Karen McGrane - Embracing Adaptability in UX Consulting - The UX Consultants Lounge

Episode Transcript
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Kyle Soucy (00:15):
Hello and 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
place for UX consultants togather, share stories, and learn

(00:39):
more from one another.
So my guest today is KarenMcGrane, a veteran consultant
with over 25 years ofexperience.
This interview was so great.
And what was so great about itwas just the fact that it even
took place.
Most people aren't willing tohave conversations like this,

(01:01):
ones that kind of let you take apeek under the hood.
And when I approached Karenabout being a guest on this
show, I didn't want to scare heroff, but I did want to warn her
that.
I really did want to lift theveil on consulting and talk
about everything, the good andthe bad.
And not only was Karen game fordoing that, she was down with

(01:25):
that, but she brought it.
She really let us in on how hardit can be and how challenging it
can be at times, but also howrewarding.
And I would say after talking toKaren, there's really only one
word that.
I think fits her perfectly andthat is resilient.

(01:47):
She will share information inthis interview that is really
surprising about the challengesthat she faced in consulting.
She has had two consultancies.
Her current consultancy iscalled Autogram and, she had
another consultancy called bondart and science, and that

(02:09):
consultancy was at one point a15 person firm.
And then it switched to beingsolo, with just her running it.
We also talked about thepressures of running a small
consulting firm and how it canchange the priorities of the
business.
And she had a lot of great tipsabout partnering with people.

(02:29):
And how to deal with economicchanges in the industry and
really just balancing, thethings that are enjoyable as
well as challenging inconsulting work.
So before diving into theinterview, let me just tell you
a little more about Karen.
As I mentioned, her currentconsultancy is called Autogram
and she is a partner in that.

(02:51):
Autogram focuses on theintersection of content service
platforms, like a CMS.
and design systems.
She develops digital strategiesand governance models to help
these systems work effectivelyat scale.
Before her time with these twoconsultancies that she created,

(03:11):
Karen was actually the VP ofuser experience at Razorfish.
And I believe that was for nineyears.
Karen has also contributed, toacademia as a faculty member of
the MFA in interaction designprogram at the SVA in New York.
For 14 years, she was teachingdesign management.

(03:32):
And she's also the author of twobooks going responsive, and
content strategy for mobilepublished by A book apart.
I hope you enjoy thisconversation with Karen as much
as I did.
Enjoy.
I want to start by just saying Iam so honored to have you as the

(03:54):
very first guest of thispodcast.
Truly, I really couldn't havehoped for a better first guest.
Not only are you brilliant withamazingly deep consulting
experience, but you have alwaysbeen just open and transparent
about your journey and yourcareer.

(04:16):
And it's meant a lot to me thatyou are letting people in, that
you are willing to lift thatveil and really talk about real
things and that's exactly what Iwanted for this podcast.
I wanted to have these open andhonest, discussions about what
it's really like to be a UXconsultant.

(04:38):
So thank you for agreeing to dothis.

Karen McGrane (04:41):
gosh, I'm so happy to be here, and I am so
honored that I'm your firstguest.
I have been looking forward tohaving this conversation with
you all week, and I even moreexcited

Kyle Soucy (04:52):
Oh, good.
Good.
And, it's also awesome to methat the first guest happens to
be someone from Philadelphia aswell, because that's where I'm
originally from and where Istarted my consultancy.

Philly is great.
I think we all recognize thatPhilly is definitely the best
city.

Kyle Soucy (05:08):
Totally.
And I think we, we just missedeach other.
I moved up to New Hampshire in2006.
Is that when you left New York?

No, I moved here in 2016.

Kyle Soucy (05:20):
Oh, okay.
So I really missed you.
All right.
I thought you were there longer.

No, it's a, you know, I mean, it's eight years
now,

Kyle Soucy (05:27):
yeah.
Thank you

like a relatively long

Kyle Soucy (05:29):
Oh yeah.

I was in New York for 20 years.

Kyle Soucy (05:31):
Wow.
Is that where you're originallyfrom?

No, I'm originally from Minneapolis.

Kyle Soucy (05:36):
That's a big difference.

It really is.
I love Minneapolis.
It's a wonderful city, but mypersonality, I think aligns
better with the East coast.

Kyle Soucy (05:46):
Yeah.
Well, the first thing I want todo is to talk about your
consultancy autogram, and I'dlike for you to just tell the
listeners a little bit about itand the services you offer.

Sure.
So with my business partner,Jeff Eaton, provide consulting
services around content strategyand content management.
So that I think sort of takenbroadly includes information
architecture it includes contentmodeling in support of a content

(06:21):
management system, redesign orreplatforming.
Often get brought in byorganizations when they need to
replatform their CMS for somereason, like their current
platform is End of Life, or areundergoing some other major I.
T.
Change.
We also get brought in atcertain inflection points during

(06:44):
the for the business.
So sometimes it's when newleadership is coming in and they
need to take a step back andevaluate what they're doing with
their with their with theirproduct.
content publishing and, youknow, what they're doing on the
web or in apps.
it's during a merger or anacquisition when they wind up
with two sets of content thatthey need to integrate and

(07:07):
combine.
And the services that we provideare around helping organizations
figure out how to make theircontent more effective.
how to streamline their internalorganizational and operational
processes for publishing andmanaging content at scale.

Kyle Soucy (07:25):
Okay.
And autogram was started in2020.
Is that right?

That's

Kyle Soucy (07:31):
Okay.

Right in the, in the middle of the pandemic.
I had, have, collaborated withJeff Eaton for many, many years.
I think we first met each otherback in 2007.
I had always wanted to work withhim full time.
But he had a full time job atthe a Drupal integrator called

(07:52):
Lullabot.
And so when he finally got tothe point where he was ready to
go out on his own, I was like,heck yeah, we're going to do
this thing.
And so we've been workingtogether ever since.

Kyle Soucy (08:03):
Nice.
Nice.
And you had another consultancybefore that Bond Art and
Science, right?

Yes, so I started that with some business partners
back in 2006 and that, that wasa, you know, a long journey.
So the business partners that Ihad there eventually fell off
over the course of the next Youknow, I guess three, four years,
and I wound up running bond bymyself.

(08:34):
There were points at which I hadfull time employees.
There were points at which I wasrunning it entirely by myself.
There were points where I wasthe sole owner, but with a lot
of freelancers.
So running bond, I think I saw awide array of different things
that can happen when you'rerunning a small consulting firm.

(08:56):
I think a lot of those insightshave served me well as, as now
we're running Autogram.

Kyle Soucy (09:01):
That, to me, is so interesting, how you could have
a consultancy that really, Kindof stretched and was flexible
with its business model.
Cause you have the bigconsulting firm with the team of
employees and other consultants.
And then you have that boutiqueconsultancy, you know, more
specialized partners, employees,subcontractors, and then also

(09:23):
the independent solo consultingtoo, all like just kind of
coming in and out of thosedifferent models.

Yeah, it, it, it was interesting to see what can
happen under the brand or thelegal entities that you have
running a business.
It taught me a lot about I thinkunderstanding how to be
effective in terms of running abusiness.

(09:51):
And one of the things that, thathappened to me was making the
decision to go from havingemployees to not having
employees.
I think I've mentioned thisbefore, but there was a year
where I had about, 500, 000 ofwhat I thought was, you know, a
sure thing projects coming inand due to a variety of reasons,

(10:12):
they all just happened to fallthrough.
It, it had nothing to do withus.
It had everything to do with,you know, business things
happening on the client side, itcame as a real shock.
Like I had a lot of money that Iwas planning as revenue that
simply didn't materialize.
yeah, I mean, it was verypainful at the time.

(10:33):
wound up at that juncturedeciding that I was just going
to take over bond by myself, andthat I wasn't going to have
employees anymore.
so I had to have hardconversations with everybody,
and honestly, like, that, workedout remarkably well, like I was
very, I tried to be as open aspossible with everybody who was

(10:54):
working with me did everything Icould to help people find other
jobs and, and to be perfectlyhonest, they went on to better
jobs that paid better and gavethem more responsibilities.
I've maintained goodrelationships with everybody to
this day.
It wasn't like a You know, itwasn't like we left on bad terms

Kyle Soucy (11:12):
That's great.

and turns out in many cases you can actually run
a more profitable business ifyou have the flexibility to only
work with freelancers.
And a transition that I haveseen happen in the industry as a
whole over the past couple ofdecades.
Like when I got started, therewas this expectation that

(11:37):
clients really thought youneeded full time people on staff
and they wanted the security ofknowing that your resources were
You know beholden to basicallythat they could have them full
time or you know that their timewasn't going to be split I even
had the sense that clientsexpected you to have an office
like they wanted to go and seethat you had a physical location

(12:00):
that that Was what?
Gave them a sense of trust andconfidence that you were a real
business that wasn't going tojust disappear over time.
I think that's shifted now.
I mean, now, clearly anexpectation for an office is has
gone and that hasn't been aroundfor a while, but.

(12:21):
the idea that you're workingwith a network of freelancers
has become much more of anaccepted model in the industry.
And I, I don't think I've gottenpushback from clients in a long
time about working withsubcontractors.
And, you know, the knowledgethat, yeah, I bring in the right
people for the job.

(12:41):
I have an extensive network ofpeople that, that I know to work
with.
You know, I'll find the rightperson to help you out with your
project, but I don't have to bepaying them a salary in order to
do that.

Kyle Soucy (12:53):
And how big was the consulting firm at its, at its
largest?

I think Bond had, I would say we had 15 people at
its peak, so it wasn't very big,but that's a, I mean, that's a
fair amount of payroll revenue.

Kyle Soucy (13:11):
yeah.

to make sure you're bringing in regularly we
weren't that big when I finallytook it all over.
I think it was maybe we had ahandful of people at that point
but still like the pressure tomake payroll and the pressure to
keep people busy Is challengingfor a business and I think point

(13:32):
I got to was that I was doingprojects like web Design and
development projects thatweren't the types of projects
that I wanted to focus on, but Ipersonally wanted to do, but I
was doing them because theywould keep a team of people busy

Kyle Soucy (13:48):
Huh.

so being able to say, all I'm going to do is work
as an independent consultant andtry to keep myself busy meant
that I could focus more on thespecific types of content
strategy and informationarchitectural projects that I
enjoy.
And so now working withAutogram, the benefit of me and

(14:09):
Jeff Eaton working together isthat both of us are very well
aligned on the types of projectswe want to do.
And his background indevelopment, he's a, you know, a
software architect.
Gives us the ability to doprojects with more depth than I
could do personally.
he has the the knowledge of theback end that I don't have so

(14:33):
that gives us some insight intoSome of the you know, the real
nuts and bolts of what's goingon inside a content management
system

Kyle Soucy (14:41):
It sounds like an ideal partnership where you
compliment each other well.

We work together

Kyle Soucy (14:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.

the, the real thing that matters to me is that
we, you know, we genuinely likeeach other as people, like I'm
close to his wife, we've knowneach other for decades now.
And so there's a lot of realhonesty and real trust in how we
interact with each other.
That to me is necessary.

(15:10):
It's, you know, it's notnegotiable when you're working
with a business partner.

Kyle Soucy (15:13):
I have so many questions about partnerships
and, and how that's structuredbefore I dive into that though.
I just have to say, just hearingthat history of bond art and
science, I'm like, wow.
I couldn't imagine what thatmust've felt like to lose 500,
000.
Like you thought you werecounting on it and then it was

(15:34):
gone and then having to let yourteam go.
What was that like?

It was a rough few months.
I think anybody who runs abusiness knows the feeling of
waking up in the middle of thenight in a panic about, where's
the money going to come from andwhat's going to happen if it
doesn't.
Those are feelings that I havebeen reacquainted with a bit
more over the past couple ofyears as I think a lot of people
in the tech industry have had arocky time.

(16:01):
But I, when this happened, Ithink it was 2011.
was a difficult winter, andscrambled quite a bit before
just coming to terms with thefact that things were going to
change.
I think once I accepted it,things got a lot easier.

(16:22):
Like my, my first book, ContentStrategy for Mobile, was
published in 2012.
And so, In retrospect, when Ilook back at it, it feels like
actually more of a naturaltransition, I accepted that the
type of work I wanted to do waschanging.
I accepted that the folks I wasworking with probably would be

(16:44):
just as happy, if not happier.
working with other folks we allmoved on.
And it turns out that once Imade that transition the years
from, I would say like 2012 to2016 were probably the most
interesting and, and lucrativeyears that I'd had in consulting

(17:05):
up to that point.

Kyle Soucy (17:07):
And with the compromises that you described
with having employees, I thoughtthat was super interesting how
if you have this team, you haveto feed them.
And that stress of making thepayroll can sometimes make you
take work that you necessarilyDon't want to take.
And I wonder what services wasbond art and science offering.

(17:30):
You mentioned web development.
Was that mainly what they wereoffering or was it

Yeah, pretty much.
It was we made websites.
uh, you know, back at thatpoint, like this was late 2000s,
it was, it was a very differentmarket.
And so, being able to be Webdesign and development firm that
focused on user experience was aservice offering that you could

(17:57):
have and it wasn't all thatdifferentiated.
I think our expertise was aninformation architecture and
particularly in working withpublishers.
I did a lot of work.
With magazines and otherpublishers back in those days
But honestly when you're workingwith who are full time they just

(18:18):
expect that they're getting paidevery two

Kyle Soucy (18:20):
sure?
Yeah.

For somebody running a An agency, a small
consulting firm, the pressure tokeep the business development
pipeline going and to take onwork that keep people busy was
the primary goal.
And shifting that to a model ofworking independently or working

(18:45):
only with freelancers, it's notjust that there's less pressure
as a business person, it's thatpeople that you're partnering
with also have the same attitudeabout understanding where the
revenue is coming from andunderstanding that both parties
are there in sort of a mercenarysense to like, okay, we have

(19:08):
this much money coming in andthis is the amount of money
we're going to get.
I'm very transparent witheverybody that I work with on a
freelance basis on a contractbasis where I just close,
here's, here's the deal.
This is what the client ispaying.
I'm, open about what percentageof revenue I'm going to take
versus what they're going totake.

(19:29):
I do everything as a fixed fee.
So My expectation when I'mworking with people is that
Okay, this is the amount of timethe clap project is going to
take this is how much moneywe're going to get paid gonna
get paid and work with peoplewho, understand like, okay, it's
my job to get this work done toan acceptable level of quality

(19:51):
within the amount of time andamount of budget that we've
outlined.
And that's something that ispretty easy to do if you're
working with experiencedfreelancers.
The economics of it is verydifferent when you're working
with full time people, becausethey don't necessarily think of
the revenue and what they'rebilling as what's driving their

(20:12):
paycheck.

Kyle Soucy (20:13):
Right.
Right.
Your transparency is soadmirable.
I wish more agencies were likethat with their relationships
with subcontractors.
I know.
Oftentimes it's an unknowncompletely, what they're making,
what you're making, how muchthey're making off of you.
Yeah.

It really is.
I think everybody in this fieldhas wound up subcontracting
through bigger agencies.
I've certainly done it myselfand some I've had really great
relationships working with andwould love to do it again and
others I would not do it again.
And I think the level oftransparency and the level of

(20:54):
honesty that you feel you'regetting about what rates they're
pulling in what their markup ison your time or your hours that
to me is, it's like, if youdon't have that or you have a
sense like, Am getting screwedhere?
That's not a healthy way to Tohave a relationship.

Kyle Soucy (21:16):
not at all.
Not at all.
And I was wondering with youremployees, when you had
employees, I imagine your rolehad to dramatically change.
What was your role like when youhad employees?

When I was working with other business
partners other partners weremore responsible for her.
The business and operationsrunning bond.
When I took it over myself andwhat Ben was managing more of
the actual business aspects ofit, one of my big insights was

(21:51):
that the business aspects of itwere actually pretty interesting
and also not that hard.
Previous to that point, sort ofof it as.
Like this mysterious thing, likeI was the designer or the UX
person, I had the subject matterexpertise.
And then there were other peoplewho knew how to run a business.

(22:12):
it turns out that running asmall consulting firm is not
that difficult from a businessoperations standpoint.
It really isn't prettystraightforward.
Money goes in, money comes out,and you want to make sure you
have more money coming in thanis going out.
Yeah.
And I, as I have now spent agood 15 years handling the

(22:37):
business and operationalmanagement side of it, I find
that I enjoy it quite a bit, butalso It, it seems pretty
straightforward to me and, Iwill say though, a big part of
that is recognizing that youdon't run a business without
paying experts in their field.
So you need a good accountant,you need a good bookkeeper, you

(23:00):
need a good lawyer, and youknow, you need to be able to
trust those people that when youcall them up and have questions
for them, that they're going togive you good answers and timely
answers.

Kyle Soucy (23:11):
That, that really segways nicely to the, the other
thing I wanted to ask you isabout your journey to becoming a
consultant and how you did that.
Before I do that, though, I Ihave to ask there are different
there are different definitionsof success, right?
Some people enter this world ofbeing an independent consultant
and their end goal is toeventually have employees that

(23:32):
they haven't made it, quoteunquote, unless they have that
office and they have a payrolland all of it and others just
want to stay independent.
For those that are thinkingabout having employees and
actually having a consultingfirm, what do you say to them?
What's your advice there?

I got some good advice from David Baker, who is
somebody who's, I think,relatively well known in the,

Kyle Soucy (23:59):
Yeah, I have his book.

Yeah, yeah, I, I met David at a Harvard Business
School conference.
It was like a week long eventfor like a little mini MBA
program for designers.
And it was back in maybe 2005.
so I've known him ever since,and we've stayed in touch.

(24:21):
I have worked with him a coupleof times over the past couple of
decades, and has shared a lot ofreally interesting information
with me about the operationalside, the management side of
running a small business.
And one of the things that hetold me that has always stuck
with me is that the size of yourbusiness as an owner is entirely

(24:47):
dependent on what you want yourrole as the owner to be.
And your ability to beprofitable is not at all based
on the size of the business.
And in fact, your ability tomake as much money as you want
as an independent person in manyways, is greater, you have more

(25:10):
flexibility the smaller yourfirm is compared to having a
larger firm.
There's this sense that I thinkpeople have that in order to be
really successful, but also inorder to be really profitable,
you need a larger team.
And he was very clear that that,you know, in all of the analysis
that he's done of hundreds ofsmall consulting firms, that

(25:32):
that's simply not true.
And that what you need tounderstand as the owner of the
business is what is it that youlike doing?
you like doing the hands onwork?
Then you should probably have asmaller firm, because the larger
your business grows, the moretime you're going to have to

(25:53):
spend Doing business developmentand managing the growth of the
business and not doing the handson work of design or research or
development or communications orwhatever it is that you enjoy
doing when that finally clickedwith me, that was one of the big
reasons where I realized thatI'd probably be happier just

(26:15):
being an independent consultanton my

Kyle Soucy (26:16):
Yeah.

you know, we're having a smaller firm and that
the people management side of,know, running a business and
worrying about people's careergrowth wasn't what was
motivating me and I actuallylike doing the hands on work a
lot more.

Kyle Soucy (26:34):
And I love this myth busting of profitability being
equal to head count, that youcan have even just as much
profit on your own or, yeah,there's, there's this idea.
I've seen it in someconversations with other
consultants that, oh, I want tomake more.
I'm just going to have a bunchof subcontractors and that way I

(26:55):
can have lots of projects goingon.
And, and then.
I hear also oftentimes whenthat's going on that it can be
so chaotic, just trying tomanage all the subcontractors
and it can be a lot more stressas well.
But sometimes it does work outfor some

Yeah, I think the, the upside of working with
subcontractors only is that, atleast for me, your ability to
control costs is a lot easier,like I have a fixed price
project with a client.
I pay a fixed fee to mysubcontractors and so the risk

(27:31):
to me as a business isrelatively low.
you know, I mean there's alwaysrisk something could happen to
the contractor or the contractorcould, you know, demand more
money but if I'm doing my jobright there's not much risk
there.
Whereas the flip side of that isI think if you have full time

(27:51):
people and, you know, I thinkunspoken thing here is if you're
paying people on salary muchless than you're billing them
out for.
So if you're paying them asalary and then billing them out
at.
three times their salary or fourtimes their salary, your ability
to get more work and more profitout of them is greater.

(28:15):
That's I think a multiple ofthree or four is a pretty
standard metric for how agenciesoperate.
It's easier to get to highermultiples if you have a pyramid
structure where you have only afew people at the top and a lot
of junior people that you'rebilling out at much higher rates
than their salary.
Don't, I mean, that's not reallya model that appeals to me.

(28:39):
And I think some people, itmight really appeal to them.
They would like to have a teamof junior people that they're
mentoring and they're not payingthem particularly well but they
can shape the work and sell itto a client at a value that the
client's willing to pay.
To me, it's a lot easier to workwith other seasoned experts,

(29:01):
people who.
Know what they're doing andthey're not looking for me to
manage them and we split things50 50 Like that to me seems like
a relatively fair and easy wayto do business

Kyle Soucy (29:12):
And now revisiting that topic of how you learn to
do this.
So, you know, what was your,your journey to becoming a
consultant?
Why did you want to become aconsultant and start a business?

So, I've actually never done anything else.
I joke that I'm feral at thispoint.
Like, I don't know that I couldwork in house.

Kyle Soucy (29:32):
hear ya.

I got my start right out of grad school at the
digital agency Razorfish.
I was One of the early hiresthere I worked there for about
10 years.
When I started, I was the firstperson that they brought in with
a user experience background.
And when I left, I was the VPand national lead for user
experience.

(29:53):
And so during my time there, it,that was really a crash course
in how to work for an agency andhow an agency approaches sales
and business development andpeople management and you know,
the business of running aconsulting firm.
I learned a lot there.
And so when I left Razorfish thefolks that I left with were also

(30:17):
ex Razorfish people.
And when we transitioned torunning Bond we took a lot of
our knowledge and insights fromwhat happened at razorfish
there.
And I've been independent eversince.
I really like being anindependent consultant.
I enjoy it.
I find it endlessly interestingto work with different types of

(30:38):
clients and learn a little bitabout how their business
operates and learn a little bitabout their challenges.
Staying focused on the specificproblems that I can solve, like
from a user experienceperspective, really looking
deeply at content publishing andoperations processes, looking

(30:59):
deeply at the human side ofcontent management, means that
I'm looking at similar problems,but across different businesses
and different industries.
And I honestly think that's afantastic position for.
a consultant to bring in outsideconsultants Jeff and I have deep

(31:20):
expertise in working withclients.
We've seen how differentbusinesses solve these problems
over and over and over again andI think is that's why you should
bring in an outsider is ifyou're going to be doing
something like a contentmanagement replatforming or You
know, you need to reevaluateyour content strategy in light

(31:43):
of some business changes,bringing in somebody who's done
it, you know, 100 times beforeand can let you know where, you
know, here's places to watch outfor.
Here's ways that you could makethis go more efficiently.
We'll really.
help save pain and time andmoney.
Sure you could do, you know,figure it all out yourself, but

(32:05):
bring in an expert, we'll comein and help you out make it go
more smoothly for you, and thenwe go away.

Kyle Soucy (32:10):
And it's amazing that you spent nine years at
Razorfish and worked up to beingthe VP of UX.
And that was fresh, from schoolthat you were into a big agency.
And I actually subcontracted forthem like way back, like 2003.
And they were massive and Ithink that's such a huge
accomplishment to be the VP ofUX there.

(32:32):
And when you left, there wasjust never a thought like, you
knew you were going to go out onyour own.

I really wanted to go out on my

Kyle Soucy (32:41):
Yeah.

And I was excited about the challenge of being
able to manage my own clientsand manage my own business.
You know, you look back on yourcareer and some of it, It's
like, I liked the idea.
I don't know that I even thoughtit through all that carefully.
Like, it was just something thatsounded like a fun thing to work

(33:02):
on.
We had a couple of clientsalready lined up for when the
business started and Things justkept going from there.

Kyle Soucy (33:11):
Yeah.

I've, it's certainly crossed my mind over
the years, like, Ugh, maybe Ishould try to get a job, get a
full time job someplace.
Like, you know, I've intervieweda few times, but this point,
this point I have to say I'mreally grateful that I have the
skills and the network that comefrom running my own business
because, you know, I'm, I'm inmy 50s now and I certainly see

(33:36):
what has happened to the techindustry over the past couple of
years and how many people withfew decades of experience are
struggling to find full timework.
you know, there's this sense oflike, oh, you can't get a full
time job.
Well, you could try consulting.
Well, guess what?
Consulting is its ownchallenging job and you don't

(33:59):
just walk into it and startgetting clients and know how to
run a business.
It's something that also takesskills and, you know, practice
and you make mistakes along theway.

Kyle Soucy (34:08):
Yeah, that is such a good point.
No, you, you do not just flipthe switch and say, okay, my
signs out.
I'm open, bring on the work.
It just, it takes a lot of workto get those leads and probably
10 times the amount of work toget the first client usually,
unless you have some connectionsbut you mentioned the current
economy and it's such a goodpoint.

(34:32):
I would love to talk about that.
Everyone.
That I know in my consultingnetwork and myself included,
2023 was horrible.
It was one of my worst years.
So to be perfectly candid, in 20years in business, 2009 was my
absolute worst.
Cause after the 2018 crash,nobody had approved budgets

(34:53):
going.
forward.
And also I had my first child,so that was a big deal in that
year.
So that was the worst one on thebooks.
I think 2023 was either thesecond or third worst year for
me.
So curious to know for Autogram,for yourself, what has this been
like for you?

2023 was by far my worst year.
I actually didn't do too bad in,in 2009.
That was first, that was theyear that my other business
partners at Bond decided theydidn't want to work at Bond
anymore.
And so that was sort of thefirst year that I was running
the whole business myself.

(35:34):
I took on some smaller projects.
It was a much leanerorganization.
And, know, I look back on thatand it was okay.
Whereas 2023?
Whoa! It was just a barrenwasteland of, of, you know,
hopes and dreams that didn't panout.

(35:55):
And the, the only reassuringthing was being able to talk to
my other friends in consulting.
recognize that everybody wasgoing through the same thing.
It wasn't just us, but yeah, itwas, it was it's, it's been
tough.
has been a little better, but Ithink we are seeing, I don't

(36:17):
know, a realignment and the techlandscape and with a lot of
people laid off, you know, we'renow in a, know, no more zero
interest rate market.
It's going to take some time, Ithink probably through the
election in the United States atthe end of the year to just

(36:38):
really see where the market isgoing to wind up

Kyle Soucy (36:42):
Yeah, you know, I leaned on my network quite a bit
to my, my community of, ofindependents and other people
and it was comforting to hearlike, okay, it's not just me.
We're all slow.
And, you know, it sounds I don'tknow, maybe a little odd to you,
but to hear, names in theindustry, like people like
yourself saying, yes, I'm, I'mslow too.

(37:03):
That's so reassuring.
It really is.
It's not good.
We, none of us wants to hearthat we're slow, but there is
some comfort in that and, and Ido appreciate you being willing
to share that.
I know you mentioned too before.
So.
Autogram started with three.
So it was Jeff Eaton, you andEthan Marcotte.
Is that right?

that is correct.
It was the three of

Kyle Soucy (37:24):
Yeah.
And then, so Ethan leftrecently.

Ethan left recently and took a full time
job and that was a difficult andand Painful transition i'll say
i'm very happy for him.
He is at 18 F right now And Irecognize that that's You
fantastic place for him.
He is very committed to publicservice.

(37:50):
He just published a book lastyear from a book apart called
you deserve a tech union.
So I know that he's reallyinterested in, in doing work for
the public good.
but it was also very sad to losehim.
And I've I've collaborated withEthan also for more than a
decade and I miss him, but youknow, you need a paycheck.

(38:11):
I get it.
It's, it's tough.

Kyle Soucy (38:13):
absolutely.

working as a consultant and having the
pipeline dry up.

Kyle Soucy (38:20):
And it's a reality, right?
It's a reality that we all face.

It is.
Yeah.
I mean, you really have to haveYou have to, to recognize that
when you're workingindependently, that there will
be boom and bust cycles and, youknow, save rainy day.
Make sure that you're puttingmoney away for the tough times.
And I think what's waschallenging about the market

(38:46):
over the past year for, foreverybody, whether it was people
working independently or peoplelooking for a full time job was
that I think people did that.
They, they saved money and, youknow, tried to take care of
himself.
But year, you know, a year or solater, your reserves are running
pretty dry.
And, that, that I think ischallenging.

(39:11):
And it's something that I seepeople who are, who are openly
looking for full time jobs rightnow, speaking about openly.
And, you know, I'm happy tospeak about it openly too.
Like you couldn't.
Have done a lot of things rightand still be in a position where
you're like, well, I saved for arainy day, but has gone on long

(39:35):
longer than I thought it

Kyle Soucy (39:36):
Yeah.
Not a, not a rainy two years orthree years or yeah.

Yeah, exactly

Kyle Soucy (39:41):
And the The savings it's so important that you
mention that it's one of thefirst things I mentioned when
someone's like I'm thinking ofgoing Out on my own.
It's like have that Savings youneed to have that savings
because the moment you're slow,you're gonna be like, okay I
guess I'm looking for full timework.
You're not gonna be out verylong because that illusion that

(40:02):
Well, once I'm out there I'llstay out there.
It's it's it's work staying outthere and it might not be Always
be there for you.
And you mentioned the pipeline.
What do you do when the pipelineis dry and the client work is
slow?

So I will say that one of the things that I
found particularly challengingover the past couple of years
has been that the two Biggestvectors for me for marketing and
promotion were historicallyspeaking at conferences and

(40:39):
Twitter.
And both of those are gone now.
The conference market, I think,has essentially dried up since
the pandemic.
The energy around in personconferences has largely moved
online and online events oronline training sessions just

(41:01):
aren't the same as being able tonetwork in person at a
conference.
And Twitter, I mean, love it orhate it, like, I think we all
have a love hate relationshipwith that place, but it was my,
you know, professional home fora long time, and I met a lot of
clients and collaborators andhad a place where I could share

(41:24):
my garbage thoughts,

Kyle Soucy (41:25):
You met your husband there.

I met my husband on Twitter! I mean, I had a
verified account and 50, 000followers and it was fairly
astonishing to see that vanishin, you know, the space of a few
months.
So What you do to start drummingup business has shifted quite a

(41:50):
lot.
And I think we're all, I mean, Iknow for myself, we're still
trying to figure out how tooperate in this new world.
Like I have to be on LinkedInnow.
I am a moderator on our UXdesign, which is just a very
different place and it'sanonymous.

(42:12):
I do some online events, butagain, it's not the same

Kyle Soucy (42:17):
Yeah.

speaking at a conference.
I honestly, I wish I had a goodanswer for you, but I think it,
it really involves creativeabout how to get your message
out

Kyle Soucy (42:31):
Mm.

And the one thing I will say, like, if I'm
thinking of things that I wouldadvise people, you really,
really have to have a niche.
Like, the more specific you canbe about the problems that you
solve, and you know, to beprecise about why a client
should hire you, the better offyou're going to be.

(42:56):
And This is a classic userexperience thing like trying to
appeal to everybody means thatyou don't appeal to anybody
solving a specific niche problemmean that you are not the right
vendor for the majority ofclients, but for the subset of
clients that have the specificproblem that you're going to

(43:17):
solve.
You're going to be an obvious

Kyle Soucy (43:19):
Right.

obvious choice to be considered.
And so I, I sometimes look atpeople or their firm and their
positioning and it's way toogeneric.
It's, you know, just like I douser experience work.
Well, how do you differentiatefrom every other person out
there that?
Does user experience work?

(43:41):
You don't,

Kyle Soucy (43:42):
Yeah.

You need to have something that's like, I solve,
you know, I make the bestwebsites for dentists out there.
Like, you know, that's probablynot what you want to focus on.
But at least if you are lookingfor dentists that need a
website, they're going to haveto consider you or, you know,
recognize that they have aproblem and you solve that
problem.

Kyle Soucy (44:02):
You have hit on probably one of, I want to say
my biggest fears that I needhelp with.
When it comes to specializing,I've had this conversation so
many times with so many peopleabout the importance of it and
about whether or not, you know,you know, I should do it or
other people should do it.
I really go back and forth inthis and I, I'd love to get

(44:24):
your, two cents on it.
So with my work, so I'm a UXresearcher and I, over the 20
years, it has been everythingfrom medical devices to kitchen
appliances to, you know, mobileapps, web apps, whatever, so
many different industries.
And I love that variety.
And I feel like, as aqualitative researcher, that
That's like kind of how Ispecialize is that I do

(44:45):
qualitative versus quantitativetypically.
But I don't know, there's fear.
There's real fear to be honestabout saying, okay, from this
point forward, I am going to bethe UX researcher for medical or
for e commerce or for financialor whatever it may be.
When you say specialist, do youmean that like choosing an
industry?
Are you thinking in a broaderterm?

No, I don't necessarily mean industry

Kyle Soucy (45:11):
Okay.
Okay.

that some folks take is to do, you know, to
specialize by, You know,industry vertical, but I think
other folks do more of whatyou're describing as like a
horizontal specialization.
Like, I'm going to take, I'mgoing to do qualitative research
and, you know, perhaps aparticular spin on qualitative

(45:39):
research.
Like, we, you know, are lookingfor problems in, you know,
questions that you're trying toget answered in, you know, these
types of problems.
In these types of situations,

Kyle Soucy (45:51):
yeah.

but I think it's like, your prospective client
has to be able to see theirproblems in what you say that
you do Mm.
Yeah.
it's gotta, it's gotta resonatewith them, like, oh, okay,
these, these, This firm, thisperson talks about problems that

(46:14):
our business has in a way thatmakes me feel confident that
they know how to solve thoseproblems.
And so it's, it's not aboutnecessarily just saying we only
do healthcare work.
It's about having somethingspecific enough that a client
can grab onto it and say, Oh, Iget it.
You feel my pain.

Kyle Soucy (46:34):
That is so true.
I am often, pitching work andwhat I find is, I've got a lot
of experience in a lot ofdifferent areas but what you
said, they want to see theirproblems represented.
So let's say someone has anintranet.
It's like, but did you, youknow, work on this specific
thing, you know, this communitybuilding aspect of it.

(46:55):
How do you have anything, anysimilar projects like that, that
you can talk to?
It's like, no, but you know, Ihave 20 years of other things
and you know, I'm using the samemethods and whatever, but they
still, they want to, they wantto see Yeah.
Oh,

like being able to somebody's pain point almost
better than they can understandit themselves.
I think a lot of my mostsuccessful You know, sales work,
I almost don't even want to callit sales, but it's being able to
talk to that, that have painaround their web publishing or

(47:42):
digital publishing what they'retrying to accomplish online and
talk to them about where thoseproblems stem from.
And.
I can do to solve them and tomake them feel comfortable like,
oh, I, I can describe their painback to them almost better than

(48:02):
they can, because I've seen it,you know, they're in the middle
of it, like, they don't have theperspective to really diagnose
where it comes from, or see pastthe pain into how you, how you
get to a different future.
I.
seen it a hundred times beforeand can give them the sense of

(48:23):
like, Oh no, I get it.
Like, you know, I, I sometimesjoke a lot of the sales process
is really just, giving yourclient a hug and saying your
problems are painful anddifficult and I've seen them
before and I know what to do.

Kyle Soucy (48:40):
I love that.

you know, if, if, It's like you can, if you can
convince somebody of that, theyalmost have to hire you

Kyle Soucy (48:50):
that.
That is, that is so perfect.
Yeah.
And you, a few minutes ago whenwe were talking initially about
the, the pipeline being slowand, and, you know, talking at
conferences, I feel youcompletely like the virtual
conferences, just, they're notthe same and you.
are such a brilliant speaker.
So that's how I first found outabout you and knew about you.

(49:12):
Your amazing talks and anybodywho has not seen Karen in action
giving a talk go to her websitekarenmcgrane.Com and look at her
talks.
It's just so much passion.
You're.
So great with sharing yourwisdom.
And I remember watching you afew different times in person.
There was the IA Summit keynoteand other times.

(49:33):
It took a lot for me to.
Really honed my public speakingcraft.
And I feel like it, it reallygot there in a lot of ways
because I watched people likeyou really bring it and I'm
like, okay, this is how it'sdone.
I've got to bring it, you know?
So I think you're a brilliantspeaker.
And I just wanted to mentionthat,

That's so nice of you to say.
I, you know, I always reallyloved speaking.
I love being on stage and at avirtual event as, as great as it
is for, the ease of, like, youknow, the ease of people being
able to To watch and participatefrom their homes just doesn't

(50:14):
have the same energy and doesn'thave the same, for me as a
speaker, doesn't have the samefeeling as being on stage.
And I, it's like, I, and thething is, I haven't done it in
so long.
I, you know, I'm, I find myselfwondering like, gosh, what's it
going to be like when I, I speakat a conference again, because I

(50:34):
can't, I can't even remember thelast time I did

Kyle Soucy (50:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
And it's a shame.
It really is.
I hope, I hope that comes back.
Yeah.
Yeah.

a new generation of people.
I think many of us got, got ourmessage out there and, and, you
know, we're able to connect withcolleagues and friends and
potential clients.
On, you know, at events likethat.
And I, wish for the same forpeople who are, you know, a

(51:09):
generation younger than I am nowto have the same chances to, to
learn and to grow and to honetheir message.

Kyle Soucy (51:17):
To make a name for themselves.
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Kyle Soucy (51:22):
So I want to talk about partnerships and that's
probably the thing I'm so keento talk to you about because you
have so much experience withthis.

Yeah.

Kyle Soucy (51:32):
So I mentioned to you before that a few times I
have been approached by otherconsultants and I get the, Hey,
we should partner.
And I'm like, Hey, what doesthat mean?
Like, I don't know what thatmeans.
Yeah.
I, how do you divide the work,the responsibilities, the
profits?
I, you started autogram withthree people was, if you don't

(51:55):
mind me asking, you know, do youfeel comfortable sharing?
Like, was it a third, a third, athird, or how did that work?

Yep.
Yep.
So we were very clear.
Everything is just a third, athird, a third.
So business ownership was, youknow, equal thirds and profit
sharing was equal thirds.
There wasn't any.
complication about that at all.
So when Ethan left that monththat we had to get the lawyer
involved and, and, you know,update the operating agreement.

(52:24):
And so now for Jeff, it's 50 50between us.
that, that to me is, is theeasiest way to go.
If we work with freelancers,again, we're very transparent
about How we're dividing up themoney and have open
conversations about it.
So it, in those cases, it mightbe a third, a third, a third,

(52:47):
you know, we might negotiatesomething different for a
subcontractor working with us,but, you know, it's always, it's
always out in the open.

Kyle Soucy (52:55):
Oh, interesting.

yeah, and, but, you know, you're right.
It doesn't have to be that way.
As far as partnership goes, Iguess the big question there is,
are you setting up a legalentity together?
Like, are you opening a jointLLC or?
You know, some kind of actualbusiness partnership, and if
that's the case, are you Youknow, what's the operating

(53:21):
agreement?
Like, how do you handle taxes?
Are you gonna get insurance?
Like, all of that invites a muchbroader question about, like,
what is this business we'rerunning versus are we just
collaborating on a project?

Kyle Soucy (53:37):
And I think the fear that I have with partnerships,
what do you do if one of you isslow and the other one is busy
and, I would feel bad.
Like, did I earn my third orhalf or whatever?
Like, does that ever come intoplay?

No, not really it certainly, Autogram, I don't
feel like that was an issue usat all.
I think we, We all recognizethat we're all collaborating on
the project and bringing ourunique skills to bear.

(54:15):
And don't, don't, I guess maybeit's just the types of projects
that we're doing that allcollaborating on them equally
and contributing to the workrelatively equally.
So I, I haven't felt like that'san issue.

(54:35):
Potentially if the types ofprojects that you're doing lend
themselves to different types ofwork and There is a sense like
someone's, you know, one partneris, you know, working flat out
40 hours a week, and the otherpartner is working 10 hours a

(54:56):
week.
That might make sense.
Lead to some conflict, but againIn scenarios like that.
There's an easy way around itand it's called time tracking
like if you really are wantingto sure that Contributions and
and payments accurately reflectthe amount of effort they put

(55:17):
into the project.
You can just track your time youdon't have to bill hourly order
to also do time tracking as ametric for determining what
percentage of the income you'regoing to distribute to each
person.

Kyle Soucy (55:32):
I see.
Yep.
And I also wanted to touch onyour teaching experience.
So I know you taught in the MFA

School

Kyle Soucy (55:40):
program in Interaction Design at the School
of Visual Arts in New York, andthat was 14 years.
Is that right?

14 years.
I started teaching the programlaunched in 2009, and my course
was the very first course on thevery first day of the program,
and it was, I will say, it was agreat experience.
I really enjoyed teaching.
I will also say that one of themajor reasons that I stayed

(56:10):
teaching for so long was that Iwas able to get health insurance
through, the school.
Got on a, a good group plan.
you know, another, you know,Another thing to advise anybody
who wants to go out on theirown, if they work in the United
States, you're going to have tofigure out where your health
insurance is coming

Kyle Soucy (56:30):
Yeah.

So SVA gave me access to a good health
insurance plan.
So one among many reasons that Idon't teach there anymore is
that I was able to go on myhusband's plan.
So, once we got married.
That was the end of an era forme.
But the class that I taught wasthe management class.
It was called design managementand goal in that class was to

(56:54):
teach people who were going tobe working as UX designers or
interaction designers a littlebit about how thinks and
operates and Essentially, like,I think the core thesis of the
course was to try to explain howdoes a business value design,

(57:14):
or, you know, how do youevaluate the work that a
designer does in terms of thevalue that it brings to the
business?
You know, why, why hire UXdesigners?
Why hire UX researchers?
What are you as a businessexpecting you're going to get
out of that?
And the answer for everything inour.

(57:35):
Our late stage capitalistsociety is money.
Businesses want money.
And they are in existence tomake money.
so working through as a designerhow you understand the profit
motive and Different, differentways that you can think about
that from an individualstandpoint, like, why do they

(57:57):
hire you?
How do you talk about your workwhen you're applying for a job
or, you know, writing yourportfolio, your resume, in a way
that will make it meaningful toan employer to see how you will
provide value to their business?
how does a business think aboutthe work that you're doing in

(58:17):
terms of.
You know, what it does to drivetheir profits, drive their
bottom line.
And how do they measure thatinternally?
How do they think about perhapshiring an agency or to, or an
outside firm to come in and dowork for them?
How do they think about payingthose people?
All of that is really trying toconnect up the, the, the value.

(58:40):
of designers and what designerscare about with what the
business cares about.

Kyle Soucy (58:45):
Absolutely.
And all of those topics are soimportant.
It's awesome that you wereteaching that for so long.
I know a lot of independentconsultants that will do some
kind of adjunct professorship orsomething.
And I'm curious to know forthose that are considering that,
you know, how do you fitteaching in how much of your
time is spent teaching

yeah, that's a good question.
And It is a, it is a significanttime commitment.
So the course that I taught wasa three credit course and that
meant that it was three hoursonce a week.
In class time was three hoursonce a week for 15 you're

(59:27):
teaching, I'm pretty sure thisis true for all schools, you're,
you're only getting paid for inclass time.
So think I made probably 7, 000a semester, maybe 8, 000 by the
time I left.
Nobody's doing it for the

Kyle Soucy (59:47):
Right.

And so that three hours of in class time, I think
a good metric that people use isthat you should be spending like
two to three hours outside ofclass preparing and, and, you
know, evaluating assignments or,you know, doing work outside of
class.

(01:00:10):
I would say it probably wasn'tthat much for me, particularly
as I had taught the class, youknow, several times before.
Like, my syllabus evolvedcertainly over the years, but
there were things that wererelatively consistent from year
to year.
As I, taught more and more.
I learned that more time shouldbe spent in class discussing the

(01:00:35):
assignments that they were doingand less time with me outside of
class doing grading andfeedback.
So I learned over time to reducethe amount of that I would have
to grade and give feedback onoutside of class.
And there's still some of that,but You don't have to, you can

(01:00:55):
make it easier on myself than Idid for some of the earlier
years.

Kyle Soucy (01:00:59):
Yeah.

Karen McGrane (01:01:00):
I brought in guest speakers from all over the
world.
People that I, you know, haveknown for years in the UX space
who have written books and askedthem to come in and, and give a
talk.
About their book I reallyenjoyed that.
I felt really lucky and gratefulthat I, you know, know people in
the field who were willing tovolunteer some of their time to

(01:01:23):
do that.
And, you know, it's like themore guest speakers you can
bring in, the less work it isfor

Right.
Right.
It's so smart.
And I've done that a few timesbeing a, a guest speaker and two
of the times, no money at all.
It's just something you're doingjust out of the goodness of your
own heart.
But one person they were able togive me a couple hundred and
it's, you don't do it for themoney, right?
You're doing it just for helpsyour credibility, the whole
thing.
Yeah

yep.
It's true.

Yeah.

it's like, I, we definitely had a little bit of
money that we could give out,but it's on the level of.

Yeah.

So it's

you're not doing it for that.

really more about being able

Yeah.
Yeah.

to say you did it.

So I want to wrap up now with just a couple rapid
fire questions or actually it'smore like a few.
If you had to describe UXconsulting in one word, how
would you describe it?

Therapy?

Therapy.
That's so good.

I describe it that way.
a fair amount, like you'rereally coming in as almost like
a therapist to help anorganization work through their
problems, give, you know, learnhow to articulate their
problems, and maybe reframe someof their problems for them, and

(01:02:46):
then hopefully work throughtheir issues and leave them with
some, some practical skills thatthey could use in the future.

And what's the best piece of business advice you've
ever received?

I think one piece of advice that, that has stuck
with me that I've tried to, passon to other people is that you
have to accept the parts of thework that you don't like,

Mm.

and even recognize that you need to,
optimize for the downsides.
Everybody has things about theirjob they don't like, and that's
why they have to pay you, isbecause if you loved every bit
of it, you would do it for free.
And, you know, I sometimes havesaid to people, like, you know,

(01:03:40):
imagine you're a rock star,right?
I mean, you have this, like,dream job, like you're on stage
and you're famous and, you know,whatever it is that you love
about, you know, being a famousrock star and performing.
How much of that is, I mean, howmuch of that do you actually do?
Is it like 10 percent of yourtime?
25 percent of your time?

(01:04:00):
Maybe, you know, let's say the,the absolute peak of on stage
and the adulation of your fansand, you know, the beautiful
people, it's 25 percent of yourtime.
What's the other 75 percent ofyour time?
going to be stuff you don'tlike.
You're in the tour bus.
You're fighting with yourbandmates, you're struggling to

(01:04:21):
create music, it's not great allthe time, it's, it's not, it's
never great all the time.
And that's if you're a rockstar! I mean, if you're just an
ordinary person, doing ordinarywork, you're gonna have to do a
lot of things that youabsolutely don't enjoy.
That's okay.
Recognize you're going to haveto do stuff you don't like all

(01:04:42):
the time.
And but if you accept that andrecognize that, it, it helps you
be aware that There's maybe somethings that you dislike a little
bit less than you dislike otherthings.
Like, for me, it turns out I didnot love people management.
And I would be more willing totake on unpleasant things about

(01:05:07):
managing lawyers and banking andthan I would be willing to take
on managing know, junior

Yeah.

a, you know, neither one of those is fun, but
I like one of them better than Ilike the other.
But then, in contrast to that,it also allows you to make sure
that you are optimizing for thethings that you really do like
making sure that you get to dothe things that you absolutely.
Need in order to feel like yourjob is satisfying.

(01:05:41):
And again, that's going to bedifferent for other people.
You

Right.
Right.

their hands in doing some of the hands on work,
like you absolutely loveconducting interviews, or you
absolutely love, you know, doinga content audit, or, you know,
you love being able to open upFigma and you know, do the
actual design work.
If you don't recognize, like,that both sides of that have to

(01:06:10):
be attended to, and you have tomake sure you're doing the
things that you love, so thatthe things that you don't love
are tolerable you can wind up ina position where you're doing
stuff you hate and not gettingto do stuff you love, and that's
no way to run a Especially ifyou own the business.

No way to run a business.
That's so wise.
And lastly, what consultingresources have been most helpful
for you?
Whether it be books, podcasts,coaches, articles.

I will, I will recommend again David Baker's
books and his podcast Two Bobshas been running for a long
time.
I think he has great advice andis, mean, I will say he's one of
the people who I thank.
Extremely honest and extremelyknowledgeable about interior

(01:07:03):
workings of how independentconsultants and people running
small services firms operate andhe really tells it like it is.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Two Bobs is awesome.
I will definitely add links inthe show notes to both his book
and that podcast.
Well, Karen, this has been sofantastic for the listeners, you
can check out Karen'sconsultancy at autogram.
is you can check out the UXdesign subreddit that she

(01:07:34):
moderates, which is a thanklessjob and she does an amazing job
of it.
It's awesome.
It's the largest UX group onReddit.
And like I mentioned, Karen'stalks are on her website,
karenmcgrane.
com and her two books she hascontent strategy for mobile as
well as going responsive.
You can find them on abookapart.
com.
And Karen, thank you so muchagain for taking the time out of

(01:07:58):
your day to share your wisdomwith us.
It was again, an honor to talkwith you and I hope we can do it
again.

Thank you so much.
I had such a great time talkingwith you I will look forward to
continuing our conversation inthe future.

Oh, good.
I look forward to it too.
Take care.
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

(01:08:33):
submit.
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.

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Karen McGrane - Embracing Adaptability in UX Consulting

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Karen McGrane - Embracing Adaptability in UX Consulting