When I got off the phone with them, I felt the need to rage eat. This is never a good sign. Instead I chose to pour myself a glass of wine. Three weeks in and I’ve yet to have any shred of contact with the designer who’s actually doing the work. Instead the mockups are [Keep Reading…]
Mark Ruffalo and Sesame Street Teach Kids About Empathy
Empathy is a hard thing to understand, and it’s an even harder thing to do — if you weren’t raised to do it. With the help of actor Mark Ruffalo, Sesame Street tries to explain the meaning of empathy to the kids at home. Mark: “Empathy is when you’re able to understand and care about [Keep Reading…]
The Pros and Cons of An Emotional Boss
Yesterday I wrote about how it’s our responsibility to ensure our managers value us and truly understand what we do — and how and why we do it. Most managers want to set their direct reports up for success (whether they care about them as people or just cuz it makes them look good), but [Keep Reading…]
The Management Problem
During lunch on Monday at An Event Apart in Chicago, just after I had presented my talk What’s Your Problem? Putting Purpose Back into Your Projects, I sat with a group of gentlemen who all work on the same team at a large publishing house. They were kindly enthusiastic about my message and said it [Keep Reading…]
Designing Time
I recently wrote about how I’ve become much better at designing my own time. Recognizing the infinite options with which to spend it, having a clearer sense of what makes me happy and fulfilled has allowed me to make the right choices to meet my greater goals. This skill is not only crucial as it [Keep Reading…]
Four Years of Independence
Exactly four years ago today — Friday, August 22, 2008 — I “left work” for the last time. It was the last day of my last full-time job, and I’ve been independently employed ever since. I choose to say “independently employed” rather than self-employed because over these four years I’ve been forced to accept that [Keep Reading…]
On Empathy and Apathy: Two Case Studies
The suffix -pathy means “feeling” or “suffering” The prefix em- means “within” or “inside” The prefix a- means “not” or “without” By definition, empathy is the opposite of apathy. Empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another” — within + feeling or inside + suffering. Apathy is defined as [Keep Reading…]
Alan Alda falls victim to McAfee’s dreadful customer experience
A month ago, my mom forwarded me an article from the New York Times that I only got around to reading now (as is known to happen with forwards from Mom). Turns out she picked a good one: a forehead-slapper about acclaimed actor Alan Alda’s helluva time canceling his McAfee email monitoring: Theater of the [Keep Reading…]
The Empathy Belly at Ford Motor Company
Henry Ford famously said, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” Despite the lack of hard evidence that Ford actually uttered those words, the phrase is wielded by lots of designers and business owners who want to justify basing decisions on their instincts rather than engage [Keep Reading…]
How “When I…” Reasoning Poisons a Team
Earlier this year I had a client who hired me to redesign the first step in their 3-step process. The page was getting loads of customer complaints and the last three iterations on the design hadn’t helped. As always, I started the project by interviewing key stakeholders: the product manager, the product owner, the head [Keep Reading…]
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