💎 Friday Gems (Introducing Morf, Visual Thinking Strategies, Staff Product Designer, Regime Change Quiz and more!)
You don’t need permission to operate at the next level!
Hello dear readers,
I recently looked back at the art I have created (I highly recommend you do it too) and I noticed a pattern. I’ve been drawing a shape that is amorphous, flexible, ever changing, and adapting to its environment. As I recently shared one of the illustrations on Substack I wanted to do more than just post it and walk away, I wanted to use the artwork as a way to develop my writing and storytelling skills.
I have talked about how what we do one thing can be applied across other parts of our lives. So improving my storytelling skills through this series will help me present designs to stakeholders and even in conversations at home with my family.
How we do one thing is how we do everything.
👋🏽 Introducing Morf
Today I present to you Morf, a character I created that embodies everything Low Fidelity is about.
Morf is what a curious, growing, adapting mind looks like if you gave it a body.
Morf is an amorphous, shapeshifting otherworldly being drawn here by our little blue planet’s impermanence, color, chaos, and beauty.
Morf explores the places, people, objects, and moments in this world and communicates through shape, color, and transparency.
I invite you to follow Morf’s sightings on Substack and in this newsletter. Better yet, have a favorite place you want Morf to visit, suggest it in the comments!
Let’s go on a journey together with Morf and see where our curiosity leads!
On to the this week’s gems!
Today's Gems
Visual Thinking: A Better Way To Learn In Organizations: Visual Thinking Strategies
The Mindful Designer: How to operate as a Staff Product Designer
Clown Show: Does Your Country Need Regime Change? A Quiz
Visual Thinking
A Better Way To Learn In Organizations: Visual Thinking Strategies
Our minds don’t seem very willing to digest regurgitated expertise no matter how profound, wise or clever it is.
How can we make information we are given or consume really stick? Think back to a presentation or a handout you were given.
How much of the information shared do you remember versus a moment when you were in a conversation with others about a topic?
Chances are the times you engaged in a discussion and actively sought answers to what you saw visually, you remembered more and it made a bigger impact on your thinking.
This is where the Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) approach helps us get off the sidelines and into the conversation so we can be intentional with the information we come across and take more of it in. VTS provides us with tools for shared inquiry and to spark our curiosity for deeper thinking and engaging with others to build our perspective-taking skills.
The approach is simple. Look at an image, a piece of art, a design, anything presented to you visually together with a group of peers.
In VTS, teachers ask three consecutive questions:
What is going on here (in this picture)?
What do you see that makes you say that?
What more can we find?
The teacher/facilitator then does prompts the conversation:
They repeat what participants answer in response to the questions, but using their own words. This allows teachers to acknowledge what was said and to anchor responses into whatever model is important (e.g. art history, natural sciences, etc);
They create a space where everyone has the opportunity and safety to respond
They use open-ended questions to encourage deep thinking
While this approach uses art as the medium for the explorations the principles learned can be applied across all parts of life to engage with what we see at a deeper level, which helps us retain more information and is a more rewarding experience because we are changed as a result instead of passively consuming information.
🔗 Medium
The Mindful Designer
How to operate as a Staff Product Designer
Becoming a staff designer isn’t a switch that gets turned on after a certain amount of years as a senior designer, the title is earned by the intentional actions you take. If we move past the title we can see how we need to be thinking not just within our small area, we need to zoom out to see the product as a whole to help with the overall direction.
In practice, it’s about thinking in systems and bringing clarity to the future of your product area.
You don’t need permission to operate at the next level. You own your career trajectory and the confidence that comes from taking action and doing what you think is right is priceless.
Focus on your craft, your curiosity, your collaboration, your listening skills, and your visual thinking to elevate yourself to where you want to go next.
🔗 Verified Designer
Also…
Does Your Country Need Regime Change? A Quiz
Does it feel like every single news story, every article, every think piece, every bit of media content revolves around your leader, almost as if, no matter how hard the country tries to talk about literally anything else, he seems to keep finding ways to pop back into the spotlight and suck all of the oxygen out of the room, to the point where it feels like you’ve spent every waking moment of every day for the past ten years hearing about every single stupid and/or evil thing this guy’s done, and you’re just so fucking exhausted?
Each day there is some news about how the current US regime is chipping away at our democratic foundations. Some days it’s not even hiding about its agenda by taking a sledgehammer to the institutions that have been built for safety, support, freedom, and our basic human rights.
This fascist regime likes to point the finger at other nations to distract from the chaos they are inflicting.
If the answer to most or all of these questions is yes, it may be time for a massive nonviolent resistance movement.
Does Your Country Need Regime Change? My answer is a HELL YES! ✊🏽
🔗 McSweeney’s
That’s it for this week’s Friday Gems.
In stillness, find your next step.✊🏽
