Braden Kowitz
Design Partner, Google Ventures
Talk
Fostering Design Culture
Tue 25 October 16We all know that design culture is important. A broken culture can drive designers crazy by feeling like they’re always fighting an uphill battle. But a healthy culture can make cross-functional teams strikingly effective. Design culture can also improve employee retention, make it easier to hire new designers, and generally keep everyone much happier. But culture is an elusive beast. The ways we work are often hard to talk about, and even harder to change.
In this talk, Braden Kowitz, GV’s first design partner and co-author of Sprint, draws on his experience working with over 100 startups to demystify design culture. We’ll discuss three major tenants of strong design culture, with real-world examples of why they’re important. And we’ll talk about easy ways to get started strengthening the design culture at your company. With small thoughtful nudges, any team can build a healthy culture of design.
About Braden Kowitz
Braden Kowitz is a product designer, prototyper, and storyteller. He advises startups on UX Design and Product Development. Before joining Google Ventures, Braden led design for several Google Products, including Gmail, Google Apps for Business, Google Spreadsheets, and Google Trends.
Braden started his career building virtual reality simulators at the Beckman Institute, and interactive visualisations at Lucent Technologies. Braden studied Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon.
