Harry Max
April 9 4:00PM
Strategy Matters
From every level in the organization, what’s above you can look strategic and what’s below you tends to look like tactics. Stepping up to a new level demands sensitivity to and understanding of the important differences between them. Drawing on his experiences as an information architect, customer experience designer, executive and leadership coach Harry Max will decode how to play to stay in the game.
In his discussion, Harry will answer key questions such as:
* What is strategy, really… ? * When does strategy matter? * What does strategy look like when it’s happening? * How do you Do strategy? (hint: It’s just like design) * What tools to IA’s and UX folks have at their disposal?
BIOGRAPHY:
Harry works with executives, UX management, software / Internet technologists, start-up founders, and visionaries. Current clients include Google, SAP, Adobe, Symantec, Powells Books, and others.
Prior to all of this, he was on the forefront of Internet-based application design and development. In 1994, as a co-founder of Virtual Vineyards (wine.com), Harry designed all of the user interaction concepts behind the first secure Web shopping cart.
Subsequent to that, he was the founder and CEO of Public Mind, Inc., an Internet-based software company featured at Esther Dyson’s PC Forum 2004.
He considers himself fortunate to have worked with some of the finest companies in Silicon Valley, including: Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, SAP, O’Reilly and Associates, and DreamWorks Animation SKG.
Harry is also the co-author of “Skype: The Definitive Guide” published by Addison Wesley Professional, and the author of DreamWorks Animation’s Art-directed Technology: Anatomy of a Shrek 2 Sequence, an introduction to the software development process behind the making of a feature-length, animated CG feature film in a fast-paced, creative environment. He also serves on the Board of Directors of UXnet, the User Experience Network.
April 7 8:30AM
This half-day session is aimed at practitioners familiar with the nuts and bolts of user experience who are now looking to expand their influence in the organizations they work with.
Just as design demands empathy with users, it also needs insight into the needs, constraints and context of decision makers, from the CEO on down. Thinking like a CEO takes business fluency—both conceptual fluency in the language of business, and cultural fluency in understanding how a given organization or team operates. This session lays the foundations of key business concepts and practical tools so that participants can effectively understand and relate their work to business priorities and business value.
Those foundations include:
• Running a business reality check on survival, sustainability, or growth.
• The five CEO fundamentals of making money, saving money, reaching goals, managing risk, and hiring and retaining talent.
• The basic building blocks of business—leadership, management, and execution—and how they relate to design and user experience.
• Working with these foundations to add value, which transitions us to a deeper discussion of the business value of design and the larger role of design in management.
Attendees will walk away with useful insights that help them be more effective working with business stakeholders:
• Basic business fluency to better understand decision makers’ concerns and priorities.
• The myths (and realities) of Return on Investment.
• Practical business tools for understanding and communicating the value of design in a variety of business contexts.
Looking at today's market, UX practioners don’t just need more methods to create solutions or work with users. We need better methods to work with business. Those methods help us have a greater impact in our organizations. That impact starts with understanding the fundamentals of business and how we can speak to the value of design and user experience using the language of business. Attendees at this sesssion will be better prepared to tackle that challenge and make a bigger difference in their organizations and in the world.