Google This: An Evening w/ Designers
A talk I attended in Denver and the journey that accompanied it
This evening, I attended a workshop titled “Navigating Your Design Career: An Evening with Google Designers”. It was an interesting, engaging and relevant talk that I enjoyed quite a bit. In this post, I will be talking about what I learned, and the experience as a whole.
For the sake of content, I’d like to talk a little bit about my whole journey to Denver. I started by mapping my route to the Industry Station at RiNo. I’d been there before for the Matchbox event at the beginning of the program. It was going to take about an hour from the Boulder bus station to Union Station, then another twenty minutes from Union Station to the RiNo stop if I took the tram. I didn’t really want to switch trains, so I looked up how long it would take it just ride my bike from Union to RiNo. It said fifteen minutes. Even better. I rode to the Boulder station when the time came, slapped my bike on the front of the bus, and took my seat. I ended up getting a lot of work done on the bus while listening to clayton k’s DJ set. It was packed to the brim with bangers.
I got off at Union Station and started cruising along the path that followed the train tracks. I passed by Coors’ Field, gazing at all the purple neon signage. I was the only one around for what felt like miles. I stopped to take this picture.
I navigated my way through the RiNo neighborhood, taking all that I had never seen before. I finally arrived at the Industry Station where I immediately saw Yeon. I locked up my bike, checked-in, and sat beside Yeon. Dave and Yangmin eventually joined us as well.
The talk itself consisted of four Google employees and one host. One of the speakers was Lilly Sosa, who held a workshop in the studio a couple of weeks ago. She recognized us a couple of minutes into the talk. There was a UX manager, UX researcher, a UX engineer, along with Lilly, who is an Interaction Designer. As far as the actual content of the talk goes, it was very similar to things that we’ve been speaking about throughout the program so far. How to treat your research, your fellow collaborators, etc. What tools they’ve been using, how to put yourself out there. A lot of was just reinforcing some things I’ve been realizing over these past months, which is definitely not a bad thing. In fact, hearing this from people who work at Google only made me want to strive even more toward these goals I have set. They mentioned that when interviewing candidates, they look for strong problem-solving skills and likability. They have to want to work with you. They have to think you’d be a good fit for the team. This seems obvious but again, the reinforcement was helpful.
After the talk ended, we went up to speak to the Google employees. First, I spoke to the UX Researcher and asked her some questions about if she does any physical collection of data rather than just digital. I’m interested in the idea of becoming a UX Researcher or planner as well as a designer, so I wanted to learn as much as I could. Afterward, we went up Lilly, who greeted us with a hug. It was nice to be acknowledged like that. It made me feel #special, just like my mom tells me I am.
We wrapped up the conversation and people started to fizzle out. I said goodbye to my program-mates and hopped back on my bike, going back the way I came. It was darker this time, and I felt even more alone. But in a good way. I felt free, happy with what I had accomplished this week so far. I completed the rest of my work on the bus back to Boulder, all while listening to Angel Olsen. By the time I returned, the Tuesday PM branding class was getting out and I stopped to talk to some of my friends. Gia was telling me about how they started learning about grid systems, a topic I think I need some refreshing on.
Overall, I’m happy I attended this talk. It reinforced a lot of my current beliefs and topics we’ve covered in the program, which made me feel confident in myself and in the studio. The trip down to Denver wasn’t bad either. Made for a fun journey, as is life.
