I shared on LinkedIn that I was interviewed during the my last week in Austin prior to my retirement from IBM by the amazing Eleanor Bartosh during the Design Studio's "Happy trails, Karel" campfire. Several of you have asked if I could share the questions and answers from that interview. We didn't record it but let me reconstruct the key points.
Eleanor: Reflecting on your career, what accomplishment are you most proud of?
Karel: I'm most proud of helping to make design, research, and design thinking pervasive in all business units of the company and establishing UX Research as a distinct discipline, creating a strong cross-company team of researchers, and optimizing the impact that UX Research has on our products. I'm also proud of the work my team and I did to make the IBM Thinkpad number one in customer satisfaction, the work we did in making WebSphere and DB2 industry leading, the early AI work we did on Watson Oncology Advisor, and the work we did with business consulting, technology consulting, and sales that led to impressive business outcomes and significant success for IBM.
Eleanor: What will you miss the most about your job?
Karel: All of you, honestly, the designers, researchers, VPs, etc. You are IBM and you're my friends and colleagues. I will miss you dearly, especially the staff I worked with the most closely. Retiring from IBM is really bittersweet. On the one hand I won't be able to enjoy working with you but I'm also so looking forward to all the things that I'll now have the time to do.
It's like what my friend Don Norman said when I posted my plans to retire on LinkedIn. "Now the news of your retirement is public. And you probably think you will have more time for ...? Nope, you won't. You will simply add to the number of things you are already doing and pretty soon you will be just as busy. The difference, however, is that then, everything you will be doing will be things you want to do, things you care about. And that makes a huge difference. This is not to say that IBM was the problem. It is simply that when you work for a company, or for someone else, there are many things you have to do, that are good for the company, but not necessarily what you like to or wish to do. Now you have more control over your life, so life will be different.”
Eleanor: Who has been the biggest influence on your career and why?
Karel: A lot of people have had a big influence on my career but I'd say that Phil Gilbert had the greatest. He trusted me implicitly and empowered me to do what I thought was the right thing to do for the design program and for the company. He respected my work-life balance and only texted me on a weekend once when Ginie our CEO wanted something urgently. We spoke more as colleagues and he never gave me direct coaching but he modelled attributes like audacity, strong opinions loosely held, knowing how to sell a product or an idea, prioritizing, etc. Go to my website, karelvredenburg.com and read my tribute to Phil for more details.
Don Norman has more recently been a big influence, modelling productive and fulfilling retirement. He has retired five times, still writes great books, speaks at industry conferences, co-led the Future of Design Education with me, and continues to have an impact on the world.
I’m also very appreciative of the support my boss Justin Youngblood has provided for my slow exit from IBM and my Farewell Tour so that I could meet with my staff, colleagues, and friends in-person one last time and to provide my reflections and lessons for a successful and fulfilling career and life.
Eleanor: How has Design at IBM evolved over the period of your career?
Karel: We had 230 designers and researchers across all of IBM when I led the organization before Phil did. We had one Design Director, me. We now have 3,000 designers and researchers and many, many design executives including VPs.
Outside of IBM some 15-20 years ago, I would run workshops at professional conferences and ask, “show of hands, how many of you are the only designer in your company?” and about 80-90% of the audience hands would go up. That wouldn’t be the case today with the large teams of designers at most companies. Although somewhat delayed, the same is now true of UX researchers too. We’ve come a long way.
However, the growth of design and research staff has slowed in most companies and for some even drastically reduced. Over my career, I’ve observed that things like this are cyclical and I fully expect design and research to grow again in the future. However, that growth has to be based on the demonstrated proven value-add of design and research.
As a result, many companies are now more rigorous in what they have designers and researchers work on, how they work with other disciplines, and tracking their impact. I think that this trend is a good thing for design and research. It will not only drive growth again of staffing levels but it will also make our disciplines more effective, and in turn, companies more successful too.
Eleanor: What’s your favorite memory from the IBM Austin Studio?
Karel: The day we opened the studio and I was walking our CEO Ginie Rometty around it. She asked me whether designers simply put on a suit jacket to be more formal and still wear jeans and running shoes. I said "yup". And she said, "I like that". She also commented that all of IBM should look like and operate like the studio and of course that's now happened in many places in what they call Agile spaces.
I also loved coming to the Austin studio every few weeks and seeing that the studio was completely different and I would leave myself free time in my calendar to sit on one of the sofas which was in clear view of passers by. I would have the most wonderful conversations. The studio is slowly getting that culture back again after the studio was rebuilt after the flood and after studio members are coming back after the pandemic.
Eleanor: What are some lessons learned you’d you give to current IBMers to be successful in their careers?
Karel: I've shared my lessons in a hourlong talk that I give at studios on my Farewell Tour. Given that we don’t have an hour, I've just written them up on my blog. But, I’ll just touch on a couple. I learned to, and I think you should too, understand the company, how it works, what value it brings customers, how it makes money, who the competitors are, etc. and then focus on how you can improve your skills and experience to even better carry out your role in serving our clients. The other lesson is to future proof your career, write an aspirational resume, and do weekly career workouts.
Eleanor: What are you looking forward to the most in retirement?
Karel: My creating a better world UX/R for Good project, writing my second book, continuing my teaching and my podcast, doing keynote addresses at major conferences, and spending more time on my music, running, and spending time with family and friends. Plus, like Don pointed out, doing all of this according to my own schedules and most of it with the new computer that I bought and sitting beside my pool.
I'd like to thank Eleanor for conducting an excellent interview, Lauren Swanson for help in coming up with the questions, and Jessica Tremblay for MCing the event. You all three are absolutely awesome!