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To create the best products and services possible, and to hire, and keep, the best design and product talent, organizations need to keep improving how they work, and continuously support the growth of their employees.
Ambition Empower is a professional development service where design and product thought-leaders help you and your team grow. Empower is optimized for your busy life, allowing you to spend as little as one hour per week, and still stay ahead of the competition.
The membership gives you 12 months of full access to all the different tracks, covering a wide range of topics – each central to create truly great products and services. You will:
Intermediate to advanced level. As organizations mature, they tend to shift to a product mindset. This opens up great opportunities for senior UX people to grow and take on Product Management roles and/or responsibilities.
If you’re already practicing UX in the context of a product team, or if you’re preparing to transition to a product-oriented organizational model, or if you are being asked to fulfill a quasi-product role in addition to your UX responsibilities, then you’ve got good reasons for wanting to understand what makes product managers tick and what product management is really all about. Or maybe you’ve started wondering if you want to be a Product Manager, or perhaps you’ve already made the move…
Regardless of your reason, welcome to Product Management for UX People.
The track – starting in September – will cover all you need to thrive in a product world, e.g.:
Christian Crumlish is a product and UX leadership consultant at Design in Product. He is currently leading the product management of covid19.ca.gov in California. He’s a former startup mentor at Code for America, head of product at 7 Cups, winner of the 2016 Stanford Medicine X Prize for health systems design, and a 2019 World Economic Forum Pioneer. He was also a Senior Director of Product at CloudOn (sold to DropBox), Director of Messaging Products for AOL (AIM), and the last curator of the Yahoo design pattern library. He is the author of the bestselling Product Management for UX People: From Designing to Thriving in a Product World, The Power of Many, and a co-author of Designing Social Interfaces.
Intermediate to advanced level. Regardless of whether your focus is design or product, your job as a leader is to improve the organization’s ability to deliver the right experience. Your organization is a unique combination of life stage, industry, culture, skill levels, structure, resources, and other factors. As a leader, you have a unique combination of strengths that make some situations easier than others.
The track continually adapts to the needs of the members, but includes e.g.:
Kim Goodwin is the author of the bestselling book, Designing for the Digital Age. She is a Design & Product leadership consultant and executive, providing creative leadership and management consulting for Fortune 500s as well as startup clients in varied industries, including healthcare, aviation, retail, communication, financial services, consumer, enterprise, automotive, IT, and other industries. Earlier in her career, Kim was VP of Design & General Manager at Cooper, a leading design and strategy agency in San Francisco, for 12 years.
Intermediate to Advanced level. Today, most economies are dominated by services. From traditional healthcare services to the latest pizza delivery services, our lives are dominated by the services we engage with.
Forward-leaning organizations are transforming their business by connecting their experience end-to-end, across digital and physical channels, to provide a true service experience. This requires going beyond the screens to create intentional, meaningful experiences and interactions across the whole customer journey.
The track continually adapts to the needs of the members, but includes e.g.:
Chris Risdon is a co-author of the Service design book “Orchestrating Experiences: Collaborative Design for Complexity” (Rosenfeld Media). He’s currently a Design Program Director for Data & AI at IBM. Chris’ priors include Head of Design for peer-to-peer carsharing service Getaround; Head of Design for the Labs division of one of the largest US banks, Capital One; and Design Director for Adaptive Path, the pioneering experience design consultancy. Chris has introduced and advanced new methods in design, teaching thousands of design professionals and students, and has led and grown design teams, including service design practices at both startups and large enterprises. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrisdon.
Beginner to advanced level. Awareness of how design can affect wellbeing is growing, acknowledging that design not only solves, but also creates problems.
It is increasingly expected that you balance your concern for business value with the outcomes and impact of the work that you and your team put forward. But how do you work intentionally to mitigate negative outcomes? How do you find and bring attention to the many harms that may arise? How do you resolve issues where when one group gains and another pains from the same solution?
In this track you will learn to manage ethical decision-making and lead with compassion. I will strive to provide a safe environment for you to recognise and discuss difficult choices, and offer practical tools and guidance for more easily managing those choices.
The track continually adapts to the needs of the members, but includes e.g.:
Per Axbom is the author of Digital Compassion (2019), and Scandinavia’s foremost expert in Design Ethics. He’s a consultant in UX, accessibility and digital strategy. Ethics is not about hindering digital progress, Per says. It’s about choosing the best direction for it. Per is often invited to speak at international conferences. You can hear his voice as one of the two hosts on UX Podcast, follow him on Twitter, and buy his handbook Digital Compassion (2019).
Beginner to intermediate level. Knowledge about nudging, gamification, and behavioral psychology is essential. The more you and your team know and understand people and behavior, the better products and services you can create, and the more you can motivate people to take action.
New research on brain science and behavioral science has expanded our understanding of ourselves. In this track, we will explore both the foundational and latest research in behavioral psychology and how to apply that to our work.
Topics will e.g. include:
Susan Weinschenk has a Ph.D. in Psychology, and is the Chief Behavioral Scientist and CEO at The Team W, Inc, as well as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. Susan consults with Fortune 1000 companies, start-ups, governments and non-profits. She is the author of 8 books that have been translated to more than 10 languages, including 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People, Neuro Web Design and How To Get People To Do Stuff.
Intermediate to advanced level. Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming a fundamental part of many of the products and services we use: everything from email to vacuum cleaners to music services. Yet, if there’s one phrase that is sure to give design leaders anxiety and imposter syndrome, it’s “AI.”
This technology is everywhere and more is coming. What is it? How do you design for it? What are the pitfalls? How do you sift through the jargon to know what’s real? How do you hire for it? The short answer is that it’s a rapidly-changing field, and these answers are changing all the time.
The track continually adapts to the needs of the members, but includes e.g.:
Chris Noessel, designing AI solutions for IBM by day, writing books and novels on AI and sci-fi by night. No designer, anywhere on the planet, gets AI and design the way Chris does. Chris is a former leader at Cooper, San Fransisco, co-author of Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction (Rosenfeld Media, 2012), co-author of About Face, 4th Edition (Wiley, 2015), and author of Designing Agentive Technology: AI That Works for People (Rosenfeld Media, 2017). Recently he’s begun publishing sci-fi short stories, and he’s is currently contemplating books about meaning machines and interfaces that improve their users.
Beginner to intermediate level. Most designers and decision-makers would agree that research and discovery is important to design innovative and useful products and services. But few stakeholders realize the full potential.
In order to unleash the power of design research for continuous innovation, we have to combine methods from qualitative research, quantitative research, and theories from behavioral psychology. We must also establish processes and deliverables that meet the needs of executive decision makers, designers, and development teams.
The track continually adapts to the needs of the members, but includes e.g.:
Susan Weinschenk has a Ph.D. in Psychology, and is the Chief Behavioral Scientist and CEO at The Team W, Inc, as well as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. Susan consults with Fortune 1000 companies, start-ups, governments and non-profits. She is the author of 8 books that have been translated to more than 10 languages, including 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People, Neuro Web Design and How To Get People To Do Stuff.
With more than 2 million downloads and 280+ episodes, UX Podcast is an institution. It is one of the world’s biggest podcasts for design and product people. There are just so many classic episodes with people like; Indi Young, Brad Frost, Erika Hall, Jeff Gothelf, Kate Rutter, Melissa Perri, Mike Monteiro, Alan Cooper, Brad Frost, and Luke Wroblewski. And more are coming!
Now… going forward… all podcasts will be recorded exclusively together with the members of Ambition Empower!
Follow the UX Podcast track to get backstage access with James Royal-Lawson and Per Axbom. Get inspiration from a wide variety of the world’s most outstanding and most exciting design and product people – LIVE – at least once a month.
Kindly notice that this track will not include weekly task or preparations, you just join the sessions and enjoy!
Per Axbom is the author of Digital Compassion (2019), and Scandinavia’s foremost expert in Design Ethics. He’s a consultant in UX, accessibility and digital strategy. Per is often invited to speak at international conferences.
James Royal-Lawson is a digital designer with a background in Economics – a perfect combination for balancing design and business. Over the years he’s worked with over 100 organizations spanning small companies to public sector organisations and large multinationals.
Together Per and James host the UX Podcast, with more than 2 million downloads, where they help educate thousands of individuals across the world.
As our profession keeps developing, the number of tracks will grow, and the tracks themselves will evolve. This is just the beginning.
To be announced
We’ll keep this one to ourselves a bit longer. But… you’ll like it!
Your suggestion?
What would help YOU and your organization move forward? Tell us!
The price includes a 12-month membership with access to ALL the tracks, including all the online meetings, and all of the curated recommendations. Prices are exclusive of VAT. Full terms and conditions are available here.
Develop your skills
11 995 SEK
per member
(~EUR 1 199)
Grow together as a team
9 995 SEK
per member
(~EUR 999)
Develop your organization
Let’s talk!
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Contact Jane Murray, or check out the Frequently Asked Questions, to learn more about Ambition Empower.
+46 736 69 59 68
We help designers and innovative organizations to grow – both in capability and confidence. We offer consulting and advisory services within the business and design field. Ambition empower is a continuous professional development program.
We help designers and innovative organizations to grow – both in capability and confidence. Sounds interesting? Sign up for our newsletter, and let’s keep in touch.