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d.MBA

Trent Huon is a business design director at IDEO Munich. After finishing his MBA, he first worked as a management consultant.
 
As he never went through official design training, he had to learn design on the job when he joined IDEO. We talk about his transformation into designer and about the relevance of business in design.
 
Some of the topics we covered in this episode are:
 
 • how to show non-designers the value of design,
 • why spending some time thinking about business is super valuable and,
 • how you can start thinking about the business side of design even if you know nothing about it.
 
If you want to learn more about business, visit beyondusers.com where you can take a 5-day email course - A mini MBA for designers. In these emails, I present five business concepts that are relevant for designers.

1- Trent Huon @IDEO: Not thinking about business is bad design

Joe Gerber is a business designer and a managing director of IDEO CoLAB. After studying biology, taking an MBA, and working as a product manager, he joined IDEO as the first business designer in the New York office. 
 
In the episode we spoke about:
 
 • how to systematically test your design so that it achieves users and business goals,
 • the role of vocabulary in bridging different design disciplines, 
 • how do you use design approach to reduce risks in highly risky business situations, 
 • and Joe's favourite business design questions that you can use in your project.

2- Joe Gerber @IDEO: Business thinking creates more opportunities, not less

Joel Califa is a senior product designer at GitHub. He recently wrote a very interesting and popular blog post Subverted Design, which describes what happens if designers forget that their first responsibility is still the user. You can read the full article on Joel's blog. 
 
In this episode we spoke about:
 
 • examples of subverted design and how you can fight against it
 • why putting users first is designers role even if other departments want us to become business-focused,
 • and why you should still learn about business. 
 
 
 
More info on www.beyondusers.com

3- Joel Califa @GitHub: Business, yes. But users first.

Marc Hemeon has a truly impressive CV. He has lead design at YouTube, Google Ventures, Oakley, Digg, Design Inc, Fflick and lately Ease Central. He has been designing since 1996 and is a true veteran in the design community. 
 
In this episode we spoke about:
 
 • the distinction between art and design,
 • how ugly design can beat beautiful design,
 • how to explain the value of your work to non-designers by finding the metrics they care about. 
 
 
 
Show notes:
 
 • 2:10 How did Marc get into design in 1996?
 • 4:50 How to sell design services?
 • 10:20 How to show the value of your work by finding the metrics that organisation cares for
 • 16:30 How Marc presents his designs to get buy-in from stakeholders
 • 21:30 Asking for information and feedback from stakeholders?
 • 25:30 Finding the balance between user goals and business goals (defining your design ethics)
 • 29:40 Examples of balancing user and business goals
 • 36:05 Marc's biggest design mistake (aka YouTube player disaster)
 • 39:00 Design Inc's story (and what clients want from designers)
 • 42:40 "Career exercise" that each designer has to do
 • 50:00 Why Design Inc did not succeed
 • 56:00 Marc explains why "design is not art"
 • 1:02:30 Success = 80% Sell, 20% Design
 • 1:08:35 What advice would Marc give to young designers?
 • 1:12:20 What is one thing about design Marc has changed his mind about?

4- Marc Hemeon @Facebook: Design is not art

Bobby Ghoshal is a co-host of a famous podcast High Resolution and a co-founder of a startup Candid Co. He has more than 15 years of experience in the design world and is a big proponent of bringing design closer to business. 
 
In this episode we spoke about:
 
 • how to do user research that is rooted in business problems
 • how to measure and present results of your design work, 
 • and how to hire and train a design team to become more business-savvy.
 
Show notes:
 
 • 3:55 How did Bobby get into design? 
 • 7:45 How 11-year old Bobby sold his art to parents
 • 11:20 How Bobby's early sales experience translated into design
 • 13:30 How to recognize if a designer is business-savvy?
 • 16:40 How to train a designer to become more business-savvy?
 • 21:30 How Bobby and his team does user research that is rooted in business challenges?
 • 36:45 How does design team at Candid Co track and present results of design work?
 • 41:15 Bobby's advice for designers who are just starting
 • 46:25 What is one thing Bobby changed his mind about design after recording High Resolution?

5- Bobby Ghoshal @Candid Co: How to do user research that is rooted in business

Sudy Majd is a customer experience research lead at Candid Co. In the fifth episode, I spoke with Bobby, a colleague of Sudy, and we talked a lot about the way they do user research at Candid Co so it only made sense to dive deeper into these topics with Sudy. She has a PhD specialized in consumer behavior and behavioral economics. 
 
In the episode we spoke about:
 
 • doing proactive user research that anticipates rather than reacts to business challenges,
 • how to mix qualitative and quantitative research methods,
 • and how to find the right profiles for your research questions. 
 
Show notes:
 
 • 1:50 What did Sudy do before joining Candid Co?
 • 6:20 How does academia work translate into Sudy's work at Candid Co?
 • 8:20 An example of behavioral economic applied to Candid Co
 • 11:00 How to proactively create briefs for user research
 • 15:10 Research methods that Sudy uses in her work
 • 19:50 What is a suitable sample size for quantitative and qualitative research
 • 22:05 How to phrase questions for interviews and questionnaires
 • 26:50 How to find the right profiles for user research?
 • 35:30 How to bundle different research questions in one study
 • 37:20 How does Sudy synthesise learnings? 
 • 39:30 What are the common mistakes that beginners make? 
 • 42:10 Who is part of the research team at Candid Co?
 • 43:20 What one thing about design that surprised Sudy in a positive and one in a negative way?

6- Dr. Sudy Majd @Candid Co: How to do user research rooted in business II

Steve Vassallo is a general partner at Foundation Capital (VC firm that invested in Pocket, Netflix, Uber etc.). Prior to that, he worked as a lead designer at IDEO where he worked on a famous Cisco's 7900 series VoIP phone. He recently published a book "The Way to Design", which helps designers become entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs adopt best design practices. You can read the book for free online.
 
In the episode we talked about:
 
 • why will the 21st century be the decade of design,
 • why empathy has become a buzzword and what empathy really is,
 • common struggles of designers who want to become entrepreneurs.

7- Steve Vassallo @Foundation Capital: Empathy is killing your product

Kate Rutter is an adjunct professor at California College of the Arts. She is a phenomenal UX designer with a strong background in arts and painting, so she sometimes refers to herself as a sketchnoter and graphic recorder. But she also combines her visual skills with data and metrics, particularly in her design process. 
 
In the episode we spoke about:
 
 • why it makes sense to measure design,
 • how to find a design metric for your project,
 • and how you connect a design metric to business value.

8- Kate Rutter @California College: How to measure and quantify design

Ben Burns is an award-winning designer, a digital director at Blind, brand strategy design consultancy, and COO at The Futur (business education for designers). Ben has a fascinating story that took him from charging 50$ a logo to 100$ an hour and that ultimately changed his career. 
 
In the episode, we talked about topics related to running a creative business such as :
 
 • why you should not look for more clients but better clients,
 • what to say to your clients when you try to raise your rates, 
 • and how to sell brand work at the premium rates (5 or 6 figures).

9- Ben Burns @The Futur: Teaching designers how to run a creative business

Jonathan Courtney is a co-founder of AJ&Smart, a design sprint agency based in Berlin, which has worked with companies like Lufthansa, Slack, Google, Lyft, Bose etc. 
 
He is a host of The Product Breakfast Club podcast with Jake Knapp, author of Design Sprint. In one of the podcasts, Jonathan explained why he thinks the golden age of UX is over and what designers should do to stay relevant. Answer: learn business, of course. 
 
In this episode we spoke about:
 
 • three business skills that designers have to learn to design better (and get ahead in career)
 • why Jonathan loves panic learning, 
 • how AJ&Smart launched online course on design sprint and generated €60k in pre-orders. 
 
 
 
Show notes:
 
 • 2:15 How did Jonathan get into design? 
 • 7:20 Jonathan's panic learning
 • 9:55 How AJ&Smart started? 
 • 14:00 The golden age of UX is over
 • 18:50 Three business skills important for designers to master (product strategy, growth, marketing)
 • 27:00 How can fluency in "growth" help designers on projects?
 • 32:50 How do designers do good for business and users? 
 • 38:20 How does Jonathan learn about client's business? 
 • 40:30 AJ&Smart's online course on design sprints and how it generated €60.000 in pre-orders

10- Jonathan Courtney @AJ&Smart: UX has become a commodity

In the second mini d.MBA episode, we look at two related business concepts:
 
 • 

Opportunity Costs
 • 
 • 

and Return on Investment (ROI)
 • 
 
If you take a year off from work and do an MBA, this doesn’t just cost you $100k. During that same year, you could be earning your salary. So, your opportunity costs (for that year) are way above $100k.
 
A freelancer that takes on a project with a 50% discounted rate won’t be able to sell that time to a much better paying corporate gig if it shows up at a later point.
 
How can we best decide among different opportunities and their costs? One way is calculating ROI.

29- The hidden costs that govern our business (and life)

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