today, we're gonna talk with my friend. Impact been. Peck is an experienced designer in Salt Lake City, Utah In is the co founder of the front conference, which is a conference for either experienced professionals and product managers. That's where Ben and I met for the first time. We didn't get to hang out a lot, but we've hung out a lot on the Internet since today. We're gonna talk about everything that's going on in Ben's world. Hey, what's going on, then?

Hey, Anthony, it's nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me

onto the pocket. Yeah. Thanks for making time. What's the weather like in Utah?

It is getting cold, actually. Really? Fall. It's Yeah, it's getting cold. My windshield had a, uh, was kind of frosted over this morning. Chill. That's gonna live right up on the mountain. Sort of too, though. So and you just known for, uh, it's no. So we're wondering if that's gonna come early this year or not, But sometimes it snows before, uh, before Halloween, so it's kind of crazy

sometimes. That's just the alien concept to me. I mean, it's still 90 something two degrees here

in Austin. Yeah, that's different place. Well,

that's, uh that's that's great. I'm actually thinking about making a trip out there some way we could get together, um, together soon, so yeah, just kick us off here. Um, you've changed jobs since we last talked, and you're doing some work in conversational You. I until what can you say about that?

Yes. I work for a company called Needle. Um, we d'oh. Basically, we're, ah, an e commerce personal assistant. Choppering shopping chapter. All. So when you think of ah, chat, um, usually think of, like, customer service chat were post purchase chat. Um,

but we were a little bit different. One of the things that makes us unique is that we have product experts that come along with the chat that we provide. So we we have clients such a cz. Nike, Adidas, Reebok. We have 50 years. So different clients. They range from different categories. Um, we've got Norwegian cruise lines. We've got outlet. That's kind of Ah, baby monitor. Um, so it kind of range is all over the place,

but it's a chap tool that basically allows, um, product experts. Basically, we're bringing the retail experience of having a person there to help you through the purchasing decision. But online, something that has been missing online. So bringing humans to online shopping basically

well, that's pretty cool. I just got back from Big, um, design conference in Dallas this past weekend, and there was, Ah, one of the one of the panels and I went to is about bots and conversational design. I can't remember the name of the gentleman who put it on, but it kind of blew, Mama. I mean, I know I know that this stuff is it exists, but I didn't even really realize how accessible bots already were. We were looking at all the in looking at and exploring conversing with all these different bots and face in the Facebook ecosystem. I think an example was flowers dot com like it blows my mind. And I think that you could that you could do that.

So are you guys like doing this on the sort of e commerce experience? And are you doing bots for their platforms like Facebook and you know, other other offerings. What is the ecosystem of of these? These experiences

that you provide your customers? Yeah, the kind of give you an example is So you're shopping for back basketball shoes and you go to Nike dot com and you go into the basketball section. Um, when you go into that section Ah, a lot of times you'll kind of see with with other chats, You kind of see a some sort of live chat link up at the top or or some some sort of thing pops up. Um, we don't actually kind of way have a thing called ah, invite that we that we use, um, that when you go into the basketball section of Nike, you'll be invited. Thio, uh, chat was chat with someone with a basketball expert, actually.

And, um but we don't serve it to you right away. We wait until we have this cool kind of targeting system where we know how long you've been on a particular page, and when you've been on a page for a certain amount of time, we kind of know that you have you have some interest in that particular product on. We can put it on specific parts of your website, too. Um, so we serve that chat when we feel you're more ready to actually have a conversation with someone, so it's kind of a similar. And then a chat comes up and you're chatting with them right on Nike dot com. Um, about that product. And it actually shows that the expert gives a bio of them. Um, and you can have a conversation.

And you know who you're talking to immediately. Um, we're playing around with the idea of doing a bott, um, kind of way. We don't know if we're sold on the idea of bots yet. Call.

Wait. You're talking to a real person?

Yeah. We're actually talking to a real person. Oh, we We have bots that we have for the experts. Um, so on the on the back end, we have our own, um what we call an advocate council think of like a home grown slack for all of our experts. Um, and so there'll be a bunch of Nike experts waiting to talk to people. Um, but we and we have another tool that we call answers that basically pops up in, um, nose kind of what page you're on and gives you suggestions of questions that people have asked about that particular product. So we have a little bit of a body for more of the, um, the Shire people that don't actually want to have, ah, live conversation with a real person. But we have It's a bit of a combination of the both

Wow. Okay, so I have a couple questions for you. So if it's a real life expert and they're talking to a customer, that customer is especially for a company like Nike, already fairly aware of what Nike means as a brand and the tone of the or the experience on the, you know, the mobile app with website. How does this expert, um, bring those brand values to that conversation? Like, how? How are they coached and guiding a potential customer through a shopping experience in a written form?

Um, you usually these experts, uh, have owned thes products, and it's actually a requirement. Ah, the majority of them dio on the products that they're that they're talking about. So take a so knows expert that we have, um, Or when we vet out these experts, they have to actually own a so no speaker. They have to own multiple cameras SLR cameras. If they're for an ad, a ramen expert or UM, X y z. So they actually bringing um ah, riel world knowledge to it rather than kind of a trained customer service expert that's following a script or some other,

ah, way of trying to teach that person to know what they're talking about. They actually know what they're talking about. They've either played basketball in ah, intermediate amateur level, or sometimes at an expert in an expert level, some of our soccer player soccer experts for Adidas, um, actually played like pro level soccer. Um, so they're not just your typical kind of retail sales associate type people, sexual experts.

So what do you guys, Uh, what can you say about what you guys were doing or how you guys your design team is working in the ah, around the conversational you I realm. And it might be really interesting if you could maybe and talk about, like, what kind of skills are necessary? Um, t succeed in that that area because it's obvious that these sort of things are just like drones and you know, a I and conversational You, I mean, is you know, it's going. It's happening right now. So if someone were gonna come work for you and your team. Like what? What are those skill sets look like to be successful in doing the things?

Um, yeah, it's a good question. Um, really, it's Ah, As a product designer, you have to be more than, ah, typical visual designer. Or, um, you have to be ableto it's It's kind of like Pixar. So when you when you wanna work for Pixar, Um, you have to be a good storyteller as well as a good animator. You can't just be good at the the tool sets and the visual and the creativity.

You have to be able to tell a good story. Um, and that's kind of a requirement for us. Because when you think of messaging or the conversational you aye, or trying to understand a good conversation, Um, when you want to try to create a box that sits in front of an actual person to kind of give them information because that's what we're kind of working through right now of what? What kind of bought actually do well, I mean, computers air great at computing, and humans are great it at feelings and emotion so we could solve a lot of like the common answers that we that are experts get and they don't want to waste their time having to answer like a very simple question like just does this come in Size nine? Um, so you kind of have to figure out how to tell a story, how to have a conversation and teach ah, computer to do that for you, Um, in a natural way so that the transition from, um going from bought two ah to a human is his natural. So I guess storytelling understanding how people are people, how people talk user research are really important to the type of designers that we're looking

for. Are you Are you guys able to find the kind of designers were looking for in your local market?

Um, it's it's getting, I think, that there's a great product design community here in Utah. Um, there's definitely this sense of people wanting to help one another become better. Better product design. When it comes to traditional education, I feel like they're lacking. They're not keeping up with the the needs of the type of designer that the industry needs right now, especially in tech check is just moving so fast that the world just can't keep up with it. And so we're seeing what I've tried to do is augment that kind of education. Um, with this group that we we call the product design association. Um ah, group, which Andy Wade and I,

Andrew Branch, um, wage here, and I kind of have had been running for, uh, for eight or nine years. Um, I didn't jump in until about two or three years ago. Um, but Andy had been doing it for for quite a while, but basically, this group was created. It was first ah, n i x t a chapter. And then we changed it to the product design Association. Um,

because, uh, we saw this shift, and we didn't want it to just be focused on interaction models. And we wanted to include product managers and more team members, because that's kind of what the real world is like when you're in a company, you're working with a team, um, making decisions. So we created that that product design association, and we hold monthly events right now I'm running it. Andy and waited are focusing on on front right now and I run it with another person named Mariah. Hey, who is the VP of product for pleural site? But yeah, it's it's a really good group, and I think we're augmenting and helping product designers, designers that were traditionally visual designers or um, or some other like industrial designers to they're interested in product

design. That's that's really rad. So, um, earlier you're telling me that that's through this organization is where the front conference came from. Um, so those either listening that don't know about front Um, it's a conference, uh, Ben and his partners put on in Salt Lake City and Kurt me for wrong, but it's centered around product signing product management. I we took the fun size team. Ah, the whole team out there. Not this year. But last year it was really, really cool. And why don't you tell a little bit about that event and where what you're trying to accomplish with it and where it's headed?

Yeah, Um, yeah, the product design association we got we got so big with the product is an association. We got to about 1800 members here in Utah, and we said we should just make a legit conference. So, uh, here in Utah, we were kind of tired of trying to convince our bosses of, uh, to give us thousands of dollars to fly out to south by Southwest or any other conference. Um, and we said, Well, let's just bring them to us. So we created front.

Um, and we just like nights, weekends. We just organized a conference, invited people that we respect in the industry. I think Peter Mayer Holtz was kind of one of the reasons why you came out because you had a connection with him and we invited him to come speak and, um, Marty Keagan and a lot of the local leaders as well here in Utah toe just speak. Ah, and a more dedicated conference. Take him away from their desk. Lt's, um and we convince 350 people to come in 2015 and it's just been growing, and people been really excited about it. But

so how many is that? How many people in 2015

2015 we had when you came? It was 350

people and then this this year, 2016 was 600 so you pretty much doubled it Yeah. So something worked in 2015?

Exactly. I we we realized that 2015 was really kind of a trial run. Was could we actually do this? Um, and would people come to Utah? Would the Utah community take the time out to come to go to the conference? Um, and they obviously did. They learned a lot in it, and it is centered around product design product management around Internal Team's software, SAS Company's internal, uh, teams for for tech companies. And there's, Ah, large tech community here in Utah that I don't know if people really realize exists here. Um,

so front is has been growing quite a bit. And this this year, a lot of people said that last 2015 was most good, and this year was was great. I mean, we we stepped up our game. We had we had games there. We had we had a better, bigger bet. Better venue. Um, we did the food trucks again, which everybody loves. Yeah. Um and I I mean, I feel like we're creating it not just ah,

learning community, people being able to do their jobs better, but also like we're creating an actual environment where people can actually share what they're doing, how they're doing it, how to be better, um, and get to know each other better. This year we took longer breaks in between each, we'd have a couple speakers, and then we take a longer break so that the conversation between people and the topics that they were hearing about could actually happen. Because there's a lot of learning that happens between just in conversations with 10 or so other less people. So

that's that's pretty cool. I mean, um, I'm just from a personal point of view, I'm really curious. How long does it take to plan a conference? Like I know it's, I know it's nights, weekends and anywhere you find time. But if you had to quantify it like someone's gonna plan a conference like, how much dedication does it take

to do to Dio? It takes a lot of dedication. So there's three of us doing it, Um, and then we have volunteers on top of that. Um, and it I mean, we're we're working on the conference. Ah, all year round. I mean, we we work on a, um I don't know how how I would quantify it as far as like ours. But it, uh, I used to do freelance work, and there's no way I could do freelance work.

And do you like conference? There's it's It's almost the equivalent of just having a all of your freelance time that you would spend in the evenings. Um, I've been putting towards the conference and on top of that product design association, so it's almost kind of think of like Front is the Fire and Depart Design Association is kind of like the fuel that feeds the fire is, well, so, like it continues on throughout the year. Just events once or twice a month. And then we have, ah, big event.

OK, so is that what you're doing in Park City, then? Like these workshops?

So yes, so the first year we did speakers and workshops. This year we didn't do um, workshops for the front event. We excited to separate those out, and we're kind of doing affectionately. We call it front and back. So Wasatch front mountains on the Wasatch back. So front will always be in Salt Lake City, and the ideas is back will always be in Park City um, and back is kind of, well, front Park City, Um, which we affectionately called back is basically everything that you learned at front. Um, go try to put it into practice through these workshops,

so you get to pick, um, four workshops, um, for two, two full days of, uh, of learning. So, um, plus, we're doing it in the winters. So since Utah is very well known for their snow, um, where we feel like that's a great time to kind of come do some skiing and just practice being better at better practice signers. Better product managers, working betters teams. So, yeah, that's kind

of the idea around it. That's pretty cool. So, for your, um, is front happening again? I suppose it isn't in 2017 or wins the next event.

Yeah. So Salt Lake City front next year will be, um, may 9th and 10th in 2017. And Park City is in January January 5th and sixth.

Are you guys looking for, um, speaking proposals?

Um, for Salt Lake City? Yes, we are. Currently right now, um, we've got Ah, we've got some Some speakers kind of lined up, but we're still looking for people

right now. Yeah. How does How does someone submit a topic?

Um, we don't really have a Ah, a formal way of samedi submitting, uh, the speakers. We kind of take what kind of hand, Pick them. But if you're interested, you can You can always email me it. Bennett from Utah dot com. Um so and weaken, we'd be happy to kind of hear what you what you have to say. We're the conference really is a case study conference. We want actual practitioners that are within companies that can showcase, um, something that they've learned. Whether that's something that didn't go well,

something that did go well, um, working through difficult problems. So for instance, um, this year we had a product designer and a product manager from asana that showcased their redesign about asana and the challenges that it takes to launch a full redesign. Um, and the things that they learned along the way, things that that that did work with the redesign and things that didn't through user testing. And it was a great example of Ah, good case study, um, experience of working in house with a with a software product.

That's cool So what? I mean, on a personal level, what are you What are you learning by doing it by doing this event?

Oh, it's been intense ever since we we created front. I feel overwhelmed within a matter of knowledge that I've gotten specifically just as the organizer of the conference. I, um I can't retain it all. I mean, I've It's been a humbling experience to just be, uh I mean, conferences air are only conferences with people like people make the conference. So I didn't the people actually make the conference in the amount of support that we've gotten in in excitement around the conference has been amazing. And I mean, I have to spend nights just digesting the things that I've learned. I'm still, um, digesting everything that we learned last May and in at front. So

I can only imagine, Do you videotape everything?

This year we did videotape everything, and we published it. Also, I've ever reach rewatched it multiple times, and it's great. A great resource toe have to kind of remember the things that that were

said they're So how does someone find that? Is it for purchase, or is it available online?

we? Actually, Yeah. It's actually freeze all on Vimeo on our front. Um, front account. So just video at ah slash front, Utah.

Cool. I'm running it down. Up. I'll put that in the show notes that people can find that. Absolutely, um s o you know, the out of the things that we've talked about so far? I mean, it seems like Ben Peck has dedicated his life to furthering, um, the the local design community and design education in general. Would you say that's true? Is that how would you describe who, who you are and what drives you?

That's a deep question. Um, yeah, I have a lot of passion around. Um, just designers the design community here locally. Um, I have ah, strong love for Utah in general. Um, so I mean, I was born and raised here, and, um, I would say that Yeah, I think a lot of my passionate of all revolves around just helping other product designers. Probably managers,

um, and the community. Ah, just be better at what they dio, um and and also in a very selfish way, be better at what I d'oh in my everyday job here at needle and being a better designer, Um, that was one of the main reasons why my regretted front was so that we could get more knowledge here on a regular basis, said a lower cost. Um, so it's been it's been amazing and, um, I feel privileged toe to be part of that.

I think that's fantastic. I think there's a lot of parallels between the Utah community and the Austin community. Um, as it seems like you know, been been climbing out. We'll talk on the phone every now and then, and actually I met him for the first time because I would came to your conference and I had the ability to go visit a studio. Now he's one of my buds, but I think that's kind of the same thing. Like, um, you know, these, these small cities have great people that seem to be rallied around the concept of let's make this place where we live a great place for this kind of work. I mean, you know, for more people to move in and in build businesses in our cities like you know,

a salt lake and in Austin, but also to make sure that the design community there are is prepared for those jobs. Yeah, and that's something that, um I'm originally from Texas, but I spent near nearly a decade in New York City. And when I came back and when we started this company, it was very hard for us to find the town, the types of designers we needed to be to be to be successful in the kind of business we're trying to run. Luckily, we met the right crew, and not everyone had all the skill sets that we found a way to build each other up. But I see that happening here a lot, too, cos they're coming to Austin. Um,

but the the design community is still I think I don't mean this in a bad way, but the community's about a little behind. And you know what? There's no now I think about it. There is no there is no product design conference in Austin. At least there's so there's so much going on in the tech world. I don't know if it's the same way where you're at, but there's so many events for engineers and technologists and business and venture capital, but not a lot of a lot of conferences here. I might need thio pin your pin, you about behind the scenes and figure out if it's worth doing. Um, but to circle back. So you you have a day job, a needle, and you're you're involved in running this product design association and you're planning the front conference and in the back,

and you're helping a lot of people grow and learn and in doing these things for the community And you just said that selfishly, it helps you grow. Um, how do you have time like with all these things you're doing? Like, how are you? How are you? How are you leveling up in, in, um, in your in your practice in your practice areas, is it Sounds like you have, You know, it sounds like you're busy. Just curious. Like, how are you? How are you making sure you're leveling up?

Ah, yeah, I, um it's a It's really hard to find balance. I've almost kind of given up on the idea of balance. Just in general. It's just it's more about priorities for me. Um and really I mean, I don't want to leave out my family. I mean, I've got my wife and my four kids. And luckily, I have a wife that really supports and sees the passion that I'm that I'm doing. And, uh, with this with front and with the product design Association, and I appreciate her for that.

And, um, it's really great to see my kids run around with their front, uh, back back on or, um, and just talk about the conference. Um, but to find, like, to answer your question. I mean, I feel like I would not be a better designer if I didn't have the products in association or front. Um, I feel I went thio Utah State. I went to BYU.

I got a good visual design degree. Um, and I learned the core basics of design principles, but they didn't teach me about, um how how the industry was I had to learn on the job. I, um So I feel like, um, I feel like that is a big part of my growth. Is the practice an association and I still feel like that has toe has to happen. I I agree with you that that the, um the kids coming out of schools aren't prepared as I would like them to be two to run, hit the ground running as a product designer. Um, and I'm trying to help help with that with the local. I mean,

we have a slack group with 400 or so people in it, um, as part of the Product Design Association, and that's the conversation is just happening all the time. And, um, it's really hard. I Sometimes I have to turn that off. Sometimes It's just too much for me, and sometimes I just it just feels feels me like crazy. So, um, just having a good set of priorities, I think, um, sometimes you have to put down the phone sometimes. Yeah, you you can find that content and just feed fuels the fire. So yeah, it's it's difficult balance for

sure. Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. Most of my most of my career, I had been one of the guys that was responsible for 70 80 90% of all the pixels and built this company up and quickly found myself in the position where I was trying to do all of that hands on work and do all the creative direction where can do business development and do marketing. And and I take educate education very seriously, too. I've always have my entire entire career. I've always had an apprentice of always I felt that that was ah, um, something that I should do for a reason. I don't know. I just always felt like I needed to, but I kind of ended up in this position where I was like, Well, kind of. I don't really know what my priorities are.

You know, my some of the designers that fun size we like, you need a design more. Anthony, do you need to do this and do that and I But when I realized that all I truly cared about was, um, making great designers, I think it was ableto help me, um, create some priority in the way I spend my time. And I definitely respect what what you're doing. I'm sure the people love you for what you're doing for the local community, and that's great that it's doing good and, um, blown up.

Well, thanks, I think I think out of all the agencies that I know, I think you guys air really rocking at you guys know the difference between, um, you know, howto work with the tech company. You know how you know, you understand what product design is and how an internal company works and how you can kind of augment that. And it's personally, I feel like all designers should pay attention to what's happening on the agency side of designers as well as in house. I strongly feel like you can learn a lot from both sides of everything.

So you agree? I appreciate that. So, um, should should I assume that Front 2017 is gonna be double in size

again? Um, that's a good question. Yeah, that was the main question that we discussed right after front. This year was okay, We're gonna just kind of continue, Just make it as big as possible and just accommodate as many people. Because we had we had to turn a lot of people away this year towards the once we got closer to the conference, and that kind of made a sad partially because we just want to be ableto provide this information and this experience to everyone. Um, but it really changes the experience. The bigger you get. I mean, I don't think I could. I have a full time job and run front if we made it any bigger. It completely changes the way that that the conference feels to keep that.

The feeling that we currently have. Right now, I think 600 was like a good amount. So, um, our next venue that we have books for next year, I think Fitz, about 680. So we're not planning on going any larger than that. I mean, if we get to the point where we sell out super quick after we've got the speaker's announced, um, I think that Ah, I think that we we may It's not about the idea of streaming it live or, um, providing some other way for other people that couldn't get in tow to be able to see it. We're still debating

on whether you

know how or what what

we do there. But that makes sense. I don't really know what I'm talking about. It it seems like if you get any bigger than that, then it's hard to do Ah, single track and potentially have that, you know, same vibe that you described earlier.

Yeah, and and you see conferences out there that have tried to approach it in different ways, such as, Ah, been apart. They just have decided to kind of go on a road show and just take it to city to city. Um, but keep kind of a smaller conference to kind of provide those people on opportunity. But and I mean, we'll always be a Utah based company that even the name front is based off of the Wasatch Front Mountains. I mean, you've got to see that in our logo a little bit, Um, so we'll always be a a Utah conference and and we care a lot about the community here and you talk first and foremost and we welcome anyone. I mean this this year we actually did get people from a lot more people from out of state, but we got people from over. We got people from 28 states and five countries,

so we're getting the word out somehow, and people are starting to notice it. And I think it's partially because, like you said, there's not very many product design project management focused conferences out there, and there's

a need for the other. There definitely is a, um, anyone listening should definitely check out front. The website is front Utah dot com and check it out and see if you can make one of their events. Ben, what's next for you? What is next year look like for you think

my mind's solely focused on on creating an amazing experience for needle? Um, continuing Thio grow the community here locally with practice, an association in front, and ah, then just help anyone that I possibly can virtually through Twitter or any other way that I possibly can through speaking with awesome guys like you threw podcaster or whatever I can do to help. So that's my plan.

What you're doing is very admirable. Uh, why don't you tell us? Tell everyone how they can find you on the interwebs?

Um, you can find me on Twitter. I'm pretty active on Twitter at Ben Pick. Um, I don't have I'm a poor update er of my website. But ben ben pic dot com um and ah, and obviously broke design Utah dot or ge in front Utah dot com. So that's kind of where we're

at. That's awesome. Then I really appreciate you making time to come on the show. I know that you wanted Thio. You'd prefer to do this in person. Unfortunately, we're, um we're in a temp. I'm using a temporary studio until our new offices built out. But perhaps we could make it in person. Uh, podcast happen in the future?

Yeah, that would be awesome. I'd love a

great local. Thanks for making time, and we'll talk about it. Okay, Thanks. Thanks. A real opportunity. This'll episode of hustle is brought to you by envision Designed better, faster together Learn more at in vision app dot com Hustle is brought to you by fun size, a digital product design studio that craps delightful digital user experiences with inspiring product companies. Follow us at hustle cast and fun size on Twitter.