Episode 08, Mary Shaw :: UX Troubadour

Mary Shaw's more than 20-year career has taken her from accomplished touring singer-songwriter to marketing strategist to web designer to UX consultant to some of the biggest brands in the world. 

Mary's first career was that of a professional musician, playing solo concerts at colleges all over the U.S. with just a guitar and a sound system. When the money ran out, she became a corporate meeting planner...before gratefully stumbling into web design in 1996.

The numerous twists and turns her career has taken have only strengthened her belief in collaboration and the power of interaction design. Experience, Mary says, has taught her that the best products come from a clearly articulated vision, based on solid user needs and business research — along with a little healthy debate ;-) 

Twitter:

@maryshaw

Facebook:

maryshawux

LinkedIn:

in/maryshaw

Website:

maryshaw.net

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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

Joe Natoli (00:08):
Hello and welcome to Making UX Work, the Give Good UX
podcast.
I'm your host Joe Natoli, andour focus here is on folks like
you doing real, oftenunglamorous UX work 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.

(00:32):
My guest today is Mary Shaw,whose more than 20-year career
has taken her from accomplishedtouring singer-songwriter to
marketing strategist and UXconsultant to some of the
biggest brands in the world.
She's a firm believer incollaboration and the power of
interaction design— andexperience has taught her that
the best products come from aclearly articulated vision based

(00:54):
on solid user and business needsresearch— along with a little
healthy debate.
Here's my conversation with MaryShaw, on Making UX Work.
So Mary, how are you?

Mary Shaw (01:08):
Hey Joe.
Thanks for having me.

Joe Natoli (01:10):
Thanks for being here.
You have a very interestingstory! I was checking out your
your bio and of course yourLinkedIn profile.
You've done a lot of things!

Mary Shaw (01:19):
Yeah...
that.

Joe Natoli (01:23):
You say that like it's a bad thing!

Mary Shaw (01:25):
Ah, it's been a fascinating wonderful journey.
I guess we start at thebeginning.
I set out to become a musician30 years ago.
That was the only job I wanted.

Joe Natoli (01:36):
Wow.

Mary Shaw (01:37):
It's the only job I did for a while.

Joe Natoli (01:39):
For how long?

Mary Shaw (01:41):
Almost 12 years.
I started in college.
I had an opportunity to play wehad this Rathskeller where I
went to school and they weregoing to pay me 75 bucks to play
my favorite songs for threehours.
I was like wow sign me up.
Back in the 80s.
And so I would practice afterclasses until I had a
repertoire.

(02:01):
And it was just so much fun; Ijust really enjoyed it a lot.
I started writing a lot of songsand heard about this college
circuit and that was it.
I have a degree in Communicationand Journalism but I wanted to
see if I could do it.
And so so I did well 12 years Imean that's how to make a living
playing music yeah.
We've used to say I made astarting.

(02:24):
There were couple of years whereit was really good the college
market was very lucrative forabout three of those years.
I was mostly you know I wouldhave to do temporary secretarial
jobs on the sites like make endsmeet.
In the late 80s early 90s,things were things were going
really well, but I was doingabout 50,000 miles a year and
after I met my husband it wasjust unsustainable.

Joe Natoli (02:43):
Yeah, I mean that's a lot.

Mary Shaw (02:45):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (02:45):
That's absolutely a lot.
I mean I've been in bands onmost of my life as well; I sort
of quit doing that about 10years ago, but never had any
aspirations to do what you'vedone.
And I know from firsthandexperience just how hard of a
slog that is.
So to hear you ran that road for12 years, that says a hell of a
lot to me about your commitment,your belief, your dedication.

(03:08):
It takes a lot.

Mary Shaw (03:09):
Well, thank you.
I had I had a lot of support.
My family was very supportive myhusband at the time even
remarried.
He was very supportive and had agood friend whose brother had an
early home recording studio andhe needed a new project.
And it was a great opportunity.
That's why I did my first album.
And I just I wanted to be thenext Bonnie Raitt; she's still

(03:29):
my favorite.
I just love the way she connectswith audiences and I wanted to
see if I could do that and itwas just really a big adventure.
And it was a wonderful way tospend my 20s and to see the
country and to just meet alltypes of people really something
that they were mostly youngcollege students and the older I
got.
I kept having similarconversations.

(03:50):
This was like during the MTVdays...
so they'd still be 20-21 yearsold and I would be getting to be
25, 26, 27 and still having thesame conversation.
So it got to be.
that nobody knew who I was.
I was just doing the show andplay some songs and then go
home.
Yeah but it was good it was.
It was a good adventure and.
And thank God for the web.

Joe Natoli (04:11):
Yeah, no kidding.
So how did that come to an end,and then your career, I mean,
into all things sort ofmarketing and design and
advertising and UX andeverything else.
How did that switch happen?

Mary Shaw (04:22):
It was gradual, I think it was...we got married in
94 and I was starting to gettired of the road right around
93.
You know when we were ready tolike trying to start life
together.
And so I just kind of...
I just kind of curtailed thetouring and I was like"all
right, I have this marketingdegree, what can I do with it?"
There was a small agency near mytown that was looking for

(04:43):
freelancers so I joined up and Iwon.
And they were great.
I wound up working with them forfive years and I was
always...you know it was neverfor the whole year or anything
and there was another agencyhere in Connecticut that I also
teamed up with on a shorterbasis.
But I was just doing basicallyproject management type stuff so
that we would coordinate salesmeetings.
We would do videos, new productlaunches and back in those days

(05:06):
there were a lot of big brandsin Connecticut that we could
support.
So it was fun.
So I got to I got to do that.
I learned a lot of that from aguy who I worked with at the
agency.
He's he's still my biggestbusiness mentor and still a very
dear friend who lives in Floridanow.
But we did a lot of greatmeetings for Glad, Glad bags.
We did stuff for them.
We did stuff for T.P.
and scoop away.
And also for us the ASPCA.

(05:29):
So those are like very earlyexposures to large profile
brands.

Joe Natoli (05:34):
It sounds like there was some event management mixed
in there as well.

Mary Shaw (05:39):
Yes.
And then that that led to myfirst real job at a software
company at Stanford; theyactually had an event
coordinator position.
It was going to be a short termthing.
I went there to cover for somemonths of maternity leave, and
that person left and I got thejob and it was right around the
time we were buying our house.
You know I've just been veryfortunate.

(06:01):
That's how these things happen,right?

Joe Natoli (06:02):
I mean yeah, it's never when you're sort of
looking; it's just serendipity.
You know, one thing happens andeverything falls into place.
It's that old saying about onedoor closes another door opens—
but there's a reason thosecliches exist.

Mary Shaw (06:15):
Oh totally.
And this was such a greatopportunity.
This was a company calledHyperion Solutions.
And they had an annual userconference back then it was like
almost 2,000 attendees.
And I got hired in the marketingdepartment and I was there and
in that role for almost twoyears.
But I had an awesome boss.
They were just very forwardthinking and we grew that event

(06:36):
almost 5,000 attendees.
But the thing that was mostinteresting for me during that
job was I got to work on theWeb.
And I had found, you know I haddone a little bit of interactive
projects on my freelance careerthe year before but boy I
remember.
Do you remember Internet cafesback in the mid 90s?

Joe Natoli (06:53):
Oh yeah.
Yeah I mean from that from thetimeline here this is right
around...correct me if I'm wrongbut isn't this right when your
transition started into webstuff, wasn't this right around
2000 like the dot-com boom era?

Mary Shaw (07:07):
No, it was actually right before that.
It was right it was right whenthings were getting OK you know.
Amazing.
It was.
It was 97 when I got the jobHyperion.
I got firmly entrenched inworking on web projects before
the crash and Hyperion promotedfrom within.
So I had an opportunity to jointhe Web group as a project
manager in 2000 beforeeverything happened.

(07:27):
Thankfully the company did welland we were rather Eskay by all
of that stuff because you knowwe were working with Fortune
1000 clients and between 99 and2000 I moved over to I.T.
which was who ran the web group.
And I just I was reallyfortunate.
I kind of feel like Hyperion iswhere I grew up; it was kind of
like grad school in a way,just...it was the first real

(07:48):
stability I had had in any kindof career.
And they were just very, veryencouraging and they would
supply training.
And if I found books on it youknow the Web was so new that we
were we were we were just doingwhatever we could to try to get
projects out the door and wewanted them to be good.
But it was very, very innocent.
It didn't even have that name.

Joe Natoli (08:10):
No.
Exactly how much of what youwere doing felt like brand new
territory to you and everyoneelse?

Mary Shaw (08:16):
For me it was in the early days, and it was
just...it's so interesting, Joe,because it's so similar in my
mind to music creation andproduction because we were
making something out of nothing.
And that's what you do when youstart a brand new song.
You just have a blank piece ofpaper.
And we had a blank text file.
Do you remember webmasters?
We had a brilliant webmaster atmy company and she kind of took

(08:40):
me under her wing and showed mea bunch of stuff and then I've
always been a bookworm andAmazon was just starting out— my
one click addiction was juststarting back then.
And I found a really cool bookweb project management.
Ashley Friedlen actually...

Joe Natoli (08:55):
I read that book!

Mary Shaw (08:55):
Yeah, that book was awesome.
I told my boss about it and shewas like"cool, let's do this!"
And so we started institutingall that stuff, you know about
scope work.
And just you know mapping stuffout and really really early
Agile if you will.
Just really, you know, blockingthings off into workable chunks
and then working througheverything in a somewhat safe

(09:19):
manner, versus the Wild Westthat it was before then.

Joe Natoli (09:22):
Right.
Absolutely.
It's really funny that youmention that book because I'll
you something...
I haven't thought about it, Ihaven't thought about that
particular a book for years.
But you and I bought that bookright around the same time
because I had just started, inthe late 90s, I started my own
firm and it was the same thing.
Not only did we not know what wewere doing, but no one else knew

(09:44):
what they were doing either! Andso at the same time there's all
this material coming out,articles books.

Mary Shaw (09:51):
Oh yeah.

Joe Natoli (09:52):
You know?
And that was one of them whereit was an eye opener:"OK, here's
how you run this."

Mary Shaw (09:57):
Oh it was great.
That book was really helpful.
And then there was Kelly Goto'sbook.
I think it's still up on myshelf somewhere.
Web design workflow that works.

Joe Natoli (10:07):
I swear to you it's right in front of me right now.

Mary Shaw (10:09):
We should hang out.

Joe Natoli (10:10):
Oh this is SO strange.
I literally pulled this book outtwo days ago because I wanted to
show somebody something and itsWeb ReDesign 2.0.
It's right in my hands, rightnow.

Mary Shaw (10:24):
Yeah.
And you know all the stuff theysaid about content management is
still so relevant.

Joe Natoli (10:27):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.

Mary Shaw (10:29):
The thing that drew me to your work was just, you
know of course, the elements ofuser experience.

Joe Natoli (10:34):
Yeah, exactly.

Mary Shaw (10:35):
Jesse.
Jesse James Garrett, man.

Joe Natoli (10:36):
Right.
Exactly right.
It was like, your head is justexploding.
All of a sudden you're readingall this stuff that it makes so
much sense.
You know?
And everything that Don Normansaid about user experience and
everything that like for me alot of what I started reading
it.
Alan Cooper.
Cooper's Web site.

Mary Shaw (10:52):
OK.
Yep.

Joe Natoli (10:53):
Alan and Sue, and the work that they did, was just
monumental for me.
And I thought OK, this isexactly how this is supposed to
work.
And I probably drove all myemployees crazy with this.
I was like"THIS! I'm tellingyou, this is how we've got to do
this work," and they're like"wedon't know HOW to do that work."
"Doesn't matter!"

Mary Shaw (11:13):
Oh I know.
I later went to an agency afterI left Hyperion, and we were
working on some early projectsand I have a Xerox copy.
I mean Xerox copies of thatscaffolding diagram from the
Jesse James Garrett book.
And I asked everybody to put itin their cube just keep it in
mind as we were working nonstop.

Joe Natoli (11:30):
Right.
Right.
They probably looked at you likeyou had three heads.

Mary Shaw (11:33):
Yeah, it was a great time.
It was great great time to bedoing this stuff.
Yeah and just I really felt likeI was on the cutting edge.
It was very adventurous.
For me, it was very similar tomy music career.
But the key difference was I wasmaking a living.
A good living at that point andwe had so much passion for the
work we really did and we werewe were helping people and were

(11:55):
helping the company moveforward.
You know it was a good time too,for me anyway, to be an
employee.

Joe Natoli (12:01):
You were there for quite a while, at Hyperion for
quite a while, right?

Mary Shaw (12:04):
Five years, actually and I guess if you count the
marketing department it was morelike 7.
Things just changed and it wastime for me to go somewhere
else.
But I loved it.
I still have a very specialplace in my heart.
But I moved on to a promotionsagency in Connecticut to work on
more brand-focused stuff.
And that was where I met one ofmy biggest mentors, who,

(12:25):
ironically, we worked on aproject together about six
months ago.
It's like wow it's a smallcommunity and kinetic and
everybody knows each other.
It's kind of like televisionproduction.
Everybody knows everybody.
But yeah I got to work onDove.com.
It's the flagship website fortheir products.
So this was back when micrositeswere big.

Joe Natoli (12:47):
Right.

Mary Shaw (12:48):
So every time I had a new product, we had a new
microsite to support it and thenwe had media that had to go out
with it and that was when Ireally started doing a lot more
UXey type stuff.
I was doing it at Hyperion; Ijust didn't know that's what it
was called.

Joe Natoli (13:02):
This is what, like, early 2000s?

Mary Shaw (13:04):
It was around 2004, 2005 actually, closer to that.
We started to do the...
we were definitely doingsitemaps.
And I wouldn't even call themwireframes back then, but we
were sketching stuff out and wehad post notes all over my
office.
So I was doing a lot of what Iwas doing a lot more user
research back then before I wentto the agency.
You know, I would go out intothe field.

(13:26):
We were building customapplications within the company.
So I would go into the field totalk to the users, figure out
what they needed.
Try to come back and translateit for the tech team and then
work with the designers to bringit forward.
And so it was basically userresearch but it was under
project management.

Joe Natoli (13:40):
Really interesting and I love that.
I love the fact that...
because I've always believedthere's a missing component in
product ownership and productmanagement, project management
inside organizations.
And what you just described tome, I've sort of always felt
like those folks should have ahand in having that happen.
I think it would change the waya lot of them do their job.

(14:03):
I think it would make theirlives easier in a lot of ways.
I think it would eliminate a lotof misunderstanding about this
profession.
So it's really interesting to meto hear you say that those
things were so close togetherfor you.
Do you think that was a functionof a lot of this being new, or
was it just that you know, thatcompany's philosophy,"this is
this is how we do it," where youfind out who these folks are
before we design for them.

Mary Shaw (14:23):
Well, I think it was part of the company philosophy
because Hyperion was always veryuser-centered from the
beginning, and my boss was alsovery forward thinking.
She was like"you have got to gotalk to the people." I said OK,
so that's what I did.
I went.
It was really interesting, Igot, you know by then I think we
had about 2000 employees and Igot to work with every
department to provide them somesort of product.

(14:45):
We did a lot of stuff for H.R.
The big thing we did, do youremember the enterprise portals?

Joe Natoli (14:50):
Sure do.

Mary Shaw (14:51):
That was probably the biggest project we worked on it
was we rolled out a Plumtreeportal to replace our Intranet.

Joe Natoli (14:58):
Plumtree! This is a blast from the past.

Mary Shaw (15:00):
Yeah right?

Joe Natoli (15:01):
This is awesome.

Mary Shaw (15:01):
This is like the wayback machine for you, Joe.

Joe Natoli (15:04):
That's awesome.
I remember sitting in meetingswith the Plumtree reps...right,
and they're walking througheverything and you go"OK, we
need to change that...andthis...maybe we can customize
that...
because it sucks." Yeah, Iremember those days.

Mary Shaw (15:18):
We had, like I said, we had a really amazing
Webmaster, she was somethingelse and she was able to tame
that Plumtree beast.
It was quite interesting, but wegot it done.

Joe Natoli (15:29):
That's awesome.
And it is like a lion-tamingfeat.
I mean those those behemoth, youknow, enterprise packages were
just a universe unto their own.

Mary Shaw (15:38):
We had to look at we had to look at so many too
because they know the CIA wantedto make sure we vetted
everything so we were looking atthe Gartner Magic Quadrant and
making sure that we had the topplayers and we had white papers
all over the place.
It was an interesting time, andthat was way long ago.

Joe Natoli (15:53):
Yeah I mean from Hyperion to the next gig you
were talking about, I mean didyou feel like...
it sounds like at Hyperion therewas certainly support for all
this.
Did you ever encounter, there orafterwards, you know that the
next place you jumped to, didyou encounter any opposition
where, you know, you sort of hadto start fighting for these
things that were second nature?

Mary Shaw (16:13):
Oh yeah.
Yes indeed.

Joe Natoli (16:17):
Was it the same type of opposition that we that you
sort of see now today?
Or was it different?

Mary Shaw (16:22):
Yeah and we had that too.
You know where I was back atHyperion it was it was very much
rainbows and unicorns within ourlittle web team.
But going into the marketingdepartment we were always
fighting for stuff.
And at the end of the day we hadto compromise on stuff and a lot
of times it happened and it alsohappened in the agency world
too, our brand clients...youknow somebody reads something in

(16:44):
a marketing magazine on a planeand they rush into the office
and it has to be up tomorrow.

Joe Natoli (16:48):
Yeah.

Mary Shaw (16:50):
And we don't know why and we don't know how much it
costs...

Joe Natoli (16:52):
Yeah, a client of mine likes to say the urgent
always trumps the important.

Mary Shaw (16:57):
Yes.
So I lived through a ton of thatand Hyperion then definitely
into...
I was at a company called Ryanpartnership which was acquired
by Epsilon I guess I think afterI left.
Oh yeah we really had to sell inour process to that client.
You know, with scopes of work Iexplain it just you know back
then it was very much awaterfall effort.

(17:18):
The information we neededthrough discovery, and then
before we get to proceed todesign that you know development
deployment all that stuff...
and we would knock heads withour clients sometimes but

Joe Natoli (17:27):
Yeah, I'm sure.

Mary Shaw (17:28):
But always in the most respectful way possible.

Joe Natoli (17:30):
When you have disagreement, you know, it's
part of the gig.
And I always feel like the folkson that end, the fear and the
reticence is sort of a naturalbyproduct of...of who they are
and what they do for a living.
They're sort of being asked toplace very large bets on things
they really don't understand.

Mary Shaw (17:47):
Yes, very much so.

Joe Natoli (17:48):
It's a scary place to be.

Mary Shaw (17:50):
Yeah yeah.
And the other thing too that Ifind too like for you I'm
working on a corporate websiteright now a big responsive web
design project for a very largebrand and you know the CMO and
everybody who works for him,they already have full time
jobs.
And then you bring up a webproject on top of that.
It's not necessarily it's not a"done for you" thing, it's a

(18:11):
collaborative process and so weneed we need their brains we
need them in the room with us tohelp us make design decisions.
And I think there's a lot ofeducation that has to happen
with executives before theyembark on a big project because
it's going to take their time.
It's just going to take theirtime.

Joe Natoli (18:27):
They're not used to that.

Mary Shaw (18:29):
No, and especially if they want the best product
possible.
You know, because you know wejust can't go off and work in a
vacuum.
We have to understand what theirbusiness is and they have to
understand what their businessneeds to grow and move forward.

Joe Natoli (18:40):
Yeah and I have sort of experienced, I mean
throughout my career, if you doanything long enough you get
lots of flavors of experience, Iguess.
You know, you you get folks whowill throw down with you and say
"yeah, OK, this is reallyimportant me and I do want to be
involved." And then you havepeople at the extreme end of
that spectrum who sort ofmicromanage everything...

(19:01):
and then I've also experiencedthe opposite which is"yeah, I
get, it it's important, but I'mtoo busy."

Mary Shaw (19:08):
I get that a lot.
And I think there is there's somuch value to educating the ROI
if you can.
And that's such a hard thing todo.
But I find that that when I'mable to really get it, get at
what's in it for the businessand what's in it for them,
potentially.
Professionally I get there butit takes a lot of work to do
that.

Joe Natoli (19:27):
How do you do that?
What kind of things do you talkabout?

Mary Shaw (19:29):
Well, if they'll let me, I try to get information.
I try to get insights on therevenue numbers.
Now you know most of what I dois responsive websites and
believe it or not, there are somany companies still that have
not moved to a responsivewebsite design.

Joe Natoli (19:44):
Oh, I believe it.

Mary Shaw (19:45):
Well you know that, just just for the listeners out
here.
It's astonishing.
It's astonishing how many bigcompanies do not have a
responsive web site, or adaptiveor whatever...
it doesn't work on a phone,let's just say that.
So I try to go, I try to do adeep dive into the analytics to
try to figure out what theirsales numbers are whether or not
they have e-commerce and thiscase the site does not have

(20:06):
e-commerce but it could driveoff to it.
And it's like if you can atleast engage that user you can
consider trying to figure outprobably an indirect sale that's
taking place and if we can agreethat it's this number, if we
could even lift that traffic by1 percent, you know, you're
looking at a couple of milliondollars.

Joe Natoli (20:23):
Right.

Mary Shaw (20:24):
And is that lift worth going through this
additional process?
Absolutely.
Because you retain yourcustomers, they have a better
experience, you know.
The experience of you is betterfor everyone and then they're
happy and then they buy morestuff.

Joe Natoli (20:37):
Yeah, exactly right.
Exactly right.
What do you do when they won'tget involved?
What do you do when they justflat out, you know, say"nope,
sorry, just go do it."

Speaker 5 (20:44):
They don't play, I don't play.
I used to.
I am, as an independentconsultant I I have this process
that I that I lay out and I makeit part of basically the deal.
And if they want to work withme, that's the way I want to
work.
I still do sub out to someagencies and usually by the time

(21:04):
they bring me in where they'reat the site map or wireframe
stage.
So I haven't had the opportunityto be involved in any previous
research.
So those are like a differenttype of project, they're a
smaller project I'll take on,but if it's me going direct to a
company, I have to have thatprocess in place or it's just
not worth it.

Joe Natoli (21:23):
So you bow out.
You know, we're either going todo this together or we're not
going to do it at all.

Mary Shaw (21:28):
Yeah, because I want them to have the best product
they can possibly get.
And I agree they have to beinvolved in order for that to
happen.

Joe Natoli (21:35):
See, I'm the same way.
And it was hard because peoplealways are surprised when they
hear that.
So I want everybody listening,OK, you heard it from somebody
else now aside for me, who doesthe same thing.
You know, when you first startdoing it.
It's scary.
You know someone gave me thatadvice years ago when I was when
I was still young when I when Ihad my own gig going, and a

(21:56):
mentor here locally, a guy bythe name of Ed Gold, who I
really really respected kepttelling me you have to— because
I would tell him stories wherewe get together for lunch and
I'd bitch— and he would say youhave got to fire these clients.
OK.
If they're not willing to investthe time to do this right, If
they're not willing to give youwhat you need to do a good job,

(22:18):
that's going to actually dosomething for them, you've got
to walk away.
Now that scared the hell out ofme, OK, because you know you're
sort of the captain responsiblefor going down with the ship and
you don't want the ship to godown.

Mary Shaw (22:28):
Right.

Joe Natoli (22:30):
So the idea of turning away work is like,"you
have to be kidding me!" But manit took me...
I don't know, it took me five orsix years to realize that he was
absolutely right.

Mary Shaw (22:39):
Oh yeah because it's a terrifying thought, you know,
because we have families tosupport.

Joe Natoli (22:45):
Those gigs never end well.
They do not ever well.

Mary Shaw (22:48):
And I don't know if it's...you know, I had to live
through a few of them todiscover that they just weren't
worth it.

Joe Natoli (22:53):
Sure.

Mary Shaw (22:54):
But, you know, it's always better to make the
positive choice I think.

Joe Natoli (22:58):
Yeah I always felt like, you know, once I hit that
point I really firmly,especially now, feel like I
don't ever want someone to havean experience with me— someone
who's hired me for any reason—to come back and say"you know we
spent all this money, we did allthis work and we're still where
we were when we came to you." Or"we're not any better," or...

(23:19):
I mean who wants that?
I don't want that.

Mary Shaw (23:20):
Yeah, but you still have to make compromises on
these jobs anyway.

Joe Natoli (23:23):
Sure.

Mary Shaw (23:24):
Yeah.
It's never...I've had severalthat I that I've worked on that
you know it's 70 or 80 percentof what I would have hoped.

Joe Natoli (23:32):
Yeah, of course.

Mary Shaw (23:33):
But there's battles that...
you've got to pick your battles.
And there's I have to remindmyself that I will never ever
know as much about the businessas the business leader does.

Joe Natoli (23:43):
Agreed.

Mary Shaw (23:43):
So I just have to be humble to that.

Joe Natoli (23:45):
Which is hard, too.
You know, if you care about whatyou do, it's especially hard.

Mary Shaw (23:49):
Mmm hmmm, very much.

Joe Natoli (23:50):
You've been doing this for quite awhile now, and I
always say the same thing.
It's like seeing a...
it's like seeing a movie 100times, right?
You know what's coming next.
You know how it ends.
And like you just said, I meansometimes the best you can do in
any situation is just, you voicethat and you say"well, here's

(24:12):
what I think has got to takeplace" and at the end of the day
it's their decision to do it ornot.
So you're right, you do have tohave to make compromises.

Mary Shaw (24:22):
Yeah I think, you know there's all these UX boot
camps that are out there, someof which are very very
good...but on the business side,everybody is talking about the
user, the user, the user— andyes, we are user experience
professionals.
But there is that Venn diagramright that that has the sweet
spot the middle.
Well what's on the what's on theleft side of that?
The business.

(24:42):
So I think the business kind ofgets the short shrift of that—

Joe Natoli (24:44):
Always.

Mary Shaw (24:45):
Always.
But it's because I think we gethung up on what the business
wants, versus helping thebusiness figure out what it
needs.

Joe Natoli (24:52):
I totally agree.
Totally agree, couldn't agreemore.
You just you hit that nail onthe head.
Part of the reason I'm reactingthe way I am is because a big
push for me personally right nowis something I'm working on, a
workshop type thing, is allabout that side of the fence
because I don't think any of usas a profession talk about this
nearly enough.

Mary Shaw (25:13):
We don't, and there's so much we can do to help.

Joe Natoli (25:15):
Yes.

Mary Shaw (25:16):
But we have to seek first to understand, like Steven
Covey says.

Joe Natoli (25:20):
And that's the problem, right?
If I had a nickel for every postI see that's like, essentially
it'll say"clients are idiots andthey don't get it."

Mary Shaw (25:29):
It's misguided! totally misguided.

Joe Natoli (25:31):
Yeah, and it's probably not the truth, OK?
When you dig into some of thesestories— and I've had plenty of
people tell me stories, youknow, about situations because
they're looking for some advice—and a lot of times they don't
like what I have to tell thembecause what I have to tell them
is"you have to go about this ina different way," or"you're
positioning them as anadversary." The minute you do
that in your mind, you're notgetting anywhere.

(25:54):
There's no sense of helping themsucceed.
It's not about just blanketcatering to their needs.
Like you said, it's not adictatorship, or like"you will
do this in this way!" No, it'sabout leveraging your expertise
and your skill to show them howdoing it differently would be
hugely beneficial.
But you have to have thatconversation.

Mary Shaw (26:13):
Yes.
So how are we going to get thatconversation more often?
What are you doing?
Is it top secret?

Joe Natoli (26:18):
Well...what am I doing?
it's going to be a live workshopand I may do, or sell a recorded
version as well.
But essentially what I decidedis what I want to do is I want
to take people through exactlywhat I do with clients from day
one.
You know, if it's a five-dayengagement, from day one to day
five.

Mary Shaw (26:36):
That's awesome.

Joe Natoli (26:37):
Alright?
Here's exactly what I do, here'sexactly how I do it.

Mary Shaw (26:39):
Sign me up!

Joe Natoli (26:41):
Here are the questions I ask, and I'm going

to tell you something, Mary: most of it has very little to do (26:43):
undefined
with the formal quote unquote"UXmethods and processes" that the
internet is littered with, OK?
I get all that, I support it,I've done it myself, I've
encouraged client teams to doit.
I'm not against any of that, butin a lot of situations there is
a whole hell of a lot of workthat has to happen that is

(27:04):
outside those things, IF you aregoing to get that kind of
cooperation, collaboration,intel that you need in order to
make those UX improvements.

Mary Shaw (27:15):
Right, because so much, so much of the discovery
work is about what makes thebusiness tick.
So you know outside of any appor site that you're going to
build

Joe Natoli (27:24):
Right.
I mean, do you know how manytimes clients have called me in
because they feel like, OK, thisproduct is failing, or it needs
a major redesign frominteraction to UI, or it's any
number of things right,"we justwe suck at UX, can you help us?"
If I had a nickel for every timeI found out that there was some
internal process or personalityissues causing a lot of the

(27:46):
disconnect, they're causing alot of the work that should
happen to not happen?
I'd be retired by now.

Mary Shaw (27:52):
Yeah, it's it's throughout and I think it's just
people don't know.

Joe Natoli (27:56):
No, and you have to...
I guess all I'm saying is youhave to spend a lot of time
figuring out how this placeoperates right now.
OK?
How do they do things now, fromthe time someone says"I want,"
or"I think we should," orwhatever it is, from that time
until that time something getsbuilt.
What happens?
You need to know all of that.

(28:17):
You know, you really need toknow that if you're going to be
able to solve those issues and Ithink again it's something that,
to my eye, nobody's talkingabout.

Mary Shaw (28:25):
Well it's invariably, you know there's this concept of
stated needs, you know, I wantX, I want Y.
And then when you start doingyour digging like you're talking
about, there's all of theseother needs under the surface
that they are not even aware of,right?

Joe Natoli (28:40):
Right.
Right.
That are actually driving thatare actually driving that
request.

Mary Shaw (28:44):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (28:44):
They don't know that it's there.

Mary Shaw (28:46):
Who says"you don't know what you don't know,"
right?

Joe Natoli (28:48):
Right, exactly right.
So yeah, I think that there's alarger conversation that's being
missed.
It is about users, of course itis— but only in the context of
making sure that there's valueback to the business...so that
the business gives a shit abouthelping users, to be honest with
you.

Mary Shaw (29:05):
Well yeah because, that's so funny you said that,
because when I'm working withstudents it's like, we talk
about that Venn diagram you knowthe left and the right side and
then the sweet spot of themiddle.
If there's no business on theleft side, there's no users on
the right side, and then nobodygets paid and nobody can use any
product.

Joe Natoli (29:22):
Exactly right.

Mary Shaw (29:22):
You know, it all fades away.
So it's in everyone's interestto satisfy both sides of that
equation.

Joe Natoli (29:29):
Yeah, I mean, you could suggest all sorts of
things that would improve userexperience that would improve
user delight, user efficiency,whatever you want to call it.
That business is essentiallylooking at you saying"OK, great—
what does that GET us?"

Mary Shaw (29:44):
Right.

Joe Natoli (29:45):
I mean let's let's be real here.
"OK, um...so what?"

Mary Shaw (29:53):
"Do I get a raise or promotion out of this" is what
they'll ask you.

Joe Natoli (29:56):
Right, right!

Mary Shaw (29:56):
"Do I get stock options for that?"

Joe Natoli (29:59):
And that's not, and I'm not...I want to be clear I'm
not criticizing any of thosepeople.
But that is the gig, that's thelay of the land, that's how
business operates.
That's the world that we livein.

Mary Shaw (30:10):
It's a world of benefits, not features.

Joe Natoli (30:13):
Right.
Correct.
Absolutely correct.
That's...I'm gonna steal that.

Mary Shaw (30:16):
Oh go for it.
So much of what we do, and Ithink that the further you get
into your career, you have to bea consultative salesperson.
And that and I don't mean thatin, like a used car salesmen or
anything like that, it's it'sjust really identifying the
problem, identifying those painpoints and figuring out how to
solve them, which is the bigpuzzle, right?

Joe Natoli (30:35):
Yeah.
Well, consultative sales though,to me, in its true sense...means
telling the truth.

Mary Shaw (30:40):
Yeah, of course.

Joe Natoli (30:41):
It means truly being a consultant, it means being
someone that that person canrely on to tell them here's how
you make the situation better,here's what you should do,
here's what you shouldn't do andhere's why.
And I think we have a greatopportunity to do that, right?
And do it in a way whereeverybody does see benefit—
users win, businesses win,everybody wins.
it's totally possible.

(31:03):
I was telling you about my mybasement, right, the recent
flooding escapade which is sortof like a neverending story.
Long story short I had acontractor who did some work on
my house earlier a couple yearsago who I trust explicitly.
This guy's one in a million, OK,because he just tells you the
truth.
If he thinks something doesn'tneed to happen, if he thinks you
don't need to spend the money,he'll flat out tell you.

Mary Shaw (31:24):
Oh wow.

Joe Natoli (31:25):
Part of the reason I appreciate that is because I
grew up building houses.
So there's no part of a house Ihaven't built myself including
electrical, plumbing, like I'vedone all this work.
Pushing 50 and two shouldersurgeries later, I don't do it
anymore.
Anyway, I called him after thislast flood.
I said"look, this is making mecrazy and I gotta do something
and I have a couple ideas andjust want to bounce them off you

(31:45):
and see what you think." So hecomes and I lay it all out for
him and essentially what hesays, without giving you all the
ridiculous details, is"don't doit.
Do this small thing, do thisother small thing yourself and
see what happens for the nextsix-eight months." You know,
he's like"don't go down thatroad, don't spend all this
money.
Don't, just don't." That guy isworth his weight in GOLD to me.

Mary Shaw (32:08):
Totally.
He should work on some websites.

Joe Natoli (32:13):
And I thought about it after he left.
And I thought you know it's thesame approach that I take when I
work with clients.
And I think it's the reason Iappreciate that so much, because
that's my belief as well.
You know, just because we can doit doesn't mean we should.

Mary Shaw (32:27):
Right.
It's only if it's if that'scausing a huge problem, that's
when you address it.

Joe Natoli (32:32):
Right.
I mean companies come to me andsay"we have to redesign every
inch of this." It's a massive,you know, internal portal type
entity.
And I say"well, let's hang on asecond.
Why don't you tell me exactlywhat's happening and where and
why and how." First, before wejust dive in and say yes we're
going to tear it all up.
You know, it's not always thatsimple and I think as a

(32:52):
consultant especially, I thinkyour longevity increases when
you get a reputation for tellingthe truth.

Mary Shaw (33:00):
Sure thing.
I mean a lot of times it's justa simple task maybe that needs
to get fixed instead ofretooling the entire thing.

Joe Natoli (33:08):
Right.
So, you had your own consultingbusiness— it looks like you sort
of did that twice, right?

Mary Shaw (33:14):
If you count the music I've done it three times.
So I think if you include themusic gigs, I think I've been a
freelancer for 20 of the last 30years.

Joe Natoli (33:25):
You keep coming back.

Mary Shaw (33:27):
You know I just, I'm the Phoenix.
I just, you know it's funny, alot of this is driven by my
motherhood.
I'm a Mom, I have a beautiful15-year old daughter and back at
the agency in 2006, you know- Isent 70, 80-hour, 80-hour work
weeks.
And I would bring in freelanceIAs for different projects.

(33:47):
I remember this this one gal Iwas working with she was leaving
at two, and I said"Oh, you'releaving already?" She goes"Oh
yeah, I'm just part time." I waslike Wow...and she did great
work.
So it kind of plant planted aseed and then I started thinking
about, you know...
I was doing a lot of sitemaps,some wireframes and just basic
stuff at that point...
and I was like gosh what is myfavorite part of this job?

(34:10):
What do I get the most joy from?
And then where do I, where do Ioffer the most value?
And it was in that area, so Iwas like,"I wonder if I could
just carve out this as afreelance opportunity?" We were
at a point where just we reallyneeded me to come home.

Joe Natoli (34:26):
Yeah, it's hard.

Mary Shaw (34:28):
And so I did.
I got fortunate that I had twoclients when I left and one of
one of whom is still a client,12 years later.
And just got really lucky, youknow.
I do work hard, and if I don'tknow something, I'll tell you,
I'll try to go figure it out,but I've been very very
fortunate.
I've got a good professionalnetwork and it's just life took

(34:51):
its, life did— what did you sayin your e-mail today?
You're like"life does what itwants."

Joe Natoli (34:55):
Yeah that's exactly right.

Mary Shaw (34:57):
Life did what it wanted to in 2011.
I thought I had a whole bunch ofconsulting work lined up in 2011
and it all fell through, iteither got pushed out or
canceled.
And it was time for me to goback full time for a while.
So I went back to it.
I was able to thankfully get ajob pretty quickly as a project
manager at another agency but itdidn't last long.

(35:17):
I just I missed...I missed theUX stuff, I just missed it.
And so had a negotiation with myCFO, who was my husband, and he
was like"alright, if you can doit this way if you can deliver
X, Y and Z, let's see how itgoes" and so I relaunched in
2013.

Joe Natoli (35:32):
And you've been doing it ever since.

Mary Shaw (35:34):
Yes.

Joe Natoli (35:34):
That is awesome.

Mary Shaw (35:35):
Yeah, I love it so much.

Joe Natoli (35:37):
And looking at your trajectory, OK, we all are
inclined to say we got lucky.
But the truth is to be doinganything this long, alright, and
to be able to come back to itmore than once...
I think is more of a testamentto your ability and the results
that you get.

Mary Shaw (35:52):
Oh, thank you Joe.
I appreciate that very much.

Joe Natoli (35:54):
You know, so you've gotta pat yourself back a little
bit as well, I think.

Mary Shaw (35:58):
It's funny, I think there's still there's still a
big part of me that is stillthat shy folk singer, who's
afraid to get a job, as it were.
And as a musician I think youyou know that.

Joe Natoli (36:09):
Absolutely.

Mary Shaw (36:09):
It's uh...
you know, civilians can'tunderstand that.

Joe Natoli (36:12):
No no they don't.
And I'll tell you somethingelse: it has a lot to do with
the performing thing.

Mary Shaw (36:18):
Yes.

Joe Natoli (36:18):
For me as well, that's a huge, HUGE lift for me
whether it's I mean, even thisOK, you know, a podcast.
Talking and putting it out inpublic, standing up on the stage
especially, OK, speaking gigs.
Being in the room, working withclients, there's a performance
aspect to all that.

Mary Shaw (36:38):
Oh, absolutely.

Joe Natoli (36:39):
And that's a critical part of who I am, and
it's...to me it's the same waywith music, right?
All the artists that I love myown rules for writing music,
making music, performing musicare all sort of the same, and
that is you shouldn't be doingit if you don't believe it.
Like I never wanted a note thatI played or something that I
sang or whatever to come out ofmy mouth in a way or out of my

(37:01):
hands that you couldn't tellthat I meant it.
You know?

Mary Shaw (37:05):
Oh yeah.

Joe Natoli (37:05):
And all this is the same thing.

Mary Shaw (37:07):
Yeah I draw on my years of performing whenever I'm
presenting.
I've only done a few speakingopportunities, but I've done a
ton of presentations to seniorexecutives and stuff.
I draw on all that energy andI'm just very thankful for it
now.
I think it definitely helps thatI've just...
one of the things that wasreally cool about touring was

(37:27):
just meeting all different typesof people, I mean all over the
US, and just being exposed tothat.
I used to get terrible stagefright but, you know, after
you've done a couple of hundredperformances it's like"OK, here
we go."

Joe Natoli (37:41):
Yeah.
And I really do believe thatwhen you're in it, when your
heart is in it, when your headis in it and when you care about
it, right, when it MATTERS, thatcomes across.

Mary Shaw (37:50):
Oh sure.

Joe Natoli (37:51):
All by itself.
People will forgive— in aperformance, let's say you know
music— bands can make mistakes,right, everybody makes mistakes.
People don't even notice that ifthe performers come across like
they're really invested in whatthey're doing, that they mean
it, that it's real for them,it's true for them.

Mary Shaw (38:08):
Well it's gotta be, it's gotta be real because you
know, I think I'm a few yearsolder than you and it's like the
older I get, It's like I justwant to be doing stuff that that
matters on some level.

Joe Natoli (38:17):
Amen.

Mary Shaw (38:17):
Right, because it's like it's a cliche.
Here's another cliche, it's likenobody sits on their deathbed
wishing they had spent more timeat the office.
I want it to work, even if it'son a small scale I want to help
make somebody's life a littleeasier, and I think that's what
UX can really do— not just forthe users but for the people
doing the actual work.

Joe Natoli (38:35):
Amen.

Mary Shaw (38:35):
We can help.
We can help pave a path to moreefficient processes.
You know we can't just we canhelp people talk to each other
better.
We can we can help with conflictresolution in some cases.
I mean, I've refereed a fewconference room arguments that
were quite interesting.

Joe Natoli (38:53):
Let me ask you a question related to that.
How much of what you do thesedays is of that nature?
Is as much about helping thepeople in the room as it is
about helping, you know, theusers and the business as a
whole?

Mary Shaw (39:07):
Oh, I think a lot of it is.
I think a ton of it is.
I think most of that is justbecause of, because of being
this far along in my career.
You know, I don't work full timejust with the motherhood stuff
and being a Mom, but I have beenon the earth long enough and I
have been in enough of thesesituations where, you know,

(39:27):
after you've done it as manytimes as I have, what you were
saying earlier.
You start seeing the patterns,right?
It's just like when when youstart getting your, I guess your
competence as a designer, youstart seeing design patterns,
you start seeing behaviorpatterns, especially in the
workplace.

Joe Natoli (39:41):
Yeah.

Mary Shaw (39:42):
So yeah that's a lot of what I do now.
In fact, I'm going to be doingthis on Friday when I go to meet
with the client.

Joe Natoli (39:47):
And the reason I asked the question is because it
feels like a larger component ofthat has found its way into what
I do as well— and I find thatthe longer I do this, the more
that becomes a component.
In a lot of cases, I wasspending just as much mental and
emotional energy trying tofigure out— OK, these 12 people

(40:07):
that I'm with you know for a dayor two to three days or five
days whatever it is— how do Iease everybody's stress here?
How do I, how I lift, how do Iget rid of some of this pain?
How do we get rid of some ofthis conflict, the thing that's
making people walk around withtheir heads down?
How do we solve these problemsas well?
To me, they're as important...

Mary Shaw (40:27):
Oh sure

Joe Natoli (40:28):
...as the other ones.

Mary Shaw (40:29):
Because they're going to drive the quality of the
meeting, of course.

Joe Natoli (40:34):
Everything matters, everything counts, everything's
connected.

Mary Shaw (40:36):
Do you do one-on-one?
Do you have...if you're onlywith them for like five days, do
you get opportunities to do anykind of one-on-one time with
them?

Joe Natoli (40:42):
Sometimes, yeah.
Sometimes we break out, or a lotof times during breaks what'll
happen— if there's no formalsort of break out, where, you
know, we sort of schedule it—people will come up to me...
you know and they'll elaborateon something that maybe was
hinted at...

Mary Shaw (40:55):
Right.
Right right right.

Joe Natoli (40:57):
...when everyone else was in the room and they'll
give me some version of"I'm justreally at my wit's end here and
I don't know what to do."

Mary Shaw (41:05):
Yeah just to get that elephant out of the room or
identify it at least and thenushering it out of the room is a
real big deal.
I had a wonderful boss at thatagency that I was talking about
earlier.
He he was a big fan of what hecalled the back channel, right?
We'd all have a big meeting witheverybody, but he made sure that
he would stop by the office,stop by the cube, just get a

(41:27):
couple of minutes in the hallwayjust to find out what was really
going on.
And that that has always stayedwith me.

Joe Natoli (41:33):
Yeah.
Well I think it's important.
And like you just said, gettingthose elements out of the room
is a big step toward progress.
Because if those things remain,it doesn't matter how many other
things you do well; if you can'tget rid of some of that stress
and strife and pain andconflict, it doesn't matter.
The end result still going to bethe same end result.

Mary Shaw (41:54):
Well, and it's so critical for team building, you
know?
If you don't have a tight,focused team it's so hard to
move forward.
It's like the best way I'vefound for that, to get those
elephants out of the room.
When people start trusting eachother then they relax.
And then they work better andthey work more effectively, they
can think more clearly and workbecomes more fun.
You know, there's no reason whyit can't be fun.

(42:16):
It doesn't have to be an 8 hoursoap opera.

Joe Natoli (42:19):
Totally agree.
I mean, I can't tell you howmany times I've I've said to
people— where they're frustratedabout something— and like, for
instance you know, they want todo some research or something
and they'll say"well, it's notapproved" or"we're allowed to do
that." And I say"well, let meask you a question: do you have
time to do it anyway?" And theykind of look at me like,"what do
you mean?" I'm like,"do you havetime to do it?

(42:40):
On your own?""Yeah.""Then DOit."

Mary Shaw (42:44):
Sure thing.
And they have something tangibleto bring to the table.

Joe Natoli (42:47):
It doesn't mean we have to have meetings about it,
it doesn't mean we have to, youknow, get everybody together and
convince everyone that this iswhat the data says, but you can
certainly allow it to inform thequality of your work or the
relevance...
or accuracy or whatever of yourwork.
There's no law that says youcan't do that, and it's funny—
they sort of look at me afterthat like"...OK...

(43:08):
yeah! I can! And I'm gonna!"

Mary Shaw (43:12):
And then they get excited and they relax a little
bit, right?

Joe Natoli (43:14):
Right.
Right.
The temperature changes, andyou're like"See?"

Mary Shaw (43:18):
Sure.

Joe Natoli (43:18):
Those chains are invisible, you know, to some
degree.

Mary Shaw (43:22):
I think a lot of it is self-imposed too because....
I mean, I know for me when I wasyounger and you know I just
really,it was so important tome, you know, that I did the
right thing.
I never even knew what the rightthing was, I just...

Joe Natoli (43:34):
Right, right, right.

Mary Shaw (43:35):
I know I want to act a certain way.
"I'm at an agency, oh mygoodness."

Joe Natoli (43:37):
Well, and you want it to be seen too, I think.
I think having it being seen ismore important when you're
younger.

Mary Shaw (43:43):
Yes.
Very much so.

Joe Natoli (43:43):
You want everybody to recognize what you're doing,
you know, and the importance ofit.

Mary Shaw (43:47):
There's this thing called the 18-40-6- rule, you
ever heard of it?

Joe Natoli (43:51):
No.

Mary Shaw (43:52):
It's from Jack Canfield, one of his books.
It's like, when you're 18 you'rejust constantly worried about
what everybody's thinking aboutyou.
And by the time you're 40 youdon't care about what anybody is
thinking.
But by the time you're 60 yourealize nobody was thinking
about you anyway.

Joe Natoli (44:06):
I love that!

Mary Shaw (44:11):
So I try to keep that in mind at all times.

Joe Natoli (44:14):
That's good advice.

Mary Shaw (44:16):
Isn't that great?

Joe Natoli (44:18):
Excellent advice.

Mary Shaw (44:18):
It's from the"Success Principles" book came out
probably 10 or 11 years ago?

Joe Natoli (44:18):
Alright, I'm going to have to check that out.
That's one of the greatestthings I've ever heard, because
it's completely accurate.

Mary Shaw (44:29):
Please pass it forward, pass it on.

Joe Natoli (44:31):
I will.
So we are at four fifty-four.
We started at four, right?.

Mary Shaw (44:35):
Yes.
I don't know.

Joe Natoli (44:38):
Something like that.
We had some technical issues.
Right.
So anyway, I want to ask youwhat we call some"Hot Seat"
questions, which are just sortof off the cuff random things so
people can learn more about you.

Mary Shaw (44:49):
OK.

Joe Natoli (44:50):
What's one thing that either nobody or most
people don't know about you, butprobably should?

Mary Shaw (44:57):
I can play dueling banjos on one guitar.

Joe Natoli (45:01):
On ONE guitar?

Mary Shaw (45:03):
One guitar.
I call it schizophrenic duelingbanjos on one guitar.

Joe Natoli (45:06):
That's incredible.

Mary Shaw (45:08):
Well I'm probably rusty on it right now, but with
a little practice I couldprobably, I could probably wrap
it up.

Joe Natoli (45:12):
I think you should practice and then upload, you
know, give me an audio file andwe'll add it.
We'll add it to this as like abonus track.

Mary Shaw (45:18):
That's a deal.

Joe Natoli (45:21):
Right?
In fact, here's what we'll do.
We'll do it like a hidden bonustrack.
The podcast will end, and thenyou have four seconds of silence
and then it'll just start.

Mary Shaw (45:28):
Nice.

Joe Natoli (45:28):
You know,"bonus!" If — and I always ask this question
and people hate it but I love itso— Desert island, OK?

Mary Shaw (45:40):
Hmmm...OK.

Joe Natoli (45:41):
I'm going to give you a choice you get either—
let's assume you haveelectricity— you get one book,
one movie or one piece of musicthat you can, you know, have to
absorb and enjoy the rest ofyour life.
What would be?
Oh, so hard.
I know! I know, it's a greatquestion.

Mary Shaw (45:58):
Awesome question! Ah, I have to go music.

Joe Natoli (46:02):
OK, what would it be?

Mary Shaw (46:03):
Oh come on.
Wow.
For the rest of my life, becausethat'd be a lot of repetition.

Joe Natoli (46:10):
The rest of your life.

Mary Shaw (46:12):
My Lord...probably Bonnie Raitt's"Nick of Time."

Joe Natoli (46:18):
Tell me why.

Mary Shaw (46:18):
It was just such a pivotal moment for her
and....me, unbeknownst to herobviously.
I was living in Austin and I wasreally getting serious about my
my performing career back thenand that was the song that
turned everything around for herand got her notoriety and was a
very personal song for her.

(46:40):
And just so well produced by DonWas and I've never gotten tired
of it.
It always makes me think of mydays back in Austin which were
some of my favorite days of mywhole life.

Joe Natoli (46:50):
That was late in her career, right?
I mean that was very late in hercareer.

Mary Shaw (46:53):
Yeah, it was.
I've been a big fan ever since Iwas 14 but people would ask me
who's your favorite singer andI'd say that and they'd be like
"who?"

Joe Natoli (47:00):
Yeah right.
I mean...

Mary Shaw (47:00):
That's like,'88...

Joe Natoli (47:02):
...the planets just align, the timing was right.

Mary Shaw (47:04):
It was amazing.
I thought that was just sowonderful.
So yeah, I could...
I could listen to that, I think,and not get tired of it.

Joe Natoli (47:11):
Alright, cool.
Let me think with another onehere...tell me something that
you think is true about UX,design, IA, project management,
anything, that almost nobodyagrees with you on.

Mary Shaw (47:22):
Oh it goes back to what we were talking about
earlier about, you know, thebusiness getting the short
shrift, because I get a lot ofpushback on that because it's
not...we're not thinking enoughabout the users and and it's
just it's one big circle.
It's...If you take care of bothends of the circle then that's
the only the only clear path tothe sweet spot whatever that is.
You know, wherever that is.

(47:42):
You've got to represent bothequally.

Joe Natoli (47:46):
When you get arguments against that, where do
you think that comes from?

Mary Shaw (47:50):
I don't know.
I wonder if it's probablyexperience.
It's usually the youngerdesigners and I think they think
that I'm plotting against theusers and I'm not representing
the user, because the user issacred and all that kind of
stuff.
Of course the user is important—but the only way to satisfy that
that user is to make sure thatthe business has what it needs

(48:12):
as well.

Joe Natoli (48:12):
Yeah, I always wonder if it's, if it's sort of
a"whose side are you on?" kindof thing.

Mary Shaw (48:16):
Yeah I think there's a lot of us versus them.

Joe Natoli (48:18):
It's not helpful.

Mary Shaw (48:19):
I hear a lot of,"Oh, you're just with them because
they're paying you." And it'slike, NO...

Joe Natoli (48:22):
Yeah.
And it's funny, I mean, I'veI've gotten that as well.
And what I tell them in responseis"well, they are paying me, but

I'm going to tell you something: I'm the best advocate you've got (48:32):
undefined
right now.

Mary Shaw (48:35):
Right.

Joe Natoli (48:36):
Because the fact that they're paying me makes
them willing to listen to what Ihave to tell them.

Mary Shaw (48:41):
Right.

Joe Natoli (48:41):
OK?
So I'm here for YOU as well.
I'm absolutely on your side.

Mary Shaw (48:45):
It's an interesting line.

Joe Natoli (48:48):
You know, so you've got an opportunity here as well.

Mary Shaw (48:51):
It's an interesting line we walk.
You know, I want a happy usermore than anybody.

Joe Natoli (48:55):
Sure.

Mary Shaw (48:57):
But there needs to be a product for them to interact
with.

Joe Natoli (49:00):
Well there's only one way you're going to get
there, OK?
The only way you're going to geta happy user is to get the folks
with the purse strings to agreethat doing this stuff matters.

Mary Shaw (49:10):
Yep.

Joe Natoli (49:10):
OK?
They have to pay for it; if theydon't pay for it doesn't happen.

Mary Shaw (49:15):
Yep.

Joe Natoli (49:15):
Right?
It's that simple.
So if we want what we want, wehave to work together to get it.

Mary Shaw (49:18):
You're preaching to the choir, my friend.

Joe Natoli (49:21):
I know.
I know.
What word or phrase do you saywaaay too much?

Mary Shaw (49:27):
I think I did it on this podcast:"Sure!"

Joe Natoli (49:31):
Yeah?
OK, I'll listen back, andwhen...
when we're in editing I'll havesomebody edit out every"sure"
and we'll count.

Mary Shaw (49:36):
"Oh sure!" Or I say "really" a lot, as well.
"Really?""Yes, really, you dosay'really' a lot.".

Joe Natoli (49:45):
"OK and"right" are mine.
Those are my two.
When I first started doingcourses, recording video
courses, it blew my mind howmany times in recordings I said
"OK," like in this space of fourminutes.

Mary Shaw (50:00):
Wow.

Joe Natoli (50:03):
Just constantly, like"this is SO bad!" And I made
them edit out— my poor editors—I made them edit out every
single instance practically.
Left a couple in, so it soundednormal but I was so completely
embarrassed by that.

Mary Shaw (50:15):
Oh gosh.
Yeah that's the...
I'm going to be afraid to listento this! it's like...you know
it's like the recording tellsall, talk about telling the
truth.

Joe Natoli (50:25):
I'll make a note to watch out for them.

Mary Shaw (50:27):
Thank you.

Joe Natoli (50:27):
What are you not very good at?

Mary Shaw (50:29):
Oh, I am not very good at coding.
I will break your website.
I know just enough to bedangerous.
You know, if you show me a pageof code, I can read it.
I kind of know what it's doingand whatnot, but if you wanted
me to update something...you'llbe very sad.
Don't give me the keys to thewebsite.

Joe Natoli (50:50):
"Don't give me the keys to the website!" I like
that.
Here's here's the last one andwe'll end with this.
Knowing what you know now, beingwhere you are, you know, at this

point in your career (51:00):
if you could give your younger self—
let's say not so much in yourmusic career but when you were
first starting out in marketingand software and UK and all
those things, it's a classicquestion, right— if you could
give your younger self one pieceof advice, what would it be.

Mary Shaw (51:18):
Don't be afraid to be yourself.

Joe Natoli (51:20):
That's good advice.

Mary Shaw (51:21):
Just don't be afraid of that.
The World, everybody's unique.
I think Marie Forleo says theworld needs that special gift
that only you have.
I was so self-conscious at thebeginning, I was so terrified
that I was going to get firedevery day, because I'd never had
a job before.
And if I'd just...
just don't take it so seriously,you know?

(51:43):
It's...
life is short and especiallyafter you have kids...

Joe Natoli (51:45):
Yeah.

Mary Shaw (51:46):
You've got three kids right?

Joe Natoli (51:47):
Yes.

Mary Shaw (51:47):
Yeah.
When you have kids.
It's like"Oh, that's what...OK.
It's all right.
Let's all chill out.
Just don't take it alsoseriously."

Joe Natoli (51:59):
Amen to that.
Well, we will end on that note.
Mary, I cannot thank you enoughfor your time.
Thank you for being here.

Mary Shaw (52:07):
Thank you for having me.
You know it's been a lot of fun.

Joe Natoli (52:09):
Awesome.
Maybe we'll do it again.

Mary Shaw (52:10):
I'd like that very much.
That'd be great.

Joe Natoli (52:12):
Alright.
I wish you all the success inthe world in your career,
although I have every indicationthat you don't need it.

Mary Shaw (52:19):
Let's just hope things keep going the way
they're going.
I'm a very fortunate, gratefulperson

Joe Natoli (52:25):
Me too.
Keep the faith, and we'll talksoon.

Mary Shaw (52:27):
Alright, thanks Joe.

Joe Natoli (52:27):
That wraps up this edition of Making UX Work.
Thanks for listening, and I hopehearing these stories provide
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 show notes and
links to the things mentionedduring our conversation by
visiting givegoodux.com/podcast.

(52:48):
You'll also find links to moreUX 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 JoeNatoli, reminding you that it's
people like you who make UXwork.