The inaugural Pi People event
The 30th September marked the launch of Pi People, a regular event series for people in the business of designing and growing digital products, services and businesses. Our inaugural event didn’t fail to draw in the crowds, we had attendees from UsTwo, Rufus Leonard, General Assembly and The Guardian to name but a few. We were also joined by 3 fantastic speakers, Denise Hampson, former GB track cyclist, turned disruptive business owner and author of the Desire Code; John Willshire, founder of innovation studio Smithery; and Adaptive Lab’s very own head of UX, Scott Byrne-Fraser. The beer and wine flowed and an abundance of sushi consumed amongst lots of interesting conversation.
You can register your interest to attend at events+pi@adaptivelab.com. If you need more convincing then check out the videos and write up below.
John V Willshire
Founder of innovation studio, Smithery and the man behind Artefact Cards
Metaphorical Design Mechanics
John began his talk by taking us through a potted history of playing cards to explain why such a simple object has evolved over 100s of years and are still used in a number of ways today, from playing games, to practical uses like exploring ideas and building a business strategy.
John is the man behind Artefact Cards, a brilliant tool for anyone who works with ideas. Inspired by his obsession with cards over the years, he uses them when collaborating with companies to ideate and facilitate journeys of discovery and innovation.
John’s talk proceeded to answer the following questions:
- Are cards a thing?
- Why are cards a thing?
- Are cards a thing now?
Very quickly it came to light that cards are a practical object to use in projects with clients. Adaptive Lab have long advocated the use of John’s Artefact Cards, even going as far as creating our own customised deck. Ask to have a play the next time you’re here!
Scott Byrne-Fraser
Head of UX at Adaptive Lab, formerly BBC, Amazon and Sky
Tenacity
Scott’s talk focussed on the theme of tenacity and what it means to a UX Designer. He began by sharing 3 definitions of tenacity that he found on Google:
Tenacity:
- The quality or fact of being able to grip something firmly; grip
2. The quality or fact of being very determined; determination
3. The quality or fact of continuing to exist; persistence.
The 3rd definition is what Scott believes is most applicable to him and the role of a UX Designer, and took us on a journey of his own career to explain why.
Scott was Creative Director at the BBC when the Olympic website build kicked off. The website was a huge success and raised the bar in terms of what people expected from their user experience on the BBC website. With a vast budget and over 100 staff working on it, it went without saying that the website should have been an exemplary piece of work — and it was.
However, once the Olympics were over 60 designers went down to 4, with roughly the same number of developers. But the audience expectation didn’t dwindle. They expected the same level of experience for the World Cup, Wimbledon and even Darts on a weekday afternoon.
From here Scott explained how he got his limited team to broaden their minds and skillset to deliver the same level of experience for BBC audiences. Starting with prioritising, they got rid of the stuff from the site that they didn’t really need and they did this by asking audiences what it was about the Olympic website that really raised the bar? This allowed the team to have a razor sharp focus on only those elements.
Scott then turned his focus to the core team. He believed that if they were to put users at the heart of everything they did, they would have to wear multiple hats in their role. His team of UX Designers became multi-skilled, turning their minds to research and visual design, building prototypes and so on. They had to use resources around them to iterate ideas quickly, for example, they would leave prototypes in the BBC canteen to test on users to quickly receive feedback.
This experience was not only an education to his team to adapt and develop, but to key stakeholders. Instead of them being presented with a finished design or shiny deck with specifications, they had to lose some control and put their trust in the designers, and empower them to make quick decisions on the ground without their sign off.
It is in this anecdote that Scott believes tenacity is a compulsory trait for a UX designer in today’s fast evolving world. In order for that small team to exist and the level of user experience for BBC customers to continue they had to adapt and reinvent themselves to combat the challenge and deliver.
So what does tenacity mean to a UX Designer?
“As a Designer your role will be different in 12 months time. You’ll never stop learning… ….and you know what? You’ll have fun doing it”
“And if your job isn’t different you think why and what skills should I be learning. It keeps it fun, interesting and everyone at the top of their games.”
Denise Hampson
Former GB Track Cyclist, disruptive business owner and behavioural economics expert
Reinvention: The Ride from Elite Cyclist to Disruptive Business Owner
Our 3rd and final speaker Denise Hampson had a truly inspiring story to tell. Formerly a GB track cyclist Denise has totally reinvented herself on her career journey.
Denise is a former GB Track Cyclist who trained for many years with the dream of representing the UK at the Olympics. When this dream died she quickly realised that she could use everything she learnt from that significant time in her life and apply it to reinventing herself to do something entirely different.
Although very academic as a teenager Denise had an overwhelming desire to represent Great Britain in sport after watching the 1988 Olympic Games. She dabbled in Judo, but it was one November afternoon at the age of 14 when walking past a bike shop that she decided to dust off her dad’s old bike and just start cycling. She soon rocketed up the ranks to represent GB from 1999–2004.
After years of pouring her heart and soul into the sport and investing every penny she had in achieving her dream, she had a life changing moment in a training session. The world cup in Manchester was coming up and Denise turned up for her usual training session at the Velodrome. However, before taking to the tracks she looked at the other cyclists and suddenly thought “that looks weird”. Describing her out of body experience, Denise said that in that moment she stopped dead and couldn’t shake off the feeling of disconnect from the sport. After years of competing against the like of Victoria Pendleton she suddenly didn’t care who won.
Shortly after, Denise got the call that she would be representing GB at the World Cup but was filled with a sense of dread about how she will go through with it. After the World Cup was over, Denise quit the sport and went home with no idea of what to do next.
Her next adventure began with the links she had forged with her local leisure centre. They brought Denise on board to help with encouraging people to live healthily. That then lead on to further similar work and soon Denise was immersing herself in behavioural analysis, trying to understand why people behaved in the way that they did and what exactly prevents them from acquiring good habits. She found a lot of her clients designed services that their customers had to fit in with, instead of designing services they want. She came to the conclusion that many of us are too busy trying to fulfill supposed wants instead of actual needs and requirements. And so Denise came up with the Desire Code Framework. Denise uses this with many of her clients, including the NHS, and continues to evolve the theory behind it.
Denise left us all with a key takeaway:
“Bring your best game to work everyday, don’t hang on to great ideas, don’t keep anything in reserve, just bring it all out and be very open to the fact that the next place where that excellence might happen, might be in your next opportunity. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in the thing you’re pursuing right now. So leave yourself open to where that might happen.”
For more information on Pi People or to register your interest please email us at events+pi@adaptivelab.com.
