1 00:00:03,120 --> 00:00:06,120 Hello and welcome to another episode of the AIGA Design 2 00:00:06,120 --> 00:00:08,720 podcast. My name is Lee Sean Huang, Co 3 00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:12,360 Executive Director of Learning and Programs here at AIGA, the 4 00:00:12,360 --> 00:00:14,480 professional association for design. 5 00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:17,640 This season of the podcast, we are exploring the theme of 6 00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:20,720 design and performance. And now for my Co host. 7 00:00:22,040 --> 00:00:24,360 Hello everyone, I'm Julia de Natalo. 8 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:28,240 I am the Events and Competition Manager at AIGA. 9 00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:33,200 And our guest for this episode is Maria Fernanda Larota. 10 00:00:34,240 --> 00:00:36,600 Hi Rishon. Hi Julia, it's a pleasure to be 11 00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:38,400 here. My name is Maria. 12 00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:42,840 I am the Co founder and head of strategy at Switch Strategy. 13 00:00:43,080 --> 00:00:46,440 I'm super excited to be here talking to you and to the IAGI 14 00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:48,040 community. Awesome. 15 00:00:48,440 --> 00:00:51,720 So Maria, to kick things off with this episode, can you tell 16 00:00:51,720 --> 00:00:54,040 us a little bit more about yourself and your career journey 17 00:00:54,040 --> 00:00:55,880 so far? Of course. 18 00:00:55,880 --> 00:00:59,520 So I'm currently the head of strategy at Switch Strategy. 19 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:02,920 We are an organization that delivers growth for purpose 20 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:05,360 driven companies. And really what we do is we 21 00:01:05,360 --> 00:01:09,720 specialize in developing niche markets for organizations so we 22 00:01:09,720 --> 00:01:12,600 can find opportunities for growth using inclusion as an 23 00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:15,960 engine for innovation. So it's a really interesting 24 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:18,080 role that we play for organizations, both 25 00:01:18,080 --> 00:01:21,320 understanding how to really grow their business models while 26 00:01:21,320 --> 00:01:25,000 creating access and really serving communities that are 27 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:27,080 usually under represented in the market. 28 00:01:28,120 --> 00:01:31,760 I like to think of myself as a multi disciplinary strategist. 29 00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:34,640 I guess that that is true to a lot of people that work in the 30 00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:38,200 design field. I've had many, let's say, roles 31 00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:41,480 and and ways to explore design in my career. 32 00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:45,720 I started working in advertising back in Colombia, and then I 33 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:49,440 decided to come here into the US, do an MBA design strategy 34 00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:54,920 where I could really extend the reach of the design, different 35 00:01:54,920 --> 00:01:58,160 verticals that I worked on and move into the world of business 36 00:01:58,160 --> 00:01:59,760 strategy. This is what I've been doing 37 00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:03,760 since I spent seven years in San Francisco working in the startup 38 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:06,840 world, and then in the past three years I came to New York 39 00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:09,600 to really build my company, keep working in digital 40 00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:11,360 transformation and teach at Parsons. 41 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:12,600 Wonderful. Yeah. 42 00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:16,120 We'd love to follow up on some of those points, including your 43 00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:18,720 teaching at Parsons, your design MBA. 44 00:02:19,120 --> 00:02:21,520 But just the first follow up question is about your 45 00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:24,200 bachelor's degree. So you've studied communication 46 00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:26,600 and product design. So what motivated you to get 47 00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:29,400 into design and communication in the first place? 48 00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:34,400 Well, I have to start this conversation by by stating that 49 00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:39,480 I was not going to study design as as, let's say, the first 50 00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:41,280 thing that happened after I came from school. 51 00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:47,040 I spent two years in law school before I realized that I wanted 52 00:02:47,040 --> 00:02:50,920 to move into the sign. And this is really tied back to 53 00:02:50,920 --> 00:02:54,160 me really being a very, let's say, creative and exploratory 54 00:02:54,160 --> 00:02:56,640 person. But I think that when I went 55 00:02:56,640 --> 00:02:59,440 into the undergrad, I was a little bit scared about fully 56 00:02:59,440 --> 00:03:01,120 committing into a create a career. 57 00:03:01,720 --> 00:03:05,000 But as the years passed, I realized that I it was feeling 58 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:08,360 incomplete and there was something that was missing and I 59 00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:12,600 chose to change my career. So I went to study product and 60 00:03:12,600 --> 00:03:15,840 communication design at University Los Andes in Bogota. 61 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:19,960 And this was such an interesting way to approach my profession 62 00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:22,480 because this was one of the first schools that really 63 00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:27,400 thought about design as design strategy, as an integrated set 64 00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:31,360 of skills that could allow people not only to deliver 65 00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:34,840 design work, but to solve complex problems, to really 66 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:38,640 think about system level problematics and challenges. 67 00:03:39,200 --> 00:03:40,800 And that was really appealing to me. 68 00:03:41,120 --> 00:03:45,000 That really allowed me to use both my creative brain for the 69 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:48,960 sake of finding solutions, but also building within the context 70 00:03:49,040 --> 00:03:53,200 of organizations, building within the context of business. 71 00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:57,160 And that has something that has been the underlining narrative 72 00:03:57,560 --> 00:03:59,680 of my career. Wonderful. 73 00:04:00,520 --> 00:04:04,320 That's great. And you went to a design MBA. 74 00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:07,680 Why did you choose that path and what do you think is different 75 00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:11,800 the program you had comparing to a traditional MBA? 76 00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:17,720 So traditional MBA, they're really comprehensive and they 77 00:04:17,720 --> 00:04:21,079 offer you, let's say, a view into the different levels of an 78 00:04:21,079 --> 00:04:25,600 organization so you can understand how to how to drive, 79 00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:28,400 execute and then manage business, right. 80 00:04:29,440 --> 00:04:33,120 Design MBAs like the MBA in design strategy I did at 81 00:04:33,120 --> 00:04:37,040 California College of the Arts integrate this type of 82 00:04:37,040 --> 00:04:42,160 learnings, but they really allow you to go into creative problem 83 00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:45,920 solving for the most part using human centered design and design 84 00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:50,000 thinking as core methodologies to embrace every single problem. 85 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:55,280 So for people that may not have full context on this, what this 86 00:04:55,280 --> 00:04:57,880 means is that you tackle a problem both from a business 87 00:04:57,880 --> 00:05:01,440 perspective, but you put a high focus on the user, on the people 88 00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:04,520 that are going to be the recipients of whatever design 89 00:05:04,520 --> 00:05:07,880 solution you're thinking of. And you integrate their needs, 90 00:05:07,880 --> 00:05:11,040 their habits. You put them first when it comes 91 00:05:11,040 --> 00:05:13,600 to making decisions for the thing that you will build, 92 00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:18,200 building at the end. It also really has a very, let's 93 00:05:18,200 --> 00:05:22,960 say, an exploratory type of view on how you solve for business 94 00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:26,520 problems by understanding a multitude of solutions that 95 00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:29,640 could be brought to the table and then creating specific tests 96 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:32,480 so you can prototype solutions before you take them into 97 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:35,280 market. So when you combine these two 98 00:05:35,280 --> 00:05:38,720 things and when you when you really allow the, let's say, 99 00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:42,320 business level thinking to inform these design decisions, 100 00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:46,000 what you end up having is a series of approaches on how 101 00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:49,160 something can be solved, but also a really good understanding 102 00:05:49,160 --> 00:05:51,640 of how they are going to serve the people on the other side. 103 00:05:52,320 --> 00:05:55,040 If you do this properly, what this does for organizations is 104 00:05:55,040 --> 00:05:56,760 it help. It helps them build the right 105 00:05:56,760 --> 00:05:59,200 solution for the right people with the right type of 106 00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:01,960 investments. And I think that that's the core 107 00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:05,160 difference between traditional MBAs and design MBAs, right? 108 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:07,880 The fact that you can understand how to drive innovation, the 109 00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:12,960 fact that you can really like self guide some solutions, not 110 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:15,880 through what the business metrics are telling you, but on 111 00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:18,400 your understanding of what the customer is needing, what the 112 00:06:18,400 --> 00:06:22,160 market is needing. I really like this because it 113 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:24,960 allows me to operate on both sides with a lot of empathy for 114 00:06:24,960 --> 00:06:27,280 the people that I'm solving for, building for. 115 00:06:28,960 --> 00:06:31,960 I would say like those are the largest things in addition to 116 00:06:32,240 --> 00:06:35,000 design collaboration and creative collaboration, which is 117 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:37,400 a big, big part of the design in BA, right? 118 00:06:37,400 --> 00:06:40,200 How to drive people through these creative practices? 119 00:06:42,040 --> 00:06:47,320 It sounds awesome to be able to explore a more like structure 120 00:06:47,320 --> 00:06:50,480 than BA, but bringing this creative lenses and very 121 00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:54,800 exploratory and based on research sounds very, very 122 00:06:54,800 --> 00:07:00,640 interesting. So later on, I know you become a 123 00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:04,440 professor at Parsons. So first is how how did you 124 00:07:04,440 --> 00:07:09,800 become an educator in this field and what part of the teaching 125 00:07:09,880 --> 00:07:15,400 role you appreciate the most? Well, I, I consider myself very 126 00:07:15,400 --> 00:07:18,800 fortunate on being in the position to now teach and mentor 127 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:21,720 younger people that are part of this career through, through my 128 00:07:21,720 --> 00:07:26,920 work at Parsons. I had a feeling that I wanted to 129 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:31,120 teach way back in my career when I was starting had really didn't 130 00:07:31,120 --> 00:07:35,200 really, I hadn't really found my, my specific voice for that 131 00:07:35,200 --> 00:07:37,760 purpose. As as the years came through and 132 00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:40,920 as I learned from the way that we are appreciated within 133 00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:43,400 organizations, the type of contribution that that we that 134 00:07:43,400 --> 00:07:45,680 we can have. This has really led me into 135 00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:49,680 wanting to empower the people of a younger generation so they can 136 00:07:49,680 --> 00:07:53,120 have the tools to really drive design as a structural function 137 00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:55,800 within organizations. Because I'm a big believer on 138 00:07:55,800 --> 00:07:58,520 the fact that we bring a different perspective to 139 00:07:58,520 --> 00:08:02,600 business making organizational design, the ability to really 140 00:08:02,720 --> 00:08:05,600 create business models that are out of the norm. 141 00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:10,640 And the more and more we create that empowerment and we help 142 00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:13,520 students of a younger generation develop that voice, I believe 143 00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:17,040 that's going to be great for the people within our field because 144 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:20,280 we will keep on earning that place at the table. 145 00:08:20,520 --> 00:08:23,680 We will keep on showing how the type of work that we do really 146 00:08:23,680 --> 00:08:25,600 influences Better Business practices. 147 00:08:26,400 --> 00:08:28,840 But on the other side, I think it's a gigantic game for 148 00:08:28,840 --> 00:08:32,320 organizations themselves to have someone that can really marry 149 00:08:32,320 --> 00:08:34,200 these three types of thinking, right? 150 00:08:34,200 --> 00:08:37,000 Like user thinking, business thinking system, and culture 151 00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:39,880 level thinking. To be able to run the 152 00:08:39,880 --> 00:08:42,280 organizations and to engage with people. 153 00:08:42,880 --> 00:08:46,880 That is really the core of my work as a professor, aside from 154 00:08:46,880 --> 00:08:48,960 the, let's say, the type of lecture that I give. 155 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:53,640 I think that that is what has driven me to keep on pursuing, 156 00:08:53,680 --> 00:08:59,040 like growing the people within our field and giving them a hint 157 00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:02,440 of what's possible before they graduate so they can dream 158 00:09:02,440 --> 00:09:06,840 bigger and they can choose to pursue careers beyond, let's 159 00:09:06,840 --> 00:09:09,560 say, design, design creation and design delivery. 160 00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:13,360 Yeah, that sounds, that sounds awesome. 161 00:09:13,720 --> 00:09:16,840 And I think for you as a professional also being able to 162 00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:19,640 customize and tailor the language of the knowledge you've 163 00:09:19,640 --> 00:09:23,400 gathered to a diverse audience. So in this case your students 164 00:09:23,400 --> 00:09:27,440 also I've got a very good learning path for sure. 165 00:09:28,680 --> 00:09:31,960 That that is very true. It's curious document you 166 00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:36,560 mentioned language, because being an international professor 167 00:09:36,560 --> 00:09:39,840 and having to think into languages is a lot of what I do. 168 00:09:41,440 --> 00:09:43,120 Sometimes that's imperfect, right? 169 00:09:43,120 --> 00:09:47,920 Sometimes that comes with with the being a second language of 170 00:09:47,920 --> 00:09:49,840 things. But I think that that also has 171 00:09:49,840 --> 00:09:54,000 allowed me to connect better with them because when we move 172 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:57,160 out of traditional frameworks, when we move out of traditional 173 00:09:57,160 --> 00:10:00,320 terminology and put things in a way that people can understand 174 00:10:00,320 --> 00:10:02,680 them, can relate to them, can make them to their own. 175 00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:07,200 I feel like that is highly effective for them to then take 176 00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:10,320 that, interiorize it and turn it into the thing that they want to 177 00:10:10,320 --> 00:10:12,720 do or the way that they want to user for their careers. 178 00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:18,360 So I think that the more that we can do that for the people that 179 00:10:18,360 --> 00:10:21,440 are underneath us, the more we're going to uplift our 180 00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:24,520 career, our profession and our contribution. 181 00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:27,760 Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. 182 00:10:27,960 --> 00:10:31,080 You also have mentioned that one of the first questions you ask 183 00:10:31,080 --> 00:10:35,480 your students when the semester starts is what is strategic 184 00:10:35,480 --> 00:10:41,000 design for them. So I am curious to hear what is 185 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:44,360 it usually the answers that they give you And also if you can 186 00:10:44,360 --> 00:10:48,280 share what's your perspective on the terminology and the language 187 00:10:48,280 --> 00:10:52,400 you usually use. So this is it's kind of like a 188 00:10:52,400 --> 00:10:57,400 trick question because I as someone who have been in this 189 00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:02,200 field for almost 15 years, I realize that one of the hardest 190 00:11:02,200 --> 00:11:07,840 parts of the job is explaining exactly what we do this because 191 00:11:08,440 --> 00:11:14,520 the design strategy current of design itself, it's fairly new, 192 00:11:14,640 --> 00:11:17,440 right? It's been around for about 20 193 00:11:17,440 --> 00:11:19,960 plus years. It really got consolidated when 194 00:11:19,960 --> 00:11:23,200 design thinking became came into the mainstream. 195 00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:26,160 It started to become a part of what a lot of companies did in 196 00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:28,160 house. But we're still pretty early in 197 00:11:28,160 --> 00:11:31,400 comparison to some more traditional careers that have 198 00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:33,240 been fully established within the market. 199 00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:37,960 And when people think about design, they usually go to 200 00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:40,520 design craft, right? So they usually think about 201 00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:43,480 graphic design, fashion, furniture design. 202 00:11:43,720 --> 00:11:47,040 I think that all of us that are creative have someone in our 203 00:11:47,040 --> 00:11:51,680 family that still is taking their time to understand exactly 204 00:11:51,680 --> 00:11:54,320 what is the thing that we do without referring to this, let's 205 00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:59,040 say original subject. My students go through a bit of 206 00:11:59,040 --> 00:12:02,560 a similar process, but for the most part, they always 207 00:12:02,560 --> 00:12:07,640 understand that strategic design is design methodologies applied 208 00:12:07,680 --> 00:12:12,200 for solving business problems. I think that that really becomes 209 00:12:12,200 --> 00:12:15,240 clear in the sense that you have a larger spectrum of application 210 00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:18,000 of the type of thinking and the processes that you take. 211 00:12:19,120 --> 00:12:21,840 But we do what we do when we work in our classes is really 212 00:12:21,840 --> 00:12:25,160 build on that understanding, understand how we can drive 213 00:12:25,920 --> 00:12:29,680 insight and value at different levels of what a problem could 214 00:12:29,680 --> 00:12:31,120 be. And again, I always like to 215 00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:35,320 think about the triad of the user, the business, and then the 216 00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:39,440 ecosystem that surrounds these two, these two areas. 217 00:12:39,640 --> 00:12:42,920 And through very different types of thinking, very different 218 00:12:42,920 --> 00:12:46,120 types of skill sets, understand what's going to be the, let's 219 00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:48,760 say, the right thing to do for those 3 ends. 220 00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:52,960 If you get to marry those three things, if you get to provide a 221 00:12:52,960 --> 00:12:55,440 recommendation that's going to balance, balance out what's 222 00:12:55,440 --> 00:12:57,680 going to work with your user on the other side, but something 223 00:12:57,680 --> 00:12:59,880 that's really going to perform really properly or that's going 224 00:12:59,880 --> 00:13:04,560 to influence culture. My take is that that is what we 225 00:13:04,560 --> 00:13:06,920 do best, right? We allow organizations to have a 226 00:13:06,920 --> 00:13:11,360 bit of a panoptic view of what the solution is going to be on 227 00:13:11,360 --> 00:13:14,080 the other side, how the brand is going to be acting on the other 228 00:13:14,080 --> 00:13:17,280 side, how the product should be performing on the other side. 229 00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:20,040 But each person can really choose on how to apply this 230 00:13:20,040 --> 00:13:23,280 because we happen to be one of the careers where for the most 231 00:13:23,280 --> 00:13:26,960 part, there's not a job role or a job description that 232 00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:28,960 completely aligns to the things that we do. 233 00:13:29,080 --> 00:13:31,160 People choose to go into research. 234 00:13:31,160 --> 00:13:34,840 People choose to product. There's multiple ways on how you 235 00:13:34,840 --> 00:13:37,760 can apply this. So I worked with my students to 236 00:13:37,760 --> 00:13:41,560 get a full understanding of what's possible, but then really 237 00:13:41,680 --> 00:13:44,600 work individually with them to understand where is it that they 238 00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:49,560 want to apply their creative input towards a thing that 239 00:13:49,680 --> 00:13:53,600 they're really passionate about. Yeah, it sounds great. 240 00:13:54,680 --> 00:13:59,040 You mentioned you just founded your company Switch not long 241 00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:03,280 ago, so I'm curious to learn more about your journey so far 242 00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:08,280 and what are exciting things you are exploring this new company. 243 00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:14,440 So Switch was really born out of a couple of things. 244 00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:17,640 The first one is really this, this, let's say like 245 00:14:18,560 --> 00:14:21,840 interdisciplinary multicultural journey that I've had. 246 00:14:22,640 --> 00:14:26,560 And that has given me a good angle to understand how to 247 00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:30,600 problem solve for larger organizations, how to problem 248 00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:34,760 store for the, let's say, the for profit market and being able 249 00:14:34,760 --> 00:14:37,920 to match different levels of thinking for the sake of 250 00:14:37,920 --> 00:14:41,960 creating business opportunity to create betterment for people. 251 00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:45,840 I've always wanted to create strategy and innovation 252 00:14:45,840 --> 00:14:49,480 organization that can work to really build access for people 253 00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:54,040 that are for the most part underserved but in a very strong 254 00:14:54,040 --> 00:14:56,560 way. This has also been like the baby 255 00:14:56,560 --> 00:15:00,600 of my personal journey because I happen to be fortunate enough to 256 00:15:00,600 --> 00:15:04,280 belong to an inter able family. That really means that my 257 00:15:04,280 --> 00:15:07,160 husband has a disability, he uses a wheelchair and we get to 258 00:15:07,160 --> 00:15:10,400 experience life in a very different way that the rest of 259 00:15:10,400 --> 00:15:14,280 the world. I think that going through this 260 00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:17,280 experience was the thing that drove that switch for me, 261 00:15:17,840 --> 00:15:20,560 because once I started to understand the world through 262 00:15:20,560 --> 00:15:25,240 this perspective, it was almost as if a veil had been lifted and 263 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:28,200 I could see something that was in front of me but that wasn't 264 00:15:28,200 --> 00:15:32,520 really there before. So living life through the lens 265 00:15:32,520 --> 00:15:36,920 of disability allows me to see both the gigantic opportunities 266 00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:40,080 that we have in today's society to really better serve and 267 00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:42,800 better cater to diverse populations that are not 268 00:15:42,800 --> 00:15:45,520 represented in a lot of the, let's say, the products and 269 00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:49,320 services that I see out there. But very closely also because I 270 00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:52,040 see the pain points of living in an environment that's not 271 00:15:52,160 --> 00:15:57,360 designed for yourself. And I think that is that is a 272 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:00,960 maxim that can be applied to almost any society around the 273 00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:03,640 world. So what we do at Switch is we 274 00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:06,600 focus on this niche populations because we understand the 275 00:16:06,600 --> 00:16:08,840 gigantic potential of working with them. 276 00:16:08,880 --> 00:16:12,920 We help organizations really find, understand and design for 277 00:16:12,920 --> 00:16:16,640 this niche communities. Yes, because we want to drive 278 00:16:16,640 --> 00:16:19,840 inclusion to what what we do, but also because we understand 279 00:16:19,840 --> 00:16:23,560 that this is in men's business value that that organizations 280 00:16:23,560 --> 00:16:26,640 have the opportunity to really conquer this hyper segmented 281 00:16:26,640 --> 00:16:31,240 communities and create create better services and better 282 00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:35,320 products that Dr. meaningful change for these types of 283 00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:38,160 communities. And those are the origins of why 284 00:16:38,160 --> 00:16:40,760 why I chose to start this company and I chose to do it 285 00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:44,520 today, especially in the type of environment that we're living 286 00:16:44,520 --> 00:16:47,360 politically where representation is going to be more important 287 00:16:47,360 --> 00:16:52,080 than ever. Going back to the journey, I 288 00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:55,040 would say that it's definitely a roller coaster. 289 00:16:56,760 --> 00:17:01,440 It goes with highs and lows of inspiration and frustration and 290 00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:06,319 let's say excitement and doubt. I guess that's true for everyone 291 00:17:06,319 --> 00:17:09,520 who's ever started a company, anyone who's wanted to create a 292 00:17:09,520 --> 00:17:12,359 new product. It's very exciting, but the 293 00:17:12,359 --> 00:17:16,680 thing that you struggle with the most is your own self and your 294 00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:19,800 own understanding that what you're doing is the right thing 295 00:17:19,800 --> 00:17:22,800 without anyone on the other side telling you to take the next 296 00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:26,040 step. So building business, starting a 297 00:17:26,040 --> 00:17:29,480 company, it's first a very personal exercise to really 298 00:17:29,480 --> 00:17:32,200 convince yourself that you're the right people to do this. 299 00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:36,160 And that's when I go back when in terms of doubt, that's when I 300 00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:38,840 go back into the why behind my company. 301 00:17:38,840 --> 00:17:41,480 The reason why I think it's important for this company to 302 00:17:41,480 --> 00:17:44,920 exist today and to connect to other organizations that really 303 00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:49,200 want to include purpose within the type of work that they do. 304 00:17:50,640 --> 00:17:52,000 Yeah. Following up on that, you've 305 00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:55,400 talked about your why behind starting Switch and your own 306 00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:58,400 family situation. Can you tell us a little bit 307 00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:01,400 more about how you see this as like a market opportunity? 308 00:18:01,600 --> 00:18:03,800 And then also, what are some of the challenges that you think 309 00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:06,120 you'll face while you're building out your business? 310 00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:09,760 Yeah, absolutely. So I think that the market 311 00:18:09,760 --> 00:18:12,120 opportunity is there for the taking. 312 00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:15,560 That really means that we have moved from a very, let's say, 313 00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:20,800 highly segmented space on how we thought about consumers, but 314 00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:23,720 very standardized on a single type of view. 315 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:29,600 So before this, you would think of consumers as moms over 40, or 316 00:18:29,600 --> 00:18:33,800 you would think as people as Jen's ears between 15 and 25. 317 00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:37,360 So those are very standard definitions on how to think 318 00:18:37,360 --> 00:18:41,120 about users. They're not wrong, but they 319 00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:44,680 don't necessarily allow for differentiation on how you 320 00:18:44,840 --> 00:18:47,160 execute and create services for people. 321 00:18:47,400 --> 00:18:51,600 And reality is that when you design for the average, likely 322 00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:54,240 you're not designing specifically for anyone within 323 00:18:54,240 --> 00:18:56,520 that average. The average is, it's a, let's 324 00:18:56,520 --> 00:18:59,520 say it's a, it's a data figure, but it doesn't really speak of 325 00:18:59,560 --> 00:19:01,400 other people that are on the other side. 326 00:19:02,120 --> 00:19:05,440 More and more today, especially with the influence of social 327 00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:08,720 media, with the influence of public conversations constantly 328 00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:12,200 happening, happening around us, what we see is that communities 329 00:19:12,200 --> 00:19:17,000 are hyper segmented and they are influenced by different levels 330 00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:20,600 of identities that make up the understanding of who people are. 331 00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:22,560 That's where we want to reach, right? 332 00:19:22,560 --> 00:19:26,480 Because we believe that there is high, high, high opportunity for 333 00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:30,880 differentiate on, for creating better unique services for 334 00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:33,440 people. And that's exactly the the type 335 00:19:33,440 --> 00:19:36,400 of visibility that we want to create for these underserved 336 00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:39,880 communities. Just to give you an example of 337 00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:41,720 how this has happened in the past. 338 00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:47,120 So in the past 10 years, we've seen a gigantic decrease on on 339 00:19:47,120 --> 00:19:48,880 bank population across the globe. 340 00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:52,680 What this really means is that before the banking sector would 341 00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:55,440 define very specifically the people that they would create 342 00:19:55,440 --> 00:19:59,120 financial products, But so people that had certain level of 343 00:19:59,120 --> 00:20:01,960 income, people that lived in certain areas of the world, 344 00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:04,800 people that had access to Internet, to computers. 345 00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:08,200 And they created financial services for these people, but 346 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:12,400 that left a gigantic space of of a population that couldn't 347 00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:17,120 really access the services because the conversation around 348 00:20:17,120 --> 00:20:21,080 users has gone further into representation inclusion. 349 00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:25,040 And then again, like this niche community, larger sets of people 350 00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:27,800 have been able to access financial services that were 351 00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:32,280 designed with the unbanked point of view from from gigantic 352 00:20:32,280 --> 00:20:36,320 institutions. In the past ten years on beyond 353 00:20:36,320 --> 00:20:41,000 bank sector has been able to increase its coverage by 44%. 354 00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:45,080 So globally we came from 2.5 billion people 10 years ago that 355 00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:48,760 didn't have bank services. Today we're down to 1.4 billion. 356 00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:53,440 This is a very significant portion of the business. 357 00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:55,640 This represents a lot of financial value for 358 00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:58,000 organizations. But if you flip the equation and 359 00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:00,760 you see what this actually means for the people on the other 360 00:21:00,760 --> 00:21:03,800 side, that means that people that that don't really have a 361 00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:06,840 stable or high income can access financial services. 362 00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:09,720 People that couldn't get a credit card before now can do 363 00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:11,680 so. People that want micro loans to 364 00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:14,160 start their own business now have access to these secular 365 00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:18,640 services. It's a two side equation of 366 00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:22,480 impact that really drives what I believe is the most important 367 00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:26,200 thing, which is create access for different users on different 368 00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:29,440 types of industries. That being said, I realized that 369 00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:31,840 it's a difficult moment to be talking about this. 370 00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:36,240 We are currently restructuring and re understanding how we talk 371 00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:40,200 about inclusion, how we talk about equity, how organizations 372 00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:46,480 can drive this or are limited to do so because politically things 373 00:21:46,600 --> 00:21:49,320 are, let's say in a time of a lot of motion. 374 00:21:50,280 --> 00:21:52,920 So I think that that is challenging even speaking about 375 00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:55,960 this and understanding what is the right terminology to be able 376 00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:59,720 to play this role and to be able to encourage organizations to do 377 00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:03,440 so. It's still being defined on 378 00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:05,920 what's going to be the next wave on how we address that. 379 00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:07,840 And I believe that that is the biggest challenge right now. 380 00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:11,800 Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. 381 00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:17,800 So looking ahead, in a year from now, what are the main topics 382 00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:20,920 that you're interested in exploring that could be 383 00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:25,160 personally or professionally? Is there anything in your mind 384 00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:29,520 that you want to share with us? Yes, absolutely. 385 00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:35,480 So one of the core projects that we are driving internally at 386 00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:40,200 Switch is to build an ROI calculator for the value of 387 00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:42,440 inclusion. This is a project that we are 388 00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:45,520 choosing to do independently because we don't want the 389 00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:48,760 process to be biased by like a third party client. 390 00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:54,320 We need to build this calculator to be able to really advocate 391 00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:57,480 for inclusion as a driver of business performance. 392 00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:00,520 But we also know that going through this process is going to 393 00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:02,560 give us a lot of light. What are the levels of 394 00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:06,440 contribution for a company that chooses to take an inclusive 395 00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:08,400 initiative? So first level would be, of 396 00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:11,480 course, revenue market share, but we also know that there's 397 00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,520 additional benefits in terms of brand recognition, of internal 398 00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:18,800 culture, of the ability for that to influence influence other 399 00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:21,800 products. So that's something that we will 400 00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:25,040 be spending a lot of time on doing because we believe that 401 00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:29,560 this is the most assertive way to be able to reprioritize 402 00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:32,360 inclusivity in business design as we move forward. 403 00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:36,520 I'm also incredibly interested in what's happening with AI and 404 00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:41,040 how artificial intelligence is shaping the way that we think 405 00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:46,200 about people an inclusivity, but also more than anything, how we 406 00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:49,840 are now as creatives are integrated, integrating it into 407 00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:53,040 our practice. I'm actually Co writing and 408 00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:57,120 illustrating a book on AI for the regular people. 409 00:23:57,120 --> 00:23:59,720 So all of us that are not necessarily technologists, all 410 00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,920 of us that don't really understand what happens behind 411 00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:07,680 the LLMS. It's, it's, it's an approach to our understanding 412 00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:12,040 how all of us have a choice in how we incorporate AI into what 413 00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:16,520 we do and what are the possibilities for the use of AI 414 00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:19,040 to solving from humanity's biggest problems. 415 00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:23,400 I think that AI is here to stay. AI is already part of what we do 416 00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:27,800 and who we are, but we do have agency and power as users and as 417 00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:31,440 creators of the technology to channel it for the sake of the 418 00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:32,840 good that we want to see into the world. 419 00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:37,920 I'd like to direct your attention back to the theme of 420 00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:41,240 the podcast this season, which is design and performance. 421 00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:43,560 And I'd love to get some of your thoughts on this. 422 00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:45,520 You know, we think about performance in different ways. 423 00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:46,880 It could be like financial performance. 424 00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:50,240 It could be performance like on a stage by an actor or performer 425 00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:52,560 in that sense. And as designers, we have to 426 00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:56,000 perform in different ways as like, you know, facilitators, as 427 00:24:56,120 --> 00:24:59,920 teachers, as strategists. We juggle multiple roles, you 428 00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:02,560 know, creator, entrepreneur, storyteller, all sorts of 429 00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:05,200 labels, right? Which of these roles feels most 430 00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:08,040 natural to you, and how do you think about performance when 431 00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:13,480 you're doing your jobs? So let me actually break that 432 00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:16,600 into two different aspects of performance. 433 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:21,840 For me on the personal side, I, I would say that I, I have a 434 00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:23,960 natural inclination of working with people. 435 00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:28,080 This may be because I come from Latin America where we are 436 00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:33,560 social by default and we like to build relationships before 437 00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:37,560 anything else. So in the sense of myself within 438 00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:41,440 business thinking myself as potentially A performer, I would 439 00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:43,080 say that it revolves around that. 440 00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:45,400 It revolves around using communication, using 441 00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,880 storytelling to bring people to the table and have everyone be 442 00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:51,200 able to participate within a process. 443 00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:53,720 And that's really what I'm trying to bring to my work as a 444 00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:55,640 professor. That's what I'm trying to bring 445 00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:57,960 for my clients. But we set up the table and we 446 00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:00,280 figure out what is the next step, what is the thing that we 447 00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:02,600 want to build. And that's something that I 448 00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:05,680 really enjoy because it allows me to connect with people, 449 00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,440 understand who they are before we go into actual work. 450 00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:13,400 When I think about performance for my business and for the type 451 00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:17,480 of work that I like to see happen around me, it's 452 00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:19,560 definitely a couple of things that you already mentioned, 453 00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:21,520 right? On one end, I think that we have 454 00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:26,560 performance as usability on the ability for a product, service 455 00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:31,360 or business model to effectively do something for people to quote 456 00:26:31,360 --> 00:26:34,040 on one of my favorite frameworks or to achieve the jobs to be 457 00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:37,840 done of why this thing was created or to effectively do 458 00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,920 something for the user. On the other side, which is 459 00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:43,720 equally important, we have financial performance and that 460 00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:46,960 goes back to very specific financial metrics of whether a 461 00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:51,520 product or service is performing well in the market, whether it's 462 00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:55,560 engaging enough to drive sales, to drive revenue, to increase 463 00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:58,160 loyalty. Marrying those two things and 464 00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:01,760 being able to understand how those two things really impact 465 00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:05,560 the way that a company grows in the end results on overall 466 00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:07,960 business performance for the organization. 467 00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:14,240 So that triad again, of business user and system, I think that 468 00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:18,560 it's, it's a it's a really great way to think about performance 469 00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:22,560 as a like a collective indicator of something. 470 00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:26,120 It's it's. Yeah, riffing on this idea of 471 00:27:26,120 --> 00:27:29,240 like this triad or of the business side, the user side and 472 00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:32,800 like the designer side. Like as designers, we, as I had 473 00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:34,680 already mentioned, we have to like, juggle these different 474 00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:36,720 roles of being like the creative, being the facilitator, 475 00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:41,160 being the researcher. Is there a persona that feels 476 00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:44,240 the most natural to you? Or maybe a group of different 477 00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:47,160 personas that feel like these are like the most comfortable 478 00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:48,840 for you to play? Or are there ones that are like 479 00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:52,080 more of a challenge for you but you still play those roles? 480 00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:58,840 So I think that a lot of people, again, within our field, I could 481 00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:00,320 be possibly feeling the same way. 482 00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:04,640 It's we change hats multiple times on the things that we do. 483 00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:06,160 And that's for a good reason, right? 484 00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:10,480 We we are exposed two different types of thinking and we are 485 00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,400 empowered with a lot of design and creative frameworks where we 486 00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:17,960 could be the research one day, the strategist another day, the 487 00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:21,760 client relationship holder the next day and then the person 488 00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:23,600 that goes and brings this product to the market. 489 00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:27,000 I enjoy that. I enjoy being able to jump from 490 00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:29,520 those very different, different types of thinking. 491 00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:34,120 I think that where I drive back every single time, it's again on 492 00:28:34,120 --> 00:28:37,880 the figure of a connector, a connector of ideas, a connector 493 00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:41,160 of people, a connector of opportunities. 494 00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:46,040 And that really allows me to use my my design and business skill 495 00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:49,520 set for the sake of what the conversation is needing today. 496 00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,680 So being a connector actually drives me to design the 497 00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:57,920 experience of working together. And if anything, out of all of 498 00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:01,400 the like end to end capabilities that we've been talking about, I 499 00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:04,480 believe that that is the one that that has served me best to 500 00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:06,520 be able to get to the thing that we need to do. 501 00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:14,320 As I also am curious to learn more of your ways of working. 502 00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:16,400 So you know, there are some people that are more a 503 00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:19,760 collaborative, some that appreciate more like working 504 00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,000 individually and then sharing their thoughts or more 505 00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,040 structured or you know, more exploratory. 506 00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:31,840 What is your way of working your creative process to start a 507 00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:36,560 project, let's say? So definitely exploratory. 508 00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:40,520 I've noticed that whenever I come into a new situation, the 509 00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:45,640 first thing I do is really ramp up on the knowledge of what that 510 00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:47,480 situation is going to require from me. 511 00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:51,280 So I more than anything, so I can come in with confidence on 512 00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:54,320 myself, understanding that I am the right person to drive that 513 00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:56,960 conversation. It's curious because before I 514 00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,240 thought that that claim from a place of insecurity, right? 515 00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:04,040 I thought that I I was constantly checking my sources 516 00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:07,360 and checking references and getting up to the latest 517 00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:10,480 literature on the thing that we were going to study and that was 518 00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,560 cover for some sort of gap in my understanding. 519 00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:18,360 I have realized after being all this time in business, 520 00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,720 particularly working on large digital transformation 521 00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:26,560 consultancies, that it's always best to come in with your 522 00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:30,520 homework done. So, so it actually triggers a 523 00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:32,840 set of confidence and the ability to to inform the 524 00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:36,560 conversation in a better way. So that's really how I start all 525 00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:41,320 of my processes. I have said that again, like 526 00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:44,120 speaking to the right people and getting a full understanding of 527 00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:46,880 what a situation is, is really important before you go into any 528 00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:51,120 type of process. And this is where I use my my 529 00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:56,520 ideation and visualization type of skill set the most because I 530 00:30:56,520 --> 00:31:00,040 like to go pen and paper and really map out the situation 531 00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:02,960 physically. So I can understand that this is 532 00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:05,160 actually what triggers the most connections in my brain about 533 00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:08,400 the thing that's happening. But also this is a fantastic 534 00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:10,200 tool to be able to work with other people, right? 535 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:12,720 If you're in front of a board and you're in a room with people 536 00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:15,160 and you can actually map out the things that you're doing, 537 00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:18,000 illustrate the thing that you're thinking about, have people 538 00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,000 doodle and scratch on top of it, then by default you are are 539 00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:23,640 integrating different thoughts and different perspectives into 540 00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:26,000 the conversation. And we are all understanding 541 00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:28,080 kind of like where we're heading with this. 542 00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:32,560 So after going into this exploratory mode and using 543 00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:36,640 physical collaboration, so we can build into something, that's 544 00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:41,480 when I move a bit more into my more strategic and let's say 545 00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,760 like guided way towards exploring a specific subject. 546 00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:48,920 And I, and I go back into whatever design methodologies I 547 00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:51,760 can use for that purpose. So it's either talking to users, 548 00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:54,520 it's even mapping their journeys, mapping their 549 00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:57,880 experiences, it's going back into, into landscape analysis 550 00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,760 and see what has worked before, what the competitors are doing, 551 00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:02,520 what the company has done so far. 552 00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:05,920 So we can build on top of that. So by marrying those two sides, 553 00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:10,480 by marrying this very exploratory and, and like 554 00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:12,760 creative type of thinking towards a problem and then 555 00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:15,240 matching it for the actual thing that we already know about a 556 00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,920 certain situation, then I believe that we get to different 557 00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:22,680 options of how we can execute. And then let's say that's where 558 00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,160 we start the executional part of the job, that it's a completely 559 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:29,800 different dynamic. That's great and I appreciate 560 00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:33,520 your transparency in sharing your thoughts and how you saw 561 00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:37,440 yourself in in the past and how you perceived your creative 562 00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:41,880 process today. That's brilliant you all. 563 00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:46,280 So you founded your company and of course, as you had mentioned, 564 00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:51,520 you have expectations for the company to, you know, progress, 565 00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:56,080 succeed and and to achieve some type of performance per SE. 566 00:32:56,560 --> 00:33:00,680 So if you can, connecting with our theme, what does high 567 00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:06,000 performance design mean to you? And if you can share an example 568 00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:11,640 of how design directly improved business that you have seen or 569 00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:15,840 have worked with? That's a great question. 570 00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:20,400 I believe that high performance design eventually gets tied back 571 00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:25,440 into financial performance and actually a A and this is, this 572 00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:29,240 is this is not a small feat. So for anyone that has work in 573 00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:32,000 product, you know that even getting a product to the market, 574 00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:35,360 it's already a gigantic win and a gigantic milestone that you 575 00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:38,000 have hit. But after that for the product 576 00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,760 to make sense, it's got to, it's got to perform financially. 577 00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:44,960 So my dream for my organization within a year is that we will 578 00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:49,000 have clients in different sectors where we would have 579 00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:53,040 tested our own model of inclusion as an engine for 580 00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:57,440 innovation and really help them develop new business models 581 00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:01,480 where they can drive access while really growing their 582 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:03,920 business. That's of course like the main 583 00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:07,120 dream for my organization. And I, again, I look to be very 584 00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:09,400 much embedded with education as well. 585 00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:13,719 I, I want to really be able to match match those two sides of 586 00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:16,960 the work that I do and be able to use this for the sake of 587 00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:19,679 increasing access to education. One of the areas where I have 588 00:34:19,679 --> 00:34:22,520 seen this before is really through Parsons on the work that 589 00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:27,360 Parsons has done in the past years to increase the the number 590 00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:29,000 of students with disabilities that go through the 591 00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:31,159 organization. I see this very closely because 592 00:34:31,159 --> 00:34:35,000 my husband did the Masters in Strategic Design and Management 593 00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,400 program at Parsons as well. When he came to school, he was 594 00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:42,120 the only person that used a wheelchair in the whole 595 00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:45,719 university. But by getting very deep into 596 00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,440 the organization, starting to create a invisibility for the 597 00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:51,280 importance of involving different perspectives for the 598 00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,960 importance of structuring the organization as a place that 599 00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:57,120 could meet the needs of disabled people. 600 00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:01,560 They have they have more than double the amount of students 601 00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:03,440 that had disabilities within their program. 602 00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:09,200 And now now Parsons itself is starting to build language at 603 00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:12,000 different levels of people that are preemptive students that 604 00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,000 could go to the organization can find a home on the other side 605 00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,520 and can can connect there. So that's my dream, right? 606 00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:24,600 That my dream is to not only do great things for clients, but to 607 00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:28,680 understand that we are moving the needle for a community that 608 00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:30,480 didn't really have access before. 609 00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:35,640 That's wonderful. It's great to hear about the 610 00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:39,880 things where you've really like move the needle and and change 611 00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:42,680 things in an organization. I'm kind of curious about the 612 00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:44,880 flip side as well. Like do you have an example of 613 00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:48,480 like your your best failure or some sort of unexpected outcome 614 00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:51,120 or things didn't happen according to plan And what did 615 00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:54,320 you, what did that teach you about performance or about 616 00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:58,200 design? I have to say that there's 617 00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:00,960 always many examples of this case where when you work in 618 00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:06,120 design, we say a couple of things, right? 619 00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:10,240 We say learning by doing. And when you learn at a minimum 620 00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:13,160 50% of the things that you do are not going to work out on the 621 00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,480 other end. And we also very usually say 622 00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:21,120 fail fast, fail cheap. So you can learn from the 623 00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:25,000 process itself. I've had multiple of those 624 00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,440 opportunities in my career. Before working at Switch, I 625 00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:31,760 spent five years working in technology driving digital 626 00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:35,360 transformation for large organizations around the world. 627 00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:39,600 And a lot of the processes that we took for certain type of 628 00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:43,440 problem solving didn't necessarily lead us to the type 629 00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:44,960 of product that we needed to build. 630 00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:49,440 As an example, I, I spent a lot of time working with Anthem to 631 00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:52,600 develop their customer enablement platform for the 632 00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:56,280 Medicare and Medicaid sector. This is a difficult type of 633 00:36:56,280 --> 00:37:01,400 population to understand because for the Medicaid sector, we are 634 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:05,440 talking about elderly people that don't necessarily have a 635 00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,800 very strong approach towards digital services. 636 00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:10,240 This was in the midst of the pandemic. 637 00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:13,640 The ability for people to connect in person or even to go 638 00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:15,480 to an appointment was very difficult. 639 00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,880 And on the other hand, we needed to create a technology platform 640 00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:23,640 that could help representatives give access to senior people to 641 00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:25,800 the type of services that they needed to create. 642 00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:27,960 But I think that at the beginning, we came into this 643 00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:32,880 project thinking about the original users that we were 644 00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:36,800 going to design for as the digital first type of population 645 00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:39,760 because digital adoption increased so much in the 646 00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,720 pandemic. I think that we failed to 647 00:37:42,720 --> 00:37:46,080 acknowledge that that was going to be a different case for the 648 00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,640 people in the Medicaid sector and that was going to require a 649 00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,120 different type of technology, a different type of user 650 00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:55,000 experience. Even the information design 651 00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,800 within the platform had to be different because it had to be 652 00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:02,160 catered and digested for people that we're going to require 653 00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,160 extended assistance into getting to their services. 654 00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:10,400 So it was a, it was AU turn into type of work that we were doing. 655 00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:13,320 That's when we learned again, that it's always so valuable to 656 00:38:13,720 --> 00:38:15,680 go back and understand who are the people that you are 657 00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:18,480 designing for? How will they experience your 658 00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:20,440 service when you're not in the picture? 659 00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:25,880 So it was definitely one of those areas where we we feel 660 00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:29,320 that we were challenged in our understanding where we had to 661 00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,720 stop and make a decision on whether we were actually 662 00:38:32,720 --> 00:38:36,160 building the right thing or we had to go back into the drawing 663 00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:41,240 board and make this service better for end users that are 664 00:38:41,240 --> 00:38:44,880 not necessarily completely used to driving their health care in 665 00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:49,120 a digital format. That was an interesting and very 666 00:38:49,240 --> 00:38:54,920 informative type of experience. That sounds, yeah, very 667 00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:59,960 challenging indeed, specifically in the middle of the pandemic, 668 00:38:59,960 --> 00:39:01,640 right? When it's more needed because 669 00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:06,920 then we realized that the urgency was even higher because 670 00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:10,280 a lot of people were going through, they had multiple 671 00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:14,240 healthcare needs that we're very pressing or we're not 672 00:39:14,240 --> 00:39:17,960 necessarily tended to because we were cut off from physical 673 00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:21,160 services. So yes, we had to take time to 674 00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:23,600 understand who these people were on the other side, but we also 675 00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:26,360 needed to act fast so we could provide a service that was 676 00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:30,320 effective quickly and it can help them really like get get a 677 00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:33,680 better sense of, of healthcare services in a time of more 678 00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:37,560 needed. Very interesting. 679 00:39:37,720 --> 00:39:44,760 So as we start to wrap up, we always like to understand if you 680 00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:48,400 could design your perfect creative day for maximum 681 00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:51,360 performance, how would you? How would this day look like? 682 00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,240 How would you design it? What are the choices behind it 683 00:39:54,240 --> 00:39:57,520 for you? Well, one of the things that I 684 00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:02,440 have realized is that I. I need to maintain a balance 685 00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:05,920 between my personal priorities and my work priorities for me to 686 00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,400 operate at my highest performance. 687 00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:13,160 There was a time before starting this company where I used to 688 00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:17,000 wake up at 5:30 in the morning because I was working with a 689 00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:19,640 team in India. And I would connect because we 690 00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,720 would have very few hours in the day, talk to them for a couple 691 00:40:22,720 --> 00:40:25,120 of hours and then I would work straight throughout the day 692 00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:28,800 until I connected back with them at 9:00 PM where they woke up. 693 00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:33,640 And I would create a cycle of running my days like this every 694 00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:36,040 day. This didn't really work for me. 695 00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:42,120 I did it for a while and I felt the burnout happening very 696 00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:44,360 quickly as I as I was going through this. 697 00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:51,080 So I don't believe that 24/7 productivity equates to 698 00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:53,360 performance. So now the thing that I have 699 00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:56,880 done is I have created healthier routines where I can take care 700 00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,880 of myself for me to be able to take care of my company, to take 701 00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:03,840 care of my team. I like to start my days doing 702 00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:06,480 physical exercise. I do yoga, I do cycling. 703 00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:10,520 I take the first hour of the morning to really concentrate on 704 00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:15,440 my mental health, on my body. Then I go back and start working 705 00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,280 on on productivity mode and I start my day with a very, very 706 00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:23,920 large black coffee. And then I try to segment my day 707 00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:28,720 thinking the most important or most challenging thing that I 708 00:41:28,720 --> 00:41:32,880 have to take care of earlier in the day so I don't burn out 709 00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:36,920 myself with smaller tasks, leaving it towards the end. 710 00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:39,960 What I have found is if I complete the most important 711 00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,800 thing first, I feel both a sense of release and a sense of 712 00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:45,960 accomplishment on having been able to do that. 713 00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:49,440 And then all of the rest of my day flows, flows very well. 714 00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:56,160 I, I like, I'm super physical when it comes to the things I 715 00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:59,200 do. So I like, I do, I have like to 716 00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:01,520 do lists of everything that I want to do in the day. 717 00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:04,960 And I try to like keep it short because I heard from someone 718 00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:08,960 that you should set yourself to do three things a day and that's 719 00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:10,640 achievable. And that's let's say like a 720 00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:13,760 smart goal that you can achieve. So I try to like limit it to 721 00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:17,040 three and then I keep on adding things if I, if I get more 722 00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:21,240 bandwidth, but I try to do this, this hacks and I, I, I 723 00:42:21,240 --> 00:42:24,240 appreciate everyone on, on like social media that's sharing 724 00:42:24,240 --> 00:42:26,800 their, their, their little hacks because I believe they work. 725 00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:29,840 I try to create that balance throughout the day in between, 726 00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:31,720 OK, a lot of things that I've accomplished. 727 00:42:31,720 --> 00:42:35,680 And then I take 30 minutes to like have a decent lunch, go for 728 00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:39,240 a walk with my dog and and you know, try to try to incorporate 729 00:42:39,240 --> 00:42:40,640 both of the things throughout my day. 730 00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:44,160 Wonderful. That's great to hear about that. 731 00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:45,520 And thank you for sharing your notebook. 732 00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:50,000 That's really great. I'm curious now about like your 733 00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:52,200 inspiration. Where do you go to find this 734 00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:55,800 inspiration? How do you continuously innovate 735 00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:59,080 and expose yourself to new things and ideas? 736 00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:04,720 So I, I think that I find inspiration in people and the 737 00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:06,720 great work that other people are doing. 738 00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:11,200 Fortunate enough to live in New York where there is a multitude 739 00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:14,680 of people pursuing very, very interesting dreams here. 740 00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:21,040 And I, I try to bake time within my week so I can go and meet new 741 00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:23,680 people in the city and learn from what they're doing. 742 00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:27,040 New Yorkers have a bad Rep. I would say that I don't feel 743 00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:31,400 it. I have reached out to people 744 00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:35,200 that I barely know and everyone has given me 30 minutes to have 745 00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:38,240 a cup of coffee and then get to meet each other. 746 00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:40,920 And I find that super inspirational. 747 00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:46,720 I have to say that I try to get out of my traditional topics for 748 00:43:46,720 --> 00:43:50,240 inspiration. I try to go and look for very 749 00:43:50,240 --> 00:43:53,280 different things. I try to go to museums. 750 00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:57,000 I try to connect with people that are doing something 751 00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:00,200 completely different and unrelated to what I'm doing. 752 00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:03,840 And that really gives me like energizes me. 753 00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:07,240 And I always come back home with something that I learned about 754 00:44:07,240 --> 00:44:08,880 the other person. I'm something that I learned 755 00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:12,200 about myself in that process. That's wonderful. 756 00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:14,720 Do you have any specific recommendations, whether it's 757 00:44:14,720 --> 00:44:18,080 like a museum exhibition, a book, a movie, a show, any piece 758 00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:22,160 of media or experience that you would like to recommend to our 759 00:44:22,160 --> 00:44:24,200 viewers? Slash listeners. 760 00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:29,320 I always recommend the same book to my students at Parsons. 761 00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:32,480 It's called Feel like an Artist by Austin Klian. 762 00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:36,080 This is a book that is is super close to my heart. 763 00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:40,200 I actually got it here when I came to New York for the first 764 00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:43,440 time after graduating for my undergrad program. 765 00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:45,960 And it was it was one of the first things that I found here. 766 00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:52,280 And it was so liberating because rather than telling you exactly 767 00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:54,360 what you have to do, it's almost like the book gave you 768 00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:58,080 permission for the process of getting inspiration from other 769 00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:03,200 people, trying things unfailing. It lowered the pressure on my 770 00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:07,080 own perception as a creator. And I think it's important that 771 00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:08,520 that's important for everyone to have. 772 00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:12,480 Like we can find ways to increase our education in 773 00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:15,200 multiple formats. But I think that this book was 774 00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,320 more about creativity and your relationship to yourself, which 775 00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:22,400 I I've gained a lot from as the years have gone through. 776 00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:25,600 Wonderful. Yeah, we'll definitely post a 777 00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:29,440 link to that so people can check it out in the show notes and in 778 00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:31,680 the description for this episode. 779 00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:35,200 So, well, we're starting to wrap up on our time together. 780 00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:38,800 Maria, it's really flown by, but we'd like to end our episodes 781 00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:42,120 with a call to action. So can you let our listeners, 782 00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:45,280 our viewers, know where they can learn more about you, where they 783 00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:47,440 can learn more about your work, connect with you, whatever. 784 00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:48,760 We'll post this on the show notes as well. 785 00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:51,800 But it's helpful for folks to hear it or see it as well. 786 00:45:52,720 --> 00:45:56,400 Of course, I I would love to connect to the IGA community. 787 00:45:56,480 --> 00:46:02,400 I've been both a member and a fan for the past decade, so 788 00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:05,840 people can reach out to me on my LinkedIn, it's Maria Laroda. 789 00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,720 We will drop it on the notes, but also I'd love to invite 790 00:46:08,720 --> 00:46:11,960 everyone to check out the work that we're doing at Switch, our 791 00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:20,080 website isswitchstrategy.co. We are looking to connect with 792 00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:22,280 people that are working within the same space. 793 00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:25,520 And actually, we are offering a 30 minute discovery call for 794 00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:28,960 organizations that want to identify how they can include 795 00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:32,600 more of a purpose within the work that they're doing or find 796 00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:37,360 a way to innovate their business model to drive inclusivity and 797 00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:39,280 to grow. Wonderful. 798 00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:43,120 All right, well, Maria, thanks again for joining us and thank 799 00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:46,800 you for listening to or watching this episode of the AIGA Design 800 00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:48,760 podcast. We are wherever you get your 801 00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:52,640 podcasts or also on YouTube at AIGA Design if you'd like to 802 00:46:52,640 --> 00:46:55,360 look for us there. And remember this episode and 803 00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:58,480 all of our episodes, all of our programming is sponsored by AIGA 804 00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:01,840 members. So learnmoreaboutaiga@aiga.org 805 00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:05,720 and hope to see you too at our conference this year, October 806 00:47:05,720 --> 00:47:08,280 9th through 11th in Los Angeles, CA. 807 00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:11,160 But until then, I'll see you in a future episode, so bye 808 00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:12,720 everyone. Bye everyone.