The event host was looking for someone to give a speech on stage. I kept my head down, trying not to make eye contact with her, but… “Since it’s your first time here, would you like to give it a try?” I looked up and met her gaze. She then…

What radical candor means and how to give radically candid feedback — In a past project, I had a hard time collaborating with a colleague, and it was hindering my progress. At the time, I thought they intended to behave that way. I figured out that, only afterward, this resulted from their lack of experience in working with designers. During that unpleasant…

How to deal with past mistakes when they make a comeback to your mind and make you feel bummed. — I was presenting a design to senior leadership. Very confident and pumped up — there was no reason it could fail. Not long ago, I did the same presentation to another leadership and it was very well received. To my great surprise, that presentation went south, badly. I felt so…

“Never miss an opportunity to be fabulous.” comes Tina Seelig’s book What I wish I Knew When I Was 20 — one of my favorite books. She teaches at the Stanford University, and promises to deliver her very best in each class and expects the same from the students. She said this in the book “being fabulous comes in many flavors, but it all starts with removing the cap and being willing to reach for your true potential. This means going beyond minimum expectations and acknowledging that you are ultimately responsible for your actions and the resulting outcomes. Doing just 1% better each day leads to enormous positive results. Life isn’t a dress rehearsal, and you won’t always get a second chance to do your best.”

Parul shared her journey in getting through breast cancer treatment and these five lessons — how to be resilient and take control of our lives, during the uncertain times. Some of my favorite take-aways: Acknowledge the situation, give yourself permission to be vulnerable Balance your optimism with reality, so that you won’t be too disappointed. Support friends who are getting through hardship Find creative ways to stay connected. It’s especially important to do so while we are practicing social distancing from each other.

After the game Bubble Bobble became a hit in the game industry, MTJ, creator of the game, decided to approach the next version differently. Typically, when companies develop the next version of a game, they keep some aspects from the previous version — characters, stories, elements, the name of the…

Here’s a very interesting framework on the four methods of decision making I learned from my manager Carlo based on the book Crucial Conversations – see sketchnotes for explanations for each of the following: Command Consult Vote Consensus Crucial Conversations has a very nice write-up for each method, I include…

In the event Design User Experience Driven by AI, Paul Lambert (Product Manager) and Annika Crowley (Interaction Designer) from Google gave us great talks on how Gmail designed the Smart Compose feature, and five strategies to create great user experience with AI (see sketchnotes).