Speaking

I speak frequently at conferences, public events, and private, in-house events. I speak about design, strategy, and digital transformation. Here are a few recent talks…

Sense & Respond

A talk that draws on themes from my book, Sense & Respond. Your organization is—like it or not—in the software business. This talk shares five key principles you’ll need to embrace to thrive in this new world. Recorded at LX 2017, in San Francisco, CA.

In this closing keynote from Mind the Product San Francisco, Josh Seiden and Jeff Gothelf, the authors of Sense & Respond and Lean UX, shared a story about wheat farming as a parable for understanding our customers and how to respond to our their needsand technological change.

The Farm Awakens

What happens with an industrial giant gets into the software business. If you’re not careful? you might get stuck with the problems faced by John Deere. In this talk, my co-author Jeff Gothelf and I tell the story of what happens when tractors and combine become big rolling computers. Spoiler alert: heroes, villains, legislation, and Eastern European hackers. Recorded at Mind The Product in SF, 2017

At Interaction11 in Boulder Colorado Dick Buchanan told us that an interaction is "how people relate to other people through the mediating influence of products." Earlier, at Interaction09 in Vancouver, Robert Fabricant told us, that "interaction design is not about computing technology." Instead, he argued that "Behavior is our medium." These statements have become uncontroversial in the world of interaction design, and yet when we talk about design methods, we still talk about methods for designing products and for human-computer interfaces. We have a body of methods to design products (the "mediating influences") but very few tools and approaches available to work with the larger systems of interaction. Recently though, we've seen teams having success with methods that blend Service Design, Lean Startup, and Lean UX methods into what I call "Learning From Live Systems" approach. By launching services early and powering them with a mix of software and human "concierge" services, teams are able to develop and test systems even as they are under construction.

Learning From Live Systems

What happens when we move from designing things to systems? At Interaction ‘16, the global design conference, I explored some of the new methods that designers are using. Dig in if you’d like to hear a bit more about Rudy Guiliani & Times Square, MVPs made with lawn chairs, and how your organization can use live, in-market prototyping to learn what you need to learn to be successful. Recorded at IxD ‘16 in Helsinki.

“Thank you for the wonderful talk today. It was fantastic. Clear, concise, and actionable wisdom that I am sure a bunch of folks will take back to their companies and put into practice. Your delivery was super professional and pitch-perfect.”

—Jake Foster, CTO, Level Equity

 


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