#mwux 16

[designaday]

Why I Speak at Conferences – 1 Year Later

After MWUX 16, I related a story about a guy who approached me during the closing party to thank me for my talk about UX debt. As I said then, it was an affirming experience.

I didn’t speak this year, but the ripples from last year’s talk continue to impact people in profound ways. During lunch, a young woman got my attention as I walked by and reminded me that she had spoken with me after I gave the talk at Interaction 17. We had eaten lunch together and I gave her advice on how to approach the debt situation she faced at her company. She informed me that she had been employing my advice and was making good progress.

Then, during another meal, I was approached by a man who had a few more years of experience than me. He was thrilled that I was at the conference—that he could meet me and tell me his story. He explained that he wasn’t at the conference last year, but that his boss had pointed him to the video of my talk. When he first watched it, he was skeptical, but he started assembling a UX debt inventory, and it hasn’t just helped him manage his debt, it completely changed the way his company works. They’ve been communicating more. They’ve been collaborating more. They’ve developed better working relationships and a common goal. It’s clear that they had bigger problems than just UX debt, but I’m thrilled that my talk and the tool I promoted was the catalyst by which he was able to affect such dramatic change. They call their debt inventory “the Moffett chart”.

That was a quite gratifying encounter. Once again, that is why I speak at conferences. You should try it.

Oh, and if you think your company could benefit from a talk about UX debt, please get in touch.

[designaday]

Don’t be Wimpy

This coming Thursday, IxDA Pittsburgh is holding a MWUX redux at Alloy 26. We’ll be showing a couple videos of talks from the conference, and I’ll be reprising my own talk, I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today: Managing UX Debt, live. I’d love to see you there.

Of course, if you can’t make it, you can still check out my talk on Vimeo. It just went up last night.

[designaday]

This is Why I Speak at Conferences

This past Saturday, I gave a talk about managing UX debt at Midwest UX 2016 in Louisville. It was very well received. I’ll write up a review of the conference soon, but tonight, I want to tell you why I enjoy doing this.

First, let me state that speaking at conferences is a lot of work. It takes a lot of time to prepare a talk. And while I don’t get stage fright, it is a little stressful. Many conferences have begun giving speakers a small honorarium, which is appreciated, but I wouldn’t do it just for that—it’s not enough. I admit that I do enjoy the notoriety I’ve received among the UX community, but that isn’t the reason I do it either. On to the story…

I was at 8UP, the wonderful eatery where the opening party was held, and I was between conversations, grabbing an appetizer. Jackie, one of my IxDA Pittsburgh cohorts, walked up followed by a very tall, rugged guy who looked familiar. After she introduced him, he reminded me that he had attended my workshop at MWUX 14 in Indianapolis, at which point I did remember that he was particularly excited about what he had learned there. He went on to explain that he had subsequently purchased my book and that it has had a profound effect on his company and his career. In fact, he even managed to convince his boss to give him a raise based on my description of a unicorn in the book. This was very gratifying.

But the story doesn’t end there. At the closing party, a few hours after I had given my talk, I was approached by another attendee that wanted to thank me for my talk. He explained that his boss, as well as other non-UX team members, had come to the conference, and he had been hoping that they would see a talk that would really impress upon them the importance and potential of good design practice. By Saturday afternoon, he was concerned that they hadn’t yet seen such a talk. Then, during my talk on UX debt, his boss texted him saying, “Okay, I get it.” In fact, his whole team was texting back and forth, recognizing the applicability of what I was sharing to their situation. We chatted for a long time, and he couldn’t thank me enough for the impact my talk was going to have on his team. I started tearing up.

This is why I speak at conferences. I’ve been blessed with an amazing career, and nothing brings me greater pleasure than to be able to share my experience with other designers. This past week was a very affirming experience.

If you’ve thought about submitting to a conference, but never have, I encourage you to give it a try.

[designaday]

MWUX 16 Begins Now

I’m taking off for Louisville. Maybe I’ll see you there.

http://2016.midwestuxconference.com/event/ill-gladly-pay-you-tuesday-for-a-hamburger-today-managing-ux-debt/

[designaday]

MWUX 16 & Me

The program for Midwest UX 2016 was announced on Friday, and I’m very excited to be included in it. I’ll be speaking on Saturday, October 22nd, at 2:50 pm in the Palace Theatre. The title of my talk is “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today: managing UX debt”. And I’m just one of a host of excellent speakers including Steve Baty, Hazel Jennings, Brad Weaver, and Chris Avore. We’re going to have a fantastic time in Louisville, so be there!

Of course, if you can’t wait that long to see me speak, snag one of the few remaining tickets to Abstractions. You’ll find me there on the Framework Stage next Friday, the 19th, at 1:30 pm.

[designaday]

A Cornucopia of Conferences

I pointed out in yesterday’s post that UX Australia published their call for speakers and that the new Abstractions conference will be doing so soon. Then today, I received email from Midwest UX 2016 announcing their call for speakers. That’s a lot to think about.

I have my talk for Interaction 16, 10 Team Goals for Effective Design Specifications, coming up the first week of March. It’s a 20 minute talk, but only a small portion of what I had originally conceived as a full-length talk, so I’ll probably submit that to MWUX and Abstractions. I’ve also been doing some writing about enterprise UX debt, and I plan to submit a talk on that as well.

UX Australia, though, is a little tougher. They pay speakers $800, but my flight would cost about twice that, and then there’s the hotel bill. To make that trip affordable, I would really have to do a workshop and fill it. That conference isn’t interested in technical topics, so I’m not going to submit anything on OOCSS. I may think about developing a workshop based on my design documentation talk or UX debt, but they may not lend themselves to hands-on exercises. Another possibility would be to turn one of my college courses into a workshop, like data visualization or game design. That would be fun, but cutting down a semester’s worth of content to around 6 hours will be challenging.

What to do, what to do…