Sunday, 2:00pm, Continental Ballroom
We devote our careers to advocating for our users, but who’s advocating for us?
No one is going to carry you through your career. If you want to make a major impact in this field, you’re going to have to work at getting recognized. And moreover, your name has to be synonymous with quality.
In this session I will help timid and unassertive practitioners come out of their shells and become leaders in the user experience community. The advice I have to impart is based on my own experience taking control of my career and developing an authentic and positive reputation. I will talk about the value of starting a personal blog, actively using Twitter and LinkedIn to build and maintain a network, staying up-to-date with trends and standards, how to get the most out of conferences, and ultimately how to gain confidence in your skills and successes.
INSTRUCTOR
Whitney Hess
Whitney Hess is a user experience design consultant based in New York City. She helps make stuff easy and pleasurable to use.
Prior to going independent, Whitney was on the design team at Liquidnet, an international financial software company that runs the leading electronic marketplace for wholesale stock-trading. Previously, she was an interaction designer at two marketing agencies, Digitas and Tribal DDB, where her clients included American Express, The New York Times, Allstate, Claritin, Tropicana, and EarthLink. Most notably, she helped to conceive, design, and test an innovative card search tool for American Express, and is named as a co-inventor on its U.S. patent.
Whitney is a strategic partner with Happy Cog and user experience consultant for boxee, among other startups and major corporations. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing and a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University. She writes about technology and customer experience on her blog, Pleasure and Pain <http://whitneyhess.com/blog/>.