Using your own products

- On this topic of inclusion and unconscious bias, I have never worked in a large technology company. And I understand the theory, I've advised many companies, but I've never set inside the matrix before. So, for the last six weeks I have found the home I was looking for in the matrix at Automatic. where I'm now working with millions of users in a complex system, and in doing so, for the first time I can actually touch this new kind of product, a product that is not just software, it's people using that software. If there's one simple idea to take away from my experiences in life and most recently at Automatic, is to ask when's the last time you've used the software yourself, and number two, have you ever watched people who don't know how to use your software use it? Unless you it every day, you're going to forget, and you're not going to be useful the way you can. So, one of my attractions or the reason why I wanted to work at Automatic, is the CEO also does customer support. He's really good at customer support. He's so good that as I was doing it, he would say, "Hey, hey, you're kind of slow." I was like oh my gosh he's watching me. (laughs) Very supportive company, like maybe you can do this, maybe you can do that. But I like the fact that all the way to the top and every person, quote unquote, has to do support. But more importantly, wants to do support. So, my role as head of design is unless I'm doing support, I won't know how people feel. Now, why does this matter? It matters, again, because we so easily make things and assume you're going to like it. You're going to like it 'cause I worked so hard on this, I made it, it's really good. And the last thing you want to see is someone actually eating it and saying, "Oh my God, this is horrible." 'cause it hurts. So, break the bias by seeing people use your thing, heal the pain, work to improve.