Rosenfeld Review Podcast

Rethinking Design Through Anti-Craft with Uday Gajendar

What happens when a designer starts questioning “craft” itself? In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Lou Rosenfeld sits down with longtime collaborator and community builder Uday Gajendar to explore his provocative new idea: “anti-craft.” Drawing on decades of experience across enterprises, startups, and academia—as well as his role curating Rosenfeld conferences—Uday shares how his thinking on design craft has evolved from statecraft, stagecraft, and tradecraft into something more contrarian and expansive.
Rather than treating craft as polish or perfection, Uday argues for looking inward—at the emotional, personal, pragmatic, and even spiritual layers that influence a designer’s work. He and Lou discuss how these hidden layers shape our taste, decisions, and impact, especially in an era where AI is transforming the practice of design. Uday makes the case for self-awareness and reflection as a way to strengthen both individual designers and teams, and hints at how his “anti-craft” framework might become a new tool for mapping the human side of design alongside its technical layers.
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
Why Uday Gajendar is rethinking “craft” through his concept of anti-craft
How design is shaped by personal, emotional, and spiritual layers
Why self-awareness and lived experience matter more in the age of AI
How teams can support designers beyond the work itself
A fresh way to evaluate both product and team growth
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:30 - Meet Uday
2:07 - Uday, craft, and anti-craft
6:23 - The personal layers and dimensions that impact both the craft and the crafter 
11:07 - The spiritual aspect of design
16:31 - Break: Why you need the Rosenverse
18:51 - How to connect the layers back to technology
24:53 - Layers in light of the Pace Layers Model
28:00 - Uday’s gift for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Stewart Brand’s pace layering model https://longnow.org/talks/02015-brand-saffo/ 
The Way Forward by Yung Pueblo https://www.amazon.com/Way-Forward-Yung-Pueblo/dp/1524874833
 
Quotes:
“Design, for me, is a personal path of self-discovery, of meaning, of value, of impact.”
“For a lot of designers, we create something that is a manifestation of what we believe in because we believe in something of such quality, of such craft, of such character.”

Service Design Reconsidered with Lavrans Løvlie and Andy Polaine

The second edition of Service Design: From Insight to Implementation, by Lavrans Løvlie, Andy Polaine, and Ben Reason isn’t just a refresh—it’s a reintroduction to a field that’s evolved significantly in the last decade. Whether you’re new to service design or a seasoned practitioner who read the first edition cover to cover, there’s something new to gain here. This second edition continues to serve as a foundational reference for teaching and learning, but now with updated language, contemporary case studies, and clearer frameworks for measuring service impact.
Lavrans and Andy join Lou in today’s episode, and they acknowledge that their original work, while groundbreaking, often painted a slightly utopian picture of design practice. This edition brings a more grounded perspective, reflecting the messy realities of organizational politics, cross-functional collaboration, and measuring the value of design. Tools like service blueprints have been sharpened, not just described—making it easier for designers to move from abstract ideas to tangible outcomes.
And for experienced professionals? You’ll find new material that helps you advocate for service design more effectively within complex organizations, alongside updated thinking on ROI, team structures, and evolving roles in product-led environments. It’s not just a book—it’s a toolkit for navigating what’s next.
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
How service design is evolving within product-led organizations
Why public sector services are still the natural setting for “pure” service design
The shifting relationship between product and service design
Ways service designers can navigate organizational politics
How experience design has become more visual and actionable
What’s changed between the first and second editions—and why it matters
Quick Reference Guide:
0:12 - Meet Lavrans and Andy
0:48 - The reason for writing a second edition of Service Design
4:41 - What’s new and what remained in the new edition
7:51 - The case studies and new chapters in the new edition
10:16 - Service design’s relationship with organizational change and politics
13:13 - Experience the Rosenverse
14:41 - When service design meets product thinking
21:42 - Service design’s strength in public and product sectors
23:47 - Cutting the fluff: visualizing experience design
25:12 - Why the second edition still matters
28:41 - Andy and Lavrans’ gifts for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Diffusion Innovation by Everett Rogers https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/129867-diffusion-of-innovations 
The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More by Jefferson Fisher https://www.amazon.com/Next-Conversation-Argue-Less-Talk/dp/0593718720 
We Need to Talk by Joshua Graves https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/we-need-to-talk-a-survival-guide-for-tough-conversations/ 
Service Design: From Insight to Implementation by Lavrans Løvlie, Andy Polaine, and Ben Reason https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/service-design-second-edition/ 
9th Design Ops Summit, September 10-11, 2025 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designops-summit/ 
 
Quotes:
“Services happen over time.” 
“Services are intangible.” 
“Service design involves people aligning around a common way of thinking about things. So a lot of service design is organization change.”

How Service Design and AI Can Fix the Frontlines with Bethany Brown

What if AI isn't a disruptor but a repair tool? 
frog North America's Head of Service Design, Bethany Brown, joins Lou to explore the intersection of service design, operations, and AI. With roots in industrial design and global experience across firms like EPA and Engine, Bethany brings a unique lens to tackling large-scale organizational friction.
She walks us through a real-world case study from her upcoming talk at the Advancing Service Design conference (November 19-20), where her team used service design principles to help a company identify costly operational breakdowns, before applying AI to streamline processes and improve financial outcomes. Instead of leading with technology, Bethany’s approach centers on deeply understanding human workflows, mapping them visually, and uncovering where systems are failing frontline workers.
Through this lens, “operations” becomes less about rigid systems and more about the connective tissue of a service experience. And service design becomes the glue that aligns people, technology, and strategy. It’s a talk—and a conversation—not to miss.
Plus, Bethany shares the best career advice she ever received, and pays tribute to the educator who helped her realize design is an ever-evolving discipline, not a fixed path.
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
How service design uncovers human inefficiencies AI can help solve
Why visualizing messy, manual workflows unlocks operational clarity
The role of empathy in reimagining frontline service delivery
How to bridge AI strategy and real business needs through co-creation
Why Bethany sees operations as the engine behind customer experience
How an industrial design background shaped her systems thinking approach
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:00 - Meet Bethany and learn her career arc
3:33 - Bethany’s ah-ha moment about service design
6:15 - Shifting from physical design to strategic, zoomed‑out service work
9:53 - “The beauty of service design is that it doesn't live alone. It never works by itself. It's always in partnership.” 
13:13 - Why you should try the Rosenverse
15:27 - Visualizing messy operations to identify where AI helps
19:56 - Bridging operations and AI through service design clarity
28:41 - Bethany’s gift for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Advancing Service Design Conference (virtual) - November 19-20, 2025 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/advancing-service-design/ 
 
Quotes:
“Let’s not just design the bike. Or let’s not just design the chair. Let’s think about everything around that. And I got excited about evertyhign around it.” 
“ Service design is so much more about the process, and the value of it is  a lot of decision making that happens in the process of service design, like ambiguous decisions that you didn't know even needed to be made.” 
“You get to use a lot of design thinking and design process to drive to highly strategic decisions to be made.”
“ The most important part of service designing anything in an ambiguous space is making it visible and visualizing the complexity.”

Behind the Scenes of Advancing Service Design with Shreya Dhawan & Gustavo Vieira

What do a Brazilian retail strategist and an Indian industrial designer have in common? A passion for transforming complex systems through service design—and a shared mission to push the profession forward. In this episode, Lou welcomes Gustavo Vieira and Shreya Dhawan, two of the curators behind the upcoming Advancing Service Design conference, for a behind-the-scenes look at how service design is evolving—and how they’re helping shape that evolution.
Gustavo shares how his early work in franchising sparked a fascination with aligning brand strategy, operations, and customer experience, eventually leading him to service design as a more holistic lens. Shreya’s journey began with product design in hospitals, where she realized the real challenge wasn’t just designing a better object—it was improving the entire system around it.
Together, they reflect on the emerging trends in the field, including the move toward systems-level thinking, new contexts like journalism and B2B, and the rich global collaboration shaping this year’s conference. The conversation is full of thoughtful insight, heartfelt reflection, and a few unexpected gifts—from Ken Wilber to Picasso.
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
How two service designers from very different backgrounds each found their way into the field
Why service design thrives in complex, multi‑stakeholder environments like healthcare, franchising, and journalism
The emerging shift from focusing on “journeys” to understanding entire service ecosystems
How global collaboration and peer learning are shaping this year's Advancing Service Design conference
New ways to think about performance in services—beyond KPIs and toward learning, adaptability, and shared meaning
The value of evolving one’s craft: moving from precision and “doing it right” to embracing abstraction, ambiguity, and creative confidence
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:12 - Meet Shreya and Gustavo
1:31 - Gustavo’s path into Service Design, which includes retail and franchise
7:30 - Shreya’s path into Service Design, which includes hand sanitizer and medical research
13:09 - Finding the magic of service design in unexpected fields 
17:46 - Check out the Rosenverse
19:11 - Shreya’s perspective on the upcoming conference
23:27 - Gustavo’s perspective on the same conference
25:21 - Hear the smiles
27:28 - Shreya’s and Gustavo’s gifts for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Advancing Service Design 2025 - November 19-20 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/advancing-service-design/ 
Ken Wilber’s books https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ken-Wilber/author/B0FKHPT8WN?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=8053455d-fb3f-46a6-bd1d-a7b16cf04b04  
 
Quotes:
“The top of spirituality is service. You’re being spiritual when you’re serving.” 
“We build together and co-create, and the cases evolve through time.”
“ As you go, you become more experienced and work with different contexts, environments, and your practice grows and morphs into something else. Your comfortableness with ambiguity and being able to work with uncertainty and with abstract concepts and not knowing everything, I think you become more and more comfortable with that.”

Designing for Learning and Complexity with Jen Briselli

Jen Briselli’s journey into service design didn’t start with design at all—it started in a physics classroom. From studying the fundamental workings of the universe to teaching high schoolers how to grasp complex physics concepts, Jen’s interdisciplinary curiosity has always driven her path. That same intellectual agility eventually led her to discover information design, dive headfirst into Carnegie Mellon’s legendary design program, and eventually rise to executive leadership at Mad*Pow. Now co-founder of Topology, Jen continues to explore how systems thinking, complexity science, and human-centered design intersect to build adaptive organizations.
In this episode, Jen and Lou preview her upcoming talk at Advancing Service Design 2025 and unpack why learning—not certainty—should be the North Star of design practice. She shares how service designers can operate more effectively by zooming out to see systems-level patterns and zooming back in to take practical action. From breaking down spatial and temporal complexity to explaining how constraints inhibit organizational learning, Jen reframes service design as an adaptive, constantly evolving practice. Whether you're a seasoned designer or simply service-design curious, this episode will stretch your thinking about what service design is—and what it can become.
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
How service designers can apply complexity science and systems thinking to their everyday work
Why adaptive organizations need learning-focused design approaches, not rigid frameworks
The difference between spatial and temporal complexity—and how each affects your design choices
How to recognize and remove the constraints that prevent organizational learning and change
What Jen learned by transitioning from physics to design, and how that background still shapes her work
Why service design is evolving beyond traditional boundaries—and what it takes to practice it effectively today
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:19 - Meet Jen and learn how a grocery-store encounter changed the course of her career
6:35 - Jen decided to pursue a Masters in Design at Carnegie Mellon 
12:14 - 5 Reasons you should be using the Rosenverse
14:54 - Jen’s talk at Advancing Service Design, “Learning is the North Star: Service Design for Adaptive Capacity,” inspires us to zoom in and out 
18:17 - Navigating time and space
23:54 - The role of systems thinking
26:44 - Adaptive capacity and learning
33:59 - Jen’s gift for the audience
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Advancing Service Design virtual conference - November 19-20, 2025 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/advancing-service-design/ 
Oblique Strategies The book: https://www.amazon.com/Oblique-strategies-hundred-worthwhile-dilemmas/dp/B0000EEZG9 
The physical cards: https://enoshop.co.uk/products/oblique-strategies?variant=51221629501780
 
An online generator: https://stoney.sb.org/eno/oblique.html
 
More info from WIkipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies
Quotes:
“Dick Buchanan is my cult of choice when it comes to how I orient myself to thinking about the practice of design.”
“Good teachers are all good designers.” 
“Get in the habit of asking ‘what’s happening?’ a little earlier.” 
“Get good at not needing to predict the future because you can adapt so effectively.”
“Imagine or anticipate what are a few steps further - second, third, fourth order consequences of things.” 
“Expand a little earlier and a little later in your timeline and see what that uncovers. Do the same thing with your spatial maps.”

Elevating Design and Scaling Expertise with Scott Zimmer

Scott Zimmer’s career arc spans from dreaming big at Disney to reshaping design inside massive enterprises through acquisitions like Capital One (AdaptivePath) and Verizon (Moment Design)—and now, to scaling expert knowledge with AI through his startup, Tmpt.me. In this episode, Lou and Scott dig into what it takes to earn design a seat at the table, how to read a company’s culture before you join, and why expertise shouldn’t disappear when the expert leaves the room.
If you’ve ever wondered how to build design credibility in a skeptical organization, how to scale expert mentorship without burning out your top people, or how AI might actually amplify—not replace—human wisdom, this episode is for you.
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
Why centralized design teams matter
How to evaluate whether a company is truly design-ready
Why bridging business and design doesn't require an MBA
The power of organizational literacy in design
What to expect post-acquisition when integrating agencies into corporations
How democratization of design tools isn’t a threat—but an opportunity
What Scott is building with his new company, Tmpt.me
The subtle importance of provenance and weighting in expert AI agents
Quick Reference Guide:
0:00 - Meet Scott, a combination designer and business guy
4:26 - The surprising ingredient for effective communication across divisions
7:08 - The markers of an empathetic, effective workplace 
12:07 - The 9th DesignOps Summit 
13:15 - Centralizing design and research teams can reshapes culture and careers
19:01 - How to balance centralization with design democratization
24:18 - The AI project Scott is working on now
31:10 - How Tmpt.me handles citations and source weighting
34:19 - Scott’s gift for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Tmpt.me https://www.tmpt.me/ 
Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric that Matters by Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn https://www.jeremyutley.design/ideaflow
 
Quotes:
“Centralizing...makes all the difference in the world.”
“ Interdisciplinary teams are the winning teams. But if each of those disciplines has their own org, then that org can nurture and produce the strongest players in that discipline.”
“The more a design organization can teach engineering, product, business their design method, the more those other teams will ask for designers to represent that method rather than themselves moonlighting it.”

The Staff Designer with Catt Small

What if your next big career move didn’t involve managing people—but managing impact? Catt Small joins Lou to unpack the rise of the staff designer: a role that's redefining what senior-level growth can look like for designers who want to lead without becoming managers.
Catt shares insights from her forthcoming Rosenfeld book, Staff Designer: Grow, Influence, and Lead as an Individual Contributor, where she draws on her own experience at companies like Etsy, Asana, and Dropbox—alongside interviews with nearly 30 other design pros—to clarify a path that’s increasingly relevant in today’s flattened organizations.
Catt explains why staff designers thrive at the intersection of strategy and execution, influence and diplomacy. Staff design isn’t about hierarchy; it’s about navigating complexity, guiding quality, and mentoring others, all without direct reports. Whether you're a senior designer wondering what’s next or a leader trying to support IC career growth, this episode reframes design leadership for the modern era.
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
What defines a staff designer and how the role differs from senior design or management
Why diplomacy, influence, and communication are core to the job
How the staff designer role supports cross-functional strategy without direct reports
Ways the role enables mentorship and growth for other ICs
Why this path is increasingly relevant in today’s flattened design organizations
How Catt’s book offers actionable tools, illustrations, and exercises for growing in the role
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:10 - Meet Catt and hear why she wrote a book
2:45 - Catt’s path from senior designer to staff designer to author
4:21 - Senior designer vs staff designer
6:46 - Staff designer as diplomat
13:33 - The 9th DesignOps Summit – September 10-11, 2025
14:32 - The tricky dynamic of guiding without managing
19:20 - Rethinking design roles for 2025
24:27 - Catt’s gift for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Staff.design https://staff.design/
The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp https://www.amazon.com/15-Commitments-Conscious-Leadership-Sustainable-ebook/dp/B00R3MHWUE 
Staff Designer: Grow, Influence, and Lead as an Individual Contributor by Catt Small https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/the-staff-designer/ 
 
Quotes:
“A staff designer is everything that a senior designer is, but more.” 
“When you’re a staff designer, you are essentially unstucking the entire team.” 
“There’s a lot of growth that senior designers usually experience when they get to work directly with staff designers.”  
“It’s interesting because you’re trying to figure out how to be a peer but also lead people.”
“You are essentially designing how you want to show up.”

Breaking Scripts and Building Confidence with Nathan Gold

If you’ve ever felt nervous holding a mic, or wondered how seasoned speakers make it look effortless, this episode is for you. Nathan Gold, professional speaker coach, and longtime collaborator with Rosenfeld Media, has helped presenters at every level find their voice and captivate audiences.
In his conversation with Lou, Nathan reflects on over a decade of working with Rosenfeld conference presenters—researchers, design leaders, ops people, and more—as they prepare to step into the spotlight. He shares how effective communication isn’t just about slides or scripts, but about presence, intention, and treating your talk like a gift to the audience. Whether coaching polished speakers or total newcomers, Nathan’s approach is rooted in empathy, trust, and helping people show up as their most authentic selves.
From embracing improv to ditching the word-for-word script, Nathan’s advice speaks to anyone who wants to connect more meaningfully—on stage, in a meeting, or behind the camera. This episode is packed with insight for designers, leaders, and communicators of all stripes.
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
Why designers often underestimate how different public speaking is from day-to-day communication
What makes high-level speakers still want coaching—and what they get out of it
A technique Nathan uses to help speakers ditch their scripts (without losing their message)
How to build audience trust, even when presenting remotely
The secret value of improv training in high-stakes presentations
What makes a talk “nourishing” instead of just noise
How to translate complex design ideas into compelling, human-centered storytelling
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:10 - Meet Nathan
2:26 - Nathan’s path from impromptu teacher to the go-to demo guy to communications coach
7:51 - Are some speakers “naturals”?
10:28 - Nathan’s secret: his meeting with an improv facilitator
12:07 - Toastmasters vs improv
15:04 - Why you need the Rosenverse 
17:20 - Guiding design leaders from nervous to natural onstage
24:37 - When your presentation is virtual and you can’t see your audience
28:41 - Slides or no slides? And outlining vs mind mapping
33:23 - The power of storytelling and focusing on the audience 
36:09 - Nathan’s gift for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
The Moth https://themoth.org/listen 
 
Quotes:
 ”The ‘uh’ is really good and a needed tool when you're in a big debate with a group of people around the table. So there is a good use for it. But not when you are holding the microphone and nobody can take the floor away from you.” 
“ If you want to improve your skills, whether it's a formal presentation or just a peer presentation, or like we're doing here – we're just having a conversation – go to improv.”
“A hook is a great way to start, but it’s not the only time you want to get them involved.”
“Think of what you’re doing here as not just a bunch of words and slides, but as a gift to the audience. This is a gift you are giving people so that they can go home and become the heroes in their situation.”
“Just tweaking some of what they say, making it more about the audience, makes their value much higher.”