on product design, career, reflection, product management

My Journey at Peak Democracy: From Design Leadership to Product Management

The purpose of this post is to outline my journey at Peak Democracy, to share what I’ve learned and express my enthusiasm at the next stage of my career as I take on a new role as Product Manager & Lead Designer at Peak Democracy (now a part of OpenGov). Backstory In March, I began consulting for Peak Democracy—a company on a mission to build public trust in government. Their business centers on a web-based product called Open Town Hall, which is widely considered to be North America’s leading online civic engagement platform. Open Town Hall was

on UX, career, reflection

UX Help! Advice For Switching Careers into User Experience Design

Over the past two years, I've gotten a lot of emails from people that go something like this: Hey John, I stumbled on your site from [source]. I appreciate what you've done and how you share your process. I am looking at starting a career in UX and I was wondering whether you might be able to give some advice. Here's my background: [Background Story] Cheers, [Kind Career Switcher] I've written similar responses to such kind career switchers that I thought it would be useful to publish one as a blog post so that other people might benefit. Here it

on Wendell Berry, reflection, lifestyle

Reflecting on 'What Matters' by Wendell Berry

Backstory After deciding to migrate away from my digital lifestyle, I pulled What Matters by Wendell Berry off my bookshelf to help prepare for whats next. In an effort to absorb the wisdom of Mr. Berry and also to share its fruits, I've decided to write a little reflection on this collection of essays subtitled "Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth". As the introduction suggests, this book should be required reading for all economists and policy makers, but it also has life changing perspectives for the common man and household. It has made a profound impact on the direction of my