🔖 What I’ve been reading

How to become more strategic

In this new age of Ai we're in, UI/UX design is our floor. Strategy and communication skills are our launchpad. But what exactly does that mean? I’ve written about strategy before, and I got an extra podcast and link for ya:

Kit's Dan Winer gives tactical examples of how to become a strategic partner, not just a design executor. (hint: it's a lot of overlap with your PM).

Also if your company has leveling guides, it’s helpful to peek at the next level up and start taking on some of that work early. This short post looks at it from a slightly different angle. I think it's great goal to aim for at least Group 3.

Kai Wong also argues that strategy is more important than code for designers.

Turning Meeting Notes into Prototypes

A real unlock for me in this last year is throwing conversation transcripts at Ai and having it produce stuff.

I started by using Granola to record my company’s quarterly planning meetings (10-15 hours of meetings over 2 days) and tossing the transcripts into a NotebookLM to summarize and query. Previously I’d struggle to take in and remember everything, and this really helped! I’ve since started throwing entire PRDs into tools like v0 and Figma Make to quickly create a rough prototype of the PRD’s main ideas.

I was excited to see Acolyte Health’s Anjan Panneer Selvam take this one step further by recording meetings and customer calls into Ai tools to instantly prototype.

The jury’s still out on whether Ai can create production design or code, but I love using Ai to create prototypes that prevent hours of internal debate.

🧶 Stray Links

I’ve been binging Vanessa Wingårdh’s YouTube channel, where she cuts through tech’s relentless optimism and shows how we’re funding the very systems designed to replace us while tech billionaires amass unprecedented wealth. 100% Grade-A cynicism.

Speaking of the dark side of tech, Rebecca Williams’s breakdown of burner phones basics, as well as why and when to use them. So many little things I didn’t know about!

And speaking of podcasts, Jay Oram and Steven Sayo started Let's Talk Email, a podcast about email development.

You don’t need animations is a short, wonderfully interactive guide on when and why to use subtle interactions in software design (and, perhaps more importantly, when and why not too).

Digg, the social bookmarking site popular in the 2000’s, is rebooting. I don’t know what it will be, but anything’s better than today’s social media sites and Ai slop.

It took Italian astrophotographer Marcella Julia Pace a decade to capture these 48 distinct colors of the Moon.

🏛️ From the Archives

Building a career Voltron has been key for my career, both as a manager and an individual contributor. Having a diverse Voltron of mentors gives me outside perspectives and helps me approach problems from different angles, something you just can’t get from a single manager, coworker, or friend.

❝One Two good quotes

Luck writes the first chapter, but your actions write the rest. - Farnam Street

Your capacity for excellence is inversely proportional to the number of your commitments. - Farnam Street

Thanks for reading ✌️
- Ted (@tedgoas)