Ronnie Battista
In this episode of Brave UX, Ronnie Battista shares why it’s important to be true to yourself 🤘, how designers can maintain their relevance 🤖, and what separates pretenders from innovators 💡.
Highlights include:
- How did you come to play in a British punk band?
- Should more designers be taking on product management roles?
- Is UX strategy as relevant today as it was five years ago?
- What distinguishes those who innovate from those who don’t?
- What is Shoshin and why should we embrace it, right now?
Who is Ronnie Battista?
Ronnie is a Senior Director of Global Experience Design at Slalom, a global business and technology consulting company that helps organisations to dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all 🚀.
At Slalom, Ronnie leads a team that supports the strategic experience design efforts of the company’s 40+ offices across North America, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Germany 🌏.
Ronnie is also the Program Director and Adjunct Professor of the Master of Business and Science programme at Rutgers University, an institution that he has had a longstanding and deep commitment to 🎓.
Between 2010 and 2013, Ronnie served as Treasurer on the Board of Directors of the User Experience Professionals Association 💰, or UXPA as it’s more commonly known.
An experienced strategic designer and design leader, Ronnie’s has shared his perspectives across the globe, most notably at UX STRAT, on the Thinking & Doing podcast 🎙️, as a former columnist for UXmatters, and - of course - at Rutgers University.
Transcript
- Ronnie Battista:
- What product strategy is, and give me one definition, one that makes it different from experience strategy. There's none. Products don't have experiences, people will.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Hello and welcome to another episode of Brave UX. I'm Brendan Jarvis, managing founder of The Space InBetween, the behavior-based UX research partner for enterprise leaders who need an independent perspective to align hearts and minds and also the home of New Zealand's first and only world-class human-centered research and innovation lab. You can find out more about what we do at thespaceinbetween.co.nz.
- Here on Brave UX though, it's my job to help you to keep on top of the latest thinking and important issues affecting the fields of UX research, product management, and design. I do that by unpacking the stories, learnings, and expert advice of a diverse range of world-class leaders in those fields.
- My guest today is Ronnie Battista. Ronnie is a senior director of Global Experience Design at Slalom, a global business and technology consulting company that helps organizations to dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrow's for all.
- At Slalom, Ronnie leads a team that supports the strategic experience design efforts of the company's 40 plus offices across North America, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand (where I am), Japan and Germany.
- Ronnie is also the program director and adjunct professor of the Master of Business and Science program at Rutgers University, an institution that he has had a long standing and deep commitment to.
- Between 2010 and 2013, Ronnie served as treasurer on the board of directors for the User Experience Professionals Association or UXPA as it's more commonly known.
- An experienced strategic designer and design leader, Ronnie has shared his perspectives across the globe, most notably at UX STRAT, on the Thinking and Doing podcast, as a former columnist for UXmatters and of course at Rutgers University.
- And now he's here to share those perspectives with me. Ronnie, hello and a very warm welcome to the show,
- Ronnie Battista:
- Brendan. Hello. Really, really good to see you. Very, very happy to be here.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I'm very happy to have you here, Ronnie. And one of the things that I learned about you when I was preparing for today is that I hear that Coldplay is your favorite band.
- Ronnie Battista:
- Oh, okay. You need to do some fact checking. Yeah, no, I believe that came from a presentation where I did give our friend Chris a little bit of a ribbing. Yeah. Not my favorite band.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- No, definitely not. Definitely not. But you and music, you have a longstanding and very well I found it very interesting history that I could relate to. Let's rewind time a little because I understand that you had a exchange program while you were at university. You went to the University of York in the UK and you studied a master of public administration and public policy. And while you were at this university, university of York, you also were a member of a local punk band. What was the punk band called that?
- Ronnie Battista:
- The name of the punk band is Lucy Fur. When I was at the University of York, I had the good fortune of meeting three like-minded individuals that just liked to have a lot of fun. So we were back in the Nirvana days, so we decided to play punk related music, which just turned out to be actually now a lifelong thing. I'm still very close friends with all of them. I'll be playing another gig in the UK in 2024 when my guitarist, who is now in upper moot tree on the south island flies over back to the UK next year. But that was great. And interestingly, while you mentioned the degree in public administration and public policy because there really wasn't a degree in this field when I was there, that's actually where I learned and really fell in love with the idea of experience because my master's dissertation was on bottom up and top down theories of implementation.
- And I was studying the impact of the AIDS crisis in North Yorkshire, reading the N H Ss literature about what was happening. But I was actually going and interviewing activist organizations, AIDS patients hospital, and it was that in-situ ethnographic research where I was like, okay, here's where the real story is. I was reading a lot of stuff and certainly when you're doing a dissertation you've got to go through a lot of voluminous materials. This is pre-internet, but the real story came from just connecting the dots on who was doing what and how all of that came down. So that's really where I found my passion for research and the idea that we can really find solutions when we're actually talking to the people affected by them.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I was wondering about if there was any relationship between your passion for punk and punk is a very anti-establishment movement. It's obviously broader than just the music. There's a whole counterculture that encapsulates and whether or not there was any relationship between that and what you had decided to pursue through your masters, how, if at all, are these two different aspects of you related?
- Ronnie Battista:
- That's interesting. I think when you bring up punk being anti-establishment, I think that what attracted me, public administration, that's a longer story about why I did that because I was meant to be a lawyer and found out that it was more paperwork than LA law where I could stand in front of things. And I decided I wasn't a paperwork person. Fair enough. And I was working at a music venue called the Guard State Art Center, and I was working there midnights, power washing the theater. And I read that it said you either need three years of experience or a degree in public administration. And I saw that there was a degree, so I figured I could get to the headline. That was literally why I chose it. But as it relates to punk, I do see, and certainly music in general, it's the most pure form of expression, but I believe I always have led a life that I live in the fun, I'm not sure if I didn't coin the phrase, but comfortable. I like challenging, I like pushing into things. I don't like standard, I do not like templates. And when it comes to this field and when it comes to the idea of how do we move further, how do we optimize, how do we make experience, you cannot do that by just following a script. So I'm always looking for that edge case to sort of push out from
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Speaking of edge cases here. I want to just dig a little bit deeper into your time in York. I understand why you were there. You also played a bit of rugby league. So for people that don't understand what rugby league is, let's just say it's kind of like American football without the pads, just as that's
- Ronnie Battista:
- Exactly what it is.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, right. It's just as violent, just as terrifying. And I was wondering if you cast your mind back, what was more terrifying, some of the venues you played punk gigs at or some of the opposition that you were running up against On the rugby league field,
- Ronnie Battista:
- I've had some really, really interesting nights playing in some bands and some places in London, but I will say the rugby pitch, my back is shot. I have a rib that's sticking out called Huddersfield. The thing is, I never played any contact sports. I didn't know how to tackle, I didn't know what I was doing, but my parents couldn't tell me not to do it when I was over there. So I played football without pads, with no skills whatsoever. So you'll see my name on all my Twitter handles and everything is RJ battleship. And that was a name given to me by the rugby team as a symbol of love because I couldn't tackle, I would just run at people like a battleship. My way to tackle was to just run straight into them and crash, which is why I wound up in hospital like every third match because I had no idea what I was doing.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Oh no. How long did that career, that rugby league career last? Was it just for that year or did you continue
- Ronnie Battista:
- It? When I played junior year and then I came back and played senior year and then thankfully did not continue. That was enough.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- The battleship was retired.
- Ronnie Battista:
- The battleship. Yeah, absolutely.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Hey, I'm thinking about something different now. I couldn't help but notice on your LinkedIn profile, your banner, it really caught my attention and I just want to read the words that it features here now for people. It's a poem which goes, my house is me and I am at my house is where I like to be. And it looks like all my dreams. What is the significance of those words to you? Ronnie,
- Ronnie Battista:
- Thank you for asking. That is actually a very big part of what I've discovered in the last few years that actually comes from a children's book called The Big Orange Spot that I got when I was in kindergarten, 1970 something. And I rediscovered it when I was later in life and in reading it really, and it's a very small, quick 19 page, very colored book, but was making a lot of connections to who I am today. And that phrase, you need to see the story, but basically this gentleman, all the houses on the street of the same and he paints his house totally funky and people are like, well, change your house. You can't do that. And he said, my house is me and I am it. My house is where I'd like to be and it looks like all my dreams. And to me it's the most direct expression of authenticity.
- And if there is a theme of what I am trying to bring to my team, to my company, and frankly to my clients in the world is the best way through this poly crisis is by being yourself. You can't go wrong by being yourself. And I'm very fortunate that my company allows me to, so I actually, the story about this book, which involves a 10 by 20 space barn that's a little crazy. All of this I'm allowed to share with new joiners to slalom to come in and say, look, I'm weird. I do some weird stuff, whatever, but that's okay because I'm me and you are only going to get who I am. So that is just me. I guess in my LinkedIn I don't really play on any of the other social medias anymore, but that's just me saying, yes, I'm a professional here, I've got the headshot with it, but I'm also, I'm weird and I'm okay with that.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- There's a couple of things that I feel like a couple of dots here that are joining for me. You mentioned earlier on that you were meant to be a lawyer, but you didn't like templates. You also mentioned that, and it was probably tongue in cheeks, I dunno how much to infer from this, but you mentioned that your parents couldn't stop you playing rugby league when you move to the uk and you also, you've got this very strong musical bend and influence in your life and punk is a very expressive and very high energy form of that. And you mentioned that you are weird. This is a very refreshing thing to hear in a very refreshing way of being in the world. So when you are talking to people that have joined recently, slalom, right, people that have come into your team or people that you are expressing this of who you are, this authenticity to them, how does that normally go down? People used to this level of authenticity or is this something that it takes them a little while to rise to and come out of their own shells?
- Ronnie Battista:
- It's a great question. It really depends. I'll tell you, I've given this presentation to over a thousand new joiners in the past. I mean, we've had a banner couple of years and most presentations or most things, it doesn't resonate with everyone, but there's always after when I say this is my story, this is how I got from here to here. And when I ask people, I'm like, because like, well, how do I do this? I said, first of all, as how I did it is find a book from your childhood maybe that you've like, what's your favorite? What's your book?
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It's Dr. Zeus and it's all the
- Ronnie Battista:
- Places you'll
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Go. All the places you'll go. That's it. Yep.
- Ronnie Battista:
- That's a very highly selective one. Okay, so I asked people to do that. Now here's the thing, when's the last time you read the book?
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I would say 18 months ago to my then three and a half year old.
- Ronnie Battista:
- So that's the first thing I was going to say is that's a story, one of, I'm sure hundreds that you've been, but that's something that when I asked you right now, you're like, I remember that. I recall that there's still something, there's threads of that story that have somehow manifested itself in your life and it might not be in big overt ways, but if you really take the time to kind of read in that book and sort of see and you're like, wow, okay, that describes why I'm always this way. So the same case of me. So that's what I first say is find a book or find something that connect with the pure part of when it didn't matter what you dressed, what you made, like that pureness, that story that you absorbed and meant something to you. And then once you have that, then I say, well, first of all, find something that you can do that brings you joy, takes you to that mihi cheek set, mihi that flow state, but forgive yourself and go in and don't worry.
- Give yourself the forgiveness of just try it. If you ever wanted to do this, what's something you would do if no one was watching? I'm like, try it and keep trying that and keep playing with it. And to answer the question more directly is, so one person after the first call, she said she would take a photograph or see a photograph and she would write a poem based on the photograph. And she shared with me and she said, I used to love doing that and I haven't done it. I'm like, okay. So start doing that again. Start reconnecting with those things that really made you feel, put you in that flow state, made you feel whole, made you feel like yourself. And as you do that, and this is a podcast and a half, if I could explain the fundamental transformation that's happened to me in the past four or five years, just in diving deeper into what this means now I'm ascribing a lot more to a 19 page book.
- But I actually wrote the author who actually wrote me back and explained the concept behind the book, and he basically says, he's like, what I found is I just created a story. You are putting the meaning to the story. So if it meant something to you, it's your who's you who's creating that story. And I found that such a beautiful and enlightening thing for me. So helping people, I feel like especially in our field, the creatives are a little bit, always a little bit weird, always a bit out there. And we feel this tension with business because we don't look, we don't sound, we don't react, we don't have the same canons and rituals. But what I'm trying to convey and because I have the grace of having a senior position is that I can get in a room with any client, I can have a deep conversation.
- You want to go deep into what we're doing here, I can do that, but I can also show you that beyond that I'm the same weird kind of person that everybody's weird in a different way, but being okay and celebrating that and authenticity begets authenticity. If you put out your invitation of This is who I am, and people feel like, well, he's fine, then they give a little of themselves and then the process of design and creation and ideation comes from the purest place. You don't lose that. And so yes, it's a nice, and it sounds a bit woo, but to me it's actually a very effective business strategy is getting people to approach things from a lens of bringing their full selves to that. Again, it's coming out of my mouth, I always love, but I've seen it manifest and it really does work.
- So that's part of the latter half of my career here is helping those people. I started in a very, very strong big four consultant company where I changed my name from Ronnie to Ron because they said, well, Ronnie's not professional. So for the first four years of that company, the people that know me there called me Ron, and at some point I'm like, that doesn't fit me. So I became Ronnie. So I want people to start their careers saying, start this way and you're going to be okay. And the more that you bring yourself and the more that you encourage that another, again, the better your working environment and frankly the better the work and the product you'll be creating.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You said, I believe that it was around about four or five years ago that you really started to embrace this level of authenticity. I get the sense also given what you said there about your first job, how you actually changed your name to Ron. I get the sense that seems like you were hiding for a large part of your career.
- Ronnie Battista:
- Absolutely. When I left that job to go to the next job, I asked my next boss, I said, can I dye my hair blonde? And she said, sure. So I dyed my hair blonde. I said, I went to oh my pictures in New Zealand and I had blonde hair, but when I came back at this new company, I talked to my boss about three, four months in and I said, so how am I doing it? And at that point, at this other company, I was dressing in suits and I was very business, all that. And here I started wearing funky shirts. I actually had the hook of Maui on. I was very like, Hey, this is who I am, this is great. And my boss, who's a great guy, he said, listen. He goes, look, I don't care about all your funky ambulance, whatever. He goes, but just understand here people aren't going to take you as seriously.
- He's like, I'm not saying anything wrong, but you are going to walk in a room and people aren't going to understand that. So this company, they weren't suiting ties but no ties. They were just very business casual. So I went home that weekend and I said to my wife, I'm like, I'm going the opposite direction. So dyed my hair back dark, came to the work the next day, dressed to the nines with a tie every day, six months in. I didn't wear a tie one day and somebody said, well, you're not wearing a tie. I completely changed, even though it wasn't my thing, I was actually, I didn't want to be that. So if I couldn't be this, I was going to be more of that. There's this natural urge and there's a book called Quit by Annie Duke that sort of describes there's these two types of ants.
- You know what? Ants march in a line. There's ants that march in a line, and the whole concept of how they find food is one gets piece food and walks back and literally just pattern analysis. They start to follow each other. But you'll see there's always an ant, one or two ants that are going, they're the explorers. And their point is they know in the mind of the entire colony that food might run out. So there's always got to be somebody that's going sort of someplace else. So when I read that, I'm like, I'm that ant. I like getting something moving, but I'm always going to be looking for something different just to push it a little bit. And I can't say it's always served me well, but I can sleep every night saying that was me. And I did it with kindness and caring.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Speaking of kindness and caring, I want to talk to you about something that you did when you were, I believe in your undergrad at Rutgers, and it's something that you founded and it's called Ghost. What was Ghost and why did you start it?
- Ronnie Battista:
- So Ghost stood for Get Home Safe. I had a very good friend of mine that was studying at a university, not mine, but she was a state over and anyway, she was assaulted. It was a date-based assault, but knowing her and loving her and I felt like I didn't like that. So what I did was I created this program where there was males and females, so we wanted to make sure it was very, so we always had, so when people would study at this place called the Roos, which was a library, it was late at night, and the Rutgers University campus, which I was literally there today as well, is it's a lot nicer, but there's certainly some less optimal areas. There was some assaults on campus recently. So I said, let's start a program. And basically as people would study, if they wanted us to walk them home, they'd come, they'd put their name on and then a male and a female escort would walk them to their dorm and then walk back. And we did that for, I did that when I was there. Then I went to England. It stayed alive for about three years, but we got it codified into, we had the police department, we were all trained and everything, so it was a small effort, but it was really, and I can't say it was, it was certainly used, but I didn't survive much after I left. But during the time, it was great. It was fun.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And Rutgers is a place that has, from the outside looking in quite a special place in your heart. It's not only your alma mater, it's somewhere where you, I believe met your wife. It's an institution that both your son, daughter have gone to or may still currently be at. And you're also, as I mentioned in your introduction, someone who has taught in several capacities there, as well as being the co-creator and the director of the, what was called the mini masters in UX D and is now part of that Masters of Business and Science that I mentioned. What is it about this place? It seems to have a special gravity to it as it relates to you.
- Ronnie Battista:
- It's funny you say that because yeah, my daughter just graduated. She's going to be a second lieutenant in the Army. She just graduated R T C. My son is doing his final year in film school. My parents could afford state schools, and this is way back before you applied to, I dunno what the case is over in nz, but it is like nine, 12 colleges. But I really Rutgers, it was at the time and still just a much more diverse population. It was everybody from Jersey. And as much as I will say, and I always say, oh, I'm a jersey. I went to the UK for a while and I felt like I came back with the UK arrogance because once you live there and you come back, you're like, oh, people are so loud and I lost. But there is a pureness and there is a joy in New Jersey. And again, the population of I very much want it to be, and I'm so glad that two of my children, my youngest is going to the UK in two weeks, but that my children chose to follow the same path because it's a big campus. There's lots of things. And again, you just see all walks of life and I don't know that you can have the richness of a college experience, at least one that I would value where it's homogenous.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Did you mention that your son was doing film? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So your daughter's about to join the army or has joined the army, your son's doing film. We've talked about your deep belief in being able to express yourself authentically and also enabling others to do the same. How have you tried to foster that same belief in your children
- Ronnie Battista:
- By letting them pursue the paths that they were meant to pursue? I can tell you it again, in the case of my son scored almost a perfect score on the SATs, brilliant Mind could have. And I'm like, I wanted him to be a behavioral scientist and I wish I could go back in time and become a behavioral scientist. But since he was the age of 11, he had a YouTube channel where he would review movies. He loves film critique and the art of film and the filmmaking and storytelling. And as much as a parent, I'm like, this kid could if he could do, but that's where his passion was. And watching, when you allow someone with that mental capacity and with that passion and joy pursue what they want to do, they're going to find success in the way they want to find success. So one of the choices we made as a parent very early on is let's not go too crazy, right? I'm not sure about trapeze artists, but if they found something that they really had a niche in, let's foster that. Let's give them that opportunity to do that. And watching them again, I just every day knock on wood that I am watching them all flourish in their own way. We provide those directions and tap them and they're really finding their path.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I'm just reminded of a conversation I had a few months ago with Jeff got health about him joining the circus after he finished, I think it was university. He was also in a band and trying to make it as a musician. Oh yeah.
- Ronnie Battista:
- Jeff's used to teach the prototyping for early on. We've had a bunch of guest speakers, but Jeff was one of the first people to teach. His lean UX book was just about to come out, but he was teaching the prototyping lecture at the Ruckus course. Yeah.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Oh, very small world. Very small world. He was echoing similar sentiments that you were describing there about your approach to your children and what you're inspiring or I suppose not getting in the way of letting them do the things that they're passionate of. And he was quite surprised, I think I'm remembering this correctly, surprised that his parents were so okay with him joining the traveling circus for, I think it ended up being six months already. He actually did it.
- Ronnie Battista:
- I was going to say what a great analogy. It's true. He actually did it.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wasn't a trapeze artist though. He was working. I think he was working in sound or lighting, remember? He
- Ronnie Battista:
- Was, but he turned out okay, didn't he? Sure did. That's great. That's excellent.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Hey, let's turn our attention to strategy, UX strategy in particular. Now, I watched that interview that you did back in 2017 with Tim Liu, and I realize that this is going back some time, but it's intentional. Is UX strategy more or less relevant today than it was then?
- Ronnie Battista:
- I could argue that it's no different in the broadest business sense of you always want to make sure that you are really considering the customers, the employees, et cetera. I do think that the way that if you look at even the last 10 to 15 years of the user experience community being part author of the current situation where we've created at optimized human experiences, I think that we have a crisis of connection that can be solved with UX strategy. And I'm not saying that an insurance company or it's going to be solved in every, but I do believe that we need to, as a species refocus on what it means to be connected because we are in a poly crisis beyond measure, and we are finding ourselves more focused on creating and curating our own experiences with companies that are helpful in providing us that than.
- So I'd love to see solutions as gen AI comes on board and we have to think about retraining a workforce, that we have a focus that we step back from the specific, again products and think more about what are companies trying to, how can companies create experiences that empower connection, that very base level of connectivity, which again, I'll just go back to music, which is why it's so important. Music is that one opportunity where no matter what political party you vote for, whatever you are in that concert stadium together singing the same song from a completely different frame of reference, but that experience, that ability. That's why people like going to those things because they can hear their band. You don't have to go, but they do that to be around and to get that feeling and not let every day going to a shopping center that needs to feel like a concert experience.
- But I do think that UX strategy should always be considering two things. One is how do we get people connected and how do we make sure that we don't leave behind 1.3 billion people are not able to access this digital world the same way we are in the physical world for that matter. So strategy for me is not to be too silly, but it's human strategy. It's a business. There's a business problem to be solved, but that human piece I think is something that will be ever increasing. So maybe when I say UX strategy for humanity, UX, it needs to grow. I think UX strategy and business, I think it's just actually recently only found its footing as an almost equal player at the business table.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And let's talk about that business table. You said something else in that interview that I thought was interesting and it kind of directly follows on from what you're saying here. Well, at least in my mind, does you tell me if it does or doesn't. You said, my view of experience design and strategy is first and foremost, we need to be at the table at the big table in the beginning to make sure that what those business goals and values and KPIs are aligned to customers, employees, and the audiences that we are serving. And when I was listening to that, and this is my own coloring of this topic right here, so I'm projecting, it almost sounds like you're talking about what product management has become today.
- Ronnie Battista:
- Well, it's funny you mentioned that because I've been in this field for a very long time, and I can tell you not only outside of my company, but in my company, I am completely challenging anyone to describe to me what product strategy is and give me one definition, one that makes it different from experience strategy. There's none. Products don't have experiences. People do. What's interesting though, but here's the interesting piece, Brandon, which I think that word product, if that's going to get me to the table, do you want to call me a product strategist and that'll get me at the table because oh, by any means necessary, we are a jargon filled organization. And right now digital was the big thing a couple of years ago, big data, these words come in product for the last 10 to 50 is now something, like I said, call it what you want, but I am still yet trying to understand what a product strategist or product management does that is in any material way different than experience, strategy and management.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Perhaps one of the things, not necessarily that they do any different from the application of strategy, but that they have perhaps done a better job of owning or at least projecting that they have proficiency and competency here over and above designers is a grasp on the fundamental financials, the language of business, the numbers, the way in which those numbers flow through the organizations. I know you've said before that you, and I'll paraphrase here, that you believe that it's on designers to become more fluent in the financials of business. Is that something that you still believe is important for designers to have the kind of influence or the impact that they could have?
- Ronnie Battista:
- 100%. And Brandon, I'm going to tell you something. This interview, this is the first time I think you actually qualified a difference, and that is, it's the connotation that this product role assumes that there is a level of financial and business discipline there. Whereas when you call something, oh, it's their ffi, that I think again, and words matter words have a lot of power. And I think that is one of the things, and I guess I've kind of felt that, but I've never really heard it said so distinctly and tersely is like maybe it's because they sound basically they know business more than experienced designers do, which is, I won't say that one project, it really depends on the person, but generally speaking the genre, you could see one saying, well, they know business and they know experience. That's interesting. Wow, that's mind sparks. I like that.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I had a conversation last year I think with Christian Rum who wrote C. Yeah, Christian, he's Craig.
- Ronnie Battista:
- He's wonderful.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- He's
- Ronnie Battista:
- Wonder, he's amazing
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Of the mind that we shouldn't be precious. And when I say we, I'm sort of referring to designers more broadly here, experience or otherwise, that we shouldn't be precious or at least concerned with what labels we assume. So by that I mean this is a long-winded way of saying that he considers himself a product manager or a director in his case that has a background and experience design, but he's happy to wear that mantle, take on that mantle of product management because it gives him more influence. A
- Ronnie Battista:
- Hundred percent. So just to certainly qualify this, I'm not in any way denigrating and saying they're any, but what I'm saying is, and a lot of my very, very, very good friends call themselves products. My point was that whatever the words that you use that you feel comfortable doing, if ultimately the work is the same, but either the title works for you in some way or is a door opener to business, again, if getting to the table means I need to call, I'll be the best product strategist you ever met. But it's that language and that perception piece.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Is that something that we have a shot at changing or is this really something where you have to realize that the deck stacked
- Ronnie Battista:
- When the U P A changed the U X P A? I was on the board, I will tell you, and everybody on the board, all of them really appreciated, respected love. But when I tell you, this was one of the biggest fights that I've probably had in my career to get us, I was on the side of we need to change that just from usability because that was only one piece to UX. What I've come to, there's only one conclusion is that it's product now, right? In three years somebody's going to come up with another term or whatever. My thing is, as long as true experience design work is infused, I really don't, you can call it whatever you need to. So I'm not precious or defensive where I do struggle. And again, as a consultant and working for a consultant company, the only time the rubber hits the road is when it's like, well, you're in competition with somebody who says, well, we do product and we do.
- And that's where I'm like, look, just tell me what you do differently. I mean, I'm happy to do apples to apples, but just tell me what you do differently. And I still have yet somebody to prove that. But we are a field and frankly we are constantly needing to redefine because when I came in, usability was like, oh, now usability is an old thing then UX, now UX is kind of an old thing now xd, what's it going to be next? We just know that as new generations come in, they want to put their mark on it just like they need to put their mark on things and new things do develop. And I have hung up my jargon east that I fought too many battles and now I'm like, oh, I see this is actually something that is just like a river moving. You're just in this part of the river. So these aren't wars that I, and when we have them sometimes internally about different things, I'm more like just can we name it and then let's do something else. Yeah, let's move on.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Making me recall a conversation with Lou Rosenfeld and his idea of moment prisons, this idea that as someone who has seen the field evolved, you have over the last say 20 or 30 ish years, he's seen us get stuck in certain definitions like usability like you were talking about, or UX and now xd. And he's challenged us to think about whether or not that's actually serving us. And our main objective, which is what I hear from you, the main objective is actually to inject more humanity in the experiences that we're creating, the things we're dedicating our careers to. So it very much sounds to me like it matters far less what we call ourselves and it matters far more what it is that we're actually achieving
- Ronnie Battista:
- A hundred percent. And Lou is one of the handful of, there's plenty of people in this field that are my heroes. Lou is absolutely one. Lou basically in an Indian restaurant in Midtown. When I was describing how I was feeling, he introduced me to the term imposter syndrome. He's like, oh, you got imposter syndrome. I'm like, what is that? I didn't know what the word. He was the one that was like, oh, that's what you have. I was like, oh, wow. There's a word for it. Yeah, Lou's awesome.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Well, we've been talking a little bit here about self-perception and the perception that others in the organizations may have of us, and I want to come back to something else you said in that interview a while ago because interested to see if your thinking on this has changed. And what you said was, I think the reason that experience design is particularly well-placed for the changing business environment is because our focus is on the customer. I like to look at us as that very neutral but advocate level for the customer that crosses different parts of the organization. So holding that in mind, how is it that you feel that the clients that you engage with or the other parts of your organization, slalom, how is it that you feel that they actually see us and does that align with the way in which we want to be seen?
- Ronnie Battista:
- That's a great question. And it's funny because that was recorded pre Covid. I believe Covid was the epoch of the experience era. We've been talking about foresters every year. It's like this is the, but it really was covid that coupled with the business stakeholder, the business roundtable, where they decided that shareholder value was not going to be. So we got this part where, okay, now it's not about Freedman's doctrine of shareholder value, so we're actually going to focus on customers businesses started to adjust along those lines. We had tremendous events of social injustice that really brought a lot more humanity to play. And we had this covid environment where we as designers, were now having to figure out how does these local places get an online way to order food? I mean, one of many countless examples of how do we change experientially in a world that literally had us, our habits we're changing.
- I still believe fundamentally that again, whatever this is called that the relevance around that will always, it's never gone away. No business exists without a customer, but I do believe that although I think current economic conditions might not be showing that, I always say if you have the choice between designing the light switch or keeping the lights on, people are just going to keep the lights on. So in this climate, I think that design has taken a little bit of a compression, but I think that recognition of those companies that have succeeded and that are still thriving because they focus on the experience. Now what we're seeing is those companies, they're not outliers anymore, they're market leaders. And I think that when people are saying, well, how do you do it like this? Well, they did it by Airbnb. You look at what Airbnb spent a tremendous amount of time on research and they're the most successful because they've created experience.
- Uber did the same. So you're seeing all of these companies that have been leading because they've led with that. So when people now are coming and saying, we want to be like that, well, we say, well, they didn't get there by guessing they got there because they actually really took time to understand what the market was, to understand where those gaps were and to introduce parts of the experience that were differentiating. And I think that's only going to Gen ai I think is going to be one of the biggest really, I'm so interested to see what that does in terms of how we can reconcile both continuing to create and enhance human experiences, knowing that in some way we have to create tools and technology that seed the creation of that experience to machines.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And I want to come to Gen AI with you soon. Ronnie. You've recently co-authored a really interesting and important article on gen AI and as it relates to us as creative professionals and particular designers. But before we do that, I'm really interested to tap into some of your expertise and perhaps some of your pattern recognition as someone who has worked in a consultant in a consulting company for a long time, someone who's a designer, but is doing it in a fashion where you're often an external to the companies that are hiring you. And you were talking there about a difference between keeping the lights on and redesigning the light switch and that the current financial climate leaning towards more just keeping those lights on. Yet it sounds like also there's still this desire out there if people want to, things innovative, but they're not necessarily always aware of what that might entail. So when you are thinking about the companies that you've consulted to and the ones that have gone on to create the best experiences and realize the business value from those experiences, what would you say is the difference or the distinction between those that have managed to turn that corner and do it successfully and those that are still very much in the mind of, we'd like to do some of that innovation stuff, but we are really just going to keep the lights on?
- Ronnie Battista:
- Yep. That's a great question and as you were starting to phrase it, I'm like, let me think about the difference is really in employee empowerment. I worked at a pharmaceutical company, they're in a cancer research and this entire team is motivated their goal, like everybody from the top on down, it's the John F. Kennedy NASA janitor story. It's like, I'm here curing cancer. So the IT people who are creating the patient interfaces, they're helping cure cancer and they're helping patients' lives and they're given to feel that they're given the sense of purpose and vision to do that versus in a typical tayloristic organization of here's what came out of the big room and your job is to sort of execute on that. Now, of course that still happens, but I find the companies that are truly successful are where I see, and again, this is across industry where the employees are given the ability to certainly authentically, but really come and say, these are the things that we need to do and are given that team of teams power to just execute on what that is.
- I think there's only so much whiteboarding and innovation and theater you can do, and a lot of that really never rests or hits ground. But when you actually can democratize that and put it in the hands of people that are closer to the customer or that are closer to the technology, supporting that customer and with an understanding and awareness of what experience is and let them do their thing, that's where the good stuff happens. The fiat, the org chart really doesn't make that happen. That's an interesting, and it's got nothing to do with the business, the type of business or industry. It is really just that sense of when people are in it together feeling like there's a purpose to their work and that they can see traceability line of sight to what they do to that greater purpose, and they are empowered to do that. It's magical.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Can you sense that in clients or potential clients early on, or is it something that only becomes obvious that they've either got this or they haven't got it when you're in the midst of doing the work?
- Ronnie Battista:
- That's a great question. I think I've gotten better at it. I think you can see sometimes the way documents are written, the way meetings are conducted, you start to see, it's funny you say all life, especially as you get, it's about this pattern analysis, and you can get come in pretty quickly and go like, okay, they don't even know what research is because they wrote an R F P and they're like, we need design design. I'm like, they haven't even talked about research. They expect us to just produce design. So you can start to sort of see pretty quickly just in some of their, like I said, their canon and rituals. But yeah, it's getting easier.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Let's turn our attention now and Woodley again on us as designers, and we're sometimes guilty of forgetting that design is not the center of the universe. And I suppose this is something that all fields are guilty of doing. We all think that we're pretty important and probably rightly so, but perspective is important to bring to bear here. You've previously spoken about your efforts at slalom to foster mutual understanding across functions. And what I'm not sure here is whether or not you were speaking about across functions in slalom or across functions in client engagements, or perhaps both. But here's what you said, and feel free to paint any more context that you feel is necessary. You said one of the ways I'm trying to affect some change is by helping to make connections at the team level within the organization. So there is some degree of understanding in the design team of their language, of their challenges, understanding most notably how they're incentivized and making sure that folks have those understandings across teams. That sounds like a really critical thing to do. It also sounds like a lot of work has building those connections. Has it been worth the investment?
- Ronnie Battista:
- Absolutely. I think what I was referring to there in some respects is, and I think you alluded to it earlier, is that we have a bit of an Ivy Tower problem sometimes, and I think in some ways well-earned is like, look, we're here to do good things for good people. But on the flip side to say that and then to look across and somebody that's running the IT department, do you assume that that person doesn't care about people? Do you assume that person doesn't care? So the issue is that person, whether you like it or not, and whether that person likes it or not, has been told that we have this system that your bonus and your livelihood is on and that needs to get out by this date. And yes, Ronnie, we probably should do this, but this is what I am being told I need to do.
- So we need to have the empathy to say, do we understand what's happening? And this is within a company, but also within the clients we work with. Understand that while we might be right being right, doesn't matter. What matters is can we connect and make an understanding there about how things have to happen? And I never approach a larger project and assume that we're going to get everything that they need, which even would be a modest 10% of their budget. It'd be great if we did that. And a lot of times clients are really signing off for that, but sometimes they don't. But if I can make enough of a relationship with someone in an IT department to say, look, I get you can't do this. Can we just do a little of this? Can we just do some of that and just open that aperture just a bit?
- And we do it on that first one and that person then recognize, oh my God, wow, we don't have to put that button in there or, wow, that whole feature. We would just like, that's the way to start those conversations. But it's two way, and I think a lot of times I'm very guilty over the earlier part of being like, you need to listen to us. We need to listen to them, and we need to meet them where they are and find the ways as best as possible to kindly and gently introduce what some of this stuff is in a way that shows them that we understand where they are. Because when we show them that, then they're going to be a little bit more aligned towards opening their hearts and minds to what we have to say versus, oh, here they come again and they're telling us that we have to do this or that. Yeah, it's not solved. It's something that it's work on every day and we all work on every day. But I think that's something that I think many designers would benefit from taking a bit more time to understand their coworkers and the business that's run so they understand how to speak to them in a way that works for them.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You mentioned a little earlier on that you used to get up on that soapbox and say that things needed to be done the way that we see them needing to be done. If there was, what was the watershed moment for you? When did the penny drop that way of being a designer or being a design leader wasn't necessarily the most effective way of being?
- Ronnie Battista:
- There's probably a half dozen big times, but I think it slowly was matured out of me. I think that obviously I present very expressive at times can be a bit overwhelming, especially to some of the audiences that need it, the analytics of the world. And what I've recognized is again, is like I promise you everything I told you, I am wildly convinced that I'm right and I do a presentation. It's going back where I dropped the mic. I'm like, see, and we didn't get it, and I'm realizing, okay, it didn't matter. So I've learned, and again, I think this just comes from time and maturity that curbing one's enthusiasm and finding ways to speak in more pragmatic and practical terms sometimes gets you, I'm all about whatever it is, what's the outcome? If I can, again, hundreds of proposals and pitches and client conversations, you start to realize, okay, that language, this word, the way you say that when you decide to interject it just as opposed to flaming out in a big thing is sort of just slowly faded over time.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- This is a bit of a random thought, but listening to you talk about that, that's like a reflexive form of learning. You can work in a field for many years and not really improve or learn anything new if you're not actually consciously reflecting on what's working and what's not. And I was wondering from the perspective of a musician and someone who plays to live audiences, just whether or not there's a parallel there between the music that you write and how you perform that music and the feedback that you're receiving from an audience.
- Ronnie Battista:
- Do you know what the word for goosebumps is? The technical term for goosebumps, which sounds a bit naughty, is a pilo erection.
- So pilo erection is when you get goosebumps. If you were to define what I want to do and what I've loved to do and is I like creating goosebumps. I like anything. If it's on stage, if it's a punch, if it's a base drop, if it's a light going on, again, the space Barn, this room that I have is all about, because to me, goosebumps is such a concentrated form of experience and when you're on stage when you have it yourself, but when you are actually able to express something and you're singing words to a song that people in the audience know and they're singing back and there's this communal piece, that experience, again, you're not going to get that on every product or service you do, but just that idea of can you create a transcendent moment, even if it's for that sort of half second?
- And that's something that I have been running after my whole life. I've recognized just recently that based, I look for songs and I time songs around any song that has a bass shop where it's like a, and then I'll actually time that to music and different lighting fixtures just because I want that one moment to go. And nobody, I don't think anybody caress about it as much as I do, but I get it when I get that like, oh my God. But the goosebump piece is something that is the purest form of what I try to bring every day to work, which like I said, not every project's going to bring goosebumps, but when you can get it to that level, that means you won. That means you got them. That means you created something that is enough of a value to get that physical skin reaction because it was that transcendent for them.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- That is an excellent ambition to have, for one's work, to be able to replicate those goosebumps through the experiences that we're creating. I want to talk to you about another form of, I suppose, skin arousal, if we may now, which is probably more of a shiver down people's spine, and that is that feeling that people got when Gen AI first arrived in force at the end of last year, and you've recently co-authored a post called From Luddite to Shoshin holding onto our creative spirits in the face of ai. And in that post, you told a story of how you'd asked chat g p T to write a story and you were blown away. Literally, you had these goosebumps and perhaps a bit of a shiver down the spine as well at the same time about what it came back with. And you said, and this is probably a feeling that I had actually, it's probably feeling many people had that it felt like a magic trick. But you also went on to say in that article that you felt that creative people would also need to oversee AI generated content. Given what we've seen since you wrote that, and with the advent of some of these newer versions of say, chat, G P T and its competitors, how sure are you about that need for creative people to oversee gen AI today?
- Ronnie Battista:
- It's a great question. I don't think it's changed all that much in the sense of, I believe that especially in the XD field, that there's going to be tremendous distance intermediation. Again, a mood board, which used to be a week of somebody going around like instantaneous, right? So there's huge swaths of what we do now, just regular image generation, et cetera, that are no longer going to exist. The human artistry, since I wrote that back in January originally, before it even got published, but starting to see some of the things that are being produced right now and the quality that they're being produced. Even that story that I wrote back then, I asked Gen AI to write a poem about, to the tune of American Pie, about the warnings of ethical ai, and it wrote this thing, and I'm reading it and I'm like, first of all, I'm like, some of it was not on form, none of it was halluc, but it wasn't.
- Some of it was created, but I'm reading. I'm like, wow, this is just incredible. Now, that said, the bigger piece that I don't think we can answer yet, but this even goes back to Sherry Turkel and the whole idea of alone together when she was talking about how kids will go to a zoo, and even if they're animatronic, they don't care whether it's a real panda or an animatronic panda. They just want to see a panda. I believe that the generation that's born today, again, I don't know whether we are antiquated in the thinking that it matters, and I don't think any of us can answer to any degree of specificity how important it's going to be, that when you see something in the future that you need to be informed that it was built by a human right, that this had a human authorship to it.
- I think we think that matters now, and of course, many people whose livelihood depend on artistry, whatnot, believe that there's a morally relevant and ethically relevant human relevant difference between this picture and this picture. But there's probably a large percent of this population that wouldn't know the difference and quite frankly won't care. Now, where I think the experience design field needs to be focused now is very much in the ethical space, and it's not a natural part for unquote design because ethics is union. I think more in the legal end and the process end. But where I think we as a field and as a vocation, we play in the space of, again, ethics is about being good to other human beings in positive ways. So in terms of how we are training these large language models, what we are letting in and how we are rendering those, I believe that people like us alongside cognitive scientists, but I believe that there's a role for folks that are just literally focused on the experience to make sure.
- I feel a bit, I don't know if you've seen the Catcher in the Rye, haled, Cofield. We are the ones that are holding that are saying, we are the ones that are being like, okay, yes, but let's make sure that this is done in the right way before we get to that singularity. And I feel like, and I don't know how that expresses, I don't know what careers that means. I don't know how you need to be adjacent to some of the stuff you're doing, but I believe that whatever you're doing, if you're doing design, if you're doing research, if you're doing a voice of the customer, that you need to get smarter and have a very, very good understanding of inclusion, of making sure that what you're designing again does account for all forms of people with all forms of disabilities. And that we are not, if you look at the United Nations chart of human rights that we are helping make sure that that is endemic to what is created. And I think that you're hearing people do that, but there's a lot of, we need to have a more solid understanding of how what we are doing now before it gets replaced can start to infuse into that work.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And that replacement of our work is happening and it's happening probably at a pace that is hard for us to fathom and will be more evident looking back than it is right here in the present moment. And you've previously mentioned that the large language models that power things like chat GT are really just in their infancy and they're already generating content that you've described in your own words as good enough to work with in any r o I minded marketer will readily admit, it's hard to justify paying for great when good enough is free, right? That's the seductive allure of what is actually unfolding underneath our feet right now. So while it's often difficult, if not impossible to predict the future, where do you feel this leaves creative people who have prided themselves on being great and perhaps actually are? Where does it leave them?
- Ronnie Battista:
- If I can wax super philosophical here? I think it really comes down to a reframing of where they execute their craft. Because the larger companies, there's all of these huge chat g PT systems. These are owned by large companies and of course they have ways and you could rent them, but I don't know that from the corporate world that internal design teams, I feel a lot of that is already been disintermediated, but will continue to be. But I believe that one career path forward is to say, how can I take what I do and not look so much at the big company, the big corporate companies, and how can I start to more execute this at a more of a local level I believe. And I'm hoping that we're going to see, which again is good for all like a switch more towards localization of talent.
- And I know remote work aside, but people are actually executing on their craft in more local environments, in smaller places where they can make and see and have more agency for impact. That is a huge wild guess. Again, the first piece that I'm still trying to figure out is what's the first one to go big? And I'll give you an example. Optimal sort the card sorting, which I think they're based out of, I think they came out of Wellington originally, but again, card sorts used to be three by five cards that we'd go and it would take weeks. And now you put stuff in and it's kind of done when the enterprise version of that comes out like the new Figma or the new Medallia that is so good that people that do whatever that thing is for a living, what's going to be interesting is what are going to be the first two or three of those that come that really rocked this industry.
- I think when that happens, as we've always seen, is then you're going to start to see the pivots of where this goes is really going to be predicated on what starts to be replaced, right? Because the first 500 people that lose their job because of X are going to be the pioneers of figuring out, well, how do you take what I have and do something else with it? So I think this is going to be a very design community driven evolution, but predicated on what decides to come down in front of us that we haven't seen yet.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- The title of your article, you mentioned two things, hin and Luddite. Now I'm assuming that people will be familiar with Luddite. I think they were the loom workers in England at the time that the industrial revolution was starting to happen and they were being effectively replaced with machines and people that could operate those machines that had no craft skills. So what is it though? I hadn't heard of SEM before, what is Shoshin and why is that a more effective framing for us to consider this change that we're living through than that of
- Ronnie Battista:
- Jeni, who is a member of my team, but she's just amazing. She's been in this career long and she introduced me to a workshop piece and she introduced me to Shoshi, which is a zen philosophy of it's the beginner's mind. In the beginner's mind, there's many things in the expert's mind. There are a few, and we are at a point now where you just ask the question, I don't know. And anybody on this podcast or any podcast that's telling you what's going to happen doesn't know. And what happens is, again, the whole Luddite thing, it was specifically about one type of instrument. And the reason that they didn't like that instrument is just taking their jobs away. So one can, as I've heard collectively, it's like they won't take us away. You can say that all you like it's coming. Matter of fact, it's here and it's only going to get bigger.
- So you have one of two choices. You can sit there and I've seen in our profession, people that stood on the hill of like, this is what it's supposed to be. And then you could hear that this is what it's supposed to be and people have moved on from them. We are at a point now where you have the choice, you can either completely push back and say that this isn't going to work and hope that works out for you. But the idea of it really just says, start with the beginner's mind. What we do in a workshop, it's really easy is I'll show a random photograph and I'll say, what is this? I literally pick ones off the internet. And some people are like, you'll see two people looking at each other. They're fighting, they're having an argument That one said this. And I'm like, well, where did you get that from?
- And I'm like, look. And I say, we're all looking at one picture that I just randomly picked. I'm like, but all of your life experience, what got you here? What you are seeing a gesture because of how you were brought up. You see something that someone else doesn't see. So take a step back and say, we can look at one photograph and in a room of 10 people have a different view of it. Step back from what you think it is and really just start to say, well, what could it be? And if you get out of the protectionist mode, the Luddite protectionist mode and open yourself up and say, I don't know what it is. This is going to be a wild ride. I want to be on this ride. And again, so when I just find out that the thing that I've been doing has been gone, okay, great, well what does that mean?
- That's an opportunity. Let's go get that. And it's a lot easier to say that than it is to live that. And I have sometimes had literally said, you're not being chosen right now, you're getting really, but it's constant reminder that there's those polarities of being stuck thinking fresh. And this is going to be a world, the transcendence that we're going through. This is truly an industrial revolution with Gen AI forces you to say, the more you can step broadly out with the designer brains that we have, with the talent that we have to really think outside the box, we're the ones that need those beginner's minds because that's going to help us drive in the direction both for our career and again where we take this whole gen, I think for humanity.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Ronnie, that is a wonderful place and a point to wrap our conversation up today. It's been such an enjoyable and insightful conversation. Thank you for so generously sharing your stories and insights with me today.
- Ronnie Battista:
- Well, thank you very much. I truly enjoyed the experience and I'm really honored to have been part of it. This was great. Thank you so much, Brenda. I appreciate it.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It's been my pleasure. Ronnie really has. And tell me what's the best way, if people want to follow your contributions to the field, want to connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
- Ronnie Battista:
- The last piece I'll say is I don't post much anymore on LinkedIn. I used to and I used to write. I usually, when I think I have something to say that's new, I'll say it. So LinkedIn is the way to follow me. And if you want to see the Space Barn, the link to The Space Barn, my Instagram channels there, that's got nothing to do. That's got design partly. But LinkedIn is usually the best way that if I am going to say anything that I think is important, it'll be on LinkedIn.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Thanks, Ronnie, and to everyone that's tuned in, it's been great having you here as well. Everything we've covered, we'll be in the show notes including where you can find Ronnie. And yes, I will link to The Space Barn and I'll make a point of getting that link from Ronnie before we go. And also you'll find all the links to the chapters of all the things that we've covered today in those show notes.
- If you've enjoyed the show and you want to hear more great conversations like this with world-class experts and leaders and UX research, product management and design, don't forget to leave a review on the podcast, subscribe so it turns up every two weeks, and tell someone else about the show if you feel they would get value from these conversations at depth.
- If you want to reach out to me, you can find me on LinkedIn, just search for Brendan Jarvis or there's a link to my profile at the bottom of the show notes or head on over to thespaceinbetween.co.nz. That's thespaceinbetween.co.nz.
- And until next time, keep being brave.