Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Creativity and Culture

Gold
Thursday, November 8, 2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Share the love for this talk
Creativity and Culture
Speakers: Miles Orkin
Link:

Summary

By focusing on key operational concerns like methodology, tooling, design systems, org models, and business rationale, DesignOps helps evolving design orgs succeed at their core purpose: Making the Experience. But there’s an important and sometimes overlooked flip-side to that operational coin: The Experience of Making. How do you keep teams inspired, engaged, and intrinsically motivated to deliver meaningful, resonant, innovative work? Miles Orkin, UX Vision and Culture lead for Google Cloud, will describe (and maybe even demonstrate) some key ingredients for cultivating culture.

Key Insights

  • Culture is an intangible but crucial aspect of workplace experience, blending process, authenticity, and emotional connection.

  • Miles reframes enterprise UX as design for creators, not consumers, helping teams feel ownership and pride.

  • Fun and entertainment at work engage teams and create a more vibrant culture, even for introverts.

  • Authenticity in leadership and work allows people to bring their full selves to the organization.

  • Emotional and psychological safety—acknowledging the full range of emotions—is fundamental for thriving teams.

  • Culture cannot be imposed through rigid frameworks; it must grow organically, like cultivating a garden.

  • Small acts of emotional openness at work can build a fabric of trust and compassion, deepening connections.

  • Miles links compassion, beyond empathy, as a key behavior for teams to truly support each other.

  • Language shapes culture; the semantic difference between 'consumer' and 'enterprise' can alienate enterprise workers.

  • Reflecting on emotional interactions using a 'post-mortem' approach fosters emotional intelligence and growth.

Notable Quotes

"Culture is like poetry: when it’s good, it works and you don’t quite know why; when it’s bad, it’s horrible."

"If you want kick-ass teams, you have to think about the experience of making and how people feel at work."

"Enterprise is not a noun or a verb; you don’t say, I’m an enter-priser. That needs to be changed."

"The real hook for enterprise design is that you design for creators, makers, doers, and thinkers."

"People want to feel like their leaders are authentic and have opportunities to be their authentic selves."

"Only the pavement can teach you how to skate. You can’t just explain authenticity; people have to feel it."

"If you can’t feel pain, you can’t feel joy; if you can’t feel sorrow, you can’t feel delight."

"You can’t separate emotion from work; telling people not to get feelings involved is like saying don’t use your left leg."

"Culture is messy and a big mess, and you have to work at it with intentionality but not heavy processes."

"Ask yourself: are we having fun? Are we being authentic? Are we honoring our emotions? Those are the key questions."

Ask the Rosenbot
Dr. Jamika D. Burge
The Future of Research: Bridging the Gaps
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Uday Gajendar
Day 2 Welcome
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Sarah Williams
Verizon_A Framework for CX Transformation
2024 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Natalie Dunbar
DesignOps and Content Strategy: Envisioning the Future Together
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Matt Stone
Scaling Empathy, A Case Study in Change Management
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Bob Baxley
Leading with Design Operations Past and Present
2019 • DesignOps Community
Emily Lessard
RFPs Without Tears: Writing Inclusive RFPS that Don't Scare Away Talent
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Caroline Vize
The State of UX: Five Lessons from 2021 to Accelerate Digital Experience in 2022
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Anil Dash
Designing with power in the age of AI
2026 • Designing with AI 2026
Conference
John Calhoun
Meters, Miles, and Madness: New Frameworks to Measure the (Elusive) Value of DesignOps
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Alla Weinberg
Healing Toxic Stress
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Bryce Benton
[Demo] AI-powered UX enhancement: Aligning GitHub documentation with USWDS at Austin Public Library
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Indi Young
Paying Better Attention to the Problem with Indi Young
2019 • Advancing Research Community
Dave Hoffer
UX Job Search AMA #2 with Joanne Weaver and Dave Hoffer
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Patrick Boehler
Fishing for Real Needs: Reimagining Journalism Needs with AI
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Melinda Belcher
Insider preview of Enterprise Experience 2020
2020 • Enterprise Community

More Videos

Mariesa Lenz

"Bees measure success not by how fast they work but by how well they prepare."

Mariesa Lenz

What Beekeeping Taught me about Product Teams

October 29, 2025

Jorge Arango

"Hypertext notes coexist on the same level and link to each other arbitrarily, creating emergent structures."

Jorge Arango

Exploding the Notebook: How to Unlock the Power of Linked Notes (2nd of 3 seminars)

April 19, 2024

Peter Van Dijck

"You can’t just be a designer adapting UX workflows assuming everybody else’s workflow stays the same; everything is changing with AI."

Peter Van Dijck

Hands on AI #3: Claude Code for UX people

October 22, 2025

Ovetta Sampson

"The more that you engage with AI technology, the better confidence you will have in designing with it."

Ovetta Sampson

Managing the Human Engagement Risks of AI

June 10, 2025

B. Pagels-Minor

"Emails are terrible mediums when you’re trying to have human conversations about complex cultural issues."

B. Pagels-Minor

Breaking the Tension: The Power of Enabling Your Employees to Show Up Authentically

June 10, 2022

Amy Bucher

"There was a founder who said our job was to coach people to not need us anymore, which is the kind of mindset I wish was more common."

Amy Bucher

Harnessing behavioral science to uncover deeper truths

March 12, 2025

Matt Bernius

"If you work with humans, you work with trauma. Assume everybody carries some form of vulnerability."

Matt Bernius Sarah Fathallah Hera Hussain Jessica Zéroual-Kara

Trauma-informed Research: A Panel Discussion

October 7, 2021

Sam Proulx

"Convenience includes accepting multiple payment providers like Apple Pay or PayPal, which can mean the difference between completing and abandoning a purchase."

Sam Proulx

Online Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience

November 29, 2023

Kritika Sony

"Don’t type with AI, talk to it like a brilliant colleague who knows nothing about your project yet—give it everything."

Kritika Sony

Moving AI offscreen: Exploring failures, constraints, and recovery in physical game design

June 10, 2026