November 13, 2017 • 57 mins
My guest Daniel Bosnjak is a multidisciplinary designer from Croatia, focusing on UX Design, Brand Strategy and crafting usable, beautiful digital products. Over the last 15 years he’s applied his design and UX talents to successful websites, web applications and mobile apps of all kinds.
After working in the high-stress environment of Commercial Aviation, Daniel recently struck out on his own as an independent UX Designer, serving clients all over the world.
And as I think you’ll hear, his passionate belief in the value of UX — and in doing things the right way — should carry him through a long, successful career.
Our conversation ranged from his experiences with high-risk UX in the world of aviation, to dealing with disappointment, his graffiti-filled past and his big leap to UX entrepreneur.
Portfolio/Websites:
Behance, Dribbble
LinkedIn: danijelbosnjak
Twitter: @aerozg
If you enjoyed this episode, please check out our good friend and sponsor, Stache Studio — a streetwear clothing brand focusing on quality products with a positive message, inspired by the resilience to turn a negative situation into a positive outcome.
The Stache mantra is that Even in the darkest times, there is a light revealing prosperity. Find your light and let it guide you through the darkness. Visit https://www.stache.studio/ to check out their incredibly well-designed products and learn more!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello and welcome to making us work to give you X
podcast.
I'm your host Jonah Toli and ourfocus here is on folks like you
doing a real often unglamorouswork in the real world.
You'll hear about theirstruggles their successes and
their journey to and through thetrenches of product design
development and of course userexperience.
(00:31):
Today my guest is DanielBosniak.
Daniel is a multidisciplinarydesigner who focuses on U.S.
design brand strategy andcrafting usable beautiful
digital products of all kinds.
Over the last 15 years he'sapplied those design in U.S.
towns to everything from Websites to web applications to
mobile apps.
After working in a high stressenvironment of commercial
(00:53):
aviation Daniel recently struckout on his own as an independent
you ex designer.
He now serves clients all overthe world.
And as I think you'll hear hispassionate belief in the value
of US and in doing things theright way should carry him
through a long successfulcareer.
Here's my conversation withDaniel Bosniak on making us
(01:15):
work.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So Daniel tell me how are you.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Ah we better all sit down and take a breath.
Take a look.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Well I'm good.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
The work of work is good.
Life is good.
It's a sunny day outside and I'mhappy to be here and talk to
you.
Joe how are you.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I'm doing well.
I'm doing well I'm happy to behere as well and the sun is
shining where I am also.
So maybe that's a good sign.
You are a fairly newentrepreneur.
Correct.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
Fairly new but I am a freelancer for.
Speaker 7 (02:00):
I was freelancing probably I started back in I
think 2001 or maybe 2001 2002probably around that.
Speaker 8 (02:08):
But yeah as a company yeah I've just started you know
in January this year.
So yeah fresh.
Speaker 9 (02:15):
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Speaker 10 (02:17):
I guess you know people tell me that you know
you're going to be entrepreneurthat's so hard done do it.
Don't ever do it just you knowkeep your.
Speaker 11 (02:26):
Day job whatever you know work in your cubicle.
But you know no.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So what prompted you to make the leap.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Well I was unhappy at work really.
And it was just becoming astress brother and then you know
it was enjoyable at first Iworked as an aircraft engineer
and I had an airline ournational airline catering for
Asia.
Speaker 9 (02:52):
And yeah it was just one of my interests.
From an early age you know Iwant to be a pilot you know
watch Top Gun.
Tom Cruise.
Sure yeah.
I cannot go with the you knowwith the design and you know the
programming and this work that Ido.
I started it.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Like I said back in 2001 by you know around 2007
2008 it all became just I don'tknow if it started to look like
mass mass production conveyorbelt type know work where I was
just churning out slicing piecesinto e-mail and CSSA and
(03:33):
JavaScript and making you knowtemplates and WordPress files
and all of that and that wasjust getting to me.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
And I thought I should probably do something
else.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
So it was like sort of turned into like assembly
line technical work.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Yeah basically yeah assembly line it was just a
small company and we took youknow too much work to survive.
If you remember you know 2008was just the probably the
ugliest year of the decade.
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (04:02):
You know with the recession with everything so
yeah.
And about that time you know Idecided I should do something
and try to do something else notjust sit around the computer all
day which ironically I ended updoing as well on the new job.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
What kind of things were you working on with your
lens.
I mean you're talking aboutinterfaces obviously and
building.
I'm assuming web based productsbut what were they.
Speaker 9 (04:26):
Yeah.
Were we had an in-house CMOsthat were we were building.
And you know it was basicallylike you know dashboard kind of
designs modules for the Web sitefor Web sites but also for web
applications like you know hotelbooking for example.
(04:48):
OK.
We had you know a background fora hotel booking web application
which was an Internet.
Actually it had a front end thatwas public but it was just it
was just a part of a huge youknow hotel system that you know
people come on the website andthey make a reservation and then
the back and people.
(05:09):
Can you know access thereservation and reply to the
customer and set us apart.
So and also we had one otherproduct that was geared towards
real estate.
Speaker 6 (05:22):
And basically it was a data database application for
real estate people that take himyou know list properties and all
that stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Wow that's a pretty wide swath for I mean were you
working directly for theairlines or were you working for
an agency that was connected tothe airlines.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
The hotel booking and the real estate visa are the
jobs.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
I was working for the agencies that I worked for
before I jumped into aviationbut when I jumped into mediation
I still freelance on the side.
But the aviation field is reallythink about you know how much
data data and airline generatesshare of each airplane is you
know NASA has millions of partsand you have to follow every
(06:10):
critical part the making shiftsare done in intervals be it Lee
or daily or weekly or monthly orItaly or even multiples of
those.
And you know you have to havesome kind of a system that
enables you to track all thatdata and you know issue work
(06:31):
orders to the mechanics thatthey can you know perform the
you know the required checks andinspections and services and
stuff and the application thatwe were using that's called
accosts and it's quite you knowit is it is a standard.
Speaker 9 (06:50):
I mean there are a lot of a lot of vendors
basically that produce and offerthese types of sort of ERP
systems.
Speaker 12 (07:00):
Sure.
But this one particularly isvery old and has been on market
in a long time.
Speaker 13 (07:05):
So many companies use it but it's just obvious.
Hell yeah.
Speaker 9 (07:10):
It's you know it's this olive green colored UI and
you know it was designed back inprobably 97 when tabs were all
the rage.
Of course you know it promptedme to you know try and do
something about it.
And there were few engineers atwork that were also you know
they're not software engineersthat all met all mechanical
(07:31):
engineers.
As you can imagine they had aknack for solving problems.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
And basically what I tried to do at the airline is to
establish a department basicallywhere we can probably assemble a
team and try to basically helpourselves and make our lives
easier by you know coming upwith our own internal tools and
(07:58):
solutions that we can use andplug into the existing stocks.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
And this application was just not enough.
There are some modules that weremissing that the company
wouldn't pay for but ours.
So we were forced to do you knowmanually.
There were thousands of Excelspreadsheets and Word files and
it was just a huge pile of messand I couldn't believe that the
(08:27):
airline a serious company likean airline would do that.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
It was just it gets unbelievable you know and
they're limping along with allthese disparate sources.
Speaker 11 (08:37):
Yeah but it's not better.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
You think you know other companies like maybe
Lufthansa and other companiesthat I've been in touch with you
know also people you know likeyeah join the club.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah and that's I think that's par for the course
for I mean it's no it's notmanufacturing per se but the
time of your manufacturingrepair overhaul all that stuff.
Yeah my old clients I've seenthe same thing.
You have these third partysystems that are that are
created by a handful of vendors.
And I don't know if this wasyour experience but they are
closed to some degree.
(09:10):
There's only a certain degree ofcustomization that you can
achieve without as you saidmaybe spending additional money
on modules or you know just thismassive undertaking to try and
get a new front in thatinterfaces with the middle tier
and back and stuff that's there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So sounds like that's where swhere you were.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Yeah I mean we were trying to through our management
but were trying to ask thecompany that you know build this
application.
They gave us you know Demldatabase with our own data.
Speaker 13 (09:44):
So you know we have a data set to work with just a
database so we can try to buildour own front end.
But you know the company nevertook us seriously.
Sadly they appreciated ourenthusiasm and you know a pat on
the back.
But you know why do you thinkthat the company this company
is.
You know they are governmentowned and people just come at
(10:06):
night and they stay up until5:00 p.m.
6:00 p.m.
they just go home and they don'tcare.
No no no ambition no no.
Yeah it's fine.
You know you want to know do allthis by just you know just
probably best if you leave italone and just tag along.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Sure.
Do you think that's because Imean on a personal level these
folks see that as sort of anaddition to their to their
workload or you know somethingthat's going to disrupt their
comfort level or they're just soexhausted and beaten down that
they just don't want to gothere.
I mean what do you think is thecause of that.
Speaker 12 (10:46):
Well I think probably you know the they beat
down and always stress becausethe work is very stressful.
It's a lot of responsibility.
These airplanes are carryingpotatoes they're carrying people
and you have to make sure thatyou know everything works and
you know all the flight controlsare in order and the engines and
(11:08):
you know cockpit down all thesemillions of little parts.
So I don't blame anyone they sayyou know for their lack of an
him or maybe I don't know.
The thing I've got to say ismany many people and we're
coming to you know bring theirairplanes going to companies for
bringing their airplanes forsaying to our company.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
And we were talking to all these all these other
people from other companies andthey have built their own tools
in the house.
They were able to get supportfrom their you know readership
and their management and howwell how how well these
companies were willing to listenthat they were willing to invest
(11:49):
money and they were you knowthey saw this as an opportunity
and an investment rather than anexpense.
Right.
This one company from Austria.
They built their own webapplication that enabled them to
quickly answer any requests fortechnical assistance from pilots
and copilots and that we usuallycall them from the cockpit
(12:12):
in-flight really and say things.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Yeah they called me you know.
They called they call it 3:00a.m.
and say it all this is flight 40 2 9.
Speaker 8 (12:22):
We're having issues with.
There is an error error on thescreen and watch what do we do.
Do we know landing Ciriello ordo we divert back to Zagreb and
you have to you know make asplit decision in five seconds.
And you know you have to siftthrough these manuals that are
on your desk that have thousandsof pages like you have to know
(12:45):
exactly what what is wrongimmediately because that
decision you make costs thecompany you know hundreds of
thousands of dollars or euros orwhatever.
Speaker 14 (12:57):
Yeah and you know because the passengers they are
not going to land where theywere supposed to land they were
going to divert.
And you have to feed them youhave to give them accommodation
and you have to transfer them totheir original destination.
And that costs a lot of money.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
And if you have 300 people on an airplane you can
you know you can imagine howmuch money that is going to cost
you.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
So out of curiosity and I'm not trying to pin you
down here.
Did you guys ever make that caseto your management or you know
whoever needed to hear it.
Of course that look we'rehemorrhaging money in these
instances.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Yes Joe but nobody cares.
Nobody cares.
It's a government owned company.
Fifty one percent.
And they.
Nobody cares.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So self-interest it sounds to me like self-interest
is trumping the greaterrationale.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Yeah I was at the meetings where people were
literally you know yelling ateach other.
People were concerned yeah howis this possible that are we you
know in the business of makingmoney or losing money you know
and it's just insane.
Speaker 8 (14:00):
So yeah basically and that's the reason I decided to
move on.
And that's not the place for meto try and build a career.
I was offered other positions inother companies you know not in
Croatia not being bought.
You know this is a time when Iwas not able to move so easily
moved to maybe Germany orIreland or USA.
(14:21):
Even so.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Well the scenario you just described to me I mean the
stress sounds absolutelyenormous.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yeah.
Do you know maybe you've seenthe National Geographic
documentary series Cold aircrash investigation.
No I haven't.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
It's a series of documentaries where you know
when a plane crashes whathappens after you know and then
there is a lot of talk aboutaircraft maintenance.
Speaker 15 (14:46):
And actually we were shown that these documents while
in Kuwait while I was at theuniversity actually while I was
studying they were showing usyou know how important it is to
really be diligent with yourwork and you know what it
actually takes to you know keepairplanes flying safely.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And yeah I can only imagine so when you jump when
you said OK I'm going to strikeout on my own.
You sort of invite a new set ofchallenges right.
So does your stress level godown significantly.
Did it change was it different.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Well it it went down significantly because you know I
knew what it was going to behard.
I knew some people that are leftbehind.
Speaker 11 (15:31):
They were actually envious because I already had
another career before that youknow because I was 27 when I
entered university and juststarted later in life as opposed
to you know all my you knowcolleagues and peers and friends
from high school.
I didn't go to I didn't go tocollege right after high school.
(15:54):
I was working.
I want to you know I wantedmoney.
Speaker 16 (15:57):
It was 2001 2002.
I was working freelance and Iwas doing everything myself.
If you can remember you couldone person can do everything you
know there was no U.S.
designers copy writers as itwere.
Speaker 9 (16:12):
No programmer was back and forth and I just opened
up notepad and coded a web page.
Speaker 10 (16:19):
Yeah it was more like.
Who knows how to do this.
You ok it you know.
Yes.
Speaker 17 (16:28):
There's no work experience in basically a whole
career before I've even enteredaviation.
Speaker 15 (16:33):
And so when I got out you know I knew what what to
do.
I was able to thankfully youknow hit the ground running and
just you know take it from thereand I have been doing well.
But I probably want to make somechanges and maybe it's not about
money for me.
Now it's more like you know Iwant to be doing something that
(16:54):
you know is of value to someonein charge.
The money still but you know.
Not necessarily and just be likelike kind of assembly line like
you said and just you knowchurning out whatever it is that
it needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
And I think that's that's a commonality across
every person who does any kindof.
I mean I think that's you Xpeople.
I think it's in any area ofinformation architects designers
even developers a lot of thefolks that I've met I think the
one commonality that I see overand over and over again that
industry tends to ignore.
Still even in 2017 is thatfeeling like you're contributing
(17:33):
something of value is probablythe biggest motivation for
people doing this work.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Well for me it is isn't it for you.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Of course of course it's the only thing that matters
and when you've done anythinggood come free.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah good for free you know.
I don't care.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
And I think most of us are like that.
I really do.
And I think that's why folks youknow like in a situation you
just described I think that'sthe motivation more than the
frustration more than the day today issues and aggravations.
It's more about man.
There's all these things that wecould do to make this easier
better to solve these problemsto make these people's notional
(18:10):
states better.
And I just can't do it.
You feel like your hands aretied.
And after a certain point yousay OK I can't bank my my heart
because that's really what it isagainst this wall anymore.
You think that's accurate.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
I mean what is your experience.
You know what has yourexperience been.
You've done a lot of obviouslygreat work.
Speaker 17 (18:32):
And you know I look up to you as someone that you
know has done a lot of greatwork in the industry that you
know I probably want to be likeHugh when I grew up with because
you know I'm interested in youknow this field of systems and
(18:54):
web applications that are youknow closed that are not
mainstream mainstream you knowcommercial stuff that you see
you know outside.
So what is your experience.
You know how do you feel aboutall this.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Well here's the thing.
OK.
If you do anything long enoughand I've said this before you
see a lot of successes of coursebut you also see a lot of
failures.
And the one thing that nobodytalks enough about myself
probably included is that it cancome with a lot of heartache and
it really can.
These are difficult situationsas much as everybody gives lip
(19:30):
service to X and design and hasno case since 2001 2000 when the
tech bubble sort of reached itsapex for as much as it's talked
about.
It is very difficult toimplement or it is very
difficult to changeorganizations culture especially
if it's a large organization.
So what happens is like yourscenario OK where a group of you
(19:53):
get together and say okay let'stry to do this because we think
it's important because we seeevidence that it's going to make
a difference and you push andyou push and you push and it
either works to some smalldegree and you get a little
success.
And that's what convinces peoplehigher up the chain to say all
right.
They're on something here or youjust can't get through the walls
(20:15):
and the bureaucracy and the redtape and everything else.
And you say well we've got tomove on.
So what I think is that.
Well I think there's two partsto this and you probably know
this because you've heard metalk a lot.
You've read the articles in thevideos and all that kind of
stuff.
My thing is I am not a believerin formal strict processes.
OK there's a lot of stuff aboutyou ex out there that's very
(20:37):
formalized very structured blahblah you know to the steps and
magic will happen.
I don't believe that what Ithink is that you have to be
incredibly creative and agileand lay on your feet.
Whether it's a client or you'reworking inside an organization
you have to find a way toimplement this stuff in small
ways in line with the thingsthat the organization is already
(20:58):
doing right.
Right.
You can't say it has to be likethis we have to do this we have
to our user research process hasto look like this.
Speaker 18 (21:05):
Burai doesn't work it doesn't really right.
I mean has that been yourexperience as well so fast.
I just you know I probably wishthat the management of the
online here with us right now.
Speaker 10 (21:17):
So I think tell them Listen to this.
Speaker 11 (21:21):
This is you know because trying to you know prove
my value and say you know whoworks probably you know I'm not
the designer probably a thinkerhas been the hardest part of any
engagement that I've had so faras you know working on a
project.
Sure it's in a sense it's likewith the job.
And before that even because youknow us design it's a buzzword
(21:45):
right now and you know you'llsee all these job ads.
Everybody now wants to have a USdesigner on their team.
It's something that Facebookdoes or Apple does or you know
something that Google does andwe should probably you know do
it as well.
But nobody really nobody reallycares.
Speaker 19 (22:05):
Nobody cares.
People tell me you know.
Can you just quickly mock upthis process for us.
Can you send us some PMG filessome wire frames.
And I said no I will send you alist of 50 questions maybe 100
questions.
I will not open Photoshop orennobles amik or actioner or
(22:27):
invasion or anything like thatuntil I ask you.
You know it all starts with aconversation first and then we
drill into the problem.
And you know for me as afreelancer or independent
contractor I try to become apart of your team and I have to
become you and I have to learnyour product and your customers
and our market.
(22:47):
And then I can probably you knowstart thinking about how to best
serve you and what value to youor not.
You know often I will saythere's probably nothing I can
do to help you.
Know you should probably talk toa copywriter.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah.
Those are all the rage.
Those are all the right answers.
Speaker 19 (23:06):
I was working with a client recently and they sent me
these you know existing web sitetemplates and they wanted to you
know redesign their website.
And I started designing.
You know I started playing withcolors and concepts and I laid
out a few comps.
I tried to establish a look andfeel and that type of thing.
(23:26):
But then they hire a copywriterand this copywriter changed all
the text and then I said youknow the copy needs to be ready
before I even opened Photoshopbecause the text is actually a
shape of course because when youopen up a page you first see the
text as a shape and then youcomprehend the actual sentence
(23:49):
when you read it and it startsright.
So yeah it's really hard.
Nobody cares nobody cares aboutyou know you said no.
A lot of heartache.
It's a lot of heartache becauseyou have to.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And the thing is I do think there are a lot of people
who don't care.
I also think that sometimes thethings that they do care about
are really the same things thatwe care about.
But there's a disconnect in howthey understand how to get
there.
And in some cases you know howwe talk about it everything
you've just described to me okthat you know you say to this
(24:22):
like no I'm not doing that.
Here is how this needs to work.
That is unfortunately in a lotof cases what you have to do.
And then you have to explain tothem why it is that you don't
want to do these things.
And sometimes they'll hear itand sometimes they won't.
And you know you alluded to mein my career I will tell you
(24:43):
that for every yes OK and everysuccess in every long term gig.
You know a relationship that Ihave with the client.
There are 20 more that neverwent beyond the first engagement
I I'd have to say five or 10 2020 probably exaggerating a
little bit but I'm not too faroff.
(25:04):
There are a lot of dead endsuntil you get to the point where
and I'm lucky OK.
Please understand I'm very verylucky where you can get to the
point where things come alongand you just say Nope sorry not
interested and I can take on thethings that I want to take on
and I can say no to the thingsthat I don't comment.
Yeah but I believe I reallybelieve Daniel that the only way
(25:28):
to that level would have been tocall it is by doing exactly what
you're doing.
Speaker 11 (25:33):
It's such an uphill battle all the time.
You know it just takes so mucheffort that I try to read so
many books and your Utomi coursehas been just you know I keep
going back to it actually readyour book.
You know think first.
Speaker 19 (25:48):
It's it's I think it's the best title of any new
book spoke for.
You know I think first thingsfirst because you know if we
just start sketching on 10pencil and paper.
No.
Please think first.
Please do the thinking for us inour mind.
And then you know you canproduce something you know an
artifact wireframe you knowwhatever.
(26:09):
But you know it's a battle youhave to justify your existence.
Every day I am a designer.
I know I'm here to help deal.
But yeah this constant learningactually and we mold me
personally.
Speaker 14 (26:22):
I still have a lot to learn and try to find the way
to look at all this through youknow my clients eyes and maybe
try to find a way to surface thepain points in the friction
points and how they perceive itrather than how I perceive it.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
And you know rather than me just pushing my designer
agenda where I just want to havefun building stuff you know
actually solving a businessproblem it's in the end it's all
about money and making money.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
So how do you think you do that.
I mean how do you get them.
How do you get a client whetherthere a prospect or a current
client.
How do you get them to seethemselves in what you're
describing or in other wordsthat you know how did they get
them to say yes she says that'sexactly my problem.
Now I'm listening.
Speaker 9 (27:09):
It's super hard because every client is
different in every type ofbusiness is different for and
you have to first learneverything that you can about
their type of business.
Speaker 8 (27:18):
And you know try wearing their shoes and you know
their customers and their usersand clients and their market and
I have to understand that thebigger picture and you have to
really think hard about that.
Then you can you know you cantalk about their issues and
their problems on their level.
But I think the greatest skillthat you can have for me
(27:41):
personally as a one man band youknow is to listen.
Speaker 20 (27:46):
And listen carefully and what they have to say.
Amen amen.
Yeah.
And and it took me a long timeto learn that because I was
always you know in a rush andyou know deadlines and have
milestones that we reject ceteraet cetera.
Speaker 12 (28:02):
But you know if you're going to rush through
things what quality level areyou going to achieve.
You know is it worth reaching amilestone if you are not getting
your desired goals in terms ofwhat you want the end product to
be then you can turn on yourinner US designer self and you
(28:25):
can start applying what youknow.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah.
Have you had situations whereespecially now as an
entrepreneur freelancer have youhad situations where a client
has come to you for one thingthey say we need to redesign
this and in the process ofconversation you start to get
the sense that there issomething else happening here
that may be part of what theyneed is not a redesign it's
(28:47):
there's a deeper problem.
Oh yeah.
Have you had those experiences.
Speaker 8 (28:50):
Yeah I was I was going to say every project is
like that but it's not.
Sometimes people really theyknow their business better than
you do and you know it'ssometimes best.
Like I said just listen to themand you know try to you know
understand what they want toachieve.
But sometimes the client reallyyou know they want to do one
(29:10):
thing but actually they have amuch bigger problem on their
hands that they are not aware ofand you shouldn't be afraid to
raise them the issue and raisewill raise some questions and
try to you know make them awareof that even at the cost of the
engagement and you know losing aclient over this.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah I think that's right.
You have to be willing to sayyou know look we can do this
work as you're describing it.
But I think there's a biggerproblem here.
Right and it's true.
And you know as well as I doit's usually money related.
And if we don't address thatyou're going to spend this money
and I'm happy to you know takeyour IP to take your money and
do whatever you want butunderstand that after this is
(29:53):
over on the day that we launchit three months after six months
after 12 months after you'regone have the same problem.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Exactly.
Yeah you're going to have thesame problem and you're going to
call me and you're going to.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
So I think as long as there's an understanding that
it's not going away and look forsurvival sometimes you take the
job anyway.
You know I've certainly I keeptelling you I'm lucky that I'm
not doing this this long butI've certainly found myself in
numerous positions where I justhad to shut up and do the work
because it wasn't gonna go thatway and bills need to be paid.
(30:28):
That's how it is even you.
Yeah that was you know in theearly stages of my career
especially you know I ran my ownfirm for almost 10 years and at
the beginning OK.
Like back in me think I don'tknow like ninety five ninety six
maybe eight.
There was a lot of.
(30:48):
OK and then in 2000 right around2000 when the whole dot com the
tech bubble really started tobuild Yeah.
You were getting offers forunbelievable amounts of money.
OK.
And nobody cared about success.
Companies were being valued ontheir burn rate how fast they
could burn through their venturecapital.
(31:10):
All right your valuation wouldactually go up as organization
if you were looking to get butbased on how much money we're
spending so people would come tous and say you know can you
build this and do this and dothis.
And of course we said yeah and alot of cases because the money
was tremendous and I had abusiness I had six employees to
support Yeah.
And there were a lot of thingsthat I couldn't afford to say no
(31:32):
to.
Even though in some cases I didyou know you feel like conflict
where it's like OK we're goingto do this but I don't know if
it's going to work.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Yeah but they didn't care.
Probably most of the time theydidn't.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
But then the bubble burst in a lot of those
companies died horrible deaths.
Speaker 11 (31:49):
So yeah I remember that yeah I was just starting
and I read about it I didn'tknow actually you know I was 20
at the time and I just startedworking.
Speaker 21 (31:59):
I didn't know you know dotcom bubble what is that.
I remember reading about thisand you know I remember all this
all this news about 50 companiesyou know close their doors and
laid off people and I rememberthat it was awfully it was
really ugly.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
You know that was the birth that was the birth of Fast
Company.
For example in a magazine thatwas at birth there's a magazine
called Business 2.0 that was youcame out at that time it was all
really interesting stuff.
You know I was sort of absorbingall this.
It was really exciting at thesame time all these outlets and
the media was complicit as well.
(32:34):
Were saying You know the oldways of doing everything are
dead or dead it's a new era.
And here we are 17 almost 18years later and they're not
dead.
I mean it depends of whatconstitutes value you know and
what people are willing to payfor and why hasn't really
changed at all.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
It's always offline.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
So I'm interested again because you're sort of out
there on your own.
Do you feel like there's adisconnect between all the stuff
that you see online read onlineabout right everybody's posts in
case studies and all kinds ofstuff about how they're
leveraging you X or design ordesign thinking or you know one
of those things.
Do you find a disconnect in thework that you're doing between
(33:19):
Dad and all the stuff that youhear about read about online.
Speaker 21 (33:22):
Well honestly I try to obviously I follow you.
I follow you know other peopleas well and try to you know stay
or stay in the know and you knowfollow the news about what's
going on in the world of USdesign.
But definitely there is adisconnect.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Because people are posting these you know as you
said studies and how they wereable to you know achieve all
these great results and increasesales or whatever.
But I don't think every companycan afford that and they don't
necessarily have the conditionsto practice us that way because
(34:02):
all these you know studies andthese posts that I read on
medium are those that are idealand are almost ideal perfect
conditions sure for you knowwhere everybody is on board.
Speaker 22 (34:14):
You know I am a U.S.
designer on a company's team andit's not just something that I
do in my own cubicle or in myown office.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
And you know I emerge back you know after a few weeks
and say you know here it is.
I just saw that victory.
Yeah you know rather it's a teameffort.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
And you know from the CEO down to the last employee in
the company you know everybodyhas to be on board and know
what's going on because youdesign impacts the bottom line
and they're trying to increasesales and you're trying to build
up a sales funnel on a Web siteyou have to you know track data
(34:56):
and see where your colleaguesare going.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
There are many ways of doing that.
Heat maps and whatever but youknow everyone has to be on board
and everybody everyone has toknow why they are doing this and
why you know this is the bestway to solve a problem.
It's not just something that youdo on your own and try to you
(35:20):
know fight them one and you haveto convince everyone that it's
something that they should do.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Probably you know it's a team effort and that's
always my fear.
When I read a lot of this stuffI sort of have this underlying
concern that all this createssort of a rockstar culture right
where the myth becomes becauseyou do this type of work.
You are going to walk into anyorganization and write command
(35:46):
change command respect.
Speaker 10 (35:47):
Like I I've come down from the mountain with the
gospel and everybody going to gowow I never thought of that.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Please lead us to mediate.
It just happens that way.
Exactly.
I saw something recently whereyou commented on the article on
medium and the author said toyou when are you going to write.
Speaker 10 (36:12):
An honest to God.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
I thought to myself that I know you know he probably
really should write a book.
Me Yeah.
All right.
The cuttings understand all thestuff that we're talking about
here.
You've experienced OK you'veexperienced and that experience
is remarkable.
Speaker 9 (36:26):
Yeah but I don't I don't really think that I have
much to say and probably just betwo paragraphs and you know at
least articles maybe yeah maybebut I'll tell you why I
continue.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
And it's part of my own motivation.
I don't know that I alwayssucceed.
But this is sort of always mygoal I feel like I really want
there to be a voice you knowmine and I want there to be
other voices in particular whoare sort of telling the truth
about the reality of some ofthese situations.
It's not all glamorous andperfect.
And as you said it's situationswhere everybody is on board and
(37:04):
rowing in the same direction.
I really think that everybodyshould hear more about the
situations where it's difficultwhere it is imperfect and how
you found ways to make it workin those instances.
I think there's not enoughreally.
Speaker 15 (37:19):
Well I think I agree.
I don't find many articlesExactly.
You know as you describe thatyou know explain the problem
here is why it is a problem.
And here is how we are ablerather to solve it and overcome
it.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
You know I would love to have yet to find a book that
takes you to a real worldproblem that was solved in a
company that shows exactly notjust the steps that were taken
but the amount of effort and youknow the significance actually
(37:55):
also why US design is subjectiveis valuable and what is it that
makes people companies you knowtry to think that way.
You know since January this yearI think they probably purchased
around 20 25 books in us.
Do they leave you feeling likeyou're looking for something
that's not there.
Yeah.
EMBREY book I read.
You know I just it's just a pileof papers you know get trees
(38:20):
right.
Speaker 21 (38:21):
I already know all that stuff you know where's you
know where's the good stuffwhere you know obviously there
are great books but the majorityof those books that stuff you
can find on the Web.
That's why I asked you to writethe you know enterprise you X
book because you have all thisreal world experience that you
know it shows through yourtalks.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
And you know of course says your books and your
blog posts.
Very very different than most ofother influencers.
I would say there's not a singlewasted sentence in any of your
posts in your book.
Wow.
I don't know why people thinkyou know really because it's all
you know.
(39:03):
It all makes sense and it's all.
Speaker 7 (39:06):
Very coherent and all comes together and it's very
readable and it's just on point.
You all are very focused.
Speaker 16 (39:15):
And I just learned so much from you and I'm just so
happy to be a friend and havethis conversation actually with
you right now.
Thank you.
Yeah the little from you andit's all you know it's all
applicable in real world and ithelps it helps immensely.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
And so why doesn't everybody talk about it.
I mean here's the here's my Iask myself this possibly why
doesn't anybody talk about thisstuff.
What is it.
Yeah I don't know.
You know I mean when you werewith for instance when you were
at the airline and you're tryingto roll this huge rock up a
mountain did you feel for lackof a better word.
I mean did you feel alone.
Speaker 13 (39:49):
Oh man not alone.
I was like an alien on adifferent planet.
That's how I felt as ifeverybody was looking at me.
You know what.
What.
Why would you do that.
Speaker 7 (40:01):
You know I've had friends and colleagues of these
engineers a few of them thatwere curious and you know they
wanted to do something more butit was just a few of us where
the majority of people were justyou know happy to luncheon at
9:00 and punch out a you know5:00 p.m.
and just go home you know.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
Yeah I mean I have a kid and I have a family and a
mortgage and whatever butthere's more to life than just
watching TV in the afternoon.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
And I think one of the things I think this is human
right.
When you find yourself in asituation one of the first
things especially now in the ageof the Internet one of the first
things that you do is you sortof you go looking for something
that speaks to your situation ina way you're looking for an
answer right.
How do I deal with this.
Who else you know has got to besomebody else is going through
the same thing.
Yeah.
(40:50):
How do I deal just like forinstance I have always I grew up
working on cars and houses andall sorts of things my father
taught me a lot of that stuff.
All nice and now OK.
Cars have changed a lot.
They're very complicated.
You look under the hood in thiseverything is sort of jammed
together and he looks alien tosome degree and one of the first
things I do when I encountersomething is sort of beyond my
(41:11):
knowledge is I go to YouTubebecause there are all these
amazing videos people haveposted.
Ok here is how you do that.
Yeah.
And it's incredible.
And it's just very gratifyingexperience.
It's like OK awesome 14 otherpeople have experienced the same
problem or if I have somethingwrong with my computer right.
And get online.
And I hear OK there's there's 40people who've had the same
(41:33):
experience and here's how theyfixed it.
Now I feel like increasinglythat's the component that's sort
of lacking in a lot of areas ofthis discipline whether you're
talking you Exar or design oreven development to some degree.
I feel like there's an elementof reality that's sort of
missing to feel that way.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
Yeah exactly like you described.
Yeah I think I was thinkingabout starting a you know me a
YouTube channel or maybe a juststart posting on Twitter and
trying to maybe create a brandthat you know talks about the
reality of just practicing USXdesign and you know in the real
(42:13):
world and I'm still trying tofigure out the best way to do
it.
And you know I have a few topicsthat I'm interested in and it
was probably no want to writeabout you should I should
really.
You should maybe maybe I willyeah maybe maybe I don't know if
(42:35):
I have enough experience orenough expertise or you know
anything valuable.
I think it's just a selfish Nadysometimes for me to own thoughts
and it's just you know one man'spoint of view that's a minus.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
So as much as my point of view Ok if you've had
any experiences which you haveyeah there's value there.
Okay you're human.
You experience some things youlearned.
You had successes you hadfailures and they're valuable.
And in any of those situations Ipromise you if you were feeling
a certain way about them.
There are hundreds if notthousands of people out there in
(43:13):
similar situations feeling thesame thing.
OK.
There's no accumulation of timeor experiences or there's no bar
that you have to hit to say OKnow it's OK for me to talk about
what I've experienced.
There's there's no permissionthat you have to get.
OK.
It's it's really more a matterof letting yourself off the hook
(43:37):
combating the imposter syndromethat we all deal with and saying
this is valuable I promise youDaniel.
Speaker 23 (43:43):
It is valuable.
Yeah but it's know public andyou know it's scary.
I'm an introvert.
You know if you're familiar withthe Myers Briggs type indicator
I am an INFP and you know veryyou know reserved introvert
(44:04):
really for the last 15 minutes Idon't know if I agree with that
because you know working in theaviation you know it's a very
non INFP not introvertedwelcoming environment.
I had to you know do certainthings to survive you know
becoming more extroverted.
(44:24):
And now it's not something Ifeel sorry about but deep down
really high and you know andenjoy it.
And this is why you know I hadso many great ideas about pumps
and things I wanted to writeabout.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
But you know I just put them off and I shouldn't do
that.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
I'm not sure I understand.
I did that for a long time.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
Really.
Oh yeah you absolutely.
Jonah totally did absolutely me.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
And finally at the end of the day finally you just
you have to take the leap.
Speaker 17 (44:53):
So let me do take the leap.
What did you find.
You know the courage or you knowthe permission or I think what
happened.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
I think what happened is it just sort of naturally
evolved in the work I was doingwith clients.
What started happening is that Inoticed that they started seeing
more value and were moreattentive and more interested
and more willing to pay me quitefrankly.
In the instances where in theinstances where I was teaching
(45:23):
them something or it was that itwas a room full of people and
white board and we were workingthrough stuff right and I was
asking them questions and tryingto uncover what was going on and
people sort of sat up and tooknotice.
In those instances and it juststarted to become this thing
where word gets around andthat's what people want from
(45:46):
you.
And it started to become obviousthat that's at least to them
where my value was.
Now I'm very hard on myself tothis day and at the time I sort
of didn't believe it either butI thought wow this is going
somewhere so maybe I shouldfollow it.
Now later on in life I wasfortunate enough to meet my
(46:08):
wife.
And when that happened this allreally took off to a different
level because here was someonewhose opinion and acumen and
expertise I really respected andshe said you gotta do this stuff
because you have to reallyforcefully put yourself out
there more than you are peoplewill react to and nice and she
was right about that.
(46:28):
Well you are a lucky man.
Yeah.
Very very.
I am ridiculously fortunate.
So at some point you just haveto do it.
And you also have to deal withthe fact that along with the
positive feedback you get you'realso going to get negative
feedback.
OK I get comments on everythingthat I do privately and publicly
(46:48):
that are there personal attacksthat are unkind there and I
don't really know where they'recoming from.
Speaker 6 (46:54):
All I know trolls.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
You have to just shrug it off.
Because for every one of thosepeople there's a 100 people who
e-mail you that say you have noidea how much I needed this
today.
OK.
And when that happens man I meanthat's the reason to keep doing
it like a really is.
Yeah and I guarantee you that ifyou get to the point where you
(47:17):
just put some stuff out thereyou'll likely experience the
same thing.
OK.
Human experience is humanexperience there's commonality
there.
And I think the stories that weall have to tell are more
valuable than we realize.
Speaker 12 (47:29):
Well if you were to ask me right now what I would
say totally no somethingopposite you know I'd say
probably I should you know shutup and just you know do my work.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
You know don't rock the boat.
Just do your work and go home.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I can tell I can tell from the things that you write
your comments in thisconversation.
You are much more than that myfriend.
Thanks Joe.
So let me we're sort of gettingto the end here so I want to hit
you with some quick hotseatquestions.
What are you.
Not very good at many thingsactually.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
If you can believe that or not I'm trying to become
more you know articulate andassertive when I'm in a meeting
for example.
I struggle to explain my ideasand convey the solution to the
problem that you know a companyis having.
(48:24):
You know I'm just trying toachieve a certain level of you
know vocabulary and you them allthe whole business lingo so I
can you know better communicate.
And I don't think I'm reallygood at that at least not at the
level that you know.
I think I should be.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
So sometimes you have to let it be ugly.
OK.
When it comes out you know andyou sort of have to work through
it anyway and it works itselfout.
Tell me something that you thinkis true about you X or design or
development that almost nobodyagrees with you on.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
Well I recently had an argument about the very thing
we were discussing you knowwhere the US designers should
you know lead the charge ratherthan just be an order taker you
know you should actually try toget everyone on board.
And this friend of mine was likeNo you should me.
(49:22):
You shouldn't get aggressive.
Just quietly you know offer youropinions and just try to show
them the way and see they seethey take it where I thought you
know you should probably take amore aggressive stance.
People you know don't understandwhat the U.S.
(49:42):
design is and you should takeownership and responsibility try
to educate people maybe you knowshed some light on how the whole
process works.
And my friend he disagrees.
He just thinks that you shouldprobably you know just do your
(50:02):
part and not rock the boat andjust flat fold your hands be
quiet.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Yeah.
What does he think is going tohappen.
Speaker 5 (50:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 12 (50:11):
Maybe he's afraid of you know losing a client and you
know not having enough money topay the bills and eat food or
just you know just march on andtry to bring the best of value
that I think I can.
So you know if if if it doesn'twork it doesn't work if it works
(50:32):
great.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Right.
And I think that's a challenge.
Working through fear is probablythe most important skill that
any of us can develop.
Speaker 18 (50:40):
Yeah.
Working through it it doesn'tstop.
It's tough.
You don't know that to differentdegrees throughout your entire
life.
And it doesn't stop.
Never.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
What word or phrase do you say way too much like you
know all the time people say yousay that all the time.
Speaker 13 (50:55):
I say all the time I'm afraid.
You know when I listen to thispodcast later I'm just going to
probably just delete it and notlisten to it so yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
No I think you'll be pleased I say two words
constantly I say OK yeah all thetime like this.
OK.
OK.
Speaker 6 (51:15):
Or I say right.
Right.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Ah right I was like that.
Right.
And back to it.
You think OK is there anythingbetween all these OK's and
right.
Speaker 10 (51:27):
Exactly what the hell yeah that's the same with
me and my cousin.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
And yeah yeah I'm probably and so so so so.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
So that's our little idiosyncrasies.
What is one thing that you dothat nobody knows about a skill
that you have a talent you havewhat's something that they don't
know about but maybe probablyshould.
Speaker 7 (51:52):
Well I I can draw really.
Yeah I've posted a few imagesrecently on my facebook but I've
been drawing since I was littlekid and I love concept art you
know for games and film and Iactually was looking to enroll
in a drawing course the advancedtraining course where you learn
(52:17):
how to use techniques like Groshand watercolor.
It's helped me immensely youknow with the new design
sketching that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
It always looks you know I try to make it look neat
crafts and yes that's correct.
Do you try to make try to carveout time for purely fine art
pursuing or drawing sketchingthings like that.
Speaker 4 (52:39):
Yeah I try to do you know every Saturday night.
I try to I used to draw maybethree or four times a week.
I have what Carlaw an hour inthe evening to just you know
take my paper and pen andcharcoal and sketch on paper.
But I've been shot a lot of workto do so.
(53:01):
OK.
Not just you know sentence butyeah I did back in the 90s 90s
when I was a teenager.
I actually I did a lot ofRififi.
Wow great cool.
Yeah it was some of these peopleare actually in museums right
now.
My God like you know worldfamous artists and.
(53:21):
Yeah we bombed know buildingstrain's towers bridges.
We had our own magazine event.
Really.
Yeah really.
That's awesome.
Yeah I've found why I found thecopy from.
I think it's 94 95 when I waslike you know 15 and I've had a
(53:43):
few pieces of my own publishedin them as well.
And I think they still have mysketchbook somewhere that drive
that drive and motivation thatneed design.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
And it is very very important.
Nancy I'm I'm like you.
I've been drawing ever since Icould hold a pencil or crayon in
my hand.
Oh really.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah I was I was a fineartist before I was anything.
Really.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:13):
And I had all that portfolio Joe and a lot of my
drawings on deviant art and articon.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
All that stuff is still out there I think and
nice.
It's honestly something that Ireally want to get back to
because I just don't do it oftenenough.
And I really truly enjoy it.
So it's good for me and it'smotivating for me to hear that
you know you really try to carveout time to do that because I
think it's important.
It's who you are it's not whatyou do it's who you are.
Speaker 4 (54:45):
Yeah I just I just get so lost in it you know.
You know you snap your fingersand bam two hours have passed
right where you know how Iprobably will try to do some
more graffiti sketches.
I missed that time that thisprobably explains my love off
topography of course.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Absolutely should.
I've been a follower of streetart and graffiti art all my life
really.
I agree with you in thetypographic stuff in particular.
It is always what floored me tothink.
Speaker 19 (55:13):
I love the most is when you have to have a sketch
on the piece of paper and youhave to transfer it to a huge
surface a wall on the side of abuilding and you have to get
older you know proportionscorrect and ratios between you
know the size of the letters andI'm just I have so much fun with
(55:37):
it.
Speaker 2 (55:37):
To me it's a very imprecise instrument.
You know it was breaking.
Speaker 10 (55:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
You know and I've never done it I've never done
it.
And because to me that'sintimidating.
Speaker 4 (55:51):
Oh man it was so intimidating.
You know we we we would come upto these meets and you know
crowd would form up behind us.
And sometimes you know eventhese all these world famous
graffiti writers that we lookedup to and they would watch us
(56:12):
live.
No pressure.
Yeah.
Speaker 17 (56:14):
So nerve racking you know sometimes even here and
there a cop would show up andyou know they wouldn't give us
any hard time they would justlet us do because all these
walls were legal and you know ifthey caught us you know doing
graffiti on trains we wouldprobably get in trouble.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Right.
So here's so here's a goodexample right.
You're in a situation wherethere's a lot of pressure.
Everybody's watching.
Speaker 18 (56:40):
Oh man I remember that like it was you know
yesterday you worked through it.
Right.
Yeah yeah.
So what does that tell you.
Speaker 10 (56:47):
We can do it.
That's absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
Daniel It has been an absolute pleasure talking with
you.
Thanks Joe.
Speaker 5 (56:55):
Thank you for your time and thank you for inviting
me.
And thank you for doing allthis.
I wish everyone you know.
Happy Friday Madhan.
Have a great weekend.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
And don't forget to give go do X so I will keep an
eye out for articles and videosand other things from you very
soon.
Take care my friend Jake.
Speaker 6 (57:14):
John thanks.
Speaker 1 (57:16):
That wraps up this edition of making us work.
Thanks for listening and I hopehearing these stories provides
some useful perspective andencouragement along with a
reminder that you're not aloneout there.
Before I go I want you to knowthat you can find shows and
links to the things mentionedduring our conversation by
visiting give good you X.comslash podcast.
(57:37):
You'll also find links to moreU.S.
resources on the web and socialmedia along with ways to contact
me if you're interested insharing your own story here.
Speaker 24 (57:45):
Until next time this is Jonah totally reminding you
that it's people like you whomake us work.
Hello and welcome to making us work to give you X
podcast.
I'm your host Jonah Toli and ourfocus here is on folks like you
doing a real often unglamorouswork in the real world.
You'll hear about theirstruggles their successes and
their journey to and through thetrenches of product design
development and of course userexperience.
(00:31):
Today my guest is DanielBosniak.
Daniel is a multidisciplinarydesigner who focuses on U.S.
design brand strategy andcrafting usable beautiful
digital products of all kinds.
Over the last 15 years he'sapplied those design in U.S.
towns to everything from Websites to web applications to
mobile apps.
After working in a high stressenvironment of commercial
(00:53):
aviation Daniel recently struckout on his own as an independent
you ex designer.
He now serves clients all overthe world.
And as I think you'll hear hispassionate belief in the value
of US and in doing things theright way should carry him
through a long successfulcareer.
Here's my conversation withDaniel Bosniak on making us
(01:15):
work.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So Daniel tell me how are you.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Ah we better all sit down and take a breath.
Take a look.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Well I'm good.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
The work of work is good.
Life is good.
It's a sunny day outside and I'mhappy to be here and talk to
you.
Joe how are you.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I'm doing well.
I'm doing well I'm happy to behere as well and the sun is
shining where I am also.
So maybe that's a good sign.
You are a fairly newentrepreneur.
Correct.
Speaker 6 (01:55):
Fairly new but I am a freelancer for.
Speaker 7 (02:00):
I was freelancing probably I started back in I
think 2001 or maybe 2001 2002probably around that.
Speaker 8 (02:08):
But yeah as a company yeah I've just started you know
in January this year.
So yeah fresh.
Speaker 9 (02:15):
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Speaker 10 (02:17):
I guess you know people tell me that you know
you're going to be entrepreneurthat's so hard done do it.
Don't ever do it just you knowkeep your.
Speaker 11 (02:26):
Day job whatever you know work in your cubicle.
But you know no.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So what prompted you to make the leap.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Well I was unhappy at work really.
And it was just becoming astress brother and then you know
it was enjoyable at first Iworked as an aircraft engineer
and I had an airline ournational airline catering for
Asia.
Speaker 9 (02:52):
And yeah it was just one of my interests.
From an early age you know Iwant to be a pilot you know
watch Top Gun.
Tom Cruise.
Sure yeah.
I cannot go with the you knowwith the design and you know the
programming and this work that Ido.
I started it.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Like I said back in 2001 by you know around 2007
2008 it all became just I don'tknow if it started to look like
mass mass production conveyorbelt type know work where I was
just churning out slicing piecesinto e-mail and CSSA and
(03:33):
JavaScript and making you knowtemplates and WordPress files
and all of that and that wasjust getting to me.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
And I thought I should probably do something
else.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
So it was like sort of turned into like assembly
line technical work.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Yeah basically yeah assembly line it was just a
small company and we took youknow too much work to survive.
If you remember you know 2008was just the probably the
ugliest year of the decade.
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (04:02):
You know with the recession with everything so
yeah.
And about that time you know Idecided I should do something
and try to do something else notjust sit around the computer all
day which ironically I ended updoing as well on the new job.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
What kind of things were you working on with your
lens.
I mean you're talking aboutinterfaces obviously and
building.
I'm assuming web based productsbut what were they.
Speaker 9 (04:26):
Yeah.
Were we had an in-house CMOsthat were we were building.
And you know it was basicallylike you know dashboard kind of
designs modules for the Web sitefor Web sites but also for web
applications like you know hotelbooking for example.
(04:48):
OK.
We had you know a background fora hotel booking web application
which was an Internet.
Actually it had a front end thatwas public but it was just it
was just a part of a huge youknow hotel system that you know
people come on the website andthey make a reservation and then
the back and people.
(05:09):
Can you know access thereservation and reply to the
customer and set us apart.
So and also we had one otherproduct that was geared towards
real estate.
Speaker 6 (05:22):
And basically it was a data database application for
real estate people that take himyou know list properties and all
that stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Wow that's a pretty wide swath for I mean were you
working directly for theairlines or were you working for
an agency that was connected tothe airlines.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
The hotel booking and the real estate visa are the
jobs.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
I was working for the agencies that I worked for
before I jumped into aviationbut when I jumped into mediation
I still freelance on the side.
But the aviation field is reallythink about you know how much
data data and airline generatesshare of each airplane is you
know NASA has millions of partsand you have to follow every
(06:10):
critical part the making shiftsare done in intervals be it Lee
or daily or weekly or monthly orItaly or even multiples of
those.
And you know you have to havesome kind of a system that
enables you to track all thatdata and you know issue work
(06:31):
orders to the mechanics thatthey can you know perform the
you know the required checks andinspections and services and
stuff and the application thatwe were using that's called
accosts and it's quite you knowit is it is a standard.
Speaker 9 (06:50):
I mean there are a lot of a lot of vendors
basically that produce and offerthese types of sort of ERP
systems.
Speaker 12 (07:00):
Sure.
But this one particularly isvery old and has been on market
in a long time.
Speaker 13 (07:05):
So many companies use it but it's just obvious.
Hell yeah.
Speaker 9 (07:10):
It's you know it's this olive green colored UI and
you know it was designed back inprobably 97 when tabs were all
the rage.
Of course you know it promptedme to you know try and do
something about it.
And there were few engineers atwork that were also you know
they're not software engineersthat all met all mechanical
(07:31):
engineers.
As you can imagine they had aknack for solving problems.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
And basically what I tried to do at the airline is to
establish a department basicallywhere we can probably assemble a
team and try to basically helpourselves and make our lives
easier by you know coming upwith our own internal tools and
(07:58):
solutions that we can use andplug into the existing stocks.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
And this application was just not enough.
There are some modules that weremissing that the company
wouldn't pay for but ours.
So we were forced to do you knowmanually.
There were thousands of Excelspreadsheets and Word files and
it was just a huge pile of messand I couldn't believe that the
(08:27):
airline a serious company likean airline would do that.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
It was just it gets unbelievable you know and
they're limping along with allthese disparate sources.
Speaker 11 (08:37):
Yeah but it's not better.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
You think you know other companies like maybe
Lufthansa and other companiesthat I've been in touch with you
know also people you know likeyeah join the club.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah and that's I think that's par for the course
for I mean it's no it's notmanufacturing per se but the
time of your manufacturingrepair overhaul all that stuff.
Yeah my old clients I've seenthe same thing.
You have these third partysystems that are that are
created by a handful of vendors.
And I don't know if this wasyour experience but they are
closed to some degree.
(09:10):
There's only a certain degree ofcustomization that you can
achieve without as you saidmaybe spending additional money
on modules or you know just thismassive undertaking to try and
get a new front in thatinterfaces with the middle tier
and back and stuff that's there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So sounds like that's where swhere you were.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Yeah I mean we were trying to through our management
but were trying to ask thecompany that you know build this
application.
They gave us you know Demldatabase with our own data.
Speaker 13 (09:44):
So you know we have a data set to work with just a
database so we can try to buildour own front end.
But you know the company nevertook us seriously.
Sadly they appreciated ourenthusiasm and you know a pat on
the back.
But you know why do you thinkthat the company this company
is.
You know they are governmentowned and people just come at
(10:06):
night and they stay up until5:00 p.m.
6:00 p.m.
they just go home and they don'tcare.
No no no ambition no no.
Yeah it's fine.
You know you want to know do allthis by just you know just
probably best if you leave italone and just tag along.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Sure.
Do you think that's because Imean on a personal level these
folks see that as sort of anaddition to their to their
workload or you know somethingthat's going to disrupt their
comfort level or they're just soexhausted and beaten down that
they just don't want to gothere.
I mean what do you think is thecause of that.
Speaker 12 (10:46):
Well I think probably you know the they beat
down and always stress becausethe work is very stressful.
It's a lot of responsibility.
These airplanes are carryingpotatoes they're carrying people
and you have to make sure thatyou know everything works and
you know all the flight controlsare in order and the engines and
(11:08):
you know cockpit down all thesemillions of little parts.
So I don't blame anyone they sayyou know for their lack of an
him or maybe I don't know.
The thing I've got to say ismany many people and we're
coming to you know bring theirairplanes going to companies for
bringing their airplanes forsaying to our company.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
And we were talking to all these all these other
people from other companies andthey have built their own tools
in the house.
They were able to get supportfrom their you know readership
and their management and howwell how how well these
companies were willing to listenthat they were willing to invest
(11:49):
money and they were you knowthey saw this as an opportunity
and an investment rather than anexpense.
Right.
This one company from Austria.
They built their own webapplication that enabled them to
quickly answer any requests fortechnical assistance from pilots
and copilots and that we usuallycall them from the cockpit
(12:12):
in-flight really and say things.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Yeah they called me you know.
They called they call it 3:00a.m.
and say it all this is flight 40 2 9.
Speaker 8 (12:22):
We're having issues with.
There is an error error on thescreen and watch what do we do.
Do we know landing Ciriello ordo we divert back to Zagreb and
you have to you know make asplit decision in five seconds.
And you know you have to siftthrough these manuals that are
on your desk that have thousandsof pages like you have to know
(12:45):
exactly what what is wrongimmediately because that
decision you make costs thecompany you know hundreds of
thousands of dollars or euros orwhatever.
Speaker 14 (12:57):
Yeah and you know because the passengers they are
not going to land where theywere supposed to land they were
going to divert.
And you have to feed them youhave to give them accommodation
and you have to transfer them totheir original destination.
And that costs a lot of money.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
And if you have 300 people on an airplane you can
you know you can imagine howmuch money that is going to cost
you.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
So out of curiosity and I'm not trying to pin you
down here.
Did you guys ever make that caseto your management or you know
whoever needed to hear it.
Of course that look we'rehemorrhaging money in these
instances.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Yes Joe but nobody cares.
Nobody cares.
It's a government owned company.
Fifty one percent.
And they.
Nobody cares.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So self-interest it sounds to me like self-interest
is trumping the greaterrationale.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
Yeah I was at the meetings where people were
literally you know yelling ateach other.
People were concerned yeah howis this possible that are we you
know in the business of makingmoney or losing money you know
and it's just insane.
Speaker 8 (14:00):
So yeah basically and that's the reason I decided to
move on.
And that's not the place for meto try and build a career.
I was offered other positions inother companies you know not in
Croatia not being bought.
You know this is a time when Iwas not able to move so easily
moved to maybe Germany orIreland or USA.
(14:21):
Even so.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Well the scenario you just described to me I mean the
stress sounds absolutelyenormous.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yeah.
Do you know maybe you've seenthe National Geographic
documentary series Cold aircrash investigation.
No I haven't.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
It's a series of documentaries where you know
when a plane crashes whathappens after you know and then
there is a lot of talk aboutaircraft maintenance.
Speaker 15 (14:46):
And actually we were shown that these documents while
in Kuwait while I was at theuniversity actually while I was
studying they were showing usyou know how important it is to
really be diligent with yourwork and you know what it
actually takes to you know keepairplanes flying safely.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And yeah I can only imagine so when you jump when
you said OK I'm going to strikeout on my own.
You sort of invite a new set ofchallenges right.
So does your stress level godown significantly.
Did it change was it different.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Well it it went down significantly because you know I
knew what it was going to behard.
I knew some people that are leftbehind.
Speaker 11 (15:31):
They were actually envious because I already had
another career before that youknow because I was 27 when I
entered university and juststarted later in life as opposed
to you know all my you knowcolleagues and peers and friends
from high school.
I didn't go to I didn't go tocollege right after high school.
(15:54):
I was working.
I want to you know I wantedmoney.
Speaker 16 (15:57):
It was 2001 2002.
I was working freelance and Iwas doing everything myself.
If you can remember you couldone person can do everything you
know there was no U.S.
designers copy writers as itwere.
Speaker 9 (16:12):
No programmer was back and forth and I just opened
up notepad and coded a web page.
Speaker 10 (16:19):
Yeah it was more like.
Who knows how to do this.
You ok it you know.
Yes.
Speaker 17 (16:28):
There's no work experience in basically a whole
career before I've even enteredaviation.
Speaker 15 (16:33):
And so when I got out you know I knew what what to
do.
I was able to thankfully youknow hit the ground running and
just you know take it from thereand I have been doing well.
But I probably want to make somechanges and maybe it's not about
money for me.
Now it's more like you know Iwant to be doing something that
(16:54):
you know is of value to someonein charge.
The money still but you know.
Not necessarily and just be likelike kind of assembly line like
you said and just you knowchurning out whatever it is that
it needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
And I think that's that's a commonality across
every person who does any kindof.
I mean I think that's you Xpeople.
I think it's in any area ofinformation architects designers
even developers a lot of thefolks that I've met I think the
one commonality that I see overand over and over again that
industry tends to ignore.
Still even in 2017 is thatfeeling like you're contributing
(17:33):
something of value is probablythe biggest motivation for
people doing this work.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Well for me it is isn't it for you.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Of course of course it's the only thing that matters
and when you've done anythinggood come free.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah good for free you know.
I don't care.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
And I think most of us are like that.
I really do.
And I think that's why folks youknow like in a situation you
just described I think that'sthe motivation more than the
frustration more than the day today issues and aggravations.
It's more about man.
There's all these things that wecould do to make this easier
better to solve these problemsto make these people's notional
(18:10):
states better.
And I just can't do it.
You feel like your hands aretied.
And after a certain point yousay OK I can't bank my my heart
because that's really what it isagainst this wall anymore.
You think that's accurate.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
I mean what is your experience.
You know what has yourexperience been.
You've done a lot of obviouslygreat work.
Speaker 17 (18:32):
And you know I look up to you as someone that you
know has done a lot of greatwork in the industry that you
know I probably want to be likeHugh when I grew up with because
you know I'm interested in youknow this field of systems and
(18:54):
web applications that are youknow closed that are not
mainstream mainstream you knowcommercial stuff that you see
you know outside.
So what is your experience.
You know how do you feel aboutall this.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Well here's the thing.
OK.
If you do anything long enoughand I've said this before you
see a lot of successes of coursebut you also see a lot of
failures.
And the one thing that nobodytalks enough about myself
probably included is that it cancome with a lot of heartache and
it really can.
These are difficult situationsas much as everybody gives lip
(19:30):
service to X and design and hasno case since 2001 2000 when the
tech bubble sort of reached itsapex for as much as it's talked
about.
It is very difficult toimplement or it is very
difficult to changeorganizations culture especially
if it's a large organization.
So what happens is like yourscenario OK where a group of you
(19:53):
get together and say okay let'stry to do this because we think
it's important because we seeevidence that it's going to make
a difference and you push andyou push and you push and it
either works to some smalldegree and you get a little
success.
And that's what convinces peoplehigher up the chain to say all
right.
They're on something here or youjust can't get through the walls
(20:15):
and the bureaucracy and the redtape and everything else.
And you say well we've got tomove on.
So what I think is that.
Well I think there's two partsto this and you probably know
this because you've heard metalk a lot.
You've read the articles in thevideos and all that kind of
stuff.
My thing is I am not a believerin formal strict processes.
OK there's a lot of stuff aboutyou ex out there that's very
(20:37):
formalized very structured blahblah you know to the steps and
magic will happen.
I don't believe that what Ithink is that you have to be
incredibly creative and agileand lay on your feet.
Whether it's a client or you'reworking inside an organization
you have to find a way toimplement this stuff in small
ways in line with the thingsthat the organization is already
(20:58):
doing right.
Right.
You can't say it has to be likethis we have to do this we have
to our user research process hasto look like this.
Speaker 18 (21:05):
Burai doesn't work it doesn't really right.
I mean has that been yourexperience as well so fast.
I just you know I probably wishthat the management of the
online here with us right now.
Speaker 10 (21:17):
So I think tell them Listen to this.
Speaker 11 (21:21):
This is you know because trying to you know prove
my value and say you know whoworks probably you know I'm not
the designer probably a thinkerhas been the hardest part of any
engagement that I've had so faras you know working on a
project.
Sure it's in a sense it's likewith the job.
And before that even because youknow us design it's a buzzword
(21:45):
right now and you know you'llsee all these job ads.
Everybody now wants to have a USdesigner on their team.
It's something that Facebookdoes or Apple does or you know
something that Google does andwe should probably you know do
it as well.
But nobody really nobody reallycares.
Speaker 19 (22:05):
Nobody cares.
People tell me you know.
Can you just quickly mock upthis process for us.
Can you send us some PMG filessome wire frames.
And I said no I will send you alist of 50 questions maybe 100
questions.
I will not open Photoshop orennobles amik or actioner or
(22:27):
invasion or anything like thatuntil I ask you.
You know it all starts with aconversation first and then we
drill into the problem.
And you know for me as afreelancer or independent
contractor I try to become apart of your team and I have to
become you and I have to learnyour product and your customers
and our market.
(22:47):
And then I can probably you knowstart thinking about how to best
serve you and what value to youor not.
You know often I will saythere's probably nothing I can
do to help you.
Know you should probably talk toa copywriter.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah.
Those are all the rage.
Those are all the right answers.
Speaker 19 (23:06):
I was working with a client recently and they sent me
these you know existing web sitetemplates and they wanted to you
know redesign their website.
And I started designing.
You know I started playing withcolors and concepts and I laid
out a few comps.
I tried to establish a look andfeel and that type of thing.
(23:26):
But then they hire a copywriterand this copywriter changed all
the text and then I said youknow the copy needs to be ready
before I even opened Photoshopbecause the text is actually a
shape of course because when youopen up a page you first see the
text as a shape and then youcomprehend the actual sentence
(23:49):
when you read it and it startsright.
So yeah it's really hard.
Nobody cares nobody cares aboutyou know you said no.
A lot of heartache.
It's a lot of heartache becauseyou have to.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And the thing is I do think there are a lot of people
who don't care.
I also think that sometimes thethings that they do care about
are really the same things thatwe care about.
But there's a disconnect in howthey understand how to get
there.
And in some cases you know howwe talk about it everything
you've just described to me okthat you know you say to this
(24:22):
like no I'm not doing that.
Here is how this needs to work.
That is unfortunately in a lotof cases what you have to do.
And then you have to explain tothem why it is that you don't
want to do these things.
And sometimes they'll hear itand sometimes they won't.
And you know you alluded to mein my career I will tell you
(24:43):
that for every yes OK and everysuccess in every long term gig.
You know a relationship that Ihave with the client.
There are 20 more that neverwent beyond the first engagement
I I'd have to say five or 10 2020 probably exaggerating a
little bit but I'm not too faroff.
(25:04):
There are a lot of dead endsuntil you get to the point where
and I'm lucky OK.
Please understand I'm very verylucky where you can get to the
point where things come alongand you just say Nope sorry not
interested and I can take on thethings that I want to take on
and I can say no to the thingsthat I don't comment.
Yeah but I believe I reallybelieve Daniel that the only way
(25:28):
to that level would have been tocall it is by doing exactly what
you're doing.
Speaker 11 (25:33):
It's such an uphill battle all the time.
You know it just takes so mucheffort that I try to read so
many books and your Utomi coursehas been just you know I keep
going back to it actually readyour book.
You know think first.
Speaker 19 (25:48):
It's it's I think it's the best title of any new
book spoke for.
You know I think first thingsfirst because you know if we
just start sketching on 10pencil and paper.
No.
Please think first.
Please do the thinking for us inour mind.
And then you know you canproduce something you know an
artifact wireframe you knowwhatever.
(26:09):
But you know it's a battle youhave to justify your existence.
Every day I am a designer.
I know I'm here to help deal.
But yeah this constant learningactually and we mold me
personally.
Speaker 14 (26:22):
I still have a lot to learn and try to find the way
to look at all this through youknow my clients eyes and maybe
try to find a way to surface thepain points in the friction
points and how they perceive itrather than how I perceive it.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
And you know rather than me just pushing my designer
agenda where I just want to havefun building stuff you know
actually solving a businessproblem it's in the end it's all
about money and making money.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
So how do you think you do that.
I mean how do you get them.
How do you get a client whetherthere a prospect or a current
client.
How do you get them to seethemselves in what you're
describing or in other wordsthat you know how did they get
them to say yes she says that'sexactly my problem.
Now I'm listening.
Speaker 9 (27:09):
It's super hard because every client is
different in every type ofbusiness is different for and
you have to first learneverything that you can about
their type of business.
Speaker 8 (27:18):
And you know try wearing their shoes and you know
their customers and their usersand clients and their market and
I have to understand that thebigger picture and you have to
really think hard about that.
Then you can you know you cantalk about their issues and
their problems on their level.
But I think the greatest skillthat you can have for me
(27:41):
personally as a one man band youknow is to listen.
Speaker 20 (27:46):
And listen carefully and what they have to say.
Amen amen.
Yeah.
And and it took me a long timeto learn that because I was
always you know in a rush andyou know deadlines and have
milestones that we reject ceteraet cetera.
Speaker 12 (28:02):
But you know if you're going to rush through
things what quality level areyou going to achieve.
You know is it worth reaching amilestone if you are not getting
your desired goals in terms ofwhat you want the end product to
be then you can turn on yourinner US designer self and you
(28:25):
can start applying what youknow.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah.
Have you had situations whereespecially now as an
entrepreneur freelancer have youhad situations where a client
has come to you for one thingthey say we need to redesign
this and in the process ofconversation you start to get
the sense that there issomething else happening here
that may be part of what theyneed is not a redesign it's
(28:47):
there's a deeper problem.
Oh yeah.
Have you had those experiences.
Speaker 8 (28:50):
Yeah I was I was going to say every project is
like that but it's not.
Sometimes people really theyknow their business better than
you do and you know it'ssometimes best.
Like I said just listen to themand you know try to you know
understand what they want toachieve.
But sometimes the client reallyyou know they want to do one
(29:10):
thing but actually they have amuch bigger problem on their
hands that they are not aware ofand you shouldn't be afraid to
raise them the issue and raisewill raise some questions and
try to you know make them awareof that even at the cost of the
engagement and you know losing aclient over this.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah I think that's right.
You have to be willing to sayyou know look we can do this
work as you're describing it.
But I think there's a biggerproblem here.
Right and it's true.
And you know as well as I doit's usually money related.
And if we don't address thatyou're going to spend this money
and I'm happy to you know takeyour IP to take your money and
do whatever you want butunderstand that after this is
(29:53):
over on the day that we launchit three months after six months
after 12 months after you'regone have the same problem.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Exactly.
Yeah you're going to have thesame problem and you're going to
call me and you're going to.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
So I think as long as there's an understanding that
it's not going away and look forsurvival sometimes you take the
job anyway.
You know I've certainly I keeptelling you I'm lucky that I'm
not doing this this long butI've certainly found myself in
numerous positions where I justhad to shut up and do the work
because it wasn't gonna go thatway and bills need to be paid.
(30:28):
That's how it is even you.
Yeah that was you know in theearly stages of my career
especially you know I ran my ownfirm for almost 10 years and at
the beginning OK.
Like back in me think I don'tknow like ninety five ninety six
maybe eight.
There was a lot of.
(30:48):
OK and then in 2000 right around2000 when the whole dot com the
tech bubble really started tobuild Yeah.
You were getting offers forunbelievable amounts of money.
OK.
And nobody cared about success.
Companies were being valued ontheir burn rate how fast they
could burn through their venturecapital.
(31:10):
All right your valuation wouldactually go up as organization
if you were looking to get butbased on how much money we're
spending so people would come tous and say you know can you
build this and do this and dothis.
And of course we said yeah and alot of cases because the money
was tremendous and I had abusiness I had six employees to
support Yeah.
And there were a lot of thingsthat I couldn't afford to say no
(31:32):
to.
Even though in some cases I didyou know you feel like conflict
where it's like OK we're goingto do this but I don't know if
it's going to work.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Yeah but they didn't care.
Probably most of the time theydidn't.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
But then the bubble burst in a lot of those
companies died horrible deaths.
Speaker 11 (31:49):
So yeah I remember that yeah I was just starting
and I read about it I didn'tknow actually you know I was 20
at the time and I just startedworking.
Speaker 21 (31:59):
I didn't know you know dotcom bubble what is that.
I remember reading about thisand you know I remember all this
all this news about 50 companiesyou know close their doors and
laid off people and I rememberthat it was awfully it was
really ugly.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
You know that was the birth that was the birth of Fast
Company.
For example in a magazine thatwas at birth there's a magazine
called Business 2.0 that was youcame out at that time it was all
really interesting stuff.
You know I was sort of absorbingall this.
It was really exciting at thesame time all these outlets and
the media was complicit as well.
(32:34):
Were saying You know the oldways of doing everything are
dead or dead it's a new era.
And here we are 17 almost 18years later and they're not
dead.
I mean it depends of whatconstitutes value you know and
what people are willing to payfor and why hasn't really
changed at all.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
It's always offline.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
So I'm interested again because you're sort of out
there on your own.
Do you feel like there's adisconnect between all the stuff
that you see online read onlineabout right everybody's posts in
case studies and all kinds ofstuff about how they're
leveraging you X or design ordesign thinking or you know one
of those things.
Do you find a disconnect in thework that you're doing between
(33:19):
Dad and all the stuff that youhear about read about online.
Speaker 21 (33:22):
Well honestly I try to obviously I follow you.
I follow you know other peopleas well and try to you know stay
or stay in the know and you knowfollow the news about what's
going on in the world of USdesign.
But definitely there is adisconnect.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Because people are posting these you know as you
said studies and how they wereable to you know achieve all
these great results and increasesales or whatever.
But I don't think every companycan afford that and they don't
necessarily have the conditionsto practice us that way because
(34:02):
all these you know studies andthese posts that I read on
medium are those that are idealand are almost ideal perfect
conditions sure for you knowwhere everybody is on board.
Speaker 22 (34:14):
You know I am a U.S.
designer on a company's team andit's not just something that I
do in my own cubicle or in myown office.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
And you know I emerge back you know after a few weeks
and say you know here it is.
I just saw that victory.
Yeah you know rather it's a teameffort.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
And you know from the CEO down to the last employee in
the company you know everybodyhas to be on board and know
what's going on because youdesign impacts the bottom line
and they're trying to increasesales and you're trying to build
up a sales funnel on a Web siteyou have to you know track data
(34:56):
and see where your colleaguesare going.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
There are many ways of doing that.
Heat maps and whatever but youknow everyone has to be on board
and everybody everyone has toknow why they are doing this and
why you know this is the bestway to solve a problem.
It's not just something that youdo on your own and try to you
(35:20):
know fight them one and you haveto convince everyone that it's
something that they should do.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Probably you know it's a team effort and that's
always my fear.
When I read a lot of this stuffI sort of have this underlying
concern that all this createssort of a rockstar culture right
where the myth becomes becauseyou do this type of work.
You are going to walk into anyorganization and write command
(35:46):
change command respect.
Speaker 10 (35:47):
Like I I've come down from the mountain with the
gospel and everybody going to gowow I never thought of that.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Please lead us to mediate.
It just happens that way.
Exactly.
I saw something recently whereyou commented on the article on
medium and the author said toyou when are you going to write.
Speaker 10 (36:12):
An honest to God.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
I thought to myself that I know you know he probably
really should write a book.
Me Yeah.
All right.
The cuttings understand all thestuff that we're talking about
here.
You've experienced OK you'veexperienced and that experience
is remarkable.
Speaker 9 (36:26):
Yeah but I don't I don't really think that I have
much to say and probably just betwo paragraphs and you know at
least articles maybe yeah maybebut I'll tell you why I
continue.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
And it's part of my own motivation.
I don't know that I alwayssucceed.
But this is sort of always mygoal I feel like I really want
there to be a voice you knowmine and I want there to be
other voices in particular whoare sort of telling the truth
about the reality of some ofthese situations.
It's not all glamorous andperfect.
And as you said it's situationswhere everybody is on board and
(37:04):
rowing in the same direction.
I really think that everybodyshould hear more about the
situations where it's difficultwhere it is imperfect and how
you found ways to make it workin those instances.
I think there's not enoughreally.
Speaker 15 (37:19):
Well I think I agree.
I don't find many articlesExactly.
You know as you describe thatyou know explain the problem
here is why it is a problem.
And here is how we are ablerather to solve it and overcome
it.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
You know I would love to have yet to find a book that
takes you to a real worldproblem that was solved in a
company that shows exactly notjust the steps that were taken
but the amount of effort and youknow the significance actually
(37:55):
also why US design is subjectiveis valuable and what is it that
makes people companies you knowtry to think that way.
You know since January this yearI think they probably purchased
around 20 25 books in us.
Do they leave you feeling likeyou're looking for something
that's not there.
Yeah.
EMBREY book I read.
You know I just it's just a pileof papers you know get trees
(38:20):
right.
Speaker 21 (38:21):
I already know all that stuff you know where's you
know where's the good stuffwhere you know obviously there
are great books but the majorityof those books that stuff you
can find on the Web.
That's why I asked you to writethe you know enterprise you X
book because you have all thisreal world experience that you
know it shows through yourtalks.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
And you know of course says your books and your
blog posts.
Very very different than most ofother influencers.
I would say there's not a singlewasted sentence in any of your
posts in your book.
Wow.
I don't know why people thinkyou know really because it's all
you know.
(39:03):
It all makes sense and it's all.
Speaker 7 (39:06):
Very coherent and all comes together and it's very
readable and it's just on point.
You all are very focused.
Speaker 16 (39:15):
And I just learned so much from you and I'm just so
happy to be a friend and havethis conversation actually with
you right now.
Thank you.
Yeah the little from you andit's all you know it's all
applicable in real world and ithelps it helps immensely.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
And so why doesn't everybody talk about it.
I mean here's the here's my Iask myself this possibly why
doesn't anybody talk about thisstuff.
What is it.
Yeah I don't know.
You know I mean when you werewith for instance when you were
at the airline and you're tryingto roll this huge rock up a
mountain did you feel for lackof a better word.
I mean did you feel alone.
Speaker 13 (39:49):
Oh man not alone.
I was like an alien on adifferent planet.
That's how I felt as ifeverybody was looking at me.
You know what.
What.
Why would you do that.
Speaker 7 (40:01):
You know I've had friends and colleagues of these
engineers a few of them thatwere curious and you know they
wanted to do something more butit was just a few of us where
the majority of people were justyou know happy to luncheon at
9:00 and punch out a you know5:00 p.m.
and just go home you know.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
Yeah I mean I have a kid and I have a family and a
mortgage and whatever butthere's more to life than just
watching TV in the afternoon.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
And I think one of the things I think this is human
right.
When you find yourself in asituation one of the first
things especially now in the ageof the Internet one of the first
things that you do is you sortof you go looking for something
that speaks to your situation ina way you're looking for an
answer right.
How do I deal with this.
Who else you know has got to besomebody else is going through
the same thing.
Yeah.
(40:50):
How do I deal just like forinstance I have always I grew up
working on cars and houses andall sorts of things my father
taught me a lot of that stuff.
All nice and now OK.
Cars have changed a lot.
They're very complicated.
You look under the hood in thiseverything is sort of jammed
together and he looks alien tosome degree and one of the first
things I do when I encountersomething is sort of beyond my
(41:11):
knowledge is I go to YouTubebecause there are all these
amazing videos people haveposted.
Ok here is how you do that.
Yeah.
And it's incredible.
And it's just very gratifyingexperience.
It's like OK awesome 14 otherpeople have experienced the same
problem or if I have somethingwrong with my computer right.
And get online.
And I hear OK there's there's 40people who've had the same
(41:33):
experience and here's how theyfixed it.
Now I feel like increasinglythat's the component that's sort
of lacking in a lot of areas ofthis discipline whether you're
talking you Exar or design oreven development to some degree.
I feel like there's an elementof reality that's sort of
missing to feel that way.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
Yeah exactly like you described.
Yeah I think I was thinkingabout starting a you know me a
YouTube channel or maybe a juststart posting on Twitter and
trying to maybe create a brandthat you know talks about the
reality of just practicing USXdesign and you know in the real
(42:13):
world and I'm still trying tofigure out the best way to do
it.
And you know I have a few topicsthat I'm interested in and it
was probably no want to writeabout you should I should
really.
You should maybe maybe I willyeah maybe maybe I don't know if
(42:35):
I have enough experience orenough expertise or you know
anything valuable.
I think it's just a selfish Nadysometimes for me to own thoughts
and it's just you know one man'spoint of view that's a minus.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
So as much as my point of view Ok if you've had
any experiences which you haveyeah there's value there.
Okay you're human.
You experience some things youlearned.
You had successes you hadfailures and they're valuable.
And in any of those situations Ipromise you if you were feeling
a certain way about them.
There are hundreds if notthousands of people out there in
(43:13):
similar situations feeling thesame thing.
OK.
There's no accumulation of timeor experiences or there's no bar
that you have to hit to say OKnow it's OK for me to talk about
what I've experienced.
There's there's no permissionthat you have to get.
OK.
It's it's really more a matterof letting yourself off the hook
(43:37):
combating the imposter syndromethat we all deal with and saying
this is valuable I promise youDaniel.
Speaker 23 (43:43):
It is valuable.
Yeah but it's know public andyou know it's scary.
I'm an introvert.
You know if you're familiar withthe Myers Briggs type indicator
I am an INFP and you know veryyou know reserved introvert
(44:04):
really for the last 15 minutes Idon't know if I agree with that
because you know working in theaviation you know it's a very
non INFP not introvertedwelcoming environment.
I had to you know do certainthings to survive you know
becoming more extroverted.
(44:24):
And now it's not something Ifeel sorry about but deep down
really high and you know andenjoy it.
And this is why you know I hadso many great ideas about pumps
and things I wanted to writeabout.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
But you know I just put them off and I shouldn't do
that.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
I'm not sure I understand.
I did that for a long time.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
Really.
Oh yeah you absolutely.
Jonah totally did absolutely me.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
And finally at the end of the day finally you just
you have to take the leap.
Speaker 17 (44:53):
So let me do take the leap.
What did you find.
You know the courage or you knowthe permission or I think what
happened.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
I think what happened is it just sort of naturally
evolved in the work I was doingwith clients.
What started happening is that Inoticed that they started seeing
more value and were moreattentive and more interested
and more willing to pay me quitefrankly.
In the instances where in theinstances where I was teaching
(45:23):
them something or it was that itwas a room full of people and
white board and we were workingthrough stuff right and I was
asking them questions and tryingto uncover what was going on and
people sort of sat up and tooknotice.
In those instances and it juststarted to become this thing
where word gets around andthat's what people want from
(45:46):
you.
And it started to become obviousthat that's at least to them
where my value was.
Now I'm very hard on myself tothis day and at the time I sort
of didn't believe it either butI thought wow this is going
somewhere so maybe I shouldfollow it.
Now later on in life I wasfortunate enough to meet my
(46:08):
wife.
And when that happened this allreally took off to a different
level because here was someonewhose opinion and acumen and
expertise I really respected andshe said you gotta do this stuff
because you have to reallyforcefully put yourself out
there more than you are peoplewill react to and nice and she
was right about that.
(46:28):
Well you are a lucky man.
Yeah.
Very very.
I am ridiculously fortunate.
So at some point you just haveto do it.
And you also have to deal withthe fact that along with the
positive feedback you get you'realso going to get negative
feedback.
OK I get comments on everythingthat I do privately and publicly
(46:48):
that are there personal attacksthat are unkind there and I
don't really know where they'recoming from.
Speaker 6 (46:54):
All I know trolls.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
You have to just shrug it off.
Because for every one of thosepeople there's a 100 people who
e-mail you that say you have noidea how much I needed this
today.
OK.
And when that happens man I meanthat's the reason to keep doing
it like a really is.
Yeah and I guarantee you that ifyou get to the point where you
(47:17):
just put some stuff out thereyou'll likely experience the
same thing.
OK.
Human experience is humanexperience there's commonality
there.
And I think the stories that weall have to tell are more
valuable than we realize.
Speaker 12 (47:29):
Well if you were to ask me right now what I would
say totally no somethingopposite you know I'd say
probably I should you know shutup and just you know do my work.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
You know don't rock the boat.
Just do your work and go home.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I can tell I can tell from the things that you write
your comments in thisconversation.
You are much more than that myfriend.
Thanks Joe.
So let me we're sort of gettingto the end here so I want to hit
you with some quick hotseatquestions.
What are you.
Not very good at many thingsactually.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
If you can believe that or not I'm trying to become
more you know articulate andassertive when I'm in a meeting
for example.
I struggle to explain my ideasand convey the solution to the
problem that you know a companyis having.
(48:24):
You know I'm just trying toachieve a certain level of you
know vocabulary and you them allthe whole business lingo so I
can you know better communicate.
And I don't think I'm reallygood at that at least not at the
level that you know.
I think I should be.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
So sometimes you have to let it be ugly.
OK.
When it comes out you know andyou sort of have to work through
it anyway and it works itselfout.
Tell me something that you thinkis true about you X or design or
development that almost nobodyagrees with you on.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
Well I recently had an argument about the very thing
we were discussing you knowwhere the US designers should
you know lead the charge ratherthan just be an order taker you
know you should actually try toget everyone on board.
And this friend of mine was likeNo you should me.
(49:22):
You shouldn't get aggressive.
Just quietly you know offer youropinions and just try to show
them the way and see they seethey take it where I thought you
know you should probably take amore aggressive stance.
People you know don't understandwhat the U.S.
(49:42):
design is and you should takeownership and responsibility try
to educate people maybe you knowshed some light on how the whole
process works.
And my friend he disagrees.
He just thinks that you shouldprobably you know just do your
(50:02):
part and not rock the boat andjust flat fold your hands be
quiet.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Yeah.
What does he think is going tohappen.
Speaker 5 (50:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 12 (50:11):
Maybe he's afraid of you know losing a client and you
know not having enough money topay the bills and eat food or
just you know just march on andtry to bring the best of value
that I think I can.
So you know if if if it doesn'twork it doesn't work if it works
(50:32):
great.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
Right.
And I think that's a challenge.
Working through fear is probablythe most important skill that
any of us can develop.
Speaker 18 (50:40):
Yeah.
Working through it it doesn'tstop.
It's tough.
You don't know that to differentdegrees throughout your entire
life.
And it doesn't stop.
Never.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
What word or phrase do you say way too much like you
know all the time people say yousay that all the time.
Speaker 13 (50:55):
I say all the time I'm afraid.
You know when I listen to thispodcast later I'm just going to
probably just delete it and notlisten to it so yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
No I think you'll be pleased I say two words
constantly I say OK yeah all thetime like this.
OK.
OK.
Speaker 6 (51:15):
Or I say right.
Right.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Ah right I was like that.
Right.
And back to it.
You think OK is there anythingbetween all these OK's and
right.
Speaker 10 (51:27):
Exactly what the hell yeah that's the same with
me and my cousin.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
And yeah yeah I'm probably and so so so so.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
So that's our little idiosyncrasies.
What is one thing that you dothat nobody knows about a skill
that you have a talent you havewhat's something that they don't
know about but maybe probablyshould.
Speaker 7 (51:52):
Well I I can draw really.
Yeah I've posted a few imagesrecently on my facebook but I've
been drawing since I was littlekid and I love concept art you
know for games and film and Iactually was looking to enroll
in a drawing course the advancedtraining course where you learn
(52:17):
how to use techniques like Groshand watercolor.
It's helped me immensely youknow with the new design
sketching that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
It always looks you know I try to make it look neat
crafts and yes that's correct.
Do you try to make try to carveout time for purely fine art
pursuing or drawing sketchingthings like that.
Speaker 4 (52:39):
Yeah I try to do you know every Saturday night.
I try to I used to draw maybethree or four times a week.
I have what Carlaw an hour inthe evening to just you know
take my paper and pen andcharcoal and sketch on paper.
But I've been shot a lot of workto do so.
(53:01):
OK.
Not just you know sentence butyeah I did back in the 90s 90s
when I was a teenager.
I actually I did a lot ofRififi.
Wow great cool.
Yeah it was some of these peopleare actually in museums right
now.
My God like you know worldfamous artists and.
(53:21):
Yeah we bombed know buildingstrain's towers bridges.
We had our own magazine event.
Really.
Yeah really.
That's awesome.
Yeah I've found why I found thecopy from.
I think it's 94 95 when I waslike you know 15 and I've had a
(53:43):
few pieces of my own publishedin them as well.
And I think they still have mysketchbook somewhere that drive
that drive and motivation thatneed design.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
And it is very very important.
Nancy I'm I'm like you.
I've been drawing ever since Icould hold a pencil or crayon in
my hand.
Oh really.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah I was I was a fineartist before I was anything.
Really.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:13):
And I had all that portfolio Joe and a lot of my
drawings on deviant art and articon.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
All that stuff is still out there I think and
nice.
It's honestly something that Ireally want to get back to
because I just don't do it oftenenough.
And I really truly enjoy it.
So it's good for me and it'smotivating for me to hear that
you know you really try to carveout time to do that because I
think it's important.
It's who you are it's not whatyou do it's who you are.
Speaker 4 (54:45):
Yeah I just I just get so lost in it you know.
You know you snap your fingersand bam two hours have passed
right where you know how Iprobably will try to do some
more graffiti sketches.
I missed that time that thisprobably explains my love off
topography of course.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Absolutely should.
I've been a follower of streetart and graffiti art all my life
really.
I agree with you in thetypographic stuff in particular.
It is always what floored me tothink.
Speaker 19 (55:13):
I love the most is when you have to have a sketch
on the piece of paper and youhave to transfer it to a huge
surface a wall on the side of abuilding and you have to get
older you know proportionscorrect and ratios between you
know the size of the letters andI'm just I have so much fun with
(55:37):
it.
Speaker 2 (55:37):
To me it's a very imprecise instrument.
You know it was breaking.
Speaker 10 (55:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
You know and I've never done it I've never done
it.
And because to me that'sintimidating.
Speaker 4 (55:51):
Oh man it was so intimidating.
You know we we we would come upto these meets and you know
crowd would form up behind us.
And sometimes you know eventhese all these world famous
graffiti writers that we lookedup to and they would watch us
(56:12):
live.
No pressure.
Yeah.
Speaker 17 (56:14):
So nerve racking you know sometimes even here and
there a cop would show up andyou know they wouldn't give us
any hard time they would justlet us do because all these
walls were legal and you know ifthey caught us you know doing
graffiti on trains we wouldprobably get in trouble.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Right.
So here's so here's a goodexample right.
You're in a situation wherethere's a lot of pressure.
Everybody's watching.
Speaker 18 (56:40):
Oh man I remember that like it was you know
yesterday you worked through it.
Right.
Yeah yeah.
So what does that tell you.
Speaker 10 (56:47):
We can do it.
That's absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
Daniel It has been an absolute pleasure talking with
you.
Thanks Joe.
Speaker 5 (56:55):
Thank you for your time and thank you for inviting
me.
And thank you for doing allthis.
I wish everyone you know.
Happy Friday Madhan.
Have a great weekend.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
And don't forget to give go do X so I will keep an
eye out for articles and videosand other things from you very
soon.
Take care my friend Jake.
Speaker 6 (57:14):
John thanks.
Speaker 1 (57:16):
That wraps up this edition of making us work.
Thanks for listening and I hopehearing these stories provides
some useful perspective andencouragement along with a
reminder that you're not aloneout there.
Before I go I want you to knowthat you can find shows and
links to the things mentionedduring our conversation by
visiting give good you X.comslash podcast.
(57:37):
You'll also find links to moreU.S.
resources on the web and socialmedia along with ways to contact
me if you're interested insharing your own story here.
Speaker 24 (57:45):
Until next time this is Jonah totally reminding you
that it's people like you whomake us work.
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