Innovative Like Me: Best Practices for Writing Unbiased Job Ads

Below is a post @anthrolens blogger @JennLong3 wrote on LinkedIn. In this post, I write about diversity and bias in Canadian job ads.

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While drinking coffee this morning, I came across a job ad for an internship at a Toronto-based subsidiary of a FP500 Corporation.

In addition to one’s resume, cover letter, and copy of transcripts, the employer asked for:

1. An overview of projects the applicant had worked on in the past - be they work or school-related or a personal project;
2. Two in-depth case studies about any of these projects which highlight the process, insights or design principles, the output generated, challenged encountered; and,
3. A list of the top three books or articles with the biggest influence on their practice and a description of why they’re important to the applicant.

For such a tall order, the employer explained their wishes:

They wanted to understand ‘how the applicant worked’ because ‘the documentation process was just as important to the final product’. They also requested that applicants provide specific details about their methods and frameworks because they were interested in understanding the why and the how of their process.

As a Communications instructor for the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology – I saw myself mic drop and walk away from this glorious display of the importance of communication in technical fields. This sophisticated call for applicants helped prove the importance of many topics covered in my class including: project documentation, reading widely in one’s field, the importance of discipline-specific vocabulary, putting theory into practice, self-reflection during project work, tailoring documents to specific audiences…I could go on.

In the end however, the ad stated ‘feel free to use whatever format or length…’ to showcase the applicants work. That’s where I stopped.

I teach my students that there are prescribed methods of communication in Canadian workplaces; that is, whether they know it or not, workplace correspondence and documentation follows long-standing formats of technical and professional communication. To do otherwise slows down progress, creates confusion, and has the potential to ruin work relationships. In class, we learn about direct and indirect writing styles, best practices of professional communication, and more. I tell my students that in following these best practices, they will get more done and make a better career for themselves.

The brief overview request aside, how should we teach students to write case studies and describe their favorite book without returning to the genre of essay writing or book reports that they left behind in primary or secondary school? Do the employers think their applicants will have sufficient expertise to write a business case study? If so, what are the implications of sharing such intellectual property during a job search process?

Perhaps this open-ended request is a symptom of the creative industry, that is, that they want to see what applicants can come up with; yet, there remain standards for communication in all workplaces that the intern will have to follow. Will they end up with a creative soul who can't interact professionally with a client? In a more practical sense, do they want to read thousands of book reports? (Obvious answer: No, you don't) As someone who has faced stacks of essays and literature reviews, it was those well organized, efficiently written (length requirements be damned) submissions which caught my eye and won out.

As a social science scholar teaching in STEM, I’m often struck by the ‘isms’ of Canadian workplace culture that bubble to the surface in everyday practice. In this case, I imagine that such a job ad would locate an applicant whose creative expression matched the recruiter's and whose well-loved book list matched their own. It begs the question: Is this the best way to source an applicant? In a word, no. Innovation – a word sprinkled throughout the ad – does not come from sycophantic following but productive conflict, i.e. difference in thought, in life experience, in world view. Written as such, this ad reflects the implicit bias found in the Canadian hiring process (see Ottawa Citizen, the Star) where employers hire similar and like-minded employees - and so the inequitable hiring and promotion cycle continues.

If you want an applicant who knows about the design process – why not have a quiz to test their individual knowledge? If you want to see creativity in practice, why not have a second stage where culled applicants respond to a past company project filled with real world issues. This would allow them to respond to situations from the brainstorming to production phase. Along the way, ask them to reflect on why they made the decisions they did, and how they would deploy their methods. Otherwise, include a template of a case study to level the playing field (and limit the page count). If you want different thinking, why limit creative knowledge to books and articles – a genre biased toward a particular readership? Instead, suggest potential interns submit a photo and write 250 words as to how this photo inspires their perspective on innovation or design practice.

In the end, I advocate the same thing to employers as I do to my students. Write reflectively, in a manner that considers the audience’s needs and which follows best practices of workplace communication. To do less, creates unproductive communication and has the potential to stymie innovative work processes.

What do Cultural Anthropologists do? "Decode" Human Behaviour

According to a recent article (August 3, 2017) in the Financial Post, Martin Birt discusses the work of Johanna Faigelman, CEO and founding partner of Human Branding.

In answer to a few questions including how deep is your understanding of the needs and behaviours of your customers or employees? Faigelman responds that traditional market analysis is too superficial. It relies on 'consumers as experts' and simply reports on what 'consumers know they know.' This is a risky approach given the scope and potential exposure of many business investments.

In speaking of how to launch a new product successfully or 'innovate', Faigelman identifies three importance aspects, that is, understanding (1) human-centric insights, (2) business needs and realities, and (3) socio-cultural factors. To accomplish this, a business — with appropriate support — should do a deep dive into societal trends, gain an understanding of unmet human needs, and the dynamics of the business category. Layered onto this complexity are cultural and generational differences.

Birt goes on to write that [e]very business is under pressure to grow and to anticipate market and competing trends. Even before a new product is developed, for example, anthropological research and insight can help a business decode socio-cultural factors that set the context for what people are saying … and what they are not saying. This can help a business think in a way that is future forward. They’ll be able to identify latent (and therefore unmet) needs, define and harness unarticulated emotions and predict real life behaviour.

It's important to acknowledge how the write-up by a non-anthropologist (although this is not confirmed), the editing process, or the need to grab views might influence how the practice of anthropology is worded. However, describing anthropological methods as a means to define and harness unarticulated emotions and predict real life behaviour  would likely be seen as problematic. Earlier in the piece, Birt describes Faigelman's methods as involving “naturalistic unobtrusive observation” (being the fly on the wall), in-depth respondent-driven interviewing, and participation. 

This flies in the face of postmodern critiques of the method, that is:

1. What role does the ethnographer play as an 'expert' in describing the culture (behaviours? thoughts and perceptions?) of others?
2. Where does the role of the ethnographer (as a research tool) come into play in - in this case - market research?

Here on Anthro Everywhere!, we've written about the packaging of anthropological knowledge (see quick links) and asked a number of questions including: What language or terminology will reach which audiences? Why?

We also made a note in our first post about packing anthropological knowledge...a caveat

*Note, the authors of this article use somewhat problematic language as 'eavesdropping' which may spur an ethical conversation among anthropologists but the focus of this post is about the nature in which the work of anthropologists is described by non-anthropologists (who may or may not have anthropological training).

Are anthropologists everywhere okay with having their method described as:

1. Eavesdropping
2. Unobtrusive observer (from fly-on-the-wall)
3. The ability to predict behaviour

Let us know what you think on twitter @anthrolens

Quick Links:

• Why you should use cultural anthropology as a business tool, Martin Birt, Financial Post (August 3, 2017)
• Anthropologists visualizing data: The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge Part Three, Anthro Everywhere! (Aug 03 2017)
• The Packaging Anthropological Knowledge Part Two, Anthro Everywhere! (July 31 2017)
• The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge and Its Merits According to Market Research Experts. Anthro Everywhere! (June 29 2017)

The Packaging Anthropological Knowledge Part Two

As an anthropologist teaching technical communications, I often reflect on the merits of active, concise, and accessible communication styles that I didn't learn while studying my undergraduate or graduate degrees.

If I were to summarize how I would change my anthropological writing on account of teaching technical writing, I would advocate for the following three rules:

1. Write in an active voice. Always. 
2. Connect all the dots. Give readers a sense for what they're going to read, write it, then summarize it for them. It's not a mystery novel. Descriptive prose has a place of course (C. Geertz need not roll over in his grave) - perhaps in ethnographic vignettes or when describing initial contexts or landscapes.
3. Write with information/knowledge dissemination in mind. Accessible writing will make your ideas spread further.

Academia Obscura recently (Jul 28 2017) posted about a resource for academics, Doodling for Academics by Julie Schumacher. The publisher's website writes that the resources is a bitingly funny distraction designed to help you survive life in higher education without losing your mind. Sardonic yet shrewdly insightful, Doodling for Academics offers the perfect cognitive relief for the thousands of faculty and grad students whose mentors and loved ones failed to steer them toward more reasonable or lucrative field.

Below are two sample doodles from the book. You can access a sampler of the book here.

Doodle from Julie Schumacher via Academia Obscura

Doodle from Julie Schumacher via Academia Obscura

While this book is supposed to be a fun mental release from the hierarchies and pseudo-political power plays, the peculiar colleagues, the over-parented students, the stacks of essays that need to be graded ASAP - I also see these doodles as examples of repackaging knowledge in new and accessible ways. 

While these doodles may be the starting point for larger discussions (as the medium would limit the capacity to elaborate on complex ideas), I can think of a place for such doodles in ethnographic texts perhaps as a means to personalize readers' experiences of the work as a colouring book (the original intention of Schumacher's book). 

One could also use such doodles and the act of colouring as a methodology. For example, I'm reminded of Diane Farmer, Jeanette Cepin, and Gabrielle Breton-Carbonneau's article in the Journal of Social Science Education which can be found here Students’ Pathways Across Local, National and Supra-National Borders: Representations of a Globalized World in a Francophone Minority School in Ontario, Canada

Any time that I see Anthropologists and Scientists try to disseminate their work in new and creative ways, I can see its role as publicly engaged intellectuals.

Quick Links:

• Students’ Pathways Across Local, National and Supra-National Borders: Representations of a Globalized World in a Francophone Minority School in Ontario, Canada Diane Farmer, Jeanette Cepin, and Gabrielle Breton-Carbonneau (3-2015 JSSE)
• Doodling for Academics: A colouring and activity book. Julie Schumacher (2017)
• Doodling for Academics - A sampler. Julie Schumacher (2017)
• Doodling for Academics. Academia Obscura (July 28, 2017)
• The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge and Its Merits According to Market Research Experts. Anthro Everywhere! (June 29 2017)

Anthropologists everywhere! Alternative Anthro Careers

There have been quite a few posts on this blog where we discuss not-so-run-of-the-mill jobs that anthropologists find themselves in (click on our label 'what can anthro do?', our page on Applying an anthropological perspective outside of university, and see quick links below). This is also the case for Christine Moellenberndt who is an Anthropologist & Community Manager at Reddit.

In their post entitled Argonauts of the Internet: Anthropology and Community Management Mx. Moellenberndt describes what the discipline of anthropology is 'good' at doing...and (drum roll) it turns out to be quite a lot.

Mx. Moellenberndt works in a field that is populated largely by those with marketing and business backgrounds and yet, the author finds that their anthropological training sets them up to ask questions that drive the very work that they do: While all of those fields can provide the bulk of the skills needed to be good community managers, it is anthropology that holds a key in tying all of these threads together for effective community management.

Mx. Moellenberndt argues that While this may not be “fieldwork” in the traditional sense of going into a foreign culture and living in it for long periods of time, it is still fieldwork and the work that comes out of it can be ethnography (basically, this is kind of the end result of fieldwork; the write-up of what was observed and concluded). Without good, grounded ideas as to who your community is, what they want, and how they function, you can’t be an effective community manager.

Read more about Mx. Moellenberndt's work at Reddit and the role of anthropology from our quick links.

Quick Links:

• Applying an anthropological perspective in health Anthro Everywhere! (April 27 2017) 
• #AltAc Anthropology Careers - The draw of experiential design firms Anthro Everywhere! (June 05 2017) 
• Anthropology in a Tag Line Anthro Everywhere! (July 20 2017) 
• Argonauts of the Internet: Anthropology and Community Management, Christine Moellenberndt Reddit Blog (May 16 2017) 
• To PhD or not to PhD... Anthro Everywhere! (July 13 2017) 
• Undergrad & MAs career paths Anthro Everywhere! (May 22 2017)
• Our page featuring many interesting career paths anthropologists are pursuing: Applying an anthropological perspective outside of university

The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge and Its Merits According to Market Research Experts

In a Harvard Business Review article To Get More Out of Social Media, Think Like an Anthropologist authors Susan Fournier, John Quelch, and Bob Rietveld (August 16, 2016) advocate that marketing managers must begin 'social listening'

There is something marketing managers seem to forget about the internet: it was made for people, not for companies and brands. As such, it offers managers a source of insight they never had — social listening. The authors go on to argue that social listening competency will be critical to competitive advantage in the digital age*.

In continuation of our posts about social media these past two weeks, it is interesting to explore the growing business of anthropological techniques in market research. As discussed in a past post from Anthro Everywhere! anthropologists are playing a bigger role in this applied market which is a growing alternative career for anthropology graduates (see for example, #AltAc Anthropology Careers - The draw of experiential design firms).

Yet, how do non-anthropologists describe the anthropological approach and its merits?

The authors of To Get More Out of Social Media, Think Like an Anthropologist article argue that

Social media data is inherently qualitative and while it can and should be quantified for manageability, at some stage in the analysis it must be treated and represented as qualitative. In order to “appreciate the qualitative” and extract meaning from it, managers have to think like anthropologists and jettison many of the scientific principles that underlie traditional hard science research.

In this article, the authors ask those interested in analyzing public posts across various social media platforms as market research in order to critically reflect on 'issues' related to social media research (but qualitative research in general). These issues include:

1. Adequate sample size 
2. Finding so-called representative samples 

In response, Fournier, Quelch, and Rietveld argue that: "social listening in its purest form does not presuppose anything and this unsolicited quality creates an opportunity to answer questions that managers do not even know they should ask." They go on to advocate that "managers (need to) drill into the data to ask questions, not confirm or reject hypotheses." And by "moving beyond the science of data management to the art of interpretation," managers looking for consumer insights need to "embrace the context offered in qualitative commentaries."

The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge is something blogger Jennifer Long is increasingly interested in. Questions for further study include: 

1. Who has the 'right' to speak about (with authority?) on the methods and practices of anthropologists? 
2. How can anthropologists 'package' our knowledge in consumable and accessible ways to have the most impact? 
3. What language or terminology will reach which audiences? Why?  

Your comments, as always, are welcomed on twitter @anthrolens or @JennLong3

*Note, the authors of this article use somewhat problematic language as 'eavesdropping' which may spur an ethical conversation among anthropologists but the focus of this post is about the nature in which the work of anthropologists is described by non-anthropologists (who may or may not have anthropological training).

Quick Links:

• Anthro Everywhere! #AltAc Anthropology Careers - The draw of experiential design firms (June 5, 2017)
• Susan Fournier, John Quelch, and Bob Rietveld To Get More Out of Social Media, Think Like an Anthropologist (August 16, 2016)

Opinion on an Op-Ed: Academic Underperformers Must be Called Out by Gerald Walton

A very interesting article came out in University Affairs for their February (2017) issue - An opinion piece which will surely provoke opinions. In it, Walton advocates for withholding annual raises, professional development allotments, and sabbatical from those faculty members who 'chronically under-perform'. In reading this opinion piece, one can see the fine line that Walton walks as he writes about the plausible negative responses to his comments throughout. Yet, it's not only this balanced approach which makes his argument convincing, in the opinion of this (JL) author, but also his attempt to describe what that measured response might look like (the so-called 'calling out', that is, rebuking, reprimanding, reaction by the faculty on under-performers). In his short piece he worries about the (mis)use of such evaluations and actions by so-called 'fiscal conservatives' on campus and has misgivings about incorporating neoliberal policies and practices into university business; however, to do nothing, writes Walton, is even worse.

This description of 'X issue' which will 'get worse' 'through 'inaction' seems to be a rather ubiquitous refrain spoken around the world in response to political leaders, rising global temperatures, and disasters around the world. Walton's article is one of the few I've read on this topic and its place in the most recent issue of University Affairs perhaps signals the first, baby step, toward action.

• Academic underperformers must be called out (2017, University Affairs)

Monitoring and Assessing Diversity Initiatives

At times throughout my (short) career as an anthropologist, I've struggled with answering the question of how would an anthropological stance/investigation/insight influence the bottom line?

This struggle, in my opinion, comes from the fact that what anthropologists (and other social scientists and researchers and practitioners of uneasily-definable issues...if that's a word) investigate can be difficult to define narrowly (or in a manner that suits a given succinct category) because of our holistic perspective and the nature of the material and our research questions themselves.

How, for example, can you quantify the usefulness of a support system or an absolute measure of one's feeling of belonging on campus?

In a recent article entitled Auditing Diversity, the author writes about the struggle to demonstrate effectiveness of diversity programs initiated in reaction to the growing discontent to considerations of "race" and race-relations on university and college campuses. The author writes about the reaction to a recent audit of Davenport University's last six years of diversity initiatives. Regarding the audit process itself, Richard J. Pappas, Davenport’s president, stated the following about the audit:

They’re not cheap, and it can be difficult for colleges to tell what, exactly, they’re getting for the money. Davenport’s audit took just over six months and cost $46,000, [..., and while] the findings weren’t earth-shattering, the assessment forced officials to be introspective about their commitment to diversity and to pinpoint which efforts to tackle first. 

In a recent workshop on leadership, I learned about the importance of monitoring and assessing 'how much one was able to move the dial' is imperative in order to gain traction, funding, and buy-in. When discussing the impact and importance of anthropological pursuits on the bottom line (a question that anthropologists must think more deeply about as we find work increasingly out/side of academic environments) we as anthropologists must learn how to articulate our findings an a consumable manner and perhaps, develop more tangible methods in which to measure the impact of our services (however imperfect this pursuit might be).

A New Home for Ethnography: The Use and Legacy of Ethnography by Anthropologists and Non-Anthropologists

Rhiannon and I are currently completing an article that looks at ethnography at this moment in time. One thread in this discussion is the way in which ethnography is used by non-anthropologists or anthropologists working outside academia.

One of my recent favorites has been Dr. Linda Hill's work on Creativity and Management.

In Dr. Hill's talk about How to Manage for Collective Creativity, she states:
I'm an ethnographer. I use the methods of anthropology to understand the questions in which I'm interested. So along with three co-conspirators, I spent nearly a decade observing up close and personal exceptional leaders of innovation. We studied 16 men and women, located in seven countries across the globe, working in 12 different industries. In total, we spent hundreds of hours on the ground, on-site, watching these leaders in action. We ended up with pages and pages and pages of field notes that we analyzed and looked for patterns in what our leaders did. The bottom line? If we want to build organizations that can innovate time and again, we must unlearn our conventional notions of leadership.

By looking at the various ways ethnographic methods are used by anthropological practitioners and non-anthropologists alike, it is instructive to revisit the question of what defines 'ethnographic methods' apart from other qualitative and quantitative research methods?

We'll check back in to this question once our article is closer to its release date.

Local food, global labour

The globalized movement of things, money, ideas, images and people has become more frequent and normal than any time in history. This is especially the case for those of us in North America, where what we eat has travelled to our grocery stores from across the world. This concern for where our food comes from has prompted many people to "eat local" and champion the idea of farm-to-table meals.

But, something that we usually don't consider about our "100-mile diets" is the labour of growing and harvesting these local foods. The reality often is that the people who work on the farms and in factories where our food is processed are migrant labourers. And, as we have seen in the Canadian case, even though many of these workers arrive through legal channels, they often lack the kinds of labour and human rights we expect in Canada.

In this piece from CBC Radio, you can hear a discussion about the problems with Canadian labour programs like the temporary and seasonal farm worker programs. In this discussion, social justice activist Chris Ramsaroop (Justice for Migrant Workers) discusses how these programs are actually part of broader processes of systemic racism, and global economic inequalities between the Global North and Global South.

Quick links and further reading:

• Local food lovers, pay attention to migrant worker rights (CBC Radio, 2016) - running time: 11.08 minutes.
• Desmond Cole writes about The shame of our disposable workers (Toronto Star, 2016), with reference to Jamaican farm worker Sheldon McKenzie who died in September 2015 due to a workplace injury after participating in circular labour migration for the past 13 years.
• The Metcalf Foundation's report Made in Canada: How the Law Constructs Migrant Workers’ Insecurity (2012) provides a comprehensive overview of migrant labour in Canada

What is "sensemaking"? Anthropology in marketing

Quantitative research -- which has long been the market research standard -- can provide insights into broad patterns and customer metrics. While this 'big data' can tell a company a lot about their customers' habits and needs, there are some questions that this approach simply cannot answer. This is where "sensemaking" comes in.

In short, "sensemaking" is how anthropologists approach problem-solving. Applying the kinds of qualitative methods and critically culturally-relative perspective that anthropologists are trained to these questions provides insights into the everyday life experiences and meanings that people use to understand their worlds.

In "An Anthropologist Walks into a Bar…" (Harvard Business Review, 2014) Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel B. Rasmussen explain how "sensemaking," or approaching a problem from an anthropological perspective, works and can provide companies with market-research solutions. "A growing number of organizations globally have begun to apply sense­making, having recognized that it can help solve some of the toughest business problems, such as finding new growth, winning in new markets, and capitalizing on cultural change." The authors recount how "sensemaking" solved key marketing problems for a major European brewing company, Lego Group, and Coloplast (a Danish medical technology firm). Coloplast found that despite their sophisicated R&D, their "biggest division, the ostomy division, was stagnating, even though the company was investing heavily in innovation and sales." This is when Coloplast decided to take a different approach.

Coloplast recast the question “How do we capture new sources of growth?” as “What is the experience of living with ostomy?” Its managers knew a lot about customer metrics—who bought how much of which products when, and so forth. But they realized they knew less about their customers’ worlds. What was it like to be an ostomy patient? How did it affect your self-image? Your social life? What was a good day, or a bad day?

In a classroom, this article might be useful for talking about the differences between qualitative and quantitative research, for illustrating cultural relativism in action, or for talking about the kinds of things that an anthropological perspective can bring to a workplace.

Does your Business need an Anthropologist? Why yes I believe it does...

Lisa Earle McLeod, Creator of Noble Purpose in business concept, addressed the question, "Does your Business need an Anthropologist?" in her post in HuffPo today. 

McLeod's post is a nice and easy introduction as to how anthropology can work for businesses, namely, at the juncture of where organizations and their business (of all kinds) meets up human beings. 

She notes:

Naming and sharing your story enables you to drive your culture and the behaviors of your team.

Humans are hard-wired to make meaning. Our stories tell us who were are, and what our existence means. If you want to create a successful organization, find your story and share it.

This accessible and short article is just the kind that you might share with a non-anthropologist today.

How Understanding Fans is Changing Television

Susan Kresnicka is a cultural anthropologist who works in the entertainment industry. (Yes, we can do that too!)

Working with Troika ("Hollywood’s leading integrated branding and marketing agency" according to Forbes) as a creative executive in television marketing, Kresnicka says her job is to "encourage our clients to focus less on trend-chasing and more on understanding the broader cultural forces." Like all anthropologists, she does this by bringing a sense of the 'bigger picture' to her work by looking at cultural forces at play -- that is, looking at who audiences or fans of a television show or sports event are, how they watch, and how and why they connect to it.

Understanding how entertainment content is valued by consumers can have "real implications for our businesses, from programming to marketing to corporate social responsibility." Kresnicka's work and the insights of her team into things like 'fandom' are increasingly important in businesses like entertainment, which are rapidly changing through things like online streaming and social media (see our post on Who makes the news?).

Links:

• Why Understanding Fans is the New Superpower (Variety, 2 April 2016)
• Cultural Anthropologist Susan Kresnicka Reveals How Her Core Passions Help Hollywood Thrive (Forbes, 20 January 2016)
• Examining Marketers' Challenges with an Anthropologist's Eye (Brief, 14 August 2014)
• Troika’s Susan Kresnicka: Entertaining Change Through Media Anthropology (Brief, 8 June 2015)
• Who makes the news? (Anthro Everywhere! 8 March 2016)

Using anthropology in design & business

What does it actually mean to use "Ethnography and anthropology in design" or in business?

Gillian MacDonald interviews two anthropologists for Ways We Work to find out. Nadine Hare is a Resident Anthropologist at Idea Couture and Rebecca Pardo is a Research Director at Normative.

Qualitative versus Quantitative Research - from a business perspective

What can qualitative research offer that quantitative can't? "How Not to Talk to Customers: The Secret to Meaningful Customer Relationships" (24 March 2010)

In this piece for the Harvard Business Review, Roger L. Martin (Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto) makes a compelling argument in favour of qualitative research, underscoring how even rigorous quantitative data is also subject to the biases many associate with qualitative research.

User experience, design, & business

Applied anthropologist Amy Santee (Anthropologizing.com  |  @amysantee) shared her AAA webinar about her work "Practicing Anthropology in User Experience, Design and Business" (14 January 2016). Santee has this to say about this talk (from her blog):

There are ample career opportunities for anthropologists in this field, but I’ve realized over the past couple years how obscure it is among academics and students within the discipline. My goal was to illustrate what this might look like based on my own career path and experiences.
   During the presentation, I talk about how I got into this line of work, how I think about applying anthropology to design in terms of perspective, approach, skills, tools, and project examples, and how I’m able to do meaningful work that aligns with my values. I provide an explanation of user experience and user-centered design and share what’s been most useful for transitioning from anthropology into this field from a professional development perspective. At the end, there is a 30-minute Q&A session.