was a woman by the name of Katie Kennedy. Katie, she was the most fierce, passionate, driven human being I have ever met in my life. Awesome. Um, just love. I mean, pure love for everything she did, pure love for design. And she had a way of lighting a fire under people, and she certainly lit it for me, for graphic design, visual design. And that's it's been burning, I mean, since that time. This is like uh toward late 80s, I guess. Outstanding. And um, man, I I owe a debt to her that I will never, never, never be able to repay. So we were lucky enough to be taught design as a problem-solving discipline where there was people on the receiving end of whatever you do. So even though it was visual, even though it was graphic design, the emphasis was on why did you make that decision? Why did you choose that color? Why did you choose that typeface? Why did you choose this imagery? Why is the layout like this? Why is the eye being led through the screen in a certain way? And it was all about the people on the receiving end. And if you couldn't defend your work in terms of the people who were receiving it and understanding it and hopefully being guided by or informed by it, you were screwed. Okay. You could not ever say out loud, well, I, you know, I just thought this was, it looked right, it felt right. You they would destroy you. I mean, it's 50% of the people that went through this program failed. There were two reviews, and the fail rate was like 54% or something like that. Uh-huh. If you failed either review, your sophomore or your junior review, you got to take it one more time. And if you failed again, they politely suggested you do something else with your lab. Whoa. So the standard was high. That's brutal. So I the reason I frame it that way is because by the time I had worked for a couple of design studios and and at a very large ad agency, which was my last stop as an employed person, when the internet, this little thing called the internet came along, the World Wide Web came along, uh and people started designing more for web-based software. Um, to me, what we started to call user experience or you know, new media interaction design, to me it was all the same stuff. And I still see it that way to this day. I mean, all the things that I had learned about design, period, principles, theories, foundational stuff, all applied, still applies. It's it's still the way I do everything. You know, so to me it's it's a natural progression.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

So that that's awesome. Particularly the fact that you had an outstanding mentor, guide, teacher, and reading between the lines philosopher about the gorgeousness of what design could be, but even then a very, very robust framework.

Mentors, Standards And Defending Decisions

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah. And every detail mattered, okay? Nothing was too small or too insignificant to not deserve your care. All right, let's let's let's put it that way. So fast forward a million years later, as a consultant for enterprise organizations, and you know this, enterprise software is not sexy at all. It just isn't. I mean, on a surface, in terms of what most people consider, you know, beautiful or or well designed or whatever. But tiny details of this sort of on the surface, what seems like a very mundane user interface, for example, or a mundane series of interactions, I think there's great beauty in that. I think that the tiniest things make a massive difference. Yeah. You know, and and to me, it's all worth your attention. It's all worth your time. And that's how you make progress. It's a lot of tiny little changes stacked on top of each other.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

100%. Right. But if I may. So that's when, if you like, the academia, the um tutelage in a professional context started. What were you doing as a rug rat? Did you mean was it identified way back then? I mean, what was cool and fun.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Somewhat. Somewhat. I mean, here's it's an interesting confluence of things. My mother is very artistic. Okay, but amazing visual sense in general. Was never a designer or anything, but I mean, she did floral arrangements on her own for a long time. She painted, she did crafts, she did all the all the interior design and and arrangement of our houses were all her. Now, my father, on the other hand, is a master carpenter. He built a lot of the furniture that wound up in those houses, the cabinetry. The his brothers, his brothers built the house, designed and built the house. My uncle was an architect, built and designed the house that I grew up in. Very custom, very different, hugely artistic. Okay, we live in a neighborhood of like typical homes. And then there was this thing. It was all angles and high ceilings and rough-hewn cedar stained gray on the outside. I mean, it was just a beautiful house. So I'd say that was around me in a way. You know what I mean? I kind of got the the best of both worlds. And my father was a process engineer at General Motors. He's got two patents. I mean, which he is. Yes. So it's just this weird confluence of things. So the technical parts of things always appeal to me, and and the very artistic emotional parts of things. I mean, I was a still am. I mean, I'm a very emotional person. Things move me. You know, music from an early age moved me. I mean, I felt emotional listening to songs. Like who? Not all my friends got that, you know. Like who? Uh, everything. I mean, from the the sort of classic rock stuff I was exposed to in an early age, the more proggy stuff like Genesis and Pink Floyd, um, uh uh folk music like Bob Dylan, um, Joni Mitchell, jazz, like, you know, Coltrane and the like, I was surrounded by people who were into all sorts of music. I mean, even things like, you know, Booker T and the MGs, Green Onions. Right. Um, the first time I heard, you know, punk rock, the first time I ever heard Black Sabbath, like my head exploded. You know, Jimi Hendrix, Star Sprinkled Banner. I'm like, like, you can do this. And to me, it was all like it was just more, right? I wanted more. So I have this weird tuning to certain things where uh I just sort of immerse myself in everything. And I grew up that way, you know, and and it's kind of an anomaly. I had a couple friends who were similar. But my high school guidance counselor, I'll never forget this, Joel, because this is I've come to realize at approaching 57 years of age that this is my driver. When I was a senior, the deal is you go to your guidance counselor and you talk to him and he tells you what you're gonna do in college, right? And here's your here's a career that's suited for you.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Same this side of the pond. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

So I go talk to him, like, you know, I'm I want to do something that's art related because I was actually doing design. I was I was mixing typography and imagery in my art class. Sam Fadjuan, my art teacher, just gave me free reign. He used to give me passes all the time just to come down and screw around in the art room. Um, so I was kind of doing visual design already, but nobody pointed me in that direction. Anyway, I say to this guy, I want to do something artistic with my life. I don't really know what that is. And he looks at me and he goes, you know, some people are better off taking orders from other people. I I think your best bet is to join the army. I think that's the that's the best route for you.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

I was stunned. Right? And after I got done being stunned, I was angry. So I stood up, I told him to go fuck himself. Left his office. Yeah, I did. I did. Um And that was that. And shortly after that, I I picked out graphic design from uh from the catalog and and the rest is history. So I'd been drawing on things since I was old enough to hold a pen. Like I was that kid in school who would draw on the margins of his tests. Yep. Like after I was done, I would finish the test and I would start drawing. And teachers like, you're not supposed to do this.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

I was like, Why not?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Constraint.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Oh what constraint? Yeah, that's the long-winded answer to your question. What constraint is is the right that's the right phrase for me.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

There's I mean, wow. The more fantastic folks who I get to speak to, the the standout thing is that regardless of the journey, um we were always screwing around. Yeah. We we were always like sponges, um soaking everything up, pushing boundaries, uh, but still, by the sound of things, very, very receptive and yearning, I guess, for that placement that's like you need a place.

Tiny Details, Big Impact In Enterprise UX

SPEAKER_00 12:29

You need a place to land, you know, you need a place to to somehow channel all this because you've got it all, um, and it's just everything all at once all the time.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

You're like, what do I do with this? Like you said, you want somebody to sort of come along and say, all right, here's how you channel this, right? Here's how it works.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah. And and it it's actually a little bit okay, it's funny out loud, but it's a little bit heartbreaking that career advisors back in the day um just wanted to put you in a box and get you out of that room as soon as possible. I was told, yeah, you're stupidly bright, yeah, go away and do an engineering degree and la la la la la la la. And yeah, don't listen to Mrs. Williamson, don't listen to Mr. Hayes or Mr. Hughes, um, because yeah, you gotta stop, stop skipping physics lectures and going and going to the music room because that's the only place that you think you can hide in, but you're that dumb, um, yeah, you're making a lot of noise there.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah, and and i I'm hearing something there that that makes me wonder if there isn't a parallel because I was one of those kids who on all my performance reviews throughout grade school, and you know, if they did such a thing in college, it probably would have been the same. But in grade, it was always, you know, has so much potential. I just, you know, doesn't perform to as potentially something like that. Like when I did standardized tests, like that they were like to guess your intelligence, whatever, I always tested multiple grades above. But my thing was if I was bored, yeah, I was out of there. I mean, in college, when I was out, I mean, I didn't go to class. If it, if it bored me, if I felt like it was too easy, if I felt like I was being spood-fed stuff, like this, I'm out of here. And I checked out mentally in high school classes as well. Like, I mean, I had teachers that would that would just read from, sit there and read from the book in this monotone like, what are we doing right now?

SPEAKER_01 14:45

There's got to be a universal module for whatever teacher training happened to be back in the day. Yeah. Because as soon as you said that, hey, get this. Tell tell me if this is even remotely familiar. So we had Mr. Higgins, like another wonderful person, obviously. And we had the abbots. Everyone in the UK who did physics to any kind of credibility at high school will be familiar with abbots. And it was this great big, massive, thick volume. And what he did, he would write verbatim out of abbotts on a foil on an overhead projector. All of you young folks, Google is your friend.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Right. That's what we had to do.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Word for word. Yep. And it didn't take long for everyone to go, this guy's just copying it straight out of abotts. That is it. No teaching. Zero teaching going on here. There's zero interest in what it is that they are doing. Yeah. And for what purpose. Yeah. Which is insane. And conversely, in my case, you know, Mrs. Williamson, who's brilliant. Um, yeah, I was quite disruptive. And so she was just No. You? What are you doing in my music lessons? Because it's not what I've suddenly been told by other people. You know, you go and hide, and you're just creating all of this music on a piano. Like, I don't even know if you I can still remember it. She said, Do you even know the difference between a crotchet and a minim or whatever? And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, no.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

And you probably didn't care either.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

No. But it was the encouragement, because she could have like just what's the word? Yeah. Used to be cancelled, right? No. She's like, just do your thing. And if I didn't have that, I don't know what would happen.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that to me is lightning striking.

unknown 16:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Right? That's it's an important, important moment. Those people are extremely important. Like I said, I had two, you know, Sam Fatchman, my high school art teacher. Same thing. He would give us assignments. I and I don't think I did this on purpose. I just did something else. You know, I sort of wandered on the parameters or the constraints or the whatever. And he was just like, okay, just be you, like you have something, keep working at it, keep doing it. He just encouraged the hell out of me. So then, like I said, Katie Kennedy was the second block, big block at that foundation. It was like, no, this is you can do this. Here are the parameters, explore and challenge, and don't be afraid to step out on the edge of the cliff and be willing to risk failure. And that was a first. Because I've been, you, you've been taught to play it safe your entire life because you grew up in a certain construct of, you know, small townism, Italian immigrants, um, Roman Catholics. That list goes on and on. Um but I met two people who were all about rocking the boat, and I was like, okay, this is this is where I belong. And I mean, you know me to this day. Like, I have a problem with rules. I have a problem with constraints, especially when they don't produce anything that's worthwhile. It's not working. Blow it up. What is the who cares?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

It's always like, what is the point?

Family Influences And Creative DNA

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Right. It's fear. And fear is behind that. Is my I I I'll go to my grave saying this. Fear is behind people who live by protocol, who live by rules, who live by process, who say, well, this has to go this way. If it's not this, it's not real UX. If it's not this, it's not agile. It's not straight. Like who gives a shit? Okay. Jesus Christ. You know, I mean, is it working or is it not? Like, who cares? Why does anybody care about this? I'm still that like 10-year-old kid. Like, I don't get it why anybody cares. You have to care.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

People have to kind of at least tell you it's shit. Um, you know, and if you if you can't hear that, that that's that's a development area right there.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

You know, um, so that's incredible. Really, really is to having exposure to yeah, this this this this universe of okay, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna try, and just see what happens. And then it entered a sphere of actually there might be some rules here, but you know what? You can know the rules, but it's absolutely fine to bend them also.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Let let's see how far we can bend these rules.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Yep. But still maintain that ethos of I'm actually creating.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Yes. And you you learn over time. And it's funny that you phrase it that way, because I mean that was a thing we were taught in design school as well, which is in order to break the rules, you have to know them first, and you have to know them extremely well. Okay, so we were held to standards, like I said. At the same time, it was weird. It was a weird double-edged sword in that you had to know the rules and the process and the standards and the constraints. And at the same time, you had to be willing to break them when it was appropriate to do so. And that to me is kind of like a metaphor for everything you're ever gonna do in your life and your in your work is that there are gonna be times when life just does what it wants. You know, when people's emotions drive the bus, when unexpected shit happens, you're gonna have to adjust. You're gonna have to, you're gonna have moments where you you have no choice but to throw out the rule book and say, all right, none of this has worked. We got to try something else because uh we're getting nowhere here, and the problem's getting bigger.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

So I just think it might have worked. And then something something changes. And so there's I mean, I'm doing a lot of writing and stuff now, and which I'm loving, by the way, this whole constant learning thing. And I'm trying to catch up with your volume of Oh, come on. Come on. It's it's no, seriously. It's incredible. And I'm and I'm sure I speak for everybody who's l may be listening to this. I'm so grateful. And I I always try and boil stuff down, but what I came into this session with, and you know, the bits and pieces that that I've tried to get under the hood of with your content, you know, it's like context, constraint, consequence. Yeah. Right? And if that isn't there, or if you're not aware that you need that or a framework like that, maybe. Because stuff will always change. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Absolutely, always. That's a given. I mean, you can take that to the bank, as the saying goes, it's it's gonna change. I mean, it's it's it's going to. And at the end of the day. It's gonna sound really self-important. Um but I'm listening to you know talk about exploring and writing and doing these things. At the end of the day, you you have what's true to you. And at some point, you have to learn to trust it. It doesn't make you arrogant, it doesn't make you a person who, well, well, it's I know everything, so we're gonna do it my way. No. It makes you a person who is willing to be wrong. I mean, to confront something else. Like the only truth that you have is what you know. Right? So when I write, people are like, well, you write a lot. Yeah, I do, because I honestly don't spend a whole lot of time overly editing myself. The thing is what it is. How I talk is how I talk, how I write is how I talk, also, for better or worse. Um I don't know any other way to do it. There are there are editors and people who know grammar who will tell you the infinite detail of like why the way I write is completely atrocious. I don't care. Never have. But that's what makes it yours. Right. And I think that's important. I think in every aspect of what you do in your life, personally or professionally, learning to live in that, operate from that place is really important because it will be misconstrued as arrogance or ignorance or any number of things. And you kind of have to accept that and do it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Absolutely, absolutely. So I think in today's environments, it's I think people are almost pre-programmed not to take risks. Everyone's pretty much risk averse. Every everything is, you know, the race to shiny, as as we love to say. It's got to be cookie-cutted, it's got to be templated, it's got to be transferable. And now we've got this actually, in my view, this wonderful thing called artificial intelligence. Um, but everyone's kind of just the majority of people are just exposed to large language models, right? Chat GPT or Copilot or whatever it is. And that's apparently that's it. You can type some verbs into a box, and something is gonna spit out a string of consonants and vowels and adjectives and all the rest of it back at you, and that's that's gospel, apparently. And it's so often not the case. No, and constraints are important, I think we've identified that, which is great. Sure. But there seems to be a lack of vulnerability. Yes.

Rebellion, Constraints And Finding Direction

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Amen. That's per that's you nailed it. Nailed it. In any number of ways. That's true. In any number because and you said this also being vulnerable is is a risk. It's risk. And and the risk goes against the prescription that if I do these things, if I follow this recipe, if I follow these steps, then all will be well. It's not true. Right? I mean, give me a break. But everybody, people preach this every single day. I'm on LinkedIn every single day. People preach it, they recipes every day.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Monetize it and bullshit. You know, yeah, but bullshit sells and that's good. And good luck too, right? Everyone's gonna eat. Um, you know, everybody, uh, and that's great. But so a big, big question, right? Um where where do you think this whole AI dynamic is is right now. And where do you think it's heading?

SPEAKER_00 27:07

I I think there are there are two sides to this coin. And I think that you only ever hear about one of them, depending on who's doing the talking, which is leads to this sort of one-dimensional view of what it's like. On one hand, everybody's afraid of AI. It's gonna take our jobs. Uh-oh, it's gonna take this, they're not gonna need people doing this work anymore. Look, again, I'm getting closer to 60. I've seen this before. I've seen that same fear before, I've seen the same fury before. Like, it's gonna take our jobs. It's gonna, I'm telling you, I've been through this at least six times in the history of doing what I do. It's never been true. It's not gonna be true. Now, by the same token, people who don't use and embrace AI to some degree, I think probably will get left behind. But that's like anything else. New tools, new tech, new technology, new ways of doing the thing, of putting the stuff out into the world. You do have to be cognizant in what that is and how it works. Um, like anything else. So, on the one hand, there's fear. On the other hand, there's all these people who are just diving in and embracing it and using it for everything, right? This is awesome. It's the greatest thing ever. I can be creative, and I'm not really creative. Um I think that the truth is in the middle of those two things. I personally, I mean, I use Chat GPT almost every day, but here's what I use it for. Because it is hallucinatory in a lot of ways, right? It just makes shit up quite frequently. Very much so. But I'm a solo practitioner, okay. And in most of the things that I do, I'm a team of one. You know what I mean? I'm creating content, I'm creating workshops, I'm creating curriculum. Um, I'm working on two books right now. Um, I use it like another person in the room to bounce things off of, to help me get unstuck. Like a lot of times I have pieces. I'm not one of these people who, when I create anything, whether it's a course or a workshop or a book or whatever piece of music, I don't, I cannot sit down like with I'll do an outline first and I'll figure out what it is that I want to say, and then I'll go about doing the no. I'm I'm the the sculpture trapped in the stone kind of guy where I keep hacking away at it until it tells me what the hell it wants to be. For better or worse, that's always how I've worked. And I don't know any other way that works for me. So a lot of times I get stuck. I have three pieces of something. And sometimes I don't know how they connect. I feel like they do. On some instinctive level, you're like, okay, this kind of works with this. So I'll throw out a chat GPT. I've got these two pieces. I know there's a bridge here. I don't know where it is. Can you give me three possible Bridges between these two pieces of content. And it will. Or sometimes I'll ask it for six because I know it's going to go off and be crazy. Even if all three or all six of them are garbage, it's enough to get my brain unstuck and go, uh, I see it now. Okay, that's where it is. And I do this constantly, you know, or I've I've got a point that I'm making and I'm like, that's not it. And I don't know why that's not it. So I got two choices. I could struggle with that for a week, which is the old way. Or I could, again, you throw it at the machine and say, look, I don't know what's wrong with this. Like, give me some ideas here. And again, it'll spit some stuff out. And whether it's right or not, it still helps me figure it out. Now I've done that in a matter of minutes as opposed to a matter of weeks. So the consequence is I can create a lot more because I can move all these stupid roadblocks out of my way. I make it do the very mundane things that I feel like I don't want to waste my time doing anymore. I've had it organize and categorize and prioritize ideas. You know what I mean? Make me a list. I don't like that stuff, and I'm not good at it either. Organization is not my strong suit at all. So I think to not use it as crazy. I think in a prototyping situation, for example, to not use a UI generator to say, give me six variations on this, because I got three days to figure this out. Right? And the brass has not given me more than three days. If I'm a practitioner, if I'm working on the floor, I'm working in a team, I'm a designer, UI guy, whatever. Help me figure this out because I am behind the eight ball and being forced to work with one hand tied behind my back. Help me. So to not use it is crazy. So my point is, I see both things. But I again I think fear doesn't help anybody. You can have an eye toward making sure that it's it's responsible, it's not hurting people, that you're being responsible when you use it, that being you're being responsible when you design products that integrate it. You can and you should be. I have an entire course about that. At the same time, you cannot bury your head in the sand and pretend it's not happening. It is. I think that's the biggest mistake.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

I don't know if I answered your question. As to where it's going, I think it's it's gonna, I didn't answer that. It's gonna be here. It's gonna be here. It's gonna be continually embedded in the things that we do, but I I really don't, Joel. I I don't believe it's gonna wholesale replace people. I I don't buy it. I see nothing so far that tells me that that's a thing. The people behind the thing are still driving the bus. Yes.

Rules To Break: Knowing When And Why

SPEAKER_01 32:53

I mean, I'm getting closer, ironically, as my career still progresses. Um back to my engineering ways, you know, writing and thinking a lot more in terms of governance and those sorts of frameworks. And they're just just now, within the last month, you know, the EU has started being a little bit more vocal about some frameworks, some structures, some legalese, terms and conditions, call them what you want to, about you know, how and what the AI is, how it potentially could be used. The and it's the first time I'm starting to hear from that kind of body consequence of not using this new paradigm um in a quote unquote appropriate way. Yes. That's way too late.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Oh, yeah. The genie is out of the box, or whatever phrase you want to use. I mean, just like the internet. Look, they've been trying to regulate quote unquote social media for or the web, I mean, for since its inception. And they're still 40 years behind the curve. There's there's no there's no coming back to that. I agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

That's the wild wearing side side of you know my brain. Um and I enjoy exploring that side, uh, and it's great to have that juxtaposition. Um, but the more I lean into that now, I find it's scary. Sure. I think it's scary, yeah, that folks can be very, very forthright, very passionate uh about evangelizing what they think is and should and will. And I'm again, I've said this several times, you know, who needs another podcast? But I'm not hearing conversations like this. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, I don't know. Um, but I'm just not They're hard to find. It's very binary. It's either, okay, you're all screwed, you schmucks, you've just invested, I don't know how many hundreds and thousands of dollars or whatever in some kind of education, and now, you know, Gemini or Copilot or who whatever. I don't buy that. No, I don't just don't buy it. I just can't I can't, you know, and it sells. They they do that because it sells. But I'm if if there was, you know, a league table of is design screwed or is it not? You know, the top end of the table is very much, yeah, we're all screwed. We better all go and learn how to be tree surgeons because that's something that technology, you know, can't do, and it'll still allow us to have some kind of creative avenue. Um I'm just like uh n nonsense.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Yes. Agreed fully. I again I and I here's my bigger thing. That conversation is such a waste of time. Such a tremendous, massive waste of emotion and energy and everything else. I I see these conversations go on on social media and these these long, drawn out 84,000 people are commenting. And, you know, maybe people do it because it gets attention. I don't know. But what a waste of time. It's like debating what designers or product designers you actually should call themselves. Like, who gives a shit already? Do the work, reclaim that time, reclaim that energy, reclaim that passion, and do the work. Stop debating about it. Do it. Do something, make something happen, make something different, change what you don't like. Take an action, but do not spend an hour and a half talking my ear off about it. I don't give a shit. I want to do stuff.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

It's well, that's it. Just do it. You have to just do it.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Whatever, whatever it is. We're doomed. Okay. Well, on the road to being doomed, how much work are you going to get done? I mean, how much how much how many good things can you put out into the world? How much good stuff can you do for yourself, for other people, you know, for your family, for your employers, for your clients, for you, whoever. Do something. All right. It's the biggest play that you have. It's the most power that you have. You know, I see people, we're doing a workshop next November. Next November, this next month. It's about helping people find jobs. And it's there's a lot of the same thing in that. Okay. People bend themselves into these ridiculously shaped pretzels because they're like, well, I have to be this because the job posting says I have to be this, this, this, this, and this. And the job posting is full of shit. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

They always have been.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Yes. And it's worse now. So instead of saying, all right, wait a minute, here's me at this point in my career. This is what I'm absolutely best at. This one I'm better at than most people. Here are the skills that I have, and here is the proof, right? Here are the things that I've accomplished that I'm damn proud of. You have to lead with yourself. You have to lead as if we call it a value category of one. Rajiv and I. Um and it's the right phrase. You have to put yourself out there. Like I am something that you are not going to find elsewhere. And I think that applies to everything you're ever going to do in your life.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

That is so important. You have to be you. It's so important. I mean, that's I mean, I'm always coming out with some kind of strap line, whatever. Um smiling is the only currency worth anything. And if whatever it is that you do doesn't even make you smile. You know, I have this big old thing. I was having a an impromptu gathering in India, like, you know, I've been trying to do for quite some time, um, and increase that frequency. And there's a CFO randomly turned up from some mid-sized company. He says, ah, what do you mean smiling? Nobody cares about smiling. What is this rubbish you're telling people about smiling? And I says, uh-huh, okay. So when your company, whatever it is, and excuse me that I don't know, but when it tanks and your shareholders are chewing you a new one, um, are you smiling? Right. And conversely, when you've hit whatever profit target you've set yourself and whatever, blah, blah, blah, I think you are gonna be smiling, right? And then suddenly everyone around the room just like turned around and looked at this guy. He didn't get it. No, some people don't. Right? And and but, you know, weeks later called me up and said, I think, I think, I think I understand now. I said, well, great, good. You know, and we we talk quite regularly now and all of that kind of stuff, and he's helping me out with okay, this another conversation, perhaps we can jump into a a bit. This mirage, in my view, called the table. Alad John Wick, no less. Right? You've got to have a seat at this table. No, you don't. No, you don't. You so don't.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

You know, and Bob Powell, bless him, um, came out with it. Joel just makes his own. I'm just kind of like, okay, you want to go with that? Go with that. But it's it's as you have said, Joe, it is about the work. Right. What are you doing? Where's the value that you are contributing to? Right.

Vulnerability, Risk And The Fear Problem

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Why are you begging for why are you begging for a seat at the table? Why are you waiting for someone to hand you power? Why are you waiting for someone to hand you legitimacy? No, my thing, and I've said this out loud from stages. You have to conduct yourself in a way that pretty soon they realize that you need to be there at the table. Okay. You don't that this whole, I need a seat waiting for no, no. You need to conduct yourself in a way where they're like, holy shit, why are we not talking to this guy first? This girl, this this woman, this man, this whoever. Um and that's kind of what I've always done when I have a client, but day one. I mean, even when it's a prospect situation, I don't do the dog and pony show. I don't show portfolio, I don't show, like, we're not doing that, okay, at all. What we're gonna do, if you're spending a half hour with me or an hour with me, we're gonna work. And that's giving that time away, right? When I try to get a client. Because I I need them to understand what it's like to work with me. And they need to see the value in that. To me, that's the only currency that I have. So we dig in, and I'm not brash in an arrogant way, but I tell the truth. You know what I mean? And I ask questions that are that make people uncomfortable. It's like my job here is to help you. There's no way in hell I can do that unless I really have a sense of what the depth of this is and why it's happening. And I tell them all the time, I don't care what the reason is. I don't care how politically incorrect the reason is. I don't care whether it's a good reason or a bad reason or a dumb reason or if it's the dumbest thing, it's a political bullshit that's going on in your organization. I don't care. But I gotta know what it is. If I don't know what it is, uh, we might make some stuff look better and perform better, but your problem's not going away. You know, your headache is not going away. So you need to be straight with me. And that's it rubs a lot of people the wrong way up front. I accept that, I understand it, and it's okay. But but when it connects, that's the reason those people start calling you before they make decisions in other areas of their business. They're like, we're thinking about doing, we don't want to get your two cents on this. Like, even if you work in-house, the same can be absolutely true. You can put yourself in that position. I none of this makes me better or smarter or anything than anybody else. Everybody has the same power, in my opinion, especially people in this profession. You're you're cut from a different cloth from word go. Okay. You have the ability to see things and synthesize things that other people don't. That's a fact. It's a fact. So all you have to do is do it. You have to not be afraid to exercise that power and start weighing in on things and start asking harder questions and start in a very polite way, in a way that says, I'm doing this because I want to be responsible with the responsibility you've given me. Okay, I'm not doing my job if I don't tell you the truth. You start doing that, and pretty soon, instead of you asking for, oh, please let me sit at your table, they come and get you. They're like, um, we're having this conversation tomorrow about X, Y, and Z. Would you mind sitting in? I'd like to get your take. That's where you want to be. Absolutely. So if you don't have a seat at the table right now, who cares? Conduct yourself in a way where sooner or later they realize you need to be there.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

But I think this convergence with the velocity that artificial intelligence gives is such a massive opportunity to experiment and to ask these sorts of questions, you know, with with that space that you need in order to ask those questions. Because it's still new relatively. You you know, there's there's never in a situation where I think anyone can't say, well, what if? Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:06

That's right. Absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

For the last 15 years, maybe a little bit more, everyone has been, particularly in agency land, um, which is where I started properly, right? Um Yeah, it's just okay, how how can how can we convince whoever the client's supplier whoever that customer is? How can we convince them that we're on their page and we can do what we think they need to do and then just get the hell out of Dodge because it's all just about the coin and the velocity of delivering just enough. And I can't abide this just enough nonsense, right? Where it is the only the only success criteria. Yeah, but we got it out, and we do yeah, but we delivered this, and yeah, we shouldn't MVP. Yeah, but but all you're doing is you are curating technical debt, you absolute bozos. Mm-hmm. Just spend and it doesn't have to be an inordinate amount of time. You don't save up all of your questions until, you know, sprint 38 or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 47:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

What's the point of a retrospective? For example. Okay, well, that's nice, that's great. But what if? Mm-hmm. And I find that those team leads, and even worse, you know, folks who are supposed to be looking after design people. It's kind of sometimes they come with zero oxygen. Mm-hmm. You are going to do it like this. Right. And don't even look at this the wrong way. And that's then because then your history. And you won't, I'm not gonna throw you a bone again because you're not following what I have deemed. And that for me anyway, it's a consequence, okay. Broadly speaking, it's poor leadership.

SPEAKER_03 48:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

But in my experience, and I'm interested to know, you know, what your view observations are on what I'm about to say. Design folk need experienced design leaders.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 48:46

Right? Because design leaders who are experienced, who have bled, who have done the trenches, done the graft, done all of that, and still want to do that, and still want to learn, and still want to share that knowledge. I'm sorry, a senior BA, somebody from some other neck of the woods, a old school project program manager, they're not going to help those designers in the same way. I agree.

AI: Panic, Pragmatism And Practice

SPEAKER_00 49:23

I agree completely. And it has to be, I mean, no, it has to be someone who hasn't given up. Yep. All right. It has to be someone who has sort of survived, transcended all the nonsense that goes on inside a corporate organization. Because I've said this many times as well. Corporate entities are set up, are built, designed purposely with diametric opposition as kind of part of the makeup. Yes. Because everybody's fighting for their territory. Everybody's fighting for their peace. Everybody's fighting for their budget. Everybody's fighting for whatever. Okay. It's get more than two people in a room. You have politics. It's unavoidable. So you have to have somebody who is who has been in that environment, like you said, knows the territory from a design or UX perspective, gets it, lived it, and has been able to navigate that territory and find a way to function and be able to sort of run interference. And I've been privileged to know a couple leaders that I've worked with in the past who are absolutely that, and their people are flourishing as a result because they're not afraid. Okay, like your example when someone says, Well, no, I it's I know what's needed. Here it is, go do it. There's a lot of that. And that comes from fear. That is somebody who's afraid for one way or another that things aren't going to go a specific way. And they feel like that if they take their hands off the wheel, the car's gonna spit out of control. Like for some reason it's my responsibility and I'm gonna tell everyone what to do. Product managers have a lot of that because the pressure on them comes from all sides. Correct. They're getting it from everybody. Right? So they're like, okay, look, if I'm gonna live and die by the, if it's my head on the chopping block, then I am damn well gonna do what I can to drive this bus. So I don't blame any of these people ever. VPs of products are in the same boat. Their head is on the chopping block, one way or another. Your only play is to find out what that is and why it is and what the hell they're so afraid of. And so again, to your point about an experienced design leader, it takes somebody either being willing to ask these questions or pushing the people in their team to ask these questions and say, look, you've got to find out what this is about. You have to be willing to speak up and say, okay, tell me what you think is gonna happen if we don't do it your way. What's the consequence? What are you afraid of? What's gonna happen if we if we don't do it your way? What's gonna happen in your mind if we do do it your way? What's the outcome you think you're gonna get from that? And you make it a point to say, I'm not asking you because I'm challenging you. I'm asking you because we all need to be rowing in the same direction here. So I want to make sure that anything I do contributes to whatever this goal actually is. You know, I want to make sure I'm helping you get there. But I can't do that unless you tell me what it is. It's not enough to say, well, it has to be this way. No, that's not a complete answer. If you want people to work to your desired outcome, you have to tell them what it is. But it takes maturity and it takes bravery and a certain amount of courage to ask those questions. So again, back to your point, I think the reason teams suffer is because there's no one in their direct sphere of influence, there's no leadership at that mid-level either doing that, asking those questions, or encouraging them and supporting them and standing behind them and protecting them enough to ask those questions. So I completely agree with you. And design leadership, I think I could be wrong, but it's just a sense I have over the last five years in particular, it seems to be waning where there are less people in leadership positions. There are less people in VP and director type roles now. Now it's kind of like, well, no, design's gonna live under engineering and it'll be fine. Not really.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

Why do you think that is? Okay, let me let me try and frame that in in in in a in a better way. Apologies. So do you think that's just uh a cost measure? Do you think it's uh okay, so we've suddenly dis discovered DevSecOps or whatever, if you're you know working with IT guys closely, um and this is what we prefer. So is it cost? Is it existing operating model?

SPEAKER_00 54:14

It's all those things. It's all those things. It's it's economic reality of, and and I don't just mean this moment in time. I think that where business has increasingly gone is the ratio of risk to reward and the landing spot that any company has for getting it right is really tiny. And it's getting smaller, okay? And it's moving. Yeah, always, always, always, always. So you've got that. You got this area of massive risk where you could get it wrong at any moment. And you're like, we got to be leaner, we have to be more efficient. So it's economically driven, it's cost-driven, it's we can't afford all these people in these positions, so where we consolidate. Nobody knows anything about our profession in the first place. It's still to this day, as much lip service as is given to product design UX, we are still seen as an expense as opposed to an investment, by and large. So it's that, it's the fact that nobody internally has been brave enough to turn product design into a cost driver. I think that our profession in general does a really shitty job at addressing the business side of the house and talking about the business side of the house. We are so busy being superheroes and advocating for users and all this wonderful shit that we forget that those users don't pay our checks. Okay. A business does. Those people hired you for one reason, one reason only, and that is to further their own ends. You can love that, you can hate it. I really don't care. It's true. It's the reality. It's why you have a job. So to completely ignore the business side of the house, and we're taught this, we're taught to do that. We're taught to ignore the business side. It's reinforced every day on social media, in books, courses, speeches, lectures. Nobody talks about it. I don't understand why. And you know me, this has been my rallying cry for several years now. You ignore that at your peril. You need to start talking to these people about what the hell they want and why they want it and what they expect to happen. Because otherwise, they do see you as an expense. They don't see where what you do connects to the things that they need to make happen. 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

How would you suggest we frame that conversation though? Start speaking a different language.

SPEAKER_00 56:43

Okay. I cut you off there.

SPEAKER_02 56:46

No, it's okay. We're having a conversation.

SPEAKER_01 56:49

We're having a conversation.

Regulation, Reality And Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 56:50

It's all good. You need to I say this all the time, but you need to take off your UX badge, you know, your product design badge, your tribe kind of thing. Right? No, you're part of a larger ecosystem. You need to start speaking to the larger picture, all of it. If you don't know how your company makes money, truly, if you don't know where their highest profit margins are, for example, you need to find out. I've lost count how many people I've coached one-on-one in the last three years, in particular, because for whatever reason, this is ramping up this way. It's like I'm getting more and more of these conversations where people are like, you know, everything I push for, they just say no. You know, no research, no iteration, no, no, no product design work. We're like, we're just checking boxes. And I say, well, give me the lay of the land. And they'll tell me that they're working on one product line. The company has six different areas of products and services. And I say, well, what's the margin of the product you're working on? The profit margin. I don't know. Whoops. You need to find out. Because if it's low and four of those other lines, you know, if yours is like 3% or 8% or some ridiculous number, and the others are 30, 40, 60%, guess where the money's going? It ain't going to you. It's not going to you. No one's investing a ton of money in a 6% margin product. All right. It may be a loss leader for all you know. You gotta find out. You gotta find out what's driving the bus. That's why I'm gonna go on a small tangent. Okay. I have to. This whole thing about service design when this came about, it just made my head explode. And it sort of raises my blood pressure. Not because I don't believe in it. I do. Absolutely. It's not different from product design. It's not different from UX. These are the jobs that we should have been doing all along. Okay. All that extra stuff that happens behind the curtain, behind the scenes, is all part of the deal. It's all stuff you need to be aware of. It's all stuff you need to know. It's all stuff you need to understand. You don't have to master it all, but you got to be bringing those people into the conversation because it has profound effect on whether someone says, yeah, we can do another two weeks of research, or yeah, we can do another week's worth of design iteration. Everything affects everything. You're going to continue to propose stuff that to the people you're proposing it to is the craziest thing they've ever heard because their context is very different than yours. And they have a broader understanding of how the business operates than you do. We have not been encouraged to do this. Service design was the first time I heard anybody say explicitly you know, all this other stuff that happens backstage, it's important. It matters. You can't just solve a problem up here. You got to solve it everywhere throughout the chain. Now, back to my roots. I have always done it that way. Always. To me, it all matters. I want to know about all parts of everything because to me, everything is an ecosystem. Everything affects everything. So it kind of bothered me that we made this a specialty. Like, no, if you're a service designer, you do this work. If you're a product designer, you don't. If you're a UX, you don't. Bullshit. If you want to be irrelevant, you don't. All right. And this gets me into trouble. Every time I say this out loud, people line up and be like, everybody thinks I'm insulting them in in some way. It's not my intent. Could it not be a consequence of discipline maturity? Well, yeah. In any number of ways. Because. Tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

Well, unfortunately, we as designers we have a propensity to shoot ourselves in both feet with an elephant gun. And particularly how we don't articulate what it is that we do. Yes. Where it is that we add value. And I think in, and I'm being generous here, in our attempts to get to a point of folks really need to understand the value of everything that we do, because we are important. And there are many, many, many elements to us. You might think that a designer is a designer, is a designer, but you need researchers, you need service designers, you need product designers, you need copy and content people, you need accessibility specialists, you need all of the above. And organizations, they might be lucky that they stumble across somebody who is that ubiquitous unicorn, very, very stupidly rare. But even those folks will tell you, yeah, I need speciality discipline X, Y, Z. So it's and here's service design is bubbling up, right? And people are kind of going, Oh, I didn't know. Oh, service design, that sounds cool. But then when I've spoken to them and I've asked them, well, why does service design seem cool to you now? And the response 99% of the time is, oh, because those are the people who understand everything. Okay, they can understand or they should understand front of house, bank of house, and everything in between, right? But they're not necessarily going to be the people who are going to help you engineer that, who are going to cognitively give you a process which is going to work for hopefully 80%, if not more, of your targeted user base, etc. etc. etc. And I've still to meet a service designer who is as awesome as amazing illustrators. So everyone's got to come in and out, come in and out and do their bit. Right. Um, you know, it's that's that's just how it is. And I think unfortunately, as designers, we and particularly folks who like to say I'm a design leader. Oh yeah. What what are what is that group doing about untangling this god-awful mess that we have allowed to manifest?

Stop Debating, Do The Work

SPEAKER_00 1:04:03

And see, you just touched on another thing, okay? And here's where I'm going with all this, this tangent. I believe in leadership. Not from a sense of that's your position. I believe in leadership from the point of everybody should, in one way or another, be leading. If you're tasked with a certain job, your role is kind of to lead the way. So to your point, I have always, always, always, always found myself in positions where I'm like, okay, we need attention in this area. We need, like, you remember information architecture when that was a you had information architects? Say, well, here's this problem is an information problem, it's a taxonomy problem, it's an organizational problem, um, it's a content problem, it's it's a risk reward problem. We know what we're gonna for, but we don't know why. And we don't know for sure that people want this or need this or will be willing to use it. That's a research problem. We have this great idea, but so far we've got evidence that the team we have in front-end development and engineering doesn't have any experience in that area. We need at least a couple people who've done this kind of thing before to figure out whether we can pull this off. So you're always going to be calling in specialists, right? But your job still, to me, at the end of the day, is to be well-versed enough in all those areas. You don't have to be able to do it, you have to know why it matters. So that you can say to people, here's where I think the issue is. Now, we can tackle this part of it because it's what we do, but you we need somebody who does A, B, C, and D. My problem with the distinction is that it sort of absolved people from having that working knowledge of those other parts. It's just like when I was a graphic designer, you had to learn how a printing press worked. You literally had to learn how ink went down on paper, how plates were made, how registration happens, right? How all the you have to go on a press check to examine the press sheets as they come off or sort of other things. Was that work that we were ever going to be doing? No. But it changed the way that you designed. Once you understood how these other parts worked and what the limitations were and what the challenges were, and how what you do affects their world, you do what you do differently. Okay. We live in a war, in a multidisciplinary world. We've got front-end developers and slash designers, because a lot of times that that job is conflated. You've got mid-tier logic programmers, programmer guys, you got hardcore engineers, you've got database architects, you have content people, you have researchers, you have statisticians, you have business analysts, you have marketing people and product managers. Everybody has these specialties, as they should. But you need to be aware of all those areas. And people say to me, well, that's a tall order. Forgive me if I don't care. It's you have to broaden your perspective. If you're going to be relevant in this particular climate we find ourselves in right now, you don't have to be able to do it, but you need to be able to speak to it. You need to be able to spot when there's a problem somewhere else that's affecting your world, right? Or that's preventing you from convincing this executive that this is the work that needs to be done. If you can't speak to it, you don't have a hope in hell of having those productive conversations. You're going to be relegated to, I'll just make it pretty. We'll let you know when it's ready. You know, when it's developed, when it's done, you could make it look better. You'll be that person the rest of your life. It's unfair. But it is. You know, it's it's still the truth.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:03

At the end of the day, it's a relationship. And either you're going to be participating in a dysfunctional relationship, or you're going to be contributing to a productive relationship.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

Yeah. And I agree.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:25

That fear that you've so eloquently put out and uh defined in various guises during our conversation. That's that's a big challenge. It's a big, big, big challenge. Sure. I think folks particularly these quote unquote leaders, stop it. When when was the last time someone who is a leader was literally sat with a junior practitioner, somebody straight out of school, and just had a conversation with them. Not necessarily about the stuff that they're doing. Because if you can't communicate across these hierarchies, no one is gonna want to talk to you. That's right. No one is going to then, if we go to that traditional CX lens, if you like. Yeah. Engagement, operability, support. You're not gonna get engagement unless you have awareness. You're not gonna get operability until everything else is done there, and it's nuts. And this is what I'm finding. So that's kind of at a micro level. If I do it at the macro level, organizations, I think, really need to look internally, perhaps, and say, well, actually, marketing, HR, finance, IT, those are all products. Yes. Amen. And who who has everyone employed since products became folklore to actually build these things called products, right? The design folk. Right. Right? The product designers who with all of these multi-different disciplines. So why is it taking such a massive leap of faith for some people in positions of authority to just say, our organization with these different silos, I'm using that word deliberately, but these different departments. It was rolling around in my head. I'm glad you said it because that's part of the problem. Right. Why are they not just suddenly saying, these are just products? They get allocated a budget based upon whatever pitch that they did, and now I'm the CEO and I've told my shareholders, and I've put all this pressure on myself, and I have to deliver this now. But you're not treating those disparate entities in that ecosystem as products.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:19

Because where are the design folk who are helping finance, who are helping HR? Because it's the design folks who are building products for your company. They do this in their sleep.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:35

That's right. Day one, okay. Whenever I start with a new client, my only requirement. I sorry I'm getting paid, is on day one, did the day one session have to have representation from every department in the company? Every department. And they're like, well, nope, we don't do that. Nobody, nobody's ever done that. I'm like, I know that. But we're doing it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:02

Uh-huh.

Value Category Of One And Career Power

SPEAKER_00 1:12:04

Or we're not doing this at all. Okay. That that's kind of my thing. And I say it much more kindly and politely than that. Um, it's a thing because everybody, all those people have a stake in the sand here, whether you think they do or not. And all those places have different ideas about how they think things happen, about where they think the problems are, about what they think needs to change. And all those things will either support, bolster, encourage, or discourage, stop, throw wrenches in the work that you're doing afterward. So if people have issues, it's got to come out. Like I want everybody's everything on the table at the outset. I need to know what I'm dealing with. Again, can I live in all those worlds and do all that work in all those areas? Hell no. But I need to know who I need. Okay. Once we get past that point, to your example about silos. Now that I've met all these people, I'm pulling people in and out. If I'm there for three weeks, we're doing it. If I'm there for six months, we're doing it. I'm pulling people in and out all the time from different places. Just you're listening, you're hearing where the, like where the where something stops cold. Why is that happening? Well, because so-and-so has this mandate that this has all right, can we get them in here tomorrow so we can talk about this? Database architects. I've lost count how many times I've said, well, we really need to get one of the database guys in here. And three people look at me like, why? Why? Because we're making decisions about data and how we stand things up on the screen and we don't know the first fucking thing about how this is architected. So we could make up stuff all day long. We don't know if we're right. I need to know what the limits are here. Get them in here. I always, on almost every engagement, we have a developer or two, and sometimes a lead, sometimes just a tech lead, sitting in the room. And nine times out of 10, that person is literally sitting there prototyping things as we talk about them. Yep. Yep. And they turn around and show me, well, okay, that won't work that way. But we have a module that does this, and I was just messing with it while we were sitting here. And if I customize it, I can kind of get it to do this. What do you think? Look at it, talk about it. You know what? Good enough. Check that box onward. We just eliminated three weeks of work. Yep. Three weeks of expense. So again, if you're going to present your value as a designer, you're not going to do so in a silo working by yourself. You got to make it clear to a number of people in a number of different places that what you have to offer is a peer. It's your vision. It's how you think about things, right? It's how you make progress. It's not just about getting the design right. It's also about doing things that make financial sense for the company. It's about being efficient. It's about lots of things. And that to me starts with collaboration. Unless you're in the same room, having those conversations, it's not going to happen. Like, I don't believe in the two-week sprint separation between design and development. I think it's it's garbage. I think it's the dumbest thing anybody ever decided to do. Every two weeks, both sides are surprised. Design's surprise at what dev built. Design come up with something that's going to take them six months to build.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:41

I mean, if people were honest, right? How who who, whoever's listening to this? Yeah, how often, how often do you religiously abide by Agile Manifesto and have retrospectives that are meaningful?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:58

Yeah, how about never. Yeah. Yeah. Can I vote never?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:06

And oh it's just crazy.

unknown 1:16:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:10

It is just absolutely crazy. So I guess you said silos, see, and that made me think of this. Because you're absolutely correct. All these people working in isolation. It's not helpful.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:22

I mean, there's a million and one reasons. I mean, I've I've tried to get under the hood of it. I mean, one of the reasons is that I went to build a capability in a great big energy megacorp. Um I wanted to get uh under the hood of a lot of things. Yeah. And I thought, okay, you've done it at different sizes of ecosystems. This is the the biggest one by a country mile. Um where where are the fault lines? Mm-hmm. Because if you can identify those or try to identify those, then that's going to help. Regardless of how long I stayed there or not, it's so important to understand how ecosystems have relationships with one another and and the rules around them and the outcomes of them, and which is why then I came out with this, and I'm sure I'm not the first person. You know, think about design is the ocean, because everything needs to exist in the the ocean, whether it's coral, whether it's whatever, you know, fish, and then you've got the sharks in there, and then you've got these crazy humans who like to put themselves in some kind of convenient bento box for the sharks. Um you know, and and yet the the ocean finds a way for everything to happen. What an analogy.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:01

I love this. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:05

Dead on. Spot on. And for me, that's design.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:11

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:15

Because there's not one single element. It's not just the coral. It's not just the sharks, it's not just the school of whatever fish. Everything has got to kind of know its place and know its tempo, know its purpose. Where can I go for this? How can I do that? And where can't no, no, don't go there. Bad things are gonna happen though, but have an awareness of all those other things.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:44

Yes. And just what you do because of all those other things. I think your analogy is dead on. Dead on.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:51

It's exactly, and keep me honest here, Joe. Isn't that exactly what you've just shared with just, you know, a couple of stories around, okay, I'm gonna go in and I need to talk with everybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:04

And we're just gonna, we're gonna try this, and okay, what's the constant, okay? It's a technical delivery, okay, fine, we get whatever flavor of coda. Dude, does this work? Is this feasible? Can this, you know, and you figure out those tolerances, but as the designer in that scenario, you're instigating those conversations. Yes. Where perhaps before they were not visible.

Corporate Politics And Design Leadership

SPEAKER_00 1:19:41

Absolutely right. Absolutely right. And that comes from, again, it comes from a broader, more holistic view. This is what I love about the ocean metaphor, okay? If you I'll use a very easy example, okay, because your your metaphor is much better than this, but this is all I can come up with at the moment. If you are a smaller fish and you are swimming in shark-infested waters, you need to be aware that you are swimming in shark-infested waters. If you are solely focused on, well, no, I'm I'm a fish and I do these things every day. And it doesn't matter where I am, I do these same things every day. And I do it the same way every day in every situation, no matter what part of the ocean I happen to be in. Guess what happens? You get eaten. So it's the same kind of thing. And I think that we are, from all these areas that I talked about before, social media is full of it. Okay, conferences are full of it, books, YouTube videos. There's a lot of encouragement to quote unquote stay in your lane. Like, no, do you do your thing? Like the world has to adapt to you. It doesn't. You're living, like you said, in an ecosystem. And you need to be aware of everything else that goes on around you, and you adapt your behavior accordingly in order to be successful, in order to thrive, in order to have symbiotic relationships with the things around you. You have to broaden your perspective. You can't continue to be sort of navelgazing all the time, as this profession, I think, is very want to do. If you're going to succeed, it's bigger than you are. Again, I keep going back to your metaphor. I love it. Absolutely love it. It's perfect. It is perfect. There is harmony in all sorts of ways. And the reason it's there is because everything coexists on a level where there's some base awareness and understanding and behavior adjustment based on what everything else is doing, including the environment itself. Yes. And I'm not taught to exist that way.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:05

But what I found is folks like you and you know, thankfully, quite a lot of others as well. You are creating ocean because you're bringing these disparate disciplines together in order to achieve purpose. And you can't achieve a holistic purpose unless the ecosystem is aware.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:36

Yes. That's accurate. That's accurate. Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:40

And it's not easy. No. Oh, come on.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:44

It's not easy. Don't get me wrong.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:46

Anyone who ever says, you know, and I've had a few, oh yeah, design's easy. You just say, uh, get your crayons out and whatever, and la la la la la. Yeah, good luck with that, sunshine.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:56

Um, it's it is I mean, you know, people have asked me, like, oh, so what do you do when, you know, someone won't join in? What do you do when someone won't collaborate? What do you do when someone won't give you the answers? There are gonna be those moments. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:15

I mean I Some Mountains will not move. I I said this before, and I'm not ashamed to repeat it. I left HSBC because of that.

unknown 1:23:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:27

Right? It's like, okay, you're in charge. Okay, great. And 18 months later the needle wasn't moving. Uh I'm out of here.

unknown 1:23:36

Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:36

And it wasn't because I had a job to go to. I did not. Yeah. But I'm not, it's just, I don't know, maybe it's because of my history and whatever. It's just, you know what? Nah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:52

Well, you're you're being true to what and who you are. And and if you want to talk about career longevity of any kind, I think that the key ingredient is to be delivering value to some degree in a sustained way. And when you're in an environment where you can't do that, that in some cases is more detrimental than not having to be in between jobs, you know. Um you got to pick and choose, right? Bills have to be paid. Bills don't care uh about whether you're providing value or not. I love that. Bills don't care. No, they don't. I mean, I've been self-employed the majority of my life. There was one point, and my wife is too. There was one point in history way back when we looked at each other and we were like, okay, if if this doesn't change in the next uh, I don't know, four weeks, maybe, we're gonna have to get jobs. And the we're gonna have to get jobs wasn't we're gonna have to find good paying jobs in our chosen profession. It's we're gonna have to get jobs. If that's a job saying, you know, where do you want these rocks moved? Well, would you like fries with that? Or I mean, you gotta get a job, right? Life doesn't care what you want. At the same time, I feel like the only way you have um the only way you have longevity is if you play bigger in a way. Okay. It's all the things that we've been talking about in this conversation. You have to play larger. You have to realize that this thing is bigger than you are, and you want to invite people in, sort of, to say, look, we can accomplish a hell of a lot more if we're all rowing the same direction here. So tell me what you want. Tell me what you're after. And I'm telling you, I can figure out how to get it. I talk to research people all the time who are frustrated because they're like, well, they asked me to do this research and they asked me to do reports, and I do my presentation, and people tune out immediately. They're like, they don't, so they don't they ask me to do all this stuff and then they don't care about it or they ignore it. And I say, Well, tell me how you're doing that. Tell me how you how do you present, how do you set up a report? What's the content? And it's the same kind of thing where you're taught, and the way that you think you're supposed to do it, from academia on down, teaches, you know, that the rigor is important, you know, that the the framing and the structure. And here's how we were responsible about what we went about doing. Here's how we know these numbers are trustworthy. And they start getting into process and all this stuff. And the truth is that those people you're talking to don't care about any of that as much as you do. They care about like, can I trust the results? That's a thing. But no one wants a half hour dissertation on why they can trust the results. They just want you to tell them, I'm not gonna get you into legal trouble here. The biggest thing is you've got to lead with here's what this means for us. Here's what we learned, here's what I think we should do. Here are the bets that we should place, here are the bets we shouldn't place, because the risk is high. Like you need to speak to the things that the business people in those room give a shit about. No one wants to be educated about the research process. They don't care. Nope. Nope. They'll tell you this is where you have to read people. They'll tell you that they want all that rigor and stuff, but it's in the back. Okay. That's why we have you lead with the end of the story. And if they want more, you give them more. But if they don't, because in 98% of the cases, they don't. They just want to know like, what are we doing? Why are we doing it? How does this let me breathe a little easier? I've often positioned things this way to executives who are stubborn. Like, look, you and I both know that you're placed in this bet with or without me.

unknown 1:27:44

Okay?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:45

You're gonna do what you're gonna do. All I'm telling you is that I can greatly minimize the risk that you're gonna lose your shirt when you do so. All right? I need a couple days to make that happen. I don't think that's too much in terms of the risk that you're you're staring down right now. Yep. And then the conversation changes. But notice I'm not talking about research. I'm not talking about best practice UX. I'm not talking about anything. I'm acknowledging reality. You and I both know you're gonna do this with or without me. Okay. So let's stop pretending that this is anything but I'm asking you for an additional two days because I think that you're gonna get hurt. All right, and here's how. So give me two days. Let's make a decision that you can feel confident about, no matter what it is. Okay? I don't care which way you go, it doesn't matter to me. But I'm here to help you. You're paying me to help you. And I think internally you have the same. You have the same ability, the same power. You just need to break it down in a way where it's human, as opposed to it being your job or your position or your profession or your whatever.

Business Lens: Margins, Models And Money

SPEAKER_01 1:28:56

It's a lot of people I don't know if I'm making sense. No, you well you are to me, right? Okay and I guess I'll hear about it. Unlikely. Unlikely that, yeah, folks who are listening maybe to this.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:09

What the hell was he talking about?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:11

Nah. It's it's like I said, everything, it's it's fundamentally a relationship, right? Um that is it. Understand what the need is. I don't oversimplify. I am oversimplifying this, but if you don't understand ultimately what the need is, you are not gonna get to the right outcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:37

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:38

Right? If this if we wanted to know, I'm just like making this all the top of my head now. If we wanted to know, okay, who does the best cookies in the world, right? Okay, grandma does the best cookies in the world. Okay, fine, great. I don't want to know anything other than where I need to go to get the best cookies in the world. Just a why. Don't tell me about the research. How many shops you've gone to, how many grandmas you've interrogated, what parameters you used, what kind of you know heuristic evaluation you model, whatever. Qualit, go to hell. If I'm interested, I might read it if I'm suffering from insomnia one time or not. Right. That's right. All I need to know. Cookies. Awesome. Where?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:30

Yeah, and see, that's a thing. You want we suffer from this thing where we want everybody to care as much as we do about all this minutiae. They don't have to. You have to to do a good job. You know that, right? I mean, to be a good researcher, you have to care about all those details. That's kind of a thing. You know, to be a good designer, there's a whole lot you have to care about. Everybody else doesn't. It doesn't have to matter to them at all. This is what freaks me out about tooling. In any way. Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:01

For example, tooling. I know where you're going. Yeah. You got to be, yeah, a figma guru. Whatever nonsense. Bullshit. Right? Tools. Give me a break. Can I can I create this thing which is going to articulate whatever it is I want to articulate so you can see it and you'll get it.

unknown 1:31:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:22

To this day, Joel, there's only one tool I use. It's a whiteboard and markers. That's it. There you go. It's all it ever will be.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:30

All of these job specified that, you know, folks who I'm mentoring. Yeah, I need to know this tool. I need to know you could learn a tool in a week.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:41

I mean, there's eight gazillion free tutorials. I same thing. I get people who are freaked out. Like, I've never used Figma. Okay. Have you used, what have you used? Well, I've used Sketch, I've used Exure, I've used Photoshop. Like anybody, here's my thing. It's going to piss people off. I'm going to say it anyway. Anybody can learn software. Okay. Some people are more natural at it than others. Some people are faster and more expedient. And some people are better at it than others. But it is not. Your mastery of software is not what is going to make or break your career at any given point in time. Ever. Not ever.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:22

Doesn't define you.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:23

It means nothing. In the grand scheme of things, it means very, very, very little. It's a box to check. All right. Anyone can you can learn the software. It's the last thing you should be worried about. The decisions you make with the software matter a hell of a lot more.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:36

I've had so many, and this breaks my heart, so many kids who have been rejected for roles. Yeah. And because they listened to me, and then they reapplied for the same damn roles, but they put in there specific keywords. And then they progressed to the next iteration. And you just kind of that's so fucked up. But it's the process, and okay, you've got to abide by that. It's the structure that we have right now. But it's incredibly frustrating.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:16

Well, you can break it too, though. I mean, it agreed those those patterns can be broken. When you figure out what that job listing is really saying, different story. Like I had someone who's an experienced researcher. She's like, you know, I'm looking at these roles, and they're like, they all say between five to seven years, and I have like 15, 16 years. So I can't even apply for these positions. I said, uh, it's not true. Here's what you have to realize. They're looking for somebody who they can pay a salary for someone who has five to seven years of experience. Does not mean that's what they want. It means they have budgetary constraints, but you would be surprised how fast those parameters change when they see someone who has demonstrated, well, I've helped these other organizations be or do or have these things, direct result of my work. Okay. Especially when those things are about profit or cost savings. You can't take that as gospel. All right. It's out there because they're hoping. That's a wish. That's a wish made made physical, right? We're hoping that we can get someone who has 20 years experience for the salary of someone who has five to seven years of experience. It's deciphering, you know, instead of just accepting this parameter of like, well, no, I can't do this because they want these things. They don't really.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:39

Again, it's a relationship. It's a conversation, but you're helping via a couple of emails, right? Totally. Okay, yeah. It's and then that turns into a negotiation. Yeah. Yeah. Get there later. Awesome. Joe, this. How are we doing? Is this I don't know. Is this a reasonable conversation we're having? It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:03

I think this is all I mean, seriously, not just because I'm involved in it. I mean, I think these are these things don't get enough air time. All right. They really don't, and they should. Thanks for it. All this other all this other stuff gets a hell of a lot of attention. You know, there is too much talk about process and tooling and design-specific stuff and product-specific stuff. It's bigger than that. It's all bigger than that. And all the moving parts and all the things that are going to hurt or help you in your career are much bigger than that. And not enough people are talking about any of those things. So I appreciate the conversation very much. And I'm thrilled to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:49

That's incredibly kind. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Closing, closing words. The floor is yours. Anything, anything at all. And take your time. Don't think, okay, yeah, five. No. What's the future for you, maybe? Um where would you like to see of this thing called design go, maybe? Right? Whatever, whatever. Over to you.

Service Design, Ecosystems And Relevance

SPEAKER_00 1:36:20

I I mean, I think for me it's it's a continuation of this path I've been on for a long time. Something happened to me about halfway through my career, and I remember it because I was in a I was in a meeting with a product team, and there were there were some executives in the room as well, but there was a shift in in the work that I did that went, it went from being about, okay, I'm here to help these, this company improve this product or improve this service or whatever. It changed from that to this is about the people in this room. What I care more about is unblocking the people in this room to do better work, to be more effective, to be more impactful, to collaborate better, to do any of a number of things. So my focus sort of shifted, right? It became about practitioners. Now I've never stopped doing consulting work for products and services. But I think the biggest obstacles, the reason products suck, is not because you don't have designers that know what they're doing, you don't have UXers know what they're doing, you don't have developers that know what they're doing. A lot of these people are wildly competent. Some of them are just amazing at every level. I met I've met engineers who's just whose brains are just beyond impressive to me, where I spend a week going, man, I wish I could look at the world like this guy does. You know? Um the thing, the roadblocks, the things that create products that suck are all the things we've talked about. It's interpersonal relationships, it's politics, it's it's a lack of understanding of how the other side of anything works. It these are people problems. So where I focus the majority of my work, even when I'm working directly with clients, it's about those people. It's always about those people. The path to better in every place is about people, right? So it's it's why I do consulting. It's why I write books, it's why I do the UX 365 Academy with online courses, it's why I do workshops, it's why I stand on stages and preach to people. It's why I do things like this. It is all about the larger, and again, to steal your analogy, it's it's about the ocean. Okay. It's about an acknowledgement that we are all in this together. And my firm belief, Joel, that it doesn't have to be this damn hard. Doesn't. Okay. It doesn't have to be this frustrating, it doesn't have to be this oppositional, it doesn't have to be this stressful, it doesn't have to be confrontational. My life and the work that I've done, the people I've done it with are living proof of that. So if anything, as as my career continues as long as I'm allowed to continue breathing air, that's always gonna be the focus. It's it's how can I how can I help? Yeah. Right? And how can we collectively help? We're all in this together. And that's that to me is always gonna be the mission.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:26

Love it. Absolutely love that. It's been amazing. This just thank you. Thank you so much. I know how incredibly busy you are, and rightly so. Um the value of just sharing small amount of time with you. It's um it's incredible. Just Wow, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:56

I appreciate that. And that goes that goes in the same direction as well. Okay, because I'm gonna tell you, if most people who had asked me to do something like this, the answer would have been, well, I can do it in about three months. But you were the one asking something, absolutely. Any any chance to talk to Joel, absolutely. I'm there. I'm there. I I respect you greatly, and I think you know that. You're you're the real deal all day long. And I'm I'm honored to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:25

Just thank you. I um, yeah, that's huge.