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Speaking to hungry creative minds and sharing stories with fellow colleagues is a priviledge. With every speaking engagement, I've grown and also hope to have inspired.
#DesignThinking2021 kicked off in Austin and WOW...how absolutely invigorating it was to experience the conference in person.
A big shout out to Amanda Caparelli, Michael DeJager and the team at IQPC for putting on such a meaningful event. For putting safety first but also focusing on the right topics and valuable ideas of design thinking.
I'm honored to have had the privilege of opening the conference with the amazing Randy Gregory II. And also excited for the knowledge I've gained from this elite group of speakers. I'm humbled to have shared a stage with you.
What a pleasure it was to be the Chairperson at the Global R&D Product Development and Design Thinking Virtual Summit presented by Conferenzia World. What an amazing set of speakers from different parts of the world: Raghavendra Kulkarni (Bosch), Oscar Mele (Airbus), Sandra NOE (Johnson & Johnson), Eduard TURCANU (Renault Group), Claudio Mirti (Microsoft), Giorgio Gulienetti (Leonardo S.p.A.), Jaime Marijuan Castro (Oracle), Roger Rohatgi (BP) and Sally Lawler Kennedy (SAP).
What an honor to be asked to speak at the 2020 Design Thinking virtual conference and join a group of influential design thinkers around the world. Over 500 attendees listened into my think tank so not too shabby. But I am still beside myself seeing John Maeda, one of our keynote speakers, and my name appearing in the same tweets and LinkedIn posts. (Fangirling a bit.)
The Hygge (pronounced "hoo-ga") Series is a set of intimate talks created by the Stellar Agency, a team of digital professionals who want to create meaningful connections in the community. And Martin Pedersen, CEO of Stellar, picked the perfect name for these talks. Martin explains, "Hygge is a reflection of the art of creating intimacy and forming bonds and feelings of wellbeing and togetherness; it’s a state of mindfulness. It means creating a warm atmosphere, enjoying the good things in life with good people and living in the moment."
In this set, we discussed and shared how audience short attention span in this modern times have impacted our industries. With a selection of seasoned creative minds that included Linda Sum (Hulu), William Widmaier (Symantec), Clinton Schaff (LA Times) and Meghan Scanlon (Ticketmaster).
Otis College of Art and Design is a private art and design school in Los Angeles, California. Our talk was held in the Forum Room of the academic building. It's a beautifully designed campus full of creativity and...art.
Earlier this year I was invited to speak on a panel about Women in Design Thinking hosted by Capgemini, a global leader in business consulting. Moderated by Krystianne Avedian, an executive at Capgemini, the panel ranged from Kimberly Hicks, vice president of digital media at Disney, to Jennifer Walk, director at Southern California Gas Company. Although we come from different industries and backgrounds, we are all design thinkers. We are open-minded and not afraid to experiment to achieve innovation. It has reinforced my conviction that design thinking can apply to everyone and even to real-world problems.
It's defintely time. Even though ever so gradual, I do see changes in terms of women who lead. This is promising and I want to do my part to help encourage more women to aspire to lead.
Sharing what I've learned in my career to inspire passion.
I had an amazing time speaking to a class at Talent Path, a Division of Genuent. This group of REACT developers were either straight out of college or changing career paths. After my speech was over, I stayed behind to chat with a few students and one of the students waited over an hour for me to finish chatting just to let me know how much I inspired him. It was this one student and all the heartwarming shout outs on Linkedin that reinforced my desire to accept more speaking engagements.
