Opening Keynote: The Architecture of Advocacy

Perhaps school taught you how to make a taxonomy or create a persona from research, but did it teach you how to ask for a raise? How to create consensus between your team, product and engineering? Or how to get the right design out in the face of the “just copy Amazon/Google/Netflix” argument?

Designers are taught the skills to make good design, but not the ones that will assure that design will go live. In this talk, I’ll cover key skills every UX practitioner should know.

The techniques I’ll teach are based on a combination of Nonviolent Communication, John Kotter’s Buy In, FBI negotiation techniques, and from real life in the Silicon Valley.

Attendees will learn:

• How to build consensus
• How to argue and listen effectively
• How to stay zen when the situation gets hot
• How to get buy in
• How to ask for what you need

While designers historically have shrunk away from selling, It’s not gross or ugly to ask for what you need to get the job done right. If designers want a place at the table, they will have to ask for it.