Unconference 2022

You can do the research, discover a big unmet customer need, hatch an inspired idea, prototype a solution, perform the competitive analysis, collect the ROI data—and still your innovation can hit a wall. What’s stopping you? To implement your idea, you need more than a compelling rationale. You must successfully navigate the politics of innovation. In this session, we’ll discuss the political obstacles to innovation and how to overcome them. Blockers like the Not Invented Here (NIH) Syndrome, risk aversion, protecting the status quo, and product-centricity. Opportunities like recruiting allies, enlisting a champion, and sharing the credit.

John is the author of Navigating the Politics of UX, a compendium of strategies and stories from his 40 years’ experience in UX. He has served as a UX engineer, scientist, project manager, teacher, and director—always as a UX insider with internal design teams in both multinational corporations and small privately held firms. Today, John spends his time thinking about what’s next for UX. He believes we will need new mindsets, new models of human-technology collaboration, and new design frameworks to move the UX profession forward.