Community: Events

The field of UX strategy has been growing rapidly over the past couple of years, as a specialty within the broader field of user experience. In the past year, postings of jobs that specify UX strategy as a key competency and specialized UX Strategist roles have become increasingly frequent. Events, workshops, and classes whose focus is the topic of UX strategy have been springing up to meet the growing need for education and professional growth in this area.

In just a few short years, the UX Strategy and Planning group on LinkedIn has grown to over 12,000 members, providing an active forum for discussions about UX strategy and, more broadly, experience strategy. UX design and management professionals around the world are participating in the dialogue. UXmatters has dedicated a significant amount of space to publishing articles about UX strategy—including my column UX Strategy, which I began in January 2012, as well as UX STRAT 2013–speaker Ronnie Battista’s new Strategy Matters column—altogether, 190 articles on UX strategy topics by many thought leaders within the realm of UX strategy. Read More

In recent years, more and more leaders in the UX community have become convinced that it’s important to focus on UX strategy as a way to deliver greater business value to the organizations for which they work, advance the role of User Experience within their organizations, and get a seat at the C-level table.

Paul Bryan, who is shown in Figure 1, has been instrumental in promoting the profession of UX strategy—through his UX Strategy column on UXmatters, by establishing the UX Strategy and Planning group on LinkedIn, and by organizing the UX STRAT conference—which covers the full spectrum of experience strategy, including UX strategy, customer experience (CX) strategy, and product and service design strategy—and his UX STRAT Masterclasses. Read More

This year, we have been experimenting with the creation of a Sparkle Studio to house and produce a “Make Meaningful Work” show. The creation of this platform would enable us to produce a series of mini-events, including this show, throughout each year.

We want to invite people around the world to participate in the show, discuss various topics relevant to making meaningful work; and experience together the drafting, discussion, rehearsal, and making of the show. We want to create a place where people can experience and reflect on their learnings from the practice of making something meaningful together.

This is an experiment of sorts that aims to move beyond traditional training formats toward one in which we can start making together, then reflect on the relevant practices from that making rather than considering the theory of making first. In this article, we’ll describe and reflect on that experience in its making. Read More