I. This is Anthony Armendariz and welcome back to the hustle podcast. Today I'm here with my friend Peter Mayer Holt's Peters, the VP of design at Snack, a job he's the co author of or design for design org's. He previously co founded Adaptive Path, which is now part of the capital. One designed family, uh, which set the bar for industry in a lot of ways. He's, ah, someone I look up to, and I'm excited to have him back. What's going on, Peter?

Ah, happy to be back. Hi, Anthony. What's going on? Just enjoying unseasonably warm weather in the Bay Area. It's It's February and in the mid to upper seventies. We don't get this warm during our summer, much less our winter, so it's a little weird.

Okay, so our weathers must be flawed because here it's like cold and raining.

No, not Austin style,

not Austin style. Well, it's been a it's way talk fairly often, but it's been a while since you've been on the show. You were on the podcast on Episode 22 back in 2015 so it's been a while

a couple of years

now. Yeah, So what do you. What you up to these days?

Um, one of my up do so. As you said, I'm the VP of design for snag. A job I've been here a little over a year began at the beginning of last year running. Ah, kind of joint design team product design, marketing design and you exit market research Got about 25 folks in three offices Richmond, Virginia, Washington, D. C. And Oakland and yeah, s. So you know, my day job is working. Thio,

keep this team humming. Make sure that we're able to address the end to end experience for our both sides of our marketplace, where we help people find work and we help employers find workers. So make sure that the experience we're delivering is great for both sides in the marketplace. So that's my day job by sometime. Extracurricular activity. My side hustle, as it were, is continuing to stump for the book or designed for design org's. I teach a workshop 1/2 careful day workshop on that speaking conferences, that kind of thing, and I very rarely but still do occasionally Blawg not the u. R. L or designed for designer works dot com So when new stuff comes up that I want to address that that is related to the book, that's

where I write it. That's cool. I think it would be worthwhile just talking a little bit about the book itself. Because for, you know, I think there's people should read it. Can you? How could you summarize

it? Yeah, that's right, because I would have been probably writing the book when we last spoke when I was last on the podcast, but it came out, came out in 2016 so it's been out. It would have been a while after we last met. So the book is or designed for design. Org's what away? But it's them trying to remember this subtitle, I think growing effective in house design teams and it's It's a It's a primer. It's a handbook to help design leaders figure out how to recruit higher level, grow, scale their design organizations. How does their design team relate to other teams in the organization? Howto handle job titles, howto handle seniority levels howto literally recruiting higher,

like how to write a good job post and find candidates and interviewed them and screen them how to organize the team. It's trying to be a brass tacks books for design leaders, many of whom have never been in the position that they're in leading a team. And, you know, they came up his designers. They were really good at design. They're really good at their craft, but they're not. They never studied or thought that they would be expected to run an organization, and it's a different set of challenges and a different set of skills. And so writing the book to help those design leaders figure out how to do a better job in this with his new responsibility that

they have. I'm really glad you wrote a book on it because I think if I look back at all the challenges that I faced in my 17 or 18 year career, the biggest challenge, the toughest problem is designing the design or GE by far like it's it's almost I probably spent almost entire year last year just working on that. One problem in the book definitely definitely helped.

Yeah, well, I'm glad to hear it, and you wrote I know you were interviewed by envision, I guess not that long ago and I noted how How you described your the fun size, design or structure. I was very much what I how I described what I was proposing for in house, and I always thought it was kind of specific to in house works. I haven't come from it after path and having worked in agency contacts, say I had the sense that it would. It would work best differently in an agency context, but I honestly just didn't really pursue it. So I was actually quite pleasantly surprised that you were able to take that model, that kind of centralized partnership model where design designers are working in teams and apply it in an agency context. In a kind of client service is context, and it seems to be working really well

for you. It does. You know, I think, in summary, that, you know the biggest challenges is that we wanted. You know, the easiest thing for an agency to do is staff lean max out utilization and billings. But that isn't help with, like skills development and growing people creating junior leadership position, having the right partner model with client, or even like using people to their to their strengths, which is something that I honestly didn't have. You know, the last time that I talk to you, we were so small that you know,

our team everyone on the team basically had to be comparable to each other just so we could scale. But now that you know where we are, still a small company. But, you know, we have, you know, 14 15 designers, which is in people of all different variety and figuring out how to create the right career pass and put them in positions where they can be successful is really challenging and find a way to make that, like, effective on buildings and all That was really tough.

Yeah, I know. It's Ah, that is the thing that many designers don't realize is that challenge that their leader faces right there. I think a lot of designers on a team think that their leaders primary challenges one of creative leadership. I think a lot of peers or in your case clients, I think that your greatest challenge is one of creative leadership and not to diminish the creative leadership. But But yet they're the biggest challenge for a design leader, particularly once you have a new organization, I would say greater than 10 people is one off management operations organization because you've got you've got, you know, 10 at least, if not more distinct, unique agendas that all need to be addressed within some framework that you're building. And it's in it if you don't have ah framework. If you don't put some effort to providing some structure, it just gets chaotic and and then and it just becomes ineffective on.

So you need to. You need to be the gardener tending your tending, tending to your garden to make sure that you know, overextend the analogy, but that you're that your plans that your vegetables are growing appropriately and not just like going all over the place. And there's weeds everywhere. You know. It takes it takes real effort to manage.

It really does. You know, in looking back, I you know, I made a big boo boo by not taking you up on your offer for consulting because that I think it could have it expedited things on our end quite significantly. But, you know, it's it's It's surprising, too, because a lot of the clients that we have, even the ones that have. They are mature enterprises with, you know, design organizations. They're always asking about Will, you know, how do How can we do this better? I'm curious. Do you ever do you do consulting? Do you help people solve these problems?

Not not Not to Actively. What I what I do occasionally still do is is like the one day workshop kind of parachute in, particularly if it's either here in the Bay Area or I'm able to align it with other travel that I'm doing. I just don't have the time given my job and my family to also have another job. That's why I like to speaking conferences and and still write about. It is I like to stay engaged with the broader conversation around Design management design organizations designed leadership, but I don't have the bandwidth to truly consult.

Yeah, well, you got a you got a J O B. That's right. Well, for for those of you that haven't read the book, go pick it up. It's called or design or design org's. Check out the workshop. If you're looking for some ideas about how you can implement things are you won't regret it. It's very good read. So now. So since we're talking about design leadership, just a few minutes ago, you were telling me about a talk that you did it. Leading design about design leadership. Unpack that a little bit.

Yeah. So the talks called coach, diplomat, advocate, architect, the four archetypes of the design leader. And it's an attempt on my part, too, to present a framework for for design leaders to think about their job, their role and what I like about it is it was actually an assignment. Indy Bud, who is the principal of clear left and the organizer of leading design and U Ex London, invited me to speak, but I had already given kind of my or design talks at his conference. And so he was. He was asking for new material, and when we were talking about it,

he's like, I want you to give a talk to help leaders figure out how to get the most out of their team, and I and I like to that assignment. It got me a little bit out of my head, and it reminded me of ah, passage in the book that I have about team leads and in the team lead. I forget exactly what I say then that the book in front of me. But I basically say that in order for AH team lead to succeed, they need to be a coach, a salesman and a diplomat or something, right? Because I was reflecting on. There's kind of these three key elements of being, ah, design leader team lead. You need to manage down.

You need to get the most out of your team. You need to set them up for success. You need to create a space for them to do great work, right, and so that managing down I would call being a coach, you need to manage across. So that's the diplomat you need to be able to interact with other with peers with other functions. So in house, I need to be able to interact with product management with engineering, with marketing, with sales, with even sometimes our general counsel, legal finance, right. I need to be ableto work well with them to make sure that design is is collaborating well or getting what it needs internally. And then you also need to be able to manage up right,

a design leader needs to be ableto engaged with stakeholders and executives. And that's that's the advocate role you need to be ableto champion for your team champion. The work they're doing or champion for Resource is they need, you know, I've had to have conversations with heads of HR. Luckily, not it at snag a job, but in prior organizations, you know, addict conversations with heads of HR. You know, saying that the way that we conduct performance reviews doesn't make sense for my team. And we need to change it to better suit my team or I need Thio work with finance and HR around compensation. Or I need to tell the head of product to back off on a design decision that they're actually not helping the process in the way that they're engaging with my design team. They're actually creating confusion, right?

I need to be the leader who can who can have those conversations so that that's the advocate is managing up and then so those are the initial three that every design leader needs what you've experienced recently, and what happens after you reach about 10 10 to 15 people on your team is you now need to wear the architect hat you need to. You need to figure out what is the structure and framework for your design organization. You need to come up with levels framework for seniority From, you know, junior through executive. You need Thio articulate your roles and and what, what what what are the rules? What are the responsibilities and those roles? How do they overlap? How do they combine? You need to start thinking about design systems, especially if you're in house. You need to start figuring out your style guide and your other other tools that you're gonna use to help you scale, design and scale its impact. And so there's. There's a set of kind of these systems level architectural challenges that occur once your team, when your team gets large enough in that the company you're working for gets large enough that require this this architect mindset.

Wow, that I mean that that's I'm just kind of thinking about that. Um, I might have blown your mind a little bit. Yeah, I remember very recently, someone wrote me an email said I heard something that you said two years ago. I love your idea about how you know how running a company without titles. And, uh, this might have been actually today where I wrote back and was like, You know, I'm I'm sorry that I said that, You know, like, now you know, now that I'm more informed, I really you know, like I realized that titles are actually quite important to understand the role of the self and the team in the expectations.

And do you want to talk about titles?

I can talk about titles. Let's talk

about titles. Yeah, well, and it keeps coming up, So it must be it must be relevant. It's It's one of those things that seems odd to obsess on, but we, as digital designers do. When I was back a deductive path, we actually went through a period where we tried to do away with job titles. I am particular found job titles challenging for my team members because their identity was getting so wrapped up in them. I felt it was getting in the way of their ability just to do the work, and so we weren't able to get rid of job titles, but we were mostly able to streamline them to either. You're an experienced strategist or an experienced designer and that kind of work for a while. But over time it it fell apart. And people,

I'm not an experience that I want to be a service designer in like this, that the other thing came up and it takes a lot of energy toe. Find it where I have shaken shook out in mine teams, especially as I moved in house. You gotta You gotta have titles Every everyone has a job title. It's It's It's a reality of working in unorganised ation of any size beyond you know, 15 people. And so what I wanted to do, though, is be very mindful of titles I have found. You know, I did do some consulting for a company a year and 1/2 ago before you joined Snag a job, big bank, And they literally had, like, 80 different job titles within the design team in like,

17 different ways of talking about user experience. Designers, you know, there was a U X designer user experience designer, experienced designer, you I slash you ex designer product designer. They were using all of these titles and and it was it was confusing right. If you're if you're someone looking for a job at this company and you go to the Careers page on the website, you're like Are these different jobs? Are they the same job? Which what do I apply for? And so until

it gets even more confusing when you add all the other layers on top of that, like manager comma experience, design principle, common experiences IBP

Yes, exactly know exactly. And so and so for the book. I mean, this is something we we we addressed very thoughtfully, is trying to come up with a taxonomy of job titles that were so the issue that I have a chapter Let me start. They're usually that I have a job. Titles is that they often become a straitjacket. People get people get too defined by their job title, expect their job title to kind of predict the specifics of their work or others outside of you know, people that they're interacting with or like Oh, you're a blank person. I'm only gonna talk to you about it, right? And so in our industry, the challenge would be around like visual design, right?

If you're pegged as a visual designer, No one's gonna ever ask you about interaction, design challenges and you're gonna get frustrated if you're picked is an interaction designer. Maybe they don't talk to you about user research, but you're like I can do that too, right? And so? So there's this challenge where the titles tend to be too narrow, and so what we tried to do in the book is have titles that were that that split that difference. They were. They were brought enough general enough that it could encompass a range of skills and practices, but not so brought in generic that they were meaningless. Right? You can't just have a job. Title of designer. You do need to say,

you know, product signer, communication designer You know where we shook out was product designer, communication designer, you ex researcher, content strategist. Those were the core titles. And then we layered in overtime program manager and designed technologist on those were kind of the court titles. And then, yes, there were management or leadership kind of additions to. That's a design direct design manager, design director, VP of designed that type of thing, and it's it's a struggle. If you talk to Jared Spool.

Uh, who thinks about this more than you were on it put together. He is. He's got this school in Chattanooga, the center center that is tryingto turn out the next generation of digital designers you, ex designers, product designers, whatever you want to call them. And his model is very much he's very anti job title. He you know, his his view of the world is it's about skills, and it's about in a collection of skills. When when you're hiring people, you're you shouldn't be hiring titles. You should be hiring kind of skills. When you're growing people,

you should be focusing on their skills growth When you're putting people together in teams, it's about complementary skills, and I think in theory, he's totally right. I tried to kind of achieve that in my work, but in practice you need that job title as a as a beacon. As an anchor around which you can have. You can start a conversation without a job title. Every conversation starts from scratch, and it it's just takes too long to figure out what it is you're talking about.

Yeah, it's ah, you add a consulting and stuff like that on top of that, you know, your clients and called their colleagues need to know like, Oh, well, if I have A If I want to talk about this, who do I go to? If I have a problem, who do I talk to you? It's It's important to know

No, exactly. And that's That's where the leadership stuff comes into place, uh, knowing like, who's the design director? Where do I hide away? Escalate this and who's who has that ultimate kind of responsibility and authority? Yeah, definitely

so, uh, kind of related to this. And we don't have to go too far down this path. But the last time that year on the on the show, we were talking about user experience related jobs. I'm kind of curious what your thought is or if your if your opinion has changed because I remember you saying that they've adapted path that you guys, at some point, switch from user experience to experience design. Where do you Where do you fall on that? On that now, like the difference between experiences I don't use and user experience,

where do I fall? So I'm still I am very wary of the phrase user experience, design and probably thus also wary of the phrase experience design, though, that that phrase doesn't come up nearly as much. You know, there's this idea of user experience designer the role that the U ex designer, which I can. I still cannot find a clear definition off most U ex designers or some combination of interaction, designer and information architect. But some also, there's an expectation of visual design. Some there's an expectation of user research and strategy like it's it's it's just not clear. And I think it's a title that ends up confusing matters more than illuminating them. The one role where I think you extra user experience is a suitable qualifier is with research. So I think there is such a role as U ex researcher because I think as a researcher, if you're doing your job right, you are observing that entire user experience. You shouldn't be necessarily constrained to whatever the digital design experiences

or just the business requirements

right where, as a designer is, a lot of their work is going to be specific to the to the medium that they're operating it, or maybe media. You know, maybe they're working across Web and mobile. But customers user experiences, not just They're looking at a screen, you know, it's it's There will likely be some service component to it. There might be email. There might be phone calls. There might be a human to human interactions, right? We think about, you know, the lifts and new powers of the world.

Much of my experiences is actually being in the car. Uh, who's designing that? Uh, you know, that's part of my user experiences Here. Is your experience designer designing that though I I probably not. And so that's where the phrase you ex design I feel is not helpful. But U ex research better be understanding that end and experience and helping all the teams that are trying to support that end end experience in in understanding kind of the user's journey and what's working and what's not. So so yeah, I'm I've I guess I moved away from both user experience designer and experience designer in the book we ended up for the for the that the design title for digital design mean abusing product designer. That's that's the term of art that's kind of taken hold that hybrid interaction, visual designer, maybe with some sense of front and development. And I think it's a perfectly decent title. And and then there's,

you know, there's the product designer, communication designer, you ex researcher, one that I forgot when I mentioned earlier with service Designer. I actually think that isn't a new role that some organizations are starting to embrace in terms of a designer who is looking more like pulling back and looking at the end end experience, not necessarily focusing on any particular, any particular touch point of delivery system. But how does it all hang together?

So, like, how do you How do you identify? Like what? What kind of designers? Peter Morales.

Oh, that's, uh wow. I haven't done design work in a very long time. If I were to be a designer, if I were to try to fire to try to sell my design skills, I guess I could give you a cop out and say I'm an organization to sign her now. But if I heard, too, if I were to do my design skills within, like a product or service context, I'd say I'm a service designer. I would say that the way I approach problems, the nature of the research. I do the inside story derived from that research that the strategy that that informs and then the ideas for for change that comes from that I will operate best at the at the service level. So yeah, that's that's That's where I would shake out.

I'm I am. I feel like I'm beyond my design delivery days. I've been an executive long enough. I haven't opened an adobe or or sketch tool in years. If I do design, it's, you know, using keynote. In fact, I think the last time I did any design, I used the fun size wire frame stencils for mobile in key note two or three years ago to help think

through some man I forgot forgot about great

and it helped me. It was away from it and quickly come up with some some ideas. I was I was doing some sketching is part of ah, mobile design activity we were doing internally. This is back a group on, and it was helpful for me to communicate that my ideas but But I really, I mean the tools I use our e mails, spreadsheets and a lot of one on one and group conversations.

You know, I can identify with that. It's same with me like I haven't physically designed anything in a while, but I'm But I'm always designing something like a business development process or a team structure. And I I'm happy with it because I still I'm still solving problems. They're just not like screens. Well, I think that's right. I think that's

right. Yeah, and it's and and the way of tackling problems is is transferrable what I found in writing the book. So my background, such from a design perspective such as it is, was more information architecture, right kind of the organization and structuring of information spaces. And in writing the book when I after I finished it and I reread it, I realized that what I had done is apply information architecture to design organizations, right? I did all this taxonomy and labeling work around job titles around levels around team structures and relationships that is almost classic information architecture but has nothing to do with a website and everything to do with how a group of people relate to win

it. I I was hanging out with my friend Tony Bronx last night. He's and he's in Austin right now from from the Bronx. He's a he's a teacher. He teaches middle school or high school, mostly kids that have moved recently to the United States. And what he is doing is teaching design, thinking and helping like 15 year olds like Apply this to various things, not just well. He's got partnerships with tech companies and stuff like that, But he's He's using these practices that designer uses. The designers used to show them that there's different ways, like solving problems, which is kind of crazy to think about. You know, if a lot of people are doing this than you know, what is the next sort of crop of designers look like?

I think it's great. Just eso, often for so long the way to tackle problems The perceived best way of tackling problems was was an analytical approach was to break a problem down to its its simplest parts and analyze them and and then maybe regroup them and say, Okay, here's here's the solution right and it's a very reductive approach that that is tends to be how, like business and technology has worked, I think. What What? The elevation of design is done, though, is help identify a different mindset around problem solving. Which is what not one of of simply analysis, but one of generative ity creativity, Right? You know, you get those insights and design thinking, right?

You're getting those insights. You're talking to people you're getting outside of your head and then you're getting you go through this kind of prototype phase and then test it and refine it. And it is, it's ah, there's a more holistic aspect to a generative aspect to it, as opposed to it tearing things down aspect to it that I love the idea that, you know, Children are learning this because I hope as they grow they continue to bring those skills into what it is they're doing. And and we see a lot more interesting solutions to problems things to folks who were trained upon design thinking when they

were younger. So that brings up an interesting question. I mean, and we could just talk about this from our individual lenses. But in your experience recently, are you seeing that tech companies are enterprises are doing a better job of less just generation and more understanding prior to generation, or, I mean, how do you are You think that the in house teams are maturing in the way that they're spending time and resource is against design problems

on the whole guests? On the whole, yes, I'm my my view is going to be skewed because I surround myself with people who do this kind of work. And so the companies they work for the stoop, this type of work. But but But it seems to be, you know, happening in more and more organizations. You know, the fact that we have all these different design and user experience conferences all over the world, right? People who's sending people to that car, companies that are getting it right and the and the growth of of these events suggests that there's been a growth within corporations in terms of appreciating the value of it. I think it was one of the reasons we felt confident writing the book that it would have an audience is that it's it's really tracking to a trend of his companies recognize the challenges of building software right? Every company has become a software company and building software is hard on doing it well requires design. And so as every company becomes a software company,

they then realize they need more design to support the development of that software. And when you stop bringing designers in designer start being Maur a CZ, you said generative or kind of, you know, it's not just about delivery, we're snag. A job is. We work with Marty Keagan and the Silicon Valley product group. I don't know if you're familiar with them. They're, ah, product management kind of consultancy here in Silicon Valley. But they worked with people all over the world on Barty. Cagan is one of the leading advocates of kind of what's sometimes called dual track agile, where your product discovery and product delivery not separately. You don't do a bunch of discovery and then throw that over the wall and deliver it.

But they're both kind of these cyclical processes that work in parallel with one another. And I think from what I can tell, you know, just more and more companies they they embrace the challenges of building software are moving to a model like this because it is essentially proven to help you deliver better software. If you don't do it, you're gonna You're gonna ship stuff that nobody uses, and it's gonna fall on its face. And you're gonna have spent a crap ton of money to fail. Or you can you can embrace more of, ah, Discovery delivery, prototype test type of approach that allows you to experiment. Try things out since first and then once you only when you have a significant degree of confidence that the solution is on the right path to then invest in the the harder, more expensive work of delivery.

Yeah, I think that's a that's a big deal for us. I mean, we of course, we try to align ourselves with our customers are designed organization. So we're always looking for design organizations that you know, have sure same values and for the most part of like, everyone really embraces all this stuff, but from I'm not on the projects. But from the outside, looking in very often see teams that still struggle like they think the next step is always producing a bunch of screens and then generating a lot of turn about like, you know, like, what's the right flow are scared sometimes to just commit to, like an hour, three hour workshop. Just two more properly identify the problem in solutions.

It's challenging for me because you don't from the consultant consultant perspective. You don't wantto force anything on someone. You want to try to work the way other teams work. But a lot of the lot of the younger people on my team, I can see this being a real problem for them because they don't sometimes know howto navigate that like they end up getting into loops. Or they're just making making screen sometimes and don't know howto how to elevate the need for something that they might feel is more appropriate. I'm kind of curious, you know, if you have advice for for people like that, you know, you know, younger career designers that really will really want to understand the problem. Like how? How can they elevate that to someone that probably does appreciate it? They just may not be aware of that. They're in the a a weird loop.

Yeah, well, I mean one that's that's Ah, key role for designed leadership, right to recognize this circumstance and to make a space to support the delivery of good and inappropriate design, and so so that that's part of it is, is those younger designers having a conversation with whomever is their leader to kind of create that space? Part of it, though, too, is because you know you're talking about the relationship of the client, right? And clients. Clients always want just Maur faster, sooner in house, its product managers always want more faster. Sooner it's we're going through the annual performance review cycle.

I've got designers on my team who I know are super nimble, who are approaching the problems the right way. But the commentary that I get from their product piers, is that they're too precious about design, and they need to be willing to go faster and, you know, try things that aren't fully baked because that's what product managers do. That's what they asked for. They they're in their own loop, as it were. The way that I would counsel the junior designers of the team to think about it actually draws on on some experience that I had it adaptive path where I realized that if we are not making our clients uncomfortable with how we're working and with the nature of our solutions. We're not doing our job right of all we're doing is giving our clients everything that they think they need. Then we're not. We're not delivering value because because they could get that from anybody. And they're looking to us to be experts, to be scientists,

to be people who know better than them. They don't have the The clients don't have the capacity to understand something like designed, the level of depth that a design firm does right? And so it's up to the design and firm Thio engage with clients and say, Hey, if I'm if I'm making you comfortable, then then I'm not pushing that I'm not actually delivering the value that you're coming to me for and to set that expectation up that at times the process is going to feel weird is going to feel uncomfortable and to ask for their, As for the clients, kind of trust, respect moving through it, that we will come out the other side with with solutions far better than what they've had a chance to to realize before in their in their typical ways of working right. And so that's what I would cancel you know these junior designers t feel to have the confidence to push and pro bond to try things. You know, if there are truly junior, they definitely will need guidance from from their own internal senior leadership to help them understand how best to do the work. But what what ought to be expected of them is the creativity and and innovation that that you get. When when you do give yourself the space to do it right and not simply responding to requirements and turning out comp in some kind of product development loop, as you put

it, that's really great advice. And I'm glad I asked you that, because I think a lot of people are gonna enjoy that, at least on the fun side side. I mean, you know, I mean, even though we feel comfortable with what we're doing, you know, I still think sometimes we people, you know, just human beings. Sometimes you get stuck in a loop or they they get uncomfortable, you know? And I think it's important to realize that, you know,

we're here for a reason to to do good work, so to good work. What are you gonna what? What's your biggest challenge right now. And what are you focused on for? The rest of our What is 2018 look like for you?

Yeah. So the biggest challenge right now is within snag a job. We are going through a rebranding process we worked with in 2017. We worked with the brand strategy firm toe Help us firm that up. We worked with the brand identity firm to recon to reconsider our public expression. And 2018 is when we launch all of that, and getting that right is a huge challenge. It and it's unlike one that I've ever quite tackled before. I've never I've never been involved in a rebrand in this way. You know, we were setting ourselves, Ah hye bar a quality bar. It's an opportunity for us to to reshape how people think of us as a company and the quality of the expression, the quality of the design and content and all of that will be crucial to that. And so that's that's That's definitely for the first half of the year, probably the single biggest thing. That's Jones,

and it's and it's interesting to me because it has. It's not a product design Challenge. Reagan. My background is much more on the product design area. It's not specifically communication design. It's a hybrid right brand is is made evident through every touch point on dhe, and we are having our product and communication designers working together to make sure that when we are ready to launch, it is it is going to be a CZ, good as it can be everywhere it ISS. But it's it's a different kind of problem because it's not. It's not about flow. It's not about ah user journey. It's about how do we communicate our identity appropriately on do that everywhere and do that with, ah, level of refinement and polish that speaks to our our desired perception, and that's that's new.

It's fun. It's a little scary, too, because, unlike product design, which you know, which is expected to be irritated, iterated on, you really should only be launching a brand or a rebrand. Once I give my you might. You know men did overtime and evolve it over time. Like I get launched, not every page on our Web site is gonna be touched. You know, there's certain there's certain operational challenges when launching it. A brand like you know,

you don't you don't get a chance to do logo's more than once and color schemes more than once. Usually, like you gotta be pretty confident on what you put out there. And so that's that's where it's when I lose sleep. It's around those types of challenges, so that's that's probably the biggest one, Thea other kind of challenge that I'm setting myself up for 2018 and this is gonna be all of 2018. It is looking at the entire snack Ejup customer experience. I had a meeting to kick off the year where we brought together people from our sales function, customer success, people from customer support, people from product people for marketing people from our Data and Analytics team so that we can start understanding our customers completely have a truly holistic view of our customers. Right now, we have a lot of insights about customers, but they're they're contained in different parts of the company. And so the idea is,

can we turn it into a shared understanding of our customer because we think that there's gonna be value in that in that more coherent view on dso That's something I'm I'm spearheading and trying to make happen. I don't know what what will come of it, but I know that it I can I have to believe that it will only make us be able to deliver better products. And service is once we have that truer, more rigorous understanding of our

customers. Well, they both sound like really exciting challenges. And I look forward to seeing how that shakes up. I hope that we can connect in in your neck of the woods sometime soon over the next month. I am looking forward to it. Yeah, that'd be great. Toe Get together. I really appreciate you taking time out of your data to catch up. It's been great talking with us.

I've enjoyed it. Uh, I always enjoy our conversations and look forward to look forward to more in the future. Awesome.

Well, Peter, how can how can people learn more about you?

Uh, follow me on Twitter at Peter Me, PTR Emmy or designed for design orders dot com and the book. Those are probably the two best ways I also have. My blog's my personal blogger, peter me dot com, but I haven't written in that in over a year off. So I'm probably not the best way to keep up with me. I'd say Twitter and or designed for design awards. Thanks, Peter. Already. Anthony, you

take care. Thanks for tuning in. The House of Podcast

will talk to you. Hustle is brought to you by fun size digital service and product design agency that works with inspiring teams, uncover opportunities of all popular products, bring new businesses to market and prepare for the future. Learn more at fun sized dot CEO I'm Natalie, a partner design director at fun size and thanks for tuning in.