2012 has been a big year for me, one of tremendous evolution and many new experiences. At the start of the year, I expanded my vision of user experience beyond product design and shifted my focus to organizational empathy. Designing the product is all for naught if you don’t first take the time to design [Keep Reading…]
Archives for 2012
Hostess treats their customers as badly as they treat their employees
If you haven’t heard, Hostess is filing for bankruptcy. Hostess Brands, known for making iconic snacks such as Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, is closing its plants, letting go of 18,000 workers, and totally liquidating its assets. A massive union strike and tremendous debt brought them here. But underneath it all, the real reason [Keep Reading…]
Being Good
There’s a very interesting post in NY Times Bits Blog today, comparing Monday’s departure of Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows division, with Apple’s firing of Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iOS Software, two weeks ago. In the post, the author asks, “When do the costs of keeping brilliant leaders who cannot seem [Keep Reading…]
How Empathy Won the Election
Congratulations to President Barack Obama on winning his second term. I am deeply proud to have helped re-elect him to be our leader. I do not agree with all of his policies. I have been disappointed with some of his decisions. But I am able to see past that, because when I look into his [Keep Reading…]
The People Who Were Killed By Hurricane Sandy
[Updated: Thursday, November 22, 12:58am ET] My deepest gratitude to New York Magazine for publishing my memorial to the people who lost their lives to Hurricane Sandy. Their researchers have helped to fill in some of the blanks on previously unidentified victims. You can continue to find the latest information here, as I have been [Keep Reading…]
What’s Your Problem? Putting Purpose Back into Your Projects
[This is the written form of my presentation What’s Your Problem? Putting Purpose Back into Your Projects] Our story begins in the 1980s at Procter & Gamble, the largest consumer goods company in the world. They make Bounty, and Mister Clean, and Dawn and lots of other brands you know and love. P&G was raking [Keep Reading…]
How do you choose your clients?
I can tell if a project is going to be worth my time from the very first communication I have with the client. If they talk about their work with passion and excitement, if they want to connect with me as one human being to another, if they are willing to invest their time and [Keep Reading…]
What is it like to be a creative entrepreneur?
At SXSW earlier this year, my friend Saul Colt asked me to sit down for an interview on the topic of creative entrepreneurship. The questions asked are ones I often get on what it’s really like to be independent. The video produced by YouNoodle and sponsored by FreshBooks was released last week. What lessons have [Keep Reading…]
Whitney Hess: The Cultural Questionnaire
I was asked to complete a questionnaire for One Two One Two Microphone Check, a project by Alex Duloz. OTOTMC has questionnaires on Work, Lifestyle, Culture, Health & Beauty, Nightlife, and If I Could Do It All Over Again. They’re all in the style of Proust Questionnaires, meant to reveal your true personality. I chose [Keep Reading…]
When Empathy Looks Like Apathy: Baby Boomers and Millennials at Work
Don’t be so quick to judge someone else’s ability to empathize, or you may just demonstrate a lack of empathy yourself. There’s a lot of talk these days about the rift between Baby Boomers and Millennials in the workplace, a squabble between parents and their children. Boomers says their young colleagues are self-entitled and aloof. [Keep Reading…]
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