Listen to the latest episode at noon with Where Are The Black Designers founder, Mitzi Okou
Join the live premier on YouTube at 12 PM PST
Happy first day of February and Black History Month! I’ve had a few releases of the podcast and guest appearances worth checking out.
Latest Episode Drops Today
My latest episode of Technically speaking drops today with Mitzi Okou founder of Where Are The Black Designers?.
Black designers make up 3% of the entire industry. That was the report that came out of the 2019 AIGA design census report.
That includes graphic designers, illustrators, web designers, UX designers, a wide sweeping set of roles. This number is also the foundational problem addressed by an initiative turn movement called where are the black designers? We walked through exciting developments in Mitzi’s career and the origins behind the, Where Are The Black Designers conference and what's in the organization's future.
The podcast premiers on YouTube at 12pm PST and will be live across all podcast platform.
Pod with Creative Boom 🏴
I had an opportunity to join Katy Cowan on the Creative Boom Podcast. Creative Boom is the UK’s premier art, design, and visual culture magazines that I had the honor of being featured on. I have so much respect for Katy and we covered so much on this episode. Here’s a bit of the description:
“Here, you'll enjoy a fascinating insight into Harrison's experiences so far – where he grew up, how he got into technology and design, why he started out as an entrepreneur. We also look at how social media has changed over the last decade and consider where it's heading next. (Who knew Rick Astley would get a mention!)
We chat about the events of 2020, how it's changed how we work, transformed our perspective and why there's much hope for the future. There's even a moving story about how an Apple Watch saved Harrison's life”
Students of UXD
What does the path of getting into UX design look like? Julia Fernandez and Vicky Vo share their experience moving into the design industry around and their motivation to start their group, Students of UXD to help empower the next generation of aspiring designers.
“Let’s find the people who know about these topics and let them us and teach us students as well. We were thinking of being the bridge that connect these, experienced designers to the members of our community”
Vicky Vo
They'll share tips on where to start in your career as an aspiring designer and how you can get involved in the group.
They have topics ranging from AR/VR, Accessibility, Breaking Bias, Articulating Design Decisions, and in November, had an opportunity to lead a workshop entitled, Design Community Must Not Stay Silent which is now live on YouTube.
Designing Enterprise Systems with Theresa Slate
Theresa Slate is a multidisciplinary designer in diversity and inclusion consultant who has been crafting meaningful experiences in a range of industries, including consumer electronics, retail, and healthcare. She supported organizations, both in-house and outside as a consultant, which we'll get into.
We dive into designing systems at scale and the challenges associated with that, and what innovation means when working at a large legacy companies.
Sharing Accountability, Building Teams, and Social Justice
Back in November, I joined Dan Wu on the The Reorg, It is a podcast dedicated to understanding how founders, operators and industry experts think about organizing and empowering their teams. Here is a quick description of the episode:
Harrison is a Design Manager at LinkedIn and one of the most thoughtful and outspoken design voices in the industry. Before LinkedIn, Harrison scaled the design team at BaseCRM, which was acquired by ZenDesk in 2018. In this conversation we discussed what “having a seat at the table” means, being accountable to your customers, building teams and culture and the importance of speaking up on social justice issues in the workplace. Harrison is a good friend of mine and every time I chat with him I always gain a new and unique perspective. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Harrison.