 That's a really hard act to follow. It was great energy. I wish I could have heard it for a lot longer and What's really interesting is I'm in the gap. I live the gap every day So I yeah, it was great. What I want to talk about today, which I think is a perfect segue Maybe with a little bit less energy is the keys to a successful career in user experience When I was first thinking about This keynote and what I wanted to do and normally when I do a keynote. I want to go really Big ideas and really inspire and I thought I would take the opposite track here and Go for really what I think is very practical useful information Especially for anyone who's earlier early in their UX career But I also want to kind of inspire at least motivate All of you to kind of think about where you are in your career Where you want to head in some concrete ideas about how to get there? so I'm the Director of the user experience Center at Bentley University in the Boston area and When I said I live the gap our college our university and our program is the gap So we have a graduate program of about a hundred and fifty graduate students in a program called human factors and information Design, we're probably the largest UX graduate program in the u.s We also have a certificate program in UX that we've been running for about the last 20 years or so And we have something called the uxc, which was my my pride and joy Which is the user experience Center and it's really based on a teaching a teaching hospital approach and that We have students who are learning a lot of the theory in class and then they're working in the Center applying What they learn with real client projects in our center? We have probably five to six companies working with it any one time. We've worked in our 15 years we've worked with over 200 companies around the world doing all different types of user experience more in the research Than the design side But it's a fantastic model that really helps try to prepare Students as they enter the workforce. We're also part of the graduate school of business at Bentley So there's a lot of business strategy kind of infused in what we in what we do as well So when I when I first started thinking about this Well, why does it really matter about your career? What what does what does it mean to have a successful career in UX well? Dan Zook in the opening keynote. He was talking about sleepwalking versus sparkle, right? So personal satisfaction and happiness. How do we get from that sleepwalking stage to that sparkle stage? How do we advance our career? right It gives us monetary security and we also can contribute to this field we're all part of it right and it's important to give something back and Really and we've heard a lot of this throughout the the the conference so far is UX making a big difference Making the world a little bit better in each of us. I think has a responsibility to do that This is my motivation. This is a current group of our graduate students and There's nothing greater than I love doing all the consulting work. I do research. I teach I publish but these students are really the ones that motivate me to Help them to give them guidance And so all this is really coming from is a place of giving back and helping The students have the type of career that they ultimately want and when we think about career Your career in UX it's it's really kind of a series of phases and when I look back when I first started You know, I was just kind of learning some of the real basics I wanted to learn some of the fundamentals around What are kind of the theoretical? frameworks of how we work we've talked about you know some of the things were on cognitive psychology with Steve this morning and Other things that really are the basis of what we do and then it was the first job It's really just about practicing and and really just working hard and learning a ton And then as we kind of get into the early part of our career. We start to build confidence Right. We're starting to do new things. We start to feel more confident in what we do and when we get into kind of the Middle part of our career. It's really about demonstrating value to the organization. We're working with right That's really where that value really starts to have that big impact and then later in your career It's for a lot of people. It's about the big picture. It's drawing these connections it's ties to business strategy and and and Giving back and and all this and this is really important as kind of you think about the kind of the trajectory of your career Now just normally I don't do these like show of hands, but I'm really curious How many of you consider yourself more on the? Design side of UX just a quick show of hands Design side. Okay, quite a few. What about the research side? Okay, with those blinding lights. It seems like a very small and what about kind of strategy or oh Interesting, okay, that's great. It's almost it's definitely more design But also kind of almost equally split between research and strategy. That's excellent And so it in this this is I don't mean to kind of put people in silos or in these buckets But it's really important to think about kind of where you fit in and how you want to expand out in which ways And I'll talk about in a few minutes kind of how important it is to Kind of expand into these other areas as your career evolves So one of the first keys and we've mentioned those talked quite a bit in the panel is training, right? It's really important to learn from others. There's kind of a magic that happens in the classroom Whether it's in physically or virtually. There's academic programs. There's professional programs or certifications There's online courses. They're popping up all over the place, right? I know there's some coming up here in India There's also a lot of things online that people take and it's really important to kind of have an opportunity to get some kind of Training and specifically the ability to learn from other people Continuing education always be learning. This has been absolutely true throughout my career And I think it's a hallmark of somebody who's really devoted to the field is There's wonderful books and articles. I did a This is a little bit of a promotion slide. These are all books that have come out of People who've worked at the Bentley University user experience center And then of course one of the things that I do is I'm co-editor of the Journal of Usability Studies Which is a fantastic online free resource of some of the best peer-reviewed research related to UX BA Journal org as a promo but always be learning right always trying to be Look at what's out there and there is absolutely no shortage of resources Pick and choose different topics at different things as you need them Networking all of you know the importance of networking, but I it has been so instrumental not only in my professional career But a lot of the students that have we've worked with Go meet people just talk to people the the best parts of conferences No, no offense to any of the speakers myself included But the best things is when we're outside next to that beautiful tree and talking to different people in learning from them is Go to UX events go to non UX events where you're the only UX person there. It's eye-opening for any of any of you who are College students or very recently graduated take advantage of informational interviews find somebody say hey Would it be okay if I just could have coffee or tea and I could ask you some questions about where you got worried You know how you got where you where you are and then there's a ton of different online communities linked in etc Projects not all projects are equal Okay Now a lot of you in your day-to-day work probably don't have the choice You're sort of handed a project and you want to do it as best you can which is great but if you ever have the opportunity to Steer yourself in this particular direction to do certain project work Go for projects that are high-profile where senior management is really looking at it It's high priority projects that could potentially have a really big impact especially on the business Have projects that where you could calculate return on an investment for the work that you do So you can look like basically a hero with a great design, etc And then try to align yourself with great teams people that are smart are hard-working and really fun to be with Right, then it's not work anymore, right? You're just a bunch of people having a great time and you happen to be doing a lot of producing a lot of value for your organization Expanding your experience It's really important to look at your your your expertise in a really wide variety in other words wear different hats This is myself and a colleague a Swedish guy David who is wearing his Viking hat And what we try to do is expand our expertise if you're primarily on the design side Get some experience on the research side or dip your toe into some strategy work Find people who are doing that and say hey would it be okay if I shadowed you for a day or a couple hours Could I attend that meeting even though I'm not part of that project? I want to know what you do and how you do it and why did you decide that right? Start to learn from other people use some new tools. There's a ton of new ux tools both design and research Use both qualitative and quantitative methods. I'm a quant person, but I deeply appreciate qualitative Methods as well, and I'm always trying to expand my my Toolkit my set of skills and then finally is try to bring in or incorporate business data right look look at kind of the the larger suite or Area of data that you can use as part of your job Demonstrating value. This is hugely important in your career is ask yourself How can I provide value to the organization? Am I providing value? Is there a way I can provide more value? Return on investment try to align with the business goals So as you're building out new designs, etc. You see how does this align with our business? Communicate that to management right if you're a researcher use video clips use really important metrics right look at the analytics communicate your value to the management, and then there's a lot of intangibles is You demonstrate your value, you know what one thing that makes a great athlete is he or she? Makes the people around them better right think of the same thing with your own Profession right make your team better make your manager look great make the people that work under you look like heroes and find and a UX champion try if you can to find a champion somebody outside of UX Within your organization who can really support your team and you a Champion will reduce the friction things will just start to happen. You'll start getting more budget Your projects will be higher prioritized right you'll have that institutional support right and it's very difficult But in my personal life, I've had a few people Who are really that champion who made things happen? They had access to the C-suite where you didn't right and and you want to find somebody who? Really gets it they don't get it because it's kind of the Invoke thing to to do or to say but they really truly believe it and really try to foster that relationship as best you can Mentorship For any of you who have had a have had or have what you consider a mentor is hugely valuable in your career This is actually a picture of me presenting the UXPA lifetime achievement award to Tom call us a few years ago in Atlanta and Tom for me essentially was in is a mentor We've written two books together. We co-teach together And have done a ton of other research together and he's really like a lot of good mentors is kind of my compass Right, he's been a great guide to me as I've built my career. He's helped me with my technical skills He's challenged me with my statistics and etc He's also helped me with my soft skills about how to present how to communicate to management how to build relationships with other teams and Really giving that kind of career guidance and it's wonderful to have a mentor within your own Organization, but you can also try to find a mentor Outside your organization so you can say hey listen. I'm not happy at my job right now My boss isn't listening to me. What do you think I should do right? So it's really helpful to have somebody who's more senior to you Who's got a lot of experience who can kind of help guide you in your career? Leadership Anyone can be a leader you don't need to be a manager is There's leadership opportunities all around us all the time If you're early in your career just start small look for something and when they ask for a volunteer raise your hand and say Yeah, I'll take the lead on that I can do that Find those leadership opportunities and if no one's yelling out you can say hey, I've got a good idea Why don't I look into this right? It's the thing that separates kind of People who see UX as a job versus a career and I'm talking about a career that really matters It's what we tell our graduate students to is look for those leadership opportunities and get feedback from other people Right we call it 360 feedback right get feedback from people that The somebody that you report to who? Who report to you and everybody around you and be really open to that feedback and think of it as an iterative cycle, right? And try to set for leadership try to set an example be the kind of leader that you wish other people were so Really think about kind of what makes a great leader find your own style and go for it Building relationships. This is I think one of the most important Aspects of my own Let's help me with my own career is is we talked about I think on the first first day is UX is It's about people your career is about people. I think UX of what we do is mostly about relationships Yes, you need some research skills and design skills and some technical skills, etc But at the end of the day, it's about relationships specifically building trust with The people around you with your team with other teams within your organization in providing that value you have to have that trust and It's great to have different perspectives to see different perspectives and really understand them You know somebody was earlier talking about kind of being in Empathic to people on your team not just users and customers, but all of your kind of constituents or business sponsors Learn from others It's a hugely important part of these relationships and making sure you're working towards a common goal Never forget that always repeat. Hey listen. We're all on the same team here, right? We all want a successful Product we want a great design. We want the company to make crores whatever it is just Always think about what our goal is and remind people that you're all working together Flexibility this was actually the one slot after I put all the ideas I had about how to have a great, you know successful UX career I thought you know what I think there's something missing and this is kind of a little bit of a Departure from some of these other ones is I've seen Over the years. I've probably Mentored quite close to a hundred graduate students as they've entered into the workforce and The the students that seem to fare well Have the certain quality around flexibility some some students that we see or early professionals have a very Kind of very strict approach to UX they say I was trained this way. This is the way we're going to do it This is the way I was taught end of story, but there has to be some flexibility in your approach Go for incremental improvements. It's better to have some small improvements than nothing at all Just think of it. You're constantly moving the needle in the right direction, right? Go for incremental improvements. You don't have to have a perfect design right away You need to be able to adapt on the spot if a business sponsor says hey, why don't we do this or why don't we? Consider this be very open to those ideas now. It's great. You can should hold your ground when you need to right? You don't want to compromise your values, but try to be flexible in your approach and publish and present This is I think really Very helpful for people that really want to kind of build out their career and essentially you want to dive into this, right? There's so many different opportunities to publish in online magazines websites academic journals For example the Journal of Usability Studies. We just launched our first-ever Special Student Issue in August had submissions from all around the world just to try to encourage students from to publish their work And also to present go to conferences. We've seen a lot of younger folks here presenting their work and You know, I was told many years ago my first talk I was so nervous and a professor came to me and he said if you do a great job People will remember you if you do a bad job. No one's going to remember you so don't worry if nothing to lose Right and that was really really helpful and I said, okay. I've got nothing to lose I'm just going to go for it and we tell our students to do the same thing Just get up on stage and and go for it and and the second point I want to make is is go broad Look at new perspectives. Don't just go to again presented a UX conference, right? But go to something if you're in financial services or you're in Healthcare go to some of those conferences and share UX it's a very very new concept for a lot of people and volunteer It's really important to give back especially as your career progresses one of the first things that happened to me in my UX career is I applied for a conference and It was that the UX PA conference many many years ago and I got an email that said congratulations You've been accepted and I said, oh great and I was all excited and then about 15 minutes later I got another email that said I'm sorry your paper was rejected. I said wait I was just accepted now. I've been rejected and what's going on So I contacted and I said what is it, you know, and I said no no no you're accepted. We're very sorry, but You know, we're all volunteers and we make mistakes and the system wasn't working, right? But don't worry you're in we're looking forward to your paper and I was sort of grumbling she goes You know what if you if you want you you should actually help us out You know instead of complaining you help us out. You become a volunteer I ended up being on the conference committee for seven years at the UX PA because of that and met incredible people and Really established my network So I highly recommend you find opportunities to volunteer find the organization that you really believe in and Don't wait just do it even if it's for you know a few hours a month and The last slide I have is I saved it for the last because in some ways probably the most important is Is find your passion this this slide was from Some research we did with a client on home kidney dialysis machines And we were out in the field and this is somebody on my team talking to this dialysis patient about it and One thing is is UX has the power to change lives. It has the power to save lives right and Really make a difference and find the thing that you care about right do you love you want to make? You know health care your thing or do you want to really? Help disadvantaged communities find something that you really care about find that kind of intrinsic motivation To make the world a little bit better Right and let that try to come through in your career now. You might Be very lucky and have that as part of your day-to-day job Or you might not but find those organizations or places where you can let your passion for UX and and your Kind of motivation kind of shine through and there's definitely opportunities because this career is growing So much so that's all I have. I hope it was very useful you