Inspired in Oakland

First Thing Monday, edition #107

The gorgeous Fox theatre, Oakland

"We all have a broad responsibility to ensure that technology is built and deployed in service of humanity and not the other way around."

Margaret Gould Stewart - Able, Allowed, Should

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Hi Friends,

This last week has been a really good one. I had the pleasure of hanging out with our entire Cash App design team (around 200 of us) for our annual design week get together, just up the road in Oakland.

Feeling inspired and rejuvenated by many threads and ideas that we talked about, with responsibility, diversity and design ethics all on the menu. I'm using this week's newsletter to share just some of those ideas.

• Firstly - seeing Jarvis Sam speak was a career highlight. Jarvis is the former Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer at Nike. He taught us a lot about cultural intelligence, cultural appreciation vs appropriation, and the wheel of power & privilege.
  

• I knew that the Overview Effect was something that happened to astronaughts, but never really considered it's relevance to designers too.
  

• I was reminded of Paul Graham's post about maker's vs manager's schedule. Re-pledging my commitment to blocking out large chunks of my calendar to focus on focussing.
  

• I learnt about the Art of Noticing, and went on a photo-walk of the city to capture some everyday moments.
  

• And I got to go out for food and drinks too - Drake's Dealership, Calavera and Bar Shiru are my favourite new places in Oakland.

Back to normal this week, but feeling very fortunate to have been surrounded by clever, inspiring people in my new home-town.

Have a good one y’all.