Rosenverse
Enterprise Storytelling Sessions

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Enterprise Storytelling Sessions

Gold
Monday, June 3, 2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Share the love for this talk
Enterprise Storytelling Sessions
Speakers: Dan Willis
Link:

Summary

A highlight of the conference every year, the Storytelling Sessions are a set of five-minute talks from enterprise professionals who share their challenges, opinions, failures and successes. Here are the storytellers for Enterprise Experience 2019: - Stephanie Albright, Experience Designer, a story about cleaning bathrooms - Spencer Icasiano, Product Designer II / UX Researcher, Care.com, a story about transitions - Malia Nagle, Director, UX Research, PayPal, a story about two apologies - Laura Nash, Senior UX Designer, Boston Consulting Group, a story about personas who think for themselves - Jenn Noinaj, UX Designer, U.S. Digital Service, a story about stereotypes - Ilona Posner, UX Consultant, a story about keyholes - Malini Rao, Senior Manager, UX, Kronos Inc., a story about a fight

Key Insights

  • Storytelling became widespread in conferences in the last five years to counter audience distraction and increase engagement.

  • Audience attention varies drastically during the day; storytelling aims to combat mid-day and end-of-day disengagement.

  • The concept of 'keyholes' illustrates how limited perspectives obscure important organizational context and cause unexpected conflicts.

  • Professional expertise, like UX skills, doesn’t always apply in personal or emotional domains such as parenting, which require empathy and time.

  • Moving abroad triggers emotional phases—excitement, frustration, acceptance, and adjustment—that teach resilience and growth.

  • Organizational resistance can impede UX progress, but persistence, collaboration, and design thinking can bridge gaps between user needs and business goals.

  • Apologizing openly and vulnerably can transform difficult relationships into productive partnerships in product teams.

  • Personas can become more effective by adopting qualities from role-playing character sheets: accountability, conflict, temporary states, and evolution.

  • Bringing authentic, even quirky personal interests into work can foster memorable and genuine connections.

  • Queerness as a concept symbolizes embracing change and rejecting binary thinking, a principle that strengthens personal identity and innovation in UX.

Notable Quotes

"The more specific a story gets, the more universal the themes are felt by everybody."

"Outside of our keyholes lies information we’re completely oblivious to that can come to haunt us."

"No matter how good I am at my job, it doesn’t make me a good parent. What makes a good parent is time, love, compassion, and a sense of humor."

"Pushing my boundaries and getting out of my comfort zone helped me learn what I was capable of."

"Make an uncredible experience credible. That was the directive from organizational resistance to UX."

"In a fight, there’s a winner and a loser. But for a product to be successful, it has to work both for users and business."

"It’s never too late to apologize. And don’t be afraid to say, I’m sorry."

"Personas need to push back. Conflict makes for better stories and better products."

"When I let my outside interest in, I suddenly had really memorable conversations with people."

"Queerness is change. The power to shape that change is within every one of us."

Ask the Rosenbot
Iain McMaster
Design and Product: from Frenemy to Harmony
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Sarah Flamion
Complex Problem? Add Clarity by Combining Research and Systems Thinking
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Kristin Skinner
8 Types of Measures in Design Operations
2020 • DesignOps Community
Catherine Blizzard
Using Integrated Insight to Drive Growth
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Bill Scott
Lean Engineering: Engineering for Learning and Experimentation in the Enterprise
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Silke Bochat
5 Antifragile Strategies for a DesignOps 2.0
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Christopher Geison
Theme 1 Intro
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Bas Raijmakers, PhD (RCA)
What Design Research can Learn from Documentary Filmmaking
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Ovetta Sampson
Turning UX Passion into Real Product Influence
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Kara Kane
Communities of Practice for Civic Design
2022 • Civic Design Community
Christian Crumlish
AMA with Christian Crumlish, author of Product Management for UX People
2022 • Enterprise Community
Lavy Kumar
Future of Work
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Kit Unger
Theme 3 Intro
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Dave Malouf
The Past, Present, and Future of DesignOps: a 2-part DesignOps Community Call (Part 2)
2022 • DesignOps Community
Abbey Smalley
Today’s Design Ops and Programs Landscape & Career Paths
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Rebecca Topps
Planning and conducting remote usability studies for accessibility
2020 • Advancing Research Community

More Videos

Anna Avrekh

"The transition from hands-on research to managing is a big mind shift where outcomes become more intangible."

Anna Avrekh Dr. John Pagonis Klara Pelcl Sina Schreiber

Expert Panel: Leading in and with Research

March 10, 2022

Taylor Klassman

"Technology is a series of choices designers and technologists make, often small but impactful; we must demand better choices that work for all of us."

Taylor Klassman

Shaping the Next Era of UX Research: Collaborative Forum

March 11, 2025

Dr. Jamika D. Burge

"Research tells stories data alone cannot, helping stakeholders understand customer feelings."

Dr. Jamika D. Burge Steve Portigal Alba Villamil Sam Ladner

The Future of Research: Bridging the Gaps

July 29, 2021

Marisa Bernstein

"When you test inclusively, you’re learning about the people who will be directly impacted by your work, your users."

Marisa Bernstein

It Takes GRIT: Lessons from the Small, but Mighty World of Civic Usability Testing

December 9, 2021

Dan Mall

"A lot of people think about design systems as a project, but they’re really about how an organization gets work done."

Dan Mall

“Ask Me Anything” with Dan Mall, Author of Upcoming Rosenfeld Title, Design that Scales

October 2, 2023

Chris Geison

"What am I personally doing to contribute to the dynamics that stand in the way of better futures?"

Chris Geison

Theme 1 Intro

March 9, 2022

Bruce Gillespie

"Sounding authentically like you, while professional, is more engaging than robotic business writing."

Bruce Gillespie

Learning from journalism: Balancing impactful communication with compassionate storytelling

March 13, 2025

Nancy Douyon

"Tay became a racist, sexist monster in less than eight hours because it learned from toxic internet data."

Nancy Douyon

We'll Figure That Out in the Next Launch: Enterprise Tech's Nobility Complex

June 15, 2018

Liz Ebengo

"Our job as innovation managers is to build the playgrounds where people play—designing the built environment to complement policy and sustain future generations."

Liz Ebengo

The Burden on Children: The Cost of Insufficient Post-Conflict Services and Pathways Forward

December 4, 2024