May 4, 2022 • 46 mins
Anthony had every intention to work as a professional anthropologist. But after finishing his PhD and teaching for a few years, that desire changed.
His decision to leave higher ed led to a different higher calling: joining the priesthood of the Coptic Church.
Once again, Anthony thought he’d found meaningful work he couldn’t imagine leaving. But three years after his ordination, serving in the Coptic Church turned out not to be a long-term calling.
After two previous career “certainties,” Anthony doesn’t approach UX research the way he did academia or the priesthood. Now, work is work.
UX doesn’t have to bring meaning and fulfillment into his life. He’s, quite happily, found other ways to achieve that.
Book mentioned
Thread of Blood: Colonialism, Revolution, and Gender on Mexico's Northern Frontier by Ana María Alonso
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jesse Butts (00:25):
Hey everyone.
Thanks for joining mefor another episode.
I'm your host, Jesse Butts.
Today, I'm chatting withAnthony Shenoda, a PhD in social
anthropology and Middle Easternstudies from Harvard turned
user experience researcher.
Anthony is now a seniorUX researcher at HubSpot,
a customer relationshipmanagement, often called
(00:45):
CRM, software company withover 135,000 customers.
Anthony, welcome to the show.
Delighted to have you on.
Anthony Shenoda (00:53):
Thank you.
It's a joy to be with you.
Jesse Butts (00:56):
Excellent.
Glad to have you here.
Before we talk a bit about yourjourney from academic work to
user experience, UX research.
Can you tell us a littlebit about your work?
What exactly is user experience?
Anthony Shenoda (01:12):
Yeah.
So user experience researchis basically a practice of
understanding how people usecertain products, what their
pain points might be in theiruse of particular products,
what they need to get certaintasks done, and so on.
We want to understand whatour, how our customers
(01:35):
are using our product andthe various aspects of it.
You know, what's working wellfor them, what isn't working
well, what new features theymight need in order to do their
work more efficiently and so on.
But you can extend thisto practically anything.
I mean, think of arain jacket, right?
I mean, if you produce arain jacket and it doesn't
keep people dry, then it'snot doing the basic job
(01:59):
that it's intended to do.
If you make a rain jacket forpeople that want to use it when
backpacking, but the zippersare where the hip belt goes,
that is, the pockets, I mean.
Then they can't put their handsin their pockets if they want to
all they have their backpack on.
So that needs to be designedin a way where the pockets
(02:20):
are further up on the jacket.
So every product that we useneeds some user experience
research to, to be quite frank.
Jesse Butts (02:31):
So what does that type of research look like?
Are you conducting surveys?
Are you chattingdirectly with customers?
How are you actuallyconducting that research?
Anthony Shenoda (02:44):
Yeah.
That's a great question.
The basic answer to itis all of the above.
So it's a combination ofwhat we refer to in the
field as unmoderated studies.
So where we're not speakingdirectly to people.
So it could be in the formof a survey or any of a
number of other methodologiesand moderated studies where
(03:05):
we are talking to people.
And I think that thechoice of what method to
use really depends on whatquestions we're asking.
But at the end of the day,I think good user experience
research requires a numberof methodologies to get
both that deep qualitativesense of what's happening.
(03:28):
And then maybe to scale thatby doing more quantitative
kinds of studies, likesurveys and such to get
bigger numbers, basically.
Jesse Butts (03:38):
And earlier you used this term CRM, can you
just give us a quick definitionor overview of CRM and, you
know, what customers are usingsoftware like HubSpot for?
Anthony Shenoda (03:53):
Yeah.
I'm going to try,I'll try to do that.
Um, you know, let's say thatyou sell software, you have
a little company that producessome certain kinds of software.
Now part of that process isyou might have a sales team
that calls people up and says,Hey, you might be interested
in using this software.
(04:13):
We think it willhelp your company.
The thing about that is youneed to track that, right?
Who are you talking to?
Who's doing the talking?
When is that happening?
And let's say, somebodysays, You know what,
can you give me a week?
I need to talk to my managerabout this and we want to
have a meeting about it.
It sounds interesting, but notsure we're ready to commit yet.
(04:35):
Well, you want a way totrack that too, right?
Reach out to so-and-soin two weeks.
Now if you try to do thatkind of thing in an Excel
worksheet or something, there'sa point at which it's, it's
incredibly burdensome and verydifficult to keep track of.
So what a CRM does is allowsyou to keep track of these
(04:57):
contact records, like who you'vereached out to, the companies
they're associated with, wherethey are in a kind of pipeline
in terms of say making the saleof your software in the example
that I'm offering, right?
You've got people atdifferent stages in that
pipeline, so to speak.
(05:17):
And you want to know whenyou've closed the deal ,when
they've actually made apurchase, or when they've
decided they don't want togo with your product, right?
So CRM software helpspeople keep track of
that kind of thing.
The other components to theHubSpot software in particular
is that there's an entiremarketing component to it.
So sending out emails andother ways of, of advertising
(05:42):
and marketing your product.
Um, there's a service component.
So if people have certainissues with your product and
they don't, they need helptroubleshooting, or they don't
know how to fix something.
And so on, then they can put ina kind of service request that
a service team would keep trackof in, in the software as well.
(06:04):
, and so on.
There's a lot, there's a lotmore to it, but just on a
pretty basic level, these aresome of the things that a CRM
software helps companies dois to just keep things in one
place, keep track of what'sgoing on in a relatively
easy and efficient manner.
Jesse Butts (06:21):
Okay.
Thank you.
So going back a little bitfurther, you know, before you
started UX, uh, and I knowthat that you have a PhD.
But I know that you alsohave a master's, which
you obtained first.
So what prompted you toenroll in grad school?
Why did you decideto earn a master's in
(06:41):
Latin American studies?
Anthony Shenoda (06:44):
As an undergraduate student,
I studied geography.
And then in my final year, Itook a course offered through
the department of philosophy.
This was at Oregon StateUniversity, taught by a
professor named Manuel Pacheco.
And I mentioned him byname because he passed
away many, many years ago,and I actually dedicated
(07:07):
my master's thesis to him.
And the reason for that isbecause Manuel was teaching a
course on what is often referredto as the Neozapatista movement.
So this was an uprising largelyof indigenous people in Mexico
in, 1992, specifically, is whenit began, although they had been
preparing for at least a decadeprior to that for the uprising.
(07:31):
And I took greatinterest in this.
I found the literaturearound that movement and the
literature being produced bypeople who are part of that
movement to just be reallycaptivating and interesting.
And I had already developedan interest in Latin
America in general, butMexico specifically.
And so it was what I, whatwas in front of me in a sense.
(07:54):
And it's what felt rightto me and good to me.
And so I went on topursue a degree in
Latin American studies.
Because Latin American studiesis an interdisciplinary program,
at the University of Arizona,where I went to do that work,
they required that each studentin the department have a primary
(08:16):
disciplinary area of focusand a secondary discipline.
At the beginning, I wasn'tsure what that would be.
I chose geography cause that'swhat I had been doing and so on.
But as I began to readand to learn more, I ended
up reading a book by ananthropologist named Ana Maria
(08:38):
Alonso, who is teaching atthe University of Arizona.
And it was a historicalanthropology of the Mexican
revolution, 1910 to 1920,of a Northern Mexican town.
And I absolutely fellin love with that work.
I went to meet her, chatted withher, started taking courses with
(09:00):
her, and it was at that pointthat I knew that anthropology
was what I wanted to do.
And then my secondary areawas history because it just
became very clear to me thatanthropology and history
really go very well together.
And it's important tohave a sense of, of a
history of anything, ifyou want to understand
(09:21):
it well and do it well.
So, in the course of doing myLatin American studies research
and writing the thesis, whichwas about the Neozapatista
movement, hence, my dedicationof the thesis toManuel Pacheco.
I also realized that my interestin Egypt and in the Middle East,
(09:44):
and I'm of Egyptian origin, sothat, that's where that interest
came from, hadn't been verywell represented in some of
the anthropological literature.
And what I mean here,specifically, is Coptic
Christians, that's thecommunity out of which I come.
There's a very long traditionof, an anthropology of the
Middle East, but, very littleof that had focused on Christian
(10:08):
communities in the region.
And so it was at thatpoint that I decided when I
finished the master's degree,I am going to move on to
do a PhD in anthropology.
And I'm going to focuson Coptic Christians,
which are, um, sort of thenative Christian community,
if you will, of Egypt.
Jesse Butts (10:29):
What did you enter a PhD program hoping to achieve
with that doctoral degree?
Anthony Shenoda (10:34):
Yeah, I think very simply my intention and
desire was that I would becomea professional anthropologist,
meaning I would teach atuniversity, that I would do
research at least initially onCoptic Christians, maybe over
time that would change to otherplaces, other people, et cetera.
But that was the initial desire.
(10:56):
And I should say at thatstage in my life, I had no
idea what UX research was.
I had never heard of it.
And I also had no intentionof not being an academic.
Like there was never a sensethat I would leave academia.
It just, the thought didn'teven cross my mind, frankly.
And if it did, it was invery negative terms, right.
(11:18):
I probably felt like leavingacademia to go into some
industry work would, wouldbe a sellout move, frankly.
Yeah, I'm being honest.
Like that's, that's how Ithought about these things.
Jesse Butts (11:35):
So what did you end up doing after
you finished your PhD?
Anthony Shenoda (11:39):
I went on to teach.
I went to Scripps College,which is part of the
Claremont College Consortium.
Scripps is the women'scollege in that consortium.
So I taught there for a coupleof years, taught anthropology
courses, and advised a numberof students there on their
capstone projects, becausethe students at Scripps had
(12:00):
to write a kind of seniorthesis in order to graduate.
And then I took a positionat Leiden University
College in the Netherlands.
So that was a sort of liberalarts arm of Leiden university.
And in that part of Europeliberal, or the liberal arts
(12:20):
college concept is not very big.
So this was kind of new there.
And it was meant tobe international.
So we had a number ofstudents from around the globe.
So at Leiden UniversityCollege, I taught anthropology
and I would say religiousstudies courses as well.
(12:41):
, I did that for, um, just undera year before leaving academia.
Jesse Butts (12:48):
So thinking about the timeline and actually
the geography, I mean, soyou, you went from Oregon for
undergrad, to Arizona for yourmaster's, to Boston for your
PhD, to Southern Californiato teach for three years...
to the Netherlands for..
Did you say a year or two?
Anthony Shenoda (13:06):
Yeah.
Just under a year.
Jesse Butts (13:08):
Okay, so, , and that's where you seriously
considered leaving academia?
What, what prompted that?
What, what were youthinking at that time?
Anthony Shenoda (13:18):
It's a complex story, and I don't know that I
even fully understand it, right.
And this is where, likethe reality of human life
and circumstances and allthe things come together.
At the time this was 2012, thesummer of 2012, when I started.
My father had been diagnosedabout two years earlier with
(13:43):
pancreatic cancer, which asI'm sure you know, is, is not,
not easy on a person, right.
It gets pretty bad, prettyquickly for most people.
So it had alreadybeen two years.
He wasn't doing well, but hewasn't in horrible shape either.
I left to move halfway acrossthe country or the world rather.
(14:08):
And shortly after movinggot a phone call from my
mother, that it would be agood idea to, to return home
for a, a spell because myfather wasn't doing well.
And indeed it was good thatI did that because about a
month later, he did pass away.
Um, so that was happening.
I was living in adifferent country.
(14:29):
I had small children.
I was starting a newjob, like lots of things
going on at once, right.
That, that in any sortof, for lack of a better
term, normal circumstanceis already difficult.
But you know, with my fatherpassing away, my mother now
being alone in a sense, youknow, these were complicated
(14:49):
things to try to navigate.
And on top of it, I think justoverall pressures of academia
made it difficult for me to,to strike a balance between
being the kind of son, thekind of husband, the kind of
father that I wanted to be,and also to be the kind of
academic that I wanted to be.
(15:11):
I didn't know wherethat balance was.
I didn't know how to draw lines,if they needed it to be drawn.
I'm not the kind ofperson that's good at
compartmentalizing differentaspects of, of my life.
I would go so far as to arguethat that's probably, it's not
healthy to do that, but somepeople are good at doing that
and they want to do it andthere, they can pull it off.
(15:33):
I'm not one of those people.
So I think all of that cameto a head in that moment
and it became clear thatI just couldn't sustain
being in academia, being anacademic and living the kind
of life that I wanted to oraspired to, to live, again
(15:56):
as the kind of son, husband,father that I wanted to be.
So that's really what ledto the decision to leave.
Jesse Butts (16:07):
And when you made that decision,
did you stop teaching?
What did you end up doing onceyou had come to terms with
ending your academic career?
Anthony Shenoda (16:18):
I'm just trying to remember
how it all worked out.
I think the decisionwas made and I knew
that it had to be done.
I needed to finish..
I can't remember if it wasa quarter system or exactly
how it was organized.
Forgive me that Idon't have a clear...
Jesse Butts (16:36):
You had a lot going on then...
Anthony Shenoda (16:38):
Yeah, I mean, it was almost, it was a quarter
system in a literal sense.
Quarter system in theU S is like a trimester
or whatever, right?
It's like, it's notactually quarters I think,
they're usually like three,whatever it is at any rate.
I had to finish the quarter thatwe were in and already, I was
(17:00):
responsible for certain coursesfor the following quarter.
So I had to figure outwho could fill in for me
and take care of that.
You know, I didn't want toleave just sort of abruptly and
say, Too bad, suckers, do what,whatever you, you need to do.
I, I, don't, I don'tlike to work like that.
I think at that point, my wifeand I had wanted to serve the
(17:24):
Coptic church in some capacity.
And so it was really amatter of talking to a few
people that I knew to seeif that might be possible.
And it seemed like it was.
And so I put in my letterof resignation, made sure
everything was in order on theNetherlands side of things.
And then we moved backto California, honestly,
(17:45):
without a very clear senseof what would happen next.
Except that probably wecould serve the Coptic
church in some way.
And indeed, thatis what happened.
That I ended up beingordained to the priesthood
in the Coptic church anddid that for three years.
So yeah, that's sort ofphase two of all of this.
Jesse Butts (18:08):
Were you leading a congregation?
Or were you operating in someother capacity after you had
obtained that priesthood?
Anthony Shenoda (18:15):
Yeah.
So once I was ordained tothe priesthood for one year,
I was serving at a churchin Orange County, California
with another priest.
You know, it was sort oflike having a mentor who had
been doing this for a longtime and could sort of teach
me and help me and so on.
And then I was asked by, theBishop there to help establish
(18:39):
and start a small parishin San Diego, California.
So we moved to San Diego and,I was working with a group
of people there to find aplace where we could gather,
and you know, getting toknow the community and so on.
And then I, I served inthat capacity for two years
(18:59):
where I was effectivelyleading if that's the right
word that, that parish.
Jesse Butts (19:06):
And I don't ask this at all , to be reductive,
but the, the structure of theCoptic church, is it similar to
what we might think of as eithereast, sorry, Eastern Orthodoxy?
Is it similar to that?
Anthony Shenod (19:20):
Yes, absolutely.
In fact, they share thesame history and roots.
It's just in the fifth century,there was a division between
what eventually would bereferred to rather strangely
as the Eastern Orthodox andthe Oriental Orthodox churches,
the Coptic church fallingunder that rubric of Oriental.
(19:41):
Other churches in that...
that are part of that family,if you will, are the Ethiopian
church, the Syriac church,which is largely in India, but
also partly in Syria itself.
The Armenian church and so on.
Whereas Eastern Orthodoxywould be the Greek, Russian,
Bulagarian, Romanian, et cetera.
Jesse Butts (20:02):
Okay.
So , so you're in SanDiego in this new parish...
is this feeling like , astepping stone or maybe kind of
a interregnum in between things?
Or what happens where aftertwo years you decide to try
something new or somethingoutside of the...vocation?
Anthony Shenoda (20:23):
Yeah.
Again, I mean, similar tomy approach to academia,
I went into this fullforce, so to speak.
Like this is it, thisis what I'm doing.
It's the right thing.
And this is what I will bedoing for the rest of my life.
Like there was no, therewasn't any part of me
that was experimentingor trying something out.
(20:44):
And I should say that ,withpriesthood, especially in
these sort of Eastern Orthodox,Oriental Orthodox traditions,
it's not, it's not typicallya thing that you just try out.
Like you are committingyour life to it.
So for somebody to thensay, I'm leaving...
and to be doing that ina context where there
(21:05):
were no problems, right.
There weren't any scandalsor political problems or
anything that, that wouldpush or drive me out.
It's not at allcommon, I should say.
And it's certainly notsomething that is looked
upon very favorably.
It's a very strange thing todo, I would say from these
(21:26):
communities' perspectives.
So again, I had no ...howshould I say there was no
sort of, foreknowledge orinkling that this might happen.
Like it was not something thatwould have ever crossed my
mind that I was going to leaveor that I had the option of
leaving priesthood, really.
But what happened, becauseI'm sure you and, you and our
(21:49):
listeners are curious aboutthis...I, I got to a point where
I felt that I wanted to be partof the Eastern Orthodox church.
And since these churchesare not in communion, it
ultimately meant, atleast in my circumstances,
that my priesthoodwouldn't be recognized.
And I wouldn't necessarily likeseamlessly move from the one to
(22:09):
the other and just be ordaineda priest in the other tradition.
So it was upon making that movethat sort of the third phase
of this life journey happened,which was, What do I do now?
What sort of workwill I be doing now?
Because suddenly I'm unemployedand I need to find a job.
Jesse Butts (22:31):
So when you're at this point...
When you're able tokind of start thinking
about what's next...
are you a blank slate?
Do you have some inclinations?
What, what happens then?
Anthony Shenoda (22:44):
I think a pretty blank slate without
very many ideas of what Icould do beyond teaching.
I was reluctant to try toget back into academia.
Although I did apply to afew like community college,
teaching gigs, for example.
At one point I got desperateenough to apply, to teach
(23:05):
at a high school level,not to diss high school
teachers, but it just like,I don't mean that at all.
And I hope it didn'tcome across that way.
I, what I mean, is it,it just, I knew myself.
Teaching at that level wouldbe a big, big challenge for me.
I'm just not good at it.
I love teaching.
I think I'm pretty good at it,but only with sort of adults
(23:29):
who want to be in a classroomand want to be learning.
And that's not always thecase in high school, right.
High school is its own thing.
And it, it can be complicated.
So I really didn't knowwhat to do, frankly.
I was at a total loss.
And part of that is becausepart of graduate training,
(23:50):
especially at a university likeHarvard and at the level of
attaining a PhD, nobody talksabout other possibilities,
other work, in, in at leastin the social sciences
and humanities, obviously.
And some of the so-calledhard sciences, industry
work is always an option.
Not so in the socialsciences and humanities.
(24:12):
So I really had no idea what wasout there, what was possible,
until to make a very longstory short, I met somebody who
happened to be doing customerexperience research, and she
planted that seed for me.
In our conversation, shementioned that with a
background in anthropology,I might be pretty good at CX,
(24:33):
customer experience, or userexperience, UX, research.
And it was probably a fullyear before I returned to that,
like returned to that seedand actually started to water
it a bit so that to see ifsomething would grow out of it.
Jesse Butts (24:51):
Was this a total happenstance meeting?
Were you actively networking?
How did this come about?
Anthony Shenoda (24:57):
It was a serendipitous, as
serendipitous things get.
I, so...
in the process of trying tofigure out what the next move
would be, I took a part-timejob working at an REI store.
This was in the Seattle area.
Yes, now we're in Seattle.
Don't don't askhow or why, but...
(25:20):
yeah, it's, it's a wild story.
So I took a part-timejob working at REI.
I'm a huge outdoorsperson, love backpacking
and hiking and so on.
Hence my rain jacket backpackingexample earlier on right now,
now we're making like, thecircle is beginning to close.
So I was working part time,you know, running the cash
(25:42):
register, that kind of thingin an REI store and the person
I mentioned earlier, who isworking in customer experience
research, worked at, REIheadquarters doing that work.
You know, so that, that,that team's concern was, you
know, what is the customerexperience like in the stores
and how can we make thatexperience better for people.
(26:04):
And so she happened to comeinto the store where I was
working one morning and setup a little table with an
iPad that presumably had asurvey on it or something.
And, you know, some coffeeand donuts and so on.
So she was stopping people ontheir way out of the store.
And if they were willingto do the survey and have
some coffee and donuts, theywere welcome to do that.
(26:24):
And so, of course, curiositygot the best of me.
And so when I had a break,I went up to her and asked
her what she was doing andshe explained it to me.
And that's how thatconversation happened.
She ended up connecting mewith her manager, and we
hit it off because he hada degree in near Eastern
languages and civilizationsand spoke Arabic and so on.
(26:49):
But here he wasmanaging this customer
experience research team.
And basically what happenedis we eventually, we, we moved
back to California at one point.
And I continued to workat REI, I just transferred
to a different store.
And I continued to be intouch with this manager.
(27:10):
And to this day,we're still in touch.
This was probablythree years ago now.
And at one point, he asked meif I would help them with some
of the work they were doing.
Cause a lot of their work wasSeattle-based, but he wanted
to extend beyond Seattle.
He knew I was in California.
This point, he knew me.
He knew what skill set Ihad as an anthropologist.
So he asked if I couldhelp with some of the work.
(27:32):
I agreed.
And I was beginning to exploreUX work more seriously at
this stage and starting to,to network and meet people and
build relationships with folks.
So, you know, that was anice little break for me
because it gave me hands-onexperience with this work.
And eventually I would meetmore people and learn more
(27:56):
and find my way into UX,which is what I'm doing now.
Jesse Butts (28:01):
Did you take a full-time UX role at REI,
or did these opportunitiessomehow parlay into a role
with another organization?
Anthony Shenod (28:10):
More the latter.
So there wasn't afull-time position
available for me at REI.
But maybe six months orso of experience combined
with me now, knowing how, orat least getting better at
referencing my experience asan anthropologist in UX terms,
(28:32):
those two things came togethersuch, and having connections,
you know, people that I hadmet along the way who were
mentoring and helping me out,helped me get my foot in the
door into a UX research agency.
So not in-house work, but agencywork, meaning that as an agency,
(28:53):
you have a number of clientswho come to you for research
services, and you provide thoseservices, whereas in-house work,
which is what I'm doing now,is more internal, so to speak.
HubSpot I'm recruitingcustomers and so on to speak
with and to do research for theteams that I'm working with.
And there, there isn'tsort of a client kind
(29:15):
of relationship there.
If that makes sense.
Jesse Butts (29:18):
You mentioned that you were learning to frame your
anthropological anthropology,anthropological, I'm not sure
which would be correct there.
That experience into UXlanguage and for a UX community.
Were you also spending anytime picking up new skills,
(29:40):
reading up on this discipline?
How, how much, if at all,did you have to learn
before you landed thatfirst full-time role in UX?
Anthony Shenoda (29:52):
I would say I had to learn a lot.
I don't know.
I don't know whata lot means, right?
In the sense that I can'treally quantify that for
anybody, but I, I mean, thiswas all new to me, so I had to
learn what the methodologiesare, what they're called.
I had to learn what UXresearchers actually did.
(30:13):
You know, I knew how toresearch and I knew how to
do research with people asan anthropologist, but that
style of research and theoutcomes of that research
were very different than whata company looking to sell
a product is doing, right.
Or to make a productbetter or whatever.
Like it's just, it's a, it'sa completely different way
(30:34):
of, how should I put it,using research, so to speak.
So there was a lot of learningthat I had to do, and that
happened through reading,through talking to people.
And of course, I mean,I knew how to learn
because I spent most ofmy adult life doing that.
So it wasn't, I don't think itwas hard to do, but I, I, I, but
I'm still learning certainly.
(30:55):
I mean, I'm not...
there's never a pointwhen that somehow stops.
But yeah, there was alot of that happening.
I had to, like I said, I had tobe reading a lot, communicating
with people a lot, really tryingto understand the language of
this world that I was trying toacclimate to, which was a very
(31:16):
different language than thelanguage that anthropologists
and other academics speak.
Jesse Butts (31:22):
What are you enjoying most about UX
research as an occupation?
Anthony Shenoda (31:27):
Yeah.
I love that question.
I think I certainly enjoy theresearch part of it, but to
be honest, like the parts ofthat that I enjoy the most
are just talking to people.
Interviewing our customersand learning about what they're
up to and understanding whatis meaningful and important to
(31:48):
them when using the HubSpot CRM.
I love the collaborativecomponent of the work.
That's not a thingin anthropology, like
it's not typical towork with other people.
You know, you share yourwork with other people.
So there is, there is a certainelement of collaboration in
that regard, but you don'tmake decisions about what to do
(32:12):
necessarily with other people.
You don't have otherpeople pushing back in
the same way saying, We'renot going to do this.
Right.
We need to do this other thing.
And so, there's a lot less ofthat kind of thing happening.
And, and at least the academicspaces that I'm familiar with.
(32:33):
But , in a company like HubSpotor practically any industry,
you're, you're working with alot of different people who have
different roles and differentideas, and really trying to
sync with them in a way thatallows you to do the work that
you need to do for the company,but in, in a way that matches
up with what all of these othercollaborators need to be doing.
Jesse Butts (32:57):
I'm trying to think of how to best phrase this.
You had two, two paths,academia and the pastoral
route in both, you, youthought those would be...
it in a sense.
After going through twoexperiences where, you know,
that certainty was shaken,what did you have to learn
(33:20):
about yourself to, to findwork that would fit you?
Anthony Shenoda (33:25):
Again, I think this is a wonderful question.
I don't know if I fullyknow the answer to that.
This is not some weird wayof me trying to get out
of answering the question.
I, I genuinely am notsure that I fully know.
I guess what I will say tothat is I don't think of UX
work in the way that I thoughtof my academic career or
(33:49):
priesthood that, this is it.
And yet I don't think I'mgoing to leave, but I just
don't think about it that way.
And I think that I nowapproach work as work.
I don't expect the work thatI do to bring meaning into my
(34:09):
life or to be fulfilling in anyprofound or substantive way.
I have other waysthat I achieve that.
But it also makes workingeasier because I'm not expecting
certain things from it.
Jesse Butts (34:25):
I'm curious about that transition from work
being a central component ofa fulfilling life to work,
being work and, and doing otherthings to find joy, fulfillment,
whatever you want to call it.
Did that take some initiative?
(34:46):
Did, did you have to activelyfind things to kind of round
out life when work didn'tplay that, you know, seemingly
enormous role it did inacademia and in the priesthood?
Anthony Shenoda (35:00):
Personally, no, I didn't have to
seek something out.
I think I already had it.
I mean, obviously I'ma religious person.
I have been for agood part of my life.
Not always.
But since I was probably 20years old, so for a long time.
And I would say that's whereI find my fulfillment, and
(35:22):
where I find meaning andin my relationships with
family and friends and so on.
So I think what it took wasmore just how do I put this sort
of a maturity and a growing upand a recognition that the idea
that work has to be meaningfuland fulfilling is, I think a
(35:44):
little bit deceptive, frankly.
I mean, it's, it's embedded in,in the way American culture,
at least today, operates.
So it's not, how do I say, Idon't think that that idea is,
is like an honest or innocentone is what I'm trying to say.
This idea that workshould be fulfilling and
(36:05):
meaningful and so on.
I, and I think it just tookme a long time to almost
organically fall into a viewof work as not being that not
being this thing that has tobring meaning into your life.
I mean, if you findthat great, right.
But I think that the deceptionis in thinking that that
(36:26):
is what work should be.
And then people find themselvesterribly unfulfilled for so
much of their lives or maybeall of their lives, precisely
because they're looking totheir employment as a thing
that should provide a certainlevel of meaning in their lives.
(36:47):
And it's never doing that.
Once you get rid of thatexpectation, then your
perception changes andfrankly, work gets easier.
At least that's my view.
It's my experience.
I'm sure there are lots and lotsof people that would find this,
like just an awful approach.
But yeah, I'm just beinghonest about where, where
(37:09):
I sit with all of this.
Jesse Butts (37:12):
Yeah.
But, but I am wondering, youknow, obviously, you don't
seek that fulfillment in work,but, what do you personally
need for work to be enjoyable?
Anthony Shenoda (37:24):
Yeah.
I mean, I think whatmakes it fulfilling, if
that's the right word touse, is the relationships
that I build with people.
Like, I really lovemy colleagues, and I
enjoy working with them.
And that makes like the,the moments where the
work itself is difficult,challenging, frustrating...
(37:44):
It makes that easier forme because I have all these
other people that are,that are there, that I
can talk to, that I can...
that I'm working with.
And I enjoy that very much.
So it's, it's largely aboutwhat maybe, what many people
today would call companyculture or something like that.
And HubSpot happens to havepretty good, maybe even
(38:08):
great, company culture, atleast relatively speaking.
So that I find makesthe work enjoyable.
I will tell you this, like,Never is there a day for me
when I do not want to work.
Like where I think I don'twant to go to the desk and
I don't want to do this.
(38:29):
Like that, I had that feelingsometimes in academia, but I've,
I haven't had it doing UX workor at least not at HubSpot.
Jesse Butts (38:39):
Say there's a listener out there who's,
who's in grad school orout of grad school, maybe a
few years, or maybe longer.
And they're at that inflectionor pivot point considering work
outside their field of study.
What question or questionsshould that person
be asking themselves?
Anthony Shenoda (39:01):
I think they should be asking themselves
what they want to do.
What ... even before that,I think one has to be
very introspective here.
And maybe I'll share thisto try to materialize
what I'm saying here.
There were many momentsin graduate school,
(39:23):
as much as I loved it.
And I did love it.
There were many moments whenI would wake up in the morning
with a sense of angst, some kindof almost paralyzing anxiety.
And I think I ignoredthat for a long time.
I didn't know what it wasbecause I didn't bother
(39:44):
really exploring it.
But it was there.
It was there.
It was a real physicaland emotional experience
that I was having.
And I was just suppressing it.
And I think, Why wasI suppressing it?
Because underlying it wassome deeper sense that
maybe this isn't what Ishould be doing, right.
(40:06):
Not that I had anotheridea or what I...
of what I should be doing, butI think that sense that, Is this
really what I should be doing?
Am I really, eventhat good at this?
And so on.
I think those questionswere, were, were very
much sort of bubblingbeneath the surface there.
And I never gave them achance to kind of come above
(40:29):
the surface and to reallytake hold of them and think
them through and try tounderstand what was happening.
So I would say that folksshould, should not do that.
Like don't let thatstuff sort of...
don't keep suppressingthat stuff and ignoring it.
I think that's, that's...
not only is it unhealthy,but it's potentially
(40:50):
dangerous, I think.
So I think there's that.
In terms of questions, like ifone already reaches that point
of, you know, I'm not surethat this is what I should be
doing, despite the fact thatI've committed so much time
to this, so much energy to it,perhaps so much money to it.
I think the next questionis, Well, what should I do?
(41:11):
What do I want to be doing?
I think that's important to tryto understand, like, what is
it that you want to be doingand how do you get there?
And maybe you don't have answersto those questions, but then you
start talking to other peoplebecause other people will have
answers to those questions.
And I think that, in a sense,the story I told of the
(41:33):
woman I met, who is doingcustomer experience research
at REI, she had the answerto the question, right.
I maybe didn't evenhave the question fully.
And she didn't know shewas answering the question,
but that's what happenedin, in our encounter.
Jesse Butts (41:50):
If somebody is curious about UX, is
there any reading or, youknow, videos, podcasts you
might recommend to them?
Anthony Shenoda (42:02):
I mean, there's a ton of stuff
out there these days, andI don't have any specific
recommendations necessarily.
And it's partly because I don'tkeep track of these things
very well to be quite frank.
But, you know, there are abunch of articles, of bunch
of people on LinkedIn, abunch of YouTube videos.
I think, the question is justvetting that knowing like who
(42:25):
to trust and who you shouldbe a little bit leery of
and everything in between.
I, I don't know that I'vethought enough about this to
be able to say, Look out forthis or that sort of thing.
I do know that boot campsare fairly popular these
days, so lots of peopleare, are attracted to that.
(42:48):
Many of these so-calledbootcamps promise jobs after
you've finished and fulfilledall sorts of things for them.
They guarantee job placement oryour money back sort of thing.
I think at this stagethere's probably enough
experience and informationout there to suggest that
one should be leery of that.
(43:09):
So I think I know that much.
Not that it's always a bad idea.
I don't think that it is,but I think, I think one just
has to ask oneself, Like,what do I need to learn?
How disciplined am I to do this?
Because you coulddo it on your own.
And, how am I going tolearn what I need to learn?
(43:30):
T o be fully transparent, Iactually started a bootcamp
of sorts at one point, partlybecause I knew that I wouldn't
be disciplined enough to justsit down every day and read
all the things and learn allthe things that I probably
needed to read and learn.
But there was a momentat which I think I knew
myself well enough to say,All right, I've learned as
(43:52):
much as I can from this.
I'm applying for jobs.
I'm ready.
Like, I just felt that, um,and it worked out and I was
able to get at least a partialrefund on, on this thing.
So, I will say like, sortof one last note about this,
because I think this is a hugestruggle for many people coming
into UX is that, it's not justa matter of having the skill.
(44:16):
I think many, many, many peoplehave the research skills.
They know how to do research.
They know how to work withother people well, and so on.
But it's actually havinga grounded experience
doing the work.
Most companies will expect atleast a little bit of that.
And that's, I think thebiggest hurdle, for, for
(44:38):
most people who are new tothe field is getting some
semblance of experience thatthey can bring to the table.
The skills, ifthey're there, great.
But people are gonna wantto know, Can you apply these
skills in this environment?
Show us that you can do it.
And I don't think very manyhiring managers and committees
(45:01):
that do hiring will accept amore theoretical answer of,
I can do it and I know thatI can do it kind of thing.
Jesse Butts (45:12):
Well, Anthony, thank you again.
It was really a pleasure.
Anthony Shenoda (45:16):
Likewise.
Thank you.
I appreciate youtaking the time.
Hey everyone.
Thanks for joining mefor another episode.
I'm your host, Jesse Butts.
Today, I'm chatting withAnthony Shenoda, a PhD in social
anthropology and Middle Easternstudies from Harvard turned
user experience researcher.
Anthony is now a seniorUX researcher at HubSpot,
a customer relationshipmanagement, often called
(00:45):
CRM, software company withover 135,000 customers.
Anthony, welcome to the show.
Delighted to have you on.
Anthony Shenoda (00:53):
Thank you.
It's a joy to be with you.
Jesse Butts (00:56):
Excellent.
Glad to have you here.
Before we talk a bit about yourjourney from academic work to
user experience, UX research.
Can you tell us a littlebit about your work?
What exactly is user experience?
Anthony Shenoda (01:12):
Yeah.
So user experience researchis basically a practice of
understanding how people usecertain products, what their
pain points might be in theiruse of particular products,
what they need to get certaintasks done, and so on.
We want to understand whatour, how our customers
(01:35):
are using our product andthe various aspects of it.
You know, what's working wellfor them, what isn't working
well, what new features theymight need in order to do their
work more efficiently and so on.
But you can extend thisto practically anything.
I mean, think of arain jacket, right?
I mean, if you produce arain jacket and it doesn't
keep people dry, then it'snot doing the basic job
(01:59):
that it's intended to do.
If you make a rain jacket forpeople that want to use it when
backpacking, but the zippersare where the hip belt goes,
that is, the pockets, I mean.
Then they can't put their handsin their pockets if they want to
all they have their backpack on.
So that needs to be designedin a way where the pockets
(02:20):
are further up on the jacket.
So every product that we useneeds some user experience
research to, to be quite frank.
Jesse Butts (02:31):
So what does that type of research look like?
Are you conducting surveys?
Are you chattingdirectly with customers?
How are you actuallyconducting that research?
Anthony Shenoda (02:44):
Yeah.
That's a great question.
The basic answer to itis all of the above.
So it's a combination ofwhat we refer to in the
field as unmoderated studies.
So where we're not speakingdirectly to people.
So it could be in the formof a survey or any of a
number of other methodologiesand moderated studies where
(03:05):
we are talking to people.
And I think that thechoice of what method to
use really depends on whatquestions we're asking.
But at the end of the day,I think good user experience
research requires a numberof methodologies to get
both that deep qualitativesense of what's happening.
(03:28):
And then maybe to scale thatby doing more quantitative
kinds of studies, likesurveys and such to get
bigger numbers, basically.
Jesse Butts (03:38):
And earlier you used this term CRM, can you
just give us a quick definitionor overview of CRM and, you
know, what customers are usingsoftware like HubSpot for?
Anthony Shenoda (03:53):
Yeah.
I'm going to try,I'll try to do that.
Um, you know, let's say thatyou sell software, you have
a little company that producessome certain kinds of software.
Now part of that process isyou might have a sales team
that calls people up and says,Hey, you might be interested
in using this software.
(04:13):
We think it willhelp your company.
The thing about that is youneed to track that, right?
Who are you talking to?
Who's doing the talking?
When is that happening?
And let's say, somebodysays, You know what,
can you give me a week?
I need to talk to my managerabout this and we want to
have a meeting about it.
It sounds interesting, but notsure we're ready to commit yet.
(04:35):
Well, you want a way totrack that too, right?
Reach out to so-and-soin two weeks.
Now if you try to do thatkind of thing in an Excel
worksheet or something, there'sa point at which it's, it's
incredibly burdensome and verydifficult to keep track of.
So what a CRM does is allowsyou to keep track of these
(04:57):
contact records, like who you'vereached out to, the companies
they're associated with, wherethey are in a kind of pipeline
in terms of say making the saleof your software in the example
that I'm offering, right?
You've got people atdifferent stages in that
pipeline, so to speak.
(05:17):
And you want to know whenyou've closed the deal ,when
they've actually made apurchase, or when they've
decided they don't want togo with your product, right?
So CRM software helpspeople keep track of
that kind of thing.
The other components to theHubSpot software in particular
is that there's an entiremarketing component to it.
So sending out emails andother ways of, of advertising
(05:42):
and marketing your product.
Um, there's a service component.
So if people have certainissues with your product and
they don't, they need helptroubleshooting, or they don't
know how to fix something.
And so on, then they can put ina kind of service request that
a service team would keep trackof in, in the software as well.
(06:04):
, and so on.
There's a lot, there's a lotmore to it, but just on a
pretty basic level, these aresome of the things that a CRM
software helps companies dois to just keep things in one
place, keep track of what'sgoing on in a relatively
easy and efficient manner.
Jesse Butts (06:21):
Okay.
Thank you.
So going back a little bitfurther, you know, before you
started UX, uh, and I knowthat that you have a PhD.
But I know that you alsohave a master's, which
you obtained first.
So what prompted you toenroll in grad school?
Why did you decideto earn a master's in
(06:41):
Latin American studies?
Anthony Shenoda (06:44):
As an undergraduate student,
I studied geography.
And then in my final year, Itook a course offered through
the department of philosophy.
This was at Oregon StateUniversity, taught by a
professor named Manuel Pacheco.
And I mentioned him byname because he passed
away many, many years ago,and I actually dedicated
(07:07):
my master's thesis to him.
And the reason for that isbecause Manuel was teaching a
course on what is often referredto as the Neozapatista movement.
So this was an uprising largelyof indigenous people in Mexico
in, 1992, specifically, is whenit began, although they had been
preparing for at least a decadeprior to that for the uprising.
(07:31):
And I took greatinterest in this.
I found the literaturearound that movement and the
literature being produced bypeople who are part of that
movement to just be reallycaptivating and interesting.
And I had already developedan interest in Latin
America in general, butMexico specifically.
And so it was what I, whatwas in front of me in a sense.
(07:54):
And it's what felt rightto me and good to me.
And so I went on topursue a degree in
Latin American studies.
Because Latin American studiesis an interdisciplinary program,
at the University of Arizona,where I went to do that work,
they required that each studentin the department have a primary
(08:16):
disciplinary area of focusand a secondary discipline.
At the beginning, I wasn'tsure what that would be.
I chose geography cause that'swhat I had been doing and so on.
But as I began to readand to learn more, I ended
up reading a book by ananthropologist named Ana Maria
(08:38):
Alonso, who is teaching atthe University of Arizona.
And it was a historicalanthropology of the Mexican
revolution, 1910 to 1920,of a Northern Mexican town.
And I absolutely fellin love with that work.
I went to meet her, chatted withher, started taking courses with
(09:00):
her, and it was at that pointthat I knew that anthropology
was what I wanted to do.
And then my secondary areawas history because it just
became very clear to me thatanthropology and history
really go very well together.
And it's important tohave a sense of, of a
history of anything, ifyou want to understand
(09:21):
it well and do it well.
So, in the course of doing myLatin American studies research
and writing the thesis, whichwas about the Neozapatista
movement, hence, my dedicationof the thesis toManuel Pacheco.
I also realized that my interestin Egypt and in the Middle East,
(09:44):
and I'm of Egyptian origin, sothat, that's where that interest
came from, hadn't been verywell represented in some of
the anthropological literature.
And what I mean here,specifically, is Coptic
Christians, that's thecommunity out of which I come.
There's a very long traditionof, an anthropology of the
Middle East, but, very littleof that had focused on Christian
(10:08):
communities in the region.
And so it was at thatpoint that I decided when I
finished the master's degree,I am going to move on to
do a PhD in anthropology.
And I'm going to focuson Coptic Christians,
which are, um, sort of thenative Christian community,
if you will, of Egypt.
Jesse Butts (10:29):
What did you enter a PhD program hoping to achieve
with that doctoral degree?
Anthony Shenoda (10:34):
Yeah, I think very simply my intention and
desire was that I would becomea professional anthropologist,
meaning I would teach atuniversity, that I would do
research at least initially onCoptic Christians, maybe over
time that would change to otherplaces, other people, et cetera.
But that was the initial desire.
(10:56):
And I should say at thatstage in my life, I had no
idea what UX research was.
I had never heard of it.
And I also had no intentionof not being an academic.
Like there was never a sensethat I would leave academia.
It just, the thought didn'teven cross my mind, frankly.
And if it did, it was invery negative terms, right.
(11:18):
I probably felt like leavingacademia to go into some
industry work would, wouldbe a sellout move, frankly.
Yeah, I'm being honest.
Like that's, that's how Ithought about these things.
Jesse Butts (11:35):
So what did you end up doing after
you finished your PhD?
Anthony Shenoda (11:39):
I went on to teach.
I went to Scripps College,which is part of the
Claremont College Consortium.
Scripps is the women'scollege in that consortium.
So I taught there for a coupleof years, taught anthropology
courses, and advised a numberof students there on their
capstone projects, becausethe students at Scripps had
(12:00):
to write a kind of seniorthesis in order to graduate.
And then I took a positionat Leiden University
College in the Netherlands.
So that was a sort of liberalarts arm of Leiden university.
And in that part of Europeliberal, or the liberal arts
(12:20):
college concept is not very big.
So this was kind of new there.
And it was meant tobe international.
So we had a number ofstudents from around the globe.
So at Leiden UniversityCollege, I taught anthropology
and I would say religiousstudies courses as well.
(12:41):
, I did that for, um, just undera year before leaving academia.
Jesse Butts (12:48):
So thinking about the timeline and actually
the geography, I mean, soyou, you went from Oregon for
undergrad, to Arizona for yourmaster's, to Boston for your
PhD, to Southern Californiato teach for three years...
to the Netherlands for..
Did you say a year or two?
Anthony Shenoda (13:06):
Yeah.
Just under a year.
Jesse Butts (13:08):
Okay, so, , and that's where you seriously
considered leaving academia?
What, what prompted that?
What, what were youthinking at that time?
Anthony Shenoda (13:18):
It's a complex story, and I don't know that I
even fully understand it, right.
And this is where, likethe reality of human life
and circumstances and allthe things come together.
At the time this was 2012, thesummer of 2012, when I started.
My father had been diagnosedabout two years earlier with
(13:43):
pancreatic cancer, which asI'm sure you know, is, is not,
not easy on a person, right.
It gets pretty bad, prettyquickly for most people.
So it had alreadybeen two years.
He wasn't doing well, but hewasn't in horrible shape either.
I left to move halfway acrossthe country or the world rather.
(14:08):
And shortly after movinggot a phone call from my
mother, that it would be agood idea to, to return home
for a, a spell because myfather wasn't doing well.
And indeed it was good thatI did that because about a
month later, he did pass away.
Um, so that was happening.
I was living in adifferent country.
(14:29):
I had small children.
I was starting a newjob, like lots of things
going on at once, right.
That, that in any sortof, for lack of a better
term, normal circumstanceis already difficult.
But you know, with my fatherpassing away, my mother now
being alone in a sense, youknow, these were complicated
(14:49):
things to try to navigate.
And on top of it, I think justoverall pressures of academia
made it difficult for me to,to strike a balance between
being the kind of son, thekind of husband, the kind of
father that I wanted to be,and also to be the kind of
academic that I wanted to be.
(15:11):
I didn't know wherethat balance was.
I didn't know how to draw lines,if they needed it to be drawn.
I'm not the kind ofperson that's good at
compartmentalizing differentaspects of, of my life.
I would go so far as to arguethat that's probably, it's not
healthy to do that, but somepeople are good at doing that
and they want to do it andthere, they can pull it off.
(15:33):
I'm not one of those people.
So I think all of that cameto a head in that moment
and it became clear thatI just couldn't sustain
being in academia, being anacademic and living the kind
of life that I wanted to oraspired to, to live, again
(15:56):
as the kind of son, husband,father that I wanted to be.
So that's really what ledto the decision to leave.
Jesse Butts (16:07):
And when you made that decision,
did you stop teaching?
What did you end up doing onceyou had come to terms with
ending your academic career?
Anthony Shenoda (16:18):
I'm just trying to remember
how it all worked out.
I think the decisionwas made and I knew
that it had to be done.
I needed to finish..
I can't remember if it wasa quarter system or exactly
how it was organized.
Forgive me that Idon't have a clear...
Jesse Butts (16:36):
You had a lot going on then...
Anthony Shenoda (16:38):
Yeah, I mean, it was almost, it was a quarter
system in a literal sense.
Quarter system in theU S is like a trimester
or whatever, right?
It's like, it's notactually quarters I think,
they're usually like three,whatever it is at any rate.
I had to finish the quarter thatwe were in and already, I was
(17:00):
responsible for certain coursesfor the following quarter.
So I had to figure outwho could fill in for me
and take care of that.
You know, I didn't want toleave just sort of abruptly and
say, Too bad, suckers, do what,whatever you, you need to do.
I, I, don't, I don'tlike to work like that.
I think at that point, my wifeand I had wanted to serve the
(17:24):
Coptic church in some capacity.
And so it was really amatter of talking to a few
people that I knew to seeif that might be possible.
And it seemed like it was.
And so I put in my letterof resignation, made sure
everything was in order on theNetherlands side of things.
And then we moved backto California, honestly,
(17:45):
without a very clear senseof what would happen next.
Except that probably wecould serve the Coptic
church in some way.
And indeed, thatis what happened.
That I ended up beingordained to the priesthood
in the Coptic church anddid that for three years.
So yeah, that's sort ofphase two of all of this.
Jesse Butts (18:08):
Were you leading a congregation?
Or were you operating in someother capacity after you had
obtained that priesthood?
Anthony Shenoda (18:15):
Yeah.
So once I was ordained tothe priesthood for one year,
I was serving at a churchin Orange County, California
with another priest.
You know, it was sort oflike having a mentor who had
been doing this for a longtime and could sort of teach
me and help me and so on.
And then I was asked by, theBishop there to help establish
(18:39):
and start a small parishin San Diego, California.
So we moved to San Diego and,I was working with a group
of people there to find aplace where we could gather,
and you know, getting toknow the community and so on.
And then I, I served inthat capacity for two years
(18:59):
where I was effectivelyleading if that's the right
word that, that parish.
Jesse Butts (19:06):
And I don't ask this at all , to be reductive,
but the, the structure of theCoptic church, is it similar to
what we might think of as eithereast, sorry, Eastern Orthodoxy?
Is it similar to that?
Anthony Shenod (19:20):
Yes, absolutely.
In fact, they share thesame history and roots.
It's just in the fifth century,there was a division between
what eventually would bereferred to rather strangely
as the Eastern Orthodox andthe Oriental Orthodox churches,
the Coptic church fallingunder that rubric of Oriental.
(19:41):
Other churches in that...
that are part of that family,if you will, are the Ethiopian
church, the Syriac church,which is largely in India, but
also partly in Syria itself.
The Armenian church and so on.
Whereas Eastern Orthodoxywould be the Greek, Russian,
Bulagarian, Romanian, et cetera.
Jesse Butts (20:02):
Okay.
So , so you're in SanDiego in this new parish...
is this feeling like , astepping stone or maybe kind of
a interregnum in between things?
Or what happens where aftertwo years you decide to try
something new or somethingoutside of the...vocation?
Anthony Shenoda (20:23):
Yeah.
Again, I mean, similar tomy approach to academia,
I went into this fullforce, so to speak.
Like this is it, thisis what I'm doing.
It's the right thing.
And this is what I will bedoing for the rest of my life.
Like there was no, therewasn't any part of me
that was experimentingor trying something out.
(20:44):
And I should say that ,withpriesthood, especially in
these sort of Eastern Orthodox,Oriental Orthodox traditions,
it's not, it's not typicallya thing that you just try out.
Like you are committingyour life to it.
So for somebody to thensay, I'm leaving...
and to be doing that ina context where there
(21:05):
were no problems, right.
There weren't any scandalsor political problems or
anything that, that wouldpush or drive me out.
It's not at allcommon, I should say.
And it's certainly notsomething that is looked
upon very favorably.
It's a very strange thing todo, I would say from these
(21:26):
communities' perspectives.
So again, I had no ...howshould I say there was no
sort of, foreknowledge orinkling that this might happen.
Like it was not something thatwould have ever crossed my
mind that I was going to leaveor that I had the option of
leaving priesthood, really.
But what happened, becauseI'm sure you and, you and our
(21:49):
listeners are curious aboutthis...I, I got to a point where
I felt that I wanted to be partof the Eastern Orthodox church.
And since these churchesare not in communion, it
ultimately meant, atleast in my circumstances,
that my priesthoodwouldn't be recognized.
And I wouldn't necessarily likeseamlessly move from the one to
(22:09):
the other and just be ordaineda priest in the other tradition.
So it was upon making that movethat sort of the third phase
of this life journey happened,which was, What do I do now?
What sort of workwill I be doing now?
Because suddenly I'm unemployedand I need to find a job.
Jesse Butts (22:31):
So when you're at this point...
When you're able tokind of start thinking
about what's next...
are you a blank slate?
Do you have some inclinations?
What, what happens then?
Anthony Shenoda (22:44):
I think a pretty blank slate without
very many ideas of what Icould do beyond teaching.
I was reluctant to try toget back into academia.
Although I did apply to afew like community college,
teaching gigs, for example.
At one point I got desperateenough to apply, to teach
(23:05):
at a high school level,not to diss high school
teachers, but it just like,I don't mean that at all.
And I hope it didn'tcome across that way.
I, what I mean, is it,it just, I knew myself.
Teaching at that level wouldbe a big, big challenge for me.
I'm just not good at it.
I love teaching.
I think I'm pretty good at it,but only with sort of adults
(23:29):
who want to be in a classroomand want to be learning.
And that's not always thecase in high school, right.
High school is its own thing.
And it, it can be complicated.
So I really didn't knowwhat to do, frankly.
I was at a total loss.
And part of that is becausepart of graduate training,
(23:50):
especially at a university likeHarvard and at the level of
attaining a PhD, nobody talksabout other possibilities,
other work, in, in at leastin the social sciences
and humanities, obviously.
And some of the so-calledhard sciences, industry
work is always an option.
Not so in the socialsciences and humanities.
(24:12):
So I really had no idea what wasout there, what was possible,
until to make a very longstory short, I met somebody who
happened to be doing customerexperience research, and she
planted that seed for me.
In our conversation, shementioned that with a
background in anthropology,I might be pretty good at CX,
(24:33):
customer experience, or userexperience, UX, research.
And it was probably a fullyear before I returned to that,
like returned to that seedand actually started to water
it a bit so that to see ifsomething would grow out of it.
Jesse Butts (24:51):
Was this a total happenstance meeting?
Were you actively networking?
How did this come about?
Anthony Shenoda (24:57):
It was a serendipitous, as
serendipitous things get.
I, so...
in the process of trying tofigure out what the next move
would be, I took a part-timejob working at an REI store.
This was in the Seattle area.
Yes, now we're in Seattle.
Don't don't askhow or why, but...
(25:20):
yeah, it's, it's a wild story.
So I took a part-timejob working at REI.
I'm a huge outdoorsperson, love backpacking
and hiking and so on.
Hence my rain jacket backpackingexample earlier on right now,
now we're making like, thecircle is beginning to close.
So I was working part time,you know, running the cash
(25:42):
register, that kind of thingin an REI store and the person
I mentioned earlier, who isworking in customer experience
research, worked at, REIheadquarters doing that work.
You know, so that, that,that team's concern was, you
know, what is the customerexperience like in the stores
and how can we make thatexperience better for people.
(26:04):
And so she happened to comeinto the store where I was
working one morning and setup a little table with an
iPad that presumably had asurvey on it or something.
And, you know, some coffeeand donuts and so on.
So she was stopping people ontheir way out of the store.
And if they were willingto do the survey and have
some coffee and donuts, theywere welcome to do that.
(26:24):
And so, of course, curiositygot the best of me.
And so when I had a break,I went up to her and asked
her what she was doing andshe explained it to me.
And that's how thatconversation happened.
She ended up connecting mewith her manager, and we
hit it off because he hada degree in near Eastern
languages and civilizationsand spoke Arabic and so on.
(26:49):
But here he wasmanaging this customer
experience research team.
And basically what happenedis we eventually, we, we moved
back to California at one point.
And I continued to workat REI, I just transferred
to a different store.
And I continued to be intouch with this manager.
(27:10):
And to this day,we're still in touch.
This was probablythree years ago now.
And at one point, he asked meif I would help them with some
of the work they were doing.
Cause a lot of their work wasSeattle-based, but he wanted
to extend beyond Seattle.
He knew I was in California.
This point, he knew me.
He knew what skill set Ihad as an anthropologist.
So he asked if I couldhelp with some of the work.
(27:32):
I agreed.
And I was beginning to exploreUX work more seriously at
this stage and starting to,to network and meet people and
build relationships with folks.
So, you know, that was anice little break for me
because it gave me hands-onexperience with this work.
And eventually I would meetmore people and learn more
(27:56):
and find my way into UX,which is what I'm doing now.
Jesse Butts (28:01):
Did you take a full-time UX role at REI,
or did these opportunitiessomehow parlay into a role
with another organization?
Anthony Shenod (28:10):
More the latter.
So there wasn't afull-time position
available for me at REI.
But maybe six months orso of experience combined
with me now, knowing how, orat least getting better at
referencing my experience asan anthropologist in UX terms,
(28:32):
those two things came togethersuch, and having connections,
you know, people that I hadmet along the way who were
mentoring and helping me out,helped me get my foot in the
door into a UX research agency.
So not in-house work, but agencywork, meaning that as an agency,
(28:53):
you have a number of clientswho come to you for research
services, and you provide thoseservices, whereas in-house work,
which is what I'm doing now,is more internal, so to speak.
HubSpot I'm recruitingcustomers and so on to speak
with and to do research for theteams that I'm working with.
And there, there isn'tsort of a client kind
(29:15):
of relationship there.
If that makes sense.
Jesse Butts (29:18):
You mentioned that you were learning to frame your
anthropological anthropology,anthropological, I'm not sure
which would be correct there.
That experience into UXlanguage and for a UX community.
Were you also spending anytime picking up new skills,
(29:40):
reading up on this discipline?
How, how much, if at all,did you have to learn
before you landed thatfirst full-time role in UX?
Anthony Shenoda (29:52):
I would say I had to learn a lot.
I don't know.
I don't know whata lot means, right?
In the sense that I can'treally quantify that for
anybody, but I, I mean, thiswas all new to me, so I had to
learn what the methodologiesare, what they're called.
I had to learn what UXresearchers actually did.
(30:13):
You know, I knew how toresearch and I knew how to
do research with people asan anthropologist, but that
style of research and theoutcomes of that research
were very different than whata company looking to sell
a product is doing, right.
Or to make a productbetter or whatever.
Like it's just, it's a, it'sa completely different way
(30:34):
of, how should I put it,using research, so to speak.
So there was a lot of learningthat I had to do, and that
happened through reading,through talking to people.
And of course, I mean,I knew how to learn
because I spent most ofmy adult life doing that.
So it wasn't, I don't think itwas hard to do, but I, I, I, but
I'm still learning certainly.
(30:55):
I mean, I'm not...
there's never a pointwhen that somehow stops.
But yeah, there was alot of that happening.
I had to, like I said, I had tobe reading a lot, communicating
with people a lot, really tryingto understand the language of
this world that I was trying toacclimate to, which was a very
(31:16):
different language than thelanguage that anthropologists
and other academics speak.
Jesse Butts (31:22):
What are you enjoying most about UX
research as an occupation?
Anthony Shenoda (31:27):
Yeah.
I love that question.
I think I certainly enjoy theresearch part of it, but to
be honest, like the parts ofthat that I enjoy the most
are just talking to people.
Interviewing our customersand learning about what they're
up to and understanding whatis meaningful and important to
(31:48):
them when using the HubSpot CRM.
I love the collaborativecomponent of the work.
That's not a thingin anthropology, like
it's not typical towork with other people.
You know, you share yourwork with other people.
So there is, there is a certainelement of collaboration in
that regard, but you don'tmake decisions about what to do
(32:12):
necessarily with other people.
You don't have otherpeople pushing back in
the same way saying, We'renot going to do this.
Right.
We need to do this other thing.
And so, there's a lot less ofthat kind of thing happening.
And, and at least the academicspaces that I'm familiar with.
(32:33):
But , in a company like HubSpotor practically any industry,
you're, you're working with alot of different people who have
different roles and differentideas, and really trying to
sync with them in a way thatallows you to do the work that
you need to do for the company,but in, in a way that matches
up with what all of these othercollaborators need to be doing.
Jesse Butts (32:57):
I'm trying to think of how to best phrase this.
You had two, two paths,academia and the pastoral
route in both, you, youthought those would be...
it in a sense.
After going through twoexperiences where, you know,
that certainty was shaken,what did you have to learn
(33:20):
about yourself to, to findwork that would fit you?
Anthony Shenoda (33:25):
Again, I think this is a wonderful question.
I don't know if I fullyknow the answer to that.
This is not some weird wayof me trying to get out
of answering the question.
I, I genuinely am notsure that I fully know.
I guess what I will say tothat is I don't think of UX
work in the way that I thoughtof my academic career or
(33:49):
priesthood that, this is it.
And yet I don't think I'mgoing to leave, but I just
don't think about it that way.
And I think that I nowapproach work as work.
I don't expect the work thatI do to bring meaning into my
(34:09):
life or to be fulfilling in anyprofound or substantive way.
I have other waysthat I achieve that.
But it also makes workingeasier because I'm not expecting
certain things from it.
Jesse Butts (34:25):
I'm curious about that transition from work
being a central component ofa fulfilling life to work,
being work and, and doing otherthings to find joy, fulfillment,
whatever you want to call it.
Did that take some initiative?
(34:46):
Did, did you have to activelyfind things to kind of round
out life when work didn'tplay that, you know, seemingly
enormous role it did inacademia and in the priesthood?
Anthony Shenoda (35:00):
Personally, no, I didn't have to
seek something out.
I think I already had it.
I mean, obviously I'ma religious person.
I have been for agood part of my life.
Not always.
But since I was probably 20years old, so for a long time.
And I would say that's whereI find my fulfillment, and
(35:22):
where I find meaning andin my relationships with
family and friends and so on.
So I think what it took wasmore just how do I put this sort
of a maturity and a growing upand a recognition that the idea
that work has to be meaningfuland fulfilling is, I think a
(35:44):
little bit deceptive, frankly.
I mean, it's, it's embedded in,in the way American culture,
at least today, operates.
So it's not, how do I say, Idon't think that that idea is,
is like an honest or innocentone is what I'm trying to say.
This idea that workshould be fulfilling and
(36:05):
meaningful and so on.
I, and I think it just tookme a long time to almost
organically fall into a viewof work as not being that not
being this thing that has tobring meaning into your life.
I mean, if you findthat great, right.
But I think that the deceptionis in thinking that that
(36:26):
is what work should be.
And then people find themselvesterribly unfulfilled for so
much of their lives or maybeall of their lives, precisely
because they're looking totheir employment as a thing
that should provide a certainlevel of meaning in their lives.
(36:47):
And it's never doing that.
Once you get rid of thatexpectation, then your
perception changes andfrankly, work gets easier.
At least that's my view.
It's my experience.
I'm sure there are lots and lotsof people that would find this,
like just an awful approach.
But yeah, I'm just beinghonest about where, where
(37:09):
I sit with all of this.
Jesse Butts (37:12):
Yeah.
But, but I am wondering, youknow, obviously, you don't
seek that fulfillment in work,but, what do you personally
need for work to be enjoyable?
Anthony Shenoda (37:24):
Yeah.
I mean, I think whatmakes it fulfilling, if
that's the right word touse, is the relationships
that I build with people.
Like, I really lovemy colleagues, and I
enjoy working with them.
And that makes like the,the moments where the
work itself is difficult,challenging, frustrating...
(37:44):
It makes that easier forme because I have all these
other people that are,that are there, that I
can talk to, that I can...
that I'm working with.
And I enjoy that very much.
So it's, it's largely aboutwhat maybe, what many people
today would call companyculture or something like that.
And HubSpot happens to havepretty good, maybe even
(38:08):
great, company culture, atleast relatively speaking.
So that I find makesthe work enjoyable.
I will tell you this, like,Never is there a day for me
when I do not want to work.
Like where I think I don'twant to go to the desk and
I don't want to do this.
(38:29):
Like that, I had that feelingsometimes in academia, but I've,
I haven't had it doing UX workor at least not at HubSpot.
Jesse Butts (38:39):
Say there's a listener out there who's,
who's in grad school orout of grad school, maybe a
few years, or maybe longer.
And they're at that inflectionor pivot point considering work
outside their field of study.
What question or questionsshould that person
be asking themselves?
Anthony Shenoda (39:01):
I think they should be asking themselves
what they want to do.
What ... even before that,I think one has to be
very introspective here.
And maybe I'll share thisto try to materialize
what I'm saying here.
There were many momentsin graduate school,
(39:23):
as much as I loved it.
And I did love it.
There were many moments whenI would wake up in the morning
with a sense of angst, some kindof almost paralyzing anxiety.
And I think I ignoredthat for a long time.
I didn't know what it wasbecause I didn't bother
(39:44):
really exploring it.
But it was there.
It was there.
It was a real physicaland emotional experience
that I was having.
And I was just suppressing it.
And I think, Why wasI suppressing it?
Because underlying it wassome deeper sense that
maybe this isn't what Ishould be doing, right.
(40:06):
Not that I had anotheridea or what I...
of what I should be doing, butI think that sense that, Is this
really what I should be doing?
Am I really, eventhat good at this?
And so on.
I think those questionswere, were, were very
much sort of bubblingbeneath the surface there.
And I never gave them achance to kind of come above
(40:29):
the surface and to reallytake hold of them and think
them through and try tounderstand what was happening.
So I would say that folksshould, should not do that.
Like don't let thatstuff sort of...
don't keep suppressingthat stuff and ignoring it.
I think that's, that's...
not only is it unhealthy,but it's potentially
(40:50):
dangerous, I think.
So I think there's that.
In terms of questions, like ifone already reaches that point
of, you know, I'm not surethat this is what I should be
doing, despite the fact thatI've committed so much time
to this, so much energy to it,perhaps so much money to it.
I think the next questionis, Well, what should I do?
(41:11):
What do I want to be doing?
I think that's important to tryto understand, like, what is
it that you want to be doingand how do you get there?
And maybe you don't have answersto those questions, but then you
start talking to other peoplebecause other people will have
answers to those questions.
And I think that, in a sense,the story I told of the
(41:33):
woman I met, who is doingcustomer experience research
at REI, she had the answerto the question, right.
I maybe didn't evenhave the question fully.
And she didn't know shewas answering the question,
but that's what happenedin, in our encounter.
Jesse Butts (41:50):
If somebody is curious about UX, is
there any reading or, youknow, videos, podcasts you
might recommend to them?
Anthony Shenoda (42:02):
I mean, there's a ton of stuff
out there these days, andI don't have any specific
recommendations necessarily.
And it's partly because I don'tkeep track of these things
very well to be quite frank.
But, you know, there are abunch of articles, of bunch
of people on LinkedIn, abunch of YouTube videos.
I think, the question is justvetting that knowing like who
(42:25):
to trust and who you shouldbe a little bit leery of
and everything in between.
I, I don't know that I'vethought enough about this to
be able to say, Look out forthis or that sort of thing.
I do know that boot campsare fairly popular these
days, so lots of peopleare, are attracted to that.
(42:48):
Many of these so-calledbootcamps promise jobs after
you've finished and fulfilledall sorts of things for them.
They guarantee job placement oryour money back sort of thing.
I think at this stagethere's probably enough
experience and informationout there to suggest that
one should be leery of that.
(43:09):
So I think I know that much.
Not that it's always a bad idea.
I don't think that it is,but I think, I think one just
has to ask oneself, Like,what do I need to learn?
How disciplined am I to do this?
Because you coulddo it on your own.
And, how am I going tolearn what I need to learn?
(43:30):
T o be fully transparent, Iactually started a bootcamp
of sorts at one point, partlybecause I knew that I wouldn't
be disciplined enough to justsit down every day and read
all the things and learn allthe things that I probably
needed to read and learn.
But there was a momentat which I think I knew
myself well enough to say,All right, I've learned as
(43:52):
much as I can from this.
I'm applying for jobs.
I'm ready.
Like, I just felt that, um,and it worked out and I was
able to get at least a partialrefund on, on this thing.
So, I will say like, sortof one last note about this,
because I think this is a hugestruggle for many people coming
into UX is that, it's not justa matter of having the skill.
(44:16):
I think many, many, many peoplehave the research skills.
They know how to do research.
They know how to work withother people well, and so on.
But it's actually havinga grounded experience
doing the work.
Most companies will expect atleast a little bit of that.
And that's, I think thebiggest hurdle, for, for
(44:38):
most people who are new tothe field is getting some
semblance of experience thatthey can bring to the table.
The skills, ifthey're there, great.
But people are gonna wantto know, Can you apply these
skills in this environment?
Show us that you can do it.
And I don't think very manyhiring managers and committees
(45:01):
that do hiring will accept amore theoretical answer of,
I can do it and I know thatI can do it kind of thing.
Jesse Butts (45:12):
Well, Anthony, thank you again.
It was really a pleasure.
Anthony Shenoda (45:16):
Likewise.
Thank you.
I appreciate youtaking the time.
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