Experiments in Humor

You know that people respond to humor in marketing and even in products. But you also know that you don’t want to be responsible for cringe-inducing messages that misses the humor mark. Good news: You can take the risk out of being funny. In this talk, Rachman Blake, Director of Growh at AppHeroes and Co-founder at FunnyBizz, teaches techniques for experimenting your way into funniness.

Will They Buy It?

After doing customer development, you’ve learned that your target market absolutely loves your new product idea. But will they buy it? Steli Efti, founder at Close.io, explains how to get an answer without turning off your interviewees

Get Buy-In to Invest in Experimentation

One of the biggest challenges entrepreneurial employees face is getting support from your company leaders. Because when presented with proposals for user research or experimentation, corporate leaders will frequently question the value of those processes and shoot down the ideas. Nate Weisz, Director of Product Management at 3Pillar Global, shares techniques he’s developed that pave the way to organically gaining support from executives.

Convert Gatekeepers into Advocates

When your customers are large, complex organizations, key influencers act as gatekeepers between your MVP and your end users. How do you turn gatekeepers into advocates? Amanda Krantz, founder of DohJe, shows how her team navigated this maze to launch a software pilot program at UCSF, a large teaching hospital.

Blur the Line Between Customer and Engineer

Live chat that’s built into a website or app for customer support is usually answered by customer service reps. But some teams use it as a direct communication line between engineers and their customers. Charlie Scheinost, engineering manager at Adobe, shares lessons from building live chat into his team’s workflow early on and using it to shape features and prioritize development.

Lean Placemaking for Cities

You may not know that cities, like startups, can run experiments to test new initiatives. Urban design expert, Mariela Alfonzo shows us how she has applied Lean Startup to urban planning to and created a tool that helps cities generate and test their hypotheses effectively.

Make A Real Difference in 60 Days

It started with a tweet wondering how people in Detroit were coping with water shut-offs. Two months later, Detroit Water Project co-founders Tiffani Bell and Kristy Tillman have matched Detroit residents with $150K in donations. Bell explains how they moved so quickly.

Photography as a Research Tool

When you’re doing customer research, written notes are valuable, but they present only one perspective about the people you’re trying learn about. Megan Kierstead, Principal at Social Ergonomics, shares techniques for using photography as a user research tool.

Lean Brand Building

Defining a brand can be risky, especially in the early days of startup, when your market and product are still geling. In this talk, Laura Busche, author of Lean Branding, will share practical tips for useful, early-stage brand-building.

Boost Collaboration, Improve Experimentation

To succeed, experimentation requires more collaboration and communication across roles than most of us are used to. How can organizations make sure that teams share information in meaningful and action-oriented ways? Julie Lorch, head of user experience at DoSomething.org, gives us advice.