Bryan Dosono [00:00:00]:
Being very open to new opportunities and being very approachable and finding serendipity in any sort of event where it can happen had just a beautiful outcome that somehow landed in an opportunity to speak on this podcast.

Erin May [00:00:25]:
Great to have Bryan on this episode. Someone who kind of fell into events and Ux research naturally, organically, has fallen in love with him and has tons of great tips on taking advantage of events and just sort of the beautiful serendipity of events. I learned a lot talking with him. What did you learn, Carol?

Carol Guest [00:00:44]:
Yeah, I'm so excited to share this episode. I learned so much about Ux events. I learned what events to go to, how to prepare and think who you want to meet ahead of time, and then when you get there, how to take advantage of all of the tracks, plus offline online things that are happening with events. So I am genuinely really excited after this conversation to go and check out some UXR events and use all the tips that Bryan shared.

Erin May [00:01:06]:
Fantastic. Hope you are, too. Enjoy this. Listen, thanks, everybody. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to awkward silences. Today we're here with Bryan Dosono. Bryan is a staff UX research lead at eBay, and today we've got an interesting, fun, never done before topic, which I'm so excited about. We're going to talk about the chaos theory of conference networking.

Erin May [00:01:28]:
Stay with us. This is going to be fun. Bryan, thanks so much for joining us.

Bryan Dosono [00:01:31]:
Thank you so much for having.

Erin May [00:01:33]:
Awesome, awesome. We got Carol here, too. Hi, everyone.

Carol Guest [00:01:36]:
Glad to be here. Excited to dig into this topic. And I'm newer on the UX conference circus, so I'm excited to dig in and hear what happens there.

Erin May [00:01:44]:
Oh, yeah, we got to get you out there, Carol. So, Bryan, tell us, what is the chaos theory of conference networking events?

Bryan Dosono [00:01:52]:
Yeah, so if we break it down first into the chaos theory part, when we think about chaos theory, there is this apparent randomness in complex systems, and within those complex systems, there could exist underlying patterns. A very common metaphor that we see a lot in pop culture about chaos theory is this butterfly effect, where a butterfly may flap its wings somewhere in Texas, but that could end up being a tornado somewhere in Brazil. So ultimately, one thing leads to another, and despite things being random, there are also these opportunities for serendipity to pop.

Erin May [00:02:29]:
Right, right. Also in Ashton Kutcher movie, I think if I remember correctly, the butterfly effect wasn't. Yeah, so that's relevant somehow, but, yeah, so the point being, right, you go to these events, and I think especially in a work context, we want things to be linear and have clear causal if a then b, and are saying actually there's this beautiful chaos of pleasantly unpredictable things that might happen in a kind of real life event setting.

Bryan Dosono [00:03:00]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one example that I can share with the audience today is how I ended up on this podcast. So I currently volunteer as a conference chair for UXPA or the User Experience Professionals association. Last year I was one of the conference chairs for the design Psychology track, and when I actually went to the conference, one of the booths that I stumbled across was user interviews. I was able to really chat with the folks who were at that vendor exhibit and ultimately had an awesome conversation. I wanted to learn more about what opportunities user interviews was doing to engage its broader community, and after the conference was able to follow up with those folks. And that ultimately yielded an invitation to join the user interviews Research Council. Afterward, user interviews organized a happy hour in New York City.

Bryan Dosono [00:03:58]:
That's where I'm currently based. And I was able to attend that happy hour where I met Aaron, one of the hosts of this podcast, and from the conversation that we had at that hangout, had really great opportunities to learn about what user interviews was doing to enhance upcoming products and just to get a sneak peek into what was going on in their product development process. Much later, was able to follow up with Erin, or Erin followed up with me, and that somehow landed in an opportunity to speak on this podcast. And that was not something that I was predicting that would happen to me from UxPA. But I think just being very open to new opportunities and being very approachable and finding serendipity in any sort of event where it can happen, I think had just a beautiful outcome, even though it was totally unplanned and unexpected.

Carol Guest [00:04:50]:
I love this progression. I feel like I'm someone who, similar to what Erin described, I want to more clearly know the outcome when I go into something like I want to sign up, I want to know what's going to happen, who I'm going to talk to, what's going to happen next. I guess I wonder, just how is this part of what you get from being a part of these groups and being a part of events, and you just have to go in sort of an open mind, as you said?

Bryan Dosono [00:05:10]:
Yeah, I think that's part of what it involves or what it entails. Just having this open mindset and not having a prescribed way of just approaching, for example, an event or conference, but just being very open and seeing where things can go, I think has been part of my learning journey as a researcher. I'm very type a, so I know what it means to really want to have clear and planned outcomes. But there are also just some things that we can't plan for. And for me, I'm trying to do a better job with just embracing all possibilities. I'm taking a lot of and drawing a lot of inspiration from everything, everywhere, all at once, where we could live in a multiverse of choice and possibility. So why not let that manifest itself to you?

Erin May [00:05:57]:
So many movies now I'm thinking of past lives, right?

Bryan Dosono [00:06:00]:
The what if.

Erin May [00:06:00]:
Like all these parallel things that could happen. So we're talking about spot native, about unintended or unimagined or uncontrollable positive outcomes that can come from something. So not to try to bend the nature of that into something you can harness and control, but being someone who self identifies as type a, I think you also mentioned maybe on the introvert side of things, can you put yourself in the way of positive outcomes in an event kind of setting?

Bryan Dosono [00:06:36]:
Yeah, I believe even for folks who are introverted like myself, there are ways that you can create conditions that benefit your time at, for example, events where there is a lot of networking involved, there's a lot of talking involved, even if it's a remote event or an in person event. As an introvert, for me, it always helps to understand and identify how I can recharge my own battery. And for me, I try to schedule in opportunities where I can just isolate myself for a bit from large crowds or large audiences. See if I can either take a quick walk around the block of that in person event or just schedule some bio breaks throughout these online events so that I can actually just decompress for a bit before I have to throw myself back into networking mode.

Erin May [00:07:24]:
Yeah, that's a great tip. And I know more events these days, especially post Covid. On the one hand, people are hungry to get back to events. On the other hand, the burden is, I think, stronger for an event organizer. You got to really give people a reason to leave their house, maybe even fly to your event. Right. And so part of that is building them in more of an inclusive way for folks who have different appetites for networking and want to get kind of different things out of these events.

Bryan Dosono [00:07:52]:
Absolutely.

Carol Guest [00:07:53]:
I'd love to go a level deeper here on thinking about as an introvert myself, I feel like when I have gone to events, it has been very overwhelming and I just am not sure what I'm trying to achieve.

Bryan Dosono [00:08:04]:
Always.

Carol Guest [00:08:04]:
Right. Sometimes I have a random conversation with some person and does that end up going anywhere? Unclear. You mentioned planning ahead, you mentioned thinking about breaks. I wonder if you have an in person event. I don't know specifically. Are you looking at the schedule ahead of time? Are you looking at the venue? Are you looking at attendees to see if you want to talk to? How do you plan ahead?

Bryan Dosono [00:08:24]:
Yeah, I think all of the above for what you just mentioned. So for me, I think the true conference experience starts before the actual conference where I'm looking at the attendee list oftentimes. Many conferences nowadays have a companion mobile app where, for example, if it's on Hoova, which what I've been seeing, or if it's a custom homebrewed app, usually you can see who's attending, whether or not they are in person, or they're attending remotely. And you can see, for example, you could typically see if they're going to be a speaker, or if they're an organizer, or if they have some other role in the conference. This is a really great opportunity to, for example, if you wanted to work on a paper with someone or a project, having an opportunity for you to schedule some time either to meet at the conference or even before the conference starts will at least put you in a position where you're making the time work for you. And I always want to make sure that whenever I invest my time and energy going to a conference, I'm really there to prioritize networking. Usually the content or the conference proceedings or even the presentations is archived later, and I can just access that content after the fact and just really use that in person time to really have those really important like coffee chats or catching up with old connections I haven't seen a while, or creating an opportunity to collaborate with folks who I know only on social media but have not yet met in person. I think that and just being really intentional with scheduling is key to making the most out of your time at these conferences.

Bryan Dosono [00:10:02]:
And it also helps to make sure that you are aware of what types of social events are happening at these functions as well. For some of the remote conferences that I've seen, I've seen some of these events have open break rooms where you could pop in and pop out, or they might have some gamification element where they're tracking who has the most engaging content from the conference hashtag. Those could be possibilities where you open up room for collaboration, or those serendipitous conversations to occur online. For the in person events, there might be, for example, an informal five k or a morning run that people are organizing that might not be part of the actual event, but is more social in nature. That could also be an opportunity where you get to meet attendees and talk about things that are outside the domain of the actual conference and get to know the attendees on a more personable, human level.

Erin May [00:11:01]:
That's great. So taking advantage of all this information, who's going, what stuff's happening ahead of time? Bryan, how much do you sort of plot, like, do you have, okay, this person, I really want to connect with this, like, specific people you want to try to kind of find a way to connect with, or what do you do with that information once you sort of. Okay, this is what we're working with at this event.

Bryan Dosono [00:11:24]:
Yeah. It always helps to use your network to network. And oftentimes when you're going to these events, you would at least have a secondary or even a third degree connection with the people that you want to meet. So if you already know that you have a shared LinkedIn connection together, or if they are from an institution where you've had a previous collaborator, you could usually ask that person to give you a soft intro so that there would be a greater opportunity for that connection to happen in person, and you're not approaching that person coldly, and instead you're getting that warm introduction from a shared connection. I think that always helps me whenever I would want to meet with someone or to collaborate with someone so that they already know that I am either in the periphery or adjacent to their existing network.

Carol Guest [00:12:11]:
And I imagine, let's see the right way to frame this. How do you actually think about. This is very basic, but how do you actually think about the people that.

Bryan Dosono [00:12:20]:
You want to meet?

Carol Guest [00:12:21]:
Is it a combination? You mentioned people that you know on social media. Maybe their company is doing interesting work, or maybe you happen to know what type of work they're interested in. I'm just curious how you get to a level of knowing the right people you're trying to seek out.

Bryan Dosono [00:12:33]:
Yeah. And for me, in answering that question, I think I look at it as, where am I in my research career, and how can this event help me go to where I want to go next? When I was doing my PhD program, a lot of the emphasis was on publications, publications, publications. So a lot of the, for example, ACM, or Association for Computing machinery conferences that I attended were really focused on finding key collaborators in my space and having an opportunity to either network with them or be in the same sort of doctoral consortium or graduate cohort so that I can bounce ideas back and forth and perhaps even co organize panels or future working groups together. Now, as a UX research practitioner, I'm using these conferences as an opportunity to perhaps refer future teammates or to see if there are any potential interns that might want to work on my team, or to even find engagements with future UXR vendors. And at this stage of my career, I'm looking to see who would be really great collaborators in UX research, where would be great opportunities where we could elevate certain company brands that have a very shared mission or are aligned in where they want to advance the field. So that's how I would approach the type of either people or entities that I would want to connect with at these events. I'm loving this.

Carol Guest [00:14:04]:
I'm loving hearing how you approach it and then also imagining you at these various events. I want to join an event you're going to.

Erin May [00:14:10]:
Yeah. Imagine yourself at these events, Carol, I see it for you. I see it.

Carol Guest [00:14:15]:
It's going to happen.

Erin May [00:14:16]:
Bryan, I don't know about you, but I have found that UX researchers, people who do research, are pretty nice and approachable and that there are quite a few sort of introvert leaning folks in the mix. So you might find yourself in good company, and people are just looking for that connection and are quite nice regardless of seniority. Right. Like what sort of company they're working at. I've found people to be pretty approachable. Have you found that as well?

Bryan Dosono [00:14:45]:
I have. And perhaps maybe that's just a function of our field being very understanding or having a lot of the topics or training center around empathy or whatever that means. I think because a lot of the work that we do engages humans, there is also that propensity to not only understand the space, but really find common ground with one another at these events.

Erin May [00:15:12]:
So talk to a little bit about how you can sort of plan ahead of time. You have some people you might want to meet. There's some different activities going on. We're taking some breaks if we need them, to kind of recharge our batteries. In terms of putting yourself opening up to, I don't know, maybe I'll meet somebody and I don't know what's going to come out of it. Right. Do you have any tips to kind of put yourself in the right frame for being open, to let the positive chaos unfold?

Bryan Dosono [00:15:42]:
Yeah. Oftentimes just putting yourself out there and being brave in an uncomfortable spot would be a way for you to just grow. I think for me as a researcher, I've also come to really embrace rejection, or looking at rejection as an opportunity to redirect to different opportunities. I think especially at these networking events, you might not be able to be friends with everyone, but I think at least finding one or two solid people that you've been able to find attending certain sessions with you or you see them throughout the conference. For me, I usually have to warm up before I make the first move to approach someone, and that's why I always want to see if there's any way that I can find common ground with the people that I'd want to connect with else I would also emphasize just being vulnerable and seeing where that vulnerability can take you to. I think it's really a challenge, especially when we're coming out of the pandemic and we've just been so isolated for some time, where people are now getting back into the gears of motion of what it means to shake someone's hand and what it means to share an actual hug. I think there are ways that these conferences are easing the opportunity to connect attendees with each other.

Erin May [00:17:10]:
Yeah, I'm feeling ready.

Carol Guest [00:17:11]:
I'm feeling like I want to know what are the next for people who are maybe newer to the UX conference circuit. What are the conferences that are top of mind for you? What should people have on their radar?

Bryan Dosono [00:17:21]:
Yeah. When I was trying to identify and moving out of the academic space and moving more into this practitioner space, I tried to find different directories online that could recommend different UXR conferences to me. One that has been highly recommended to me by my colleagues is UXR comp, and that is from my own experience. I found really strong content and it's free registration for online attendees, and I think free has been the key for me to at least see what the space is about. And oftentimes, even at these free events, there's a lot of either back channeling on the stream chat or the conference app, or even any affiliated discord or slack channels. And even those back channels can be super helpful in finding opportunities to connect with other folks who might be looking for their next role or might be pivoting into the UXR discipline, or who are also in the position where they're hiring for talent. So that's been super on. That's what you have on one end of the spectrum where the event registration is free, and then on the other end of the spectrum, for example, like UxPA, the event registration could be upwards to the thousands of dollars.

Bryan Dosono [00:18:44]:
And in that case, usually the registrations are priced that way because of all the logistics involved with planning these in person events, planning for the food, planning for the room, the venue space, the audio and video planning for the speakers. So you'll have a high production, high quality event like UxPa, but it does come at a hefty registration cost. Oftentimes, though, a number of companies are very supportive in providing learning budgets for their employees to attend these events. So for those in the audience who might be curious in attending events that do have hefty registration fees, I'd recommend looking into what your company can provide as resources for either traveling or registering for these types of conferences.

Erin May [00:19:35]:
Yeah, that's great. And that UXR conf is going to be in June, and there's a live component in person and then a remote that you can live stream into free. We'll be there. We'll be at UXPA. And we're also having a remote event called Ux Y ou X or second 1 March 19. So hope to see you there, Bryan, and also folks listening, because I think you're right. There's obviously budgets, a constraint time in the logistics of travel. Hopefully your company does have a learning budget, but your time is valuable too, so you want to really think about what's going to be a good use of your time.

Erin May [00:20:12]:
I know you're talking about a lot of events will list kind of the agenda, the speakers ahead of time, but you can also reach out to coordinators for more information too. They'll gladly share to kind of vet is this something worth my learning budget, worth my time to travel for? Or do I maybe want to just do the remote piece too?

Bryan Dosono [00:20:31]:
Yeah, you bring up a really good point. And I remember earlier on in my career, I was juggling both the conference content and then the job, and I've just learned over time it's just better to have an out of office message ready and to just fully focus on the conference so that your headspace can be really devoted to learning either new content or meeting new people, strengthening those relationships. You can always return to the job later, you could always catch up on email later, but you'll really make the most out of your time if you can really focus on the conference program and schedule meetings or schedule coffee chats with people that you really want to meet. That's where I think the biggest value at is of these conferences.

Erin May [00:21:17]:
I almost think of it like an active recovery from exercise, where you got to get away from the day to day grind sometimes to keep things sharp and creative, but you're not going to the beach. It's like still work. It's right relevant to your but it's taking that step away from the day to day I think can be really helpful and inspiring. Your day to day work as well.

Carol Guest [00:21:40]:
Maybe, just maybe a few thoughts here. One is we've talked about at least three think. I think we put out Aaron, right. An annual list of top events to.

Erin May [00:21:50]:
I can.

Bryan Dosono [00:21:50]:
We'll be sure to link that one.

Carol Guest [00:21:51]:
There in the show notes.

Bryan Dosono [00:21:52]:
Yeah, I believe I stumbled across that too when I was searching for more conference opportunities. And that has always been a fantastic.

Erin May [00:22:00]:
Know. We always ask people at events, we're like, what else are you going to? What are your favorites? Right? Because we want to know. And a popular one now I'm forgetting the name of it, but we'll put it in the notes is in Amsterdam. We're like, guess we're going to have to go to Amsterdam. Do you know the one I'm talking about, Bryan?

Bryan Dosono [00:22:16]:
Is that ux strat or something else?

Erin May [00:22:19]:
I think it's something else, but there's.

Bryan Dosono [00:22:22]:
So many of them.

Erin May [00:22:23]:
Yeah, there's so many.

Carol Guest [00:22:25]:
Right. I think related to this point is the question of given that there are so many, I'm curious, Bryan, how many are you attending in a given year? And then how do you decide maybe the top, the ones that you're going to go to?

Bryan Dosono [00:22:36]:
Yeah, I'd say maybe I'm attending anywhere from five to ten. But more than half of those are usually like the free online ones where I would register for the conference, go to maybe one or two actual presentations. What I like about a lot of these free or remote friendly conferences is that a lot of the attendees also circulate like a LinkedIn contact sheet sort of on the ground. It's very grassroots and it's another opportunity for you to connect with other researchers or those who want to pivot into UX research. And they also usually, again, have that companion slack or Discord channel. So I'm in a lot of those spaces as well. But for me, I tend to prioritize the conferences where I play more than an active role of just being an attendee. The ones that I prioritize, for example, as of more recent, is UXPA, the user experience professional association, where I'm again one of the conference organizers.

Bryan Dosono [00:23:35]:
And I'm able to play a really pivotal role in looking at the conference submissions and curating what would be a great program for attendees. And earlier in my career, when I was more on the publishing side of churning research papers, I would go to ACM Chi, which is the premier venue for human computer interaction research. But again, for me, the incentive structures back then were just more on the publication route. So for now, I tend to prioritize the opportunities where I can lead or curate programs. And I go to all these other UXR conferences because I'm curious to see who else is presenting really interesting ideas in the space. Could I perhaps invite them to submit something for the conference that I'm organizing, or can they share this conference that I'm organizing with their network? So I think there's many opportunities to have that reciprocal relationship where you're either promoting your events or you're inviting people to become part of yours.

Erin May [00:24:36]:
Now that you've been part of this circuit, if you will, for a little bit longer, are you finding, you mentioned, for example, you get these grassroots lists of LinkedIn profiles being shared. Are you then finding opportunities to okay, we met digitally. Now I'll go meet you in person at an event in the future. And you kind of build these hybrid, right, digital in person relationships over time across different events?

Bryan Dosono [00:25:02]:
Yeah, absolutely. And before I connect with anyone on LinkedIn, I always do my best, like send them a note saying, waving hello from uxr.com or waving hello from this conference, just so that if they decide to continue on the conversation, I'd have a historical record of how we've been able to connect. And I think that's also been super helpful in seeing where these relationships can go, especially if we have the same professional interest in mind.

Erin May [00:25:29]:
That reminds me of how I have all my kids, parents and my phone as Stacey's mom. It's like, how do I know this person? Give you some context, right? How did I meet you? And then maybe you met over a joke or a shared interest. On that note, you talked about networking and not being really the value of these events. Do you have any icebreakers or tips for just the pragmatics of. Because I know that's difficult for a lot of people. There's all these people I'm supposed to be networking with. Maybe I did a warm intro ahead of time. Great.

Erin May [00:26:03]:
But yeah. Any tips for making it easier to kind of start some of those conversations?

Bryan Dosono [00:26:08]:
Quick opening questions that you can ask anyone attending a conference. You can ask them, hey, what did you think about the keynote speaker? Or what are you hoping to get the most out of this conference? And when I'm in networking mode, it always helps to communicate the value that I can bring to them up front so that there is intention with the way that we are having a conversation. And they're again, being intentional with creating these opportunities to collaborate. They might already be on the cusp of having a really good idea out there, but they might not know how to package it or present it in a compelling way. If that's something that I can add value to, how they can package that or share that outwardly, I think that's something that I always try my best to communicate. That way. You're not just having an aimless conversation, but you're having a conversation with intention.

Carol Guest [00:26:57]:
Can you give a little more of an example of what that might look like? I feel like I love this idea and concept, but I can't.

Erin May [00:27:02]:
Carol needs help.

Carol Guest [00:27:05]:
I have value I'm going to add to this conversation. Is that how you do it?

Bryan Dosono [00:27:08]:
Yeah. For example, at UXPA, there could be different tracks. There might be a track for early career researchers. There might be a track for those who are more senior in their field. And if, for example, someone wanted to give a talk about finding belonging in the workplace or sharing common challenges that they're encountering as a UX researcher, that could already be something that I have a strong point of view on. And if I communicate that earlier on in that conversation, I could bring a good perspective on how they might want to tackle that problem that they're working on. Or if they wanted to present this or find other researchers and build a community off of a certain topic, that's something that I can help connect them to. Other people who have thought about this problem previously.

Bryan Dosono [00:28:03]:
They might also just be someone who might be pivoting to Ux research, and they might have an existing problem, or they might have an existing way of thinking about something, but they might not necessarily have either the literature or the background or the methodological perspective. And then that's something that I could either entertain or tell them, hey, have you thought about solving this problem from this approach, or have you thought about looking at the problem from this lens? Then that could be a way that that conversation can evolve. And if I'm, for example, organizing a workshop or a panel on race and technology, and if I knew that they expressed interest in inclusion and belonging, that might be something where I can bring them onto the panel that I'm organizing, and they can also present their perspective, too. So it's this awesome flywheel of consistent collaboration. And you might not even from that conversation, have an immediate connection at that moment, but perhaps maybe two or three or four or five years down the line where you are now in a different position or affiliate with a different institution, and you're trying to connect with others who birds of a feather might want to present another panel or working group you can think back to, or you could search in your LinkedIn inbox for folks who've had certain themes in either their introduction or in the conference. And you can remember, oh, I met this one person at this one conference and I knew that they were really passionate about this topic. Let's bring them into the fold.

Carol Guest [00:29:49]:
I think part of what you're saying about adding value, I think it resonates that someone who is maybe more senior or a lot of experience in setting up conferences, you have a lot that you can give to others. I'm wondering someone who's coming in, maybe a newer UX researcher, what does that look like for them? Is it about adding value? It's about showing curiosity. Showing interest. I just wonder what that looks like.

Bryan Dosono [00:30:12]:
For someone newer to the field. Yeah, for someone newer to the field, I think it can be just what you've said, what it means to just be curious and really help them look at what they can get out of, or how the field can help them and progress their own ideas. I think, especially for those who are pivoting into UXR, some common themes that I've seen at the conferences I've attended looked at imposter syndrome or looked at how they can bring transferable skills, for example, from market research or from data science, and how that is either repurposed or how that is presented through a UX research lens.

Erin May [00:30:53]:
Back to the remote conference. So we've gone back and forth a bit between in person and remote. And I think one of the challenges with remote is always that networking piece of we know that the main value of conferences for most people, particularly once you've been in your field for a few years, is not necessarily the content itself, but really the networking piece of it. What are your tips for making the most out of networking opportunities for a remote conference environment?

Bryan Dosono [00:31:22]:
For the remote conference environment, it always helps to see what existing programs are the conference organizers putting in place to create these new interactions or to create these new connections. Sometimes, or what I've been seeing in the conferences that I've attended are these open stages where people could come and come out. There's also coffee chats where people can sign up for a slot and meet up with someone on a certain topic. And I think some conferences do a really good job with asynchronous communication, where you don't necessarily have to be there in real time, but you can, for example, like an asynchronous job board, you can put an idea out there and if someone wants to pile on or someone wants to join your group or join your project, that could be a really great opportunity. I've found also really great conversations in discord or slack whenever that's communicated or advertised, as sometimes people are just not really in the conference for the content, but they're just in there to have a good time with friends that they've made along the way. So that's always been something that I think is present in a lot of these back channels that accompany these events.

Erin May [00:32:42]:
Yeah, it sounds like the organizers can really do a lot to make the remote environment engaging and interactive through some of these experiences. And then for someone attending, it's really taking advantage of whatever's on offer and whatever speaks to you and how you want to engage. What did we miss? Bryan? What else should people know about taking advantage of the beautiful chaos of in person and remote events?

Bryan Dosono [00:33:07]:
I think one other thing I would recommend is just to make sure that the conference attendees know the layout or the lay of the land before they actually map out the schedule as well. For the in person attendees, it always helps to know where are the exhibits or where are the vendor booths, where's the best spot to have an actual productive coffee chat where you could hear the other person and not have to scream because the hallway is so loud. Mapping out those routes in advance, I think makes it so that you're not shuffling at the last minute. And for example, if the conference has a happy hour, then finding even a way to signal to a person, hey, let's go meet at this place. You don't really want to meet them at the entrance because you'll have a lot of people flooding in, but instead you could point them to either special furniture or landmark within the vicinity and meet there. So I think that's really important for the in person events and for the online attendees. Again, knowing where the back channels are, knowing what the conference hashtag is, and taking advantage of any gamification events, like any online bingos, or online scavenger hunts, or online quizzes where you could win bonus prizes. Perhaps a free registration next year is going to be super important.

Bryan Dosono [00:34:34]:
And speaking of free registration, especially for those who are early in their career, I would always recommend volunteering for a conference where you'll volunteer. You might volunteer 1020 30 hours and as a part of a reward or a thank you for the service, you can often get free registration or heavily discounted registration for that same event the following year. That's something that I know that I took advantage of as a grad student. And I know a lot of conference organizers are offering because they could always use extra hands on the ground to either help direct folks or shepherd folks from one plenary to another or to even, for example, curate programs where you're reviewing submissions, you're grading submissions based on a rubric, and then you're entertaining. Which programs would fit well for certain types of people in the audience.

Erin May [00:35:30]:
Yeah, what a great way to get to meet people and be part of the community as well. Almost better than being at an event in some ways, for a new person, just getting those interactions. So that's an awesome tip. Great. And when you mentioned some of the cool things people can engage with on the remote side, sometimes, if those things aren't happening because they are so grassroots, you could be the person to create them. Right? Start the spreadsheet and get people adding their LinkedIn to it, make some friends. So I think a lot of these things are pretty informal and casual, and you got to feel the room and maybe ask for permission from the organizers. But a lot of it just sort of happens grassroots.

Erin May [00:36:13]:
So don't be afraid to be the person to make things happen.

Bryan Dosono [00:36:16]:
Absolutely. Possibilities are endless there.

Erin May [00:36:20]:
Awesome.

Carol Guest [00:36:20]:
I love that you have such a rich understanding of all of the things that are happening at events. The bingo, the gamification. I think events have changed a lot since the last time. Maybe that I went a couple of years ago, maybe before COVID Really? So it's fun to hear all the different ways that there's the sessions and there's the networking and now there's gamification and the different communities. It's inspiring. I'm excited to get out there and.

Bryan Dosono [00:36:44]:
Go to some events.

Erin May [00:36:45]:
Carol, we got to get you to USRCon. Where are you going, Bryan? In person. Are you going to be remote for that one?

Bryan Dosono [00:36:50]:
I'll at least be remote if I won't be there in person. There's just a number of so many different events happening this year. So in addition to the UXR conferences, I also attend conferences in higher ed and conferences that are just pertinent to my own hobies. So even outside of UX research, I love dabbling in filipino martial arts. I love dabbling in skincare. There's conferences. Pivot. Yeah.

Erin May [00:37:16]:
Nice. Awesome. Awesome. All right, time for the rapid fire section. Okay, let's see. Two to three resources. A few resources that you recommend to folks relevant to UX research or what we're talking about today. Books, websites.

Bryan Dosono [00:37:30]:
Yeah, absolutely. So for folks who really want to network beyond the cadence of these annual events. There are mentorship marketplaces like adplist and merit, both of which are marketplaces that I mentor on where you can connect with senior folks in the field and they're happy to volunteer and provide their own lived experiences and general advice to those who might be interested in learning more about how they can up level their game in UX research or are looking for opportunities to apply to different firms, agencies, companies and institutions. So I think for those who are really looking to have, for example, a regular mentorship cadence, I'd recommend ADP list and merit as those opportunities where you don't necessarily have to go to a conference. You could schedule a mentorship session any time of the year, and that's just more based on a mentor's availability. You can filter mentors based on where they work or what they do or how senior they are in the field. So I've always found that's super helpful. And another resource that I would recommend is Toastmasters.

Bryan Dosono [00:38:42]:
And Toastmasters is a great global organization that any adult can join where they can use it as a sandbox for practicing public speaking and effective communication. A lot of the work that we do as UX researchers, I feel, is about storytelling and making sure that we can communicate our case or our argument in a really clear and articulate way. And Toastmasters for me, has been a really great vehicle to practice and to get live feedback so that you can improve constantly in all the ways that you communicate, whether or not it's through prepared speeches or these ad hoc and impromptu table topics.

Carol Guest [00:39:24]:
I added this, Erin, as a new section to our section, which is, what is your favorite user research interview question?

Bryan Dosono [00:39:31]:
Yeah, my favorite interview question is along lines of, what's a typical day in your life like? And then when I ask that question, I would probe further for any situated practices. If I'm trying to understand certain behaviors or certain rationales or certain decisions, then I might, for example, want to understand how that consumer is doing something, for example, through a jobs to be done approach. But for me, that question, what's a typical day in your life like? Has been a really great opener so that I can see who they are as a human and then probe further if I need to on the product context.

Erin May [00:40:12]:
Where can folks find you? Where can they connect with you? Get the conversation going.

Bryan Dosono [00:40:17]:
Yeah, folks can connect with me on LinkedIn. You can just search for my name, Bryan Desono, and always happy to respond to any direct messages there.

Erin May [00:40:25]:
Well, Bryan, thanks so much for joining us. Hope to bump into you again on the interwebs or in person or wherever our paths should cross. It's great to have you.

Bryan Dosono [00:40:33]:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm looking forward to interacting more with user interviews and hopefully getting to meet both of you again in person soon.

Erin May [00:40:43]:
Awesome.

Bryan Dosono [00:40:44]:
Great.

Carol Guest [00:40:44]:
See you out there. All right, bye, mo.