Rosenfeld Review Podcast

All about ResearchOps with Kate Towsey

Kate Towsey has certainly left her mark on research operations, pioneering the practice, helping launch the ResearchOps community, and now through writing Research That Scales: The Research Operations Handbook, which Rosenfeld Media is publishing in September of 2024.
In her interview with Lou, Kate reflects on her journey from content strategist to a pivotal figure in the research operations community. She recounts her early days at the UK Government Digital Service, where she unexpectedly found herself building research labs, and later at Atlassian, where she helped develop systems to manage vast amounts of research data. Through her work, Kate realized the need for a more structured approach to research operations, leading to facilitating a global ResearchOps community. Oh, and along the way, she coined the term “PWDR” (“People Who Do Research”).
The conversation delves into the strategic importance of ResearchOps, emphasizing that it’s much more than just administrative support—it's about designing systems that enable organizations to effectively learn and innovate. Kate likens research operations to city planning, highlighting the need for strategy to build successful, sustainable systems.
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
How Kate’s early work in content strategy and her experiences at the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) led to the work she does today
The importance of aligning research operations with a clear research strategy
How research operations have evolved over the years
The distinction between research and insights, and the value of turning research findings into actionable insights that drive decision-making
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:27 - Introduction of Kate and her book
3:32 - Kate’s ah-ha moment
9:38 - Facilitating a global conversation before writing the book
11:47 - 8 elements unique to operations
14:09 - The Rosenverse
16:56 - Defining research operations
16:15 - Strategy in operations
20:50 - A story from overlooking the Hudson River in 2018
23:58 - On insight
27:14 - Human-centered research 
32:04 - Kate’s gift for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Research That Scales: The Research Operations Handbook by Kate Towsey https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/research-that-scales/ 
Cha-Cha Club https://chacha.club/ 
 
Quotes:
“I feel like we have to have strategy to get through our lives.” 
“One of my biggest goals for this year is to make sure that we can continue to shift the notion that research operations is administrative help.”
“Research operations design all of the systems that enable people of all types to commute to the research landscape.”
“You can only set out operations when you know what you're setting out operations for.”
“How do we get people to have that inward sight about something so that we can actually have results? Otherwise, it's just really well done research.”
“My hope is that you read it once and you’re just reprogrammed to be able to think operationally.”

Advancing Service Design with Ben Reason and Patrick Quattlebaum

Is it time to advance the practice of service design? 
Ben Reason and Patrick Quattlebaum think so. They’re veteran service designers and co-authors of a pair of Rosenfeld books—Service Design: From Insight to Implementation and Orchestrating Experiences respectively.
Ben, founder of LiveWork Studio, and Patrick, who founded Harmonic Design in Atlanta, join Lou to talk about launching a new Rosenfeld conference—Advancing Service Design—designed to highlight the service design’s potential for a new generation. They see opportunities for service design to go deeper—by integrating with and strengthening existing practices, like product management and agile, and broader—by better connecting systems that span multiple organizations (think healthcare).
Working with the Rosenfeld team, they’re creating a conference program that you can be a part of—they describe the kinds of presentation proposals they’re looking for from prospective speakers. Patrick and Ben hope you’ll join them in advancing service design; the conference will take place virtually December 3-4. 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
The real meaning of service design
How service design is evolving
Some crucial differences between work in the North America and Europe
Why communication between organizations is so important
How the upcoming conference will inspire and support you
How to contribute and become part of the upcoming case studies 
How the panel discussions at the December conference will be different
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:15 - Introduction to Ben and Patrick
1:50 - Being change agents to take Service Design to the next level
5:03 - Announcing a new conference: Advancing Service Design– Looking at Service Design Through Different Lenses
6:05 - Perspectives on different sides of the Atlantic
11:30 - Why service design exists in the first place 
12:38 - More about the upcoming December virtual conference
17:40 - Call for proposals for the case studies and what they are looking for
19:00 - Ben’s ideas for the conference: The next iteration of service design going from within an organization to between multiple organizations
21:09 - Patrick’s ideas for the conference: Getting the people who want to transform things to communicate and the complexity of partnering together
23:05 - Bringing success from the inside
24:45 - Commercial break
27:10 - Personal story from Patrick about communication highlighting the broader concept of the case studies for the conference  
32:30 - Personal story from Ben about connection across systems
37:16 - A different type of panel discussion to be at the conference
40:15 - Gifts for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Apply to speak at ASD2024 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/apply-to-speak-at-advancing-service-design-a-new-conference-from-rosenfeld/ 
LiveWork Studio  https://liveworkstudio.com/
Harmonic Design https://thisisharmonic.com/
Service Design: Form Insight to Innovation by Andy Polaine, Ben Reason & Lavrans Løvlie https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/service-design/
Orchestrating Experiences: Collaborative Design for Complexity by Chris Risdon and Patrick Quattlebaum https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/orchestrating-experiences/
Movie: Clueless  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112697/
The Ready  https://www.theready.com/
Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan  https://www.bravenewwork.com/
 
Quotes:
“We have to keep evolving in order to make impact.” 
“The reason service design exists is because services were being, and are still being, significantly disrupted by information technology and digital.”    
“When you really boil it down, there’s a handful of things we’re all trying to accomplish, and we’re better together.” 
“Everyone’s trying to transform. Can we get some of the transformers to talk together?”
“The value of service design in these contexts is to address human factors that are impediments to change.”
“In those stories, the service designers are the protagonists, but there’s these other roles, these other disciplines and roles and practices within the organization. I’m interested in having a panel of those people.”

Making a Classic Even Better with Leah Buley and Joe Natoli

Leah Buley and Joe Natoli have teamed up to make something great (check out the reviews on Amazon!) even greater. How? Well, considering that The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide was written more than a decade ago, it was time to revisit the content and make it even more relevant for today’s UX teams. After all, times have changed. 
But the fundamental principles of the original book haven’t changed. They are as solid today as they were 11 years ago. What has changed is that the methods have been adapted for the speed of change in today’s businesses. 
Joe says it best: “These methods are shorter. They're simpler. They’re more direct in a lot of ways, and they cut to the chase in a way that longer processes don’t. I've met plenty of senior people who are throwing up their hands and going, ‘We're doing all the things. Why isn't this working?’ And the truth is, they're kind of overworking and overthinking. Everything in this book is practical and direct and gets you from point A to B. I just don't think there's any better way to get there.”
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
About Leah’s experience as a solo UX practitioner and the inspiration behind the first edition of UX Team of One
How the UX field has changed over the past decade
How the second edition aims to provide comprehensive yet practical UX methods that can be applied in various organizational settings
About the shortcomings of UX boot camps and educational programs 
A perspective that balances UX advocacy with business objectives and the reality of corporate politics
How to navigate and thrive in a UX career despite industry challenges, focusing on practical, adaptable methods and tools.
Quick Reference Guide:
0:46 - Introduction of Leah and Joe
1:33 - The User Experience Team of One, second edition
6:46 - Large or small team, Leah and Joe’s book is comprehensive without being overwhelming 
8:58 - Righting wrongs
12:14 - What’s new in the second edition – striving to do more with less
15:58 - Break - plug for the Rosenverse
18:20 - The current shitstorm
21:39 - On speed
24:40 - On toolkits. Tools and methods are two different things. 
28:16 - Who needs The User Experience Team of One?
30:45 - Leah and Joe’s gifts for the audience
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/0593652886 
Jakob Bro, jazz guitarist https://jakobbro.com/web/ 
Confessions of a Pricing Man by Hermann Simon https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Pricing-Man-Affects-Everything/dp/3319203991 
Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe https://www.amazon.com/Bonfire-Vanities-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0312427573 
The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide by Leah Buley and Joe Natoli https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/the-user-experience-team-of-one-second-edition/ 
 
Quotes:
“This book is like the short course to get into work really fast. And it's optimized for how it really goes down.”
“I want simple, and I want practical because I think the world is messy. And I think work that happens inside corporate organizations is, by its very nature, messy – people, politics, pressure from all these different places that have nothing to do with product design.”
“Nobody talks about the fact that all these  detailed processes  will not fly in an organization that is obsessed with speed.”
“What we do – which is, for the most part, make digital products actually usable – is just increasingly and ever more and more central to every business. That is not going to go away at all.”
“We're still, now and in the foreseeable future, going to need to have people who know how to have a conversation with the customer.”
“If the world is not going to wait for us, then we have to adapt. The work is still worth doing.”

Make Things Better, Not Just Different with Erin Weigel

Have you ever thought about the similarities between art and science? Or about how math is the language of the universe? No? Welcome to a perspective shift. Ultimately this episode is about making things better, not just different. But how we get there is through a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with the witty and philosophical Erin Weigel.
Erin Weigel wants us to make things better, not just different. But how do we get there?
Lou had a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with Erin, always witty and philosophical—and often funny as hell. Join them on a perspective-shifting conversation that bridges disciplines and challenges conventional thinking, all in the pursuit of genuine improvement.
Erin is the author of the recently published Design for Impact: Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments. She brings a fresh, accessible, and humor-filled take on what may seem like a dry topic: experimentation. Erin digs into the role of experimentation in design, advocating for always defaulting to experiments even if they’re the quick and dirty kind.
Erin and Lou also cover the following:
Wonky stuff like normal distributions, the central limit theorem, and what can be learned from outliers
The power of experiments to unite multidisciplinary teams by getting away from opinions and finding the truth
How professionals can use the principles of experimentation to navigate uncertainties and drive meaningful improvements
Discerning the impact of changes made
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
How Erin, with a fine arts background, became the principal designer at Booking.com and the Senior Group Product Design Manager at Deliveroo
The fundamental similarities between art and science
Why you should never skip the experimental phase
How experimentation unites people across disciplines
The difference between making things different and making them better
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:32 - Introduction of Erin; similarities between art and science
4:05 - Barriers between art and science
5:58 - Statistics is fun!
12:37 - Defaulting to experimentation
18:06 - Break - 5 reasons to use the Rosenverse
20:36 - Experimentation as a uniting force
25:49 - Make things better, not just different
28:32 - Erin’s gift for listeners
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Design for Impact: Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments by Erin Weigel
Ologies Podcast with Allie Ward
Rosenverse
Factfulness: 10 Reasons We’re Wrong About the World and 10 Reasons  Why Things are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
 
Quotes:
“There's a closer connection between art and science than people typically see on the surface.”
“The second I reframed math as a language in my brain, it became a lot less scary because I love learning languages. . . Math is the language of the universe.”
“Experimentation does have a language of its own and it uses all these different parts of your brain.”
“Make things better, not just different.”

Transforming Language with AI with Peter van Dijck

In the latest episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Lou sits down with old friend Peter van Dijck, author of Information Architecture for Designers: Structuring Websites for Business Success, one of the first books ever written on Information Architecture. Peter is now a partner of Simply Put, a Colombian company that builds and designs useful AI Agents—including the soon-to-launch Rosenbot!
Peter offers insight into the world of AI. Having been one of the first to speak about IA, it is fascinating to hear what he now has to say about AI. Join Lou and Peter as they take you through the journey where language itself is transforming from design to technology.
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
An introduction to the Rosenbot, an AI bot that Peter’s company is developing for Rosenfeld Media
Some basic vocabulary for speaking about AI and ML so you “don’t feel like an idiot”
Mind-blowing truths about the potential of Generative AI’s language capabilities
How writing has transformed from a design to a technology and learn what that means for how we interact with the data
About the importance of highly curated information when training bots and the tricky balance that comes when you want to present less polished sources like unedited conversations
The importance of the human side of things
The biggest surprise that has come from working in the industry
 
Quick Reference Guide
[0:15] - Lou’s introduction of Peter Van Dijck 
[3:00] - AI on a basic level 
[4:59] - Generative AI’s language capabilities
[18:08] - How we interact with metadata and writing as a technology
[20:00] - How real-use cases make technology more exciting and instantaneous
[22:19] - Information about the new Designing With AI Conference 
[23:33] - Some of the jargon around AI and IA 
[24:16] - Introduction to Lou’s Chat Bot, the Rosen Bot
[24:39] - The importance of training bots on highly curated information
[28:34] - The tricky balance of curated and less polished content
[30:26] - The human side of things
[31:55] - Different interaction models
[37:58] - The biggest surprise working in the industry
[38:30] - A Gift For You
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Peter Van Dijck Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petervandijck/
Peter’s Company, Simply Put:     https://www.getsimplyput.ai/
Information Architecture for Designers: Structuring Websites for Business Success https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YDJPPCM
The My Climate Journey Podcast: https://www.mcjcollective.com/media/podcast
Quotes from today’s episode:
"When you say it’s just predicting stuff, I think you’re underselling the real capability, because it is generating meaningful, meaningful content.”
“You know how we used to say writing is design? … well now we have writing as a technology.” 
“We can tell the thing, the machine, what we want. Before, the machine gave us options. It gave us an interface to interact with, gave us stuff to touch and buttons to click and a search box to enter something in, et cetera. Now we can ask it.” 
“ChatGPT came out, my kids’ school was on that within weeks… the real use cases come out and… they do not want to give up. Like, they will say things like, ‘yeah, my best buddy ChatGPT.’ It feels like when Google came out, but even better to something we saw.” 
“I was a little surprised by this. It started to pull out a lot more book content than it would pull out sessions in which people are discussing stuff. And we realized that the reason was, book content is already extremely highly edited. So every sentence in a book, every paragraph in a book, carries a ton of semantic meaning.” 
“We don’t know how a teacher wants to use ChatGPT until we have teachers using ChatGPT, and until they start getting a sense of the capabilities and start using it and start learning it.”
“Humans should just say what they want and the system should be good enough, smart enough… to give you what you want.” 
“We are conversational beings and the way we are reproducing that now with this new language technology that we have, like language as a technology, is super early steps, and there’s a lot to learn.”

Ethan Marcotte on the Tech Industry, Unions, and AI

In a time of massive layoffs across the tech industry, and with the inevitable advancement of AI, is it time for tech workers to organize — as in, unionize? I know, I know. You thought unions were for 1950’s factory workers. Not so. Ethan Marcotte, author You Deserve a Tech Union (and coiner of the term “responsive web design”) thinks it’s high time for tech workers to protect themselves by coming together and deciding what’s most important to them as a collective. 
Certainly tech workers don’t face the same kind of potential life-threatening working conditions of industrial America, but they still deserve a seat at the table when important decisions about their work are being discussed. With issues related to equality, transparency, workplace harassment, and how AI is shifting roles and affecting how work gets done, there’s a lot to talk about. 
Ethan will bring his perspective on tech workers and how they’re being impacted by AI to the upcoming Designing with AI virtual conference in June.  
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
What’s attractive about unionizing for tech workers of the 2020s
What tech workers would change if they could
About tech walkouts and unions that have already happened 
Helpful resources for starting conversations with coworkers
The potential relationship among AI, reskilling, and worker unions
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:20 - Introduction of Ethan
3:35 - How Ethan became interested in the idea of tech unions
6:04 - “Weren’t unions for the manufacturing industry in the 1950s?”
9:32 - The things tech workers would change if they could
11:14 - Conversations among employees – are they safe? Are they protected?
13:28 - On organizing for the greater good of humanity
17:11 - Plug for Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions  by Harry Max
19:06 - How we should feel about AI
22:36 - AI, reskilling, and when workers don’t want to leave mundane tasks behind
31:08 - Employees “voting with their feet” is costly for organizations
33:24 - How future workers may organize as it relates to AI
36:30 - Ethan’s gift for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Designing with AI virtual conference, June 4-5, 2024 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/events/futures/ 
You Deserve a Tech Union by Ethan Markcotte https://www.amazon.com/Deserve-Tech-Union-Ethan-Marcotte/dp/1952616603 
WorkerOrganizing.org https://workerorganizing.org/ 
Tech Workers Coalition https://techworkerscoalition.org/ 
TheFutureIsLikePie.com https://thefutureislikepie.com/ 
 
Quotes:
“The terms under which we work aren't dictated by the workers. They're dictated by management, by leadership, and they can change it anytime.”
“A union is a path to a contract.” 
“There's a rich history in labor law and in labor contracts around letting workers have a say in terms of how and when a technology can be used in the workplace.”
“There's always going to be a tension between what the business wants and what is maybe best for the people who work there.”
“I think you can have a union contract that does ultimately benefit the workers and in turn allows the company to remain competitive and allows them to have a workforce that they're investing in.”

AI as Infrastructure with Dan Hill

Dan Hill is the director of the Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne, and author of Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary and Designing Missions. And he’s the opening speaker at the inaugural Designing with AI conference, where he’ll be presenting “Designing for the Infrastructures of Everyday Life”. 
Like it or not, AI is a growing part of our infrastructure—not just the infrastructure of our phones, our computers, and the internet—but that of our physical world. It’s increasingly  used to support the very fundamental systems that maintain our cities, hospitals, utilities, and educational systems. On some levels, this is cause for concern. After all, we’ve seen other implementations of AI (think riding-sharing services) that have not lived up to their promise but have instead aggravated some of the problems they sought to address.
Dan is a big-picture guy with an ability to draw principles from history and other sectors. He understands that utilizing AI is inevitable. The challenge is recognizing the interconnectedness of our various systems and working together to build infrastructures that truly create better life experiences for all.  
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- The many facets of infrastructures
- How AI is currently being used and how it might be used in the future to support our infrastructures
- Why ride-sharing is not exactly an AI model worth repeating
- Why the Japanese and Finnish models work well in those environments but aren’t necessarily transferable to more diverse cultures
- Why quality of life will only improve with a more holistic, integrated design approach
 
Quick Reference Guide
0:37 - Introduction of Dan
3:49 - AI as infrastructure
8:30 - How AI might be used to further support infrastructure systems
12:09 - Will the impact of AI actually make life better? 
18:59 - Plug for Managing Priorities by Harry Max. Get 15% off!
20:15 - The metaphor of designing looking through a lens and technology’s impact on the material world
26:16 - Helpful models – the Japanese and Finnish cultures
31:52 - Dan’s gift to the audience
 
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary by Dan Hill https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Matter-Trojan-Horses-Vocabulary/dp/0992914639/ 
Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions by Harry Max https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/managing-priorities/ 
Designing with AI Conference, June 4-5 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/events/futures/ 
Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh  https://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Ashes-Opiums-Hidden-Histories/dp/0374602921 
Quotes:
“Those [infrastructures] are fundamentally important, but they're also not the point. And that's a really  tricky framing for us because when they're not the point, they're easy to defund or undercut or not think too carefully about.”
“[AI] is going to be a core infrastructure driving things that we absolutely rely on, and as a result, we need to take it seriously and think about it as a public  shared infrastructure.”
“We have to be aware that those scales are all connected and that the decisions you take from an individual point of view, of course, matter in the city or the environment. I know this is the biggest challenge we have as a species. We're not very good at that, but that is precisely what we need to be looking at with AI now, because unless we've got a meaningful conversation happening between those disciplines at all those different scales,  we will take that Uber/Lyft problem and multiply it a thousand fold.”

Reflection in Action with Jodi Forlizzi

Jodi Forlizzi has taken an unusual path to get where she is today. With an art degree from the University of Arts in Philadelphia, she began working as a technical illustrator at the University of Pennsylvania. Transitioning into UX design as the internet expanded, she pursued a Master's in Interaction Design at Carnegie Mellon University where she is now a professor. Jodi's work focuses on responsible AI and diversity in computer science. Her talk at the upcoming Designing with AI 2024 conference will explore the evolving role of AI in design processes and products.
Jodi distinguishes between "designing with AI" and "designing AI," arguing the importance of designers' involvement in the entire product development lifecycle. She highlights the challenges of AI innovation, such as data availability, value generation, customer adoption, and ethical considerations and emphasizes that designers have a place in all realms of AI development.
Jodi's interview offers a glimpse into the evolving landscape of AI-driven design and the pivotal role of designers in shaping its future. With a blend of historical context, personal anecdotes, and insights, she inspires designers of all stripes to embrace the challenges and opportunities presented by AI innovation.
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
How Jodi went from a Master of Fine Arts degree to working on responsible AI at Carnegie Mellon
Why designers are needed in all phases of AI development
How careers morph as technologies develop and become obsolete
Lessons from history and the “friendly vending machine”
Why solving for “Drunk Island” problems is usually more helpful than chasing a loftier issue
 
Quick Reference Guide
0:25 - Introducing Jodi
2:59 - On boundaries around innovating with AI
6:40 – 4 reasons AI models fail
8:07 – The role of designers and the challenge of starting the design process from the middle of the double diamond
11:49 - The role of bridge builders
14:48 - The morphing of careers due to the emergence and prevalence of AI
17:19 - Commercial break - Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions by Harry Max
18:26 - AI as a design material
21:08 - Constraints and structure on AI as a design material
24:39 - Jodi’s gift for the audience
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions by Harry Max https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/managing-priorities/ 
Designing with AI 2024, June 4-5 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/events/futures/ 
Friendly vending machines 
 
Quotes:
“When you think about innovation, you think about the development of the technology, which is typically done by technologists. But the innovation is where designers take it and make it into a viable desirable product.”
“Reflection in action is like the jazz player improvising and making new music, or the potter working with clay. And reflection on action is when we step back and critique what we've done and figure out what steps work.”
“There's a lots of opportunity for simple, robust AI to improve things that we need.”