Episode 04, Lisa Baskett :: Grace Under Pressure

My guest today is Lisa Baskett; she is a veteran digital designer with over 17 years of crafting experiences for a wide variety of clients — from one person business ventures to big brand enterprise organizations.

Currently, she specializes in the less visible side of UX design — research and strategy. Lisa's personal mantra is that "good design must first be functional and useful, regardless of the aesthetic."

She describes herself as empathic, impatient, pedantic, dedicated and curious, but there are a few adjectives I'd like to add to that list: namely, brave, tenacious and strong. 

As a woman of color in the world of tech, Lisa has had to overcome more than her share of racism, sexism and harassment — all of which she has transcended with an incredible measure of quiet grace, moving herself and her career ever forward.

It's my distinct honor to share this conversation with Lisa Baskett — on Making UX work.

Twitter:

@intrepidleeloo

LinkedIn:

lisabaskett/

Websites:

http://lisangela.com

http://revunit.com

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!

Episode Transcript

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):
My guest today is Lisa Baskett.
She is a veteran DigitalDesigner with over 17 years of
crafting experiences for a widevariety of clients from one
person business ventures to bigbrand enterprise organizations.
Currently she specializes in theless visible side of you design
namely research and strategy.

(00:53):
As a woman of color in the worldof tech.
Lisa has had to overcome morethan her share of racism sexism
and harassment.
During this very candidconversation.
I couldn't help but deeplyadmire her tenacity her bravery
and the fact that she remainsabsolutely committed to living
those obstacles in the dust.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Here's my conversation with Lisa a basket
on making us work.
So Lisa how are you.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
I'm great Joe.
How are you today.
I'm very good.
It's Friday and end the week.
Yes that's my favorite day.
It's been a long week for anygood.
Yeah what's going on for youthis week.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
Eileen doing a lot of user testing and all the
challenges that go along withthat.
Trying to explain it to theclient and get the right
results.
Because as you know there's alot of bias that goes into that
that you have to be aware of andweeding out the people that have
a certain preconceived notion ofwhat you're trying to do.
So you can get really valuableresults is a challenge.

Speaker 5 (01:56):
Yeah most definitely.
Are you getting.
Do you have.
Do you have buy in or they aredeclined down the program here.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
Fortunately for me and I think it's probably the
first time in my career I've gota blank check from the I can do
whatever I want because they'rethere they're not only desperate
but they really really want tomake a change.
So for me that's the ultimateposition to be in as a
researcher and Tester.

Speaker 5 (02:24):
Yeah.
And most definitely rare.
Yeah.
I mean and you're intimatingit's something that I believe is
true and that is clients aremost receptive to some of these
things when they're feeling anextraordinary amount of pain.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
They are they are a retailer and they're in the
grocery space so Amazon iscoming for them and they're
feeling the heat and they'relike we have to make a change
and we have to do it now andthen we're trying to get them to
balance the urgency with workingsmart.
And that's been a biggerchallenge than getting them to

(02:58):
buy into what we want to dogetting them past the fear the
fear and the speed with whichthey want to do it because
there's a proper way and thenthere's the way.

Speaker 5 (03:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's when they're you knowwhen when organizations are
running scared.
Patience is in short supplybecause everybody's really
stressed.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah they're so rare that reactionary and I'm trying
to explain to them that thecomplaints are a certain segment
of people that are motivated tocomplain.
And then there's this entiremuch bigger segment of people
who don't have the time to evenrespond.
And then there is the one withthe positive comments.
You have to add the positivewith the ones who are

(03:36):
indifferent and then look at itthat way and then the complaints
don't seem as big you know.

Speaker 5 (03:41):
Yeah.
What channel the complaintscoming through.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
They have a collective voice of the customer
data through customer commentson a regular basis.
So they have a steady stream ofpeople coming with all these
very passionate things to say.
And they do have some seriouschallenges on their their online
experience.
They have separate Web sitesseparate experiences for

(04:05):
curbside pickup and theirregular in-store.
Just people shopping on line andadding to their shopping list.
So those two things are separateright now and they want to merge
them together somehow.
So it's a big sort ofrestructuring of things.

Speaker 5 (04:21):
Sounds like it.
Is that because there are twodifferent systems.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
Yeah.
Data it does not share across.
So it should.
Yeah of course especially withproducts but at the moment it is
not.

Speaker 5 (04:34):
All right.
So out of curiosity are you.
Is there an integrationhappening where you're literally
building something new thatcovers both or are you working
with a different platformaltogether.
How's it.
How's it happening or how's itplanned to happen.
I mean I know you're not maybenot there yet.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
They have multiple vendors working on separate
initiatives which is not ideal.
Someone is working on mergingthe two systems were doing a fix
and repair which is more of aband aid but we're trying to
make it the prettiest and bestworking bandaid we can.
Sure.
And hopefully we can have somesort of voice in the ultimate

(05:13):
you know redesign when they haveall the data working together
and everything's merged.
We would like to be there to beexperts to say this is the best
way to do that.

Speaker 5 (05:23):
So right now it's more a matter of let's make this
more transparent and lessobvious that these are two
different cities people areoperating in.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
Yes.
So messaging and changing youknow you guys on different
features but not the full siteand not all at once.

Speaker 5 (05:42):
Out of curiosity of the things that people are
complaining about what thingsare you are you hearing so far
that you feel like arelegitimate issues.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Rom's added quite a few features that don't work
together.
So it's been like users willprobably want to do this let's
put this on the page.
They'll probably want to dothis.
Let's put this on page insteadof just focusing on the
simplicity and the functionalityof the core.
Purpose of that particularfeature whatever it is and

(06:12):
making that seamless.
They've just sort of hacked itand put stuff on it.
As time has gone on and userslike I just want to get this
done.
I just want to do this one thingand it's so hard.
I don't know what to look at andthat's what we're struggling
with now is just stripping itall out and making it as simple
as possible.

Speaker 5 (06:33):
So have they given people more than they ever
wanted or asked for.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Yeah.
And it's weird because on someparts of the site there's way
too much.
And on others there are featuresmissing that you would just
think would be no brainers.
There's a there's a mix ofthings.
And it's it's a function of somany people so many cooks you
know always different vendorsall these different departments
all these different stakeholdersall wanting to make an impact

(07:01):
different ways and that workingtogether.

Speaker 5 (07:03):
Yeah and you're heading off.
My next question which was howmuch of that disparity do you
think is driven by theseindividual vendors.
In other words they have abetter platform they have a set
of features and functionality.
And this is it.
Like here's what you get.
And then the implementation isOK.
Well it's this that it doesn'tgo any further than that.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
It's absolutely that there are vendors working as
more of our staff augmentationtype of model and there are
others that are consultants.
And I'm strongly a proponent ofbeing the consultant the expert
in a room that tells you thethings you might not want to
hear.
You know you may not necessarilylike what I'm about to say but

(07:47):
it's going to save yourbusiness.
If you if you listen to us.
That's right.
And they are more receptivebecause they understand what
they've been doing is notworking.
And I just were plunging throughit's like we strongly recommend
this.
We'll still do this.
If you insist but this is whatwe need to do.
And fortunately our currentstakeholder is all about making

(08:10):
a change.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
Yeah.
I think it's a harder road towalk.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
Oh I couldn't always do this.
Absolutely not really my career.
I would not push back like this.
Why is that.
I was afraid I didn't want to.
I felt like I would be anoutlier and embarrass my company
if I resisted the business toomuch.
I think I thought my role was todo what they wanted and to

(08:36):
fulfill the SJW.
And you know just make sure thecontract was exactly as it was
stated I don't see that anymore.

Speaker 6 (08:45):
Really I'm a difficult consultant right now.
Well part of that is is you Joe.

Speaker 4 (08:53):
I mean just think it just having your voice online in
your courses and the Facebookgroup and the book validated
what I was already thinkingabout you x.
But I felt like I was out thereby myself because I'm listening
to the experts I'm like OK whatthat works in that scenario but
not mine.

(09:14):
So tell me what works in mineand that's where your your work
came in.
I'm like thank you.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
I'm not crazy.
Wow.
Wow.
That's huge to hear.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
Absolutely true.
And I think a lot of people arefeeling that that's why your
group is so popular.

Speaker 5 (09:30):
Oh I hope so.
I have always.
And the reason this stuff meansso much to me when people say it
is because I've always felt likeand I just said this to somebody
I've probably said it in threedifferent Pegues interviews.
So I apologize everyone for thebroken record.
But have you ever seen Big withTom Hanks.

(09:51):
Well you know that scene whenthey're all in the boardroom and
he's with all these businessguys and and they're talking
about this like the worst ideasever conceived for this toy
right.
That no kid is ever going touse.
And he sort of sheepishly raiseshis hand and he's like I don't
get it.
You know they all look at whathe's crazy.

(10:13):
I've been that guy my wholelife.
Yeah OK.
And I've always felt like injust about any situation I've
ever been in among the xindustry the design industry
among aid agencies I've workedfor before I started out on my
own.
I just always felt like at least70 percent of this is just

(10:35):
bullshit.
Yeah absolutely.
Not true it's not applicable wecan't do it.
We can't make this work.
It's just people spouting offtheir beliefs and what looks
good on paper but it neverfreaking works.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
And that's the thing about that advice that we know
we all talk about where itdoesn't apply to the real world.
It makes you feel worse if youcan't apply it.
Yeah.
Makes you feel worse than if younever heard it at all because
you're like I can't meet thestandard that everybody else is
expecting me because mysituation is so intractable I

(11:11):
can't do it.
Yeah you feel like a failure.

Speaker 5 (11:13):
Yeah I totally totally get that.
So aside from I mean obviouslyyou mentioned my stuff which I'm
grateful for but at what pointdid you start to feel like OK
I'm just I just can't do thisthis way anymore.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
I think I worked for a couple different consulting
companies and I would alwaysdefer to my lead.
No matter how much experiencethey had or their approach I
figured I would give them mybest practice advice online.
But as far as how we look to theclient I would defer to them.

(11:51):
And they are now just more thanone occasion.
I disagreed with them sostrongly and I felt we were
going down the wrong path.
I just couldn't do that and wereactually left a job because of
it.
So one of my leads didn't needto talk to the dev team until
the designs were done and I knowthe mind that you talked to the

(12:14):
dev team as soon as you possiblycan to find out what platform
limitations are absolutely knowwhat you're designing against.
You know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How do you know what you'redoing and what's possible.
So like the dev team wasin-house and were a consultant.
No.
We have to get our designscompletely nailed down

(12:34):
personally.
No we don't.
We should give them the maximumamount of time to estimate and
push back and tell us what's notpossible because right.
Right.
Ultimately it's going to be aproblem for the business.
So you know someone that's goingto tell me that they're my lead
and I'm in the wrong place.
I've got to go.
It's got to be somewhere.

(12:55):
For me it's not like thisthough.
Right.
And you get more brave as youget older and the more
experience and you get morevalidated because you have some
successes.
But at that point I wasn'tcompletely sure what I was doing
and I didn't have a job to goto.
But I just knew I couldn't keepdoing that.
So yeah.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
So you have to make a move.
I mean yeah it's nevercomfortable it's never safe it's
never easy but you have to makea move.
Otherwise if for no other reasonthan I think it's really painful
and stressful to live that way.
I think the one commonalityacross all of us who do creative

(13:35):
work of any kind and I includedevelopers in this category.
I think it's that we care verydeeply about what we do.
We care very deeply about theend result.
And there's there's just sort ofno greater waste and feeling
like you're just wasting everysecond of your life.

(13:56):
When you're doing meaninglesswork or when you're doing things
that you know are wrong.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
Yeah doing it in a manner you know is wrong is is
demoralizing.
And you don't notice it at firstbut after years of that
constantly ages it's like aconstant level of anxiety
because you know your bestinstincts are going to be
slapped down and it's just notfun.

Speaker 5 (14:19):
So let me ask you this question and I don't mean
to put you on the spot andyou're allowed to say I don't
want to answer this.
You're a woman working intechnology.
You're also a minority you're awoman of color.
I'm interested to hear you knowfrom your perspective what is
your experience been like giventhose circumstances.

(14:41):
What challenges have you had todeal with and how have you dealt
with them.

Speaker 4 (14:47):
Yeah and you can add the other demo of over 40 it
all.
It all plays into it.
So just being female intact ischallenging in a lot of people
are writing about that.
You know it's we're gettingpretty aware that situation.
Being a woman of color and over40 so I'm typically older than

(15:12):
the people other people in theroom that are doing the same
thing that I'm doing.
And even though you know many ofthe developers and occasionally
the people I'm working for you'dnever know if there's bias
against you.
And you don't know which thingabout you.
The bias is based on your voicehas to be a little bit stronger

(15:34):
and a little bit more confident.
A lot more confident becauseyou're facing preconceived ideas
of who you are and what yourcapabilities are and your
ability to understandtechnology.
So you know the times arechanging slowly and things are
getting better.

(15:55):
There's more representation nowthan there was.
But it's it's kind of a scaryplace to start out.
You have to be.
You have to be really reallyresilient and be ok with being
self doubting about it.
Because it's a constant thing.

(16:16):
You know going through the worldas a person of color you never
know if a reaction you'regetting is based on that.
You can't ask because you're notgoing to get an honest answer
from people.
And it's always there I wouldimagine it's always there.
And you have to eventually be okwith that chatter in the back of
your head.
It's like I'm going to presentto let's say when I went to

(16:39):
Midland Texas and presented infront of oil workers who are all
working class Texas white male Ihave to make them comfortable
with the fact that I understandwhat they're going through and I
can empathize.
Like really they're looking atme like Who are you and why are

(16:59):
you wasting my time.
So there's there's a lot to sortof mentally tamp down to get
your job done when you'redealing with other people and
clients and even your own teambecause if you're growing into a
team and you're the only personthat's other you know you have
to make sure that they know howcompetent you are.

(17:21):
Yeah I would imagine so yeahit's tough.
It's I can't I can't minimizehow difficult it is.

Speaker 5 (17:28):
Actually no I'm sitting here thinking to myself
I cannot possibly imagine Ican't even get within a million
miles.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
Of how that's that has to feel yeah I was working
for an airline.
I won't say which one butthey're very traditional
company.
And when I would raise issues Iwould get the verbal equivalent
of a pat on the head.
And though the White developernext to me he would be hurt even

(18:03):
though he said exactly the samething.
So that was it.
That was the kind of thing islike OK this is what it feels
like when you're actually tohave bias because you never
really know but that was moreovert than most.
And that was kind of constantbecause it was coming from the
people that actually engaged mycompany to work for them.

Speaker 5 (18:25):
Is it worse when it's upfront and out in the open like
that or is it worse wheneverybody's pretending that it's
not that way and it really isthe pretending part.

Speaker 4 (18:37):
Yeah when it's in your face you can you can adjust
and sort of you know get getyour big girl pants on and deal
with that one on one.
But when it's it's less thanobvious you really have to sort
of ignore it and just do yourjob because there's not.

(18:59):
There's no way to find out forsure no one is going to tell
you.
So if it's too uncomfortableI'll find a way to get out of
that situation but I'm going todo my job every day because
that's what I'm being paid.

Speaker 5 (19:13):
I'm reticent to ask this next question.
Go for it.
But I want to ask it anyway.
Have you ever experienced anyoutward harassment inappropriate
behavior.
Like a lot of the things we'rehearing about in the news right
now.
Have you ever had to deal withit.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
Yes.
Not recently.
I haven't been in thosesituations for quite awhile
before this current job.
I did a lot of remote work andworking on my own.
But yeah early in my career I asa female I mean it's all about
being a woman and being sexuallyharassed in the workplace.

(19:54):
Yes absolutely.
And when you get in tech and youhave a lot of young men that are
just coming out of school thathaven't necessarily had a lot of
relationships with women they'vebeen in front of computers for
most of their lives up to thatpoint.
They don't know how to actnecessarily.
They don't know what'sappropriate.

(20:14):
And they may not mean any harmbut it's really uncomfortable.

Speaker 5 (20:20):
But I mean how do you it's a dumb question but how do
you deal with that.
I mean what do you do in thissituation.

Speaker 7 (20:31):
At worst you cry yourself to sleep because I know
you can't do anything about it.
And you have to evaluate howmuch you really want to be in
this space.
At best as you get older and yousort of you know put those
experiences behind you.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
I want really want to do is motivate the next
generation of women to keep keepbroadening and expanding the way
tech looks because that's theonly way it's going to change is
more exposure having more peoplearound you that don't look like
you.
This is going to sound like anaive thing to say because I do

(21:09):
partially know the answer.

Speaker 5 (21:13):
But I'm more interested to hear a woman
answer this question than I am aman because it is something that
there's some part of me that issort of still genuinely shocked.
This doesn't happen.
Why is it that men in thesesituations when they observe
these things happen becausethere are plenty of times and in

(21:35):
my life I've lost count thenumber of times I've I've
watched other men do things andsay things that were completely
off the chart and again feltlike the only person in the room
who said wait a minute this isnot right you can't do that.
You can't say that.
Why do men just sit on theirhands and watch it happen.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
I think we've tolerated a culture of men being
encouraged to be that way fromchildhood.

Speaker 5 (22:10):
Does it start that early.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
And it starts you know when guys are competitive
in high school and college andthere are you know trying to
outdo each other's manhood.
You know it kind of becomes athing where he's like You're
talking about women a certainway to impress the guys and it's
encouraged.
It's just what we've put up withso now that we're calling

(22:33):
individuals out for theirbehavior.
We're not addressing that toxicculture aspect.
We're not you know making it sowe don't keep generating another
generation of guys like this whostill think that they can
objectify and demean and saythese things that are really

(22:53):
kind of horrible.
We're just we're just punishingindividuals that get caught
which is which is OK it's goodthat it's happening.

Speaker 5 (23:02):
Yeah.
Like you're like you're sayingit's not the answer.

Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah.
I mean you're going to call thisperson when another person did
the same thing you just don'tknow about it.
So unless we address the cultureand because TAC hat has so many
young men that don't have a lotof experience they're building
professional business culturesaround them with the same

(23:30):
mentality.
And then women are coming in andthey're getting blindsided by
the fact that the level ofprofessionalism that under other
industries sort of take forgranted doesn't exist there.

Speaker 5 (23:42):
Because you're walking into the clubhouse
essentially.
Yeah exactly.
Yeah and it's an argument for Imean I think you're right.
Tech in particular you createthese silos of people men in
particular young men heads downisolated social media in the way
that we all communicateremotely.

(24:03):
Now exacerbates that.
Yeah.
You're even further removed fromwhat it's like to really
interact one on one with people.
Combine that with a culture thateven since I was a kid OK is
very focused on all the thingsthat you mentioned.
If you're a male you know youhave to be tough to be strong
you can't be sensitive youcannot cry you cannot ever

(24:26):
display any any feelings youknow of any kind or you will be
ridiculed and you have to regardwomen in a certain light.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
It's not as equals it's not as it appears.
So unless we're addressing thatwhen they're young I don't think
the prognosis for me for this tobe fixed is not just calling
people out.
It's got to be about how wechange the formative years.

Speaker 5 (24:56):
And I think the cultural shift is harder than
the personal.
You know you and I have kids andyou work.
And then my father did.
It's the reason I am the way Iam.
Has everything to do with myfather not just what he said but
what he did.
OK the way that he lived andlives his life.

(25:17):
And I will tell you that he inmy experience is one in 10
million.
OK.
And I grew up that way but Inever at any point even as a as
a approaching 50 year old man Idon't know that I fit either at
this point or ever did.

(25:39):
It's always felt like alienterritory to me that I don't
understand.

Speaker 4 (25:45):
Yeah for a lot of pressure to be one of the boys
you know I see it and Iunderstand it.
And but you know like you saidgood parenting having that
strong male example does make adifference.

Speaker 5 (25:59):
At the same time though it's I think this gets
back to the whole conversationwe had around social media.
Right.
I think organizations that areresponsible for putting out
content of any kind into thepublic space have responsibility
as well.
And I'm going to use thisexample because it's something

(26:20):
that really made me angry.
Design Observer which I'vefollowed for years.
They published a post and theydo this every once in a while
now.
They published a post onFacebook about this
photographer's work.
This guy took pictures in theback of his cab gave him of

(26:41):
passengers in the back of hiscab for years.
And it really is fascinating ifyou look at the collection and
this is the sheer diversity ofpeople and the emotional depth
of these photographs is prettyincredible.
At the same time when they madethe post they led with a very
suggestive image of a female whocould have possibly been a drag

(27:05):
queen as well.
I couldn't quite tell to meelsewhere.
You know the fishnet stockingsit's all legs it's all cleavage.
It's all.
I mean just the whole thing wassetup in a way to say here's a
suggestive image that we know.
Men are just going to you knowreact to and look and you can't
tell me that they didn't do thaton purpose.

(27:26):
I'm not buying it.
And they wanted to drive theclicks.
That's right.
And that to me I'm sorry isinexcusable especially from an
organization who should fuckingbe taking the moral high ground.
Yeah I really I'm sorry if thatcomes across to whoever's
hearing it rubs me the wrongway.

(27:48):
I'm sorry.
We have to be better now.

Speaker 4 (27:50):
We have to be collectively we have to say we
can't put up with this anymore.
Objectification I mean a lot ofyoung girls are putting
themselves out there onInstagram to be objectified
because they think it'sempowering in coal and no one's
telling them otherwise andthey're just you know giving

(28:10):
giving it away for freebasically and saying guys do
whatever you want with me.
And that's unfortunate that theyfeel like that's power.
And I I look at that and it'slike you have no idea what your
power is yet you keep it keep itas long as you can.

Speaker 5 (28:28):
No.
And that's right.
And that's the one thing likeyou know like with our girls and
one thing we're striving to dois make it clear to them like do
not put up with anybody'sbullshit.
For even a second OK.
You are worthy of respect.

(28:49):
And you should demand it.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
Exactly.

Speaker 5 (28:53):
Period.
Period.
But but I worry that as anindividual right we do what we
can do within our own sphere ofinfluence.
But I think the the culture inthe business culture in
particular and the profit thatis associated with this object
of occasion that we're talkingabout in these mixed messages

(29:14):
and all this sly sneaky shitthat I see all the time.
Man.
I don't know how you changethat.
I don't even I really don't.
I think maybe I do becausepeople are saying you know how
do we change this in politics orhow do we change that.
And people keep saying Electmore women more you know put

(29:36):
women in leadership positions orI saw something crazy when they
were talking about they wanted afeminist perspective somebody to
host an awards show orsomething.
And the argument was that SethMeyers should do it.
And the reaction that I had wasechoed in just about every one
of the 600 replies that the Postgot which was OK how about have

(30:01):
a woman hosted Facebook.
Why are we searching for a guywho's a feminist to host a show.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
I mean how backwards is this.
And seems like an obviousconclusion to come to right.
You have to actually tellpeople.
Good Lord.
And then the argument thecounter argument becomes well we
can't just select women becausethey're women and vote for them
because women.
Bullshit.
It's like well until we're donewith this repetitive days and we

(30:30):
actually fix the problem.
It's like affirmative action.
You can't you can't just.
That's right.
Go add business as usual andexpect the problem to be
addressed.
You have to do some repetitivework first and be OK with that.

Speaker 5 (30:45):
And that's my feeling as well.
OK.
There's a reason there's areason integration happened.
There is a reason we decided OKit's not right to treat people
as second class citizens.
You know what African-Americanswent through we decided
collectively that's not OK.

(31:06):
Right now we can argue aboutwhether that's actually worked
to a degree that has but it wasstill a critical step.
And this to me is no different.
So I agree with you.
You have to.
You have to draw a line in thesand and say this is
unacceptable.

Speaker 4 (31:23):
Yeah.
Instill as a culture weunderstand that women are not
objects and you know not peoplethat you're supposed to talk
about in a certain wayespecially in the workplace.
And this isn't something I hadto deal with when I was doing
design and like marketingorganizations.
It was only when the rise oftech where the culture

(31:45):
completely shifted everythingwas casual everything was you
know you could say whatever youwanted and do whatever you
wanted.
And it was a shock to me becauseI had come from that other
world.
So when I started being adesigner with developers and
tech companies it was completelydifferent experience.

Speaker 5 (32:04):
And that's the impression you seem to get if
you if you read a lot of thestuff that a lot of this is
endemic to the tech industry inparticular because you're
snatching kids out of schoolbefore they've had a chance to
become adults.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
And they're they're feeding off each other.

Speaker 5 (32:20):
I don't know how we solve and I desperately
desperately hope that we do allI can say is that you know every
instance I see of somebody beingcalled out and fired or
whatever.
I mean all I can do is applaudit because this stuff has got to
be it's got to be public asdifficult as it may be for those

(32:43):
folks and their families.
You reap what you sow in life.
So there's something to be saidfor reminding everybody that
personal accountability is athing.

Speaker 4 (32:58):
You know you do have to be responsible for your
actions yeah we're in such aninteresting time it's it's like
2017 is it your reckoning for alot of things that we didn't
act.

Speaker 5 (33:09):
Oh yeah.
Empires rise and fall.
So you know hey maybe our time.

Speaker 8 (33:19):
I had a question and then it went away which happens
to me often the older I get.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
I should add that I can totally relate to math so I
shouldn't admit that.

Speaker 5 (33:32):
You've you've done a number of things.
When I look down you know yourresume linked in profile.
You've been with a lot ofdifferent types of organizations
you've had your hands on a lotof different things.
What I'm curious about is youknow how does all that.
Because these these look andsound like slightly different

(33:55):
experiences with different typesof organizations clients
projects even the work that youwere doing.
I've been all over the map.
How does all that variedexperience.
Because you seem very focused inyour role right now.
How does all that variedexperience.
Sort of help you do what you doright now.
Better if it does.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
At the time I was doing it I felt like I was all
over the map.
But I'm so glad I did it becauseI would really be driven by
curiosity and not career goals.
I had gotten into web design andyou know that was interesting
and all but I was alsointerested in digital video.

(34:35):
I was interested in research andI would just follow the jobs
that allowed me to stretch.
So I had a job with a videoproduction company as I was
doing their email blast thosedoing their website.
And I remember going up to theowner and saying you know I'm
not really crazy about thequality of the show that we're

(34:57):
making.
And he's like well why don't youproduce it.
Like I don't know how.

Speaker 6 (35:01):
Okay I'll go figure it out.
I love that.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
And you know I have a producer and a feeling so she
was a good resource.
Stow's just like I know peopleare doing it so it must be able
to be done.
I'll figure it out.
And you know there's a certainlevel of expertise to go that
goes into these roles.
But if you're willing to stay uplate and do the work and learn

(35:26):
new things which I always wantto do I mean I might never rest.
I always want to learn morestuff.
Jobs that allow me to do that Istay with longer and then I sort
of see something else as theknow the industry has changed a
lot over the last 20 years so Isee new things that I want to
get into all of those and if ajob doesn't let me get into

(35:49):
those things I'm moving on.
That's pretty much how it'sbeen.

Speaker 5 (35:54):
Yeah which I think is a good thing.
And I also think it speaks tosomething that I believe pretty
strongly and that is if you cando this work you're a you X
person you're a designer you'rea developer your creative
analytical thinker problemsolver of any kind.

(36:15):
If you can do it in one placeyou can do it in other places
and by that I mean whether we'retalking about like you just said
producing video video art videoediting to graphic design to UI
designed to do X analysis toinformation architecture

(36:35):
analysis to understanding youknow how things get built.
To me there's a huge commonthread in all that stuff.
Absolutely.
That is sort of who we are.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
You have to be open to learning whether it's a new
skill or about you knowcustomers are just being
constantly a sponge of thingsaround you.
Otherwise when you get into thework you're not thinking about
the people who use it you'rethinking about yourself yeah
yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:07):
I mean I think that in some of these cases it's just
the tools that change.
OK.
To hammer on the video thing fora second here I have.
I've directed and produced andstoryboarded video as well and
in my past and for variousreasons.
And I kind of felt the same waythat you did which is OK I've

(37:29):
never done this before but it'sthe sort of goals are the same.
Right what we're trying toaccomplish is the same.
So OK let's let's sit down andthink about it and see whether
or not I can pull this off andwhat I found is that aside from
the mechanics of doing it andthe tools of doing it which I
was absolutely unfamiliar withYeah it was a lot more possible

(37:53):
than I originally thought.
And that surprised me a littlebit the first time that you got
it.

Speaker 4 (37:57):
It's all sort of tens of tangential and possible
within the digital realm youknow and I think if you're
really interested in somethingmaking the move is one of the
best things you can do.
You don't have to stay.
That's the thing I tried.
Front end development for ashort time.
And I really got into it but Ididn't like the linear heads

(38:20):
down nature of the work.
I like interacting with peoplemore.
I like research more.
Yeah.
And I didn't stick with it.
It wasn't very good at it.
So when people ask me Do youcode and like I understand code
understand what the limitationsof code.
I understand what's possible.
I can talk to coders and I thinkthat's not you know I don't need

(38:42):
to actually do it myself.
That's what other people arefor.

Speaker 5 (38:46):
Yeah and I personally I agree with you.
So where do you fall.
And I think I know but I'm goingto ask anyway where do you fall
on the.
Should designers or you X peoplecode debate.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
I think if they want to code they should absolutely
try it.
I think they should have a lowlevel of technical literacy so
they understand how to talk tocoders and how to understand
what they do and empathy forwhat they do.
But they don't have to code.
No absolutely not.

Speaker 8 (39:15):
Well I'm in violent agreement with you there.
And that argument's even beenbeat to death.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
But yeah I think if Alan Cooper agrees with me I'm
that's that's always myvalidation as well if Fallon
says something and I find myselfagreeing to there.

Speaker 6 (39:33):
They're all in the industry that if they're saying
the same thing oh my.
All right I'll stick with this.

Speaker 5 (39:39):
Yeah and you sort of follow that right.
And you use it to some degree asa barometer.
I mean by way of example Imentioned something in the
Facebook Live group the otherday when we went live that I
find really troubling and thishappens to be something that
Ellen is talking about a lotright now as well.
And that is the fact that in allthis stuff in this rush to build

(40:03):
digital products and all theseframeworks and automated
sequences and you know automaticgrid design that that makes you
snap but all this stuff the ideaof real design in the true sense
of the term is getting lost.
We're not talking about it.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
Yeah.
And it's it's creating ageneration of fearful designers
that don't want to break outsideof those frameworks you know.
I mean I would get into the webwhen it first became more
commercial and I was more opento the general public.
And there was so muchexperimental stuff going on was
dismayed me.
And as more people got into itand became more commercial and

(40:45):
about selling all of thatstopped.
I mean there's still someexperimental stuff but you
really have to search for it.
And to me that was that's howdesigners push their limits.
And then they reel it back forwhat what works.
But you have to actually pushyourself beyond what's accepted.

Speaker 5 (41:04):
Yeah I think so too.
And I also think with the natureof technology and the way that
it's changed you know forinstance we have all these
devices right.
We have all these screenresolutions we have to account
for we have browser behaviorthat we have to account for.
There's a million variables sowhat you're starting to see is
on a technical side there arelots of other solutions that

(41:28):
solve those problems.
Yeah but seemingly at theexpense of sort of that the true
appropriateness relevanceuniqueness of branded
communication right where we'resending a message that is
uniquely yours.
And people can interact with itin a way that is sort of

(41:51):
specific to their context aswell.
And I think that's getting lostand I'm wrestling in my own
stuff.
OK my own have been a process ofredesigning my Web site.
We're looking at slightlydifferent platform for online
training courses when you startto review all these things.
The thing that hits you smack inthe face immediately is that the

(42:15):
degree to which you will have totrade off.
Certain things that you believeare important for clean
functionality or for somethingthat costs you know a fraction
of what it would if you had todevelop it in a custom manner.

Speaker 4 (42:35):
Yeah and the exploration for design patterns
and you know feedback MikeRayner actions all that stuff
you're assuming when you use aframework it's all worked out
already and you just use whatthey have in the library instead
of exploring something new andit's you know it's unfortunate.

Speaker 5 (42:54):
Yeah and it is and you're forced I think in some
cases organizations andindividuals are forced to make
decisions that don't necessarilyagree with.
Yeah.
You know looking at thefunctionality and the feature
the way it's implemented in theplatform.
Right and you're saying OK itworks this way.
That kind of sucks.
I'd like to customize it to do ab and c and in that process you

(43:19):
find out what exactly it's goingto take and customize it to do A
B and C in terms of time andeffort and costs and you think
to yourself that's crazy.
I can't justify that.

Speaker 4 (43:30):
Yeah I just had a recent project and they were
starting out material designbecause they had done other apps
and material and like I don't itis a system I don't think it
lends itself to material.
I think we should look atsomething else and it was just
that conversation went nowherebecause they were just insistent
that it had to be material.
Yeah and it saved them so muchtime as hard as you know working

(43:53):
out all that interaction and UIdesign.
So yeah I lost that one.

Speaker 5 (43:59):
It was important.
Well it's all you can do.
Right.
Yeah well you can just say Ithink it should be different.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
I warned my bosses my current company that I will
always advocate for what I thinkis right.

Speaker 6 (44:12):
You know I will probably be annoying really
really annoying but I will doit.
And if you say no I'll just keepgoing.

Speaker 5 (44:19):
Well that's the gig though yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
I think our job to a large degree is to be the sand
in the oyster right to irritateit because because that's what
produces the pearl.
Yeah I'm often the only kernelalthough I understand that it
can be a lonely existence.
But Lisa somebody's got to doit.

Speaker 8 (44:42):
So I'll get agreement privately off line from people
and then in the meetings I'llnot say a word like you're dying
on a hill by yourself that'sfine.
Yeah and it goes to theTerritory.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
The old sage in the corner muttering to myself
that's fine.
That's right.
That's right.
But.

Speaker 5 (45:03):
I think and as you alluded to I think that's one of
the benefits of age and I don'tpretend to know how old you are
but I think if you've been doinganything long enough one of the
benefits of that is that as youget older you care less about a
lot of that stuff your focus andthe reason that you do this in

(45:26):
the first place becomes I thinka lot clearer sharper focus.

Speaker 4 (45:31):
Yeah I would absolutely agree with that.
I used to care a lot and Iremember caring.
I just don't have that that insecurity anymore and I'm so
grateful it went away.
I just wish I could tell peoplewhy.
I just think it's doing the job.
After a certain point you feelmore comfortable with your own

(45:51):
voice and there's no way topredict when that will happen.

Speaker 5 (45:57):
Do you think there's any way any real way to to
convince younger people to sortof adopt some of those
principles now or is itsomething that they just have to
go through themselves.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
I think they can sort of shortcut it a bit.
Pushing themselves into moreuncomfortable situations earlier
rather than waiting for the jobto to present them whether it's
through you know outsideactivities or freelance jobs or
something something that theyfind particularly challenging.

(46:32):
Like for me discovery sessionsput fear fear of God in me
because presentation at thatpoint in my career was really
hard.
I couldn't I couldn't get asentence out without feeling
really self-conscious.
And I didn't like PowerPointpresentations.
I hated that style and I wouldtry to follow my lead who wanted

(46:56):
everything on the PowerPoint andliterally wanted me to read it.
And I'm like that is notengaging.
I don't want to do that.
It makes me feel more awkwardthan I already do.
So I just I just threw it allaway and started talking to
people in the room and walkingaround and talking them like as
if it was just one person at atime.
And that worked for me.

Speaker 5 (47:16):
Yeah I could because I always think back and when I'm
laughing because you know therewas a long stretch for me when I
was younger especially where Iwas pretty stubborn.
And no no never you.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Never got that right.
Who'd have thunk it.

Speaker 5 (47:40):
And you couldn't tell me anything.
OK I mean you really couldn't.
And that's why I talk about hardknocks a lot and that's why
that's that's why the majorityof those unfortunate situations
happened and it's why I becameso wise.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
It really is the only way.

Speaker 5 (48:00):
Yeah but I always think now that I'm older.
OK.
I constantly find myself in thissituation where you know someone
to email me or message me andsay I'm tell with the situation
I'm like sort of on the ledgehere.
I'm ready to jump.
You know metaphorically and Ican see it there banging their

(48:21):
head in their heart against thiswall and I'm trying like hell to
say look certain things areworth fighting for certain
things aren't if you can do thisthis this and this.
Keep going.
If you can't back off saveyourself some pain and just
chalk it up to a loss and moveon you know ends a lot of them

(48:44):
simply can't do that.
And I think to myself well youcouldn't either.
When you were that age.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
Yeah.
Which is true.
I couldn't.
Remembering remembering how youfelt at that age has been a
struggle for me when I'm workingwith junior level people.
You forget how much it mattersto you to be right.

Speaker 5 (49:04):
Yeah yeah yeah that's exactly that's exactly it.

Speaker 4 (49:08):
Because we equate at that point in our careers we
equate expertise with beingright all the time and we've
come to find that being able tobravely admit what you don't
know is when you're an expert.

Speaker 5 (49:21):
Yeah.
And I think that's accurate.
That really is accurate.
Being and that being right youknow it comes from tremendous
insecurity and to some degreeand not always not always in the
big horrible way that thatsounds but I think you said it a
minute ago sort not knowing yourplace in the grand scheme of

(49:46):
things and that's that's a toughplace to be.

Speaker 4 (49:49):
Yeah.
And what's kind of unfortunate.
I mean it's great that so manypeople that age are starting
companies but it's unfortunatethat they don't realize that
they're in that place mentallywhen they're doing it because
they're they're barreling downthe road with that mentality and
they're building it in or anentire organization around it.

(50:09):
And then when the bad thingshappen they're not prepared.

Speaker 5 (50:12):
And it's happening fast.
Yeah I mean the speed of growththe speed at which an idea
becomes a company right now isso much money thrown at them.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
Yeah.
So yeah you just look at that.
You're shaking your head.
You know there are things hecould have predicted if you'd
had more experience in yourcompany to advise you.
Yeah.
You can course correct.
It's like I look at Twitter andthe issues they're having with
just how they manage their usersthat could have been prevented

(50:47):
early on and they just didn't doit.

Speaker 5 (50:50):
And now it's this big convoluted widespread problem
with a lot of tangled roots.
Yeah yeah.
And you're like OK how do youaddress this now.

Speaker 4 (51:01):
Had the right people been in the room when they first
started they could haveanticipated some of it at least
some of it.
I think so.

Speaker 5 (51:09):
And it's unfortunately I'm very curious
to see what happens.
The human part of the social webI think needs to come forward.
I think there needs to be ahigher degree of ethical and
moral responsibility to somedegree and I don't pretend to

(51:31):
know the answer to what that is.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
Yeah but I think we're I think we're at critical
mass right now a lot of waysyeah it's strongly influencing
how we feel about everything andwhat we focus on.
And my issue is if the loudestvoices the people that are being
protected are the negative onesthen it's not really free speech
anymore.
That's right.
That free for the ones that arereasonable if they're getting

(51:56):
attacked by people that are justout there to create havoc.

Speaker 5 (52:00):
No I agree with that.
I agree with that there has tobe balance.
And again I don't pretend toknow the solution but there have
been several instances I've seenso far for example not to get
too deep down the rabbit holebut I have seen several
instances where you know Twitterhas responded directly.
Twitter personnel have respondeddirectly to something that was

(52:22):
egregious and have decided thatoh well you know it needs to
stay out there.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
I've had experience too.

Speaker 5 (52:30):
If if you were involved and you are seeing this
you got a reax a little bitbetter you can't just say oh
well it's free speech and washyour hands wash your hands of
it.
Some of this stuff is trulydangerous.

Speaker 4 (52:44):
It's dangerous and you know there's an entire
generation that has grown upwith you know come of age with
its own entity and they're goingthrough it everyday and being
influenced by it.
And it's you know it's it makesme sad because I was you know I
bridged you know the digitalrevolution.
So I know what it's like beforeit happens.

(53:05):
That's when I formed my mypersonhood.
You know and I I can fight backmentally and I I don't think a
lot of kids out there have thatability.

Speaker 5 (53:15):
Well no because they've they've grown up with
personal interaction andpersonal experience sort of
happening at a distance.
You know there's a there's anold George Carlin bit where he
says the degree to which someoneis an asshole is directly
proportional to the distancethey are away from you at the

(53:35):
time you discovered this flawright.
Because if you're in your caryou know when someone's a sight
you like that guy's an asshole.
Yes someone's right next to you.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
You whisper to somebody else you guys really an
asshole and someone offer aparking space and then you hold
the door for them when you'rewalking in this way.
Oh it's different.

Speaker 5 (53:57):
We're not this rude to each other.
I mean some people are but forthe most part we're not this
rude to each other in person.
Absolutely.
And this distance sort ofemboldens people to say and do
whatever the hell they feel likedoing.
Yeah.
And if you're putting up theseplatforms I think you have a

(54:18):
responsibility there and that tome dovetails exactly precisely
into user experience.
That is part of the domain.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
Yeah absolutely.
Because the experience for themajority of people is to be on
guard for the next person that'sgoing to attack them for their
opinion.
It's sad.
I don't I don't use Twitter foractually expressing real ideas
I'll pass things on.
I use it mostly for you xindustry stop or to maybe
comment on some politicaloccasionally if I absolutely

(54:51):
can't stand it.

Speaker 6 (54:54):
Yeah.
Other than that it's not thetool that I would hope it to be.

Speaker 4 (54:58):
As far as any meaningful exchanges between
people that grew and FacebookQena is if you will only if you
Sile yourself into a corner withpeople that think like you do.

Speaker 5 (55:11):
If you're preaching to the choir it's okay yeah.
And it's hard not to get suckedinto this stuff.
I try really hard.
I really really try to make aconcerted effort not to be
throwing political stuff aroundall the time.
But yeah it's hard to have thatplatform.

(55:31):
Particularly now because I feellike all right you're in a
position where people areactually paying attention to
some of the things that you sayand certain things I feel like
if I remain silent on this whatmessage am I sending.
Okay.
I've always believed thatsilence equals agreement.
And I think that's dangerous.
You know I understand if it's ifyou're a person with you know 24

(55:54):
hours and you feel like well I'mnot even going there.
I get that.
But when you know the thousand2000 people whatever and some
people will have infinitely youknow that times infinity in
terms of the people payingattention what they say.
You start to feel thisresponsibility to that group.

(56:15):
You know a war and I guess I gota comment on this because people
getting the idea that I'm OKwith it.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
Yeah I really appreciate how you use your
Facebook form to sort ofmoderate and real conversations
back and get to it.

Speaker 3 (56:32):
I've actually been in a couple hours.
It's just it's not easy.

Speaker 5 (56:40):
I mean I've you know we've myself and two other folks
that sort of monitor things.

Speaker 4 (56:45):
We've deleted plenty of things I haven't seen any
really really egregious stuffbut that's probably good.

Speaker 5 (56:52):
Occasionally one shows up one I'll show up at
like 5:00 in the morning andI'll get a text Hey have you
seen this.
Yeah.
And I've only had one sort ofcrazy whereas truly sort of a
head scratching situation wherewhere I tried to correct course

(57:13):
with somebody and they just cameat me.
You know full force like you'rethis and you're like I do.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
OK.
We all professionals here.
Come on now.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (57:25):
And I think some of that for some people this is a
byproduct of like I said thatdistance where you feel it's OK
when you see something you don'tagree with.
You feel that it's OK to respondto it by first telling the other
person how stupid they are andcriticizing them and attacking
them personally yeah I'm goingto let you know.

Speaker 4 (57:44):
Always wondered what motivates that.
Because it's not behavior weexhibit in other kinds of
interactions.
Said the cursing people out inthe car and wanting to call
people stupid on line becausethey disagree with you.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
It's not how we act.
Why do we do it.
Well I understand.
Yeah I don't know.

Speaker 5 (58:03):
Crazy I don't know maybe because it's availability.
You know and I think that'sprobably that's probably if I
had a guess it's probablyrepressed rage from somewhere
else.
Yeah.
You know or it's a feeling ofpowerlessness or it's something
else it's manifesting itself inhey I've got to get out here and

(58:23):
tell all these people how stupidthey are.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
You have a question for you.
How do you how do you managethat kind of impulse when you're
building a platform.
The impulse to to reactemotionally among me among users
to want to have you don't gothat far with their
interactions.
How do you how could Facebook bebetter.

Speaker 5 (58:50):
I don't know what they can do with this.
Well I think until you knoweverybody talks about A.I.
right and bots and all theseother things and how they're
getting smarter and they're youknow we're using algorithms to
ferret out patterns in speechwords all sorts of things.
And I think that's all good butwe are still very much at the
point where human interventionis still a critical component.

(59:14):
And even of automated solutionseven of AI solutions you know
even where bots are concernedthere are still certain
significant degree of humanintervention and the problem
with something like Facebook isthe scale of it.
Yeah you know you can't possiblyhave a staff big enough to to
effectively pay attention towhat's going on.

(59:34):
What I think they can do what Ithink Twitter can do as well and
this is purely I swear to youfrom you X and design and
development standpoint and Idon't think these are big kerbs
they could significantly improvetheir reporting mechanisms that.
If they did nothing but includemore choices when you're forced

(59:57):
to report something that canchoices that exist where you
have to pick one of those do notcover very much.
Okay.
I think there's a lot of thereare a lot of things that are
that are missing.
For example on Twitter I've hadpeople follow me lately and try
to hijack things that I've postswho are essentially to some

(01:00:19):
degree porn sites.

Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
Oh wow.
Yeah.
I've seen them on Twitter.

Speaker 5 (01:00:23):
Here's what happens when you try to report that when
you hit the report button.
There is no option for forpornography or for you know
what's the word I'm looking for.
Something.
In some cases children areinvolved in this which is pure

(01:00:45):
evil.
There is no category.
You can put them under.
And I've encountered lots ofinstances where I've seen things
that are really egregious andthere was no there is no option
no category to properly reportit and therefore what I think
happens is that the system takesthat and because it a machine

(01:01:06):
looks at that post and can'tidentify it based on the
criteria it has already itpasses.
Interesting.
OK.
That's what I think ishappening.
Our platforms.

Speaker 4 (01:01:16):
I didn't realize it was on Twitter for the longest
time.
I just happened to come acrosssomething and I was I was
shocked that it was allowed tobe there.
It was an entire is it out yet.
Porn star but none of the postswere posted by the account.
They were all read tweets fromsomeone else.
Right.
So they got around the rules.

Speaker 5 (01:01:38):
Yeah right.
Right.
And there's no.
And that's what I'm saying.
Where I think it's a design flawit's a development flaw it's old
it's a mid tier logic flaw inthat you're just missing a big
part of the puzzle.
I mean they they Twitter forexample just had this you know
all these posts about we'verevamped our security rules and

(01:01:58):
this and that.
And when I look it's the samefor choices that we had before.

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
And there's a serious lag on response to Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:02:07):
And I think that's what happens I think the machine
looks at it and it gets a passbecause it doesn't fit any of
these predefined categories.
You know a machine doesn't knowhow to make a leap in logic
stupid.
And I think that's part of theproblem.
So I think that part has to getbetter at the very least.
If you can't improve if we'renot at the point technologically

(01:02:30):
where we can improve themachine's ability to recognize
certain scenarios and triggersthen you have to spend some time
designing and developing thereporting process to be better
to be more accurate to set offinternal triggers in a system
that alert a human being.
Right.
Certain things at certain levelsabsolutely must be caught.

Speaker 4 (01:02:51):
Yeah you would think after a certain number of
reports particular post would besuppressed just until it can be
looked at by a human just takeit down for that moment when you
have enough reports on it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:04):
Right.
You can't lump everything into abig generic category that says
this is harmful or abusive.
OK.
If it's child pornography itneeds to be in a category child
pornography.
And that sets off massive alarmbells.
Right.
And a human being says no we'redeleting this right now.

Speaker 4 (01:03:20):
Yeah.
And you know other people canmanage systems like that.
I've seen it done so.

Speaker 5 (01:03:24):
That's right.
So to me that's sloppiness.
It's laziness to some degree.
And it's a denial of theresponsibility that you have
when you're in this position noone wants to hear about their
troubles.
Yeah ok.

Speaker 4 (01:03:39):
I mean I don't you know I read some things of
couple of years ago about youknow because even then it was it
was a problem.
And their defense was of coursethe free speech argument.
And I think a lot of it theydon't want to minimize their
engagement.
That's right.
I think they can get all driveusers away if they start doing

(01:04:00):
it.

Speaker 5 (01:04:01):
And I think you're right about that and I think
that's it.
Think about it for a secondthink about every client you are
worked with around going zationyou have worked with think about
their reticence to do certainthings.
What was it centered around.
Right.
What was the driver there losingusers.
Yeah.
Losing customers.
It's the same thing.
This is the same battle the sameconcerns and their legitimate

(01:04:22):
concerns and minimize that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
I'll do it for you.

Speaker 8 (01:04:26):
They can afford those rights.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
All right fine I was trying to be diplomatic.
So you're braver than I am.
Not just you know I have likeTourette's or something just
come down to I don't have thatfilter anymore and there's no
reason to sometimes yeah.
Jolter Yeah I have some things.
Have you gotten yourself intotrouble.
Oh god yes.

(01:04:55):
I would say things before Irealize I've said them out loud
like oh I what I really meantwas commenced backpedaling.

Speaker 4 (01:05:07):
I think I'm making up for several decades of being
reticent to too afraid.
So it all kind of stored up andnow it's it's not a problem
whatsoever.

Speaker 5 (01:05:20):
Well there's nothing wrong with that.
You know my father used to tellme all the time and he still
says you know the worst possiblething you can do in any
situation is tell the truth.
Right at the end of the day theworst you can do is be honest.
And whatever happens after thatis going to happen.
But at least you know thatyou're told the truth.

Speaker 4 (01:05:40):
Yeah this is one of my great life lessons is the
consequences of being authenticare not nearly as bad as the
ones I'm not.

Speaker 5 (01:05:49):
That's right.
Yeah.
And I think a lot of us havelearned that the hard way.
Absolutely.
And definitely teach youpersonally and professionally.

Speaker 4 (01:05:57):
And in it it crosses over.
So if you start to feel morebrave personally you start to
feel it professionally as well.
So yeah I think so.

Speaker 5 (01:06:06):
This is random words coming from the Gravett home.
Here we go.
I noticed when I looked at yourprofile earlier that when you
were at Bowling Green when youwere in college your major was
biology and psychology andthought that would come up.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
I was headed toward premed.

Speaker 4 (01:06:27):
I was all about.
I didn't know if I was going tobe a psychiatrist or I just
wanted psychology to supportmedicine.
But I really wanted to go intomedicine.
And I kind of washed out inchemistry and I was like well
what do I do now.
Cause I had all my eggs in onebasket and I really had no idea

(01:06:48):
what else I wanted to do.
And I was taking art classes andI was doing design classes you
know and design back then was byhand.
So I just sort of kept that tothis side as something I liked
but I didn't think I was goingto go into it as a profession
because my mom would always sayyou know you can't get a job you

(01:07:10):
can actually get a good jobdoing them like oh yeah I was
there.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Yeah I went through that.

Speaker 4 (01:07:16):
So you know after school I really didn't know what
I wanted to do and I didn't finddesign or or digital anything
until I think it was I was 30 Iwas 30 when I worked as an
assistant for a multimediaproduction company.
And they happened to have a Macand it was the Lisa you know.

(01:07:40):
Nice.
Yeah.
And they were doing these.
I think time is calledMacroMedia Director.
Yup doing all these coolpresentations on it.
And I I didn't know how they didit.
It was a complete mystery to mebut whatever it was I wanted to
learn it.
And that was from that point oneverything related to that kind
of is what I focused on.

Speaker 5 (01:08:01):
So what I find interesting is that the two
fields that you started out into me have direct ties to the
work that we do as you asprofessionals.
Really I think both thingsfactor in psychology is huge.

Speaker 4 (01:08:15):
Yeah obviously yeah.
The more I got into you X andunderstand the users that I
could draw on a lot of that butit didn't seem like a direct
connection at first.

Speaker 5 (01:08:25):
No of course not of course not.
But even with biology okay withthis sort of natural biological
ways that that we all functionand interact with one another
and that the impulses some ofwhich are biomechanical to some
degree drive us.
Then there have been a lot ofgood arguments made in recent
years about how biology spillsover into all sorts of

(01:08:49):
disciplines even to howbusinesses operate and run and
are created or how designhappens or how products are
idiots.
The whole argument about formand function which is one of my
favorites this idea that formfollows function which it
doesn't is essentially refuted.
And to some degree in certainaspects of biology right where

(01:09:10):
it's commonly thought that theopposite is true.
But if you really dig into it itisn't.
There's a lot of adaptation thathappens because of necessity.

Speaker 4 (01:09:20):
Yeah I was just talking to a colleague about
this.
You know when people have a taskto perform or a goal to achieve
they will put up with a badinterface.
Yeah I'll just do it.
They'll just adapt to it.
And if it's part of the jobthey'll do it for years and not
complain about it because theyfigure it's part of their job.

(01:09:40):
So it depends on the motivationof the individual user because
they're not likely to tell you Ineed a better interface.

Speaker 5 (01:09:47):
No because it never enters their mind.
What they're focused on is whatthey're trying to accomplish.
Right.
And that adaptation that you'retalking about again that exists
in nature everywhere.
Yeah that's how all this stuffworks.
To a large degree.
So I'm not smart enough toreally dig into those parallels
but the things that I've read Ifind completely fascinating

(01:10:10):
because there are little bellsthat go off like yeah we do do
that.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:10:14):
And I still get on I'm going deep to understand
motivations of behavior and youknow the changes in human brain
I get into all that stuff allover again which was you know my
initial passion of biology islike it's all tied together.
And I know that now but it'sreally fascinating to rediscover
how it effects what I'm doingcurrently.

Speaker 5 (01:10:37):
Mazing is amazing.
You know how we start in oneplace and we wind up in another
place when you're youngerparticular We've hammered this
topic as well but you have thissort of idea about how all this
is going to go.
And reality is that it doesn'tgo anything like that.

Speaker 4 (01:10:55):
I had notebooks full of my five year 10 year plans.
I knew exactly exactly to theletter what my life was gonna be
and it wasn't anything likethat.
So I stopped with the notebooksalready.
It was like if I can just getthrough this year and I'll see
what happens.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
I don't know where I'm going to be and I'm okay
with it.
Yeah you sort of learn over timeto have your bags packed at all
times.

Speaker 4 (01:11:18):
Yeah.
Oh the dot com bust.
That's where I learned of allthe tech jobs I had from 99 to
2005.
I think I was laid off fourtimes in five years.
So I just had fun with it.

Speaker 6 (01:11:35):
Point me like how are they going to do it this time I
wonder.

Speaker 5 (01:11:38):
Yeah that was an amazing period of time.
I still look back at it and allthese.

Speaker 4 (01:11:44):
Half-Baked business models that they were going to
sell to for high dollar venturecapitalists like no right.

Speaker 5 (01:11:53):
No part of me goes OK it's a miracle that we sort of
survived it.
And at the same time it's just Idon't think I've ever
experienced any other point inhistory where things were just
so completely random and wentyou know just everything that
was happening.
There was no precedent.
There were no rules.

(01:12:14):
There were no I mean companieswere being valued by how much
money they could spend how fast.
You know it just flew in theface of of everything else.
But it was exciting.

Speaker 4 (01:12:26):
It was exciting it was fun.
It was really fun.
The legal stuff was kind of adrag but I'm learning that I
could just survive that kind ofthing.
I was set for the rest of mycareer.
I didn't really sweat that stuffanymore.

Speaker 5 (01:12:40):
And that's a valuable lesson that Zweibel lesson to
learn early.

Speaker 4 (01:12:42):
Yeah to that OK I'm not that is like this didn't
stop me care about your craft ifyou keep growing and stretching
and making sure you're doinggood work.
The jobs will come becauseyou've whether you realize it or
not you've created a network ofpeople that you've worked with
before that you can tap into.
And most of my jobs over thelast ten years with the

(01:13:05):
exception of the one I haveright now I've come through
other people that I know peopleyou know they say people make
the world go round.

Speaker 5 (01:13:11):
They really truly do.
Your relationships drive a lotof what happens.
I mean this is the reason I havea career.
OK.
This is all based on personalinteractions and relationships
and the growth that happenscomes from that as well so I
could not possibly agree withyou more.

Speaker 4 (01:13:31):
Yeah it matters it's a karma thing.
I mean I don't strictly believein that but I do believe in
putting the best possible energyout there professionally and it
has come back to me severaltimes.

Speaker 5 (01:13:43):
I think you're right about that.
And time has proven that true.
So I would like to ask you somequick hotseat questions.
Here we go.
Right.
See Mike.
Some good ones.
First and this is one of myfavorites.
What word or phrase do you sayfar too often.

Speaker 9 (01:14:00):
Awesome.
Really.
Yeah.
Now I used to use it ironicallybecause I thought it was so
silly but it just sort of creptinto my everyday language and I
catch myself like I can't saythat in front of a client but
everything is awesome with me.

Speaker 5 (01:14:17):
Well maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy where
you're willing things to beawesome.
Let's go with that.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
Yeah.
I'm trying to help.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Trying to help.

Speaker 5 (01:14:28):
What is what is one talent or skill that you have
that nobody knows about.

Speaker 4 (01:14:34):
Because my life has taken such twists and turns as
gotten into telling stories andwriting.
So I keep that to myself fornow.
I don't know if I'm going to doanything with that.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:14:48):
Writing fiction interesting.
So you've written a lot offiction over the years.

Speaker 4 (01:14:55):
I'll write little stories but I'm focusing a lot
on it now and I guess peoplewill know because I'm saying it
right.
Yeah.
It's the kind of thing everybodywants to be an author so I keep
it to myself because it seemscliche but yeah I started
writing.
Yeah but your work might bereally good.
It might be.
We'll see.
I still haven't decided if I'mgoing to release it to the wild.

Speaker 5 (01:15:17):
But yeah that's awesome.
And it's even if you don't Ithink it's awesome that you're
doing it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:22):
It's a good outlet.
It's definitely a good outlet.

Speaker 5 (01:15:24):
So yeah that's very cool.
So the proverbial Desert Islandsituation and all broaden the
category a little bit you canhave either one record to listen
to or one movie or just bring iteven further or one book.
Oh well what's it going to be.

Speaker 4 (01:15:46):
Not all of them.
Well the record won't demeanorget on that island if I don't
have electricity right.

Speaker 5 (01:15:53):
Well let's let's assume for sake of argument you
would listen to it.
It's like Gilligan's Island youcreate your own power source.

Speaker 4 (01:15:59):
No it would be music.
Dave Brubeck Take Five.

Speaker 5 (01:16:03):
Yeah that would be an excellent choice.
Excellent choice.
Why.

Speaker 4 (01:16:07):
It was.
My dad had a collection of jazzand Herbie from like the 60s 50s
and 60s and it was one of thosethings that I would sneak.
When he wasn't looking andlistened Dixie didn't want me
touching his records.
Now I'm a little kid at the timeand I didn't really understand

(01:16:27):
what I was listening to.
I didn't know what jazz was.
I didn't even realize at thetime that my own grandfather was
a jazz musician musician becauseno one talked about it.
But I would play it over andover again it would just make me
happy.
Just it's just amazing.
And I still do it still.
I still use that song Take vibeto sort of you know myself up.

(01:16:50):
That was an incredible record.
And the whole thing PaulDesmond's work is just amazing
staggering.

Speaker 5 (01:16:57):
I mean the depth the depth there and the complexity
that sort of comes across insuch a clear connected.
I don't want to use the wordsimple but it's really I don't
think you really realize peoplemost people don't really realize
how complex that music isbecause it comes across so

(01:17:18):
perfectly is extremely wellcrafted.

Speaker 4 (01:17:22):
And you you could get lost in the catchiness of it not
realize how many layers thereare.

Speaker 5 (01:17:28):
I mean there are certain things that are just so
perfect that definingcategorization.
I mean the first time I everheard a love supreme.
I felt that way.

Speaker 4 (01:17:37):
Yeah that's a good one to you.
Yeah.
Oh my god are you kidding me.

Speaker 5 (01:17:42):
Yeah I love those types of experiences with music
because I'm obsessed.
But I love it when somethingfloors me and I think how did I
live without this.

Speaker 4 (01:17:53):
And the transformative nature of it it's
just you know when you can haveany experience and especially in
concert which I haven't had in along time.

Speaker 5 (01:18:01):
But yeah there's some musicians that can just take you
other places and go see if youever get the chance go see Brian
Blade and the Fellowship Band.
Yeah.
OK.
Brian plays a drummer.
What style.
It's jazz.
But.
But they are mixing and meldingso many different styles of

(01:18:22):
music.
A lot of it is very unexpectedbut there are two favorite
pieces of mine is an albumcalled landmarks.
And it just came out.
It's called Body and shadow.
They're both very meditativevery contemplated of very
atmospheric.
These are two records that wereboth immediately like at desert
island status for me oh wow oklandmarks when I got it it has

(01:18:46):
my playlist for like threeyears.

Speaker 4 (01:18:48):
I'll definitely check it out.
Sounds like you know if my housewas on fire I would need to make
sure that I had a competentrecommendation.

Speaker 5 (01:18:59):
I will definitely check that out and my wife and I
just want to see them and liveas a whole different level.

Speaker 7 (01:19:04):
Blown Away and scared when someone you love is great
lives because often that's notthe case.

Speaker 3 (01:19:10):
Yeah I've been there.
I've certainly been there.
I kind of want to do one morebefore we wrap this up.

Speaker 4 (01:19:18):
I'm trying to think okay.
It's like Inside the ActorsStudio.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:19:22):
Yeah.
You know.
If you.
Let's.
This is another classic but it'sa good one.
You get one wish and the wishcan't be for more wishes.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
Always my god.

Speaker 5 (01:19:34):
What's it going to be a wish.
Yeah what's it going to be.

Speaker 4 (01:19:41):
That everybody starts listening to each other with
open open ears and open hearts.

Speaker 5 (01:19:46):
I think that's perfect.
That's perfect.
And I think it absolutelydescribes who you are as a
person.
From what I have witnessed sofar.

Speaker 4 (01:19:54):
Thank you for that.
Means a lot.
I try.
I try really hard.

Speaker 5 (01:19:58):
And for most of us that's all we can do.
Absolutely cannot thank youenough for spending time with me
this morning.
I deeply appreciate it.
This was a truly enjoyableconversation and I hope we get
to do it again soon.

Speaker 4 (01:20:10):
It's been an awesome job.
I loved every minute.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:20:14):
Awesome take care and have a fantastic weekend.
You too.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
That wraps up this edition of making us work.
Thanks for listening and I hopehearing these stories provide
some useful perspective andencouragement.
Along with a reminder thatyou're not alone out 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.com slashpodcast.

(01:20:41):
You'll also find links to moreEurex resources on the web and
social media along with ways tocontact me if you're interested
in sharing your own story here.
Until next time this is JonahToli reminding you that it's
people like you who make uswork.