Brave UX: Alastair Simpson - Designing Your Way Up Mt. Business

Описание: Alastair Simpson shares how rejection fuels progress 🔥, the role design has played in transforming Dropbox’s work culture 💡, and how to build effective executive-level influence 👂.

Highlights include:

⭐ What is the beauty of rejection?
⭐ Why don’t you like the phrase “getting a seat at the table”?
⭐ Why have you designed your VP of design role so broadly?
⭐ How have you supported people to find their feet with virtual-first?
⭐ Why do you find business conversations intriguing and empowering?

#DesignLeadership #Dropbox #VirtualFirst #UX #UXDesign #ProductDesign #BraveUX

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Who is Alastair Simpson?

Alastair is the VP of Design at Dropbox, the one place to keep life organised and keep work moving 🛹. And it’s been keeping a lot of people doing just that, with over 700 million users, across 180 countries, and eight productivity-enhancing apps.

At Dropbox, Alastair leads a talented and diverse team that spans across brand, product design, writing, research, and operations. He is also working with other company leaders to apply human-centred design internally, designing the future of work for Dropbox’s employees 👩🏾‍💻.

Before joining Dropbox, Alastair was a Head of Design at Atlassian, where he helped to scale the design team from 20 people in 2014 to over 300 people in 2020 📈. During his time, Alastair led the design of a number of products, including Trello, Jira, and Confluence.

As someone who believes that design leaders are business leaders, Alastair has generously shared the learnings from his ascent up Mount Business 🧗‍♂️, speaking to fellow designers at events such as the DesignOps Summit, Bureau of Digital, and the Leading Design Conference.

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Find Alastair here:

LinkedIn:   / alastairsimpson  
Medium:   / alanstairs  
Twitter:   / alanstairs  
Website: https://clunky.com.au/

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00:00 Start
00:41 Alastair’s introduction
02:37 Is it true that you have a rather large sneaker collection?
04:00 Why do you collect sneakers?
07:04 Were you a bit of an Oasis fan, back in the day?
09:35 How did you get started in design?
13:58 What is the beauty of rejection?
17:53 What role does creativity play in your job as a VP of design?
20:47 How structured is your time at work?
23:27 What does Dropbox’s virtual-first way of working look like?
28:15 Are Dropbox’s employees still expected to work an 8 hour day?
30:12 What role did design play in the implementation of virtual-first?
33:22 How have you supported people to find their feet with virtual-first?
37:34 What changes were made to incentives to help change behaviour?
40:30 Why have you designed your VP of design role so broadly?
45:31 How do you extend design’s influence while making strong partnerships?
52:14 What role does sowing seeds play in influencing an outcome?
55:59 Why don’t you like the phrase “getting a seat at the table”?
58:38 Why do you find business conversations intriguing and empowering?
01:01:18 Closing out the show - Thanks, Alastair!

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Hosted by Brendan Jarvis:

LinkedIn:   / brendanjarvis  
Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/
Twitter:   / brendanjarvis