Dan Brown - From EightShapes to Curious Squid: Building, Closing, and Reimagining a UX Consultancy - The UX Consultants Lounge

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kyle Soucy (00:15):
Welcome to the UX consultants lounge.
I'm Kyle Soucy, founder ofUsable Interface an independent
UX research consultancy.
You can find out more about mywork and the services I offer at
my website, usableinterface.com.
I'll be your host here at thelounge where I'll be providing a

(00:35):
place for UX consultants togather, share stories, and learn
more from one another.
Spring was rather busy for me,which is why there was a break
in publishing episodes.
I had two conferences that wereback to back, April through May,
and also a client project, sothat made things a little hairy.

(00:58):
I was also supposed to have aguest on to talk to us about
sales, but sadly that fellthrough and created a little bit
of a gap in our schedule here.
But no worries.
I'm actually in the midst ofworking on getting another sales
expert on to chat with us, sohopefully that will be coming up
soon.

(01:19):
And, before I talk about.
Today's episode, I just wannatake a moment to reflect on what
the spring has been like withthese conferences.
So during one of them I wasspeaking, uh, it was at the
local UXPA Boston Conference,and this was the first time that
I have spoken in person.

(01:40):
In a very long time, uh, sinceCOVID, in fact, so it's been
four or five years, which isabsolutely insane.
Prior to COVID, I spoke a lot,very often.
And since then it's just beenonly, virtually, which I kind of
forgot.
Is just not the same, not thesame at all.

(02:02):
Uh giving this talk, at the UXPABoston Conference really
energized me and it waswonderful to finally get back on
stage again.
And I really just forgot howimportant it is, especially to.
My consulting career, and justin general to just get out there

(02:23):
and network and get on stage.
So I'm so grateful to have hadthe opportunity to do that.
The response to it was reallygreat.
Gave a talk on, using AI in UXresearch specifically my
experience using it with journeymaps and creating personas, and
I know we're all talking aboutthat topic.
But it was really wonderful.

(02:44):
I was happy with how it went andI've been getting some other
engagements because of it, soI'm definitely, excited to do
more speaking and to reallyfocus on that, and I'm glad I
got this reminder of just howimportant it is.
So just a note from me to getout there, get back into it, if

(03:04):
you've taken a break from it.
'cause it, it really does help.
All right.
So that's what's been going onin my world.
I hope everybody's enjoyingtheir summer.
Today I have Dan Brown joiningme in the Lounge.
I loved listening to Dan reflecton what he and Nathan Curtis

(03:26):
accomplished with eight Shapes.
The design firm they createdtogether and ran for 18 years.
The work they did, the teams andculture they built are just
inspiring.
I've known Dan for a very longtime, and I've always been
amazed by how active he is inthe industry.

(03:49):
He's always writing, talking, orcreating something, whether it
be a game or a deck of cards.
Uh, something as a way toreflect on how we do our work.
I love his passion, and I wasexcited to talk with him about
his lessons learned in almosttwo decades of UX consulting.

(04:10):
Before we get into theinterview, let me just tell you
a little bit more about DanBrown.
After running eight shapes for18 years.
Dan struck out on his ownstarting Curious Squid to
continue providing high qualityinformation, architecture and UX
consulting to enterpriseorganizations.

(04:33):
Through Curious Squid, Dan helpsproduct teams build complex
products to align with userneeds.
Dan has written three books onuser experience design,
including Communicating Designin 2010, designing Together in
2013 and Practical DesignDiscovery in 2017.

(04:58):
A few years ago, he produced thepodcast, A Lens A Day, which was
60 plus conversations aboutinformation architecture.
And he recently launched a newpodcast with Rachel Price called
Unchecked the Architecture ofDisinformation.

(05:19):
In each episode, they look atstories of disinformation and
then they try and extract somelessons so that we as people who
are responsible for designinginformation spaces can make, uh,
these spaces more resilient todisinformation.
It's.
Really wonderful, and I highlysuggest everybody checking it

(05:40):
out.
On a personal note, Dan'spassion for information
architecture is eclipsed only byhis passion for tabletop games,
which he also creates in hisspare time.
If you really wanna see Dan andhis happy place, I suggest you
join him at game night duringthe Information Architecture

(06:01):
conference where you will alwaysfind him.
All right, let's get to theinterview.
Please enjoy my conversationwith Dan Brown.
hi Dan.
It's awesome to have you in theUX Consultants lounge.

Dan Brown (06:15):
It is a pleasure to be here.
I love what you've done with theplace.

Kyle Soucy (06:19):
Thank you.
Try to make it comfy.

Dan Brown (06:21):
It's very nice.

Kyle Soucy (06:23):
So we're recording this on a Friday after a long
week, and I'm curious, do youtypically have any routines or
rituals for closing out yourwork week?

Dan Brown (06:35):
Oh, that's a good question.
Um, I do like to keep Fridays,free of client meetings, but.
not strict about that like someplaces are.
And what I also like to do iskind of end my day on these
kinds of conversations,conversations with colleagues.

(06:57):
One of the things that I starteddoing when I started my new
consulting firm is schedulingcatch-up meetings with lots and
lots and lots of people.
And so, Friday afternoons isusually a good time to do that.
Um, I've also started a newpodcast and Friday afternoon is
kind of our regular for me andmy co-host Rachel, is our

(07:18):
regular meeting time.
So I basically get to end myweek talking to one of my
favorite people in the industry.

Kyle Soucy (07:24):
Oh, that's nice.
Well, it's nice that thisactually kind of fit in with
what your typical Friday is likethen.
And I definitely wanna talk awhole bunch more about your
podcast, so we will definitelydo that.
But, I ask about Fridays becauseas independent consultants, it's
nice that we have control overour schedules for the most part.

(07:47):
And I'm always curious how otherconsultants like to structure
their workday.
And I was wondering, do you haveany kind of schedule or routine
for how you like to start yourday?

Dan Brown (07:59):
not really.
in the old days when Nathan andI were doing eight shapes, um,
we would have standup meetingspretty regularly, which was a
little strange'cause it was asmall consultancy, but we had a
lot of clients.
So we were actually fairlyspread out among lots of
different clients.
But that, that regular check-inwas really great.
Just to kind of stay grounded,stay connected to everyone else,

(08:20):
at eight shapes.
I'm a morning person, so I'mvery alert, very, with it in the
morning.
And it's really by the end ofthe day when I'm getting tired
that I feel like I need a littlebit more structure.
And what I've started doing isjust trying to do as much client
work as I can until about fouro'clock in the afternoon.

(08:41):
And then I can really feelmyself getting burnt out just on
a daily basis.
Not in a like clinically badway, but just like, okay, I've
really focused along on this.
Let me do some of the fun stuff.
And for me, the fun stuff iswriting about how we do the
work, writing about somereflections on, methodology,

(09:01):
reflections on informationarchitecture as a practice.
So I tend to do that at the endof the day, which is what, helps
me kind of keep my energy going.

Kyle Soucy (09:11):
Okay.
And that, you know, that'sinteresting'cause a lot of
people find writing to be sohard and painful and you would
think you'd wanna do it whenyou're feeling most energized.
But I think it's amazing that,it sounds like to you that
that's more enjoyable andsomething you wanna say for the
end.

Dan Brown (09:28):
Yes.
Yeah.
I, one editor told me, I thinkthis was when I was writing my
third book, she was like, youwrite to think, and I think she
was saying you more generally,but it felt like she was talking
about me.
And that sort of flipped aswitch in my brain.
And I realized sometimes when Ihave a lot going on in my head,

(09:50):
I need to do the writing to kindof think through some of the
stuff.
I used to just write in themornings for the very reason
that you said, and then I hadthis conversation with my
therapist actually, and it wasduring a time where I was
feeling really low about theclient work.

(10:12):
And she asked me, what, youknow, what do you look forward
to?
what parts of your job do youenjoy?
And I said, I really like.
Sort, writing about the work.
I really like those, thatreflection.
And she was like, carve out sometime every day to do that.
'cause that keeps you againgrounded professionally.
when people ask me like, how doyou write so much?

(10:33):
Or like, they say, I wanna do alot of writing as well.
I have to remind them that forme, writing serves a certain
place in my life.
And yes, it's not painful in thesame way that, it might be for
other people, but I don't thinkto make contributions to the
community you need to write or,to kind of have that experience.

(10:53):
So I, try and encourage peopleto find the thing that allows
them to, reflect and unwind, butstay grounded, stay connected to
the professional work as well.
Whether, whatever activity thatmight be

Kyle Soucy (11:06):
Yeah, I think it's really wise advice from your
therapist.
That sounds, like a great thingto do at the end of your day if
that's something you enjoy.
And, I wanna talk more aboutyour writing too, but I also
wanna take a step back for amoment.
Um you mentioned eight shapes,and for any listeners that's not
aware, um to dive into your UXconsulting history here and your

(11:27):
journey, uh, for 18 years from2006 to 2024, you had a very
successful and well-knownconsultancy, based in the DC
area called Eight Shapes, which,you co-founded with Nathan
Curtis.
And after closing eight shapesin 2024, you started your own

(11:48):
independent consultancy calledCurious Squid.
And, um before diving into thestory of your two consultancies,
I just wanna say,congratulations on the
tremendous work, eight Shapesaccomplished during those 18
years.

Dan Brown (12:02):
Thank you.

Kyle Soucy (12:03):
Yeah.
And, and also, you know,congratulations on celebrating
your, uh, soon to be, firstanniversary as an independent
consultant.

Dan Brown (12:11):
Yes.
Yeah.
I love marking those, occasions.
At Eight Shapes, we used to,have little celebrations for,
important anniversaries, but forus it was multiples of eight,
not multiples of 10.
So I think, yeah, I think on,when eight Shapes turned eight
years old, we did a thing andwhen we turned 16, we did a

(12:31):
thing too.
So the next one would've beenlike, 24.
And I think we didn't feel theneed to kind of keep it alive

Kyle Soucy (12:40):
Just for that reason.
Yeah.
tell me a little bit about that.
So tell us about the, the originstory of eight shapes first.

Dan Brown (12:49):
Oh, yeah, I mean, uh, Nathan and I had known each
other for several years and,this was back in, in the early
two thousands.
I had gotten, I sort of, endedup doing a lot of federal
government work at the time.
This was before 18f before USDigital Services.
This was before all of that.

(13:09):
There were a lot of us in thefederal government just trying
to do right by user experiencein the federal government.
And I ended up in this job, thatactually Nathan had had before
me to some extent.
he was with a differentconsultancy, but it was the same
agency we had both worked.
I was working for the FCC and hehad been in that role before me.

(13:31):
Anyway, I was there for about 18months or so.
uh, my wife was pregnant withour kid, and Nathan had
approached me and was like, weshould start a thing.
We should try and be theadaptive path of the DC area.
At the time, adaptive Path was ahuge consulting firm based in
the Bay Area.
They were sort of like the goldstandard of UX consulting back

(13:55):
then.
We really looked up to thosefolks who started that and they
were clearly doing great workand there was a, a gap we felt
in the DC market.
And I was like, Nathan, I don'tknow.
Got this baby on the way.
I got this cushy government job.
Benefits are really good, pay isfine, and it's stable.
and then my son was born andthis was 2006 and there was no

(14:21):
remote work back then.
I had to commute to downtown DCevery day from Bethesda, which
was not an in insignificantcommute.
There was no opportunity for meto work from home, after the
kind of very brief paternityleave that I took.
and I just realized I wasmissing, everything.

Kyle Soucy (14:42):
Hmm.

Dan Brown (14:43):
and that's when I realized, although I'm risk
averse.
It became worth the risk.
and so, so we started eightShapes.
my son was born in June and ourofficial start date was as
September 1st.
We had Nathan done.
Nathan and I had done months ofplanning before the launch.

(15:05):
Uh, and a lot of that planning,it's amazing.
Kind of persisted right untilthe last day of Eight Shapes.
And, I took some of that withme, into Curious Squid as well.
at its peak, Eight Shapes wasabout 16 people.
Uh, it was really, it was great.
It was a lot of fun.
We had employees all over thecountry and 2015 was sort of a

(15:26):
pivotal year.
Um, even though we had kind ofweathered the, the financial
crisis in 2008.
in 2015, we had to lay off twothirds of our staff.
then, a, there was a lot ofdesign moving in-house, and so
we found ourselves competingwith in-house design teams.
and so we got much smaller.
And that's, I think where a lotof changes started to happen.

(15:50):
the kinds of projects we weregetting were really changing.
They didn't want big teamscoming in.
They needed smaller teams.
We started offering morecoaching, type things.
and by then Nathan was exexclusively focused on design
systems projects, and I wasdoing all the more general UX
projects.
So yeah, that was eight shapes.

(16:11):
It was a great run.
And Nathan and I still, youknow, on very friendly terms.
It was a, a mutual understandingthat we needed to, to separate.
and, I think we both wererecognized that, that in some
ways eight shapes was.
and might be the highlight ofour careers.
because it was such a greatthing that we built

Kyle Soucy (16:33):
It really was.
And I'm curious how you came tothat decision.
Was it because the work, youboth had a very, different
services I guess, that you wereoffering, you know him with the
design systems, with theinformation architecture, and
was it one was busy, one wasn't,or just it felt.

Dan Brown (16:51):
it, it was hard for us to kind of justify staying
together since our projectswere, so different from each
other.
we hadn't really workedtogether.
and there wasn't really anoverarching need.
in retrospect, it's easy to seehow the company.
For us was in some ways holdingus back.

(17:13):
given the way the market hasshifted, we needed to be a lot
more, nimble.
And I mean, you're, you might bethinking like it was just the
two of you and one employee,how, how much more nimble could
you be?
But because he and I wereworking on such different kinds
of projects, design systems typework, UX and IA type work, you

(17:33):
know, these were kind ofevolving into different projects
entirely.
And so I think in retrospect itwas very wise for us to separate
because we needed thatflexibility to pursue, the kinds
of projects that we wanteddifferently.

Kyle Soucy (17:49):
You know, one of the things that always feels like a
huge leap for solo consultantslike myself, is the idea of
taking on employees.
You know, suddenly beingresponsible for people's
paychecks is terrifying to me

Dan Brown (18:05):
It is terrifying.
It's 100% terrifying.
Yes.

Kyle Soucy (18:08):
how did you and Nathan navigate that piece
financially?
Was it just careful forecasting,or did you ever need to tap into
financing or build a cashcushion to make that work?

Dan Brown (18:19):
No, we never took on any debt.
And, and again, one of thethings I'm extremely proud of,
you know, I, one of the things Ilove about this story is it sort
of speaks to, how Nathan and Idid things.
We were about six months in toeight shapes, so maybe early
2007.
and we're having a meeting andwe're like, this is great.

(18:39):
We're doing it.
We got, it's just two of us.
We're doing fine.
We don't need to hire anyoneelse.
You know, things are chuggingalong, there's plenty of work
for us to be doing.
Feel great.
And we literally hired our firstemployee like a month or so
later, and we had sort of talkedourselves into the fact that we
didn't need an employee.
But when you looked at thenumbers, it made a lot of sense.

(19:03):
At some point you are turningaway work, right?
Or at some point you are notbeing as efficient as you can.
At some point you sort of, wehad a spreadsheet that.
Kind of captured, how much loadeach one of us had, and we were
carrying full loads, right?
And that sort of created, a needfor us to have more hands,

(19:24):
available.
And it was sort of the early2010's, that we were doing most
of our hiring.
and every once in a while we'dsort of look at things and go,
okay, we got, I.
Subcontractors doing enough workto justify that.
You know, I'm projected out farenough that, it seemed like we

(19:45):
could take on another, uh,employee.
The advantages to having anemployee is that, you got a lot
more control over their time.
when I sign up a subcontractor,I sign them up to a specific
client and I need to tell theclient that I'm using that
person as a subcontractor, butthat means I don't really have a
lot of flexibility to apply themto a different project if I've

(20:07):
got a need on that projectthat's a whole new subcontractor
or a whole new kind of, or awhole new subcontractor
contract, a whole new sort ofnegotiation with the client
about bringing on asubcontractor.
Um, and so having full-timeemployees, from a business
perspective gave us a lot offlexibility to kind of move
resources around, and at thattime we had huge contracts so we

(20:30):
can kind of move people to wherethey.
They needed to be.
it also creates this sense ofbelonging, right?
And it gives rise to thingslike, professional development
and the employees look to us toprovide that kind of
infrastructure.
And when you have to providethat infrastructure, you have to
make design choices about whatyou want the organization to be.

(20:54):
that was some of the best designwork that I feel like I got to
participate in.
It was working directly withNathan to design eight shapes
itself, and we worked reallyhard to create an infrastructure
that helped designers thrive,and be the best versions of
themselves.
and that, that sort of.
But I wanna say it kind ofcreates a culture for the

(21:14):
company.
'cause you have to make thosedecisions about, how people are
going to come in, how they'regonna exist in this professional
space, how you're gonna helpthem grow in this professional
space.
And then what it looks like whenthey have to leave too.

Kyle Soucy (21:29):
You know, whenever I talk to someone who worked at
Eight Shapes, it's always, oh myGod, it's always such a fond
remembrance of the time.
Like they're always just sohappy, that they had the
opportunity to work there.

Dan Brown (21:42):
That's so

Kyle Soucy (21:43):
like, yeah, it, Karen McGrane always jokes that
she feels like she's feralbecause she, she's never had a,
a job job.
And I kind of feel that way too.
You know, I've always been on myown, at least for the last 20
years, and I've always said wheneight shapes was at its heyday
and everybody who worked there,just I always thought they
landed the dream job.
I'm like, well, if I ever had togo back, that would be where I'd

(22:05):
wanna be.
Like, that's the pinnacle.

Dan Brown (22:07):
Kyle, if I had known that

Kyle Soucy (22:10):
I still would've been feral though.
I would've not.
I would, I love

Dan Brown (22:15):
I would take a feral Kyle, I feel like that would've
been, that would've reallycontributed a lot to Eight
Shape's culture.

Kyle Soucy (22:21):
Well, I think you designed something amazing
because everybody holds it insuch high regard and what, the
whole company gave back to theindustry, uh, in spades is, is
huge too.
but you mentioned, that it isterrifying to bring people on
and I was wondering when youstarted the company with Nathan,
was that always a vision?
Did you envision it to ha to bea firm, like a adaptive path

(22:44):
with employees?
Or did you always assume itwould be just the two of you

Dan Brown (22:47):
No, no.
I think, I think we had, I.
I can't, I couldn't say forsure.
I couldn't point to an email oranything.
But when we talked about theadaptive path of, of the DC
area, it was definitely aagency, model.
The question was not so much, ifit was gonna happen, but just
when it was gonna happen and wehad fooled ourselves into

(23:07):
thinking it was gonna happenlater than it actually did
because we hired that firstperson dimple.
she was, great, I got toactually reconnect with her, uh,
recently.
It was really nice to catch upwith her.
And we went from that toprobably six, I think, total
employees within a few months,or a year after that.

Kyle Soucy (23:28):
Amazing.
That's amazing.
And what advice would you sayyou have for consultants who are
starting to scale and thinkabout bringing others into their
practice?

Dan Brown (23:41):
I was having a conversation with, uh, years and
years ago with an agency owner,and they were complaining about
all of the policies that theyneeded to write because they had
employees.
And I think that's the wrongattitude.
I think it's really important toget those policies right, even

(24:02):
if you need to use them onlyonce, even if they never come
up.
Because by writing them and bythinking about them, by being
deliberate about them, you areshowing your employees and
you're reinforcing withinyourself a commitment to making.
This a place to work wherepeople know what's expected of

(24:26):
them and people know, howthey're meant to operate and act
within the company.
And so a lot of the time thatNathan and I spent thinking
about eight shapes, some of thattime was very much focused on,
writing a good onboardingprocedure or constantly tweaking
and refining the job descriptionthat help people understand what

(24:48):
their expectations were.
I think that investment is, itcan feel pointless, but at the
end of the day, I think it helpssolidify within yourself what
you want the company to be.

Kyle Soucy (25:04):
Yeah.
I could see how that's criticalto the success of the
consultancy for sure.
and really time consuming and,that you have to want to put
that in, I imagine.
Yeah.

Dan Brown (25:17):
We ended up hiring a HR consultant, I think, a couple
times to kind of provide someguidance and feedback to us to
help us get the policies right.
Those kinds of things.
to review the materials that wehad.
it was tough work, right?
'cause it's not necessarilyinside any of our comfort zone.

(25:38):
but no matter what kind of workyou're doing, we're asking
people to show up and use theirbrains.
These are.
You know, human beings who justwanna understand what's the
nature of the environment thatI'm working, what's the nature
of the relationships that existhere?
I think any time you spendcreating more clarity is not

(25:59):
wasted time.
So

Kyle Soucy (26:02):
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Now, how did you balance,business development, client
management, you know, the actualclient work, the design,
research work across the team asyou grew?

Dan Brown (26:15):
Nathan and I, did the lion's share of the business
development.
We had a couple very seniorfolks working with us too.
Chris Detzi James Melzer, who,took on some of that.
I.
Sales work, especially if theywere leading an existing client,

(26:35):
they had some responsibility togrow that client.
Nathan and I ended up being, youknow, sort of targeting 50 to
60% billable so that we had timeto do a lot of that other stuff
too.

Kyle Soucy (26:55):
And when, you closed eight shapes in 2024, was there
a brief moment where you everconsidered going internal or did
you know for sure you were gonnago independent consulting?

Dan Brown (27:08):
I guess I thought about it.
and I don't wanna shoot myselfin the foot if I ever do need to
get a job in-house, but it isvery hard for me to picture
myself working in-house.

Kyle Soucy (27:21):
I hear you.
Yeah.

Dan Brown (27:23):
So I'm not, I'm not just to any potential future
employers out there.
I'm not saying it's off thetable.
I'm just saying they may need todo a little bit of work to help
me picture myself.
there, Eight Shapes was remotestarting in 2006, so I've been
remote for nearly 20 years.
So the idea, and I did my fairshare of commuting.

(27:46):
I've been in, you know, I was inthe workforce for 11 years
before we started Eight Shapes.
So I'm, I've commuted in dc I'vecommuted in the Raleigh Durham
area.
I know from commutes I get it.
But I've been sitting in thisbasement.
For nearly 20 years, it's veryhard for me to picture, going
somewhere every day or eventhree days a week.

(28:08):
And I mean, I, I don't mean tomake it all about that, but
sometimes it's all about that.
So,

Kyle Soucy (28:14):
Oh, definitely.
I am right there with you.
I don't know if I could do it.
I mean, I'm sure I could, and I,do get energized when I have to
go to a client in person, butdoing that day after day,
luckily there's so much remotework now, but, um, yeah, I don't
know if I could do a nine tofive in person.
40 hour work week thing.

Dan Brown (28:35):
I like having lots of different things to think about.
I am in a great position whereit's not the same project just
on different clients.
It's like lots of differentprojects that I get to do.
I like having a little bit ofnon-billable time to do some
writing to do.
like I said to you, I've beendoing sort of anywhere between
one and four hours of catch upcalls every week.

(28:59):
I love doing that stuff.
so there's a lot of things thatare important to me that are
important to my career.
I think that I think would beharder for me, to do.
so yeah, when this idea firstcame up and Sarah, my wife and I
would, talk about it, we werejust sort of trying to picture
myself not being at home everyday or trying to picture myself

(29:19):
having, extra time at work'causeI'm on a commute or whatever.
And it was hard for us topicture.
at the same time, I felt likecertainly at the time, the kinds
of new business that EightShapes was getting I would be
able to sustain that.
I had some clients coming withme.
I had some prospects for somenew clients, which I had already

(29:41):
communicated to them would beunder a different entity.
So we did everything verydeliberately.
As I was saying about kind ofthe HR policies, Nathan, I
designed a transition processand part of that was kind of
figuring out where the clientswent, which was very easy
because he had his clients and Ihad my clients.
And, that part wasn't hard, butthinking about how we were gonna

(30:01):
communicate that out to client,the timing of that, was all very
deliberate, and very planned.
so my thought was, let me tryCurious Squid for six months or
a year and see how it goes.
and, I got some work that,allowed me to keep it going, to

(30:22):
make it happen and gave mesufficient runway.
So if I did need to kind oftransition to a job search, I
would be financially okay.

Kyle Soucy (30:30):
It's, yeah, it's wonderful that you had that
runway.
And, talk to us a little bitabout Curious Squid.
It says on your website AdvisoryServices, and can you just
unpack that a little bit moreabout what services you're now
offering?

Dan Brown (30:45):
Sure.
that's a good question.
I, would normally answer that bysaying something along the lines
of, we do, project deliverywork.
So, you know, you are designinga new product and you need some
product design.
Me and a couple of folks show upand we help you design a new
product or an IA or, I do a lotof kind of big marketing sites.

(31:07):
Uh, the navigation and contentstrategy for big marketing
sites.
So I think of that as delivery.
What I'm seeing is there'sincreased demand for.
Providing leadership.
so coaching and advising, onspecifically IA things.
These are teams that have, youknow, pretty experienced
designers, but they've never hadto think like an information

(31:30):
architect.
I was literally just talking toRachel[Price], about this, about
how in sometimes we findourselves working with designers
who can do design really well,but don't have a way of thinking
about it systematically, right?
or thinking about kind of theunderlying structures that are

(31:50):
present in all of theseproducts.
and so the role that I findmyself playing is a little bit
more of a kind of, Coach oradvisor to provide critique or
feedback or input into the workthat folks are doing.
So it's a much smallercommitment, but it's very
rewarding for me because I getto help designers grow.

Kyle Soucy (32:12):
And it's nice to have a narrow focus.

Dan Brown (32:15):
Yeah, that was an unexpected, but, I think
necessary choice that I made,which was to focus as much as I
could on informationarchitecture.
Um, I can always, spread out andkind of do more UX generalist
stuff if I need to, but, fornow, there seems to be

(32:36):
sufficient demand and interestin IA work.
I think we are starting to seesome recognition that, ignoring
information architecture for aslong as we have has now,
Consequences, which are poorlydesigned products and navigation
schemes that are not supportiveof the range of content that

(32:57):
people have.
So there's IA problems that needsolving out there.

Kyle Soucy (33:02):
There sure are.
Yeah.
And I'm glad you're stillcarrying that torch'cause we
need it.

Dan Brown (33:07):
As you know, IA conference is still going
strong.
it's not as big as it once was,but there's still plenty of
interest and it gives me hopeevery year to see that about
half the attendees are firsttime attendees, which means that
there's new people stilldiscovering, the importance, and
spending their money and time tolearn about ia.

Kyle Soucy (33:30):
And with Curious Squid, what was the, the biggest
mindset shift for you goingfrom, you know, co-running at
one time was a a 16 person firmto becoming a solo independent
consultant.

Dan Brown (33:46):
well, by the time Eight Shapes had ended, it was
really just me and Nathan andJames, one other employee.
So, and James and I would workon projects together, but he
largely had his own, book ofclients as well.
So I feel like we had been kindof running things independently
for a while.
I had a bunch of subcontractorsthat I relied on for that.

(34:10):
so for me, the thing that scaredme when the transition was
happening was that Nathan and Ihad really done a pretty good
job of.
Dividing up the administrativeresponsibilities of, at Eight
Shapes.
And there was a lot of stuffthat Nathan did, that I learned
from Nathan.
But, you know, it would be on meto do it entirely.

(34:30):
Now that really scared mebecause it was like, sometimes
it just feels like, black magic,like I don't, I dunno how this
stuff works.
but one of the good things aboutdoing this later in life is I
definitely have this attitude,like, I'll figure it out or I'll
ask someone, or there's, youdefinitely feel a little bit

(34:50):
less or I certainly feel alittle bit less stressed, about
it.

Kyle Soucy (34:56):
good.

Dan Brown (34:57):
yeah.
Did that answer your question?
I

Kyle Soucy (34:59):
Yeah, no, it did.
It did.
And I can totally relate.
Some people will ask me a lot,like, you know, how do you make
this happen?
It's like, I kind of don't know.
It just does, I'm just, goingalong for the ride here.
But no, it, there is someintention there of course, but
you do figure it out as you goand, you can't let that fear
hold you back.

Dan Brown (35:18):
Right.
Also, eight Shapes was great inthat, we ended up facing a lot
of weird situations and weemerged from those situations.
I can't say we necessarilyemerged unscathed from
situations.
There was like, we had to paysome money or we had to there's
stuff that there wereconsequences, but we always

(35:39):
emerged from those actions.
So, yeah.
so one of the things that Ilearned from all of those
situations is everything's gonnabe okay.
Everything's gonna be okay.
You learn to distinguish betweenthis is a temporary frustration
that is occupying some time inyour, brain versus, this is an
existential threat that we needto, think much more deeply and

(36:01):
do much more planning about.

Kyle Soucy (36:03):
And you come out of those things wiser.
Right.
You know, you learn.
Yeah.
So now I'd like to talk aboutyour continuous, contributions
to the UX community.
Uh, I would say, you know, wetalked about your writing
earlier.
Um, you're one of the mostprolific writers in our industry
that I can think of.
you've written three books, tonsof articles spoken at so many

(36:26):
conferences, and I'm curious,how has that body of work
supported your consultingbusiness?

Dan Brown (36:35):
That's a good question.
I would say if you had asked methis same question a year ago, I
would've been like, I don'tknow.
the writing gets me speakinggigs, speaking gigs, let me be
out there a little bit more.
They sort of, pay for creatingworkshop materials, which I can

(36:57):
sell elsewhere.
Right.
But it was very hard, I think,for me to draw a straight line
between any of that writing andany actual consulting work that
I've done.
That being said, I do feel likethings have changed a lot and
so, in part the venue where I dothe writing, I'm posting a lot

(37:18):
more on LinkedIn now than I hadin the past.
and I think that for better orfor worse, it's like going to a
networking event at a venue youdon't really like, but you're
like, oh, I gotta do this.
Um, I don't like that.
That's where my writing lives.
I don't like that.
That's the way the web worksthese days.
Like, there's so many things Icould complain about, but, you
know, posting a lot on thereabout the kinds of things that

(37:40):
I'm thinking about, I think haskept me top of mind for people.
or even better has led them togive me a call because actually
one of my current clients, shesaid you posted something about
navigation design on LinkedInand, uh, and we are dealing with
that exact problem right now.
So I called you.

Kyle Soucy (38:01):
Perfect.

Dan Brown (38:02):
yeah, so I do feel like there's, and I don't know
that I do it right, like I, forme, my main audience when I
write stuff is still me and it'swhat allows me to write, but I,
I.
Still feel like there's a lot ofroom for me to grow as a writer,
to do a much better job ofwriting for marketing reasons

(38:23):
rather than strictly just foreducational, or thought
provoking reasons?

Kyle Soucy (38:29):
But you know, I presume that if you did that,
the writing probably wouldn't beas good or as fun.

Dan Brown (38:36):
Probably not.
Probably not.
I mean,

Kyle Soucy (38:38):
it's obvious you write from the things that
you're passionate about.
That's obvious.

Dan Brown (38:42):
I'm thinking about.
I rough estimate 80% of thethings I've written are things
that were provoked by aconversation that I had with
someone where I was like, okay,well if this person's asking me
about this, there's probably athousand other people who have
this question.
So lemme get my thoughts down onpaper.
so maybe you're right.

(39:04):
Maybe you're right.
Part of me, and I guess this isone of the consequences of
turning 50 too, is um, you know,you start to think more in terms
of what am I leaving in theworld?
What's the residual effect thatI am having?
And, all the articles that I putin the world, I want them to be
genuine reflections of what I'mthinking about in that moment.

(39:25):
Um, so yeah, they may not be thebest vehicle for connecting to
perspective, clients.
I'm working on article right nowwhere I've, I sort of had this
idea that, another way I canexplain the role of information
architecture in product design.
And I left it for a few days andI've just come back to it.
I'm like, I don't know.

(39:46):
I don't know if this is anygood, but I.
I think I explained myselfpretty well, and maybe it'll
resonate with someone and it'sdone.
Like those are my criteria.
So, so maybe this will find itsway, up on LinkedIn at some
point.
I,

Kyle Soucy (40:05):
know, when we previously talked, you
mentioned, that your writingprocess is a bit weird.
Can you take us through that?
what your process is like?

Dan Brown (40:15):
did I say that

Kyle Soucy (40:16):
Yeah,

Dan Brown (40:17):
that was very candid of me.

Kyle Soucy (40:20):
and it's okay if you don't wanna share it.

Dan Brown (40:21):
no, I don't, I don't mind.
I think I characterized it asweird, because, a couple things,
depending on the type of writingthat I'm doing, I rarely start
with an outline for an article.
So I'll just like.
Start writing.
and, a superpower that I have,that I did not know I had until
I started writing books was Ican write a lot of words.

(40:46):
Which maybe is not thatsurprising because I use a lot
of words when I'm speaking aswell.
But, I can very easily take atopic and write a couple
thousand words, about it withoutreally trying too hard.
So usually it's me like puttinga lot of words on paper and then
I kind of think about it as likesculpting or painting or like

(41:08):
continually refining it,refining it.
so maybe that's what I meant byweird.
When I'm doing a bigger writingproject, like when I'm writing a
book, I, you have to use anoutline.
There's just no other way to doit.
Otherwise you're not reallygonna have a coherent sort of
thread.
With a book, you wanna sort ofhave a set of themes that you
are constantly referring to.

(41:30):
And, uh, the only way to do thatis with an outline.
But with articles, it's like, Ihave an idea.
I literally can't do anythingelse until I put this idea down
on paper.
I'm gonna write a whole bunch ofstuff and then over the next few
weeks I'm going to kind ofcontinually revisit it to make
sure it makes sense.

Kyle Soucy (41:51):
And when you're writing a book, do you,
designate a certain chunk oftime during the day to just
writing or part of the week?
I.

Dan Brown (42:00):
Yeah, there's really no other way to do it.
I don't care what anyone elsesays.
it's almost like exercise.
You've just gotta say, duringthe four o'clock hour, I'm gonna
sit in front of my computer andwrite, and I'm gonna stop
writing when the hour is up orwhen I've hit, 1500 words or
whatever it is.
it's one of the reasons why Ihaven't written a book since

(42:20):
2017, is because, I'm not in aplace in my life where I could
sort of just, abandon my familyfor a little bit of time every
weekend, to go write a book.

Kyle Soucy (42:32):
And how do you deal with negative book reviews or
article comments?

Dan Brown (42:38):
I feel like I put ideas out there, and all I want
is for someone to engage withthe ideas.
I mean, if they engage with thestyle of writing it, you know,
it is what it is.
My, it's not for everyone, Iwill spend the rest of my life
trying to sound less academic.
I just can't help it.
I will spend the rest of my lifemaybe, double checking every

(43:00):
little joke that I put, in, butit is very, very rare for me to
get any kind of pushback thatreally challenges the ideas, in
a substantive way.
The most recent one think of isI wrote this, I'm sort of
preoccupied with how peoplecategorize things.
I'm an information architect,and what I find sometimes when I

(43:22):
show up to new clients is thatthey have this say, list of
categories of, things in there,let's say tags that they use to
tag their content.
And the tags are kind of applesand oranges, and they're apples
and oranges because some of theconcepts are really what I would
say is orthogonal to the others,right?

(43:43):
You, the best example of this issomething like sustainability,
right?
This is a, concept that canapply to lots of different
things, but they just lump it inwith everything else.
And so I wrote this articleabout, I think I call them
crosscutting topics, and PeterMeholz responded saying, aren't

(44:05):
these tags, or, I can't rememberexactly what he said.
Isn't this just facets, I thinkis what he said.
And I was trying to make thispoint that some of these
categories operate at adifferent level.
That was a great critique.
That was a great piece offeedback.
And I wrote a whole new articleto try and explain it, but the.
Number, I can count on my onehand the number of times that

(44:26):
someone is online substantivelyengaged in, in the work.

Kyle Soucy (44:33):
that's great.
And I think it's wonderful too,that even with the ones that are
like nitpicky about writingstyle or something like that,
you can actually just lookbeyond that and be like, but the
content, like the ideas, theconcepts, they're not having an
issue with

Dan Brown (44:47):
Yeah, I mean I guess it's easy to pick on people's
writing style.
But also like, I guess this is acall for people to just read
anything I've written and giveme some meaningful critique on
it.
I would love that.
I would love for folks tomeaningfully engage with my
ideas,

Kyle Soucy (45:03):
Yeah.
And speaking for myself,whenever you write anything and
put yourself out there, it'sscary.
It's like, oh shit.
Like, who's gonna come for menow?
You know?
Um, so it, it's good to hear yousay that, it hasn't been a ton
that you've heard or anything.

Dan Brown (45:18):
The key, Kyle, is to just write so much that they
can't come after everything.

Kyle Soucy (45:26):
Yeah.
Well, you've also put outpodcasts.
So in 21, 22, you had a lens aday, which was amazing.
You had, over 60 discussionsabout information architecture,
and you've recently launched,another podcast called
Unchecked, the Architecture ofDisinformation with Rachel Price

(45:46):
that you mentioned.
can you tell the listeners whatyour new podcast is about and
what inspired you to start it?

Dan Brown (45:53):
sure.
you know, with Launching CuriousSquid, I was thinking about
other ways to create content,and I found a lens a day, back
in the early days of thepandemic.
Very rewarding.
I really enjoyed that process.
and I was thinking, what could Ido?
that's, informationarchitecture, related.
And I had this idea, or I guess,following the election, it was

(46:17):
becoming increasingly clear thatdisinformation was becoming a
much more prominent problem.
I was becoming.
Even more aware of it.
And I sensed that it was goingto become even more of a
problem, when the newadministration came into power.
I, I started kicking around thisidea, and I remember, actually
in December, my family and Iwent up to Boston, to go visit

(46:40):
my sister and we got a lovelyinvitation from Jared Spool and
Dana Chisnell to come visitthem.
So we went to their house, andhung out.
Jared and Dana and I have knowneach other for years and years
and years.
so they watched my kids grow upand I was like, guys, I've got
this new idea for a podcast.
Let me just pitch it to you andsee what you think.

(47:00):
And basically what I said was welook at kind of stories of
disinformation and then we tryand extract some lessons so that
we as people who are responsiblefor designing.
Digital information spaces canthink about how to make those
spaces more resilient againstdisinformation.
We're not gonna get rid ofmisinformation altogether.

(47:22):
We're not gonna be able to quashdisinformation, but maybe we
haven't been paying attentionenough to the threat of
disinformation.
What can we do to, to make theinformation spaces that we
design more resilient againstit?
and Jared and Dana seemed veryenthused, about it.
They were, as Jared says, theywere encouraging my behavior.

(47:43):
So, um, I pitched the idea toRachel[Price].
And she was like, that soundsreally cool.
And I was like, I also wouldlike you to co-host with me.
And she was like, okay, gimmewinter break to think about it.
But I knew by then she wasalready, committed.
So we spent a few months kind ofplanning it out and thinking
about what we wanted to do andthen, signed up.

(48:07):
Our first interview, which was,a person named Susanna Fox.
She wrote a book called RebelHealth.
And, I was, I'm very fortunatethat I, I kind of, know her, uh,
through the DC community.
and I pitched the idea to herand in an email and she wrote
back and she was like, Iunderstand exactly what you were
trying to do.
And it was so gratifying to getthat response from her.

(48:30):
Susanna was a perfect firstguest because she'd been
promoting her book, so she haddone a ton of this stuff.
she really kind of walked usthrough like how to bring
someone on to have an interview,uh, with them.
we also found an editor, someonenamed Emily Duncan.
she's edited all four of theepisodes that are live now.

(48:51):
She's in the middle of editinganother one.
And we, working with her hasalso been very gratifying
because it's helped me andRachel be more efficient.
but she's also kind of taken alot of this raw material that we
have and really made, it flownicely,

Kyle Soucy (49:07):
In listening to the first couple episodes, it's very
clear that you and Rachel arecomfortable with publicly
sharing, your own personalbeliefs about a range of topics.
do you ever find this scary orrisky when owning a business?

Dan Brown (49:23):
I guess.
So, I mean, I guess so, back inthe day of eight shapes we took
on a client that, was aconservative think tank.
it was really the only,political client that we had
taken on back in those days, I'mtalking like 2010 Conservative
think Tank meant something verydifferent than it does today.
but even back then, it felt alittle bit risky.

(49:47):
And what was interesting wasactually the project they had us
do was not political at all.
It was an inf information basedwebsite that was politically
neutral, but it was sponsored bythem.
So we felt like it wasacceptable.
But even so, there were folksat, at Eight Shapes who didn't
wanna work on the projectbecause of who was sponsoring

(50:08):
it.
and what was interesting was,because we had done some work
for them, we sort of ended upbeing a name in those circles.
So we were approached by atleast one or two other
conservative political groups,which we said no to, because it
was, that started to get intomore political,

Kyle Soucy (50:28):
Yeah.

Dan Brown (50:30):
one of the things I took from Eight Shapes was.
how important it is to beauthentic.
Nathan[Curtis] and I started thebusiness with, honesty and
transparency being one of ourvalues.
And, I'm not really a personwho's good at compartmentalizing
these things.
Like I am really an open bookfor better or for worse.

(50:53):
there are a lot of things, uh,that I've put out in the world
and for, again, I'm maybe verylucky here.
There's not been any kind ofadverse consequences, for me.
but at the same time, Iunderstand that, that doing it
is a risk.
and, I am willing to take thatrisk because.
At this point, I think the workis really important, which may

(51:15):
be self-aggrandizing, but themore I do it, the more Rachel
and I get to talk and thinkabout this stuff.
The more I think we're making atiny, tiny contribution to
helping people, understand thethreats and the challenges of
disinformation.
So that's at least what I tellmyself.

Kyle Soucy (51:34):
I really applaud it.
The authenticity, everything.
Uh, it's very admirable.
I love that you're doing it andI love that you're doing it even
though that you are yourbusiness and you're not afraid
to put that out there.
I, I think that's great.
To listeners, I highly suggest,you checking it out.
I'll definitely include thelinks and the the show notes to

(51:55):
check out the podcast and thatkind of segues into the last
topic I wanted to talk about.
you mentioned before that you'vehad to do more marketing and
business development in the lastyear than you've ever had to for
Eight Shapes.
but that you have a goodpipeline and you feel it's, due
to your approach, to marketing.
And can you share more aboutwhat you're finding successful

(52:16):
with, marketing Curious Squid?

Dan Brown (52:19):
sure.
So I've tried a, a few differentthings.
I got really enthused when Ifirst started Curious Squid to
set up a discord.
Server and actually a lot ofpeople joined it, which was
really nice.
But then I kind of lost steam onmaking any meaningful
contributions or posts there.
I set up a newsletter, which Ifelt would gimme a venue to do

(52:40):
some maybe more personal,writing or writing that sort of
walk that fine line betweenbeing an information architect
and being everything else, uh,that I am.
and I really drew a lot ofinspiration from Jorge Arango's,
newsletter for that.
And then I started a, a webinarseries which gave me a chance to
develop some, workshopmaterials, as well as some other

(53:04):
materials I've sort of beenthinking about creating an IA
playbook.
and so that webinar seriesallowed me to explore, that, I
was doing a book group, but Ifound the book group way too
stressful because I'm a slowreader and so, I dunno, I just
couldn't get through a book.
And then I got stressed showingup and then it was not, actually

(53:25):
not as popular as I thought itwas gonna be.
A lot of people showed up forthe webinars.
But mostly what I've been doingis writing, a lot on LinkedIn.
And, again, those posts, Ithink, every project in my
pipeline, I can draw a straightline between that or, these
catch up calls.
That was the other thing Idecided to do when I started

(53:47):
Curious Squid is just start toreach out to people and try and
set up quarterly catch-up callswith folks.
I like hearing about what peopleare working on, what people are
thinking about, what people aredoing.
None of it is like overtlysalesy.
It's just me kind of staying upto date with people.
me trying to stay top of mind,for folks so that if something

(54:11):
comes up IA related or UXrelated, they remember me.
so I would say that's where I'mspending Those two things are
where I'm spending most of mytime.
Those catch up calls and thendoing the writing.
I'd love to get in an editorialschedule, but, I think that's
part of my weird writing processis I just write when there's
something that needs to getoutta my head.

(54:31):
So

Kyle Soucy (54:32):
Yeah.
It's hard to schedule,

Dan Brown (54:34):
Yes.

Kyle Soucy (54:34):
but I love that approach that it's just staying
in touch, not necessarilyselling.

Dan Brown (54:38):
Right, right.

Kyle Soucy (54:39):
Yeah.
You know, I did notice, at the,IA conference, in Philadelphia,
back in April, that yousponsored and you were a lanyard
sponsor for that.
Did you see some leads come infrom that?
Would you recommend sponsoringevents for independent
consultants or.

Dan Brown (54:53):
That's a good question.
I don't know.
I just love the conference.
I think I made the joke on stagethat, I sponsored because I need
to pay for friends.
but, but I wanted to make surethat that conference happened.
I'm really proud of the logo, soI kind of wanted to see it on a
lanyard to see how that looked.
But

Kyle Soucy (55:11):
It looked cool.

Dan Brown (55:12):
it looked pretty good.
So no, I don't think I got anyleads, from that.
I was thinking about sponsoringanother conference.
but I have to admit, I wasn'tsure it was right.
for me, I think curious squid.
I think we need to be doing alittle better.
And I would want to be able tohave a real presence at the
place.
and the way I was talking tothese folks, it didn't seem like

(55:35):
I was in a good place to have areal presence.
there they were perfectlywilling to take my money and
give me that presence, but Iwouldn't have been prepared to
make that

Kyle Soucy (55:44):
Right.

Dan Brown (55:45):
so no, Eight Shapes sponsored a bunch of times.
We never sponsored'cause wethought it would be good for
business.
We always sponsored or had apresence because we thought it
would be a good place to recruitpeople.
so I think it really depends onthe conference, what you want to
get.
Out of it from a businessperspective for the IA
conference, it's staying tappedinto the community.

(56:05):
You know, I've got my narrowlittle thing that I set of
clients that I focus on.
So hearing what other people areworking on is really
interesting.
Helping me find inspiration forthings to think about, find
people to, that I couldpotentially use as
subcontractors or partners.
But it seems unlikely that, newbusiness would come out of a
place like the IA conference.

Kyle Soucy (56:26):
I thank you so much for sponsoring'cause that is
definitely the conference that'snearest and dearest to my heart
and I'm so glad that you didsponsor

Dan Brown (56:34):
Oh, good.

Kyle Soucy (56:35):
just to help keep it going.
I didn't ask you before and Imeant to, I know your son is
deep into oceanography.
Loves it.
Is that where Curious Squid thename came from?

Dan Brown (56:46):
that's a good question.
Yeah.
My kid told us when he was fouryears old, he was going into
marine science and now he ismajoring in marine science in
biology at Duke University.
So yeah, he's committed.
yes, cephalopods featured veryheavily throughout his childhood
and beyond.

(57:07):
the name came from just sort ofa lot of soul searching and
brainstorming.
I really wanted to, after someadvice from a friend of mine, I
really wanted to use the wordcurious in my name, and I was
just trying to find a goodpairing for that word.
and then I was having aconversation with my sister and,
she had mentioned the wordoctopus and I was like, octopus,

(57:28):
I really like octopuses, butcurious Octopus doesn't feel
quite right, but curious.
Squid feels really good.
And the more I say it and themore people see it, the more
they like it.
I knew I couldn't just be DanBrown Consulting.
I knew for a variety of reasons,but I knew when we decided to
dissolve eight shapes, I knew Ineeded to create a company that

(57:49):
I was gonna be excited about, abrand that I was gonna be
excited about.
And every time I see the logo,every time I see the name, it
gives me a little spark of joy.
and that's sometimes what helpsme get, through, running the,
place.
So,

Kyle Soucy (58:04):
I love it and it definitely stands out, so good
one.
Yeah.

Dan Brown (58:09):
Thank you.

Kyle Soucy (58:10):
So to wrap up in the remaining minutes we have here,
I just do some rapid firequestions.

Dan Brown (58:15):
Oh boy.

Kyle Soucy (58:17):
in your opinion, what makes a consultant good?

Dan Brown (58:22):
It's rapid fire.
So the first thing that occurredto me when you asked that is
listening.
I really feel like, maybe it'sa, a kind of, I dunno, cliche
answer, but, I can think back toseveral highlight conversations
in my career and a lot of thoseconversations came down to me
listening for listening's sake,listening for curiosity's sake.

(58:44):
so yeah.
Especially in the kinda workthat we do, we're constantly
asking people to search theirsouls, search their brains for
things that are important tothem.
and, we have to listen to thekinds of things that they say so
that we can continue to probe,sensitively and efficiently and
smartly, to get at thoseanswers.

Kyle Soucy (59:08):
I love that.
And what would you say is thebest piece of business advice
you've ever received?

Dan Brown (59:15):
Oh, that's a tough one.
I'm trying to think back on someof the business advice that I've
gotten.
I will go with the most recentpiece of business advice that I
got was when I started CuriousSquid, I decided to work with
the same accountant who washelping us with, Eight Shapes
for many, many years.
he's great and I expressed myanxiety of having to take this

(59:35):
part on myself.
And he said, all you need to dois just.
Do half hour every week ofpaying attention to the books.
it's very practical.
I can put a half hour on mycalendar.
I can dedicate, you know, Fridaymorning you asked about rituals.
I've got a Friday morningritual.
That's when I go through and Ido a little bit of bookkeeping

(59:57):
every week.
I like that if you've got, tasksthat you need to do that you
don't love to do, uh, thatyou're worried about better to
do a little bit each week, than,to let it pile up.

Kyle Soucy (01:00:10):
Yeah.
Wise, very wise.
And, uh, last question here.
What consulting resources havebeen most helpful for you?
You know, whether it's a book, apodcast, anything that you would
consider a must read for UXconsultants.

Dan Brown (01:00:27):
Oh, I, there's this great, podcast called the UX
Consultants.
They have mostly really

Subscribe like,

Dan Brown (01:00:39):
they have goofballs on who, I think the best thing
you can do is talk to otherconsultants.
Um, we are, not in this all byourselves.
they may one day be a source ofbusiness for you, but most
importantly, other folks who aredealing with the same thing can

(01:01:02):
be, sympathetic.
we are a community that likes tohelp each other.
and I still ask Nathan foradvice on things.
I think it's really great tohave a network of people that
you can lean on, to, just getsome advice and perspectives, on
things.

I couldn't agree more.
And that's definitely the wholeimpetus for this podcast.
And I always appreciate youbeing there when I have
questions and just being soaccessible and generous with
your time.
And thank you so much for doingthis.
And for the listeners, how canthey keep up with you?
Follow you?

Dan Brown (01:01:39):
Uh, yeah, best bet is on LinkedIn.
Um, I'm Dan m Brown on LinkedIn.
or, um, just email me atdan@curioussquid.com.

And you mentioned too a calendar of events, right?
For Curious Squid

Dan Brown (01:01:54):
Yes.
Yeah.
I've got a calendar.
It's linked on,curious-squid.com.

Perfect.
All right.
Well Dan, thank you so much

Dan Brown (01:02:02):
Thank you, Kyle.
It was a lot of fun.
Thanks for the chat.

Yeah, thank you.
Bye.
All right.
That wraps up this episode.
Thanks for joining me.
So do you have a topic or aquestion that you would like us
to explore on a future episodeof the UX consultants lounge?
Perhaps there's an anonymousconsulting story you want to
submit.

(01:02:26):
If so, click on the link in theshow notes to submit your story
or question from the podcastwebsite.
Until next time, keep thatconsultancy going.
I can't wait to have you back inthe lounge for our next episode.

All Episodes

Dan Brown - From EightShapes to Curious Squid: Building, Closing, and Reimagining a UX Consultancy

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

24/7 News: The Latest

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dan Brown - From EightShapes to Curious Squid: Building, Closing, and Reimagining a UX Consultancy