Our pre-event for the FBTB conference is in full bloom. And there have been participants from all over the world. We had a chat with one of them, Wynand Kok, from South Africa.
– The interaction part of the Design Lunches contributes to a sense of being part of the community. For someone attending from the other side of the world, this gives me some friendly faces to look forward to meeting in person, he says.
How was your first experience of the Design Lunches?
– I really enjoyed the first Design Lunch. David de Léon's topic of how UX may draw inspiration from magic as performance art was thought-provoking; I was particularly intrigued by the notion of "dramatizing conditions" in relation to the degrees of conviction held by our design audiences, and how this might open scope for fostering credibility with these audiences, says Wynand Kok who works at Retro Rabbit.
– However, I particularly enjoyed the interaction with other attendees after the presentation part of the session.
I suppose that you also long for the conference, but what can these pre-events with Design Lunches offer you?
– Absolutely I'm looking forward to the conference. In the meantime, however, I can think of two main things I expect I'll be getting out of the design lunches.
– First, this makes the conference more real to me in a sense. This adds to the initial excitement I had when I first decided to attend the 2020 conference while making the delay to next year feel less frustrating; it's a bit of hype building, but it also makes me feel that I made the right choice in design conference to attend.
– The second expectation – of which I already had a taste in the first Design Lunch – is getting the chance to interact with other attendees. One of the most vital design skills is learning from different perspectives and engaging with others' learnings, and insights – as awkward as getting partnered in a Zoom breakout room with participants you've never met before might initially be. But this interaction also contributes to a sense of being part of the community around the conference. For someone attending from the other side of the world, this gives me some friendly faces to look forward to meeting in person next year.
I think the opportunity to learn something new from the actual content of the Design Lunches' main sessions is almost secondary to the above. Don't get me wrong, though, I'm looking forward to this, too!
How did it come to be that you became part of the FBTB community?
– My 2020 started out with the plan to attend a friend's wedding in Sweden in May. Working as a UX Designer in Pretoria, South Africa, I figured that it might be worthwhile seeing if there are any interesting design-related events happening in Scandinavia around that time. I thought it might be valuable to get a perspective on some of the challenges we face in the South African UX sphere from a Scandinavian and global context.
– The moment I saw the lineup of speakers, I was sold. Since I was reading Peter Merholz and Kristin Skinner's Org Design for Design Orgs at the time, I also jumped at the chance to attend Merholz's workshop.
– The world, as we all know, ended up looking different from how most of us planned, but I am absolutely pleased that the FBTB team is committed to providing value to the community in preparation for the conference next year.
Do you also want to be a part of the FBTB Design Lunches? If you don't already have one, get a ticket!