Week 6: ??????

Monday

CPHUX hosted the first UX Meet & Greet of 2023 where we visited Valtech ?? Helle Jensen did a great run-through of how Valtech is organized, being a global agency with 5000+ employees. We got a tour of their office which is in a historic gun-ship building. She had asked her UX co-workers to share the best and worst things about working there, which gave us a unique and honest insight into how their daily work-life balance. She wrapped up the session by telling us what they are looking for when hiring. Interestingly they are currently doing small video applications where an applicant, for instance, should talk for a few minutes about their point of view on design systems.

While networking afterward, I got to catch up with Christian Wreem Munch and Christine Haugaard who want to be part of the team to create the next UX Job Market Report ?? So together with Ridwan Asad we're having a kickoff meeting next week ??

Tuesday

I called my awesome bookkeeper Christian Falck (bookkeeping is his side hustle, he is mainly the co-founder of Contractlens that makes automatic data extraction and document review ??) and had a great chat about how we can settle the value of CPHUX in order for me to buy out my ex-co-founder. It was nice to feel more on top of this process.

I got to welcome our new member Olja Vasiuk ?? It's fun because a lot of people have the misconception that our members are juniors. Olha is a super senior product designer with 12 years of experience, having worked with super complex products and she is now looking for her next professional challenges.

That evening I went to teach my Bodyfit class and it became very clear that I was indeed still sick ?? Like the coughing hadn't already given it away...

Wednesday

Christian Wreem Munch is gonna be the project manager on the new UX Job Market Report so we had an online intro meeting where I showed him the process we ran last year, and we talked about the ambition for this year's report and the next steps. It is really amazing to have a team around me and even more so a PM.

I was able to lock in the last speaker to our next UX Talk with IDA mark your calendar for March 6th where you can hear

Lizette Kristiansen Taguchi // Uncover the deep behavioral roots of dark patterns - and find out how you can harness them for good

Anna Rátkai // UX design in online shopping - persuading the user to buy more stuff

Stefani Vujic // Making it worse with words: How to turn deceptive copy into useful experiences

Still hoping Anders Toxboe will be our final 4th speaker ??and hear him talk about his Persuasive Design Patterns cards.

Book your ticket here https://english.ida.dk/event/dark-patterns-with-cphux-ida-design-and-innovation-348448

Thursday

I started by canceling my Bodyfit class and couldn't go to baby swimming class or Baby rhythmic class... ?? So SICK of it ?? It's annoying because my head is fine it's just my body that is not up for the challenge...

I had the pleasure of welcoming new member Mette Skovbjerg Koustrup who is an aspiring UX/UI Designer. Having worked in Vivino and seeing their talented design teamwork, she got inspired to change lanes and get into UX. Having worked as an executive assistant I'm excited to see her put her structuring skills into the UX play. She is looking for a 4 week's internship (no salary needed) in a company where there are more senior people she can lean on ??

With some back-and-forth sparring from Luciano Lykkebo I wrapped up a proposal for IT Kartellet . You might not have heard about them before, but they are to my knowledge one of the most tech-nerdy agencies in Copenhagen. Jesper Hjorth is so passionate about bringing UX into all these nerdy areas like; RPA (Robotic Process Automation), IoT (Internet Of Things) and Advanced Data Analytics. I really hope that we can become partners so CPHUX can raise their position in the UX ecosystem ??

Friday

Zdeněk Pa?ek and I had an online meeting where I got a status update on his progress in converting our website. Currently, he is building the job uploader app that we use to get data into our databases and up on our job board. We talked about what we have ahead of us. Talking a lot about need-to-haves and nice-to-haves. We decided to create a new backlog for our website.

Backlogs are seriously a crazy size. Since we started using Notion I think we have had at least 3 backlogs. The first one got misunderstood and a lot of junk got parked in there, making it super hard to navigate and prioritize. The second one wasn't that bad, but by changing our team we needed to start with a clean slate, thus introducing the third backlog. If someone can point me in the direction of a good article on how to create a great backlog that works, please do! ??

Saturday

I slept in and when I woke up and opened the window to get some fresh air in, my husband stands on the back stair with our daughter. He has been out for a walk and done some grocery shopping. When he came up to the apartment he had a beautiful bouquet of colorful and scentful flowers for me. He usually buys me flowers when I'm sick because then I'm home to enjoy them. This being my second week of sickness it was a lovely gesture.

Having been home a lot more again this week, I've started reading: "Clear your clutter with Feng Shui" It was recommended to me by my good friend Astrid Juul-Larsen . I started reading it because I wanted to help my mom who after divorce still struggles to unpack her last boxes. But starting reading the book I realized how much clutter I'm holding on to for all the wrong reasons. So yesterday I started by giving away some plants that weren't that pretty and taking up space in our window. My husband and I had a talk about a huge plant we have that drips on our wooden floor and leaves marks. I gave him two options; either we buy a rug to protect the floor or we get a new plant that doesn't drip. So I'm getting a new plant and letting the old big one go, although it's been in my family for 50+ years.

A part of the book talks about all the projects we have that just take up space in our minds. We were gifted a Roomba that needed a new battery and we have had it for many many months, not getting it done. So I asked my husband again, either we get a new battery now or we buy a new robotic vacuum cleaner. The decision was made and we went out and bought a new one. We put the old one up for grabs in a free group on Fb and organized a Ukrainian mom to come to pick it up the next day. I was very happy that it could go to a family who needed it ????

Sunday

I had an online portfolio feedback session with Mykhailo Matei and together we came up with a great way for him to show his personality better in his material ??

I was still coughing and feeling a bit sick, but the clutter-clearing vibe was too strong. I cut down and threw out 2 sick plants. Went through and threw out several old notebooks, filled a big bag with things to donate, made a huge stack of books to give away, and organized a lot of space. It is as if reading this book I finally got permission to let go of things I was holding on to for other sacks. It has opened my senses and I think I've always been able to feel the energy of things but now I understand these energies in a better way.

Lars, Olivia, and I went to our local sushi place for lunch and it was such a delight to see my baby girl having a blast eating an avocado maki piece. She had a good time but fell right asleep as soon as we got home.

Next week

I'm really pumped for the 14th, not because of the "romantic" commercial scam, but because in the spirit of speed dating, we are gonna host a speed networking session ??? with our members. We've done it once before and it truly was a great success!