Summary
For years, Ran Liu thought great work would speak for itself. It didn’t. In this Failure Friday chat, Ran shares the career-limiting mistake she made by keeping her head down, focusing only on craft, and failing to advocate for herself or make her work visible. We’ll talk about why visibility matters (especially in design), how to balance self-promotion without feeling gross, and what she's learned about influence the hard way.
More Videos
"Having a dedicated staff member created a point of contact for all things early childhood in the city government."
Sarah AuslanderIncremental Steps to Drive Radical Innovation in Policy Design
November 18, 2022
"Enterprise is sexy – that phrase helped me get at least one job."
Uday Gajendar Lada Gorlenko Dave Malouf Louis Rosenfeld Dan Willis10 Years of Enterprise UX: Reflecting on the community and the practice
June 18, 2025
"In engineering cultures, UX is sometimes seen as too vague or uncontrollable, so framing UX impact via metrics helps."
Susan WeinschenkEvaluating the Maturity of UX in Your Organization
January 15, 2020
"Mobile interaction with gestures and touch was revolutionary for accessibility."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
September 8, 2022
"Having a monthly newsletter gave people one place to go instead of having to check Slack or emails all the time."
Kara KaneCommunities of Practice for Civic Design
April 7, 2022
"Patient opportunism means most of the time having the current at your back and only occasionally angling directly against it to avoid burnout."
John CutlerOxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)
December 3, 2024
"When organizations have regime change, shifting high leverage points can cause catastrophic effects, sometimes destructive and unintended."
Erin Hoffman-JohnThis Game is Never Done: Design Leadership Techniques from the Video Game World
November 6, 2017
"If you say you won’t use AI, that’s even more reason to use it so you can debate the ethics intelligently."
Tom Armitage Carla Diana Kanene Ayo HolderDay 2 Panel: Looking ahead: Designing with AI in 2026
June 11, 2025
"You can’t drive learning like a project plan, but you can create conditions where learning becomes more likely."
Jen BriselliLearning Is The Engine: Designing & Adapting in a World We Can’t Predict
April 16, 2025
