Category: Figma
-
On my 366th day at Figma
Today I ran a distribution workshop for the editorial team. To prepare, I also dropped in a dozen thought starters for promoting two posts in a distribution workshop I run. I also promoted a blog post for a feature that our team announced today. I was particularly hands on with this promotion and we tried…
-
Starting, developing, and finishing
A little over a year ago, my friend Michael asked me, “Are you a starter, a developer, or a finisher?” He explains the differences, which he learned from Kevin Kelley, in this issue of his newsletter: While I initially saw each of these elements in my work, it’s become much clearer to me that I…
-
On franchises
When you make something on the internet, you’re best off making something that stands out. Even if you follow someone else’s template or structure, you want to put your own little twist on it—so that it cuts through the noise, but also so that people know that you made it. You do this by following…
-
In order to figure it out, you need to do it
In order to solve a problem that has eluded you and your team, you may want to work on the problem by yourself rather than waste everyone’s time. While it’s a noble goal, and it might be helpful in small doses, keeping the meetings is a good idea. If you’re a person used to delivering…
-
Entrepreneurship isn’t a job title, it’s a mindset
Some words from Satish Kanwar came to mind today, which is a lesson he learned after selling his business: The truth is, it took me longer than I care to admit to realize that I had been thinking about my identity the completely wrong way. Being an entrepreneur wasn’t attached to this business. It was…
-
Notes-based meeting prep
Earlier this week, my coworker and I had a 1-1 meeting and she was delighted to see that I had brought a small index card and pen to the meeting. We spent a few minutes chatting about it. Here’s what I said: Before every meeting, I prepare a 4×6 index card. If there is a…
-
Plugging in and powering up
My latest for Figma is up, “How to plug in and power up your designer-developer handoff with Figma and Jira.” In order to make this post, my team and I interviewed several customers over phone and email, and drew five insights on how product development teams can work better together: This is my new standard…
-
Spot the difference
Early in my career, I worked at Lifehacker as a staff writer. I needed to write three short posts every day, and two long ones each week. My editors were giving me comments and suggestions on all of these posts, but I noticed a tension: as I accepted these changes and resolved comments, they would…
-
Three lessons from Peter Yang
I recently worked on a post with Peter Yang for the Figma blog. While the post is about 10 rules for making products that customers love, I learned a lot about Peter’s work as a creator while doing research for the post. Peter works a full-time job as a product lead at Roblox, and writes…
-
Three things I learned about execution as an employee (that I didn’t as an entrepreneur)
1. There is always a surplus of work that needs to be done. As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to “deprioritize” this stuff and drop the ball, and not feel the effects until later. As an employee, that’s not possible, because your team will hold you accountable. You need to manage all of these things well;…