With so many people facing changes in their work and careers right now, navigating the complex and turbulent waters of layoffs, org changes, and economic adjustments can be incredibly challenging.

My guest today is renowned design leader and author John Maeda - who is no stranger to career shifts and changes. In this inspiring episode, John shares his message of focusing on recovery instead of failure, the importance of intentional reinvention, and the benefits of renewal and rebuilding.

This episode is a replay from 2019, and it's just as relevant today as it was then. Since our conversation in 2019, John has gone on to take on different roles and is now the VP of Design and Artificial Intelligence at Microsoft. We mentioned his keynote at Interaction 19, which has since been recorded and is available online - we've included the link to that and other inspiring references we mention in the show description and on our website at uxcake.co.

This episode covers a lot of ground - John talked about why we should focus on recover fast vs. fail fast, why inclusive design is so important, and why we should be using Anpanman to train our AI platforms.

Links from this episode

John’s Keynote on Recovering & Reinvention at Interaction19

John Gardner’s Essay “Self Renewal”

Get the Collected Works of classic poet Kahlil Gibran

Joy and Sorrow - poem excerpt from “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran

Books by John Maeda

The Laws of Simplicity

How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us

Redesigning Leadership

Links for John Maeda

YouTube LinkedIn Twitter

More resources from John available on his site https://maedastudio.com