The Informed Life Podcast
Karl Fast is an independent scholar, information architect, and futurist. He’s the co-author of Figure It Out: Getting From Information to Understanding. This is the second half of a two-part conversation about interaction and embodiment. If you haven’t done so already, please listen to part 1 before listening to this episode.
Karl Fast is an independent scholar, information architect, and futurist. He’s the co-author of Figure It Out: Getting From Information to Understanding alongside Stephen Anderson, who was featured in episode 39 of the show. In this conversation, Karl tells us about what interaction designers can learn from cognitive science. We had a lot to discuss, so this episode is the first of two on the subject.
Brian Breslin is a tech entrepreneur, educator, and community builder based in Miami. He’s the director of The Launch Pad, the entrepreneurship center at the University of Miami, and founder of Refresh Miami, a non-profit organization dedicated to growing South Florida’s tech and startup ecosystem. In this conversation, we focus on community-building, especially during this time when geographic boundaries are becoming blurred.
My guest today is Stephen P. Anderson. Stephen is a design leader who is focused on workforce learning and organizational development. He and Karl Fast recently published Figure it Out, a new book about how we can transform information to increase understanding. This is also the subject of our conversation; I hope you find it valuable.
My guest today is Andy Polaine. Andy is a service designer, consultant, educator, author, and podcaster. He’s co-author of the book Service Design: From Insight to Implementation and host of the Power of Ten podcast. In this conversation, we discuss service design, and how it helps organizations think more holistically about the experiences they enable.
My guest today is Matt Nish-Lapidus. Matt is an artist, musician, researcher, designer, and educator based in Toronto. Besides creating art and music, and doing design work, Matt also teaches at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. In this conversation, we discuss the role of art in our evolving technological and cultural environments.
My guest today is my friend Abby Covert, also known as Abby the IA. Abby is a Senior Information Architect at Etsy. She wrote the book How to Make Sense of Any Mess, a wonderful primer on information architecture, and co-founded World IA Day. She’s also taught graduate design students and curated global conferences about design. She’s done many of these things remotely over the last decade, which makes her a great guide for how to collaborate in our new reality.
My guest today is Aynne Valencia. Aynne is my colleague at the California College of the Arts, where she is the former Chair of the undergraduate interaction design program. In addition to teaching at CCA, she is also the Director of Design at San Francisco Digital Services, which designs digital experiences for the citizens of San Francisco and the city employees that serve them. In this conversation, we discuss the differences and similarities between the private, civic, and education sectors and the cadences of these domains.
My guest today is Carol Smith. Carol is a user experience researcher at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Her focus is artificial intelligence, and prior to joining Carnegie Mellon, she worked for Uber’s Advanced Technology Group and IBM Watson. In this conversation, we discuss the benefits and limitations of artificial intelligence — and machine learning, more specifically – for our day-to-day information management.
My guest today is Jessica Ivins. Jessica is a user experience designer. She’s also faculty member at Center Centre, the UX design school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she prepares students to be industry-ready UX designers. She wears many hats in this role, and in this episode, we talk about how she keeps track of it all.