ABSTRACT: Karel assesses the health of our discipline given the precipitous and disproportionate decrease in UX job postings and increase in UX job losses. He then diagnoses the causes, provides a prognosis, and outlines a prescription for a very healthy future for the discipline.
PRESENTER: Karel Vredenburg has had a long and successful career as a design executive, most recently as the Global Vice President of UX Research at IBM. He led design worldwide at IBM for most of his three decades with the company, implemented Enterprise Design Thinking into each of the business units of the company globally -software, services, systems, and sales - as well as to hundreds of other companies, typically working with their C-suite level executives and boards.
He was responsible for IBM’s global design leadership, the company’s internal profession and culture of design, and the design organization’s external engagement and academic programs. He headed up the Design Executive Team of senior design executives which governs the 3,000-person design organization, the Design Leadership Board which governs the promotions of IBM’s Design Principals and Distinguished Designers, and the 150-person strong design leadership community, both technical and managerial.
Karel has founded and led international projects such as the COVID-19 Design Challenge with the World Design Organization and Design for America and also the Future of Design Education initiative alongside design visionary Don Norman. Currently, he co-founded and currently leads the Habits for a Better World project with filmmaker Carly Williams, addressing global challenges like climate change, animal and human suffering, food insecurity, human health, and biodiversity loss through research-driven, documentary-inspired behavior change.
Karel blogs on design, technology, and optimizing the human experience at karelvredenburg.com and transformed his within company mentoring into a popular podcast Life Habits Podcast which is available on all podcast apps.
He did undergraduate, masters, and doctoral studies at the University of Toronto initially in cognitive science and clinical psychology which later led to research, specialization, and his life-long passion for, practice of, and leadership in design and research. Karel is based in Toronto, Canada.
Agenda
7:00pm (Toronto time) - Presentation via ZOOM
8:00 to 8:30pm - Q&A and networking on ZOOM (optional)
Zoom link will be provided to registrants