Hustle

Banter is a brand new and exciting social podcast platform for sharing and discussing podcasts, and discovering amazing new content and shows with your friends. Banter's Co-Founders Steve Krenzel and James Reggio join me on this episode to discuss the product's recent launch, their origin story, what makes Banter great, and their vision of the podcasting space. Download Banter for iOS, or Android. “There are more Americans listening to podcasts than being on Twitter... It’s really about connecting people to stories, and connecting stories to people.” On this episode we discuss: The Banter origin story How James and Steve run the company and develop product from opposite sites of the United States How Banter helps people discover new podcast episodes and shows through their friends and social connections Banter's cool Recast feature for sharing awesome content with the community and on social networks The importance of being cross-platform Banter's experience working with Funsize to design the brand, produc

Eric Bollman is a Design Lead on the Facebook Groups team. Today he stopped by the Funsize studio to discuss his team's approach creating their missions, how they design and evolving the product, and methodologies they leverage to test and validating their design decisions. On this episode we discuss: Eric's experience running and growing a startup called Perkville in the bay area Creating a culture of mentorship Being a Chief Design Officer of one, and how running a startup helped Eric refine his focus and purpose Eric walks us through the Facebook Groups team, their mission and how they work The importance of "north star" concepts and their ability to help you sell an idea and a vision to your team Why shorter (3 day) sprints can be more effective than 5 day design sprints The "People/Problem" framework at Facebook and how Facebook designers drive the products and determine what to ship The value of diverse job experiences and how working in an agency can help you learn skills to create

Ryan Wilson is a Product Designer on the Day of Travel Team at Alaska Airlines in Seattle Washington. Ryan stopped by the Funsize studio to talk about how Alaska gets people from point A to point B, designing a holistic experience, building trust in your design team, and why he's adamant about being a lifelong learner. On this episode we discuss: Design in the airline industry and at Alaska Airlines Complex service design, ecosystems and designing for consistency in digital and analog experiences User research and advocating for your customers in all you do How context should inform your product, design, and the user experience Why developing trust is critical for success, and how good trust leads to opportunities for your team Why process is more important than product, and why invalidating your ideas is as essential as validating them The role of passion in getting work done and doing it well The importance of lifelong learning, and choosing who you learn from Staying mindful of the people that helped you

Esteban Marquez is a Product Designer on the Funsize team. He's also a very talented graphic designer and artist. Esteban and I discuss his experience in the various design fields that led to his recent transition to digital product design, the importance of personal branding and differentiating yourself, and much more. On this episode we discuss: Esteban's design career experience and journey Art direction vs. product design The value of both deep focus and variety Onboarding designers and what it feels like joining a new design team What it's like hustling when you're first getting started Creating a personal brand, a persona, and a story that differentiates yourself The value of working in a team setting Managing ego and empathy Designing your life Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest

“Until designers can speak the language of business (and to some degree talk their talk), we’re just going to be the people that make things look good." An apology: I had some unknown issues with my gear during this recording so the quality suffered a bit. However, it was such a great conversation I just had to post it! Greg Storey is an Executive Director of Design at USAA, captain of industry, and an all around badass designer and leader of designers. It’s been a while since Greg and I caught up and so we covered a bunch of important design business topics in this extra long episode of Hustle. I hope you enjoy it. Also check out Greg's podcast Sprints and Milestones where he and Brett Harned share war stories, tips, tactics, and anecdotes on navigating the sometimes rough waters of getting digital projects done. On this episode, we discuss: The team that Greg leads at USAA, which focuses on investment products What it was like using Iomega zips and Jaz drives The biggest challenges that design organ

“Many designers don’t realize the challenges their leader faces.” Peter Merholz is the VP of Design at Snagajob and co-author of “Org Design for Design Orgs”. He previously co-founded Adaptive Path, which is now part of the Capital One Design. In between all of this, Peter was also Funsize’s first client during his time at Groupon. It’s been a couple of years since Peter’s been on the Hustle Podcast and we’re really excited to have him back. On this episode, Anthony and Peter chat about designing design teams, Peter’s new talk “The Four Archetypes of The Complete Design Leader”, design job titles, why Product Management is the new User Experience, and more. More on Peter’s Four Archetypes of Design Leadership: As designers become design leaders, they need to leave behind what made them successful and embrace new approaches to their work. And when they realize just how much there is to do, it can feel overwhelming. In this talk, Peter draws upon 20 years of leading design teams to provide a memorable framewo

Last year was a really big year for Funsize. Because the agency was growing, we focused 2017 towards designing our design team, hiring, developing employee growth plans, launching new cultural endeavors, developing new services, and investing in our future. Tony Sanchez joins Funsize’s Partners Anthony and Natalie Armendariz to talk about all of this and a recent interview on the InVision blog called “Designing a Design Team”. Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest

The intersection of passions is at the center of this talk with designer Greyson. She discusses her journey to learn skills enough to shift from graphic design to product design. After finding employment and working in that field in the bay area for a while she's now pushing herself again. Striking out on her own, she’s established a freelance collective full of designers with varied skill sets called Wild and Grey. Greyson’s work in photography, and specifically portraiture, is a reflection of her passion for people-centered design. Considering her audience as individuals, rather than as generic users, enables Greyson to have deeper connection to the things she’s making. One of the keys to this is cognitive empathy, which relies on understanding, rather than absorbing, someone else’s experience. Greyson discusses her journey and the importance, and challenges, of both finding and facilitating mentorship. Whether looking to gain a new skill, navigating freelance life, or feeling comfortable speaking at confer

Many people lavish in immersive experiences when they hear VR, but companies like Facebook strive to push the boundaries of how people can and will interact with their social network, businesses around them and places around the globe. Gabriel Valdivia talks about his work exploring the possibilities of VR technology for Facebook and the importance of the tools to work in and on VR will be. Coming from a background of product design and visual storytelling, Gabe discusses making the leap to VR, a field that is still being defined. “I am wired this way. I’m excited by new problems that haven't been figured out yet and that’s kind of where I thrive. There’s a lot of people like that in VR today.” In the episode of Hustle, Gabriel Valdivia and Anthony Armendariz talk about his work exploring the possibilities of VR technology for Facebook and how they are seeing an opportunity to introduce the technology in media already familiar to their users. On this episode we discuss: The intersection of design and VR Sp

We don't usually talk about business on the show, but the head of BASIC was willing to talk about how he runs his and we were happy to listen (and take notes). Matt Faulk is BASIC's CEO and executive creative director. He always knew he wanted to do something big and is not surprised he ended up leading a company that does award-winning work brands like Apple / Beats by Dre, Nixon Watches, and BB Dakota. "I had this idea of never settling... I just wanted to do good work — but I don’t mean good work as in creative work, I mean really solving client’s business issues, aligning ourselves as partners..." His career has taken him all over the place, from basketball and professional BMX riding to bartending and graphic design. He says his goal with BASIC was to build a company where everyone involved had a stake in it, a say in it, and helped decide its direction moving forward. Today, BASIC leads creative efforts across traditional and digital initiatives for some of the world's biggest lifestyle bran

If you've ever used the hashtag, you've used a Chris Messina creation. For over a decade, Chris Messina has worked to transform and reimagine the way we look at the world and the way we interact with technology. A self-proclaimed “master of none,” Chris focuses on improving behavioral technology and the social web. Chris has worked in large and small operations, from owning Citizen Agency to being a part of large-scale enterprise companies like Google and Uber where he's worked to expand, cultivate, and advocate for the developer community. Chris just parted ways with Uber, where he was the developer experience lead. He is currently focusing on conversational products and, specifically, how the use of artificial intelligence (IA) and bots can profoundly affect self-driving and automated vehicles. He believes that conversational technology is the new wave of contextual design and that speech-based user interface can provide a shift into simpler technologies. "Imagine an army of bots that are your friends

For over 20 years, Marc has been a designer. From working at startups like Designed by Humans, TeeFury to Co-Founding Flick where he worked to redesign Youtube in 2011 after being acquired by Google. When Marc was at Google, he was a very valuable asset and collaborator with teams across Google to design the Google X self-driving car project and Chromecast. After spending 4 years with Google Marc left and started North, then went on to become the CEO and Founder of Design, Inc. "We should all be finding out what is going to make you happy and how are you going to figure out what's going to make you happy. How are you going to figure out how to truly be happy? and be self-aware enough to change things in your life to be grateful and have gratitude.." A designer's work is a direct representation of how they think the world should look and feel and their work is a story of how they were raised, where they grew up, the music they listen to and every piece of who they are. Designers are passionate and

Dan Mall lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the CEO of Superfriendly, a design collaborative that seeks to connect talented and passionate people with design and development projects all around the globe. Since 2012, he and his company have worked with companies like: Google, Apple New York Times, Carnegie Mellon, About.com, Oreilly, TechCrunch, Entertainment Weekly and many more to produce delightful products and user experiences. Before Superfriendly, Dan was at Big Spaceship, Happy Cog and a Technical Editor at A List Apart. Dan is dedicated to elevating our industry and training designers. Right now, Dan is pushing the needle in the way large organizations connect with their users and their devices. From Insurance transparency to understandable and usable weather data to diminishing the barrier to a new career, Superfriendly and Dan Mall are working to widen the perspective of what design means to real people and how real people can impact the future of design. "I think that my mission, at

Mike Buzzard is a Design Manager on the UX Community and Culture team at Google where he works on shaping, resourcing, supporting, and guiding a range of programs and projects that are designed to ensure the health and success of UX at Google. He also recently helped design the first of its kind undergraduate degree in User Experience Design at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). He’s currently working with other design leaders to elevate the craft of design in emerging design cities and is an investor and advisor to many awesome companies. Previously, Mike co-founded the design agency Cuban Council with his friends and collaborators, Toke Nygaard and Michael Schmidt. They created a company that could focus on making great things the way they thought it should be made. In their 10 year run, they were able to design cutting edge digital product design solutions for companies like Facebook, Google, Zendesk, Rdio, Quora, Evernote, and Epitaph Records. "It's hugely important to understand what you're

Mae Reed is an interaction designer at Rackspace, part-time development instructor with Girl Code It and a pillar in the Austin design community. She has a talent for understanding the value of designing through open lines of communication due to her first-hand experiences with designing and developing and feels that both designers and developers should be working together from the onset of the project to consider affordances and constraints. Mae is also an active and organizational member of an Austin meetup group, Fresh2Design, where she seeks to make connections with new designers and help them find their place in the Austin design community. In this episode, Anthony sits down with Mae Reed to talk about how the way communication can not only be the champion of success in a smaller agency but also create a pathway for designers, developers, and clients to accomplish enterprise goals, together. Follow Mae here: Twitter: @maebees web: maekr.co [email protected] Rackspace: Twitter: @rackspace web: rackspace.

As Interaction Design Lead for 3M's Health Care Business Group, Andy Vitale is excited about making an impact in the healthcare space and designing meaningful healthcare solutions at the enterprise level. Andy believes that being proactive in the enterprise environment is the best way to get the conversation started about designing successful solutions for enterprise problems. He also knows that it's important to always inform and educate people on what exactly it is that you do because it's more valuable when other people buy into and support what you do than simply speaking for yourself, especially on the enterprise level. In this episode, Andy sits down with Anthony to discuss his perspective on ways to measure the impact of user experience, UX processes with his team and 3M, and how to grow user experience competency within a large organization like 3M. Follow Andy here: Twitter: @andyvitale 3M: Twitter: @3mdesign Web: 3M Design & Careers Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Ch

Being able to juggle an overwhelming amount of tasks, responsibilities and day to day activities comes down to how well you're able to carve out enough time to do the things that matter most to you each and every day. Charlie Waite started his career with Focus Labs in Savannah, Georgia and learned the value of the hustle and how to make an impact in fast paced high demand, agile environment. After living and breathing the agency world Charlie sought to find a company, role, and environment that he identified with and work with disciplines that he hadn't had a lot of interaction with. Charlie found that opportunity with GoPro as their UX/UI Design Manger for their software team and was able to dig in and work with teams to design consumer facing products and be a part of creating a universal design language that spans the entire company In this episode, Charlie sits down with Anthony to discuss what it meant for Charlie to make the transition from client services to more product focused design, what it means

From designing things to designing educational training, Travis has a passion for project management and digital solutions. Partnering with his wife Rachel to create louderthanten to instruct a project management curriculum to help improve the way teams work together, streamline their creative design processes and allow insight into how project managers solidify the client relationship; Travis is passionate about creating a culture of education on the web. In this episode, Anthony and Travis get down to the details of dynamic thinking and what it means to Travis to find better ways for teams to work together and pull from different design methodologies to design better solutions to create lasting client relationships. Follow Travis here: @travisgertz @louderthanten travisgertz.com Visit the Funsize website Subscribe to The Funsize Digest Check out Funsize on Instagram

If you've ever shopped online with Nike or booked a cruise with Norweigan Cruise lines you might have used a product that Ben Peck was part of Designing. Ben is a busy guy and he spends a lot of time working with Needle.com to design e-commerce chat interfaces and paradigms that help people feel confident in purchases they make. In addition to his full-time, job Ben has been pivotal in the creation and growth of Frontutah.com and a creator of The Product Design Association. Ben has a passion for elevating his local design ecosystem by providing networking opportunities, educational events and enabling ways for people to share what they're doing, how they're doing it and how they've become better doing what they do. In this, episode Ben and Anthony sit down to discuss a wide variety of topics ranging from the Utah design community to his role in the organization of the Front design conference to what Needle does and how they are designing better ways for conversations between humans and computers. Ben Peck @be

From starting a company with his wife in the basement of his home to presenting his start-up company to a daunting crowd of Canadian angel investors, Mikael Cho of Crew and Unsplash, has been able to consciously push himself and the people around him to new levels of success. In this episode, Mikael and Anthony discuss the journey that Mikael's taken to find his professional path and how that path created his perspectives on growth, success and life as a whole. Mikael believes building trust into new business relationships and knowing that growth is organic and in his eyes, is the most successful way to be true to yourself, your client and your craft. Originating in design and development, Crew seeks to help freelancers and studios establish consistency and Companies in need of Creative talent find the best available to them . Holistically, Crew supports freelancers and studios in removing the troublesome aspects of business in order to focus on letting those people do what they do best, create. Be sure to c