Cal Thompson, VP of Design on how they use AI at Headspace and why they hire interns

31:51But, you know, hey, I'm making this album cover for this musician. I wanted you all to see it. Like, so they show all these cool skills that they have that they're working on outside of work, kind of their nerdy passions. And that was just like really nourishing. And then at Fjord, we had a couple of things, but the things that were probably the most advantageous to team culture, where we had tea time at 4 p.m. in the afternoon, which, you know, To those of you in London, you'll go, yeah, of course. But ours was like a social tea time. So it was like, hey, everybody drop what you're doing. Come to this.

32:23They had this big kind of like tall countertop table and have tea and talk with your colleagues. Like you're all in your weird, you know, workrooms being freaks. Get out of there and talk to each other, you know, like stop obsessing about your project and be a human for a second. And everyone would be like, you know, You see everyone's busy little minds and they're all like, and then they would get together and chat and have little snacks. And it was just really a sweet moment. And you'd often hear someone going around to all the different conference rooms going, tea time, tea time, tea time, to try to coax people out because they were nerding out so hard on their work.

33:00Because I don't know what's with us, but we designers love to hyper-focus. so you know that was a really sweet team culture ritual to just get us out of our our heads for a second and then what I always noticed is that we when the team would come back into our we called them war rooms at the time I think we would all call them project rooms now when you come back into those rooms you'd have a fresh mindset you know you're like your brain would kind of be like a little refreshed you'd have taken a nice break so that's that and then Hedsby's has a million unusual rituals and they've changed over time but we used to have a 10 a.m mindful break and a 3 p.m mindful break and at 3 p.m people would go on a 10 minute walk together in the before times when we were in person and at 10 a.m we would actually meditate together in person and that was incredible because this was pre-pandemic that we would actually be together in person meditating for just 10 minutes my colleague tom freeman would run those but it was just a really like you'd become a real human for a second and then, you know, and pause.

34:04So huge part of, you know, that was even across the whole company's culture. It wasn't even just the design team, but it certainly made us as designers feel more relaxed, more comfortable. Then, you know, fast forward through the years as we went into pandemic and we were all remote. One of my employees, Grant Nickel, who's an amazing designer I've worked with for in many different roles. He brought this absolutely unhinged, silly team meeting that I encourage you all to copy because it was so silly and stupid and fun. Um, that was called the work that's not work dot work in progress. So it was, hold on, I'm going to have to write it in the, the work that's not work WIP.

34:43So it's this whole silly acronym, but, um, but people would bring a topic that they wanted to just kind of do some nerdy research on, bring that, present it to everyone. There'd be like, you know, totally silly responses in the chat, whatever. And they, they had a structure. So it was coulda, coulda, gonna. Grant is from Austin, Texas. So it's got a little Southern flair on it, Southern US flair. So it was, I could have talked to you about this thing that I'm obsessed with, but I'm not going to. I could have talked to you about this other thing I'm also obsessed with right now, but I'm not going to.

35:19I'm gonna talk to you. I'm going to gonna talk to you about this. And then the designer just goes off on this, you know, 15 minute slideshow of, ah, you know, this is how the city of New York worked with this graphic designer to do the I love New York campaign and like a full history. And everyone's like, wow, this is so fascinating. So interesting. So, you know, not only does that build community within the team, but it also, it's this really like kind of fun moment of giving inspiration to the team. Like you get in what you put out. So as a design leader, being able to give inspiration to a team, you get more inspired work back.

35:59And you also get designers who trust each other and they collaborate better together and they like each other. And, you know, they have a sense of, um, Hey, when I'm stuck on a project, I can go to my manager or I can go to Cal or I could go to another designer because I know them now and I'm not intimidated. So, you know, really like that building of culture creates, it dismantles some of the walls between creatives who can get protective of their work or whatever, because you've made a safe space for them to just be humans and to nerd out on things because we're nerds. I mean, you know, cool nerds, but you know what I mean?

36:33Like we have passions, we have interests. So yeah, so that's my long, long, long diatribe. But I do think, you know, because design is a process that is nourished by inspiration. That's team culture is so important to like, as a design leader, I think your main things you need to focus on product strategy, design process and operations and team culture. Those are really, and not necessarily in that order. It's probably team culture first and then operations and then product strategy. This is just, yeah, it's so key. It's so great that you mentioned the importance of culture, because I do believe in this world of technology and things that everywhere, everything is so fast.

37:17Focus recently did change to how can we be faster? How can we be more efficient? What kind of tools can we use? Which is all great questions. They've always been there through history. I think we always try to be more efficient, do everything cheaper, faster. That has always been the conversation. But we all know that for great products, great creative ideas, what really matters is the humans, their culture, how you work with the team and all these things that are not as tangible as the tool that you use, as the process that you have. And they always been very tricky. And there are so many examples of brilliant companies that no one could figure out how they do what they do because it was this special source that they had inside the teams that just gave people better ideas and gave people this extra space to think.

38:15And no way I can figure this out because it is a special source. So I love that you mentioned all these rituals that not efficient, can seem pointless. You can't put a number on it, but they are the ones who probably will make the biggest difference when everyone else, every other company, every other team is trying to operationalize everything out of the process, where everyone is trying to be most effective. And someone will win. Someone will have the cheapest, fastest process and product, but someone will just have a better one. And that's the thing that we can be uniquely good at, building these cultures and bringing a bit more humanity.

38:55What did you feel like that changed? I'm sure you worked in different teams and some had great culture, some maybe didn't have such a good culture. what did you feel like a good culture in those rituals did bring in terms of the real difference in work or in anything else? I mean I think you know a continuation on what I was saying before is like it creates a more collaborative and self-trusting team so then you know because every designer has slightly different skill sets then you have designers who are comfortable working together and giving their you know expertise and knowledge to each other versus I would say the design cultures, and I've really maybe only worked in one that was really not the most trusting, maybe two, but the design cultures where people are competing, where designers are competing, where there's more ego than collaboration, those are the ones that rituals like this can help with.

39:52And I would say like rituals like this ensured that the headspace design team was not like that, You know, that really it was a safe space to be real, to be a real person, to be human, to be flawed at times, to need help, to want help, to want to collaborate, to want to riff. You know, it really, yeah. I mean, I think because design can be a vulnerable process sometimes, you know, you're putting your original ideas out there. You're making a physical artifact that everyone can see. you know, I think that can make some designers more, you know, a little insecure or competitive. And when you can create structures that dismantle that, you know, or structures that build trust, build collective inspiration, build collaboration, then yeah, I mean, the work is better for one, like in a measurable way.

40:48But also for you as a design leader, if you're thinking about resourcing projects, you actually now know that the designers will start to work together. There's not friction. There's not, you know, if you have one designer who's got really great visual design skills and another has great research skills, you can put them together because you know, they'll actually work together versus, you know, oh shoot, they're so different. They're going to compete or be mean to each other, whatever. So yeah. And I think Fjord did that really well too. I think we had a, we had service designers, design researchers, you know, people who largely because of the structures that we had there, we're willing to really collaborate and, you know, the rituals.

41:25I would say Fjord, another thing that's worth mentioning, Fjord had a very good team culture around continuing education. So there was even a team called Fjord Evolution that went around the globe doing in-studio actual training sessions on, you know, ethnographic research, prototyping, usability testing, you know, I mean, just really powerful skill building. Andy Pellain was on that team, Martha Cotton. It was really like kind of an all-star. You're like, well, I'll learn from these folks any day. But that built a culture of continuous learning. And so then that inspiration that you need as a designer was actually being given to you at work.

42:06I mean, we were learning about computer vision. We were learning about autonomous transportation. We were learning about all these things through Accenture and through Fjord in, this was like 2017, 2018. Like we're talking about all of it now, but we were learning about it then. So to go all the way back, actually, Ekaterina, to your question around like consultancies and what's the value of them as the like knowledge holders. It's true that like some of that book knowledge is no longer as, you know, premium, but I would say that access to a creative team that is big and, and can inspire each other is still really valuable, especially if you're a company that may only have a few designers in-house, like if you just have a very, very small design team, having access to these hubs of like big groups of creatives is still really, really valuable.

42:56I think that's where those, you know, still are really huge. What you mentioned also kind of loops back with what we started where you said that designers' role is still to understand the context, to pick the right idea and to make the right decision. Yes, you can use all the tools in the world, have all data in the world, come up with 100 ideas in a world, but the actual role of a designer, and especially of a design data to understand which one is right, which one for this context, which one for this business, which one for this situation, for this user, for all the pieces that we have, which one is right, and which one in general is the best.

43:34And culture and rituals and understanding team and having access to all this extra thing and having trust with everyone that's what contributes to that intuition because i think if even if you are the one with the knowledge and the one with everything if you don't have this great culture where you will be trusted with the best decision where you can discuss with everyone what would be the best decision again you won't make this best decision So I feel like it kind of all links together with what is the future of designers. It is to make the right decisions with the tools or without the tools in whatever combination.

44:16But also that requires a great culture that will enable that. Well, just I love what you that you brought up intuition, because I like talk about designerly intuition a lot. And it's something I probably borrowed from John Colco, who is one of my design teachers earlier on. And there is something about, I'm sure you all feel this, but there is something about certain new designs or certain new features or certain things that you as a designer or design leader may propose that sing. Like you can feel there's something there. This is exciting. It's new. It just sings. You can just feel it. It has energy.

44:57It has momentum. It's really exciting. and um jane kiabyab who's a great designer at headspace principal uh product designer she had a feature that she showed me a few months ago where we just all we were on a zoom and we all what's that you know i was like and you could just feel it had like this magic quality it was new it was something no one had thought of it was so exciting you know we're all just like what tell us more and and i you know for us it's really that is your designerly intuition speaking. And I will say it's really hard for our product colleagues and our engineering colleagues and our CEOs to feel that with us because like we're creatives who just, you know, we've dedicated our lives to creativity and we can kind of feel where something might go.

45:42You know, we just have a different, you know, sense of making and more trust in making. And so I'd say we're just to bring it all the way back to our AI and, you know, synthesis tools. I think what's really cool is that is where you can help. You can build a business case around it. Like, Hey, this is really exciting thing. And here's what it does. And here's how many people it could help. And here's the unmet market need for that. So it really, you know, for those of us who have to really sell in certain ideas to, to get engineering time to build it, um, you know, that's where that happens maybe in a future world.

46:16And we just use cursor to use the, do the code ourselves but yeah anyway i'm personally not on that one yet so we'll see well um i think this is a great point and now we are actually uh have an exciting part of today's conversation because right now we have an extra person who will join us to talk all things ai and humans incredible rachel from headspace design team who previously worked at lots of fantastic companies and now Obviously she's doing incredible work as a senior product designer at Headspace, but before she worked at Calendly and lots of other great companies where has been focusing on UX and product design and now plays around experiments with lots of AI tools and specifically how to use them.

47:07And this is why we wanted to bring Rachel to talk a little bit more about nuanced things that where AI can be helpful and unhelpful. Rachel, how are you doing? Hi, thank you for having me. Well, let's dive straight in because we already have been having a conversation about where tools sit in the process. I suppose, apart from what they do, let's talk about how you use them, because you work with kind of trying to figure out the best process possible every single day. So can you tell a bit more what you found the most helpful in terms of how to use those tools to bring the most value to your design process?

47:48Yeah, so I think the first thing about thinking about how I use AI tools is first understanding where my own design process. So I think as a designer, you need to know your own process first. And there was a mentor who once told me where I was telling them where I wanted to become much more technical as a designer. and this was like five or six years ago. And they basically said, that's not your strength. Like that, like your strength is like in the research and in understanding why, like these different aspects. And they're like, don't fight your strengths. Like don't invest your time in fighting what you're naturally good at.

48:26And I think with AI, that's ever more present, like understanding what you're naturally good at and then using AI to expand that. So I think they're like, It's not that you have not a lot of tools to choose from. There are new tools coming out every day with AI. It's really understanding which of the tools that are out there, experimenting with them, and understanding which ones are really going to expand your reach and impact as a designer. And so that's all to drill down into. I've tried a lot of tools, but I mostly just stick to using Claude in my process. I think Claude has done a really good job of framing their tool as a thought collaborator and being able to enter into that process and think like, I already know a lot of what my like skills are.

49:14And I kind of, I was joking earlier is like, I view AI as my intern and like the tasks that I know that I need to get done, but don't necessarily like, I want to spend my time as the designer in that creative part in, in the, in the work part that like gives me joy and less in what I would view as the labor part, which is the, like the part that is, could be done by something like AI. So, and I think that's A part. B part is understanding what are the strengths of AI and how you can use those to service you. And so, like, a specific example of that would be there was a feature I was designing for like an AI note taker for our therapists.

50:01and in that I had not actually designed AI flows are a little different from more traditional UI flows and I was trying to find a feedback mechanism and I knew I didn't know enough of the interaction patterns for this and so I simply just prompted Claude to be like out of the AI interaction patterns out there like what are the ones applicable to this section to what I'm trying to do for feedback and can you just show me some examples of those that are interactable because I think a lot of times when you're trying to understand things in that section and in that like a specific vein, I'm just trying to play around with different ideas at that point.

50:42And so being able to say, okay, I'm reviewing what's out there of the new interaction patterns. I'm selecting which ones are the ones that are best fitted to this situation. That's my designer taste intuition. And then I'm saying, okay, now that I have a general direction, I can go work on refining that and getting that up to the level of polish I expect from myself and want to deliver and that just helps like it takes some of the like the circularity that you have to do in design and kind of speeds up that area so that you can get to the part where you can deliver impact that is in the more I'm like anyone can stop me at any point if there's a point where you need to drill down But that to me is like a part of how you can use it to like explore some of those unknowns that may be like that bring you up to date to the current state.

51:33I think the other half of using it is, for example, I had to synthesize some survey results and then do user interviews for them for a for understanding kind of like why members are starting to drop off therapy. And I think one of the joys that I have a designer is actually interviewing. And I have a background in co-design, participatory design methods. And I think making sure that your interview is fun for you and the participant is really important. And so I had this vision of creating like a mini member journey map, like a game of life almost, and say like, here's the steps in the process.

52:17Like, where do you fall off? Like, where is this going on? And I had that vision, but I also had like three days to like get it going. I promise I didn't give her that only three days. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think that's the part where I make the work hard for myself, where I'm like, I actually, I could have just done like a more simple one, but I had this vision, right? And so I think in a normal circumstance, I would have been like, I don't have time to execute on that vision. But in the, I was able to just say like, hey, I know that I need four to five points on this journey map. I have this survey data.

53:00I have a vague outline to fact check what the AI outputs are that I know that it needs to be like. I have a set of questions that I have from some of the other researchers that I need to hit at. I was like, can you overlap these, attach the themes, put the questions underneath, and I'll design the journey map, which is the fun part I want to do. And so I think it's like just figuring that out of where you can use it to get to the parts of the work that you want to do. I have this, I mean, I'm sure AI will get past this point at some point, but I kind of view it as a mental calculator. Like you still need basic math skills.

53:38Like you can't just depend on a calculator to do all the things for you. But there are like, to me, where generative AI is right now is at that level of like, it's doing those mental calculations that you know you have to do and require thought processing but are not where the work is so yeah those are just two examples I can go yeah let me know if there's anything else no I love these are great examples and I love that you in your example you shared something that you came up with but didn't have time to do versus I think that's that's again and going back to our conversation that we had, we are still in charge of bringing ideas, coming up with ideas and thinking what's the right idea, but yeah, we can save time and execution, that's for sure.

54:26I have one question for you that actually was coming from our community overall about the role of AI. In your experience at Headspace, where has AI actually changed a design decision rather than just sped up the things? Could you walk through one concrete example where the product experience you shipped would have been meaningfully different if AI had not been involved. Rachel, I have an example if you don't. Okay, yeah, I don't know if I have one off the top of my head. I can give mine and then if you think of one. So Taylor Berg, who's an exceptional PM at Headspace, she noticed that our competitors had a different feature on their websites than we did.

55:09Like we were missing this price calculator piece for insurance. This is for US-based, so sorry for all of our friends in Europe. This is like US health insurance, you know, junk that you have to deal with. But anyway, so she saw this need, but as a PM, you know, doesn't really know how to make things. So she ended up using a generative AI tool to create some kind of like wireframes to say, hey, these are the things that I think we need. And then in a very unusual process for us, but a new one, she gave those to Jonathan's design team. And a designer on his team started looking at that. And what was materially different that wouldn't have happened if Taylor hadn't done that and if this clickable prototype hadn't existed, this coded prototype actually, was that there were certain use cases that the designer and that design team and Taylor would not have thought of that the generative AI tool put into that prototype.

56:07And it was certain like error states, just certain use cases that, you know, eventually the team would have found those once we did like a bunch of technical reviews. And we're like, what happens when? But those were all laid out. You know, imagine like they're just laid out on the table from the get go. And so it was a really, yes, it sped things up because those were already there. But it also it kind of was almost like a not a fact checker because that's wrong, you know, but it was a checker for what was missing that might need to be there. And then the design team took that and went several levels further with it.

56:40Lisa, who's on that design team, did that work. And it really, you know, it basically provided this very kind of more diverse jumping off point than what the team would have naturally started with. Had Taylor just said, hey, we're missing this feature, the team would have done a bunch of like competitive research and they would have found some of that. But it would have taken longer and they might have missed some of those error states or those use cases. So that was cool. It kind of like helped, you know, dot the I's and cross the T's, like just find those extra pieces. So deeper, more information, deeper edge cases.

57:19And yeah, essentially thinking through more rather than what I suppose you would normally do. Great example. And then Lisa got to focus on craft. She got to play and enjoy. And so we can do an illustration here. like she was starting to have a little more fun. Rachel did you think of any example where design decision has been changed like you thought one thing AI thought another thing and one wins or maybe the other way around who knows. I think in Cal's example it's a really good example of how you can use AI to create artifacts that shift decision making and how you can like one of the things that I'm a real big fan of is research through design, which is, you know, the approach of essentially using design artifacts as research.

58:07So I'm not necessarily in, I haven't necessarily used it in that way yet, but I also am still trying to figure out if that's where I want it, where I want to use it and how I want, you know, in terms of a human AI collaborative system, I still view myself, I still view myself on top of that. And so I, you know, for now, so I think I'm still trying to figure out how I want to let, if I want to let AI be a bigger driver in that, or if I'm still viewing it as the kind of expander, if that makes sense. And is there anything you would never do with AI? We spoke about kind of human stories and having that, but any other decisions for ethical, for security reasons, for fun reasons, for any other reasons, anything you wouldn't actually give to AI to do?

59:10i mean i think for especially like right now where in my mind where generative ai specifically is i would not give it a lot of things i think it still needs very much a human in in that loop so to speak to just like verify any of the outputs to understand that system like i know like i'm really big on research and making sure that you get those inputs right and to me ai is the output clarifier and i know that's not exactly answering the question i think it's just a very broad category of what i would not give to ai well thank you so much rachel for joining us for for this little deep dive into reasoning with ai and thinking where it fits we're now going to a q a part of our conversation.

1:00:06We have hundreds and millions of questions that have been summarized by AI, but we do not trust the summaries. So we'd love to hear first from lovely humans. So question number one is, if AI becomes your new intern, how do we support real human interns, be interns? I worry about junior and grad roles struggling to get work. Chris, this is a great question. Thank you. I'm actually really happy that you wrote this in because on the Headspace design team this summer, we hired a couple, you know, junior like entry level designers. And it was really powerful to see what they brought to the team. They were above intern level, but, you know, really kind of new in their careers.

1:00:55So here's what I would say, you know, for those of you, especially who are design leaders, and you're looking at how you staff your teams, I think that there is phenomenal value to be gained from junior talent, you know, from folks who are new in their careers, because they're bringing all of, you know, their experience. And it could be, in the case of one of our designers, they were a career switcher. So it wasn't so much that they were like this right out of college intern, but they were new to design. And where I think AI can actually help those particular designers is some of the analysis and synthesis skills and capabilities that we were talking about earlier.

1:01:37That can actually help them clarify their thinking. they can ask design questions to these tools if they don't feel comfortable asking those to more senior designers you know if they're still in that viewpoint that I certainly was in when I was a brand new fresh designer or like you know I have a question I feel so embarrassed to ask it you know but actually they can now ask you know very complex tools on the internet those questions and get really great answers and then they also can use these tools to create you know the v1 MVP wireframes of their work and then use their own emerging taste and discernment and skills that we've been talking about to build iteratively on those initial wireframes.

1:02:21So, you know, there is, I think these tools can become almost like continuing education tools for those emerging designers. So my ask to fellow design leaders as you're hiring is to continue to hire those, you know, So we call them T1s, but, you know, other places are like junior level, you know, these emerging designers and interns and really allow that skill set to come in and allow those humans who have devoted themselves to this creative practice to join the team and then bring all of their expertise, their ways of thinking, their points of view, you know, all of that into the work and use these tools to actually kind of up level and move forward.

1:03:04their work. So, because I have heard that in a lot of, like, you're like, oh, we're getting rid of all the junior level ones. Like, well, you know, actually I wouldn't do that. We need all these viewpoints on the team and those designers are going to be needed. They need to learn from other human designers by doing, by making, by working shoulder to shoulder with senior designers, with mid-level designers, with leads, et cetera. They need to learn that to be the next generation of designers. We're going to have to mentor folks. So we can't just, you know, I think, you know, Rachel, when you were talking about intern, it's a little different.

1:03:39It's like more of a, it's an assistant in that classical way of assisting the work, you know. I also think the nature of work is changing within this field. And so the things that we would typically think of as intern things are shifting. And so like also that power that you have a designer and how you position yourself I think is ever more important of like how can you take care of that like basic underlying skill set that is enabled by AI to further empower you as the designer and how you are packaging your design skill set so I think you know you know right now in the industry there is that like blurring of terms between like makers builders all of those kinds of stuff.

1:04:30I have my own issues with those terminologies, but I do think they're getting at an underlying fact that the line between like code, no code, like the lines between all of these professions are blurring with the use of AI. And so I think how you tell your story and your narrative as a designer is ever more important. So, and that's where I also think like design education is so important to understand like the depth of research and frameworks and all of this kind of stuff that are already out there to help guide your thinking and kind of set your positioning as a designer maker builder I think these are both great points of view and I also think that maybe the career journeys will be very different from now because I feel like a big part of very traditional even now, but maybe 10, 20 years ago, it's like first you learn the hard skills, the Photoshop, the whatever.

1:05:30Now that you've learned that, now you can do, okay, fun things. Now you know how to use the technology. You can do the fun. Now you learn the fun things, you can do the human things, okay? You can actually interact with people and collaborate. So it's like, it was very much linear and step-by-step process. Before you learned one, you can not move to another one. And then now this first part of learning technology, learning the visual, like it became so much faster that you can get to the point where you collaborate, where you do other things much quicker. And maybe therefore you discover your different career path or different way where you wanna fit in the company much faster, because I felt like that's what took a lot of our careers of like, okay, what do I do?

1:06:13Okay, now I learned this, oh, I learned this, but I don't wanna do it. Can I do something else? And now you can get through this iteration process faster where your career goes. And I think that should be very empowering to junior team members to kind of embrace that. But also, I agree with both of you that we do need more young talent, A, to grow to senior leadership eventually, but B, for ideas and thoughts. We were those people once, once, five minutes ago. Exactly. there's this really great paper that I love it was written a long time ago and I think we like to think like AI is a new technology but there's so much historical precedence for this exact type of technological kind of innovation like when you think back this paper covers it's called art after de-skilling and it talks about the history of portrait painting before the invention of photography so when you think about what portrait painting was originally meant to do there were huge painting workshops you know when you think about like like Botticelli all of them they they were meant to like it was an industry capturing like someone's portrait with the invention of photography it it kind of just like completely flipped that uh career field and so at that same moment you also had impressionism come out of that you had all of these painting movements where essentially a lot of these painters they had a deep skill set but they're freed from that moment of like having to copy reality something else is doing that now and so I think we're at that kind of moment here where I'm it's either trying to figure out do you keep being a portrait painter because there still are portrait painters out there or do you figure out like what's your version of impressionism in this space like what's your version of like cubism whatever you want to go after like there's that opportunity for you i think there's also underlying that the other historical precedent is the luddite movement and the like that movement was originally around like it's essentially workers rights like they were there is not like it wasn't about necessarily and being anti-technology it was that these mechanical machines were replacing like traditional weaving practices and within that they essentially when the companies brought in these larger machines, they use that as a reason to depress wages.

1:08:40And so it was that they were strategically targeting those specific weaving mills that were causing that. And so I think there's this dual tension between like, yeah, I do feel like if I could be replaced by AI right now, my company would try it. You know, I don't think that's like unique to, I think that's the industry right now. It's like trying to figure out like that's tech. So I think there's a divide between like trying to position yourself like to not necessarily view it all as a detraction but to figure out like how do you continue to evolve your skill set to find your own impressionism and like trying to like tee that balance i think is the big question of this transformational period that we're in yeah and what are your thoughts where do we find like both rachel and cal where should we start looking for this new cubism and expressionism and impressionism like in general how do you go about finding your other humans yeah it's good yeah that's exactly what I was gonna say too yeah it's I mean we actually talked about this exact topic at CoLab this year which is dscout's annual conference for design leaders and and literally the painting the portrait painting versus, you know, photography topic came up.

1:10:01And, you know, the kind of general consensus, which I will share is like our minds want to forecast what that's going to be, but we actually don't know until we get together as creatives and do it ourselves. Like we, you know, those movements like impressionism, cubism, you know, pop art later on, it's like those were organic. They came because people started to make things together and then they, you know, they influenced each other And there was this sort of, you know, this cultural, it was very organic, you know, it was like, it wasn't like a critic said, okay, now you're going to do cubism.

1:10:36Okay, guys, go do cubism. You know, it was like, okay, we're doing this thing. And then a critic labeled it cubism. They're like, oh, that's cubism. We're like, oh, okay. You know, but it was really organic. So I am, I think this is going to be the really interesting thing is to see what designers and creatives start to do in this world where like to some of your points, Rachel, or what you were saying, Ekaterina, like certain tasks are either done collaboratively with AI or, or, you know, given to AI to do. like what do we then what are those things that we then have fun doing you know are collectively as designers or there was someone in the chat who said oh this conversation makes me miss working with other designers like maybe some of these tools become a way for us to like if you are a solo designer at a company to not feel alone because you can do some riffing and then you can also talk to friends who are designers and riff with them and you know just like maybe there's a little more time and space for that like creative thinking because some of the things that you didn't really want to do are able to be done more quickly and so you end up with a little time on your hands to play with so those are those are my thoughts.

1:11:45I would also add to that when you were saying about these big movements that were happening and like again if we take painting or anything else in terms of artistic movements you're so right they all were very much about collaboration about communities about um they had studios together again obviously futureland academy is obsessed with bauhaus and what it was at the movement they had a space they were together they they discussed ideas and it was very organic and in that sense again i think we should focus and shift the conversation from the tools to how can we come together how can we enjoy each other's company, how can we discuss ideas and from there the good work will happen.

1:12:28We actually had in our previous podcast episode, we had Charles Vigas who was talking about how AI right now is very much an ego driven solo person tool of like, I can do multiple things. I don't need other people. I can do everything. Well, it's a way to do it, but it's not the only way. and definitely the best ideas come from collaboration, especially in design and creativity. And there is no much emphasis in the tools about collaboration, about bringing people together, about how can we all harness our powers, our skills, our thoughts in a collaborative way with AI still, but how can we come together?

1:13:14And I think that could be potential next shift where we will start actually using these tools less in a singular thing of I can sit on my own in the room and run a company and do everything myself to how can we all come together and come up with something no one thought of before using these new technologies. I love, thank you for bringing that up. And that was such a good conversation that you had with him because I think where he brought up kind of co-design and participatory design and making sure you had other viewpoints in the room, like IDEO was always so good at that. They would hire clinicians and they, you know, you'd have people in there who have like behavioral science backgrounds, they're not even designers, but they're on the project teams because they bring a really important viewpoint.

1:13:54You're so right that like in this era we're in where someone can be alone with an AI tool and create like an entire business, you know, create the app, create the business model, create everything. The kind of missing piece is other viewpoints from other humans, like someone to help not only like prevent them from building something that no one wants and no one will use, you know, which AI can help you kind of hopefully prevent some of that. But you never know. Like sometimes you do need a stern mentor to be like, does anyone need that thing that you're trying to build? You know, or someone on a team who comes from a different background and they say, I don't, this doesn't, you know, we're not solving this certain problem with this.

1:14:35Like the, I think, you know, the hope is the watch out that we should probably name here is that, you know, one person in a room doing the design, development, launch, you know, biz dep, like doing all of it. And not that you can't do it, but just that the risk there is you will miss asking the right questions and building the right things because you may have such a narrow viewpoint, you know, kind of a, you might have blinders on or biases that you're not aware of. And then the tools, you know, they're known for, they love to validate the human's viewpoint, you know, they can be really like congratulatory on your ideas.

1:15:19And so if you don't have people with discernment to really kind of push back and ask questions and add in other ideas that that could be that's probably the watch out that we should name. and that's why participatory design is so helpful which yeah I've done a lot of yeah yeah I think like within that training and I've also done a lot of like futures work in my career as a designer and I one of the reasons that I think participatory design and futures work combined is so powerful and like to pull out some of those design terms like we're in a plural verse like there are like Like you are like if you are like your view of reality is one pinpoint and how it's constructed, you know, so if you are that one person constructing your thing, great.

1:16:05You can hope that you've done something that can connect. But if you're not like being that conduit, if you're not like interacting with others, finding those signals and inputs to create something, then it is very one sided. And that just gets toppled very easily. And so I think that's the power of having multiple viewpoints as you're building something holistic and well-rounded that actually reflects the reality that we live in. And I think there are cases of people who are really good at being that conduit and not necessarily having to do all that, but I think those are much rarer than we want to think that they are.

1:16:45And I also think that one of the things that I have thought about with a lot of these tools and a lot of like how AI is being framed and shaped right now is it does make me uncomfortable. And I think when I was inspecting the reasons behind that, I was talking to one of my mentors and she gave me this quote. I don't know who it's from, but it's essentially like when you feel that discomfort, it's because you're living in someone else's dream of the future. like right now with a lot of these tools there's another quote that it's and I'm going to translate this and then I have to go actually but it's that money is fossilized power and so when you think about where have people who have money who have fossilized their power have put that they've put it into building the technological tools that we're now using it the big VC funds like it's their viewpoint embedded in the technology?

1:17:44And so you have to think about how you are using that, but also subverting it in your usage of it to keep your own self-determination and path that you want to guide it in. Because I think there's a, it's like a dual process, like the tool is shaping you and you also have to shape the tool. And with that, I have to go. No, but that's great. Thank you so much, Rachel. Thank you so much, Rachel. And we'll stay with Kel for a few more minutes to wrap this up. But, Rachel, this was incredible and really, really needed point of view on the future and tools and AI and humans, humans and collaboration that we all need.

1:18:24So thank you so much, Rachel. So, Kel, following from this question, there is one more question that I would like to answer before we start wrapping up, which is around the uncertainty and everything, anxiety that everyone has about AI. So, maybe you have perspective on that. So, Sharon is asking, entering the unknown is uncomfortable, but essential for creativity. How do you cultivate the mental resilience needed to stay in the uncertainty when AI tools constantly push us towards fast, confident answers? oh it's such a good question yeah i think this is where you know you all are gonna be like gosh you're such a stereotype you worked at headspace so i do a lot of mindfulness work outside of headspace and i did it at headspace um the unknown is something that you know our minds are really uncomfortable with like it's you know we want certainty especially in a workplace where you're being paid for your creativity we want our we want that certainty you know we're like oh my god you know, it's so important because it feels like it protects us.

1:19:23But, but I think this is where you as a human, and I actually said this, recently said this at a conference that, you know, you as a human need to nurture yourself outside of work and recognize that like, there is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of newness in all these different tools. And these things were sort of being asked to learn like on the job. Well, you got, you all are doing a cool job of listening to a, you know, joining a Zoom and learning about it outside of work too. So good job. But, but, you know, we're being asked to learn these things while we also have these, you know, what I would call like strong professional identities, you know, like you as a designer are needing to, you know, make work and, you know, kind of be certain and be confident about that work, you know, and so how do you keep that growth mindset and the learning mindset that is required to learn these new tools and to come up with your own fun workflows and processes that work for you with these tools if you want to use them and still confidently deliver the work you're delivering at work.

1:20:31And what I would say is that's where mindfulness comes in. So it's such a predictable answer from someone like me. But this is where really giving yourself time and space outside of work, you know, whether it's a daily meditation practice, whether it's going to therapy, whether it's going on a run, whether it's, you know, hiking in the wilderness, like whatever you need to de-escalate your nervous system to really get to calm down, to really get to feel present, to really get to relax, and then kind of understand what about this, like get really curious with yourself, what about this is making me so uncomfortable?

1:21:10You know, like, is it that I'm afraid of learning or I'm afraid of getting it wrong. Or, you know, we have ideas that like, we'll try something and it'll fail. You know, we have all these different ideas, but just to really give yourself that time and space to reflect so that you are able to kind of what I would call it, like soften the impact of those ideas. Like you're going to still have those ideas about yourself and your world. Some of them you can let go really in a, in a great, you know, if you're doing a particularly awesome mindfulness practice or a great therapy visit or whatever, but to soften the impact of them so that you feel more in command of your own work and you're able to decide and go, okay, here's the tools I want to use.

1:21:54Here's the tools I don't. Here's how I want to work. Here's how I don't. Here's how I want to self-educate, go to a future London academies, you know, however it is, but, you know, kind of finding what's right for you as you navigate that, because it's, yeah, it is a moment of a lot of learning and growth. Most of us learned this stuff when we were in school or, you know, did continuing education. And then now once you're in the workplace, you're expected to just be like, you know, you got it. So, yeah. So that's a really, really good question. Long answer, but that's a really good question. Well, I feel like this was such a nice way to wrap up the conversation about how can we survive in this world that is changing it's all about mindfulness and looking in words but also collaborating and connecting i have one last question left for cal which we ask as you know everyone who comes in our wonderful podcast which is a bit of a philosophical question if you could change one thing in the world what would it be ah i love this question um yeah my answer i hope this doesn't feel like a stereotype too but it would be more empathy and more compassion i think that we're in a moment where a lot of people are fighting over ideas and i would not say that the um i think we all know this that the algorithms are particularly helping us with that especially on social media and um you know we've we've stopped really listening to each other as humans so that's the one thing i would change is really increasing people's ability to listen to each other and have more empathy and compassion and recognize that if someone else has a different point of view than you, it doesn't mean necessarily that they're wrong or you're wrong or you're right and they're wrong or vice versa.

1:23:37It just means it's different. And it doesn't mean they're a bad person. It means they have the information that they have, or they're reading that particular side of, you know, Instagram or any platform, you know, name the platform, but they're reading that particular algorithm's path. And really just to, yeah. So that's the thing I would change is just a little more of that listening in the world. Oh, 100 % agree with you. I do feel like we need more humanity, more way for each of us to connect with people that have different opinions, different views, still human, we're all human and we should find more ways that we can connect, more similarities than differences, more ways that we can talk to each other and inspire each other than argue with each other.

1:24:30So yes to more empathy, more kindness and more collaboration between humans. Thank you so much, Carl. It has been such a pleasure, as always, talking to you, learning from your perspective and wisdoms. And obviously, thank you for bringing Rachel who is our special guest. It has been such a joy hearing different angles of your process, your thinking, your philosophies. And thank you so much for collaborating with Future London Academy on our product design strategy course. I already seen how many incredible lives they changed then helped an empowered designers to be more strategic, to understand more about how they can contribute to the business in a wider way and now with the extra addition of ai and everything else designers can definitely have more influence organizations through the power of creativity and between everything else but understanding the wider context and connecting the business and the user as this magical glue so thank you for everything any last words anywhere people should Good.

1:25:42Follow you, find you, recommend you anything, any ask that you have. I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me there. Thanks, Cal. And as always, if you find anything insightful, useful, helpful, please share it because we love hearing your insights. What changed your mind today? Did you find anything surprising, interesting, fascinating, inspiring? Any quote you would like to share? Please do. It brings me extra joy reading after this podcast, all the LinkedIn comments, all the posts on Instagram that I see from our wonderful community. So please don't be shy, share your knowledge with the world.

1:26:18Thanks everyone for joining and until next time. Bye. Bye everyone. Thank you.