In human years, when you hit age four, you reach a new level of independence, confidence and creativity. In dog years, at age four, you reach a perfect balance of mental maturity and body agility. So what do you reach when an annual conference you frequent turns four?
You reach a watershed moment. At four we can say with confidence that design has the power to drive enterprise business and innovation. After three years of sell-out attendance, we can say that this community is only getting larger and more influential. We can say that it’s time to invite this community to contribute their perspectives to making of this year’s program. In this way we ensure that Enterprise UX will address the most relevant, mission-critical issues needed for success this year.
So that’s what we did.
We asked you, our EUX community, to tell us what topics you most want to tackle in 2018. Over 200 topic suggestions poured in! After a shittonne of synthesizing, four burning themes emerged:
- How do we BUILD products within enterprises?
- How do we COMMUNICATE our needs, work, and value to others within our company?
- How do we INVEST beyond immediate gains and wins, to sustain our success?
- How do we SCALE to have big impact with small teams and limited resources we have?
You pointed out that success in the enterprise depends on more than excellent design skills. This year’s conference will dive into how you can achieve more in these four areas. While we put the finishing touches on the program, here’s a sneak peek into themes:
Theme 1: BUILD, led by Eduardo Ortiz
BUILD will help you develop efficient, effective, and flexible enterprise processes that result in strong products. If you’re challenged with balancing legacy with vision, working in regulated environments, or adapting design to fit a new product cycle, BUILD will address the practical, pragmatic and immediate aspects of this work.
Why Eduardo? As the Director of Common Platforms at the US Digital Service, Eduardo has built successful enterprise environments under huge pressure. He’s honed his craft and is has delivered–in some of the most unforgiving enterprise environments. The Department of Homeland Security, for one.
Theme 2: COMMUNICATE, led by Margot Dear
COMMUNICATE will show you how to convince others about the value of UX and find a common language with non-UX partners. If you spend a significant amount of your time advocating (over and over!) the value of design to multiple stakeholders and getting lukewarm results, COMMUNICATE will help you gain greater traction without the headaches.
Why Margot? Margot is a one of those rare leaders with experience in design, branding and strategy. Her track record investing and managing executive stakeholders around the power of UX make her a perfect lead to explore the nuances of how to influencer better.
Theme 3: INVEST, led by Amy Marquez
INVEST will focus on strategic gains over quick wins, and balancing long and short-term priorities. You’ll learn how to create stronger partnerships across functions, and make sure that your teams are developing the skills they need to succeed.
Why Amy? Amy knows a thing or two about the importance of good investments. A Design Manager at Amazon Alexa, she’s leading a team to create more holistic hands-free, voice-controlled experiences. Her superpower is knowing how to balance the pressure of designing at the speed of light with a long-term outlook.
Theme 4: SCALE, led by Tricia Wang
SCALE is the biggest differentiator of good and great enterprise products. How well you face challenges at every corner, from having bigger impact with limited resources to scaling up design capacity, managing distributed teams, or understanding customer journeys in overwhelmingly complex environments. Above all else, we face the challenge of remaining customer-centric as we navigate matrixed organizations, functional silos, and hierarchical reporting structures.
Why Tricia? There is no better lead for this theme. With astronaut eyes and ethnographer curiosity, Tricia brings a completely different meaning to researching at scale, designing at scale, and living at scale, since her day clearly has more than 24 hours in it.
…and meet your Enterprise UX 2018 keynoters
Lisa Welchman and Dick Buchanan will wrap the conference with two keynotes that will inspire and stimulate your thinking even further.
Build. Communicate. Invest. Scale. If any of these keeps you up at night or makes you want to come to work in the morning, EUX 2018 is the right place for you. A handful of pre-launch discount tickets are available before the full program is finalized in late February.
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