As 2023 comes to a close and 2024 has almost loaded, I’d like to reflect on the year.

Many people have a tradition of sending letters or emails outlining what they and their family accomplished. I departed from that tradition last year and instead focussed a blog post on the people who made a significant difference in my life. I’d like to do that again this year focusing on what we achieved together.

I’m so fortunate to work with so many amazing people in my job at IBM and also in my various other interest areas, including the Future of Design Education, McMaster University, and the vegan non-profit VegTO.

I continue to consider myself fortunate to have the honor of working with people I truly enjoy spending time with. I’ve always felt that we spend so much of our lives at work that we should spend that time with people we choose to work with both because they have the best skills and experience but also because they’re amazing people in their own right. It’s a benefit of being a senior executive that I often get to choose and I have chosen. Of course, whether they want to continue to work for (I prefer with) me is their choice. And I’m truly grateful that they do continue to want to work with me.

Leading

I continue to be deeply grateful to Lauren Swanson for our almost daily working together on everything from key strategic projects to blog posts to being a sounding board for each others’ ideas. Lauren’s work on our Experience Zone booth at IBM’s inaugural TechXchange Conference in Las Vegas was particularly noteworthy.

I was also fortunate to be able to have Renee Albert, who Lauren and I worked with in our previous organization, join us again. And Renee hit the ground running handling our events and now leading our UX Research Transformation team. Ellen Kolstø and her team delivered some amazing UXR education for PMs and Carlos Rosemberg delivered our first Generative AI tool, AskUXR.

AskUXR Generative AI Tool built on watsonx

Gord Davison’s team delivered our external website for the User Engagement Hub, used for recruiting users for our studies and enhanced our User Insights Hub too which is used for sharing the insights from our research.

Last but of course not least, I deeply appreciated the awesome research work of my researchers from across the company and the leaders like John Bailey and the other managers who work with them.

Co-Leading

I truly appreciate the Vice Presidents of Design I have the honor of working with — Ana Manrique, Sandra Tipton, Craig Moser, and Haidy Francis (plus Joan Haggarty, my Research DP who’s also in the pic with us; and Joni Saylor and Charlie Hill who aren’t in the pic). I also loved working with Katrina Alcorn earlier in the year and now with Justin Youngblood. Also in the pic are the members of my Toronto design studio who I also get to hang out with in my home studio.

Meeting

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting more of the researchers around IBM, including Red Hat, during my visits to our Dublin, Ireland studio (with Katrina Alcorn), Raleigh studio and Red Hat offices (with Lauren Swanson and Renee Albert), and our Austin studio.

Teaching

I continue to enjoy teaching my EMBA, Directors College, National Health Fellows programs typically on Saturdays both in person and remotely. Given the talent and experience of these students, I learn as much from them as they do from me. Thanks Michael Hartmann for our continued collaboration on this.

Sharing

I’m so fortunate to be asked to share my perspectives, insights, and experience at industry conferences. I love the interactions I’ve had this year especially at the Blend Conference in Stratford, the Change Leaders Conference in Toronto and the Co-Lab Conference in Chicago. The latter involved working with other leaders of UX research organizations at other companies. Thanks Markus Grupp, Yvonne Ruke Akpoveta, and Michael Winnick for inviting me.

Collaborating

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with Don Norman and Meredith Davis on the Future of Design Education project that Don and I founded some four years ago. We worked with a Steering Committee of leaders in design education and practice. Thanks largely to the masterful work of Meredith Davis, we published the final curricular guidance as a special issue of the She Ji Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation this year. Thanks Don and Meredith, plus everyone else who was involved in this amazing project!

Inspiring

The VegTO vegan non-profit that I’m VP Board of Directors for had an awesome year having brought back our VegTO Fest held in a new location in the heart of Toronto with more than 100 vendors and 35K visitors. Thanks Kimberly D’Oliveira, Nital Jethalal, and the rest of my fellow board members.

Recharging

Last but certainly not least is my family. I’m so grateful for each and every one of my family members and the fact that they still love having all of us get together for vacations. They’re all around me here in a lake house on Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island as I write this blog post. Thanks Elliot, Val, Emma, Ares, Rowan, Xeena, Noah, Erin, and Bambi.

While I’m saddened by the horrible state of the world and wish it wasn’t so but I’m so appreciative of the wonderful people I get to hang out with in my world. Thanks to all of you!