The duel between Impact & Viability

I want to do impactful work but I want it to be viable as well! Sigh ??

A lot of designers including me go in this rabbit hole. I don't blame us. The business world pushes the design thinking manifesto to us day in and day out and no wonder we think of all experiences within those three circles. Life need not be measured in terms of profit and loss.

The impact is beyond profit and loss. Sustainability is important, yes but it is not everything. We have been measuring the impact for the past 15 months in Xperian and honestly, I realized it could have been a lot better. Great work but the minimal impact was my conclusion.

I didn't start Xperian to be the richest in the graveyard. I started because I want to go to my graveyard really well. I wrote extensively about how difficult it is to DIE WELL. I wanted one challenge that keeps me hooked on to this life with enthusiasm every single morning. That was Xperian for me. If that is not creating an impact as much as I want it to, the designer in me is a little down ??

Sometimes we add constraints to get creative and sometimes we remove the constraints. This time we just took out the viability aspect out of the equation and suddenly the picture has changed. Now we can do some big bold projects without worrying much about board and investors.

The creative problem-solving community (design + product) wants better conversations, wants less bullshit, wants more learning, wants great networking and needs a no-nonsense community. This is an impact waiting to be made and we are stupid not to give back to our community.

I decided to spend a part of my day working on these really impactful community projects and not worry about anything else. I have been fighting this war for the past 12+ months. Finally, I could shake a few things off my plate and now I want to work on these interesting projects for our creative problem-solving community.

Let the business, board, and investors deal with their shit. Time to maximize impact and minimize inefficiency.

Women in Products is just one aspect. Much more to be done. I am going to heavily rely on our creative problem solvers to build this community together.

We want to start by organizing the design + product world. People, Resources, Events, etc.

My greed is to organize one creative world on this one planet. This time we don't want to be biased with anything. No gender, no race, no geography, no tags and no boundaries whatsoever. Let us get started here and now!

If you are interested in being a part of these efforts give a thumbs up below!