Looking Forward: Now What? Season 1 Recap | Now What? by Wix

Hi everyone and welcome to now what the podcast from WIX about how technology is changing everything. I'm your host Rob Goodman and in this series we're talking all about evolution in business, design, development and beyond. In this episode, we're looking back at our very first season of the show. Across these past 12 episodes, we've welcomed designers, developers, e commerce leaders, agency and startup founders from companies like WarnerMedia, GitHub, the New York Times, Medium, Red Antler and RGA to discuss the impact of all of this change we've seen over the past year and how teams, organizations and products are planning and reacting to meet this moment. It's been an eye opening dialogue with some of the folks helping to shape the future, how it will look and feel and change lives for the better. As we look back on this first season, here's a handful of memorable moments from our conversations. To hear all these interviews, be sure to hit that subscribe or Follow button wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. And be sure to add these episodes to your queue too. First up is a glimpse into our conversation with Aaron Walter, Acting Director of Product for US Covid Response at Resolve to Save Lives and he's the author of Designing for Emotion and previously built and led mailchimp's UX Practice. Aaron and I spoke about his time working as VP of Design Education at InVision and why Zooming out on your work can provide that right context and space to better understand how to solve difficult problems.

You know, looking at the details the way I often describe it is like it's nice to be able to look through the telescope once in a while instead of always looking through the microscope. That, you know, so much of our work, our day to day is just like, I've got to get this project done. This is my to do list. What's my calendar look like for today? It's very microscopic. It's momentary thinking and to be able to zoom out and see the big picture of things. Especially when it's an opportunity to look at the space that you're working in. Tremendously valuable. And what a great learning opportunity because it helped me see that many of the challenges that I had as a product designer, as a design leader, they weren't just my struggles, they were the struggles of the circumstance, they were the struggles of the discipline. And that's interesting to see. It makes it less of like the flaws of the individual and more of like, here's what's happening. And it also shows us if it's a common problem, then there's probably a pattern that we can solve for that we could find some common solutions to.

You can hear more of Aaron on the Design Better podcast and his new podcast series, reconsidering about these waves of change that are affecting how people are approaching their careers and lives today. Next up, I spoke with Joy Cho, the social media superstar whose oh Joy brand has reached the stratosphere of influence online. With over 15 million followers on Pinterest and and partnerships with Target, Keds and Microsoft, just to name a few, this author, blogger and designer knows what it takes to build a thriving business, even in the face of ever evolving change. When I sat down with Joy, she broke down what she's learned as an entrepreneur and the advice she'd give to other businesses looking to evolve and stay current. As she puts it, it's all about the refresh.

Yeah, absolutely. And I also am one of those people where with every stage of my business and different things that I've brought in because I've done many different things is I will give things time to see how they go. You know, I had a stationary line back in the day that I started, but after two years I was like, this is not making enough money to be worth the time. So I stopped that part of it. We opened that online shop that I told you about in 2018, and after two years we're like, this is not making enough money to be worth it. I closed that part. And so I think that one thing that I have always been good at is knowing when things don't work. Like I won't immediately cut it out, but I also won't drag it on forever. And also I just think that after a while you just always need a refresh. And refreshes can be small, refreshes can be big. They can be a variety of different things. But nobody is content doing things the exact same way forever. And hence why people change jobs. But when you're not a person who works for somebody else, it's like, how do you reinvent that for yourself?

And I asked Joy about when it's time to cut and run on a business venture or double down. Here's what she said.

I think it comes down to a gut feeling. I mean, I've always been into that for lots of things. Looking for an apartment or looking for a house or things that you have to make quick decisions about or contracts you to decide to sign. And also if you're miserable and you're unhappy, that to me is the gut feeling. Like, I agree there are things you need to stick to. Like no success is going to come overnight, even in one year, two years. Like sometimes you do have to put in the work and you do have to wait, and that's most businesses. But if you're happy doing that and you're happy chugging along and putting in the work and maybe not making money right away, then that's fine because we all do that. It's when you're putting in the work, when you're doing all the things it's not working and you're unhappy, then it's like you need at least a couple of those things to be on your side. They don't have to all be on your side. But if none of those things stay on your side, then that's to me, when it's time to figure out how to transition out of that

One of the areas we really dove into on this season of the podcast was around the future of E commerce and more specifically, how consumers are changing the way they buy and evaluate the brands they love. I spoke with Shauna Tellerman, the co founder of Modzi, about what she's seeing as the challenges and opportunities ahead for E commerce. Modzi is the future forward startup that allows for people to customize and design their own homes online with realistic 3D renders of furniture in their actual living spaces, and then allows for people to purchase those goods right there on the platform. Let's hear from Shauna.

The primary problem in E commerce is really sorting through the noise, right? As a consumer and even as somebody trying to sell, what you want to do is put the best possible thing in front of the customer that is most likely to buy it fastest, right? And to give them the information that is most likely to convince them to purchase it. Right? Like that's what both parties actually want. And so I think that the world is headed towards personalization, which I know has been a topic for a long time. But I think that the data we have available and the way we use that data to really understand what the consumer is looking for and to put the right product in front of them is going to continue to have a lot of legs as we move into the future. Versus like I've curated my site and these are the 10 products that I put at the top of the page, right? Like that might not be the right 10 products for you, it might be the right 10 products for me. I think that is still going to

be a big opportunity and carrying forward that idea. Here's part of my conversation with Paul Tercio, SVP of Data and Marketing Sciences. At the agency RGA, Paul recently led a global survey that asked 16,000 customers about their relationships with brands. The subsequent report his team published, the Power of Brand Relationship Design, talks about this notion of brands championing their users and customers and to help them become the best versions of themselves. Here's Paul from rga.

Over the years there have been a variety of segmentation approaches employed by research groups and marketers alike. And they're all designed to help provide a better understanding of either the people that they have or the people that they aspire to win. Right? So your prospects and customers, and you can cut that by value. What is their present value, what is their future value? You can cut it by need state, you can cut it by interest and affinity, you can cut it by behaviors, and all of those are still relevant and useful. So the notion of next best self isn't something that discredits or devalues any of those attributes. I think if anything, it's another way of framing segmentation such that we're beginning to think more empathetically about how to connect and support the people that we aspire to win with and going beyond needs as straight up functional needs, but even thinking about emotional needs. You know, the classic example that RGA has permission to sort of speak to is Nike. Because of our relationship working with Nike over, I want to say it's close to 20 years now, if not more. And so Nike can look at their customer segments based on high propensity to purchase a pair of running sneakers and sure like that will get them to an audience who perhaps would be in market if they were served a compelling message that motivated them to take action. But instead, again, the research pointed to a new way to think about people and the outcome. And so, you know, in keeping with that Nike example, it would disregard the fact that those users who have the high propensity to purchase those running shoes are really in pursuit of beating their best time for a mile. And so if now you sort of reframe the way in which you create those segments, but more importantly serve them, it creates a far more meaningful connection at the onset and more importantly for marketers, creates a whole new canvas to ideate and to develop breakthrough communications and experiences that deliver true value to that user. Because if you deliver the value to the user, the business will take care of itself.

Hey everyone, I'm excited to tell you about WIX E Commerce, the complete solution for entrepreneurs starting an online business, Retailers moving their stores online, or brands already selling millions of dollars. Wix's industry leading e commerce platform features advanced business tools that will help you launch, run and scale your online store. With designer made store templates to choose from plus the ability to customize anything from the storefront to checkout, product pages, cart and store member areas too, you can create a brand that perfectly suits your business. With WIX E Commerce, you can manage your own inventory or source from suppliers you work with, offer as many products as you like and sell with unlimited product collections. You can define shipping rules and automate your taxes for every sale. You can also accept secure payments online with the WIX payment solution or choose from a global network of providers including major credit card companies PayPal and Stripe. Wix E Commerce gives you the ability to extend your reach with multi channel sales, all while managing everything in one single powerful dashboard including online and mobile storefronts, Facebook, ebay, Instagram and Amazon shops. You can get started with WIX e commerce@wix.com ecommerce and now you can get our 2021 e commerce holiday Guide, including the best strategies for maximizing your holiday sales. Find it@wix.com ecommerce holiday season. Now let's get back to the show. Alexis Lloyd has been at the forefront of future building for most of her career. She served as Creative Director for the New York Times R and D Lab, led design at Axios, and was head of Design Innovation at Automattic. Now, as VP of Product Design at Medium and co Founder at Ethical Futures Lab, Alexis grapples with the development of ethical technology and honing in on how readers and creators can better connect through community. Here's some of what Alexis had to say about the state of user experience. Design and what's Next One of the

things that's become apparent to everyone over the past several years is how the digital products that we design and build can have these really complex impacts on the world around us. You know, from national elections to all sorts of other things. And I think that that's led a lot of people to feel a greater sense of responsibility and to demand a greater sense of responsibility from the people who are, who are making these products and these services to anticipate and be accountable for those kinds of unintended consequences. And so really thinking through like from a design standpoint, how might we approach this differently or are there things that we're missing in our dominant approaches? If you think about user centered design, it was developed in reaction to other kinds of blind spots. Where previously it was really just business goals that were top of mind. Users weren't really considered in the equation. And that led to a whole other set of problems. And now we have this practice that has produced some amazing products through this practice of empathizing with users, designing with their needs and wants in mind. But it is a particular lens, and like any lens, it focuses you on some things and it makes other things less centered in your view. So there are some gaps that I think we can identify. So the first is that by focusing on the user, we have a tendency to obscure other participants in the systems we design who aren't end users per se, but who interact with or are affected by the system. And in some cases by focusing on kind of ease of use, it doesn't eliminate friction in an experience, but instead kind of gets offloaded onto some of those other participants who aren't as visible to us, who are less visible, who are less privileged. And so I think that the thinking we're doing and I co wrote this piece with Devin Mancuso and Liz Hubert and Diana Sonis, and the thinking we were doing was really around systems thinking and how that might become sort of an additive layer on top of user centered design. So not to replace it, but to add to it as a way of better thinking through what unanticipated consequences might happen as a result of the systems that we're designing and thereby be able to preemptively counter any kind of negative effects that we might see.

Throughout this season of the now what? Podcast, we dove deeper into the value of designer and developer relationships, what that handshake process can look like, and why businesses and organizations can benefit from it all. We spoke with Natalia Shelburn, now senior Manager of Design Infrastructure at GitHub, about design, engineering and Ire Adirnikun, Co Founder, COO and VP of Engineering at Helicarrier, a company building cryptocurrency infrastructure for Africa. I encourage you to tune in for these conversations and here's ire on the value of that shared knowledge. In collaboration, it's always beneficial for everyone

to kind of have insights and understanding into every other part of the process. It's a lot harder when you have a designer who may not have any insight into how things will be built, or vice versa. You have somebody that's like a front end developer but can't really understand how the design should come to life. Same goes for like backend and everything. It just helps a lot if everyone has a little bit of insight into the whole assembly line.

We talk so much about leadership in this first season. I wanted to close out this special episode with a look back on some of my favorite moments about leading teams and the first is when Shauna Tellerman joined the show founder and CEO at Modzi, who we heard from earlier and she was talking about leading her team through especially challenging times over the pandemic and challenges that she faced in the business. And she said this transparency is the secret weapon in leadership. I absolutely love that insight, especially for these trying and challenging times. The idea that if you let your guard down as a leader, you you let teams in on what's happening, you share more and more information. It's a great way to build trust, build connection, all through greater communication. And when it comes to teamwork, especially as more teams go remote and hybrid, I also think back to my conversation with our friend Trevor Hubbard, Global CEO of Butcher Shop Agency, whose team created the app called Prio for Beating Failure. And Trevor talks all about this notion of clarity. Let's hear from him.

Honestly, I think every failure stems from a lack of clarity. Everything in your life that has gone wrong is because there was a lack of clarity, which to me is an assumption, a surprise, or some notion that you didn't do the work to actually figure out what was the real sort of problems or threats that could happen.

I found this idea around clarity to be increasingly valuable for future proofing creative and business endeavors, especially during this period of change and evolution in technology. By getting all of your cards on the table with your team and identifying where the pitfalls lie ahead is a great way to avoid them and set yourself up for success. Thanks so much for listening to this special episode. Looking back at our first season of now what? A podcast about how technology is changing everything. And not to worry, we're just getting started. More episodes will be coming to you soon. Now what is hosted and produced by me, Rob Goodman, Executive Producer for Content at WIX Audio Engineering and Editing is by Brian Paik at Pacific Audio. Music is composed and performed by Kimo Muraki. Our executive producers from WIX are Susan Caplow, Shani Moore, Omer Shai, and me, Rob Goodman. You can discover more about the show and our guests@wix.com nowwhat? Be sure to subscribe and follow the show for new episodes wherever you get your podcasts and if you like what you heard, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share this show with your friends and colleagues. We'll see you soon.

One of the things that has been eye opening to me from the past year is just how much people can really adapt to anything. Who would have thought we could do this. But here we are. We're still building stuff. We're still making things, even in the midst of the world kind of turning upside down.