Sometime back, someone coined the phrase "everyone is a designer". It sidled in with Design Thinking, and it really did help spearhead creativity. Everyone was part of the process (coming along for the proverbial journey), and it showed the business the power of design. Now, everyone's a product builder. And they really are. You don't even have to type. This week I looked at a prototype built from spoken instructions, finished in three hours at a hackathon. So the question fr

I'm painting my hallway this weekend. Dark walls, in a dark hallway. It's made me think about why I do things the way I do. Everything I do has to be an experience. It's true in life. The way my home feels. My dinner parties. My travel, and where I've lived. I've lived in 19 towns and cities across 9 countries, and travelled to 58 countries. Always thirsty for experiences. I genuinely believe the more variety you experience, the more you can bring to creating experiences for

If I have a mantra, it's "everything should be an experience". And if there's an example of a very dull experience, it's meetings. No one will die saying "I wish I'd had more meetings". But they are necessary. So how do you make them more enjoyable? Gamify them. Turn them into a workshop. You can gamify anything. Ever asked your team in a retro who they'd like to celebrate this sprint and why, only to get nothing but crickets? People don't want to speak up, or they feel force

There's an interesting contrast between large enterprises and startups. When a startup launches an MVP, there's a lot going on under the hood that's more manual than it should be. You're making a bet. You probably haven't had the validation or effort a larger company can afford, so you get it out and test it rather than wait for perfection. The upshot is that more often than not, it works. Life is great and you move on to the next feature. Meanwhile the manual processes pile

The leadership books and social media are full of it. Empower your team. Let them do their own thing and they'll flourish. Mostly, they're right. But in any role, people are the most difficult part. And the textbook doesn't cover what happens when you try to course correct - but it just doesn't work. The bit that works I'm a pretty good manager. I have a competency framework for every discipline in UX - AI, visual design, copy, research and the rest. Roles have two routes. Pe

I've been a trustee at Wimbledon Windmill Museum for a few years now. And it's been one of those roles that has given me something rather different from my day job. Its a fascinating and quirky museum - the only museum dedicated to Windmills inside a Windmill. It has its own unique backstory - from working windmill, influencing the laws of Wimbledon, converted into 6 cottages and now restored and a museum. I spend much of my working life thinking about customer experience, d