1. Revenge of the Nerds:
People, Culture & Innovation

2. Meghan (@irishgirl) Nancy (@nylons)
www.geekgirlsguide.com

3. Follow. Friend. Stalk.
Work: clockwork.net
Blog & Podcast: geekgirlsguide.com
Facebook: facebook.com/geekgirlsguide
Twitter: @geekgirlsguide

4. People, Culture
& Innovation

5. technology != innovation

6. User-centered Design
A philosophy in which the needs, wants,
and limitations of end users of an
interface or document are given
extensive attention at each stage of
the design process.
- Wikipedia

7. User-centered Culture
A philosophy in which the needs, wants,
and limitations of end users of a
product or service are given
extensive attention at every level of
the organization.
- Geek Girls Guide

8. Everyone’s a user.
Employees
Clients
Customers

9. The problem with users.

10. People-centered Culture
A philosophy in which the needs, wants,
and limitations of people are given
extensive attention at every level of
an organization.
- Geek Girls Guide

11. Users are people.
Employees
Clients
Customers

12. Corporate structures haven’t
changed (much) since the 1800s.

13. Distribution of power and information
is tightly controlled.

14. 2000 “Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.
In markets and among employees,
people are speaking to each other in
a powerful new way.
These conversations are enabling
new forms of social organization
and knowledge exchange to
emerge.”

15. 2010

16. “Companies that are
both deeply and widely
engaged in social media
surpass their peers in
both revenue and
profit performance by
a significant difference.”
http://www.engagementdb.com/

17. Employees
Clients
Customers

18. Happy people do good work.
It’s not about kegs and foosball.
Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharynmorrow/2618698358/

19. What makes us happy?
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663166/infographic-of-the-day-what-makes-a-company-good-to-work-for
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2011/word_cloud/index.html

20. A product-driven
economy is relatively
predictable.
A people-driven
economy is chaotic.

21. Attention, nerds:
We are uniquely equipped
to harness the chaos.
Except for one thing.

22. Typical Developer Typical User
Male Female
19 - 29 35 - 54
White White
College Educated High School Education
Doing job for 3 yrs or less
Sources:
http://aneventapart.com/alasurvey2009/
http://www.istrategylabs.com/2010/01/facebook-demographics-and-statistics-report-2010-145-growth-in-1-year/
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2009/tables.html

23. Mini-jackass 5
priceless.

24. technology != innovation

25. humanity = innovation

26. Emotional Intelligence
The ability to
identify, assess,
and manage
the emotions of
self, others, and
groups.

27. 1
Communicate openly.
Speak the other person’s language,
don’t expect them to speak yours.

28. Loud talking
doesn’t help.
One language is
not superior to
the other.

29. 2
Listen.
Don’t just listen to what people say,
try to understand what they mean.

30. 3
Treat the client as the expert.
You’re the idiot in the room.

31. 4
Push your boundaries.
Practice humility.

32. 5
Don’t allow
“us vs. them”
attitudes.

33. “The Internet will not fix
whatever happened in high
school.”
- Meg Fowler

34. Thank you.
If you hated us, tell us.
If you loved us, tell the Internet.