We’ve launched the Civic Design Library
Are you a design practitioner or researcher interested in case studies that capture the details and impact of design projects in the public sector? If so, look no further—we’re excited to share news about the Civic Design Library with you!
Curated by the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University and Rosenfeld Media, the Civic Design library features case studies that provide examples of ways of working, deployed or speculative solutions, and areas of impact that may be reproduced by other organizations seeking to do similar work. Learn more!
Podcast: Meet Ariel Kennan, Civic Design Co-curator
Ariel Kennan is a service design and product development leader who has worked across the public, private, academic, and nonprofit sectors. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University. We are pleased to announce that she has joined the curation team of our new Civic Design conference and community, which will be launching soon with our first monthly videoconference. Sign up here to be notified: rosenfeldmedia.com/civic-design-2021/
In this Rosenfeld Review episode, Ariel discusses the myriad of public service projects she’s had a hand in, and particularly the ways in which Civic Design can improve peoples’ lives, especially those who are underprivileged (for example, the application for unemployment benefits during the covid-19 pandemic.)
Ariel recommends:
Creative Reaction Lab — building capacity in historically marginalized communities and training designers to work in new ways. www.creativereactionlab.com/
Podcast: Meet Charlotte Lee, Civic Design Co-curator
We are excited to welcome Charlotte Lee as a co-curator of our new Civic Design conference and community, which will be launching soon with our first monthly videoconference. Sign up here to be notified.
In this episode, Charlotte and Lou discuss the intersection of design and technology, machine learning, how the House of Representatives legislates, and more. She also shares details about her current project, redesigning congress.gov, and a peek into what you can expect from the Civic Design Conference.
Looking for a great read? Charlotte recommends: Humanocracy by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini
About Charlotte:
Charlotte Lee is an award-winning entrepreneur and human-centered design practitioner based in Washington D.C. She is the founder and CEO of Monday Design Company, a service design consultancy as well as Kastling Group, a digital transformation consultancy. She is a strategic advisor to public and private executives in organizations undergoing IT modernization. Many of her clients seek partnership to help execute their vision of a holistic view of transformation that places human achievement as the measure of success. Her professional path in product management and user experience design was taken with the vision of a more human-friendly world in every way. Charlotte’s current portfolio at the House of Representatives exemplifies her two biggest passions- human centricity and strengthening democracy. She is very energized by the opportunity to apply HCD and design thinking to examine and reimagine the way ideas turn into law.
Podcast: How Creativity can Help Remote Teams Collaborate with Denise Jacobs
We’re bringing Creativity Evangelist Denise Jacobs to our virtual workshop lineup this year! Here, she chats with Lou about how the current era of “doom-scrolling” means it’s more important than ever to unlock our creative minds and make meaningful connections.
One challenge of working remotely is the loss of a sense of personal connection. Having tools that allow you to collaborate in a virtual environment and overcome isolation is a way to expand the collective creativity of the whole team.
Her workshop is an opportunity to expand your knowledge base, skill set, and be inspired by creativity and collaboration using new and different tools to figure out how to add extra life to the work-from-home environment.
Denise’s three day workshop this February (10 hours over 3 segments: February 2-4, 2021) will focus on leveraging collective brilliance, becoming confident in sharing your ideas, and learning to be an excellent listener. Next comes “the fun part” — how to use improvisation to make collaboration feel like a game, and not like work.
Denise Recommends:
- Restore Yourself by Edy Greenblatt
- Around the Writer’s Block by Rosanne Bane
About Denise
Denise Jacobs is a Speaker + Author + Creativity Evangelist who speaks at conferences and consults with companies worldwide. As the Founder + CEO of The Creative Dose, keynote speaker, and trainer, she helps individuals in companies unleash their creativity through banishing their inner critic and hacking their creative brains. Denise’s keynotes and trainings give A Creative Dose™ – an injection of inspiration and immediately applicable tools to help people do their best work. Through working with Denise, people become engaged contributors, synergistic collaborators, and authentic leaders. Denise is the author of Banish Your Inner Critic, the premier handbook on silencing fears to unleash creativity. A web and tech industry veteran, Denise is also the author of The CSS Detective Guide and co-author of the Smashing Book #3 1/3 and Interact with Web Standards. She is also the founder of Rawk The Web and the Head Instigator of The Creativity (R)Evolution.
Podcast — Jim Ottaviani: Nuclear Engineer to Graphic Novelist
Jim and Lou go way back – to when they still called it “library school!” Thirty years later, Jim is a NY Times bestselling author who specializes in science-themed graphic novels on subjects ranging from Jane Goodall to Alan Turing.
Here, Lou and Jim discuss the evolution of cartoon and graphic novels, how their audiences have changed over time, and the role of storyboarding in their respective crafts.
About Jim
Jim is the author of fourteen (and counting) graphic novels about scientists. His most recent books include Naturalist (with E.O. Wilson), Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier, Hawking, about the famous cosmologist; The Imitation Game, a biography of Alan Turing; Primates, about Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas; and Feynman, a book about the Nobel-prize winning physicist, bongo-playing artist, and raconteur Richard Feynman. His books are New York Times bestsellers, have been translated into over a dozen languages, and have received praise from publications ranging from Nature and Physics World to Entertainment Weekly and Variety. Jim lives in Michigan and comes to comics via careers in nuclear engineering and librarianship.
Jim recommends:
- “Ologies” podcast with Alie Ward
- “99% Invisible” podcast with Roman Mars
- 826 National, which provides writing and tutoring support for kids across the U.S. (Jim has tutored and taught for 826michigan for over a decade.)
- The Sirens of Mars by Sarah Stewart Johnson
- Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars by Kate Greene
Podcast—Conversations with Things: UX Design for Chat and Voice
Diana Deibel and Rebecca Evanhoe first crossed paths on a Slack channel back in 2018, where they were seeking out colleagues who might know a thing or two about conversation design… Fast forward to 2021, and their new book on conversation design is finished and available for preorder! Conversations with Things teaches you how to design conversations that are useful, ethical, and human-centered—because everyone deserves to be understood, especially you. In this episode, they chat with Lou about writing the book, the ethics of voice design, and more.
Diana recommends:
- AmberNechole Hart’s Why does Siri sound white?
- We Should Get Together by Kat Vellos
Becca recommends
- Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need By Sasha Costanza-Chock
- Design Justice Network
A New Community of Civic Designers
Can Jim Kalbach convince Jared Spool that Jobs To Be Done is its own thing?
Register for this event.
Jared Spool has been practicing UX for decades. When Jobs To Be Done arrived, it seemed to him to be just one of those new labels for stuff we’ve always been doing.
Jim Kalbach doesn’t agree. His decades of UX experience have led him to become a strong proponent and practitioner of Jobs to be Done. In fact, he wrote the best book on the topic, the Jobs to be Done Playbook.
Now, Jared is curious. Since Jim is so passionate about Jobs to be Done, has Jared mis-judged it? Is there more to this than Jared originally thought?
Come watch while Jim tries his darnedest to set Jared right. Or maybe we’ll find out if Jared has been right all along, and this is just new packaging for an old practice. Either way, you don’t want to miss this. Register for this event.
Writing About Writing: Steve Krug returns to the Rosenfeld Review Podcast
Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think, and Rocket Surgery Made Easy, is back for a third appearance on the Rosenfeld Review Podcast! Here, he shares some details with Lou about his book in the works, Writing Made Slightly Easier, and his perspective on the process of writing in general (and why he might advise against it!).
Check our Steve’s previous two appearances:
How To Get Usability Testing Right
Life with the Apple Watch and other wearables
Steve’s wise words for writers:
Don’t be afraid to always start at the beginning. Always assume that your reader knows less rather than more.
Steve recommends:
Follow Laura Klein on Twitter
Podcast: Promise Theory with Jeff Sussna
Lou and Jeff Sussna, author of Designing Delivery: Rethinking IT in the Digital Service Economy, examine the relationships between Design and Operations, DevOps and DesignOps, and DevOps and Agile before wending their way to promise theory, which looks at the “promise” made between a product and its user. Color Lou convinced on the promise of product promises!
- Watch Jeff’s presentation at the 2017 DesignOps Summit
- Read Jeff’s book, Designing Delivery
- Listen to Jeff on a previous episode of the Rosenfeld Review, DesignOps in a Post-Industrial World: Crash-Coursing Complex Systems
- Jeff recommends: Mark Burgess’ Thinking In Promises
