July 9, 2024

Lunch n' Learn: Talking Tech - Giving and receiving critical feedback

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break. These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry.

Susanna Carman

Speaker Bio 🎤

Susanna Carman is a Strategic Designer and research practitioner who helps people solve complex problems involving services, systems, and human interactions. Specializing in design, leadership, and learning, Susanna brings a high-value toolkit and herself as a Thinking Partner to design leadership and change practitioners who are tasked with delivering sustainable solutions amidst disruptive conditions. 

Susanna holds a Master of Design Futures degree from RMIT University. She has over a decade of experience delivering business performance, cultural alignment, and leadership development outcomes to the education, health, community development, and financial services sectors. She is also the founder and host of Transition Leadership Lab, a nine-week learning lab for design, leadership, and change practitioners who already have a sophisticated set of tools and mindsets but still feel these are insufficient to meet the challenge of leading change in a rapidly transforming world.

Grab your lunch, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next Lunch n’ Learn! 🥪

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1 min read

Lunch n' Learn: Talking Tech - Giving and receiving critical feedback

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break. These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry.

Susanna Carman

Speaker Bio 🎤

Susanna Carman is a Strategic Designer and research practitioner who helps people solve complex problems involving services, systems, and human interactions. Specializing in design, leadership, and learning, Susanna brings a high-value toolkit and herself as a Thinking Partner to design leadership and change practitioners who are tasked with delivering sustainable solutions amidst disruptive conditions. 

Susanna holds a Master of Design Futures degree from RMIT University. She has over a decade of experience delivering business performance, cultural alignment, and leadership development outcomes to the education, health, community development, and financial services sectors. She is also the founder and host of Transition Leadership Lab, a nine-week learning lab for design, leadership, and change practitioners who already have a sophisticated set of tools and mindsets but still feel these are insufficient to meet the challenge of leading change in a rapidly transforming world.

Grab your lunch, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next Lunch n’ Learn! 🥪

Learn more
1 min read

UX Insider: The value of qualitative research for business stakeholders

Every month we have informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your day. These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry 🚀

Do you want to learn ways to uplift qualitative researchers and value their skill sets as business assets?

In an effort to make “data-driven” decisions, business leaders look to research for guidance. However, there is often an implicit priority for quantitative research over qualitative research.  Often, even if qualitative research is funded and the findings are valued, the qualitative researcher and their skill sets can feel under-appreciated at an organizational or business unit level.

Let’s uplift the qualitative researcher and honor the craft of qualitative research as a transferable skill set. In this talk we will discuss: 

  • Theories about why business leaders have a hard time thinking about qualitative research findings as “data”
  • Techniques for navigating the quant vs. qual conversation with non-research minded stakeholders — with an emphasis on not pitting research methods against each other.
  • The importance of modeling qualitative researcher behaviors in other business contexts.
  • How thinking like a qualitative researcher can close organizational gaps and aid in consensus building
  • Tips for demonstrating the value of thinking and acting like qualitative researchers

Jennifer Long

Speaker Bio 🎤

Jennifer is a business generalist with UX Research and Information Architecture chops. She spent six years at Factor, an Information Architecture Consulting Firm, where she most recently held the Chief of Staff role. Jennifer has an MBA, a certificate of UX design from School of Visual Concepts in Seattle, and Bachelor of Arts in Theatre. She strongly believes in building stakeholder consensus and adding depth to projects through careful exploration. She lives in Washington State near the U.S./Canadian border and loves hiking in the North Cascades with her family and their German Shepherd mutt.

Take a seat, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next UX Insider!

Learn more
1 min read

Lunch n' Learn: Research - Content design skills worldwide

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break.  These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry. 

Join us at the end of every month for Lunch n' Learn. 🌯

Torrey Podmajersky

A lot goes into good content design (AKA UX writing), but what exactly is that "lot" made up of? Torrey Podmajersky tackled the question with research: What are the skills content designers use in their roles? Torrey's research uncovered 94 skills, and her open survey gathered results from every economic region of the globe, surveying more than 800 people in its first month. The insights into the core skills of content design, combined with the impacts that can be made with those skills, are helping designers make better products by investing in the right efforts.

Speaker Bio 🎤

Torrey Podmajersky is the president of Catbird Content and author of the bestselling book Strategic Writing for UX. Torrey helps teams solve business and customer problems using UX and content. She has consulted on and created inclusive and accessible consumer and professional experiences for Fortune 500s and startup clients in consumer, B2B, and enterprise software spaces, including Google, OfferUp, and Microsoft.

Grab your lunch, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next Lunch n’ Learn! 🥪

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