Musings on UXPA International 2021, Traveling Again After 17 Months, and Presenting an In-person Keynote in the Midst of a Pandemic On the speaking front, it’s been a busy last year and a half — the dry erase-scrawled line items on my home office whiteboard tell the tale. 100% of those engagements, as you might imagine, happened virtually: behind a webcam and the warm glow of my MacBook Pro’s screen. Often…

Human-Centered Interaction, Design, & Inspiration — In 2015 I had enough. After nearly a dozen consecutive years in agency design leadership — and being privy (personally and second hand) to so many of the negative dynamics associated with that world — I wrote an article for A List Apart called “Resetting Agency Culture.” The impetus for…

The moment I first heard that piercing newborn shriek this past March, I knew I was in for a ride; another ride, to be accurate. In a flash, my second child’s birth brought back all the hallmarks of baby life that were still lingering at the periphery from my first…

I was invited to give the opening keynote at this year’s MidwestUX conference in Chicago, which was held last month. My talk, “Creative Culture: Human-Centered Interaction, Design, & Inspiration,” revolved around the…

It’s rather surreal; it seems like just yesterday the book’s launch party was on the horizon, and now here we are: the 1-year anniversary of Cultivating a Creative Culture. What began 3 years ago with an A List Apart article has evolved into something so much more inclusive. The past…

On Friday, March 23rd I was invited to speak and run a workshop in Stockholm at international agency Futurice’s “Design Day”. Under the banner of “Rethink / Refresh”, Futurice flew in all designers from their 6 offices — Helsinki, Tampere, London, Berlin, Munich, and Stockholm — for a day of inspiration, collaboration, recalibration. The event was conceived around the following mindset: The meaning of design in digital services has long ago…

A week ago today, early in the evening, I left work to pick up my son from daycare. …

User Defenders’ Jason Ogle Joins as Co-Host

In my book Cultivating a Creative Culture, Chapter 4 (“Beyond the Viewport”) articulates the value of being inspired away from the confines of our desks and the digital realm. Thematically, the chapter illustrations of the book revolve around a genderless hummingbird character; the respective subject matter of each chapter impacting…