Inspirational talks for smart people.
It's a true pleasure and honor to share my experience with people on the stage. I've been fortunate enough to speak at SXSW Interactive twice (which I will gladly name-drop because, shit, why not?) and a bevy of other conferences and meetups of varying sizes.
Want to book me for your event? Let's chat.
On stage at Design & Content 2018!
Previous Performances
The Information Architecture of Pants, 2018.
Design & Content, July 2018
The Information Architecture of Pants
It's not a metaphor! There are common threads between information architecture, content strategy, UX, and pants. In this talk I drew connections between historically-important moments in the development of pants and how to approach IA work using those learnings.
General Assembly Denver, February 2018
Panel: Inside the Minds of Brilliant Designers, UX Edition
I had the honor of joining other smarties in our field to talk about where we're headed, what matters today, and what's going to make a difference tomorrow.
Denver UX Meetup, November 2016
PM Loves KJ
At the Denver UX Meetup I walked people through the fabulousness that is KJ analysis – and, naturally, we did it all in a game show format.
Repeatable Magic, 2016.
CreativeMornings Denver, September 2016
Repeatable Magic
What goes into our work as designers? How do we make our stuff magical? Once we learn that, what can a repeatable creative process afford us? In this talk I walked through every single step of my creative process – the beauty and the mess.
SharePoint Fest Denver, March 2016
Design & Development for the 2020s (with Steve Tonkin)
The tools & tech we use for working together have changed dramatically. In this new talk, Steve and I looked at the past, present, and future of intranets, highlighting what matters most right now.
WebVisions Portland, May 2015
Better Living Through Design
Research, strategy, small experiments, feedback: great for building products and just as good for designing your life. In this talk I shared how our tools can improve our most important clients: ourselves.
Growing Up Digital, 2015; design by Rebecca LaRue.
SXSW Interactive, March 2015
Growing Up Digital: Raising Tech-Savvy Kids (with Elysse Zarek)
Elysse and I shared philosophies and strategies for ensuring kids are curious and interested in technology. We gave parents solid challenges: put down your phone, model your online sharing behavior for your kids, and take something apart with them, too.
WebVisions Chicago, September 2014
Better Living Through Design (slides)
When you apply design thinking to your life, what happens? In this updated version of my talk I walked through the overall design process and how our tools can help make us better people.
IXDA SF Redux, May 2014
Tablet First Redux (with Abi Jones and Christian Crumlish)
The San Francisco chapter of IXDA invited me, Abi, and Christian to present a redux of our SXSW talk. We explored similar topics as before, but veered a little more into wearables.
SXSW, March 2014
Tablet First Design: Holistic Ubiquitous UX (with Abi Jones and Christian Crumlish)
Christian, Abi, and I spoke on this panel about the concept of "tablet first". Topics included the overall approach, pitfalls, and rewards. We landed a few sweet jokes too.
Better Living Through Design, 2014.
World IA Day Chicago, February 2014
Better Living Through Design (links & references) (behind the scenes)
I spoke at the first Chicago event for World IA Day, focusing on applying the overall design process to one's life... and Clooney.
UX STRAT, Atlanta GA, September 2013
Mapping Business Value to UX Strategy: A Case Study (with Lis Hubert)
Lis and I spoke at the inaugural UX STRAT conference about a workshop we created, focusing on tying UX activities directly to business goals.
Experience Design Chicago (XDCHI), Chicago IL, February 2013
Six Short Stories and a Song About UX (with Shelby Bower and Naa Marteki Reed)
My team and I worked together on this presentation, a six part piece with an original song. My stories focused on organizational structures and how to best send and receive design feedback; I also played guitar for our musical intermission.