Live and On-Demand Webinars by Design Leaders

The hard part of a designer’s job is the people—people are involved in all parts of the process, which can be challenging, to say the least. With the rise of AI, advancements in technology, and setbacks from COVID-19, we are growing further away from each other. The ability to connect with others is needed more now than ever.

Soft skills, not hard skills, are the solution to workplace success and career growth. As designers, we spend a lot of time learning how to use our design tools and methods, and little time learning crucial soft skills. In this Master Class webinar with Joyce Croft, Senior Lead Human-Centered Designer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explore the soft skills like communication, influence, and empathy that are timeless, transferable and essential in today’s workplace.

You’ll learn:

• What exactly empathy is and how to understand your users better.
• How to be a leader to influence others and advance the design culture in your organization.
• Practical tips and expert insights on how to build trust and great working relationships.

Through this entertaining and insightful webinar, you’ll learn to empathize better with your stakeholders, build trusting relationships, get alignment and buy-in faster and be seen as a design leader in your organization. With Joyce’s how-to tips and real stories, you’ll learn that soft skills are the key to advancing design culture and your career.

Even if you can't attend live, register to gain access to a recording that you can watch at any time after the broadcast.

Lead your design team to success, even in a tough economy. In this Master Class, you'll discover how to navigate uncertainty and emerge stronger with practical strategies to maximize impact, communicate the ROI of your work, and demonstrate the value of design.

The pressure is mounting on design leaders to deliver exceptional outcomes with less and less. Tighter budgets, fewer team members, and the constant need for quick wins are becoming the new normal. These challenges are not unique to designers. In this Master Class webinar, Managing Director and Head of Design at Societe Generale CIB Morgane Peng will show you how to turn challenges into opportunities with tactics that non-design leaders have used to thrive in difficult environments.

You’ll learn:

• Navigate economic uncertainty: Understand how to adapt design practices to a risk-averse business climate.
• Prioritize impact: Learn strategies for creating meaningful value with limited resources.
• Communicate effectively: Discover how to translate design impact into business metrics and ROI.
• Safeguard creativity: Explore techniques for maintaining innovation and originality in challenging environments.
• Collaborate effectively: Gain insights into building strong relationships with non-design stakeholders.

With her expertise in Corporate and Investment Banking, Morgane Peng will help you elevate your design team's influence, protect your creative vision, and deliver tangible business value. This webinar is for design professionals and leaders who want to learn how to flourish in a challenging economic climate.

Even if you can't attend live, register to gain access to a recording that you can watch at any time after the broadcast.

Apply design thinking daily with AJ&Smart’s massively popular Lightning Decision Jam recipe for ideation. It’s a repeatable, easy-to-learn recipe for brainstorming and decision-making that’s proven to work every time.

Design thinking is often misunderstood. It's not just a trendy buzzword, but a powerful approach that requires commitment, leadership support, and a willingness to embrace change for it to take root and thrive within an organization.

But what if you could apply design thinking in your daily work without needing to worry about organizational buy-in or change management? What if you could take what’s great about design thinking and use it to make ideation and decision-making in your meetings 10 times better? Join Amr Khalifeh from AJ&Smart to learn all about the Lightning Decision Jam, how it works, and how you can start using it with your team immediately.

You’ll learn:

• How the Lightning Decision Jam allows anyone to start applying design thinking in daily work.
• The counterintuitive techniques behind effective ideation and decision-making.
• How to turn meetings and group collaboration from unproductive time sinks into the most productive parts of your day.
• Step-by-step explanation of how to run a Lightning Decision Jam with your team, as well as the Miro template for running a remote Lightning Decision Jam.

Put an end to long, unproductive meetings—harness the power of design thinking for faster, more effective problem-solving.

Even if you can't attend live, register to gain access to a recording that you can watch at any time after the broadcast.