Issue no.1: Break out of the box
We’re exploring some out-of-the-box ideas about personal growth.
Share Issue no.1: Break out of the box
Hero illustration by Marcus Oakley
This includes hot takes on human potential in the age of AI, the pitfalls of measuring productivity, and how thinking beyond your role (or getting rid of labels altogether!) might be the unlock you’ve been looking for.
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Uphill thinking
By now, we’ve all become conversant with AI. But if it’s grown sophisticated enough that product designers are learning to “speak machine” to better collaborate with tools like ChatGPT, it begs the question: What happens to human-driven innovation?
What makes people irreplaceable, says product experience leader John Maeda, is the same quality that makes us less efficient than our robot counterparts: our capacity for circuitous, non-linear thinking that results in truly creative leaps. This “uphill thinking,” says John, leads to greater risks—and greater rewards.
Against all odds
“Uphill thinking,” paired with the right tools, can help you beat the odds. Just ask budding UX designer Ron Scott, who was recently released from 27 years in prison. He’s one of the fellows at CROP, a new nonprofit in California preparing formerly incarcerated people for reentry. Its UX design track, taught using Figma, offers an alternative career path.
“How we’re interacting right now, all of that is decided by somebody,” says Ron, reflecting on product design’s impact. “I want to be a part of that. I want everybody to have a say in how [a product] looks and works.”
Having nerve
Speaking of forging new paths, Brian Chesky stunned the audience at Config 2023 with an avid retelling of Airbnb’s near-death IPO and how he saved his company from the brink of ruin. One tactic: leading with design and getting rid of the product management function altogether. This soundbite rattled the internet (and our live audience). We decided to dig a little deeper into the half-real, half-imagined rivalry between designers and PMs. What we found, aside from this all being one big misunderstanding, is the substantive gain in bucking conventions at work. As Netflix’s Vice President of Design Steve Johnson puts it, “We have to assume that we’re all reaching for the same goal, and it might be time to come up with new terms.”
Rabbit hole
- The Pragmatic Engineer’s Gergely Orosz and programmer Kent Beck clap back against a McKinsey article that reduces engineers to measurable outcomes.
- Is your colleague slacking off, or is your framework for success too narrow?
- Take it from legendary filmmaker Wong Kar Wai: Telling the right story is all about what’s in the frame.
The last word
