Adam Polansky
Adam Polansky is not a new face in the UX Community having been a regular fixture at events and meet-ups around the world for a long time. Even if you never heard of him, you won’t have to look far for someone who does and not because he’s published a seminal book about UX (he hasn’t) or because of a continuous presence on social media but because of his network.
His career has taken him from consulting for companies like the first real-time hotel booking site to Texas Instruments. He was the UX Director at Travelocity leading projects both public-facing and administrative projects. Today he is a Principal with Bottle Rocket, the first corporate app designer partnered with Apple and now setting the standard across Experience Design as part Ogilvy Experience.
Along the way, he’s done some modest publishing, taught UX graduate courses at Kent State, participated in the management and organization of several conferences, and for the last 10 years, working with speakers, especially new voices, preparing them and helping them get to the microphone themselves.
For more, keep up with Adam on Twitter as @AdamtheIA.
Presentations
UX Camp Summer 2021
The Long Game: A New Mindset for UX Networking
“The long game is built on relationships.” — Russell Nohelty
There is strength in community. The careers within UX all require a degree of empathy which requires patience and care. It’s for this reason, a strong personal network doesn’t take shape overnight. It’s a long game and in 2021, there are new dynamics to consider both where you work and across the industry internationally.
During this visit, you’ll learn some different ways to think about networking. NOT in terms of what you’ll get from it but instead, what you put into it Find out what deliberate presence, kindness, and generosity as a foundation for building relationships will do what you can’t by collecting connections in LinkedIn.
This session won’t all be about theory or philosophy either. We’ll cover very specific do’s and don’ts and insights unique to UX that will more closely align you with others in the field. Whether you’re fresh out of school, transitioning-in from a different career, or you just want to extend yourself into the broader UX community, you will take away something you can use tomorrow to build a strong and fruitful matrix of interrelated people that will endure for decades… if you look after it.
The short game may earn some reward. The long game, if you play it well, is its own reward and it won’t be what you think.
…it’ll be even better.
