ConveyUX talk
I just gave this talk at the 2025 ConveyUX() conference and it was rushed with lots of resources referenced. In this post are all of those resources plus an overview (though not everything) that I covered in the talk.
Part 1: WFT is Happening?
Increasingly, more and more organizations think they can use AI to do without Design …and Design Research. This is especially true in tech companies (Apple being an exception) and increasingly in all industries, including government.
“Product Managers” increasingly think they do the important parts of design. Most don’t and, of course, they don’t know what they don’t know. More and more, ill-informed managers (regardless of their title) think that design is about appearance (despite decades of teaching and documentation to the contrary) and that the more thoughtful, strategic parts of design are things they already do. They don’t, of course.
I mean, most product managers don’t even realize they’re building services and approach these services as if they were designing products, which is inadequate. Decades of service design training and writing seems to have only informed designers, not leaders and managers. Big fail.
This also leads them to think that design is easy to replace with low-cost talent or AI (see the previous point).
Market Researchers think they do what Design Researchers do (or don’t even think it’s important).
Of course, there’s a big difference between market research and design research. One is almost exclusively quantitative and the other might be both but it tends toward qualitative research. Even marketers who do quantitative research abhor the term “market research” and, instead, use terms like “market insight.”
Qualitative data is the most important data—to business strategy and success—which is one of the reasons why so many businesses fail. Recognize that the information you discover about qualitative data is the most important data in any organization. You need to learn to argue successfully for the value of design and design research.
Part of this is the value of both of these (both in terms of skills and data) to strategy (something that orgs traditionally care about, not sure anymore).
You may find allies in sales or customer support.
We are at an inflection point.
Yes, this is real. Yes, it is wrong, Yes, it is the new reality.
Part 2: WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Skills for the post-AI world: The 4 Cs & 4 Ss
They are the skills that AI and computers aren’t good at (at least, for now). These are the skills that will differentiate you for the next decade. You need to sharpen these skills and change how you speak about your job, your responsibilities, and present yourselves around these skills.
Creative Thinking & Critical Thinking
I’m going to assume you know all about the first two being that you’re in the fields you are.
Communications and Collaboration Skills
You should explore something called “Conversations For Action.” It comes from a field called Neural-Linguistic Programming and is known by all sorts of names, including Generative Communications.
There are very few books about it. The only one I’ve found helpful is Conversations for Actions by Fernando Flores but even this isn’t easy to get through without experiencing it first-hand. Workshops and classes are the best way to learn about communication. I was taught by the great Bob Dunham who runs workshops in Colorado in his Generative Leadership organization.
Links:
Conversations for Action
(book)
Difficult Conversations (book)
NeuroLinguistic Programming
(Wikipedia)
Generative Leadership (workshops)
Generative Communications (diagram)
I’m in the middle of writing a better book (IMO) on this right now. So, if you know of a good publisher…
Conversations for Action takes you most of the way toward better communication skills. What I will say about this, however, is that many, if not most of you, are already great collaborators. In particular, we are often translators—between those speaking engineerese, designese, managerese, businessese, and customerese. Most of the organizations I heard from when I lead the DMBA program at CCA would tell me something like: “Oh! We didn’t know it was possible to find people who could translate between all of the different groups within our company!”
Aside from evolving and honing this skill, you need to find ways to promote yourself and the value to your organization of bring order to the chaos of management within it.
Systems Thinking
Systems thinking is REAL problem-solving and most of any society’s or organization’s challenges are systemic. THE book on the subject is Donella Meadow’s book Thinking in Systems and it’s worth reading but it doesn’t really help you apply it to your jobs. Systems thinking applies to more than just technologic systems (like IT). It can help you map value within a system (this is where strategy comes in), lines of communication, trust, etc.
I have stakeholder templates on my website, but, again, you’re not just going to learn this without some kind of instruction. I’ll be covering it in my workshop tomorrow but I’ve also posted some videos on my YouTube channel.
Links:
Thinking in Systems (book)
Stakeholder Analysis (video)
Stakeholder Analysis (templates)
Strategic Thinking
I regularly give workshops all about this but I’ve also written a book about how poorly strategy is taught and practiced. If you know what a SWOT analysis is or have filled out a positioning statement, you’ve probably been taught to do it wrong. Regardless (who don’t have to take my word for it, nor my approach), Strategy may be the single most important skill you can use to differentiate yourselves in your organization, among your clients, and on your resume.
Designers are natural strategists. We have most of the research and critique skills already, plus the practice moderating groups and integrating diverse data and viewpoints. We’re model-makers and, therefore, great model users. This may be the most high-value skill you can add to your skillset.
Links:
A Whole New Strategy (book)
Continuous Strategy (video)
Fixing the SWOT (video)
Redesigning Strategy (workshop)
Sustainability
I’m not going to talk much about this. There are tons of books about it, including a couple by me. Just recognize that along with the crises in our organizations, industry, and societies, Climate Change is a crisis for everyone, regardless of why you think it’s happening. This is where systems thinking and impact meet. It should be a part of every organization’s strategy, but it’s not. YOU may need to be the person to introduce it and, even if you’re not, you can likely reframe sustainability to have impact by simply calling it something else: try Efficiency (what manager doesn’t want to be more efficient?) Or risk mitigation (this works especially well on lawyers and leaders).
Sustainability impacts are often contradictory, but they are no longer optional. Enough said.
Links:
Design is the Solution (book)
What is Sustainability? (video)
Sustainable Design Strategies (video)
Social Impact
Like sustainability, social impact is under assault. Yet, it’s the thing that makes everything in the world better. Most of you yearn to have impact on the world—positive, that it. Clearly, not everyone does. If you want to have impact, and most of you do, you need to learn the tools and practices of impact. The latest onset of is called Theory of Change and comes from the non-profit world. Being able to frame and measure impact within your project and organizations is imperative if you want to be successful. AND, it’s yet another skill that will differentiate you when you look for work or grow within your organizations.
Social Impact (video)
Part 3: YOUR PERSONAL STRATEGY
This is based on my approach to diving strategy, called Continuous Strategy. It fixes most of the many problems with traditional strategy. I call this the Periodic Table of Strategy because everything you need to think about for strategy is represented here:
And we can modify this a bit to apply more to a personal strategy, and not just an organizational one. Your aim is to redefine the best way to position you in the market, where you best opportunities are, how that might change what you offer, and lastly, how you message all of this. If that’s all you do, you’ll be in a better position, literally, and the rest will work itself out over time—hopefully.
But, to get here, we have to cover some important concepts.
You care about: DECISION-DRIVERS!
One of the biggest mistakes everyone makes, strategist or not, is to log and pay attention to all sorts of issues that weigh little (or not at all) on buyer decisions. What you need to uncover are the drivers of your buyer’s decisions, both qualitative and quantitative. This necessitates an enhanced understanding of VALUE. And, there are 5 kinds. ALL are important but Traditional market research focuses on the quantitative value because it’s easy to get, process, and report. It’s incredible incomplete, however. The qualitative value is often ignored or downplayed because it’s more difficult to surface, discuss, and make decisions upon.
But, all of the real value of any organization is in these three qualitative categories. They’re the very basis of changing customer behavior. And, you can’t truly be successful without uncovering them. And, designers and design researchers, along with ethnographers, have the best skills for uncovering this value.
Meaning is the deepest driving force of behavior and behavior change.
Your best personal strategy is based on you customers’ biggest decision-drivers. I’ve built you a tool to do all of the calculations and hold all of the data for you (so you can come back and make changes over time) but it’s currently geared to organizations, not your personal strategy. Still, it should work, for now.
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