Welcome to AIG a spiral side chat.
Thank you for joining us. Please connect with us and share
your thoughts, the hashtags for this Fireside or aiga design and
future design. It is my pleasure to welcome,
Benny of Johnson aiga is executive director and today's
guest designer, Randy hunt, any thank you, Amy, and welcome all
to today's episode or addition if you will of our design and
Leadership Fireside talks today, we have a special guest and We
jokingly said design never sleeps but it is uniquely aware
of time zone differences. So for the first time we have a
fireside chat. Randy is coming live from
Singapore and I'm broadcasting from DC.
So gives you a sense of our global scale and reach today,
but I'm happy to bring with us Randy hunt who needs no
introduction. But I'm, I love to talk about
the fact that he's an award-winning designer.
He's an entrepreneur, fast company has deemed Him one of
the most creative people in business and the companies and
organizations that he's LED, he's an adventurer and he's
really a student thinking about the future of design and work.
Randy most recently headed up design for grab and grab is
considered one of the super apps based in Singapore.
He's led a team that he grew of more than 130 product designers,
researchers Riders Engineers problem solved as the
illustrators overseeing Groups businesses that meet every
essential human need Transportation food, and grocery
delivery. Logistic digital banking
financial services and telemedicine, grab was listed.
Number two is one of the companies changing the world and
having a positive impact over the last two years of the
pandemic prior to his Adventure at grab and Singapore.
He was head of design for artsy platform and head of design for
Etsy. Randy has been an entrepreneur
Award winner at Etsy. His work one, the cooper-hewitt
national design award for corporate and institutional
advancement. He's also an author of project
of product design for the web, in which he, explorers the
involving discipline of product. For those eight today's
designers, he also co-founded Supermarket, a curated design
Marketplace. It's in this capacity and as we
talked about Randy, as band for years and active writer critic,
and visiting designer at many colleges universities.
Well, so without further Ado, I introduce you our Fireside, the
one and only Randy hunt. Welcome good, sir.
Thank you. Thank you for having me and
everyone, it's really a great to have you here and you know in
our conversations I'd like to start off with this question.
One of the things that I noticed it's really been a throughput
put in your career, whether it was Supermarket, the curated
designs Marketplace or your work at Etsy or even some of the work
that you've done it grab there's this notion of economic
empowerment through design you know speak a bit about that and
how that's been a throughput over the years that you it
really shows up when you look back over your career knows
those faces. Yeah.
Yeah, nice. Nice Insight.
Yeah, well, I think also, when you look back, you know, And
path can really rather you know rational or looking like mix
sensitive. Great arrested as it's
happening. The didn't necessarily feel that
way all the time. Although maybe underneath there
were some interests or themes. Yeah.
And I think that for me, personally, when I was much
younger, I was, you know, I had started several different small
businesses. I've started ran a record, label
ran a small design studio, some of the things that kind of
predate. you know, things you listed in an introduction and
that was really meaningful experience for me in that, it
felt The both creative from sort of a problem-solving standpoint
by running these businesses and start even, but it also felt
really kind of like liberating or empowering to be kind of the
more full agency over. What was happening, you know, to
make decisions that matter to decide what to focus on and do
was always just active to be like at that stage of my life
and maybe a channeled, some of my like, punk rock energy into
something, right? Like really productive Active or
something. And so I was really attracted to
that at a very personal level. And then I started to I think
just kind of become aware of the fact that many other people.
I have that same experience or have that same desire to have
that same experience. You know that's a this you know
I've got this business idea and I want to get off the ground or
I have this product idea and no I think the that appeal was
something I could relate to and understood was often more sort
of Universal at that level. Then I think the next layer is,
as time passes, I see that my understanding of the world gets
a little more nuanced and sophisticated, probably less
self-centered and You know, you start to understand or I started
to, you know, understand that the the way in which we can like
earn money essentially or sort of like create value be
compensated for it in the context of sort of how our
economic system works. Is there like a lot of
constraints and sort of a lot of opportunities and Sometimes it
is difficult for people to pass from like one to the other, you
know, to go from the environment of constraints, to the
environment of, like, seeing this as possibilities, and
having that same thing I saw is kind of like creative
self-expression. They might also see that way
leads to like, a fulfilling life experience, maybe it just sort
of drive one zone and sort of making one's living, right bike,
sort of on your own terms and that Doing work that helps
enable that became like very meaningful or appealing to me.
And so that was I suppose, if we Zoom way out, we could call it
design, which is okay. Every time I designed a big
scale, but I think that in a much simpler way, it was just
like what these businesses were about, you know, like the nature
of kind of a Marketplace business, you know, and I've
been involved in many Marketplace businesses.
You have some like supply side of this Marketplace that has
some service to offer Goods to sell and when the people
Operating that supply side of the market, place are
individuals and small businesses.
The success of the whole Enterprise is predicated on
creating success for all of these individuals and small
businesses. And that I find very meaningful
work. It relates to that path of kind
of moving from 91 economic position to another and, you
know, the freedom to kind of control ones and big ones.
Living on one son's terms or more so and I found that easy to
wake up every day and be motivated to work on it.
Really simple and I guess I can feel proud of that work in that
context and I think that has been probably letter the series
of decisions over time, that looks like keep working on that
thing. So when you think about this and
it in really is conversation at the mic at the micro level.
When you went to grab your listed as one of the fastest
growing startup. So moving in scale, but still
talking about impacting lives in Southeast Asian in ways that you
can become a part of grabs Mission and platform.
So what were the biggest challenges you had from going
from, you know, working with the smaller businesses in a very
direct way to this larger platform.
Mmm. Yeah, so I think the well, the
challenges are many, but I think the Wanna all the platform is
larger, meaning they're more part tense in the marketplace,
right? Both the general consumers,
consuming the services as well as people supplying them.
So maybe we'll take a very specific example that everyone
can relate to at this point. I think, after two years of, you
know, lockdowns and corn beans and working from home, like,
like food delivery as one of the services that we offer right on
your baton the you know, headquartered in Singapore, but
actually across southeast Asia. Need to cram trees though.
Indonesia Malaysia, Thailand Vietnam.
Nam Philippines, Cambodia and actually Myanmar or which, of
course, our business. In Myanmar is in a very
different position after the overthrow of the government
there. Be no, some wild things that
happen in other parts of the world.
The so, in the context of like food delivery of vast, majority
of the food businesses that people are buying from, you
know, through our software platform are extremely small.
Mall. Businesses, sure.
There's a, you know, there's a chain restaurant, as well, as
through this, maybe I Donald's or a Jollibee or something, and
that exists as well, the vast vast majority of them already
behind him, right? You know what we would call like
a mom and pop shop in the states or something.
But you know what? That looks like.
If sometimes a food like a food cart, you know, and like a
non-permanent food car on the side of the road and, you know,
and like Jakarta Indonesia or something.
And the the challenges. Are less about the scale and
some of the size. But I'd say the challenges you
about the variety of customers and their needs and experiences
because of that size. So this very informal food cart
example, right? Which is very likely owned and
operated by the same person who does all of the work, like
they're buying the raw ingredients on their way, to
their car, they're pushing the cart around to making the food,
they're selling it. The entire thing is happening
with this one individual And then in at the same time, you
might have a small restaurant. Also in Jakarta, you know, for
someone who maybe owns three or four small restaurants in
Jakarta, these are still pretty informal.
It may have even been primarily cash businesses, 24 months ago
or something. Wow.
The only, you know, family owned and operated, then you might
have sort of Singapore. That is a small Restaurant
Group, right? Which is still in like, a global
sense, very much alike, smaller medium.
That's right. But you might have restaurant
managers at five locations. This they might have you know 50
60 70 employees across these multiple locations and the the
what you need to create as a software experience to enable
all of the transactions to happen for those different kinds
of users are pretty radically different.
Even though to URI if we were going to order food from them
would cry, pull up a menu. We've searched for maybe, when
we like to reseal was close to Dad like that delivery.
You should order. So the consumer experience is
similar ish, but underneath those businesses and the
conditions they're operating in are pretty radically different.
And that I think is where some of the biggest challenges, this
kind of the what we would call like hyper localization.
Yeah, yeah. Hey, you know, it's really
telling for everyone in our audience, Randy was Stateside
and you decide to take this adventure to pack up and take on
this business challenge to move the Singapore.
So I have two questions for you like, You know, how did you feel
about taking this leap into what?
How is this experience made you a better designer?
And design leader? I mean, I felt both know, you
know, Nervous and excited or I suppose like anxious in both,
you know all senses of the term. Yeah, it was a Like I was ready
to experience something different at a professional
level and that was, I think driven by feeling like I had,
you know, I, my experience has been that I have like very steep
growth curves and then things will kind of like level out and
you have to drive, you have to create change the experience,
some other kind of growth experience, right?
Sometimes it's in the same company, Your Role sometimes
switching to major industries and I feel like I was at one of
those places. I got very curious about how I
could create like some radical growth.
And as I looked around at the other possibilities that seen
more obvious to me or natural based on my geography, the
industry as working in my existing Network these things.
None of them felt very radical. You know I kind of like the
number of the were similar and we're quite successful in
various you know, commercial lenses or my own qualitative,
assessment of them for like how proud We Are of the Wood and
things like that. And so started to look further
afield. Both conceptually or like
metaphorically and then it ended up being like quite literally on
the opposite side of the planet. And that was very like very
intentional to write change context that a pretty like
radical way. And so I was also feeling quite
like while nervous also proud of it, I think for myself for being
Link to take the risk. Her something like that.
Yeah. What does the second part of
your question was? How did this make me?
I think a better design leader. Their leader, no, I think that
the The cultural context is one very different and so I think
that just forces your you to be even more adaptable, more
open-minded. You know, I consider myself a
quiet like open-minded person and but but yeah, the cultural
context is just different forces, you know, lots of
different interesting learning from life experience and we
could decrypt the given to those or something.
The other is a, I think that it Helped me.
See you? That the like even more.
That there are like there are many ways to accomplish things,
you know, there are many like methods many approaches, and
there's not really like a, a way, you know, and you can
arrive at good outcomes through a number of means, and also that
the what identify something, as, you know, a good outcome can
also change in the in the context, you know?
Like the cultural context but also the industry the moment of
time in that industry and yes the number a number of things.
I think it left me feeling less certain right in a good way.
Yeah right. I'm like what?
Even even more open I suppose chemo open to to the change in
the space in there. So you know one of the things
that I thought was really interesting when you look at
actually got to redo tough things.
We're Anna, go back a little bit.
I was reading one of the pieces you wrote almost about 10 years
ago, now, in Fast Company. And it was your thoughts on
design. And it was this conversation
about cleverness. And how sometimes we met in in
love of our own design, get in the way of our true impact in
space. With, with being overly clever,
I love, I love for you to give me a couple words on that.
It's been about 10 years. Since she wrote that piece for
Fast Company and I wonder if you still feel those Saints for
those who haven't had a chance to check it out, I give you a
reading assignment for this week in the checkout.
Randy's piece. Yeah, it's interesting.
Okay, so this and I took you back that that was a surprise
for you because I read that and also I mean that that particular
sort of article if you will this like I say is an expanded upon
in the book that I wrote that was published in May 2013 for
something to place that in time. So yeah, even that yeah, almost
a decade ago, the so, the The point I was making in this piece
was really around the like, based on the observations I have
around common behaviors that are happening in the industry at the
time. Particularly with many new
people coming into, what like the software design space.
I often from other design fields and disciplines and this is
still happening today. But it's, you know, things have
evolved again in many ways with a, I think more of an emphasis
on What? Today I would call you like
Grand Design or something like that and maybe sometimes putting
an overemphasis on the stylistic layer of the designed experience
from the writing standpoint. You know, kind of sometimes
missing utility or compromising utility a bit much by my
opinion, you know, for the sake of trying to be expressive and
things. So there's a bit of a argument
for More rationalized like approach to creating the
software experience. I believe this is still a good
point of view in general. However, I think we've also
arrived at a place and maybe this isn't is in fact, relevant
to the experience. We were just talking about like,
here in here in Southeast Asian. Well, when, when you're trying
to establish, I believe, like new behaviors for you.
Workers consumers, users, whatever the terminology, maybe
you're auditing answer. Sometimes like being like very
clear and direct and simplifying and kind of like letting the
things be what they are without dressing them up, too much.
Can be effective in helping people truly understand the
thing, which is different than maybe making the same attractive
to them or capturing their attention.
To want to understand the things.
So this is a distinction yet, but this realness, like,
directness allows you to, I think sort of educate in a way
implicitly. You know, the thing is so kind
of simple and clear and it says, what it does, you know, it's all
quite straightforward. The challenge though, with this
approach. If I could like disagree with my
past self or get more nuanced. Yeah.
Is that one? There's a point I need and
that's why I love it. Batting haven't read anyway.
Yeah, I wanted. When did you have the chance to
do that? It's always good to kind of
challenge. Our own words and think about
it. So yeah, go for it.
Yeah, yeah. I think the thing must be
appealing, right? There's a and that the stylistic
layer plays a role in creating like an attraction or a desire a
curiosity or interest that might bring one to use.
Try engage with something. The other from sort of like a
business standpoint, I'm kind of like a competitive standpoint is
that, you know, if I rewind 10-15 years, the kinds of things
we're working on. We're in many cases, very novel.
Like they were, if not the first, they were very early in a
kind of experience like this and in some cases like, like an Etsy
or something, it was one of the first sort of like Successful
like social commerce things and not like generation UNC like an
older experienced something like eBay or something, it was
evolving, but kind of at this moment in time it was a bit of a
standard Bear, right? But as time passes, most things
that are not old and new start to become normalized, even the
kind of like spread into the culture, like either products
business and services start to Adopt the same patterns because
they sort of work and then because they're adopted, they
become nor will, you know? And they it all starts to feel
like default, right? And the same, that's really good
for like a usability standpoint. I can kind of move around
between a number of things and expect them to work.
Similarly think we're seeing something like this right now
with the kind of like Tick-Tock style like full screen but like
flip the video to the next thing about Instagram stories like the
side, big nose happening in snap, but there's a few of these
behaviors that start to become so normal.
You see? Somewhere else and you
automatically know how to do them.
That's great. The problem from like a business
standpoint, Is that the thing? I was maybe advocating against
the cleverness. And things like that, things
that makes the experience may be more unique which could
potentially be less straightforward like a little
more poetry in the experience also.
Maybe what distinguishes it from other things that are largely
similar, right? And so now becomes a point of
differentiation. If you're looking at sort of
commodity products, in a way, if I think about the things I was
working on a grab at some level, they were, there's like, you
know, we were the leader in nearly every category and every
Market we are operating in, but that doesn't mean that were
competitors. And, you know, deliver food from
A to B or provide some service is largely a commodity service.
Like you can you know other people can offer the same thing.
You know, you might get on price but at some level he just
competing on price, you know, down down down, that doesn't fit
the model. So you have to become attractive
and appealing to the customer for other reasons.
Yeah. So then you're wanting to
distinguish yourself and be different.
And so all of those, you know, if you reduce the thing to it's
pure T the most straightforward understandable usable part of it
and have massage, without any sense of things.
I might create an emotional relationship for the consumer,
you're missing the opportunity from like a business strategy
standpoint too. Attractor retain customers,
without essentially, like buying their loyalty with cheaper
prices or discounts or something like that.
Now when when we think about that kind of maturation
arkwright coming in on platforms with your new and new ideas.
That's something that's that's another thing.
That's been a Hallmark of your career being early in creating
the spaces, we've been talking a bit about, you know, what's next
on the horizon? Rison in our conversations and
firesides and allow the conversations of stemmed around
designs role and problem solving in the fintech space or kind of
next level of Engagement around that what are some of your
thoughts about what's next for design?
As we think about these other opportunities.
Yeah, sure. I mean, gosh, there's a lot,
it's a lot happening, you know, at some level that's, you know,
designs moment. It kind of feels like that.
It really does. Yeah, over and over again, but
it feels like one of those moments now I think we can't
ignore this sort of macroeconomic conditions that
informed that that have to do with the you know particularly
as we look at at the technology parts of this space because of
the funding models and venture capital and the potential for
you know software scale, businesses to operate extremely
efficiently you know as they mature that you know there's a
lot of capital looking for places to go.
That has the potential to rip, you know, have greater returns
than elsewhere. So it ends up being a lot of
money flowing through the system, which means a lot of,
you know, there's just a lot of activity, you know, happening
and happening very quickly, and lots of people taking risks and
Bets. That's an important, you know,
the context that some of this is happening in, right?
And that's why you see like a big get it right?
Yeah. Explosion of like fin Tech stuff
is I think in part because nest A side, move slower for a while,
you know, but the other part is, like, with lots of capital
reserves and things that feel different than even like a
decade ago or something, you know, smaller, like up starting
companies can do things, like lend money, you know, these sort
of like a Kelowna and, you know, I told me and he's gonna pay
later services that have kind of come out of nowhere, right?
Feel like, they've come out of nowhere, the last, like, four or
five years and are now, you know, Interest-free, for
installment payments kinds of thing, you know, it's like I
lie, you know, competitive space, super hot really fast.
That's very interesting to see. I'm not saying it's good, I'm
saying it's interesting. Yeah.
Right. Because they get rapid changes
in consumer Behavior, powered by like the availability of
software its willingness to take risk to Market itself very
aggressively. But at the same time, it is
forming. Maybe habits your As a consumer
it's offering a product that you know through the credenzas is
effectively like you know on unsecured, you know loan loans,
effectively like high interest, loans of you if you default on
these things and some would argue creates like spending
patterns that are unhealthy or relationship of the spending
patterns are and healthy other say like this amazing people are
getting like approved for a short-term, you know, financing
on something. Wouldn't get approved otherwise,
you know because we're not going through typical kind of like
credit approval processes and things like that.
So yeah, I think that's very interesting.
What is happening? Just an example of this kind of
like pay later Services, the larger space, the what, maybe
what is most interesting about? That is how fast it has
happened, right? And then how like, how fast the
businesses like come to exist, grow are copied the way, you
know, the business model is replicated weather.
You know, across regions. Hey, this is working in EM, you
know, this is working in Mainland Europe.
Let's do it in Australia, fast them same idea, you know, before
the competitor extends globally, we're going to like do it in the
local market. Get a stronghold.
You see this happening very, very quickly but the other is
actually know that the regulatory conversation around
these things. Right?
You know, is quite dynamic as well, which I did find also
interesting. Again not necessarily good or
bad sometimes. Yes.
Good or bad. But like largely, I find it very
intellectually interesting. And in some cases we feel like
you know, the regulation is a slow and trails the kind of
business Innovation. Another cases like Regulators
are acting quite quickly in some cases and maybe like
aggressively in some you know cases in some markets and I
think that makes for a very exciting climate to go sort of
be working in. Yeah, I sell and so many So many
of these Ventures are from the start design richly.
Design-driven, we're going to take some before that they're
starting in and that waiting to grow into being designed for it.
Many of these Ventures are starting This is true.
Yes. And I think you're staying There
is a bit more often. You are seeing some they I was
a, the Baseline level of sort of the design execution.
The user experience thinking that kind of like customer
experience lens being elevated quite early, right?
Which is super cool to see. But interestingly, I think many
of these organizations, maybe these brands are built.
Sir products then hit another, you know, we've like made this
amazing thing happened where like often the design is there
at the beginning? They're competing from a brand
positioning standpoint, very early as well.
Brands are like Dynamic nicely executed, you know, in-house
teams and right design, firms and studios around the world are
doing, like, you know, exceptionally good work on some
of the stuff. It's like really cool to see,
but as they grow and scale there's Still seems to be a lack
of almost like the industry can't support the organizational
needs and the growth needs as quickly as they're happening the
businesses, right? So, I mean, the number of sort
of like head of design, VP of design job, openings and many of
these organizations is kind of baffling, right?
While they struggle to, I think, Find and make successful the
qualified candidates. I don't actually think there's a
lack of the qualified candidates but I think the it may be at any
particular Market or Niche. There might there might be a
stance but there are many many capable people who are qualified
for these roles in the industry but I think the way that the
industry finds identifies evaluates Talent right is
somewhat of a mismatch so that's why I say they can't quite keep
up the right because what you made Needed someone to need to
take a risk on the leader because actually the person who
is available in capable and interested in that space,
doesn't have a track record of doing the job before that, you
need them to do right now. I'm going to be a first-time.
VP you have people making like very aggressive business growth
choices. Very conservative, like hiring
choices like, oh, we're looking for the person who's done this
thing before but some of these things are so novel.
But there are very few people who can, you know, That we can
say, I've done this three times before that.
That's like the Battle Scars. That's a joke.
Yeah, definitely credible point. We always see an innovation
spaces in their organizations will say they want novel, new,
or Innovative. But to your point, the default
in hiring becomes the classic. Have you done this before in a
space? That looks just like it and it's
really impossible to do that when the spaces are shaping up
and things that we haven't seen before, our spacing in the
space. That there's there hasn't been
this face. What?
What advice would you have? I mean, one of the things that
you've been able to do is kind of break through in a global
sense. What advice would you have for
members of a design Community who are looking to take this
next level risk? You know, what can they do to
become their own advocates for jumping into some of these
opportunities with success? It's a great question.
I'm slow, slowly. Considering the answer it is.
I think there's is very kind of like tactical.
Like the Practical advice though.
My first answer, which is I think that the There are many.
Third parties recruiters that are, you know, hired by a number
of these companies, or sometimes their investors who represent,
often many roles inside many organizations simultaneously.
The that are just an extremely powerful, kind of like entry
point into the space. And I find that, you know, the
He's good recruiters or head under his, or do you want to,
you know, call them rent. Their interests are quite
aligned with yours, you know. Like they want you to get the
job as well. Yeah.
Right. The whole model is predicated on
that working, you know? And so I think in some case,
dude, it's like having once been aware of that.
I mean, some people in the design industry are very, very
aware of this practice and almost like having recruiters
work on your behalf like to take you in Bound.
To, you know, organizations or connecting with their clients.
But if you are not do should, you know, look into that.
Maybe we can share some resources with the word
Innovation, leader or something, the end.
They have likely helped represent in position people
with similar backgrounds and still skip skill sets as your
own into these kinds of rules before you know they're doing
this all the time. So they may understand what
works from a, you know. What things to emphasize me
experience or how to who and how to kind of enter the
conversation with the with the organizations because they know
their clients or they know these clients, they work for in the
past. They know these rules, they know
the personalities of the hiring managers or the founders of the
companies and can help you bridge that, you know, so it's
not all in the design leaders, you know, shoulder and it away
They're kind of expert in that bridge building and I think a
large part of it is around helping see the it's about
potential over experience or potential as much as experience.
And so communicating, the how it's less about the evidence of
have you done this before, and it's more about the evidence of
having successfully figured out to do things you have not done
before, right? Right.
Like that's the, that's the right.
Key story in the track record and then it becomes, I think the
positioning becomes more precise around either, relative relevant
industry experience relevant, personal interests, finding
parallels between, you know, the specific experience you have.
And this other experience that maybe your organization may not
see. But that you can kind of help
them understand through like metaphor through storytelling,
through case studies that Everybody has a customer
acquisition problem. Everybody has a user retention
problem. Everybody wants more engagement,
everybody needs to operate the teamwork.
Officially I ever, you know, some of these problems and
themes are quite similar and so no, it doesn't look like, you
know, you don't have 20 years working in my climate Tech and
but you do maybe have experienced being a team with a
strong reputation. But you know, with Lois
Attrition in a second-tier city. When the talent Market is
smaller neck out, that's an interesting position.
Now, you know, that says, like this is a unique match for this
organization because they want to build, you know, trying to
build team. And maybe a lower-cost market,
or it's very important for their business that they're
geographically located around the same thing.
You have experience in places like that.
Yeah, I think it's about kind of like, you know, finding a less
obvious but relevant evidence. And, you know, that kind of
fills in the gap between experience and potential.
So thinking about potential, we're going to spend a bit to
look at the year ahead. What gets you excited my brother
about 20, 22? We're closing out the year now
and we have this whole new year ahead of us and from your
perspective, as a design leader in a strategist.
What are you most excited about for 2020?
Yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness, you know, I I
think that the I mean, for sure, I'm quite excited about the the
That is a number of emerging technologies that are pork.
They feel emerging in the leg Zeitgeist, they've been existed
in the background for a while, right?
They're coming into their mind, they are no yes that's kind of
like the butt end of the beginning.
In a way for a number of interesting technology thing,
that is a person who works very close to like service software
product design and Technology like this is Meaningful and fun
to be, you know, I don't know if I never called myself a
technologist, but it's Us go forward for today.
So yeah. So I think, I mean, one sort of
like watching technology in a number of the things that are
kind of loosely Under the Umbrella of like web 3 which you
know, someone who's like active in the space.
Also doesn't really know how people are defining it.
You still have it in the moment. It's gotten kind of like messy.
There's been drift, I think in what the words mean.
But I think that this kind of next chapter feels like the
First chapter like a consumer internet and level is becoming
for a prominent that has to do with both.
You know, permanent record enabled by blockchain anonymity,
like the potential for anonymity but also the history.
So the interesting tension of ideas, right?
I have a history of all sorts of transactions are activities.
That can be relatively, you know, This is designed to kind
of have anonymity, but at the same time because it is
decentralized and I own my, I have agency over my thing a lot
when we talk about right now is currency or it's like, I can be
my own bacon, like the cryptocurrency lens, but maybe
abstracted even simpler like, I own my account.
So, as opposed to having like a Google account Borough, Facebook
account, I have my account. And, uh, and this concept of
that account, its identity. Can be portable across different
parts of the internet. And so you have anonymity, but
you also have like a portable identity.
So you could choose to associate that, you know, it could be you,
Benny, your Could Be You Under some pseudonym or you a string
of numbers, doesn't matter from a technology standpoint, the
tension between these ideas permanent record in an enmity,
portable identity to me is like very intellectually interesting,
I think it starts to create both very interesting experience
opportunities. We can create potentially value
for users to have more control over their Assets in their
activity. It also creates, I think, you
know, there's, there's business potential.
There's also an interesting like Risk and interesting.
I think it's still relatively complex space.
So as could It gets more exposed to the general consumer because
back to us effective and clever kind of Glen line some way,
which is like, how do people understand how to participate in
a safe way rather than a, you know, protect themselves?
Their data their assets and how they survive live, a secure
existence in the context of this technology change.
I think is very emergent and important space for like user
experience designers. I suspect, we will see a number
of the sort of academics and critics, who really look at the
things like this, through a ethics lens to have a great
number of new, some topics in a way, for two issues to raise.
I think Dallas is like for practitioners to consider and
take responsibility for because it seems as though this next
chapter that starting will likely affect a number of
things. Things in our lives in ways, we
have not seen yet. Yeah, yeah.
That's exciting to be. I mean, that's where I'm most
excited personally, and like spending time and energy, but
I'm also quite enjoying watching the sort of augment Duty space
in particular, okay, developing. So I think we're seeing consumer
utility there. And You're like meaningful ways,
you know, it's kind of gone beyond prototypes or like beef
kind of like you know, technologist nerds or industrial
applications or military applications to like more
everyday uses starting work largely like, you know, having
fun, and games and likes, you know, filters and snap and
things but it's starting to be and I'm starting to find a
utility and value right? To be a little bit any right?
It does. It's really in it inspires I
think you know we imagine it as somehow I just common pattern.
Should a consumer level that happens where it's like, it's on
the edges. It's like entertainment or it's,
you know, these other things which I for a lot of people it's
like, that's not for me, you know, for item, get it.
Then we start to see it come closer with utility or emotional
connection so yes they see all like all the fun you know.
They still tears on your on Instagram or something and then
I think the other great example is Google like walking
directions, you know the Google directions were you know, you
hold up your phone. You're seeing you know the World
Behind You live through the camera but augmented with you
know, you can turn down this path and things, it's quite a
sophisticated problem to resolve its Cool.
I think the ux of these is done my quite elegantly, so that's
great, utility in and of itself. What I find most exciting is
that most people experience something like that where the
first time Then they start to like imagine where except that
there are many other yet unrealized possibilities that
have similar utility, right? Yeah.
This I think we're seeing the same thing happening in the sort
of, you know, cryptocurrency space and other things.
Where once someone has a meaningful engagement with it,
you'll not news headlines, not hype Cycles, not you know, big
numbers are lots of fraud but I'm bored, you know, intimate
experience around it where they experience something that is
either. Very fun for themselves or it
feels like it has utility and they really see like kind of a
loop and get closed or a transaction happen and how it is
different. They become than quite open to
you. I think imagining and inviting
in the other areas of utility. Yeah, yeah.
I think I think that's, you know, incredibly powerful.
We think about that adoption. So you go through, it's the
novelty and it's on the edge and it's the fun.
It's what other people are doing to then having these ways that
it shows up meaningful. So I can't believe we're We, we
are at the end of our time that we had allotted.
I know, we could sit here and talk forever, but I just
appreciate you coming in. And I want to invite you to be
talked about the future. So I'm sick.
Standing a future invite to you. My friend took for us to get
together for Fireside this time at the end of next year and
we're going to do the same thing and look back and see what is
going to help me. What surprised us?
But Randy I appreciate you once again and invite everybody to
join us for our fire. Sighs.
Today we were with award-winning designer entrepreneur.
Technologists, my friend for degree allergist, creator of
dynamic Brands. You know, looker into the future
Builder creator of opportunities for economic empowerment and
overall humanitarian. Randy.
It's been a pleasure. I appreciate your camaraderie
and your Insight and thank you for joining us.
Thank you all for joining us. Thank you for having even for
sure.