feature

Talk: Synthesis & Storytelling

← Back to Talks

Ladies Who Strategize is a thriving, private online community for female identifying and non-binary strategists of all stripes and industry persuasions. It’s a mix of brand, marketing, agency, in-house, and design strategists at the beginning middle and top of their game.

Annually, we have the opportunity to gather at a retreat and share meals and mindmeld on things while stepping out of our collective crazy days.

In 2024 I had the great opportunity to contribute to the retreat agenda, and led a workshop on all things Synthesis & Storytelling. Session discussion and where I led more of an introduction to a topic or where we dove into the nuances organically emerged based on the make-up of who was in the room. This was an interactive session, with participants picking out specific synthesis methods and shared their own experience grappling with ethics and rigor.


The TLDR:

Workshop on design synthesis methods (of synthesis itself, and sharing out synthesis with partners/stakeholders)

  • How to think about the differences between synthesis methods

  • Synthesis & the human condition: considering ethics / our now-hopefully-better recognition of bias and what to do with it

  • Sstorytelling your synthesis (your objective in sharing and how that shapes your narrative)

← Back to Talks

Talk: Adapting Tools for the Future

← Back to Talks

Angela Yeh founded Yeh Ideology to help employers and design professionals gear up for success in this changing world of design.

Towards that end, she runs a summit every year to bring together individuals she has worked with from both her career coaching and her recruiting side of the business.

Angela and I crossed paths - she was headhunting, and I got to share a bit about my story. Even though that one particular opportunity was not quite a match, we stayed in touch.

I was delighted to be invited to speak at her summit, especially given the theme “Metamorphosis” and the day’s talks ranging from what it means to design far out into the future to how to level up your own personal career journey.

The half hour I spent going over various ways we designers need to adapt the tools of our trade flew by - take a look below.

Skim the slides here, although note that speaker notes no longer appear in Slideshare captions (a shame!)

← Back to Talks