1 00:00:05,888 --> 00:00:09,548 Eddie: Welcome to episode 17 of the web joy podcast. 2 00:00:09,938 --> 00:00:11,018 I'm your host Eddie. 3 00:00:11,438 --> 00:00:15,158 In this podcast, we interview guests about their origin story. 4 00:00:15,458 --> 00:00:19,958 And what makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community. 5 00:00:20,318 --> 00:00:21,128 I hope you enjoy. 6 00:00:21,158 --> 00:00:22,118 Today's episode. 7 00:00:22,418 --> 00:00:25,628 "The real world is messy" with Joe Natoli. 8 00:00:26,710 --> 00:00:29,800 Welcome to another episode of web joy. 9 00:00:29,950 --> 00:00:35,050 I'm excited today to have Joe join us, Joe, go ahead and introduce yourself 10 00:00:35,050 --> 00:00:39,910 to the community who you are, what you do, where you work, brief introduction. 11 00:00:40,060 --> 00:00:40,450 Joe: Okay. 12 00:00:40,570 --> 00:00:42,130 My name is Joe Natoli. 13 00:00:42,130 --> 00:00:46,270 I am a user experience consultant, author, and speaker. 14 00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:51,820 I have been helping companies and individuals design better 15 00:00:51,820 --> 00:00:54,160 products, essentially for the better part of my career, which 16 00:00:54,160 --> 00:00:56,230 at this point is going on 30. 17 00:00:57,025 --> 00:01:00,565 There's been an interesting transition halfway through where I started out as 18 00:01:00,565 --> 00:01:02,095 a consult, working solely for companies. 19 00:01:02,095 --> 00:01:04,975 What I realized is that what I was doing in all cases was teaching. 20 00:01:05,155 --> 00:01:08,425 So that led to online courses, teaching. 21 00:01:08,425 --> 00:01:13,645 And quite frankly, now that is the bulk of what I do is, is teaching online. 22 00:01:13,645 --> 00:01:17,275 I've recently launched an academy and, um, I spend a lot of time helping 23 00:01:17,275 --> 00:01:21,055 people new to this profession and who are, you know, experienced veterans as. 24 00:01:22,315 --> 00:01:24,775 Navigate the territory in any number of ways from actually doing the 25 00:01:24,775 --> 00:01:29,795 work to just dealing with the ups and downs of working in business in 26 00:01:29,795 --> 00:01:29,995 Eddie: general. 27 00:01:30,490 --> 00:01:33,130 How did you kind of get started on this pathway? 28 00:01:33,370 --> 00:01:37,180 Obviously you're teaching people now you had to learn, it's a long story. 29 00:01:37,210 --> 00:01:42,100 How to even do the stuff . Well, I guess maybe we can talk about 30 00:01:42,160 --> 00:01:45,880 how you got started and then how you kind of shifted into teaching. 31 00:01:45,885 --> 00:01:47,320 Maybe two smaller bits. 32 00:01:47,770 --> 00:01:48,040 okay. 33 00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:49,540 Joe: I'll do my best to make this concise. 34 00:01:49,960 --> 00:01:53,860 I started out in graphic design before there was a thing called the internet. 35 00:01:53,890 --> 00:01:54,100 Okay. 36 00:01:54,100 --> 00:01:54,640 That's how old I. 37 00:01:55,450 --> 00:01:58,300 I was working in traditional graphic design and advertising. 38 00:01:58,600 --> 00:02:00,820 The internet came about, I was at an agency. 39 00:02:00,850 --> 00:02:04,270 Couldn't convince the men who ran it, that this internet thing as they 40 00:02:04,270 --> 00:02:09,100 called it, wasn't a passing trend or a fad oh, no, that I was here to 41 00:02:09,100 --> 00:02:11,740 stay and it was something they needed to pay attention to and they went, 42 00:02:12,130 --> 00:02:14,020 okay, go make me coffee or something. 43 00:02:14,310 --> 00:02:18,300 So I jumped out on my own and said, fine, we're gonna be a, a software 44 00:02:18,300 --> 00:02:21,810 slash web experience design firm, and we're gonna design for the internet. 45 00:02:21,870 --> 00:02:23,640 Now I didn't have any idea what I was doing. 46 00:02:23,970 --> 00:02:25,860 Nobody knew what they were doing at that point. 47 00:02:25,890 --> 00:02:26,910 This was new, it was all new. 48 00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:29,130 So timing and luck had a lot to do with this. 49 00:02:29,340 --> 00:02:33,420 So we got a lot of work really fast because like, again, like everyone else 50 00:02:33,420 --> 00:02:35,610 would, nobody knew how to do any of this. 51 00:02:35,610 --> 00:02:36,780 So we all learned on the fly. 52 00:02:36,780 --> 00:02:39,960 We built a lot of websites and a lot of, uh, web enabled software in. 53 00:02:40,600 --> 00:02:42,760 Quick period of time, that was in the two thousands. 54 00:02:42,790 --> 00:02:44,980 When the, the.com boom was in full swing. 55 00:02:45,490 --> 00:02:49,570 I started noticing that as I was doing project work with clients and with their 56 00:02:49,570 --> 00:02:52,480 internal teams as well, where you're working with companies development 57 00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:56,830 teams, in some cases, I was sort of always teaching one way or another. 58 00:02:57,130 --> 00:03:00,250 I had actually been teaching university part-time at that point as well. 59 00:03:00,625 --> 00:03:01,435 Design classes. 60 00:03:02,065 --> 00:03:05,605 And over time, what I realized is that what people would pay me for 61 00:03:05,605 --> 00:03:06,895 what clients would pay me for. 62 00:03:07,195 --> 00:03:11,485 And the times when everybody was most engaged and paying the most attention 63 00:03:11,905 --> 00:03:18,025 and the most reactive in any way was when I was in acting in sort of consultative 64 00:03:18,025 --> 00:03:21,085 fashion where it's like, okay, I don't just want to do this for you. 65 00:03:21,085 --> 00:03:23,245 I want you to understand why this is the right thing to do 66 00:03:23,425 --> 00:03:24,505 and how to do it and why it. 67 00:03:25,195 --> 00:03:27,235 And how you can do some of it after I'm gone. 68 00:03:27,445 --> 00:03:31,525 So again, I realized that, okay, this is kind of where the attention 69 00:03:31,525 --> 00:03:34,735 and the money and the respect and the joy is quite frankly, because 70 00:03:34,740 --> 00:03:36,925 I also found that I loved doing it. 71 00:03:37,195 --> 00:03:41,335 I loved being that person in the room to try and sort of lift everybody 72 00:03:41,340 --> 00:03:45,175 up and help everybody along and help them to see what they were capable of. 73 00:03:45,355 --> 00:03:52,795 So fast forward to, I wanna say 2013, maybe 14, my wife, who has 74 00:03:52,800 --> 00:03:54,115 always been my business partner. 75 00:03:54,550 --> 00:04:00,520 Said to me, there's this thing called U Tomy, where people teach via video and you 76 00:04:00,520 --> 00:04:02,860 have like 40 million client presentations. 77 00:04:03,565 --> 00:04:05,995 That would probably lend themselves to courses. 78 00:04:05,995 --> 00:04:06,985 And I went, okay. 79 00:04:06,985 --> 00:04:07,645 That makes sense. 80 00:04:08,095 --> 00:04:11,515 So we gave it a shot, put together a quick course on the fundamentals of user 81 00:04:11,515 --> 00:04:13,315 experience design, threw it out there. 82 00:04:13,315 --> 00:04:14,665 No expectations whatsoever. 83 00:04:15,025 --> 00:04:19,915 In really short span of time, we had like a thousand people oh, wow. 84 00:04:20,035 --> 00:04:20,335 Took it. 85 00:04:20,335 --> 00:04:24,055 And then it was 3000 people and then it was 8,000 and then like, 86 00:04:24,235 --> 00:04:25,315 okay, what's happening here? 87 00:04:26,095 --> 00:04:26,995 so that was the. 88 00:04:27,830 --> 00:04:37,580 Fast forward now to 2022, over 266,000 people have taken my courses online on Ute 89 00:04:37,580 --> 00:04:41,990 me on Skillshare and on my own platform, which is, um, the UX 365 academy. 90 00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:44,660 So I could have never predicted that in a million years. 91 00:04:44,660 --> 00:04:47,720 There's no possible way, but it all feeds into even the 92 00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:49,370 consulting gigs that I still take. 93 00:04:49,550 --> 00:04:50,960 And I do speaking, engage. 94 00:04:51,595 --> 00:04:53,485 Keynotes to different conferences around the world. 95 00:04:53,935 --> 00:04:54,685 It's all teaching. 96 00:04:55,075 --> 00:04:56,005 I mean, it really is. 97 00:04:56,005 --> 00:04:59,035 It's all, here's what I've learned along my journey. 98 00:05:00,235 --> 00:05:01,675 and here's, what's worked. 99 00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:04,045 Here's what hasn't, and here's how I think it could help you. 100 00:05:04,465 --> 00:05:10,495 And I find tremendous, tremendous joy in that, especially when no more so than when 101 00:05:10,495 --> 00:05:14,305 people come back to me and say, I saw this thing you did, or I took this course, or 102 00:05:14,305 --> 00:05:15,955 I read this article or I saw you on stage. 103 00:05:16,465 --> 00:05:18,805 And I can't tell you how much this helped me. 104 00:05:18,805 --> 00:05:19,405 And they'll tell me a. 105 00:05:20,215 --> 00:05:22,795 As that, how they took something that I, I threw out there and they 106 00:05:22,795 --> 00:05:24,085 did something meaningful with it. 107 00:05:24,535 --> 00:05:25,285 There's nothing better. 108 00:05:25,315 --> 00:05:28,015 There's absolutely nothing, nothing better. 109 00:05:28,555 --> 00:05:28,855 All right. 110 00:05:28,855 --> 00:05:32,875 It reaffirms the reason you get up in the morning, , you know, and the older 111 00:05:32,875 --> 00:05:36,265 I get, the more important that is that the helping people, part of this is 112 00:05:36,265 --> 00:05:38,545 by far the most important piece, being 113 00:05:38,575 --> 00:05:41,935 Eddie: that catalyst for transformation, having them be in one place at 114 00:05:41,935 --> 00:05:45,235 the beginning and having them be in another place at the end. 115 00:05:45,535 --> 00:05:46,015 Joe: I love it. 116 00:05:46,075 --> 00:05:47,125 And what I love about that. 117 00:05:48,175 --> 00:05:53,785 Is that I love people seeing their own strength and seeing their own 118 00:05:53,785 --> 00:05:58,075 capability and fully realizing the things that they're more than capable of. 119 00:05:58,315 --> 00:06:01,675 But up until that point, then convincing themselves one way or 120 00:06:01,675 --> 00:06:04,285 another that, ah, I'm not good enough. 121 00:06:04,285 --> 00:06:04,855 I'm not smart enough. 122 00:06:04,860 --> 00:06:05,905 I didn't go to the right school. 123 00:06:06,085 --> 00:06:11,155 I can't do this, whatever the case may be, because I think we all have some of that. 124 00:06:11,485 --> 00:06:14,815 Some of us worse than others and high achievers, especially people 125 00:06:14,820 --> 00:06:15,925 who are excellent at what they do. 126 00:06:16,285 --> 00:06:17,365 Doubt themselves the most. 127 00:06:17,770 --> 00:06:21,280 They have the biggest imposter syndrome I've found. 128 00:06:21,610 --> 00:06:22,630 So, yeah, I love that. 129 00:06:22,960 --> 00:06:28,090 Eddie: I guess if a lot of what you focus on is helping shift people from 130 00:06:28,270 --> 00:06:32,350 one spot to another spot and helping them understand what they can do. 131 00:06:32,530 --> 00:06:39,820 Is there any specific, I guess, focus or way that you teach that you're 132 00:06:39,820 --> 00:06:42,550 trying to help kind of them see that? 133 00:06:42,580 --> 00:06:45,340 Is there anything particular there besides the subject matter? 134 00:06:46,180 --> 00:06:47,050 Joe: Yeah, I think so. 135 00:06:47,680 --> 00:06:48,880 And there's a couple pieces to that. 136 00:06:49,210 --> 00:06:52,660 The first is within the design and user experience industry with 137 00:06:52,660 --> 00:06:54,040 how software and web design is. 138 00:06:54,835 --> 00:06:56,185 There are like everything else. 139 00:06:56,185 --> 00:06:57,205 The software development, right? 140 00:06:57,205 --> 00:06:58,105 There are lots of rules. 141 00:06:58,105 --> 00:06:59,005 There are a lot of processes. 142 00:06:59,005 --> 00:07:03,025 There are a lot of protocols and a lot of them are very rigid and very perfect. 143 00:07:03,025 --> 00:07:05,845 And you look at them on paper and we, we look at these wonderful diagrams and we 144 00:07:05,850 --> 00:07:07,765 go, wow, that looks, that's brilliant. 145 00:07:07,770 --> 00:07:08,605 It's a great process. 146 00:07:08,935 --> 00:07:10,795 It looks, all things are considered here. 147 00:07:11,095 --> 00:07:12,355 The real world is messy. 148 00:07:12,415 --> 00:07:13,645 Organizations are messy. 149 00:07:13,645 --> 00:07:18,055 You have people, politics, personalities, emotions, all that perfect world 150 00:07:18,055 --> 00:07:19,945 stuff falls flat on its face. 151 00:07:20,125 --> 00:07:23,035 The minute you try to follow that recipe and what happens. 152 00:07:23,485 --> 00:07:27,805 You get sort of a shot to the face and you go, okay, it must be me. 153 00:07:27,805 --> 00:07:28,645 I can't do this. 154 00:07:29,095 --> 00:07:30,265 And it's not really true. 155 00:07:30,475 --> 00:07:33,295 So the first part of a big part of what I teach is that there's, 156 00:07:33,565 --> 00:07:35,875 there is never one, right? 157 00:07:35,875 --> 00:07:39,475 Single way to do anything in any process and protocol and 158 00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:40,885 method that you've been taught. 159 00:07:41,230 --> 00:07:46,720 You have to take it as it can and should be adapted to your reality. 160 00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:49,030 You take the parts that aren't working and you throw them away and 161 00:07:49,035 --> 00:07:50,680 you don't look back twice about that. 162 00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:54,820 No matter what any expert says about how you're supposed to do this, I don't care. 163 00:07:54,825 --> 00:07:55,840 I wanna deal in reality. 164 00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:57,100 What's holding us back. 165 00:07:57,340 --> 00:07:58,750 Let's get it the hell out of our way. 166 00:07:59,020 --> 00:08:02,440 So that's a big part of, of this because when people realize they 167 00:08:02,445 --> 00:08:04,200 have the leverage and freedom to do. 168 00:08:04,795 --> 00:08:07,435 Then they see that it wasn't them mm. 169 00:08:07,435 --> 00:08:10,915 It was trying to pound a, a square peg into a, a round hole. 170 00:08:11,125 --> 00:08:14,725 The other part of it is quite frankly, is I spend a lot of time talking about 171 00:08:15,235 --> 00:08:18,715 the fact that we're human beings and I do this with development teams who aren't 172 00:08:18,715 --> 00:08:20,185 used to all this touchy, feely stuff. 173 00:08:20,275 --> 00:08:20,575 Okay. 174 00:08:20,575 --> 00:08:24,385 But it comes out , there are personality things going on here. 175 00:08:24,385 --> 00:08:25,825 There's emotional things going on here. 176 00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:30,640 There's past emotional issues going on here. 177 00:08:31,210 --> 00:08:34,420 We have to get real with each other to some degree, right. 178 00:08:34,420 --> 00:08:35,590 In order to overcome any of this. 179 00:08:35,590 --> 00:08:39,910 So someone told me two years ago was a client said you're 180 00:08:39,915 --> 00:08:42,100 like the Tony Robbins of, of UX. 181 00:08:42,670 --> 00:08:43,630 And I laughed. 182 00:08:43,630 --> 00:08:45,490 I mean, I laughed for a long time actually about that. 183 00:08:46,540 --> 00:08:49,810 because I would've never made that comparison, but, but I get it now, a 184 00:08:49,815 --> 00:08:54,460 lot of what I do is therapy in some ways for clients, for people, for 185 00:08:54,460 --> 00:08:56,080 individuals, because part of it is. 186 00:08:56,440 --> 00:09:00,070 Just getting real with yourself and saying, why am I insisting that I 187 00:09:00,070 --> 00:09:02,020 have to be perfect at everything? 188 00:09:02,020 --> 00:09:05,290 Why am I insisting that I can't show my emotions here? 189 00:09:05,290 --> 00:09:09,190 Why am I insisting that someone else gets to dictate what I 190 00:09:09,195 --> 00:09:10,660 can say and how I can say it? 191 00:09:11,020 --> 00:09:11,950 We're all just people. 192 00:09:12,370 --> 00:09:16,720 So a lot of what I do is, is quite frankly, trying to help people empower 193 00:09:16,725 --> 00:09:19,900 themselves and realize that these limitations, that other people place on. 194 00:09:20,860 --> 00:09:22,300 they're not bound by those things. 195 00:09:22,390 --> 00:09:25,570 You're not required to, to adhere to someone else's idea of who you're 196 00:09:25,570 --> 00:09:27,340 supposed to be at work and life in 197 00:09:27,340 --> 00:09:27,540 Eddie: general. 198 00:09:28,250 --> 00:09:28,720 I love that. 199 00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:34,060 Taking the kind of burden of expectations, especially, I feel like 200 00:09:34,270 --> 00:09:39,010 in the tech industry, like you said, there's a lot of processes, right? 201 00:09:39,070 --> 00:09:40,540 Design processes. 202 00:09:40,540 --> 00:09:43,300 There's waterfall versus agile, right? 203 00:09:43,300 --> 00:09:44,810 Like in the tech industry. 204 00:09:45,485 --> 00:09:49,325 We feel like processes make us fast processes make us sufficient 205 00:09:49,385 --> 00:09:50,765 processes make us right. 206 00:09:50,825 --> 00:09:51,125 As if 207 00:09:51,125 --> 00:09:52,415 Joe: they were the answer to everything. 208 00:09:52,445 --> 00:09:52,895 That's right. 209 00:09:53,105 --> 00:09:53,285 Eddie: Yeah. 210 00:09:53,285 --> 00:09:55,025 They become the answer. 211 00:09:55,325 --> 00:09:58,535 And I love that idea of just saying, Hey, they're not the answer. 212 00:09:58,535 --> 00:10:01,475 Like maybe you could do waterfall. 213 00:10:02,335 --> 00:10:05,515 And do it perfectly fine in a specific scenario, you know, like 214 00:10:05,575 --> 00:10:10,495 we like to vilify things I think, and that attaches to who people are. 215 00:10:10,855 --> 00:10:11,155 Joe: Right. 216 00:10:11,155 --> 00:10:13,825 And for example, I mean, I talked to a client a month ago. 217 00:10:14,155 --> 00:10:16,525 They're going, our efficiency is just garbage. 218 00:10:16,645 --> 00:10:20,125 We're right up against every deadline we have or we're blowing past it. 219 00:10:20,395 --> 00:10:22,045 And our backlog keeps growing exponentially. 220 00:10:22,045 --> 00:10:24,685 We've got all this work that we can't get to and we cannot 221 00:10:24,685 --> 00:10:25,615 get to the bottom of this. 222 00:10:26,215 --> 00:10:29,995 And I started having conversations with them about how much time they were spend. 223 00:10:30,775 --> 00:10:32,635 In meetings and conversations. 224 00:10:33,145 --> 00:10:36,265 And one of the things that came up was they would go through their user stories 225 00:10:36,265 --> 00:10:39,625 and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out level of effort 226 00:10:40,105 --> 00:10:44,185 using something called story pointing, which is a whole thing with agile 227 00:10:44,185 --> 00:10:47,905 process, you assign points to stories, whatever it's a tremendous in their 228 00:10:47,905 --> 00:10:50,695 case, it was a tremendous waste of time. 229 00:10:51,115 --> 00:10:55,885 They were quite frankly, just throwing away three to four hours out of 230 00:10:55,885 --> 00:10:57,835 every day, screwing around with. 231 00:10:58,645 --> 00:10:59,905 Eddie: Every day. 232 00:10:59,905 --> 00:11:02,905 I thought you were gonna say like every week or every other day or every other 233 00:11:02,905 --> 00:11:03,445 Joe: week or something. 234 00:11:03,535 --> 00:11:05,935 No, it was literally every day they were having these meetings every day. 235 00:11:05,935 --> 00:11:07,435 This is an enterprise organization, right. 236 00:11:07,435 --> 00:11:08,065 Huge team. 237 00:11:08,755 --> 00:11:12,465 And I said, okay, first of all, that has to stop . Yeah. 238 00:11:12,465 --> 00:11:15,775 If, if you need to get a handle on duration, you need to start with 239 00:11:15,865 --> 00:11:17,785 where this list is coming from in the first place, you need to 240 00:11:17,785 --> 00:11:21,925 qualify some of this stuff before it ever makes it to this repository 241 00:11:21,925 --> 00:11:22,885 where all these stories are kept. 242 00:11:23,560 --> 00:11:25,750 You need a qualifier a week ago. 243 00:11:27,460 --> 00:11:31,630 you know, not now you've got too much to deal with, but the, the law of 244 00:11:31,630 --> 00:11:33,790 process says we have to do it this way. 245 00:11:34,510 --> 00:11:38,830 And as crazy as this sounds teams and people and organizations will 246 00:11:38,835 --> 00:11:44,110 go limping along with these things, until somebody with a clear outside 247 00:11:44,110 --> 00:11:45,970 perspective says, why are you doing this? 248 00:11:46,120 --> 00:11:46,780 Mm. 249 00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:48,510 And everybody goes, I, I don't. 250 00:11:50,845 --> 00:11:54,295 And everybody has a, I feel really dumb moment, but it's hard. 251 00:11:54,595 --> 00:11:57,925 It's just very hard with this kind of work, given the level of detail and 252 00:11:57,925 --> 00:12:00,865 the level of focus that it demands and the pressure that everybody's 253 00:12:00,865 --> 00:12:03,835 under and a million things happening all at the same time, all the 254 00:12:03,835 --> 00:12:06,025 time, new requests all the time. 255 00:12:06,265 --> 00:12:10,525 It's very difficult to have the mental bandwidth to step back and take a look and 256 00:12:10,525 --> 00:12:12,595 go, okay, wait, what are we doing here? 257 00:12:13,165 --> 00:12:14,785 and does all this really matter? 258 00:12:14,785 --> 00:12:15,565 Is it all worth. 259 00:12:16,405 --> 00:12:19,225 So that's, I see that as part of my job, right. 260 00:12:19,225 --> 00:12:24,025 To help people and teams and organizations get clarity, because that's why. 261 00:12:24,385 --> 00:12:25,345 Products suck. 262 00:12:25,375 --> 00:12:25,765 Okay. 263 00:12:25,975 --> 00:12:30,865 When something on this device is not performing as expected from a business 264 00:12:31,195 --> 00:12:35,095 bottom line perspective or from, you know, users are, are like, we hate this. 265 00:12:35,095 --> 00:12:35,545 It sucks. 266 00:12:35,905 --> 00:12:38,665 The, that lack of performance is very rarely people not 267 00:12:38,670 --> 00:12:39,865 knowing how to do their jobs. 268 00:12:40,145 --> 00:12:43,355 Hmm, what it is is a lot of organizational dysfunction. 269 00:12:43,355 --> 00:12:46,325 That's in the way of them doing their jobs to the best of their ability. 270 00:12:47,705 --> 00:12:50,285 so the task becomes, if we're gonna improve designer improve 271 00:12:50,290 --> 00:12:54,335 user experience, we also have to improve that dysfunction first. 272 00:12:54,545 --> 00:13:00,365 Eddie: That's great is really about getting clarity as to why and how you're 273 00:13:00,365 --> 00:13:02,465 doing things like asking those questions. 274 00:13:02,465 --> 00:13:07,685 Like you said, why and asking yourself, like, who said to do it that way, right? 275 00:13:07,685 --> 00:13:08,375 Like, is this. 276 00:13:08,905 --> 00:13:12,115 Is this something the company decided, is this something that the company yeah. 277 00:13:12,115 --> 00:13:16,765 Adopted that someone else said, like what's the source of that decision? 278 00:13:17,035 --> 00:13:17,185 Yeah. 279 00:13:17,185 --> 00:13:17,635 And sometimes 280 00:13:17,635 --> 00:13:18,655 Joe: it's in a rule book somewhere. 281 00:13:18,915 --> 00:13:19,735 Mm there's. 282 00:13:19,735 --> 00:13:20,845 A million flavors of agile. 283 00:13:20,850 --> 00:13:23,575 For example, there people follow the scrum handbook. 284 00:13:24,535 --> 00:13:29,745 religiously, even though it's, it's wasting their time to inordinate degree. 285 00:13:30,130 --> 00:13:33,130 So somebody has to, and I can do this cause I'm a consultant. 286 00:13:33,130 --> 00:13:33,940 I don't work there. 287 00:13:33,970 --> 00:13:34,300 Okay. 288 00:13:34,600 --> 00:13:36,790 I can't get in trouble for anything that comes outta my mouth. 289 00:13:38,680 --> 00:13:41,440 they've hired me to tell them the truth and that's exactly what I'm doing. 290 00:13:41,950 --> 00:13:45,460 So it's easier for me to say, look, this is stupid. 291 00:13:45,640 --> 00:13:48,130 The fact that you're wasting this much time on this is just dumb. 292 00:13:48,135 --> 00:13:50,980 It makes no sense you're killing yourselves for no reason. 293 00:13:51,460 --> 00:13:55,450 I can say that , it's a lot easier for me to say that than it is for other. 294 00:13:56,170 --> 00:14:01,240 Eddie: One thing we like to do in every episode is to just talk 295 00:14:01,240 --> 00:14:04,690 about, Hey, like as a community, we love to support each other. 296 00:14:04,690 --> 00:14:08,980 And so do you have anything that you're involved in or anything that you're 297 00:14:09,010 --> 00:14:11,800 passionate about or that you've done recently that you wanna share with 298 00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:14,490 the community that, you know, they may be interested in checking out. 299 00:14:14,910 --> 00:14:15,120 Yeah, a 300 00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:15,630 Joe: couple things. 301 00:14:15,630 --> 00:14:19,260 I mean, number one, I started offering personal one to one 302 00:14:19,260 --> 00:14:21,450 coaching for UXers and designers. 303 00:14:21,450 --> 00:14:24,480 And that was something that I wasn't able to do for a long time because 304 00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:25,680 my schedule just wouldn't allow it. 305 00:14:26,220 --> 00:14:29,250 So now I've purposely carved out time for that kind of stuff. 306 00:14:29,250 --> 00:14:33,690 So if you go to give good ux.com/coaching, you'll find out more about that. 307 00:14:33,690 --> 00:14:37,140 And the other big thing is that a year ago, I launched what I 308 00:14:37,140 --> 00:14:39,420 consider to be an alternative to. 309 00:14:40,220 --> 00:14:43,550 UX and design boot camps, overpriced boot camps. 310 00:14:43,550 --> 00:14:45,440 Now it's not exactly the same animal. 311 00:14:45,830 --> 00:14:47,480 This is all self-paced learning. 312 00:14:47,900 --> 00:14:51,440 So it's, you don't necessarily have the hands on instructor part of 313 00:14:51,440 --> 00:14:52,820 it, cuz there're too many students. 314 00:14:52,820 --> 00:14:56,570 Number one, but if you enroll in a boot camp right now, okay, 315 00:14:56,570 --> 00:15:00,680 you're gonna pay 13 grand, 15 grand, six to eight month program. 316 00:15:00,740 --> 00:15:00,800 Yeah. 317 00:15:01,280 --> 00:15:05,510 To my eye and to a lot of other folks who I know and respect in this industry. 318 00:15:06,340 --> 00:15:10,210 What students get for that price is really unbalanced. 319 00:15:10,390 --> 00:15:10,720 Okay. 320 00:15:10,720 --> 00:15:13,960 They don't get nearly mm-hmm enough of what they need. 321 00:15:14,050 --> 00:15:15,820 They don't have enough practicality. 322 00:15:15,820 --> 00:15:18,430 They get a lot of perfect world stuff that is absolutely unusable. 323 00:15:18,430 --> 00:15:21,610 Once they get outta there and they paid a ridiculous amount of money. 324 00:15:22,015 --> 00:15:22,345 To do. 325 00:15:22,345 --> 00:15:25,255 So there are all these things about job guarantees, which are all very 326 00:15:25,255 --> 00:15:29,635 shady and the qualifiers for meeting that thing, because some places will 327 00:15:29,635 --> 00:15:34,165 say, we'll guarantee that you get a job or you get your tuition back. 328 00:15:34,945 --> 00:15:37,915 If the job pays a dollar an hour, you know, the guarantee 329 00:15:37,915 --> 00:15:39,565 is, has been met in some cases. 330 00:15:39,565 --> 00:15:42,895 So it, it's just all very underhanded and it makes me angry. 331 00:15:43,345 --> 00:15:45,025 And I thought this is just stupid. 332 00:15:45,850 --> 00:15:51,950 What I did instead is I, I, I'm creating a self serve version of a bootcamp in, 333 00:15:52,210 --> 00:15:54,880 in all the different areas of doing this work that I can think of from 334 00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:57,970 the emotional stuff that you and I talked about to dealing with difficult 335 00:15:57,970 --> 00:16:01,270 people, different stakeholders, difficult clients to process. 336 00:16:01,515 --> 00:16:05,655 To designing to all aspects of your experience to presenting 337 00:16:05,655 --> 00:16:09,315 your work, to learning how to, uh, deal with job interviews, 338 00:16:09,315 --> 00:16:11,385 portfolios, all that kind of stuff. 339 00:16:11,505 --> 00:16:13,485 So it's, it's every course I've ever created. 340 00:16:13,755 --> 00:16:18,905 It's training videos that I've only done with clients up until this point it's 341 00:16:19,395 --> 00:16:21,745 eBooks cheat sheets, downloadable guide. 342 00:16:22,150 --> 00:16:22,960 All sorts of stuff. 343 00:16:22,990 --> 00:16:26,200 I published new content just about every month there. 344 00:16:26,200 --> 00:16:29,200 So it's this growing repository of stuff and the price. 345 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:30,160 Tag's a hell of a lot lower. 346 00:16:30,160 --> 00:16:33,040 It's $168 a year for basic membership. 347 00:16:33,040 --> 00:16:34,000 And it's 2 28. 348 00:16:34,060 --> 00:16:39,520 If you want a live monthly VIP mastermind session with me and a group of people. 349 00:16:39,955 --> 00:16:40,945 Who all help each other. 350 00:16:41,185 --> 00:16:41,605 Okay. 351 00:16:41,905 --> 00:16:45,235 $228 is a far cry from 13,000. 352 00:16:45,505 --> 00:16:46,345 Eddie: Yes. 353 00:16:46,345 --> 00:16:47,365 That is different 354 00:16:47,365 --> 00:16:48,085 Joe: worlds. 355 00:16:48,415 --> 00:16:51,505 And as arrogant as this may sound, I get some people are gonna be 356 00:16:51,505 --> 00:16:57,235 like, okay, whatever the quality of instruction is the same, if not better. 357 00:16:57,265 --> 00:16:57,445 Okay. 358 00:16:57,445 --> 00:17:00,145 I don't teach anything that I haven't experienced personally 359 00:17:00,415 --> 00:17:01,735 myself, that I haven't seen. 360 00:17:02,620 --> 00:17:03,790 Inside an organization. 361 00:17:04,510 --> 00:17:08,800 I don't waste time with things that I know are never gonna fly inside a company. 362 00:17:08,800 --> 00:17:13,000 I've been consulting with org enterprise organizations for 30 years. 363 00:17:13,690 --> 00:17:15,220 I have current clients right now. 364 00:17:15,580 --> 00:17:15,910 Okay. 365 00:17:15,910 --> 00:17:17,800 I had a meeting with one of them before this one. 366 00:17:18,310 --> 00:17:20,530 So this is all based in reality. 367 00:17:21,100 --> 00:17:22,540 It's not pie in the sky theory. 368 00:17:22,545 --> 00:17:24,220 It's not one person's opinion. 369 00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:25,900 It's fact it's accumulated fact. 370 00:17:25,900 --> 00:17:27,200 And I just don't believe. 371 00:17:27,745 --> 00:17:31,795 That it has to be out of reach for people from a price perspective. 372 00:17:31,795 --> 00:17:36,295 So I see this as a, as a mission, as you could probably tell , by 373 00:17:36,295 --> 00:17:37,075 the way, I'm talking about it. 374 00:17:37,825 --> 00:17:38,545 it's here. 375 00:17:38,665 --> 00:17:40,225 The money part is, is secondary. 376 00:17:40,230 --> 00:17:44,665 My, my mandate from day one was how do we make this affordable for people and 377 00:17:44,665 --> 00:17:48,865 how we make it affordable is I can't be there at 24 7 for thousands of students. 378 00:17:48,865 --> 00:17:50,635 It's not possible, but self-serve works. 379 00:17:51,385 --> 00:17:54,865 Eddie: I love that because I think one of the big challenges with 380 00:17:54,865 --> 00:17:59,335 boot camps and things like that is that who are the instructors? 381 00:17:59,425 --> 00:18:01,975 Like, I'm sure they've, they've done some good things, right? 382 00:18:01,980 --> 00:18:06,175 Like I don't wanna undermine them, but like someone with a lot of experience, 383 00:18:06,415 --> 00:18:10,675 doesn't have the time to spend full time with these boot camps, nor 384 00:18:10,680 --> 00:18:12,145 Joe: are they being paid properly to do. 385 00:18:12,810 --> 00:18:13,160 Eddie: Mm. 386 00:18:13,510 --> 00:18:13,900 Yep. 387 00:18:13,990 --> 00:18:15,220 So that's another thing 388 00:18:15,370 --> 00:18:18,910 Joe: I know of three bootcamp programs right now where your work cuz the, the 389 00:18:18,910 --> 00:18:22,000 big selling point is you're gonna do your work and it's gonna be reviewed. 390 00:18:22,210 --> 00:18:22,360 Right. 391 00:18:22,360 --> 00:18:24,400 And you're gonna get advice and you're gonna get guidance 392 00:18:24,490 --> 00:18:25,400 on the actual work you do. 393 00:18:26,050 --> 00:18:27,070 It's peer reviews. 394 00:18:27,490 --> 00:18:31,090 Your work in many cases is being reviewed by other students who are 395 00:18:31,360 --> 00:18:35,890 forgive me for saying this who may be just as clueless as you are in terms 396 00:18:35,890 --> 00:18:37,330 of whether this is appropriate or not. 397 00:18:37,390 --> 00:18:37,720 Yeah. 398 00:18:37,810 --> 00:18:39,490 Which to me is grossly unfair. 399 00:18:39,670 --> 00:18:40,030 Okay. 400 00:18:40,030 --> 00:18:43,030 If you put a student in a position where they're meant to get advice, they 401 00:18:43,030 --> 00:18:47,060 need to be getting advice from someone who has been there, done that and can 402 00:18:47,060 --> 00:18:48,040 steer them in the right direction. 403 00:18:48,040 --> 00:18:48,310 Other. 404 00:18:49,030 --> 00:18:50,230 That's just wrong. 405 00:18:50,260 --> 00:18:50,560 Okay. 406 00:18:50,560 --> 00:18:51,250 Eddie: It's wrong. 407 00:18:51,310 --> 00:18:52,480 Yeah, absolutely. 408 00:18:52,480 --> 00:18:56,740 Because their peers also are paying money to learn the right way to do things. 409 00:18:56,740 --> 00:18:59,680 Like if you are correct paying this kind of money to learn, 410 00:18:59,710 --> 00:19:01,120 you don't have the answers. 411 00:19:01,125 --> 00:19:04,390 Like that's just fundamental or you wouldn't pay the money to go there. 412 00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:05,380 Joe: of course. 413 00:19:05,385 --> 00:19:05,890 Absolutely. 414 00:19:06,190 --> 00:19:11,200 And again, when I was hearing all these stories, it's just all accumulating 415 00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:12,760 and I was like, okay, this is. 416 00:19:13,730 --> 00:19:14,780 So I knew I had to do something. 417 00:19:14,780 --> 00:19:18,620 I just, and I wasn't sure what, and then it was, so I made it a, an extension 418 00:19:18,620 --> 00:19:21,620 of what I was already doing, which is online video courses and okay. 419 00:19:21,980 --> 00:19:24,710 I thought, okay, we could take a run at this and so far so good. 420 00:19:24,710 --> 00:19:28,010 I mean, a lot of people come back and say, this really helped me. 421 00:19:28,015 --> 00:19:30,890 You know, I, I aced feel like I aced this interview because of what I learned. 422 00:19:30,895 --> 00:19:32,870 I feel like this prepared me. 423 00:19:33,260 --> 00:19:35,270 For what I'm doing in a way that nothing else has. 424 00:19:35,270 --> 00:19:38,180 I had one person to tell me this was more valuable. 425 00:19:38,570 --> 00:19:41,630 They said four months of this was more valuable than four 426 00:19:41,630 --> 00:19:42,650 and a half years of college. 427 00:19:43,220 --> 00:19:45,110 That's a hell of a thing to hear from somebody. 428 00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:45,830 Yeah. 429 00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:49,940 And despite how I may come off, I am not a person who thinks highly of themselves. 430 00:19:49,940 --> 00:19:50,600 I really don't. 431 00:19:50,780 --> 00:19:52,760 In fact, we, we mentioned imposter syndrome. 432 00:19:52,790 --> 00:19:53,150 Okay. 433 00:19:53,420 --> 00:19:53,840 Yeah. 434 00:19:53,900 --> 00:19:54,770 I have it in spades. 435 00:19:54,770 --> 00:19:58,190 Believe me, but without this kind of feedback, I don't think I would ever do. 436 00:19:59,260 --> 00:20:00,280 It would just be too difficult. 437 00:20:00,580 --> 00:20:02,050 The proof is there is not mine. 438 00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:02,740 It's working. 439 00:20:02,740 --> 00:20:03,310 It works. 440 00:20:03,640 --> 00:20:05,110 So anyway, that that's my big spiel. 441 00:20:05,725 --> 00:20:06,805 Oh, I didn't tell you where it was. 442 00:20:08,245 --> 00:20:12,835 it's the URL is learn dot, give good ux.com. 443 00:20:13,465 --> 00:20:14,305 Nice kind 444 00:20:14,305 --> 00:20:14,725 Eddie: of important. 445 00:20:15,205 --> 00:20:16,225 Yeah, absolutely. 446 00:20:16,345 --> 00:20:20,515 So yeah, if that sounds interesting to anyone listening, definitely go. 447 00:20:21,345 --> 00:20:23,265 Check out both of those things. 448 00:20:23,265 --> 00:20:25,725 And, uh, I'll have the links to everything in the show notes. 449 00:20:25,725 --> 00:20:31,155 So you don't have to rewind the podcast, go type it in, just open up the show 450 00:20:31,155 --> 00:20:33,165 notes and click on the link and nice. 451 00:20:33,165 --> 00:20:35,295 You can go check it out and learn from Joe. 452 00:20:35,865 --> 00:20:40,185 Well, Joe, I appreciate you making the time to Joe, us and 453 00:20:40,185 --> 00:20:40,665 Joe: talk. 454 00:20:40,905 --> 00:20:42,615 Thank you for having me that I really appreciate it. 455 00:20:44,665 --> 00:20:48,355 Eddie: Thank you for joining us for episode 17, the real 456 00:20:48,355 --> 00:20:50,625 world is messy with Joe Natoli. 457 00:20:51,025 --> 00:20:54,935 You can find out more about Joe on his Twitter @JoeNatoli. 458 00:20:55,255 --> 00:20:58,405 Or his website GiveGoodUX.com. 459 00:20:59,365 --> 00:21:02,755 You can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, 460 00:21:02,785 --> 00:21:06,145 as well as a link to Joe's Twitter and website in the show notes. 461 00:21:07,315 --> 00:21:10,325 If you enjoyed this episode, help others discover it as well. 462 00:21:11,185 --> 00:21:14,515 Give us a shout out on Twitter and tag a friend or coworker that you think 463 00:21:14,515 --> 00:21:20,555 would enjoy And don't forget to follow us on Twitter to stay up to @WebJoyFM. 464 00:21:21,205 --> 00:21:23,725 Thank you for listening and have a great day.