Training

Invest in others

& we grow together

Jac Madsen shares some thoughts about hacking the brain for divergent thought. or Getting your head in the right chemical state to come up with some thing really great.

Hacking the Brain for Divergent Thought

AUG 2019 | Berkadia Polaris Con
MAY 2020 | Software Technology Group
90-120 mins

This workshop helps you hack yourself and team into a state of creative and divergent idea generation. It's also a lot of fun.

How often have you found yourself staring at a blank sheet of paper and unable to generate an interesting thought? Imagine how much more difficult that sensation can be at the whiteboard with a group of your colleagues.

People putting sticky notes on a whiteboard to map out software services.

Introduction to Service Blueprints

MAY 2019 | redIQ
3 hours

Service blueprints offer a holistic view of a service from everything that the customer interfaces with, to the unseen actions taken to serve their requests.

Blueprinting builds an artifact that exposes opportunities for improvement, a collaborative knowledge sharing experience, and a framework to understand the complexity of your service.

Storyboard showing comicbook style cells depicting a woman trying to get a job done using new software.

Storyboard Workshop

30-45 minutes
Download Figma Resource

Can't draw? that's ok. With some simple tools and instruction, you can put together a professional quality storyboard to get everyone on the same page.

This workshop teaches the art of storytelling. This is useful for synthesizing formative research, and tying insights to personas. It's helpful for demonstrating the benefit of a new product or feature. It's a quick way to refine your message and make your point more clear. It helps illustrate context about your users that might not otherwise surface. And it's also a lot of fun.

I'm available for workshop facilitation & training for your team. A word of caution, I will make your team work for their insights & I make certain it's more enjoyable than you expected. If we're not laughing, we're not doing it right.

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Community INVOLVEMENT

Grounded w/ Company

Weekly check-in for design & product people

Grounded is an informal group discussion where participants engage in topics that would typically occur with associates & friendsĀ over lunch, but couldn't due to COVID-19 restrictions. These informal discussions helped participants gain insights that allow them to view their situation differently and take new approaches.

We've discussed leadership, work, & life in the context of social distancing; Personal growth & career development.

Generalize or Specialize

illo talk: Student Edition
by Cory Kerr
Guest Panelist

"Is it better to be a specialist or a generalist? A Jack of All Trades, Master of None? Today we discuss the implications of these choices in your path in developing skills. Students in college should focus on which skills to develop and have a clear career path on which plan you'd like to take, knowing that your plans will fall apart and something else, likely better, will take shape.

Join us in this student edition where we discuss how to get work and be successful as you graduate and move into the industry."

A season of bread, self reflection, & personal development

Medium

Personal Development; Life Design; Career Advice
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How to own the whiteboard exercise as a UX/Product Designer

Medium - UX Collective

Interview Skills; Career Advice; Get a UX Job
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How to land your first job in UX v.1a

Medium

Career Coaching; Starting UX
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Information Architecture Primer

University of Utah - Communication Department

Guest Lecturer

The UX World is Wide Enough

Experience by Design
Harrisburg UI/UX. MeetUp Group

Guest Presenter