0:25

Hey everyone. Thanks for joining me

0:25

for another episode. I'm your host, Jesse Butts.

0:29

Today, I'm chatting with

0:29

Anthony Shenoda, a PhD in social

0:33

anthropology and Middle Eastern

0:33

studies from Harvard turned

0:37

user experience researcher. Anthony is now a senior

0:39

UX researcher at HubSpot,

0:43

a customer relationship

0:43

management, often called

0:45

CRM, software company with

0:45

over 135,000 customers.

0:51

Anthony, welcome to the show. Delighted to have you on.

0:53

Thank you. It's a joy to be with you.

0:56

Excellent. Glad to have you here. Before we talk a bit about your

0:58

journey from academic work to

1:04

user experience, UX research.

1:06

Can you tell us a little

1:06

bit about your work?

1:10

What exactly is user experience?

1:12

Yeah. So user experience research

1:13

is basically a practice of

1:18

understanding how people use

1:18

certain products, what their

1:22

pain points might be in their

1:22

use of particular products,

1:26

what they need to get certain

1:26

tasks done, and so on.

1:32

We want to understand what

1:32

our, how our customers

1:35

are using our product and

1:35

the various aspects of it.

1:39

You know, what's working well

1:39

for them, what isn't working

1:42

well, what new features they

1:42

might need in order to do their

1:45

work more efficiently and so on. But you can extend this

1:47

to practically anything.

1:50

I mean, think of a rain jacket, right? I mean, if you produce a

1:52

rain jacket and it doesn't

1:55

keep people dry, then it's

1:55

not doing the basic job

1:59

that it's intended to do. If you make a rain jacket for

2:01

people that want to use it when

2:05

backpacking, but the zippers

2:05

are where the hip belt goes,

2:09

that is, the pockets, I mean. Then they can't put their hands

2:11

in their pockets if they want to

2:15

all they have their backpack on. So that needs to be designed

2:17

in a way where the pockets

2:20

are further up on the jacket. So every product that we use

2:22

needs some user experience

2:28

research to, to be quite frank.

2:31

So what does that

2:31

type of research look like?

2:34

Are you conducting surveys?

2:37

Are you chatting

2:37

directly with customers?

2:40

How are you actually

2:40

conducting that research?

2:44

Yeah. That's a great question. The basic answer to it

2:46

is all of the above.

2:48

So it's a combination of

2:48

what we refer to in the

2:52

field as unmoderated studies.

2:54

So where we're not speaking

2:54

directly to people.

2:58

So it could be in the form

2:58

of a survey or any of a

3:00

number of other methodologies

3:00

and moderated studies where

3:05

we are talking to people. And I think that the

3:07

choice of what method to

3:10

use really depends on what

3:10

questions we're asking.

3:14

But at the end of the day,

3:14

I think good user experience

3:19

research requires a number

3:19

of methodologies to get

3:23

both that deep qualitative

3:23

sense of what's happening.

3:28

And then maybe to scale that

3:28

by doing more quantitative

3:32

kinds of studies, like

3:32

surveys and such to get

3:36

bigger numbers, basically.

3:38

And earlier you

3:38

used this term CRM, can you

3:43

just give us a quick definition

3:43

or overview of CRM and, you

3:49

know, what customers are using

3:49

software like HubSpot for?

3:53

Yeah. I'm going to try,

3:53

I'll try to do that.

3:56

Um, you know, let's say that

3:56

you sell software, you have

4:00

a little company that produces

4:00

some certain kinds of software.

4:04

Now part of that process is

4:04

you might have a sales team

4:08

that calls people up and says,

4:08

Hey, you might be interested

4:11

in using this software. We think it will

4:13

help your company. The thing about that is you

4:15

need to track that, right?

4:18

Who are you talking to? Who's doing the talking?

4:21

When is that happening? And let's say, somebody

4:23

says, You know what,

4:25

can you give me a week? I need to talk to my manager

4:26

about this and we want to

4:29

have a meeting about it. It sounds interesting, but not

4:30

sure we're ready to commit yet.

4:35

Well, you want a way to

4:35

track that too, right?

4:37

Reach out to so-and-so

4:37

in two weeks.

4:41

Now if you try to do that

4:41

kind of thing in an Excel

4:45

worksheet or something, there's

4:45

a point at which it's, it's

4:49

incredibly burdensome and very

4:49

difficult to keep track of.

4:53

So what a CRM does is allows

4:53

you to keep track of these

4:57

contact records, like who you've

4:57

reached out to, the companies

5:02

they're associated with, where

5:02

they are in a kind of pipeline

5:06

in terms of say making the sale

5:06

of your software in the example

5:11

that I'm offering, right? You've got people at

5:12

different stages in that

5:15

pipeline, so to speak. And you want to know when

5:17

you've closed the deal ,when

5:20

they've actually made a

5:20

purchase, or when they've

5:22

decided they don't want to

5:22

go with your product, right?

5:25

So CRM software helps

5:25

people keep track of

5:28

that kind of thing. The other components to the

5:30

HubSpot software in particular

5:33

is that there's an entire

5:33

marketing component to it.

5:37

So sending out emails and

5:37

other ways of, of advertising

5:42

and marketing your product. Um, there's a service component.

5:45

So if people have certain

5:45

issues with your product and

5:50

they don't, they need help

5:50

troubleshooting, or they don't

5:53

know how to fix something. And so on, then they can put in

5:55

a kind of service request that

6:00

a service team would keep track

6:00

of in, in the software as well.

6:04

, and so on. There's a lot, there's a lot

6:05

more to it, but just on a

6:08

pretty basic level, these are

6:08

some of the things that a CRM

6:12

software helps companies do

6:12

is to just keep things in one

6:15

place, keep track of what's

6:15

going on in a relatively

6:19

easy and efficient manner.

6:21

Okay. Thank you. So going back a little bit

6:22

further, you know, before you

6:27

started UX, uh, and I know

6:27

that that you have a PhD.

6:31

But I know that you also

6:31

have a master's, which

6:35

you obtained first. So what prompted you to

6:36

enroll in grad school?

6:39

Why did you decide

6:39

to earn a master's in

6:41

Latin American studies?

6:44

As an undergraduate student, I studied geography.

6:48

And then in my final year, I

6:48

took a course offered through

6:53

the department of philosophy.

6:56

This was at Oregon State

6:56

University, taught by a

6:59

professor named Manuel Pacheco.

7:02

And I mentioned him by

7:02

name because he passed

7:04

away many, many years ago,

7:04

and I actually dedicated

7:07

my master's thesis to him. And the reason for that is

7:09

because Manuel was teaching a

7:13

course on what is often referred

7:13

to as the Neozapatista movement.

7:17

So this was an uprising largely

7:17

of indigenous people in Mexico

7:22

in, 1992, specifically, is when

7:22

it began, although they had been

7:27

preparing for at least a decade

7:27

prior to that for the uprising.

7:31

And I took great interest in this. I found the literature

7:33

around that movement and the

7:37

literature being produced by

7:37

people who are part of that

7:40

movement to just be really

7:40

captivating and interesting.

7:43

And I had already developed

7:43

an interest in Latin

7:47

America in general, but

7:47

Mexico specifically.

7:50

And so it was what I, what

7:50

was in front of me in a sense.

7:54

And it's what felt right

7:54

to me and good to me.

7:57

And so I went on to pursue a degree in Latin American studies.

8:00

Because Latin American studies

8:00

is an interdisciplinary program,

8:06

at the University of Arizona,

8:06

where I went to do that work,

8:10

they required that each student

8:10

in the department have a primary

8:16

disciplinary area of focus

8:16

and a secondary discipline.

8:21

At the beginning, I wasn't

8:21

sure what that would be.

8:23

I chose geography cause that's

8:23

what I had been doing and so on.

8:27

But as I began to read

8:27

and to learn more, I ended

8:32

up reading a book by an

8:32

anthropologist named Ana Maria

8:38

Alonso, who is teaching at

8:38

the University of Arizona.

8:43

And it was a historical

8:43

anthropology of the Mexican

8:46

revolution, 1910 to 1920,

8:46

of a Northern Mexican town.

8:53

And I absolutely fell

8:53

in love with that work.

8:57

I went to meet her, chatted with

8:57

her, started taking courses with

9:00

her, and it was at that point

9:00

that I knew that anthropology

9:03

was what I wanted to do. And then my secondary area

9:06

was history because it just

9:09

became very clear to me that

9:09

anthropology and history

9:12

really go very well together.

9:14

And it's important to

9:14

have a sense of, of a

9:17

history of anything, if

9:17

you want to understand

9:21

it well and do it well. So, in the course of doing my

9:22

Latin American studies research

9:29

and writing the thesis, which

9:29

was about the Neozapatista

9:32

movement, hence, my dedication

9:32

of the thesis toManuel Pacheco.

9:39

I also realized that my interest

9:39

in Egypt and in the Middle East,

9:44

and I'm of Egyptian origin, so

9:44

that, that's where that interest

9:49

came from, hadn't been very

9:49

well represented in some of

9:53

the anthropological literature. And what I mean here,

9:54

specifically, is Coptic

9:57

Christians, that's the

9:57

community out of which I come.

10:00

There's a very long tradition

10:00

of, an anthropology of the

10:03

Middle East, but, very little

10:03

of that had focused on Christian

10:08

communities in the region. And so it was at that

10:10

point that I decided when I

10:13

finished the master's degree,

10:13

I am going to move on to

10:18

do a PhD in anthropology.

10:20

And I'm going to focus

10:20

on Coptic Christians,

10:23

which are, um, sort of the

10:23

native Christian community,

10:26

if you will, of Egypt.

10:29

What did you enter

10:29

a PhD program hoping to achieve

10:32

with that doctoral degree?

10:34

Yeah, I think

10:34

very simply my intention and

10:37

desire was that I would become

10:37

a professional anthropologist,

10:42

meaning I would teach at

10:42

university, that I would do

10:45

research at least initially on

10:45

Coptic Christians, maybe over

10:49

time that would change to other

10:49

places, other people, et cetera.

10:53

But that was the initial desire.

10:56

And I should say at that

10:56

stage in my life, I had no

10:59

idea what UX research was.

11:01

I had never heard of it. And I also had no intention

11:03

of not being an academic.

11:07

Like there was never a sense

11:07

that I would leave academia.

11:11

It just, the thought didn't

11:11

even cross my mind, frankly.

11:15

And if it did, it was in

11:15

very negative terms, right.

11:18

I probably felt like leaving

11:18

academia to go into some

11:24

industry work would, would

11:24

be a sellout move, frankly.

11:29

Yeah, I'm being honest.

11:31

Like that's, that's how I

11:31

thought about these things.

11:35

So what did

11:35

you end up doing after

11:37

you finished your PhD?

11:39

I went on to teach. I went to Scripps College,

11:40

which is part of the

11:43

Claremont College Consortium.

11:46

Scripps is the women's

11:46

college in that consortium.

11:49

So I taught there for a couple

11:49

of years, taught anthropology

11:52

courses, and advised a number

11:52

of students there on their

11:56

capstone projects, because

11:56

the students at Scripps had

12:00

to write a kind of senior

12:00

thesis in order to graduate.

12:05

And then I took a position

12:05

at Leiden University

12:09

College in the Netherlands. So that was a sort of liberal

12:11

arts arm of Leiden university.

12:17

And in that part of Europe

12:17

liberal, or the liberal arts

12:20

college concept is not very big.

12:24

So this was kind of new there.

12:27

And it was meant to

12:27

be international.

12:30

So we had a number of

12:30

students from around the globe.

12:33

So at Leiden University

12:33

College, I taught anthropology

12:37

and I would say religious

12:37

studies courses as well.

12:41

, I did that for, um, just under

12:41

a year before leaving academia.

12:48

So thinking about

12:48

the timeline and actually

12:51

the geography, I mean, so

12:51

you, you went from Oregon for

12:54

undergrad, to Arizona for your

12:54

master's, to Boston for your

12:58

PhD, to Southern California

12:58

to teach for three years...

13:02

to the Netherlands for..

13:04

Did you say a year or two?

13:06

Yeah. Just under a year.

13:08

Okay, so, , and

13:08

that's where you seriously

13:12

considered leaving academia?

13:14

What, what prompted that? What, what were you

13:16

thinking at that time?

13:18

It's a complex

13:18

story, and I don't know that I

13:22

even fully understand it, right.

13:24

And this is where, like

13:24

the reality of human life

13:27

and circumstances and all

13:27

the things come together.

13:32

At the time this was 2012, the

13:32

summer of 2012, when I started.

13:38

My father had been diagnosed

13:38

about two years earlier with

13:43

pancreatic cancer, which as

13:43

I'm sure you know, is, is not,

13:48

not easy on a person, right. It gets pretty bad, pretty

13:50

quickly for most people.

13:55

So it had already been two years. He wasn't doing well, but he

13:57

wasn't in horrible shape either.

14:02

I left to move halfway across

14:02

the country or the world rather.

14:08

And shortly after moving

14:08

got a phone call from my

14:12

mother, that it would be a

14:12

good idea to, to return home

14:16

for a, a spell because my

14:16

father wasn't doing well.

14:19

And indeed it was good that

14:19

I did that because about a

14:22

month later, he did pass away. Um, so that was happening.

14:27

I was living in a different country. I had small children.

14:31

I was starting a new

14:31

job, like lots of things

14:33

going on at once, right. That, that in any sort

14:35

of, for lack of a better

14:38

term, normal circumstance

14:38

is already difficult.

14:42

But you know, with my father

14:42

passing away, my mother now

14:46

being alone in a sense, you

14:46

know, these were complicated

14:49

things to try to navigate. And on top of it, I think just

14:51

overall pressures of academia

14:55

made it difficult for me to,

14:55

to strike a balance between

15:01

being the kind of son, the

15:01

kind of husband, the kind of

15:06

father that I wanted to be,

15:06

and also to be the kind of

15:09

academic that I wanted to be. I didn't know where

15:11

that balance was.

15:13

I didn't know how to draw lines,

15:13

if they needed it to be drawn.

15:17

I'm not the kind of

15:17

person that's good at

15:20

compartmentalizing different

15:20

aspects of, of my life.

15:23

I would go so far as to argue

15:23

that that's probably, it's not

15:27

healthy to do that, but some

15:27

people are good at doing that

15:30

and they want to do it and

15:30

there, they can pull it off.

15:33

I'm not one of those people. So I think all of that came

15:36

to a head in that moment

15:39

and it became clear that

15:39

I just couldn't sustain

15:44

being in academia, being an

15:44

academic and living the kind

15:51

of life that I wanted to or

15:51

aspired to, to live, again

15:56

as the kind of son, husband,

15:56

father that I wanted to be.

16:01

So that's really what led

16:01

to the decision to leave.

16:07

And when you made that decision, did you stop teaching?

16:12

What did you end up doing once

16:12

you had come to terms with

16:17

ending your academic career?

16:18

I'm just trying to remember how it all worked out.

16:21

I think the decision

16:21

was made and I knew

16:25

that it had to be done. I needed to finish..

16:30

I can't remember if it was

16:30

a quarter system or exactly

16:33

how it was organized. Forgive me that I

16:34

don't have a clear...

16:36

You had a lot going on then...

16:38

Yeah, I mean,

16:38

it was almost, it was a quarter

16:40

system in a literal sense. Quarter system in the

16:42

U S is like a trimester

16:46

or whatever, right? It's like, it's not

16:47

actually quarters I think,

16:50

they're usually like three,

16:50

whatever it is at any rate.

16:53

I had to finish the quarter that

16:53

we were in and already, I was

17:00

responsible for certain courses

17:00

for the following quarter.

17:03

So I had to figure out

17:03

who could fill in for me

17:07

and take care of that. You know, I didn't want to

17:08

leave just sort of abruptly and

17:11

say, Too bad, suckers, do what,

17:11

whatever you, you need to do.

17:17

I, I, don't, I don't

17:17

like to work like that.

17:19

I think at that point, my wife

17:19

and I had wanted to serve the

17:24

Coptic church in some capacity.

17:26

And so it was really a

17:26

matter of talking to a few

17:29

people that I knew to see

17:29

if that might be possible.

17:33

And it seemed like it was. And so I put in my letter

17:35

of resignation, made sure

17:38

everything was in order on the

17:38

Netherlands side of things.

17:42

And then we moved back

17:42

to California, honestly,

17:45

without a very clear sense

17:45

of what would happen next.

17:49

Except that probably we

17:49

could serve the Coptic

17:54

church in some way. And indeed, that

17:56

is what happened.

17:58

That I ended up being

17:58

ordained to the priesthood

18:00

in the Coptic church and

18:00

did that for three years.

18:04

So yeah, that's sort of

18:04

phase two of all of this.

18:08

Were you leading a congregation? Or were you operating in some

18:10

other capacity after you had

18:13

obtained that priesthood?

18:15

Yeah. So once I was ordained to

18:15

the priesthood for one year,

18:18

I was serving at a church

18:18

in Orange County, California

18:23

with another priest. You know, it was sort of

18:24

like having a mentor who had

18:27

been doing this for a long

18:27

time and could sort of teach

18:30

me and help me and so on. And then I was asked by, the

18:32

Bishop there to help establish

18:39

and start a small parish

18:39

in San Diego, California.

18:44

So we moved to San Diego and,

18:44

I was working with a group

18:48

of people there to find a

18:48

place where we could gather,

18:52

and you know, getting to

18:52

know the community and so on.

18:56

And then I, I served in

18:56

that capacity for two years

18:59

where I was effectively

18:59

leading if that's the right

19:03

word that, that parish.

19:06

And I don't ask

19:06

this at all , to be reductive,

19:09

but the, the structure of the

19:09

Coptic church, is it similar to

19:14

what we might think of as either

19:14

east, sorry, Eastern Orthodoxy?

19:19

Is it similar to that?

19:20

Yes, absolutely. In fact, they share the

19:22

same history and roots.

19:24

It's just in the fifth century,

19:24

there was a division between

19:29

what eventually would be

19:29

referred to rather strangely

19:32

as the Eastern Orthodox and

19:32

the Oriental Orthodox churches,

19:36

the Coptic church falling

19:36

under that rubric of Oriental.

19:41

Other churches in that... that are part of that family,

19:42

if you will, are the Ethiopian

19:46

church, the Syriac church,

19:46

which is largely in India, but

19:50

also partly in Syria itself.

19:54

The Armenian church and so on. Whereas Eastern Orthodoxy

19:55

would be the Greek, Russian,

19:59

Bulagarian, Romanian, et cetera.

20:02

Okay. So , so you're in San

20:03

Diego in this new parish...

20:08

is this feeling like , a

20:08

stepping stone or maybe kind of

20:11

a interregnum in between things?

20:13

Or what happens where after

20:13

two years you decide to try

20:19

something new or something

20:19

outside of the...vocation?

20:23

Yeah. Again, I mean, similar to

20:23

my approach to academia,

20:28

I went into this full

20:28

force, so to speak.

20:31

Like this is it, this is what I'm doing. It's the right thing.

20:34

And this is what I will be

20:34

doing for the rest of my life.

20:37

Like there was no, there

20:37

wasn't any part of me

20:41

that was experimenting

20:41

or trying something out.

20:44

And I should say that ,with

20:44

priesthood, especially in

20:47

these sort of Eastern Orthodox,

20:47

Oriental Orthodox traditions,

20:52

it's not, it's not typically

20:52

a thing that you just try out.

20:56

Like you are committing

20:56

your life to it.

20:59

So for somebody to then

20:59

say, I'm leaving...

21:03

and to be doing that in

21:03

a context where there

21:05

were no problems, right.

21:08

There weren't any scandals

21:08

or political problems or

21:11

anything that, that would

21:11

push or drive me out.

21:15

It's not at all

21:15

common, I should say.

21:19

And it's certainly not

21:19

something that is looked

21:21

upon very favorably. It's a very strange thing to

21:23

do, I would say from these

21:26

communities' perspectives. So again, I had no ...how

21:28

should I say there was no

21:32

sort of, foreknowledge or

21:32

inkling that this might happen.

21:36

Like it was not something that

21:36

would have ever crossed my

21:39

mind that I was going to leave

21:39

or that I had the option of

21:43

leaving priesthood, really. But what happened, because

21:45

I'm sure you and, you and our

21:49

listeners are curious about

21:49

this...I, I got to a point where

21:53

I felt that I wanted to be part

21:53

of the Eastern Orthodox church.

21:57

And since these churches

21:57

are not in communion, it

22:00

ultimately meant, at

22:00

least in my circumstances,

22:03

that my priesthood

22:03

wouldn't be recognized.

22:06

And I wouldn't necessarily like

22:06

seamlessly move from the one to

22:09

the other and just be ordained

22:09

a priest in the other tradition.

22:14

So it was upon making that move

22:14

that sort of the third phase

22:19

of this life journey happened,

22:19

which was, What do I do now?

22:25

What sort of work

22:25

will I be doing now?

22:27

Because suddenly I'm unemployed

22:27

and I need to find a job.

22:31

So when

22:31

you're at this point...

22:34

When you're able to

22:34

kind of start thinking

22:37

about what's next... are you a blank slate?

22:40

Do you have some inclinations? What, what happens then?

22:44

I think a

22:44

pretty blank slate without

22:46

very many ideas of what I

22:46

could do beyond teaching.

22:51

I was reluctant to try to

22:51

get back into academia.

22:54

Although I did apply to a

22:54

few like community college,

22:58

teaching gigs, for example. At one point I got desperate

23:00

enough to apply, to teach

23:05

at a high school level,

23:05

not to diss high school

23:08

teachers, but it just like,

23:08

I don't mean that at all.

23:11

And I hope it didn't come across that way. I, what I mean, is it,

23:13

it just, I knew myself.

23:17

Teaching at that level would

23:17

be a big, big challenge for me.

23:21

I'm just not good at it. I love teaching.

23:23

I think I'm pretty good at it,

23:23

but only with sort of adults

23:29

who want to be in a classroom

23:29

and want to be learning.

23:35

And that's not always the

23:35

case in high school, right.

23:38

High school is its own thing.

23:40

And it, it can be complicated. So I really didn't know

23:42

what to do, frankly.

23:44

I was at a total loss.

23:47

And part of that is because

23:47

part of graduate training,

23:50

especially at a university like

23:50

Harvard and at the level of

23:55

attaining a PhD, nobody talks

23:55

about other possibilities,

24:00

other work, in, in at least

24:00

in the social sciences

24:03

and humanities, obviously. And some of the so-called

24:05

hard sciences, industry

24:08

work is always an option. Not so in the social

24:10

sciences and humanities.

24:12

So I really had no idea what was

24:12

out there, what was possible,

24:16

until to make a very long

24:16

story short, I met somebody who

24:20

happened to be doing customer

24:20

experience research, and she

24:24

planted that seed for me. In our conversation, she

24:26

mentioned that with a

24:30

background in anthropology,

24:30

I might be pretty good at CX,

24:33

customer experience, or user

24:33

experience, UX, research.

24:38

And it was probably a full

24:38

year before I returned to that,

24:43

like returned to that seed

24:43

and actually started to water

24:47

it a bit so that to see if

24:47

something would grow out of it.

24:51

Was this a

24:51

total happenstance meeting?

24:53

Were you actively networking? How did this come about?

24:57

It

24:57

was a serendipitous, as

25:00

serendipitous things get.

25:03

I, so... in the process of trying to

25:04

figure out what the next move

25:08

would be, I took a part-time

25:08

job working at an REI store.

25:13

This was in the Seattle area. Yes, now we're in Seattle.

25:17

Don't don't ask

25:17

how or why, but...

25:20

yeah, it's, it's a wild story.

25:22

So I took a part-time

25:22

job working at REI.

25:25

I'm a huge outdoors

25:25

person, love backpacking

25:27

and hiking and so on. Hence my rain jacket backpacking

25:29

example earlier on right now,

25:35

now we're making like, the

25:35

circle is beginning to close.

25:38

So I was working part time,

25:38

you know, running the cash

25:42

register, that kind of thing

25:42

in an REI store and the person

25:46

I mentioned earlier, who is

25:46

working in customer experience

25:50

research, worked at, REI

25:50

headquarters doing that work.

25:54

You know, so that, that,

25:54

that team's concern was, you

25:57

know, what is the customer

25:57

experience like in the stores

26:00

and how can we make that

26:00

experience better for people.

26:04

And so she happened to come

26:04

into the store where I was

26:06

working one morning and set

26:06

up a little table with an

26:10

iPad that presumably had a

26:10

survey on it or something.

26:14

And, you know, some coffee

26:14

and donuts and so on.

26:16

So she was stopping people on

26:16

their way out of the store.

26:19

And if they were willing

26:19

to do the survey and have

26:21

some coffee and donuts, they

26:21

were welcome to do that.

26:24

And so, of course, curiosity

26:24

got the best of me.

26:28

And so when I had a break,

26:28

I went up to her and asked

26:31

her what she was doing and

26:31

she explained it to me.

26:34

And that's how that

26:34

conversation happened.

26:37

She ended up connecting me

26:37

with her manager, and we

26:41

hit it off because he had

26:41

a degree in near Eastern

26:44

languages and civilizations

26:44

and spoke Arabic and so on.

26:49

But here he was

26:49

managing this customer

26:51

experience research team.

26:54

And basically what happened

26:54

is we eventually, we, we moved

27:00

back to California at one point.

27:02

And I continued to work

27:02

at REI, I just transferred

27:05

to a different store. And I continued to be in

27:06

touch with this manager.

27:10

And to this day, we're still in touch. This was probably

27:12

three years ago now.

27:14

And at one point, he asked me

27:14

if I would help them with some

27:18

of the work they were doing. Cause a lot of their work was

27:19

Seattle-based, but he wanted

27:22

to extend beyond Seattle. He knew I was in California.

27:26

This point, he knew me. He knew what skill set I

27:27

had as an anthropologist.

27:30

So he asked if I could

27:30

help with some of the work.

27:32

I agreed. And I was beginning to explore

27:34

UX work more seriously at

27:38

this stage and starting to,

27:38

to network and meet people and

27:43

build relationships with folks. So, you know, that was a

27:45

nice little break for me

27:47

because it gave me hands-on

27:47

experience with this work.

27:51

And eventually I would meet

27:51

more people and learn more

27:56

and find my way into UX,

27:56

which is what I'm doing now.

28:01

Did you take

28:01

a full-time UX role at REI,

28:05

or did these opportunities

28:05

somehow parlay into a role

28:08

with another organization?

28:10

More the latter. So there wasn't a

28:11

full-time position

28:14

available for me at REI.

28:17

But maybe six months or

28:17

so of experience combined

28:22

with me now, knowing how, or

28:22

at least getting better at

28:26

referencing my experience as

28:26

an anthropologist in UX terms,

28:32

those two things came together

28:32

such, and having connections,

28:39

you know, people that I had

28:39

met along the way who were

28:41

mentoring and helping me out,

28:41

helped me get my foot in the

28:45

door into a UX research agency.

28:48

So not in-house work, but agency

28:48

work, meaning that as an agency,

28:53

you have a number of clients

28:53

who come to you for research

28:56

services, and you provide those

28:56

services, whereas in-house work,

29:00

which is what I'm doing now,

29:00

is more internal, so to speak.

29:04

HubSpot I'm recruiting

29:04

customers and so on to speak

29:08

with and to do research for the

29:08

teams that I'm working with.

29:12

And there, there isn't

29:12

sort of a client kind

29:15

of relationship there. If that makes sense.

29:18

You mentioned that

29:18

you were learning to frame your

29:23

anthropological anthropology,

29:23

anthropological, I'm not sure

29:26

which would be correct there. That experience into UX

29:28

language and for a UX community.

29:34

Were you also spending any

29:34

time picking up new skills,

29:40

reading up on this discipline? How, how much, if at all,

29:41

did you have to learn

29:46

before you landed that

29:46

first full-time role in UX?

29:52

I would say I had to learn a lot. I don't know.

29:54

I don't know what

29:54

a lot means, right?

29:57

In the sense that I can't

29:57

really quantify that for

30:01

anybody, but I, I mean, this

30:01

was all new to me, so I had to

30:05

learn what the methodologies

30:05

are, what they're called.

30:09

I had to learn what UX

30:09

researchers actually did.

30:13

You know, I knew how to

30:13

research and I knew how to

30:16

do research with people as

30:16

an anthropologist, but that

30:19

style of research and the

30:19

outcomes of that research

30:23

were very different than what

30:23

a company looking to sell

30:27

a product is doing, right. Or to make a product

30:29

better or whatever. Like it's just, it's a, it's

30:31

a completely different way

30:34

of, how should I put it,

30:34

using research, so to speak.

30:38

So there was a lot of learning

30:38

that I had to do, and that

30:41

happened through reading,

30:41

through talking to people.

30:44

And of course, I mean,

30:44

I knew how to learn

30:46

because I spent most of

30:46

my adult life doing that.

30:50

So it wasn't, I don't think it

30:50

was hard to do, but I, I, I, but

30:54

I'm still learning certainly. I mean, I'm not...

30:57

there's never a point

30:57

when that somehow stops.

31:01

But yeah, there was a lot of that happening. I had to, like I said, I had to

31:03

be reading a lot, communicating

31:07

with people a lot, really trying

31:07

to understand the language of

31:11

this world that I was trying to

31:11

acclimate to, which was a very

31:16

different language than the

31:16

language that anthropologists

31:19

and other academics speak.

31:22

What are you

31:22

enjoying most about UX

31:25

research as an occupation?

31:27

Yeah. I love that question. I think I certainly enjoy the

31:29

research part of it, but to

31:34

be honest, like the parts of

31:34

that that I enjoy the most

31:38

are just talking to people. Interviewing our customers

31:40

and learning about what they're

31:44

up to and understanding what

31:44

is meaningful and important to

31:48

them when using the HubSpot CRM.

31:52

I love the collaborative

31:52

component of the work.

31:55

That's not a thing

31:55

in anthropology, like

31:58

it's not typical to

31:58

work with other people.

32:00

You know, you share your

32:00

work with other people.

32:02

So there is, there is a certain

32:02

element of collaboration in

32:06

that regard, but you don't

32:06

make decisions about what to do

32:12

necessarily with other people.

32:14

You don't have other

32:14

people pushing back in

32:18

the same way saying, We're

32:18

not going to do this.

32:22

Right. We need to do this other thing.

32:25

And so, there's a lot less of

32:25

that kind of thing happening.

32:28

And, and at least the academic

32:28

spaces that I'm familiar with.

32:33

But , in a company like HubSpot

32:33

or practically any industry,

32:37

you're, you're working with a

32:37

lot of different people who have

32:41

different roles and different

32:41

ideas, and really trying to

32:44

sync with them in a way that

32:44

allows you to do the work that

32:48

you need to do for the company,

32:48

but in, in a way that matches

32:52

up with what all of these other

32:52

collaborators need to be doing.

32:57

I'm trying to think

32:57

of how to best phrase this.

33:01

You had two, two paths,

33:01

academia and the pastoral

33:05

route in both, you, you

33:05

thought those would be...

33:09

it in a sense. After going through two

33:11

experiences where, you know,

33:16

that certainty was shaken,

33:16

what did you have to learn

33:20

about yourself to, to find

33:20

work that would fit you?

33:25

Again, I think

33:25

this is a wonderful question.

33:28

I don't know if I fully

33:28

know the answer to that.

33:31

This is not some weird way

33:31

of me trying to get out

33:34

of answering the question. I, I genuinely am not

33:35

sure that I fully know.

33:39

I guess what I will say to

33:39

that is I don't think of UX

33:44

work in the way that I thought

33:44

of my academic career or

33:49

priesthood that, this is it. And yet I don't think I'm

33:51

going to leave, but I just

33:53

don't think about it that way.

33:57

And I think that I now

33:57

approach work as work.

34:04

I don't expect the work that

34:04

I do to bring meaning into my

34:09

life or to be fulfilling in any

34:09

profound or substantive way.

34:15

I have other ways

34:15

that I achieve that.

34:17

But it also makes working

34:17

easier because I'm not expecting

34:22

certain things from it.

34:25

I'm curious about

34:25

that transition from work

34:31

being a central component of

34:31

a fulfilling life to work,

34:36

being work and, and doing other

34:36

things to find joy, fulfillment,

34:40

whatever you want to call it. Did that take some initiative?

34:46

Did, did you have to actively

34:46

find things to kind of round

34:51

out life when work didn't

34:51

play that, you know, seemingly

34:56

enormous role it did in

34:56

academia and in the priesthood?

35:00

Personally,

35:00

no, I didn't have to

35:03

seek something out. I think I already had it.

35:06

I mean, obviously I'm

35:06

a religious person.

35:08

I have been for a

35:08

good part of my life.

35:12

Not always. But since I was probably 20

35:13

years old, so for a long time.

35:16

And I would say that's where

35:16

I find my fulfillment, and

35:22

where I find meaning and

35:22

in my relationships with

35:26

family and friends and so on.

35:28

So I think what it took was

35:28

more just how do I put this sort

35:33

of a maturity and a growing up

35:33

and a recognition that the idea

35:39

that work has to be meaningful

35:39

and fulfilling is, I think a

35:44

little bit deceptive, frankly. I mean, it's, it's embedded in,

35:46

in the way American culture,

35:50

at least today, operates. So it's not, how do I say, I

35:53

don't think that that idea is,

35:57

is like an honest or innocent

35:57

one is what I'm trying to say.

36:02

This idea that work

36:02

should be fulfilling and

36:05

meaningful and so on. I, and I think it just took

36:07

me a long time to almost

36:11

organically fall into a view

36:11

of work as not being that not

36:17

being this thing that has to

36:17

bring meaning into your life.

36:20

I mean, if you find that great, right. But I think that the deception

36:22

is in thinking that that

36:26

is what work should be. And then people find themselves

36:27

terribly unfulfilled for so

36:33

much of their lives or maybe

36:33

all of their lives, precisely

36:36

because they're looking to

36:36

their employment as a thing

36:43

that should provide a certain

36:43

level of meaning in their lives.

36:47

And it's never doing that. Once you get rid of that

36:49

expectation, then your

36:53

perception changes and

36:53

frankly, work gets easier.

36:59

At least that's my view. It's my experience.

37:01

I'm sure there are lots and lots

37:01

of people that would find this,

37:04

like just an awful approach.

37:06

But yeah, I'm just being

37:06

honest about where, where

37:09

I sit with all of this.

37:12

Yeah. But, but I am wondering, you

37:13

know, obviously, you don't

37:17

seek that fulfillment in work,

37:17

but, what do you personally

37:21

need for work to be enjoyable?

37:24

Yeah. I mean, I think what

37:25

makes it fulfilling, if

37:28

that's the right word to

37:28

use, is the relationships

37:31

that I build with people. Like, I really love

37:33

my colleagues, and I

37:35

enjoy working with them. And that makes like the,

37:36

the moments where the

37:39

work itself is difficult,

37:39

challenging, frustrating...

37:44

It makes that easier for

37:44

me because I have all these

37:48

other people that are,

37:48

that are there, that I

37:51

can talk to, that I can... that I'm working with.

37:53

And I enjoy that very much. So it's, it's largely about

37:56

what maybe, what many people

37:59

today would call company

37:59

culture or something like that.

38:03

And HubSpot happens to have

38:03

pretty good, maybe even

38:08

great, company culture, at

38:08

least relatively speaking.

38:11

So that I find makes

38:11

the work enjoyable.

38:17

I will tell you this, like,

38:17

Never is there a day for me

38:21

when I do not want to work.

38:24

Like where I think I don't

38:24

want to go to the desk and

38:27

I don't want to do this. Like that, I had that feeling

38:29

sometimes in academia, but I've,

38:34

I haven't had it doing UX work

38:34

or at least not at HubSpot.

38:39

Say there's a

38:39

listener out there who's,

38:42

who's in grad school or

38:42

out of grad school, maybe a

38:45

few years, or maybe longer. And they're at that inflection

38:48

or pivot point considering work

38:54

outside their field of study. What question or questions

38:56

should that person

38:58

be asking themselves?

39:01

I think they

39:01

should be asking themselves

39:03

what they want to do.

39:06

What ... even before that,

39:06

I think one has to be

39:11

very introspective here. And maybe I'll share this

39:13

to try to materialize

39:18

what I'm saying here. There were many moments

39:20

in graduate school,

39:23

as much as I loved it. And I did love it.

39:25

There were many moments when

39:25

I would wake up in the morning

39:30

with a sense of angst, some kind

39:30

of almost paralyzing anxiety.

39:38

And I think I ignored

39:38

that for a long time.

39:41

I didn't know what it was

39:41

because I didn't bother

39:44

really exploring it. But it was there.

39:47

It was there. It was a real physical

39:48

and emotional experience

39:52

that I was having. And I was just suppressing it.

39:56

And I think, Why was

39:56

I suppressing it?

39:58

Because underlying it was

39:58

some deeper sense that

40:03

maybe this isn't what I

40:03

should be doing, right.

40:06

Not that I had another

40:06

idea or what I...

40:09

of what I should be doing, but

40:09

I think that sense that, Is this

40:14

really what I should be doing? Am I really, even

40:15

that good at this?

40:17

And so on. I think those questions

40:18

were, were, were very

40:21

much sort of bubbling

40:21

beneath the surface there.

40:25

And I never gave them a

40:25

chance to kind of come above

40:29

the surface and to really

40:29

take hold of them and think

40:33

them through and try to

40:33

understand what was happening.

40:35

So I would say that folks

40:35

should, should not do that.

40:39

Like don't let that

40:39

stuff sort of...

40:43

don't keep suppressing

40:43

that stuff and ignoring it.

40:46

I think that's, that's... not only is it unhealthy,

40:48

but it's potentially

40:50

dangerous, I think. So I think there's that.

40:54

In terms of questions, like if

40:54

one already reaches that point

40:57

of, you know, I'm not sure

40:57

that this is what I should be

41:00

doing, despite the fact that

41:00

I've committed so much time

41:04

to this, so much energy to it,

41:04

perhaps so much money to it.

41:07

I think the next question

41:07

is, Well, what should I do?

41:11

What do I want to be doing?

41:14

I think that's important to try

41:14

to understand, like, what is

41:17

it that you want to be doing

41:17

and how do you get there?

41:22

And maybe you don't have answers

41:22

to those questions, but then you

41:25

start talking to other people

41:25

because other people will have

41:28

answers to those questions. And I think that, in a sense,

41:30

the story I told of the

41:33

woman I met, who is doing

41:33

customer experience research

41:36

at REI, she had the answer

41:36

to the question, right.

41:40

I maybe didn't even

41:40

have the question fully.

41:43

And she didn't know she

41:43

was answering the question,

41:46

but that's what happened

41:46

in, in our encounter.

41:50

If somebody

41:50

is curious about UX, is

41:55

there any reading or, you

41:55

know, videos, podcasts you

42:00

might recommend to them?

42:02

I mean, there's a ton of stuff out there these days, and

42:04

I don't have any specific

42:06

recommendations necessarily. And it's partly because I don't

42:09

keep track of these things

42:11

very well to be quite frank. But, you know, there are a

42:13

bunch of articles, of bunch

42:17

of people on LinkedIn, a

42:17

bunch of YouTube videos.

42:21

I think, the question is just

42:21

vetting that knowing like who

42:25

to trust and who you should

42:25

be a little bit leery of

42:28

and everything in between. I, I don't know that I've

42:30

thought enough about this to

42:33

be able to say, Look out for

42:33

this or that sort of thing.

42:39

I do know that boot camps

42:39

are fairly popular these

42:44

days, so lots of people

42:44

are, are attracted to that.

42:48

Many of these so-called

42:48

bootcamps promise jobs after

42:53

you've finished and fulfilled

42:53

all sorts of things for them.

42:56

They guarantee job placement or

42:56

your money back sort of thing.

43:01

I think at this stage

43:01

there's probably enough

43:04

experience and information

43:04

out there to suggest that

43:07

one should be leery of that. So I think I know that much.

43:11

Not that it's always a bad idea. I don't think that it is,

43:13

but I think, I think one just

43:17

has to ask oneself, Like,

43:17

what do I need to learn?

43:20

How disciplined am I to do this?

43:23

Because you could do it on your own. And, how am I going to

43:26

learn what I need to learn?

43:30

T o be fully transparent, I

43:30

actually started a bootcamp

43:34

of sorts at one point, partly

43:34

because I knew that I wouldn't

43:38

be disciplined enough to just

43:38

sit down every day and read

43:41

all the things and learn all

43:41

the things that I probably

43:43

needed to read and learn. But there was a moment

43:46

at which I think I knew

43:49

myself well enough to say,

43:49

All right, I've learned as

43:52

much as I can from this. I'm applying for jobs.

43:56

I'm ready. Like, I just felt that, um,

43:56

and it worked out and I was

44:00

able to get at least a partial

44:00

refund on, on this thing.

44:04

So, I will say like, sort

44:04

of one last note about this,

44:09

because I think this is a huge

44:09

struggle for many people coming

44:12

into UX is that, it's not just

44:12

a matter of having the skill.

44:16

I think many, many, many people

44:16

have the research skills.

44:19

They know how to do research. They know how to work with

44:21

other people well, and so on.

44:25

But it's actually having

44:25

a grounded experience

44:29

doing the work. Most companies will expect at

44:30

least a little bit of that.

44:35

And that's, I think the

44:35

biggest hurdle, for, for

44:38

most people who are new to

44:38

the field is getting some

44:42

semblance of experience that

44:42

they can bring to the table.

44:45

The skills, if

44:45

they're there, great.

44:48

But people are gonna want

44:48

to know, Can you apply these

44:51

skills in this environment?

44:53

Show us that you can do it. And I don't think very many

44:55

hiring managers and committees

45:01

that do hiring will accept a

45:01

more theoretical answer of,

45:06

I can do it and I know that

45:06

I can do it kind of thing.

45:12

Well,

45:12

Anthony, thank you again.

45:14

It was really a pleasure.

45:16

Likewise. Thank you. I appreciate you

45:17

taking the time.