Ep. 169 Fonz Morris is Lead Product Designer, Global Conversion at Netflix. He’s an entrepreneur and self-taught designer, leading one of the most impactful teams inside one of the biggest tech and media companies on the planet. He’s travelled all around the world on his self-driven educational adventures, and prior to joining Netflix, he led a design team at Coursera.
On this episode, Fonz speaks with AfroTech’s Will Lucas about unlocking success as a product designer and the tools you’ll need, how impactful travel has been to his design worldview, and how to design for conversion.
Follow Will Lucas on Instagram: @willlucas
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Will Lucas and this is black Tech, Green Money
fanz Morris is Lead Product Designer, Global Conversion at Netflix.
He's an entrepreneur and self taught designer leading one of
the most impactful teams inside one of the biggest tech
and media companies on the planet. He's traveled all around
the world on his self driven educational adventures, and prior
(00:25):
to joining Netflix, he let a design team at Corsera.
He's super passionate about mentorship and helping young designers on
their journey, spending a lot of time doing it. He's
got a lot of big work on his plate, but
why it's helping young designers on their journey among the biggest.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thanks for shouting that out.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I guess the easy answer I can say is I
feel honored to be able to do that. Like everybody
doesn't have the opportunity to be able to affect that many.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
People or impact their community like that.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
So I think I'm just very honored to be able
to do that, and that honor keeps me going as
well as just that's my nature, that's just how I am.
I did a sixteen personalities test, and part of my
strengths of that result of that test was I just
(01:15):
want the best for everybody, is what they said. That's
how I just look at the world. And I also
look at the world as I want to be able
to say that I have that I have and I
had impact. I'm just honored and I enjoy seeing people
thrive and grow and people open the door for me.
So it's almost a pay forward type of situation as well.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So you are a self taught designer, and I'm interested
in your take on today. You know, just several years ago,
we were, you know, just talking about how you needed
to go to school. Companies required it because it was
part of their filtering process. These days, maybe not so much.
I want you to speak on that. But being in
product design, how do you show, oh, number one, can
(02:00):
you do it being self taught? And secondarily, how do
you show that you've got the jobs to do it?
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So yes, you can definitely get a See. The thing
is we have to be more specific about the type
of industry that we're talking about or the specific company,
because it's not fair to just say Google or Netflix.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I know those are the fame companies.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
So that could be big tech you want to say, right,
but when you think of all of the different places
that are looking for product designers or are now adapting
design thinking have now given design a seat at the table.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
There's millions of companies that.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
You're just never going to think of, right, So, yes,
you can definitely get an amazing job a design job
at any stage of a company's life cycle.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I can say you can go from being an entrepreneur and.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Creating your own company to working at a startup to
working at a Series B or C D company that's
work one hundreds of millions, or you can work with
an IPO company and all of them will hire a
self taught designer because it's more about the experience that
you have. So if you are able to use your
self taught skills to then get opportunities and get experiences
(03:16):
to answer your second question, to show the skills that
you have, that's how you get the job.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
The other names and stuff go with it.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
So if you tell somebody you work that meta, they're
going to think you had a higher quality of experience,
so that's why they're interested in you.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yes, the meta part.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Is important, but what is the real importance is they
think you have a certain skill set, so you need
to be able to demonstrate that you have that skill
set and that's through your experiences. So that's why you
get a job that have a resume and have a
LinkedIn page that shows where have.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
You worked, what have you done, what skills do you have?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And now the company decides does your skill set match
the problem solving that they be done.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, let's dig into that, because when you use the
words skills a couple of times, I want to make
sure people know what you're actually talking about. So, because
there's a difference between being like a pigma beast, like
you can just run circles inside Figma or Adobe or
and a difference between that and being just a person
who develops really beautiful products. And so can you talk
(04:23):
about when you say skills, I can show the skills
that I have. What do you define that for me?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
So the skills would be defined by the individual of
where they say their strengths are or where they want
to pursue their career in. When you think of a
products life cycle, there's different phases in those different phases
require different skills. So if you are a visual person,
you may want to focused on the visual design, which
(04:52):
maybe UI, which would be almost like a couple steps
into the process as opposed to per se, I'm a
product designer and I'm trying to help ideate the idea
and come up with it from the beginning, So my
skills might be more just like an innovative thinker. I like,
I'm good at brainstorming, I'm good at coming up with
(05:15):
zero to one ideas. So that might be the skills
that I'm saying I have as a product designer. Where
a visual designer might say what you just said of
I'm really good in figma, I've done a bunch of
you why, I can really take take wireframes and bring
them to life and make them inciting and make users
(05:36):
want to interact with them. So that would be the
skills of that person. Where if you were a ux researcher,
you really can come up with deep understand you know
how to interact with your users to get their insights
from them about different products that you may be working
on or different questions you have, So you have research skills.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So it's all about out.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
What do you want to work on, what brings you joy,
what brings you passion, what excites you, and then now
the skills for that specific industry or domain will be
different and will be unique, and they'll be overlapping things
like that.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
But man, the bucket of skills is listen.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And so when you are you are today leading product design,
particularly for conversion at Netflix, and in my view, I mean,
maybe this is me translating it for myself, but you're
you're designing for sales, You're designing to keep people on
the site. You're designed to keep people going down the
rabbit hole in Netflix. So I'm gonna let you translate
(06:40):
it for your own. I'm'na let you define that. But
when we think about product design, I when I listen
to you talk, and I've listened to other interviews you've had.
We've been friends for a while, and I listened to
your other interview, and I'm like, this guy is a
man that thinks about data. He's and I saw this
quote I want to bring up. I don't even know
if you remember say this, but you said, at this
(07:01):
stage of my career, I don't like to guess. I
don't like to assume either. The data doesn't dictate the design,
but help support and give direction for it. So can
you take those things I just mentioned there and just
talk more about.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
That, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
So the second part I love to speak on because
when you're working with a user base that's as large
as Netflix is, we have about two hundred and sixty
million subscribers, you really any decisions you make are going
to affect a large amount of people. Now, even if
you do a small test, a small test for us
(07:41):
might be two million people, that's still two million people.
If we do like a multi large user based test,
that could be fifty sixty million people.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
You really shouldn't be.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Guessing when you're affecting that many people. And if you
have the resources and you have the data, now you
use that data to help figure out the dues and
don't of solving this problem where if you're just guessing,
you might make the wrong decision, where when you have
the data might tell you shouldn't even be worrying about
(08:13):
that part of this problem, like that's not where the
problem is, or this is where you should be focused
more on. So that will fluctuate depending on the problem
you're solving. But that's where I'm coming from. Of I
still have to come up with the solution for it,
but my solution is a lot more educated, So my
chances of success is a lot higher because I have
(08:34):
the data to back it up.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So that's where I'm coming from.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Of right now, I'm less about oh, did Fonds make
the right decision? I'm more focused on is this the
best decision for our user? And now what are all
of the different things I need to do to make
sure that that's the best decision. So it's almost says
as my career have grown has grown, I've kind of
taken myself out of being the person that I'm designing
(09:01):
for trying to make happy, and I'm really focused on
the user. So I'm very user centric with with my
design and my career I think now and.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Forever moving forward.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I always was user centric, but there still was so
much that I was focusing in and trying to just
prove to myself that I was a designer. Where now
I'm more getting the job done. And to get that done,
it takes a lot, like it takes a lot of
cross collaboration, it takes a lot of understanding of multiple
domains at once, and it takes you being able to
(09:35):
really know how to use the data to make the
best decisions.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You just said something that I thought it was interesting.
You just said, you know, I've I was trying to
prove to myself that I was a designer. You know,
Tay you more about that if you can.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I think when anybody's getting started in the career, you're
trying to build that confidence up, and you're probably comparing
yourself to people who you look up to, who have
more experience than you, and you want to be in
their shoes one day. So it's easy for you to
kind of and I don't like this term, but it's
true to kind of develop imposter syndrome. I don't think
(10:14):
it's imposter because imposter is me trying to perform.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Surgery on somebody.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
I have no right to even think about doing anything
in medicine, but a lot of things design related. I
mean I might not be an expert in that, but
I think I have the right to stand up. I
know what I'm talking about. So it's not that you're
an imposter. It's just the responsibilities and the expectations. It
be so high sometimes that you don't feel like you
(10:39):
might be able to get it done, and you're constantly
reassuring yourself through different projects that you work on. And
we're only human and we're sensitive, and I think we
forget about that part when we're building product and we're
building tech. It's like we forget about the humanity side
of it.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
And that's always there, it's the foundation of it.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
So when you're growing your career and as you move
to new jobs and with more responsibilities, you're constantly trying
to prove to yourself that yo, you can do this.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And you're good enough and you earned to be here.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
And then depending on what other societal things you may
have going on, like are you a female versus a male?
Like are you from an underrepresented community? Like where'd you
go to school? All of those different things play a
part when you're working in this, just like ecosystem, So
(11:36):
at certain times you might find yourself I think not
necessarily designing for the wrong reasons because you should make
yourself happy, but you start to lose focus of what
you should really be focused on. And that's why I
said I'm a user centered now as opposed to just
like what does fonds thinking?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Do I think this looks great?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Sometimes it designs that end up shipping aren't the ones
that I think are the best designs. But it didn't
matter because the data proved that this other design was
more efficient, so that's what we went with.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, So in that same interview where I got that quote,
you were talking about the data and you were talking
about how, hey, somebody says, you know, people in Korea
are canceling, and then so now you're going to go
dig into the data to figure out, Okay, is that
really true? Number one? And then why? And you said
something I thought was so interesting. You were like, you know,
at some level you've got to talk to them, talk
(12:32):
to the customers and see, okay, why are you canceling?
And I'm like, but he's at Netflix. And I remember
this this quote from Paul Graham who said, you know,
do things that don't scale. Doing things that don't scale,
that's how you get to scale. And I'm like, even
at Netflix you are doing things. You can't pick up
the phone and call it one million people, you can't
pick up the phone and called fifty million, but you're
(12:52):
talking still to customers, even at that bit of a stage.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah, you have to talk to customers. I mean, I
think that's one of the favorite parts of my job. Honestly,
we just had some calls that we had to really
work hard to ramp up to get done because the
timeframe of the window that we had to actually do
the calls. And calls are qualitative research. So qualitative is
when you're like physically talking to somebody. You're working with
(13:20):
an individual versus like a focused group versus quantitative could
just be surveys.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
So we could do a quantitative.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Survey and send that out the millions of people and
now you're at the mercy of whoever opens it and spam,
but you're going.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
To get a huge group of people.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Right, So quantitative is super valuable. But then qualitative is
super valuable because that's me sitting down with you now
and me being able to show you and say, hey, Will,
what's your thoughts about this? And then you say X,
y Z, And then I show you something else and
you give this and you give that.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So now to.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Come up with an idea that I think I have,
but I'm not just relying on me validating it. I'm
making sure that it actually has value for the people
who who I thought.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I'm solving is for.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So by showing this to you, I can now hear
from you and you might give me a completely different
set of feedback that is opposite of what I thought,
and it's better for me to hear that feedback from
you now and improve the idea or scrap the idea.
Now I'll make the decision on how much of your
input I want to take. But now when we start
thinking of depending on the size of the research, If
(14:33):
you do research of fifteen people and all fifteen people
don't understand what's going on, that's a sign that most
people are probably.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Not going to know what's going on.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
So you can now take that information, take that data
once again, go back to the drawing board, make some edits,
go maybe test one more time, and now that second
time around, you might see twelve people understand it. So
the first goal zero understood it, you took the learners
from that, fixed it, went back twelve people understand it.
Now you probably got a better chance of more people
(15:09):
will understand that, and you figure out what's the next
step of testing and things like that. So you tie
the user research into experimentation, and I think it just
really allows you to build a way better product before
it gets to market. And the last thing I'll say
is the reason why that is important. When you have
a brand that is IPO, meaning they're trading on the
(15:30):
stock market. Their stock price can be very volatile and
tied to public perception and current brand state. So if
you roll out something bad that all of your users
jump on Twitter x Instagram and they're talking smack, and
now the market hears about that, that could negatively affect
your stock price, which negatively affects your stakeholders and your shareholders,
(15:54):
and it's.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Just it gets all bad. So you want to really
avoid that when you really are.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
A when the basis of your company is a product,
like Netflix is a product.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
So it would be in our best interest to make sure.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
All of our products are at the highest quality every
time you roll them out.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And there are no snack.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Foods or hiccups because that backtracking of that feature or
that negative sentiment and the market can really affect us
as a company. So not to be long winded, but
that's why you have to do all of that, because
at the end of the day, we're trying to make
sure you all are happy, and when you're not happy,
everybody suffers, you meaning the customer.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, and you know, there's something I've heard you say
several times, and not just this interview, but others where
you said, you know, at Netflix, like, you have a
lot of resources, you have a lot of things you
can pull from to be able to do things at
a big scale small ster You get to pick big scale,
small scale whatever. And so when you talked about doing
that research, qualitative research, what I find is with a
(16:57):
lot of founders, and you mentioned this worst I'll bring
back up, we're sensitive and so we can there's sometimes
you can be inauthentic with your questions to people with customers,
you know, potential users too, because you don't want you
want to structure the question in a way to get
the answer. You want them to give you right. And so,
(17:18):
so how do so understanding what's sensitive? Understanding A lot
of people who listen to this will be founders, will
be entrepreneurs who are trying to get you know, to
the fame level. You know, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google, and
there's there's others now and video even when you choose video, yeah, incredible.
(17:40):
So how do you how do you ensure you're being
authentic in that qualitative research, especially when you're just trying
you know, there's this whole other thing of you know,
if you're not embarrassed by your first release, you've released
too late because you could do so much research, so
much design, so much et cetera, and now you just
spend a whole bunch of money, how much of resource
(18:02):
or something that nobody even wants to use in the
first place, right.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Which is the worst case scenario.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
And I think that's what a lot of founders are
companies end up doing. So you don't want to waste
your time working on things that really won't solve the
problem that that like you're looking for, or that the
customer is like looking for. So you want to make
(18:27):
sure that you're always talking to your your customers to
really understand, Like asking questions that don't solve the problems
that the company needs is a complete waste of time,
to be honest with you, Like, that's the most blunt
way I can put it. To go through the motions
(18:47):
of scheduling or research, the finances, the time, the expense,
like all of that stuff that it takes to do
research to only ask questions to tailor them in a
way for you to get answers that you want is like,
that's just unprofessional. It's a waste of time. It's not
going to really help you get anything done. Where this
is a shout out to my UX researchers at Netflix.
(19:10):
We grill like they come up with questions, We suggest questions.
We grill each other on the questions of like, that
question is just not going to get us to like
what you think we're going to get from that question.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
It's not really going to help us as much as
you think it is.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Like I've had my UX research and tell me that
many times, and.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
She wasn't trying to front on me or call me
out or nothing. She's just helping me. Think that.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Think about what do you need from every question that
you're asking and do you really need like do you
really need a vanity question? Like I tell you that
I like your shirt? Will I mean it feels good?
But do you really need that question? And the answer
is no.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
So it's like, no, you don't like my shirt, No
you don't like my shirt.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I like your shirt. Do you really need to tell
you you know, it's a nice shirt? You just want
to hear me?
Speaker 4 (20:01):
There's other stuff I could probably tell you, I think
about a UX research like that, that's a very important
time for you to interact with your user or interact
with your potential user and really understand and make that connection,
possibly bond with.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Them to really learn some critical information. So to waste
that time would just be like sad. It would be sad,
and it's going to have an impact where it's going
to have a negative impact, where if you had asked
them the right questions, it could have like such a
positive impact because now you can really say, Okay, I've
(20:40):
shared this product with X users and this was their feedback.
And if the feedback is not what you wanted to hear,
so what you now use that feedback and you build
on it and you make the product better, and if
it is what you want to hear, then you're like, great,
we got some stuff validated in this research, and now
that gives a great life to do XYZ. So either way,
(21:02):
the UX research is so important, and talking to users
is almost if I'm a part of any company, if
I'm talking to any founders, if any of my peoples
have questions, I'm just always pushing for research, no matter
how many resources you have to bring us all the
way back. If you can only do research with five people,
that's better than zero. If you can do research with
(21:22):
fifty million like we can in Netflix, that's fantastic as well.
But just remember that the research is super super important.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
If you're relearning or learning for the first time product
design today, knowing the tools that are available to you
today versus what was available when you were so when
you were teaching yourself, then what would you what would
you be doing or what do you advise people to
do that's relevant? What are the tools that are relevant
today to learning those methods of learning.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I don't even think I would tell you to jump
into tools.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I think tools is more like second, where first I
would tell people to focus more what kind of problems
do you want to solve?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
First? Like, that's the first question.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
That's like such a basic foundational question that I don't
think a lot of people probably have asked themselves in
the last couple of years. So first ask yourself that, right,
because that's going to open up the doors of if
you just pick a software, you may be able to
use that software, but that software may not be mandatory
(22:28):
or it may not get you where you want to go,
as opposed to if you have under like if you
have an understanding of the problem you want to solve,
now you'll say, okay, well this means I'm going to
be a product designer versus a product manager. And if
you want to be a product manager, do you really
need to know figlente. It's okay that you can bounce
around in it, but that's not where you're going to
spend most of your time. You're probably going to spend
(22:49):
most of your time in Google docs or Google slides,
you know what I mean. So having more of that
understanding of what problems you want to solve, where you
want to go, what you're passionate about, I think then
the tools will start to.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Move towards that. You'll see where like.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
I gave the example of product manager might be more
Google sweet stuff, product designer might be more Figma, UI
engineer might be a little bit of Figma and Java script.
So you start to if you data science, you might
just be in some custom tools that you have, or
you may just be looking at reports all day. So
(23:31):
I don't think it's a specific tool that I would
tell somebody to go to. I would tell them that too,
will make itself apparent after you understand either what problem
or what industry or what users you.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Want to be solving problems for, Like if that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Makes sense, it mase and so you know, if anybody
follows you. And I know this well, like if anybody
follows you on any social they realize you are you
stay on the PJA you out here, you're really well traveled,
passport heavy. I do love traveling, and so you know
you I mean Europe, South you know, South America, Central
(24:11):
area is South Asia, all over the place. And I wonder,
can you be a successful designer with a local you know,
like having not traveled, especially for somebody like a Netflix.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, for sure, for sure. But remember everything is relative.
Will like everything is relative, like do you want to work?
And some people don't want to work at a big
organization like Netflix. Some people like a smaller or or
some people want to be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
So I think it's up to once again us to help.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
People understand that you need to do that kind of
foundational self awareness work and then that will be the
pathway to everything else.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And then you'll be able to say, because.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Like a person who's in per se, like the Philippines,
maybe they want to work at Netflix, maybe they don't.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So instead of like just gauging.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
It by the company, it's more of what does this
impact that you want to give? Look like are you
putting out break work where you're getting replied from your
users of your solving problems and they're happy to use
your product. You can do that in a lot of companies.
You don't have to just be at a big fane
company to do that. So by having that like self understanding,
(25:34):
I think you can thrive as a designer anywhere in
any continent, any country, any city.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Honestly, yeah, so let's let's so do you make me
bring up an AI question on this? Because you know,
AI is an incredible conversation to be having today. You
have to have this conversation at every level of any
type of technology discussion or even just life discussion these days.
Do you consider being better travel more having a bigger worldview?
(26:05):
I should say, maybe not even just travel, but a
bigger worldview allows you to be more valuable more of
an asset specific to design, Because if I only have
a modicum of skill, little bit of skills, there are
things coming for that. And so how do I make
myself more valuable to an organization because my perspective is better?
(26:27):
That's where that question comes from.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah, I hate you.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Well, I would honestly say that the traveling I think
is a passion of mine, and I've found a way
to tie that passion into my professional life through public speaking,
and that's how I continue to do that. I do
think I grow as a person by traveling because I
(26:52):
learned more about cultures, I see more things, I'm exposed
to more. So I think at the end of the day,
that helps me grow as funds, and me growing as
funds allows me to be a better designer. I think
that you don't have to travel to become a great designer.
I think the traveling does also help with your network though,
(27:15):
and I think networking is part of being a designer.
So I think it's more about what are you looking
for at that moment. I think traveling is important because
I think being open minded and learning and seeing and
experiences is one of the best parts of life, you
know what I mean. But I think there's a lot
of traveling that you can do just in the States
(27:35):
that a lot of people don't do. I still haven't
been to the Grand Canyon, you know what I mean,
Like that's one of the wonders of the world. I
still haven't been to Seattle. There's so many things I
still haven't done. So I think the international travel is
a pleasure of mind. It's like a passion of mind.
I've been traveling since I was a kid. But I
think that the designers nowadays, whether you're trying to get
(27:57):
started or whether you're a senior designer, travel would just
be an extra part of it.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Like I don't think it really is is even slightly mandatory.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
You know, you've spoken that many conferences that you just
talked about your speaking career, which is you know, I'm
assuming parallel to your you know, corporate career. You spoken
to Afrotech and other stages, big stages Afrotech to Afrotech.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Shout out, they gave you, honestly, part of the like
to tie back into the first question that you asked me,
A lot of the reason that I'm so proactive in
the community is because of the doors of Afrotech Open.
Afrotech gave me a shot when I was like a
young young homie. I was just getting started out there
in the Bay Area with speaking. But that was such
(28:44):
a big stage in front of so many people, and
it's such a credible organization that after that experience, it's
just like I haven't looked back.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
And that was literally five years.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Ago, Yeah, yeah, and yeah, you've done beautiful works and
so I'm on, I want to ask you about that,
like how do you you choose what you're going to
speak about when you hit those stages.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
So I'm in a position where I'm fortunate enough where
they ask me what do I.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Want to speak about?
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Usually, and there's different topics that I like to discuss
depending on who the audience would be or maybe with
the theme of the conferences about. And that's how I gauge.
For instance, when I went to Japan, I did a
full day workshop about inclusive design.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
When I went to bill a C.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Georgia recently, I did a talk that was more about
business design. I've done conversations that's more just about inclusion
in itself or accessibility. So I think it's more gauged around.
I'm so well versed in different things because I love
(29:55):
this stuff that I have the luxury at times to
pick different topics. It's always under designed to a certain extent,
but it's never the exact same talk or the exact
same slides or the exact same topic.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And so I mean, you know this better than most,
Like getting promoted and getting to your level has maybe
maybe more to do with how you navigate spaces and
your skill. It's not just about having the skill, it's
politics involved, and so how so how do you can
(30:30):
you discuss that and how what can we learn from
your story and how you've managed to do both well
be very good at what you do and manage the
politics of what you do.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
I think you should probably say that one and ask
everybody that one. I would say, Man, I'm just I'm
just me. I'm just fonds, you know, Like I tell
people that all the time. I just this sounds cliche,
but I really try my best to be my authentic self.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I don't like when I'm not being my authentic self.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
But I don't like when I'm switching or changing up
or thinking else, none of that, because that's not me.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Like I'm where I am because of who I am.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
So like, I spend a lot of time working on
my self confidence, because you really need that self confidence
to fight these battles every single day, Like it's hard
out here, so definitely take the time too.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
And then that self confidence comes in a lot of
different ways.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
It's not just oh, you're confident because people tell you,
because people give you confidents all the time. Maybe you're
you're confident because you know it's sad. You put your
X amount of time into this, so you're good, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
But having that type of.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Understanding is really important because there's going to be times
where this journey is going to test you. And when
you get tested is where you now have to decide
what are you gonna do? And the more confident you are,
the greater your chances are probably succeeding through those tough
times because you're probably gonna be able to still must
to rupt that energy, still must to rupt that faith.
(32:13):
You still have that belief in yourself that you can
get this done, as opposed to per se balance down
and being a nice person, Like being a nice person
goes a long way, and I don't think a lot
of people understand that anymore so and being very humble.
I'm a very humble dude. I'm still down to earth man.
I still my feeling is still get hurt. I still
(32:34):
blushed when somebody tells me something really positive about it.
So all of that to say is just like, remember
that it's about the journey, you know what I'm saying,
So make the journey as fun as possible, make it
as learn as much as you can, meet as many people,
help as many people as you can, you know what
(32:55):
I mean, Take as many risk as you can do.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
All of that, that's all of the part of the journey.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Like you want to be able to look back on
your career and feel like, man, I really I left
it out there, like I left it all on the court,
like I gave them boards.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Five thousand percent. That's how I want to look at things.
So I make sure like I'm doing that. And now
there's different ways that I do that.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
And that's like I do a lot of mentoring with
up and coming designers. Now more people reach out to
me than I can meet with, but the like ten
twenty fifty people I might meet with the year, that
still makes.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Me feel good, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
So knowing that I'm out there just giving it, giving
it all I got, and I think that's what everybody
should always strive to do, like leave it all out
there every day and that would be enough because when
you look back and just be like, yo, I did
the best I could do.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
I did the best I could do, and that funds good,
Like it feels good to say that.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Black Tech Green Money is the production the Blavity, Afro
Tech and The Black Effect podcast Network and I Heart Media.
Is produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas, with
additional production support by Kate McDonald and Sarah Ergan. Special
thank you to Michael Davison Lovebeach. Learn more about my
guests and other tech disruptors an innovators at afrotech dot
(34:32):
com at the video version of this episode will drop
to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube, So tap in
enjoying Black Tech Green Money. Shaw this to somebody, Go
get your money, piece and love
I'm Will Lucas and this is black Tech, Green Money
fanz Morris is Lead Product Designer, Global Conversion at Netflix.
He's an entrepreneur and self taught designer leading one of
the most impactful teams inside one of the biggest tech
and media companies on the planet. He's traveled all around
the world on his self driven educational adventures, and prior
(00:25):
to joining Netflix, he let a design team at Corsera.
He's super passionate about mentorship and helping young designers on
their journey, spending a lot of time doing it. He's
got a lot of big work on his plate, but
why it's helping young designers on their journey among the biggest.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thanks for shouting that out.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I guess the easy answer I can say is I
feel honored to be able to do that. Like everybody
doesn't have the opportunity to be able to affect that many.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
People or impact their community like that.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
So I think I'm just very honored to be able
to do that, and that honor keeps me going as
well as just that's my nature, that's just how I am.
I did a sixteen personalities test, and part of my
strengths of that result of that test was I just
(01:15):
want the best for everybody, is what they said. That's
how I just look at the world. And I also
look at the world as I want to be able
to say that I have that I have and I
had impact. I'm just honored and I enjoy seeing people
thrive and grow and people open the door for me.
So it's almost a pay forward type of situation as well.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
So you are a self taught designer, and I'm interested
in your take on today. You know, just several years ago,
we were, you know, just talking about how you needed
to go to school. Companies required it because it was
part of their filtering process. These days, maybe not so much.
I want you to speak on that. But being in
product design, how do you show, oh, number one, can
(02:00):
you do it being self taught? And secondarily, how do
you show that you've got the jobs to do it?
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So yes, you can definitely get a See. The thing
is we have to be more specific about the type
of industry that we're talking about or the specific company,
because it's not fair to just say Google or Netflix.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I know those are the fame companies.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
So that could be big tech you want to say, right,
but when you think of all of the different places
that are looking for product designers or are now adapting
design thinking have now given design a seat at the table.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
There's millions of companies that.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
You're just never going to think of, right, So, yes,
you can definitely get an amazing job a design job
at any stage of a company's life cycle.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I can say you can go from being an entrepreneur and.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Creating your own company to working at a startup to
working at a Series B or C D company that's
work one hundreds of millions, or you can work with
an IPO company and all of them will hire a
self taught designer because it's more about the experience that
you have. So if you are able to use your
self taught skills to then get opportunities and get experiences
(03:16):
to answer your second question, to show the skills that
you have, that's how you get the job.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
The other names and stuff go with it.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
So if you tell somebody you work that meta, they're
going to think you had a higher quality of experience,
so that's why they're interested in you.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yes, the meta part.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Is important, but what is the real importance is they
think you have a certain skill set, so you need
to be able to demonstrate that you have that skill
set and that's through your experiences. So that's why you
get a job that have a resume and have a
LinkedIn page that shows where have.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
You worked, what have you done, what skills do you have?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And now the company decides does your skill set match
the problem solving that they be done.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, let's dig into that, because when you use the
words skills a couple of times, I want to make
sure people know what you're actually talking about. So, because
there's a difference between being like a pigma beast, like
you can just run circles inside Figma or Adobe or
and a difference between that and being just a person
who develops really beautiful products. And so can you talk
(04:23):
about when you say skills, I can show the skills
that I have. What do you define that for me?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
So the skills would be defined by the individual of
where they say their strengths are or where they want
to pursue their career in. When you think of a
products life cycle, there's different phases in those different phases
require different skills. So if you are a visual person,
you may want to focused on the visual design, which
(04:52):
maybe UI, which would be almost like a couple steps
into the process as opposed to per se, I'm a
product designer and I'm trying to help ideate the idea
and come up with it from the beginning, So my
skills might be more just like an innovative thinker. I like,
I'm good at brainstorming, I'm good at coming up with
(05:15):
zero to one ideas. So that might be the skills
that I'm saying I have as a product designer. Where
a visual designer might say what you just said of
I'm really good in figma, I've done a bunch of
you why, I can really take take wireframes and bring
them to life and make them inciting and make users
(05:36):
want to interact with them. So that would be the
skills of that person. Where if you were a ux researcher,
you really can come up with deep understand you know
how to interact with your users to get their insights
from them about different products that you may be working
on or different questions you have, So you have research skills.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So it's all about out.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
What do you want to work on, what brings you joy,
what brings you passion, what excites you, and then now
the skills for that specific industry or domain will be
different and will be unique, and they'll be overlapping things
like that.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
But man, the bucket of skills is listen.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And so when you are you are today leading product design,
particularly for conversion at Netflix, and in my view, I mean,
maybe this is me translating it for myself, but you're
you're designing for sales, You're designing to keep people on
the site. You're designed to keep people going down the
rabbit hole in Netflix. So I'm gonna let you translate
(06:40):
it for your own. I'm'na let you define that. But
when we think about product design, I when I listen
to you talk, and I've listened to other interviews you've had.
We've been friends for a while, and I listened to
your other interview, and I'm like, this guy is a
man that thinks about data. He's and I saw this
quote I want to bring up. I don't even know
if you remember say this, but you said, at this
(07:01):
stage of my career, I don't like to guess. I
don't like to assume either. The data doesn't dictate the design,
but help support and give direction for it. So can
you take those things I just mentioned there and just
talk more about.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
That, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
So the second part I love to speak on because
when you're working with a user base that's as large
as Netflix is, we have about two hundred and sixty
million subscribers, you really any decisions you make are going
to affect a large amount of people. Now, even if
you do a small test, a small test for us
(07:41):
might be two million people, that's still two million people.
If we do like a multi large user based test,
that could be fifty sixty million people.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
You really shouldn't be.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Guessing when you're affecting that many people. And if you
have the resources and you have the data, now you
use that data to help figure out the dues and
don't of solving this problem where if you're just guessing,
you might make the wrong decision, where when you have
the data might tell you shouldn't even be worrying about
(08:13):
that part of this problem, like that's not where the
problem is, or this is where you should be focused
more on. So that will fluctuate depending on the problem
you're solving. But that's where I'm coming from. Of I
still have to come up with the solution for it,
but my solution is a lot more educated, So my
chances of success is a lot higher because I have
(08:34):
the data to back it up.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So that's where I'm coming from.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Of right now, I'm less about oh, did Fonds make
the right decision? I'm more focused on is this the
best decision for our user? And now what are all
of the different things I need to do to make
sure that that's the best decision. So it's almost says
as my career have grown has grown, I've kind of
taken myself out of being the person that I'm designing
(09:01):
for trying to make happy, and I'm really focused on
the user. So I'm very user centric with with my
design and my career I think now and.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Forever moving forward.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I always was user centric, but there still was so
much that I was focusing in and trying to just
prove to myself that I was a designer. Where now
I'm more getting the job done. And to get that done,
it takes a lot, like it takes a lot of
cross collaboration, it takes a lot of understanding of multiple
domains at once, and it takes you being able to
(09:35):
really know how to use the data to make the
best decisions.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You just said something that I thought it was interesting.
You just said, you know, I've I was trying to
prove to myself that I was a designer. You know,
Tay you more about that if you can.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I think when anybody's getting started in the career, you're
trying to build that confidence up, and you're probably comparing
yourself to people who you look up to, who have
more experience than you, and you want to be in
their shoes one day. So it's easy for you to
kind of and I don't like this term, but it's
true to kind of develop imposter syndrome. I don't think
(10:14):
it's imposter because imposter is me trying to perform.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Surgery on somebody.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
I have no right to even think about doing anything
in medicine, but a lot of things design related. I
mean I might not be an expert in that, but
I think I have the right to stand up. I
know what I'm talking about. So it's not that you're
an imposter. It's just the responsibilities and the expectations. It
be so high sometimes that you don't feel like you
(10:39):
might be able to get it done, and you're constantly
reassuring yourself through different projects that you work on. And
we're only human and we're sensitive, and I think we
forget about that part when we're building product and we're
building tech. It's like we forget about the humanity side
of it.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
And that's always there, it's the foundation of it.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
So when you're growing your career and as you move
to new jobs and with more responsibilities, you're constantly trying
to prove to yourself that yo, you can do this.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And you're good enough and you earned to be here.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
And then depending on what other societal things you may
have going on, like are you a female versus a male?
Like are you from an underrepresented community? Like where'd you
go to school? All of those different things play a
part when you're working in this, just like ecosystem, So
(11:36):
at certain times you might find yourself I think not
necessarily designing for the wrong reasons because you should make
yourself happy, but you start to lose focus of what
you should really be focused on. And that's why I
said I'm a user centered now as opposed to just
like what does fonds thinking?
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Do I think this looks great?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Sometimes it designs that end up shipping aren't the ones
that I think are the best designs. But it didn't
matter because the data proved that this other design was
more efficient, so that's what we went with.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, So in that same interview where I got that quote,
you were talking about the data and you were talking
about how, hey, somebody says, you know, people in Korea
are canceling, and then so now you're going to go
dig into the data to figure out, Okay, is that
really true? Number one? And then why? And you said
something I thought was so interesting. You were like, you know,
at some level you've got to talk to them, talk
(12:32):
to the customers and see, okay, why are you canceling?
And I'm like, but he's at Netflix. And I remember
this this quote from Paul Graham who said, you know,
do things that don't scale. Doing things that don't scale,
that's how you get to scale. And I'm like, even
at Netflix you are doing things. You can't pick up
the phone and call it one million people, you can't
pick up the phone and called fifty million, but you're
(12:52):
talking still to customers, even at that bit of a stage.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah, you have to talk to customers. I mean, I
think that's one of the favorite parts of my job. Honestly,
we just had some calls that we had to really
work hard to ramp up to get done because the
timeframe of the window that we had to actually do
the calls. And calls are qualitative research. So qualitative is
when you're like physically talking to somebody. You're working with
(13:20):
an individual versus like a focused group versus quantitative could
just be surveys.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
So we could do a quantitative.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Survey and send that out the millions of people and
now you're at the mercy of whoever opens it and spam,
but you're going.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
To get a huge group of people.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Right, So quantitative is super valuable. But then qualitative is
super valuable because that's me sitting down with you now
and me being able to show you and say, hey, Will,
what's your thoughts about this? And then you say X,
y Z, And then I show you something else and
you give this and you give that.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So now to.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Come up with an idea that I think I have,
but I'm not just relying on me validating it. I'm
making sure that it actually has value for the people
who who I thought.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I'm solving is for.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So by showing this to you, I can now hear
from you and you might give me a completely different
set of feedback that is opposite of what I thought,
and it's better for me to hear that feedback from
you now and improve the idea or scrap the idea.
Now I'll make the decision on how much of your
input I want to take. But now when we start
thinking of depending on the size of the research, If
(14:33):
you do research of fifteen people and all fifteen people
don't understand what's going on, that's a sign that most
people are probably.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Not going to know what's going on.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
So you can now take that information, take that data
once again, go back to the drawing board, make some edits,
go maybe test one more time, and now that second
time around, you might see twelve people understand it. So
the first goal zero understood it, you took the learners
from that, fixed it, went back twelve people understand it.
Now you probably got a better chance of more people
(15:09):
will understand that, and you figure out what's the next
step of testing and things like that. So you tie
the user research into experimentation, and I think it just
really allows you to build a way better product before
it gets to market. And the last thing I'll say
is the reason why that is important. When you have
a brand that is IPO, meaning they're trading on the
(15:30):
stock market. Their stock price can be very volatile and
tied to public perception and current brand state. So if
you roll out something bad that all of your users
jump on Twitter x Instagram and they're talking smack, and
now the market hears about that, that could negatively affect
your stock price, which negatively affects your stakeholders and your shareholders,
(15:54):
and it's.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Just it gets all bad. So you want to really
avoid that when you really are.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
A when the basis of your company is a product,
like Netflix is a product.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
So it would be in our best interest to make sure.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
All of our products are at the highest quality every
time you roll them out.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And there are no snack.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Foods or hiccups because that backtracking of that feature or
that negative sentiment and the market can really affect us
as a company. So not to be long winded, but
that's why you have to do all of that, because
at the end of the day, we're trying to make
sure you all are happy, and when you're not happy,
everybody suffers, you meaning the customer.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, and you know, there's something I've heard you say
several times, and not just this interview, but others where
you said, you know, at Netflix, like, you have a
lot of resources, you have a lot of things you
can pull from to be able to do things at
a big scale small ster You get to pick big scale,
small scale whatever. And so when you talked about doing
that research, qualitative research, what I find is with a
(16:57):
lot of founders, and you mentioned this worst I'll bring
back up, we're sensitive and so we can there's sometimes
you can be inauthentic with your questions to people with customers,
you know, potential users too, because you don't want you
want to structure the question in a way to get
the answer. You want them to give you right. And so,
(17:18):
so how do so understanding what's sensitive? Understanding A lot
of people who listen to this will be founders, will
be entrepreneurs who are trying to get you know, to
the fame level. You know, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google, and
there's there's others now and video even when you choose video, yeah, incredible.
(17:40):
So how do you how do you ensure you're being
authentic in that qualitative research, especially when you're just trying
you know, there's this whole other thing of you know,
if you're not embarrassed by your first release, you've released
too late because you could do so much research, so
much design, so much et cetera, and now you just
spend a whole bunch of money, how much of resource
(18:02):
or something that nobody even wants to use in the
first place, right.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Which is the worst case scenario.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
And I think that's what a lot of founders are
companies end up doing. So you don't want to waste
your time working on things that really won't solve the
problem that that like you're looking for, or that the
customer is like looking for. So you want to make
(18:27):
sure that you're always talking to your your customers to
really understand, Like asking questions that don't solve the problems
that the company needs is a complete waste of time,
to be honest with you, Like, that's the most blunt
way I can put it. To go through the motions
(18:47):
of scheduling or research, the finances, the time, the expense,
like all of that stuff that it takes to do
research to only ask questions to tailor them in a
way for you to get answers that you want is like,
that's just unprofessional. It's a waste of time. It's not
going to really help you get anything done. Where this
is a shout out to my UX researchers at Netflix.
(19:10):
We grill like they come up with questions, We suggest questions.
We grill each other on the questions of like, that
question is just not going to get us to like
what you think we're going to get from that question.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
It's not really going to help us as much as
you think it is.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Like I've had my UX research and tell me that
many times, and.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
She wasn't trying to front on me or call me
out or nothing. She's just helping me. Think that.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Think about what do you need from every question that
you're asking and do you really need like do you
really need a vanity question? Like I tell you that
I like your shirt? Will I mean it feels good?
But do you really need that question? And the answer
is no.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
So it's like, no, you don't like my shirt, No
you don't like my shirt.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I like your shirt. Do you really need to tell
you you know, it's a nice shirt? You just want
to hear me?
Speaker 4 (20:01):
There's other stuff I could probably tell you, I think
about a UX research like that, that's a very important
time for you to interact with your user or interact
with your potential user and really understand and make that connection,
possibly bond with.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Them to really learn some critical information. So to waste
that time would just be like sad. It would be sad,
and it's going to have an impact where it's going
to have a negative impact, where if you had asked
them the right questions, it could have like such a
positive impact because now you can really say, Okay, I've
(20:40):
shared this product with X users and this was their feedback.
And if the feedback is not what you wanted to hear,
so what you now use that feedback and you build
on it and you make the product better, and if
it is what you want to hear, then you're like, great,
we got some stuff validated in this research, and now
that gives a great life to do XYZ. So either way,
(21:02):
the UX research is so important, and talking to users
is almost if I'm a part of any company, if
I'm talking to any founders, if any of my peoples
have questions, I'm just always pushing for research, no matter
how many resources you have to bring us all the
way back. If you can only do research with five people,
that's better than zero. If you can do research with
(21:22):
fifty million like we can in Netflix, that's fantastic as well.
But just remember that the research is super super important.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
If you're relearning or learning for the first time product
design today, knowing the tools that are available to you
today versus what was available when you were so when
you were teaching yourself, then what would you what would
you be doing or what do you advise people to
do that's relevant? What are the tools that are relevant
today to learning those methods of learning.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I don't even think I would tell you to jump
into tools.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I think tools is more like second, where first I
would tell people to focus more what kind of problems
do you want to solve?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
First? Like, that's the first question.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
That's like such a basic foundational question that I don't
think a lot of people probably have asked themselves in
the last couple of years. So first ask yourself that, right,
because that's going to open up the doors of if
you just pick a software, you may be able to
use that software, but that software may not be mandatory
(22:28):
or it may not get you where you want to go,
as opposed to if you have under like if you
have an understanding of the problem you want to solve,
now you'll say, okay, well this means I'm going to
be a product designer versus a product manager. And if
you want to be a product manager, do you really
need to know figlente. It's okay that you can bounce
around in it, but that's not where you're going to
spend most of your time. You're probably going to spend
(22:49):
most of your time in Google docs or Google slides,
you know what I mean. So having more of that
understanding of what problems you want to solve, where you
want to go, what you're passionate about, I think then
the tools will start to.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Move towards that. You'll see where like.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
I gave the example of product manager might be more
Google sweet stuff, product designer might be more Figma, UI
engineer might be a little bit of Figma and Java script.
So you start to if you data science, you might
just be in some custom tools that you have, or
you may just be looking at reports all day. So
(23:31):
I don't think it's a specific tool that I would
tell somebody to go to. I would tell them that too,
will make itself apparent after you understand either what problem
or what industry or what users you.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Want to be solving problems for, Like if that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Makes sense, it mase and so you know, if anybody
follows you. And I know this well, like if anybody
follows you on any social they realize you are you
stay on the PJA you out here, you're really well traveled,
passport heavy. I do love traveling, and so you know
you I mean Europe, South you know, South America, Central
(24:11):
area is South Asia, all over the place. And I wonder,
can you be a successful designer with a local you know,
like having not traveled, especially for somebody like a Netflix.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, for sure, for sure. But remember everything is relative.
Will like everything is relative, like do you want to work?
And some people don't want to work at a big
organization like Netflix. Some people like a smaller or or
some people want to be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
So I think it's up to once again us to help.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
People understand that you need to do that kind of
foundational self awareness work and then that will be the
pathway to everything else.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
And then you'll be able to say, because.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Like a person who's in per se, like the Philippines,
maybe they want to work at Netflix, maybe they don't.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So instead of like just gauging.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
It by the company, it's more of what does this
impact that you want to give? Look like are you
putting out break work where you're getting replied from your
users of your solving problems and they're happy to use
your product. You can do that in a lot of companies.
You don't have to just be at a big fane
company to do that. So by having that like self understanding,
(25:34):
I think you can thrive as a designer anywhere in
any continent, any country, any city.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Honestly, yeah, so let's let's so do you make me
bring up an AI question on this? Because you know,
AI is an incredible conversation to be having today. You
have to have this conversation at every level of any
type of technology discussion or even just life discussion these days.
Do you consider being better travel more having a bigger worldview?
(26:05):
I should say, maybe not even just travel, but a
bigger worldview allows you to be more valuable more of
an asset specific to design, Because if I only have
a modicum of skill, little bit of skills, there are
things coming for that. And so how do I make
myself more valuable to an organization because my perspective is better?
(26:27):
That's where that question comes from.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah, I hate you.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Well, I would honestly say that the traveling I think
is a passion of mine, and I've found a way
to tie that passion into my professional life through public speaking,
and that's how I continue to do that. I do
think I grow as a person by traveling because I
(26:52):
learned more about cultures, I see more things, I'm exposed
to more. So I think at the end of the day,
that helps me grow as funds, and me growing as
funds allows me to be a better designer. I think
that you don't have to travel to become a great designer.
I think the traveling does also help with your network though,
(27:15):
and I think networking is part of being a designer.
So I think it's more about what are you looking
for at that moment. I think traveling is important because
I think being open minded and learning and seeing and
experiences is one of the best parts of life, you
know what I mean. But I think there's a lot
of traveling that you can do just in the States
(27:35):
that a lot of people don't do. I still haven't
been to the Grand Canyon, you know what I mean,
Like that's one of the wonders of the world. I
still haven't been to Seattle. There's so many things I
still haven't done. So I think the international travel is
a pleasure of mind. It's like a passion of mind.
I've been traveling since I was a kid. But I
think that the designers nowadays, whether you're trying to get
(27:57):
started or whether you're a senior designer, travel would just
be an extra part of it.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Like I don't think it really is is even slightly mandatory.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
You know, you've spoken that many conferences that you just
talked about your speaking career, which is you know, I'm
assuming parallel to your you know, corporate career. You spoken
to Afrotech and other stages, big stages Afrotech to Afrotech.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Shout out, they gave you, honestly, part of the like
to tie back into the first question that you asked me,
A lot of the reason that I'm so proactive in
the community is because of the doors of Afrotech Open.
Afrotech gave me a shot when I was like a
young young homie. I was just getting started out there
in the Bay Area with speaking. But that was such
(28:44):
a big stage in front of so many people, and
it's such a credible organization that after that experience, it's
just like I haven't looked back.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
And that was literally five years.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Ago, Yeah, yeah, and yeah, you've done beautiful works and
so I'm on, I want to ask you about that,
like how do you you choose what you're going to
speak about when you hit those stages.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
So I'm in a position where I'm fortunate enough where
they ask me what do I.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Want to speak about?
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Usually, and there's different topics that I like to discuss
depending on who the audience would be or maybe with
the theme of the conferences about. And that's how I gauge.
For instance, when I went to Japan, I did a
full day workshop about inclusive design.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
When I went to bill a C.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Georgia recently, I did a talk that was more about
business design. I've done conversations that's more just about inclusion
in itself or accessibility. So I think it's more gauged around.
I'm so well versed in different things because I love
(29:55):
this stuff that I have the luxury at times to
pick different topics. It's always under designed to a certain extent,
but it's never the exact same talk or the exact
same slides or the exact same topic.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And so I mean, you know this better than most,
Like getting promoted and getting to your level has maybe
maybe more to do with how you navigate spaces and
your skill. It's not just about having the skill, it's
politics involved, and so how so how do you can
(30:30):
you discuss that and how what can we learn from
your story and how you've managed to do both well
be very good at what you do and manage the
politics of what you do.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
I think you should probably say that one and ask
everybody that one. I would say, Man, I'm just I'm
just me. I'm just fonds, you know, Like I tell
people that all the time. I just this sounds cliche,
but I really try my best to be my authentic self.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I don't like when I'm not being my authentic self.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
But I don't like when I'm switching or changing up
or thinking else, none of that, because that's not me.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Like I'm where I am because of who I am.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
So like, I spend a lot of time working on
my self confidence, because you really need that self confidence
to fight these battles every single day, Like it's hard
out here, so definitely take the time too.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
And then that self confidence comes in a lot of
different ways.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
It's not just oh, you're confident because people tell you,
because people give you confidents all the time. Maybe you're
you're confident because you know it's sad. You put your
X amount of time into this, so you're good, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
But having that type of.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Understanding is really important because there's going to be times
where this journey is going to test you. And when
you get tested is where you now have to decide
what are you gonna do? And the more confident you are,
the greater your chances are probably succeeding through those tough
times because you're probably gonna be able to still must
to rupt that energy, still must to rupt that faith.
(32:13):
You still have that belief in yourself that you can
get this done, as opposed to per se balance down
and being a nice person, Like being a nice person
goes a long way, and I don't think a lot
of people understand that anymore so and being very humble.
I'm a very humble dude. I'm still down to earth man.
I still my feeling is still get hurt. I still
(32:34):
blushed when somebody tells me something really positive about it.
So all of that to say is just like, remember
that it's about the journey, you know what I'm saying,
So make the journey as fun as possible, make it
as learn as much as you can, meet as many people,
help as many people as you can, you know what
(32:55):
I mean, Take as many risk as you can do.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
All of that, that's all of the part of the journey.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Like you want to be able to look back on
your career and feel like, man, I really I left
it out there, like I left it all on the court,
like I gave them boards.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Five thousand percent. That's how I want to look at things.
So I make sure like I'm doing that. And now
there's different ways that I do that.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
And that's like I do a lot of mentoring with
up and coming designers. Now more people reach out to
me than I can meet with, but the like ten
twenty fifty people I might meet with the year, that
still makes.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Me feel good, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
So knowing that I'm out there just giving it, giving
it all I got, and I think that's what everybody
should always strive to do, like leave it all out
there every day and that would be enough because when
you look back and just be like, yo, I did
the best I could do.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
I did the best I could do, and that funds good,
Like it feels good to say that.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Black Tech Green Money is the production the Blavity, Afro
Tech and The Black Effect podcast Network and I Heart Media.
Is produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas, with
additional production support by Kate McDonald and Sarah Ergan. Special
thank you to Michael Davison Lovebeach. Learn more about my
guests and other tech disruptors an innovators at afrotech dot
(34:32):
com at the video version of this episode will drop
to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube, So tap in
enjoying Black Tech Green Money. Shaw this to somebody, Go
get your money, piece and love
Host
Will Lucas
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