Design it Build it London 2016
A few weeks ago I had a chance to attend Design it Build it conference in London.
The day was packed with inspirational speakers, all talking about the importance of design and the process, how to form a solid creative team and of course the technical aspects of product development.
Here are my top 3 favourite speakers and the key takeaways from DiBi 2016 Conference.
Tobias Van Schneider
Product Designer
“Side Projects Are Stupid”
This was my favourite talk of the day. I’ve been following Tobias’ blog for a while and, to be completely honest, I only picked to attend this conference, because I’m a big fan of his work.
The opening keynote was called “Side projects are stupid”. I was really intrigued to hear why side projects are stupid, only to find out that it was an intended pun. To my relief, Tobias explained that side projects SHOULD be stupid, because your free time is the only time you can allow yourself to try stupid things and work on crazy ideas. One of his “stupid” side projects Authentic Weather managed to hit 1m downloads of the app.
Key takeaway from Tobias’ talk:
let yourself be stupid, trust your gut and stay busy pursuing your crazy ideas
Josh Payton
Vice President User Experience at Huge
“Missed Connections”
Josh was a great speaker, I really liked his open and relaxed style of talking with a slight hint of sarcasm which made the audience giggle quite a few times.
Missed Connections talk was about digital ecosystems that are made up of solo products and what challenges arise when these products are designed and developed in silo, not taking into consideration the wider perspective of the whole system.
“Digital products don’t stand alone” — by this point I was visibly nodding in an agreement, because I have to deal with exactly same issues at my day to day job at BT. Josh gave quite a few examples illustrating why such approach doesn’t work (one of them was, particularly painful these days in London — South West trains).
Key takeaway from Josh’s talk:
the system is a product. When designing solutions make sure you’re aware in which part of the system your product slots in, and create the best experience possible
Jane Austin
Director of UI and User Experience at Moo
“Designing the Design Team”
Last (but not least) entrant in my top 3 talks from Design it Build it Conference was Jane Austin. Jane explored the topic of what makes a great design team and its leader.
It was so interesting to hear that Jane didn’t have to do any design work on the most important project she has ever led. She was in charge in assembling the best team, but then she had to learn how to step back and give a complete control to the team. Jane said that her main responsibility was to empower her team and create conditions for people to do their best.
Key takeaway from Jane’s talk:
a great leader is a person who understands what is the purpose of each team member and then helps them get there
Tickets for next year’s Design it Build it conference are already on sale and if you’re quick you’ll be able to get an early bird price. Would I recommend attending it? Hell yes. It’s a great day out, you get to network, listen to some great talks by really inspiring designers, developers and digital gurus, but most importantly, you get motivated to get out of your comfort zone and make stuff happen!
