Talks
Selected conference talks and workshops, 2017–2026. Interested in having me speak? Get in touch.
AIGA Practical Institute of Creative Survival
This webinar introduced 200 participants to consider their job search as a two-way match, not an audition.
Queer your career
What does it mean to “queer” something — especially a career? How can a career express this? My bestie of 40 years and I unpack this and engage online participants in an hour-long workshop.
Introducing PeopleWork
My 2nd trip to SDAF, this time to introduce PeopleWork — touching on feedback culture, with a reminder that you are not your work.
Feedback: the gift you keep on giving and receiving
Session on feedback culture, part of a four-city workshop series.
11 lessons from 25 years
The final class lecture of FH Johanneum's Content Strategy graduate seminar.
IBM Digital Growth & Commerce
In-house workshop & talk.
Brand is Product is Marketing is Operations (version 3)
Talk and workshop at RGD’s Design Thinkers conference.
Adobe Live — World Interaction Design Day
Talk on how the year’s theme, trust & responsibility, shows up in critique.
Feedback: the gift you keep on giving and receiving
Workshop on how to ask for, provide, and integrate feedback into your work.
Brand is Product is Marketing is Operations (version 2)
Advising and helping shape the experience of this conference, alongside presenting — bringing craft, operations, and strategy together.
Brand is Product is Marketing is Operations (version 1)
On why holistic, X-shaped teams outperform siloed ones — and why there’s more in common than you might think across brand, product, marketing, and operations.
In/Visible Talks
Lecture and workshop on feedback
People Persist
15 lenses on the theme of this year's Forum, Be More Human -- continuing the People Layer journey.
Then, Now, Next: the evolution of design business
Three distinct eras of the practice of design -- how teams have organized (and reorganized) in each.
What Persists: People, Process, and Performance
An updated People Layer framework, why 'process' gets resisted at startups, and resources for optimizing individual, team, and org performance.
Get Shit Done Club
On shipping without the shit -- proven methods for getting things out the door without sacrificing quality.
Google Sprint Conference
Lightning lesson on intersectionality
The People Layer 1.0
A design systems conference is a great place to talk about the o.g. atomic units of the design practice: people.
14 Lessons x 22 Years
Keynote presentation for Arizona State University's Herberger Institute, plus a faculty session the following morning.
The People Layer (beta)
The deepest, most complex layer of any organization — and the one that persists beyond changes in aesthetics, code, UX, UI, tools, and trends.
