Change is emotional. We keep forgetting that.

Change is emotional. We keep forgetting that.

Meet Brooke Sykes. Brooke's career started in academia before pivoting into policy research with the Ontario government, and then into tech at Mozilla in 2022, where she now manages a user research team. She came to us with change management on her mind, and we got into the often underrecognized emotional side of navigating change. Guest: Brooke Sykes, Sr. Manager, Firefox User Research @ Mozilla You can read the blog version of this episode on our Substack Dear Danielle and Dave deardanielleanddave.substack.com [http://deardanielleanddave.substack.com] If you have questions, comments or would like to be a guest on a future episode, get in touch with us at deardanielledave@gmail.com [deardanielledave@gmail.com] The music you hear are Blue Sea and In Good Hands from #Uppbeat.

On clear, concise communication with Laura Shaw

For our very first episode, we sit down with Laura Shaw, Director of Design Research at Xero, to talk about the skill that underpins everything else: communication. Laura's career path winds from ESL teaching in Japan to philosophy grad school to nonprofit comms to UX writing to research — and at every turn, the thread is the same: figuring out how to make things land. We dig into why the most brilliant work falls flat without the right framing, the most common mistake people make when presenting their work, why research outputs should be treated as products for their audience, and how AI is making workplace communication both clearer and murkier at the same time. Guest: Laura Shaw, Director of Design Research at Xero Links & resources mentioned: * Different communication styles by colour [https://officedynamics.com/communicating-in-style-with-style-post/] * Dear Danielle and Dave on Substack: deardanielleanddave.substack.com [http://deardanielledave.substack.com] * Get in touch: deardanielledave@gmail.com [deardanielledave@gmail.com] The music you hear are Blue Sea and In Good Hands from #Uppbeat.