20 conversations with 20 people worth knowing.
If you aren’t familiar with Ways We Work, it is an online publication and growing archive of over 100 interviews with professionals focused on how they do the work they love. The interviews are long-form and dig into the nitty gritty of what meaningful work looks like for different people and how they go about pursuing it.
So here’s 30 people we’ve talked to in the last few months and the best insights we’ve taken from our conversations with them.
Heath Black is a product manager at reddit and believes that time-sequencing is more effective that time-saving.
Brenna Loury is head of marketing at todoist and she talks about getting menial talks out of the way first and the times of day she’s most productive.
Mark DiCristina is marketing director at MailChimp and finds the most challenging aspect learning as he goes, and working in this role for the first time.
Melissa Sariffodeen is the co-founder of Ladies Learning Code and talks about the challenge of working in non-profit and making the organization sustainable.
Aaron Mahnke is the creator of the Lore Podcast and he shares how he balanced writing and freelance work with launching a successful podcast.
Lara Parker is an editor at BuzzFeed in LA and shares how challenging it was to land her first role and how she ended up in the role she now loves.
Anna Vasquez is a professional architect turned independent jewelery maker, and talks about what that transition was like.
Nathan Garvie is a product designer who talks about his success in founding his own design agency and the eventual move to California to his current role at Facebook.
Jon Johnson is a self-taught freelance designer who talks about how he got started and how to get out of your own way.
Darrin Henein is design lead at Firefox Mozilla who dreamt of making his own mobile game. He shares the story of how he finally did it.
Marie Forsberg is a food photographer in London who after graduating with two degrees in Fashion and Middle Eastern studies, found herself not wanting to work in either and instead had to make a career for herself.
Alexander Mayes is a product design at Instagram and he talks about honing his design skills by working design jobs during school and how doing both at once developed his work ethic.
Tiffani Jones Brown is the creative director at Pinterest and shares her advice for young professionals and professionals at any stage in their career about practicing your passion.
Sabrina Smelko is a freelance designer and editor for Design*Sponge and shares the way she’s been able to make her career work congruous with her lifestyle.
Ann Friedman is a freelance journalist and writer who was thrown into the freelance life after being fired from her job and has since spent the last three years crafting her own idea role.
Taylor Burk is an adventure and travel photographer who shares how he transitioned from working as a plumber to a well known photographer.
Grace Garey is co-founder of Watsi, the first non-profit accepted into Y Combinator. She shares how she approaches such a fast paced role, and her approach to marketing having no prior experience with it.
Cap Watkins is the VP of Design at BuzzFeed in New York and talks about the transition into his role at BuzzFeed, why he loves managing a team and advice for designers on when it’s time to move on from something.
Geoff Teehan is the product design director at Facebook and shares some of his philosophies for maintaining a productive work environment for him and his teams.
Huda Idrees is the head of design at Wealthsimple and shares how she got started working in product design and how she approaches the challenges she faces in her work.
