Connect Tech Recap!

Jim and I would like to first thank Connect Tech for having us speak at the conference, thank you Pratik (@prpatel) and Vincent (@vincentmayers)! The two of us had a great time giving our talk and meeting people before and after…and running attendees through some fun improv exercises!

I got to see some great talks in the Design & UI & UX track such as:

As well as the fantastic Saturday morning keynote:

  • A Programmer’s Guide to Humans by Janelle Klein (@janellekz)

“Don’t be an asshole”

…I couldn’t have said it better myself Janelle!

Which reminded me of one of my favorite Improv teacher’s lines:

“If you’re not having fun, you’re the asshole” – Susan Messing

Again one thing I see more and more of at the conferences is the idea of connecting teams with people from different disciplines together. In this case, because the conference was more dev-focused the talks mentioned connecting developers and designers. I’d like to thank the above speakers for bringing up the topic because it made for a nice way to piggy back ImprovUX on to and in support of what they were talking about. And if there’s one thing Improv talks a lot about it’s supporting your fellow players (or in this case developers and designers).

I feel even more confident about Improv being a great way to facilitate these groups becoming more egoless, unified and focused on the most important thing and that is PROBLEM SOLVING. And the initial problem to solve is WHO is the user, WHAT are they trying to accomplish, and how to include them in the design process as much as possible.

 

One last note I’d like to mention in regards to our talk that I didn’t mention at the end. Improv teaches you to focus on your scene partner and how you can make them and their ideas look great, like a rock star. When everyone has that mindset you’ll get much more done and people will be eager to participate and share their thoughts and ideas because they know everyone else has got their back.

 

Yes and,

Mike and Jim


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