Mark Connolly – Page 5 – Connolly Design

November 30, 2016October 31, 2020

Marking time at Zeitspace

Time is important to us at Zeitspace. It is at many organizations, of course, but it’s part our name, so it had better be important here!

We think about our product development work in many ways. One way is to divide it up into blocks of time during which we’ll execute on it. As we’re an agile organization and use scrum to organize our work, that means working in sprints. We like to use one-week sprints on our projects. The rhythm of planning, executing, and delivering in these one-week cycles is a wonderful experience for all. The uniformity of the time units in this approach is powerful.

We’re also fond of design sprints, which are similarly named but slightly different. While I was in Mountain View recently for the Google Experts Summit I was delighted to learn that the prescriptive one-week durations of the Google Ventures design sprint are relaxed within Google itself. That is, while the stages of the design sprint are critical, the choronological durations are much less so. That means that there’s room for variation in time devoted to the design sprint, which is also powerful.

Today it’s been 30 days since our Hallowe’en Zeitspace launch. Each day has brought some combination of interesting conversations, new insights, exciting opportunities, and more. There’s much to do and, happily for us, time is on our side!

This post originally appeared on the Zeitspace blog.

November 14, 2016October 31, 2020

Sprinting in California

I’m in Mountain View, California, right now, attending the Google Developer Experts Summit, an annual gathering of, well, Google Developer Experts. (My expertise in this context is, as some readers may guess, in UX.) It’s a chance to meet and learn from the many people who are a part of this global group. One session on the program that I’m excited about in particular is the full day Design Sprint Master Academy that’s happening on day two of the summit tomorrow.

Design sprints have become fairly visible in the last few years, especially the approach used at Google Ventures as outlined in the book Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. While many of the constituent parts have been well known to the broader design and software development communities for years, there’s a real value in the way that they’ve been pulled together into a coherent whole here.

The workshop/academy that I’m attending here is an immersion in the Google approach. It’s being run by Kai Haley, who spoke at Fluxible this past September and also ran a half-day workshop on the same topic. The workshop/academy promises to be good fun, and I’m looking forward to using what I learn here in design sprints with Zeitspace clients.

This post originally appeared on the Zeitspace blog.

November 7, 2016October 31, 2020

Conversations about Zeitspace

Having launched Zeitspace last week, I’m now very much out in the world having conversations with people — friends old and new, past Boltmade clients, past colleagues, and more. It’s great to see and hear how much interest there is in the new company and how much our story resonates with people.

The last few weeks, before and after launch, have been a reminder of just how much detail work there is to be done at the beginning of a new venture. Happily, it’s detail work with a highly motivating purpose, and there haven’t been any major issues. On the contrary, things have gone smoothly so far, and progress has been swift. The response since our Hallowe’en launch has been gratifying, and has provided some emphatic validation that the idea remains a sound one.

All of which makes the conversations that much more fun. Let me know if you’d like to get together and chat.

This post also appears on the Zeitspace blog. Go check it out and follow the company’s adventures!

October 31, 2016October 31, 2020

Greetings from Zeitspace

Starting a new company can be a scary proposition, as it’s never certain that things will work as planned. So given that today is Hallowe’en, the scariest day of the year, what better time to formally announce Zeitspace, a new software product design and development consultancy.

Why start a consultancy? Well, in this case there’s a pretty specific reason: Boltmade, where I worked, was acquired by Shopify earlier this month. I loved the work that we did at Boltmade — it was great to engage with a diverse range of clients on a variety of projects. The design and technical challenges were invigorating, the people were passionate about the projects that they brought us, and there was plenty of learning along the way. It felt to me that, as much as we had achieved and as far as we had come with Boltmade, there remained so much more to do.

As well, Boltmade’s departure leaves a noticeable gap in Waterloo Region’s tech ecosystem. There’s a real need for a company that can reliably deliver design and development services to a range clients. Zeitspace is an opportunity to pick up where Boltmade left off and continue the journey. We’re excited and looking forward to helping our clients create great products.

There’ll be more details to share in the coming days and weeks and months — about the team, how we work, what we’re looking to accomplish, and much more. In the meantime, drop by and say hello!

This post originally appeared on the Zeitspace blog.

October 31, 2016November 2, 2020

Meet my new company, Zeitspace

There’ll be more details to share in the coming days and weeks and months — about the team, how we work, what we’re looking to accomplish, and much more. In the meantime, drop by and say hello!

This post also appears on the Zeitspace blog under the title Greetings from Zeitspace. Go check it out and follow the company’s adventures!

October 24, 2016November 3, 2020

Facilitating and presenting at events this week

I’ve got a pair of events coming up that promise to be fun.

First up, I’ll be heading to Edmonton this week to facilitate a user story making workshop at the annual gathering of the Canadian Digital Media Network. It’s a workshop that I’ve delivered multiple times in the past, and in this instance I’m delighted to be joined by Bob Barlow-Busch. It should be a great experience, and I’m looking forward to meeting everyone and seeing a little of Edmonton.

Then on Friday Bob and I will deliver a presentation at Go North 2016 in Toronto. It’s an updated version of a presentation that we delivered in May at Comunitech. There are some impressive names in the list of keynote & fireside speakers and panelists, so it’s pretty cool to be delivering our “tech talk” at the event.

Update: Instead of presenting at Go North, it looks like I’ll be doing some startup mentoring instead. After running five successful editions of Fluxible, I certainly know at this point how challenging it can be to finalize the details of a conference program!

October 3, 2016November 1, 2020

Farewell to Boltmade

Boltmade was an amazing group of people that designed and built amazing software products for amazing companies. That’s a lot of “amazing” — but it’s all true! As of today, though, Boltmade is no more, as the company has been bought by Shopify, the Ottawa-based success story that just keeps on growing and that has an office right here in Waterloo. It’s an exciting time for everyone involved.

I won’t be making the trip down the road to Shopify, and neither will my long-time collaborator and conspirator Bob Barlow-Busch. But I’m busily cooking up my next thing, and am excited to see where it goes.

September 15, 2016November 1, 2020

Fluxible Workshops may be full, but there are other options

Earlier this week I wrote about the broad range of Fluxible Meetups that start next Monday. It’s an exciting lineup!

I’m particularly happy to have added these events for 2016, since both of our Fluxible Workshops on Friday September 23 sold out weeks ago. No real surprise there, as Pam Havlicek and Kai Haley are terrific people who will be delivering enlightening and engaging workshop experiences. Pam’s is on How to Design for Happiness, while Kai’s is on Design Sprints., and both will be filled with practical nuggets.

I’m sorry that I won’t be attending them!

For those of you who didn’t get a spot, do check the Fluxible Meetups schedule for other events of interest. And, of course, both Pam and Kai will also be speaking at Fluxible Conference on the weekend, along with a great lineup of other speakers. So that’s another option for indulging in your passion for UX!

September 12, 2016November 1, 2020

Fluxible meetups start next week

The last few months have been busy ones of me. There have been a few side projects keeping me busy but that aren’t quite ready for the public eye.

And there is also, of course, Fluxible coming back for the fifth year. For 2016 we expanded our thinking to create a deeper and richer experience, and evolved into Canada’s UX Festival.

All the planning and work will pay off starting one week from today, with the first of our Fluxible Meetups. There’s a full week of these events happening, and it’s an exciting range of topics and formats. Best of all, most of these events are free! You should really check out the entire schedule, but here are some highlights.

On each day Monday through Friday we have a Brown Bag Lunch event at the Communitech Hub. These events cover hiring for UX, product management and UX, longitudinal user research, and a systems design approach to UX. My personal favourite, though, might be my friend David Jensenius talking about art and technology and UX in the arts. I love that diversity! For anyone who works nearby, it’s pretty easy to grab your lunch and walk on over for one of these sessions.

This year we have some fine site visits to Waterloo Region companies that are doing some great product work: D2L, TD, Shopify Plus, and MUSIC will all be opening up there spaces to share the ways that they work and look and some cool products that their teams have created. And all of them are definitely excited about hosting and event and sharing their work with the community.

We’ve partnered up with several organizations in Waterloo Region this year. Hacking Health Waterloo, Girl Geek Dinners Waterloo Region, Design Chats, UX Book Club KW, and Communitech all have their own UX-themed events happening. I’m thrilled that these organizations are on board this year, and love what they’re doing to build community!

Finally, we’ve decided to present a concert this year. Why? Well, music has been an integral part of Fluxible from the very first edition. We’ve featured a stylistically diverse range of performances as a part of each year’s conference. It felt natural to try a concert, just for fun. To that end, we’re presenting Stealth in a concert at the Communitech Hub on Thursday.

And all these events are just one stream of Fluxible 2016!

June 30, 2016November 1, 2020

Check out Fluxible, Canada’s UX Festival

Somewhat belatedly, it seems appropriate to mention here that the Fluxible 2016 program has been announced, and that earlybird tickets are now available. The program for this year has been expanded into a weeklong celebration that we’re positioning as Canada’s UX festival. And what a week we have lined up!

Fluxible Meetups starts the festival on Monday September 19, and features multiple events each day through Friday September 23. We’ll be revealing more events in the coming weeks and months, but we already have a stellar schedule to share. There’s a daily brown bag lunch series happening at the newly expanded Communitech Hub. We’ve lined up on-site events at some of the region’s technology companies: D2L, Clearpath Robotics, TD 55 Technology Centre, and Shopify Plus. And we’re launching a set of dinner events on Friday that will give out-of-towners and locals alike a chance to enjoy conversations about UX with old and new friends over good food and drink.

Fluxible Workshops continues the festival at the Communitech Hub on Friday September 23 with a pair of half-day pre-conference workshops that provide deep dives into timely topics. Pamela Pavliscak will lead a morning workshop on How to Design for Happiness, while Kai Haley leads an afternoon workshop on Design Sprints. Pamela and Kai are both on the Fluxible Conference program as well, and Pamela will be a special guest at UX Book Club KW — they clearly have plenty of knowledge and expertise to share with the Fluxible community.

Fluxible Conference is the main course of our festival meal this year. As many of you will know from our previous announcements, the conference features an amazing group of speakers in a single track program that means you won’t miss a thing. They’ll be enlightening us on a range of UX topics, along with our now-expected presentations on unexpectedly relevant topics from other disciplines. Fluxible Conference opens on Saturday September 24 and runs for two days at the CIGI Auditorium, a new venue for this year. Check it out, and start making your plans to attend.

This post originally appeared on the Fluxible blog in a slightly different form.