Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Polytechnicast
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
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| Polytechnicast - How to work within the gaming industry - a question via my blog | 19 Nov 2024 | ||
A question from someone who knows someone who met me at 2D Con. Every person's path is their own but it's also fun to learn how olther folks got to where they are. Related Links and Resources Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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| Polytechnicast Special - Growing Your Creative Business with Jerzy Drozd | 25 Jul 2024 | ||
Earlier this summer I visited Columbus Ohio to visit my friends Anne and Jerzy Drozd. Part of the plan for our visit was to make some creative experiments together, one of them is this very recording with Jerzy. For the first time I can think of both he and I are launching products at the same time. Both projects took years of development. Both we made solo. His project is the book The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue and mine is the action + cozy game Word Turtle Island. In this episode, a special crossover of Thunder Punch Daily + Polytechnicast, Jerzy and I navigate stories of why we made these projects and how we're facing the significant task of marketing to reach the people we know will enjoy what we made. It's a lot like an episode of the Lean Into Art cast which was special to revisit for me, hope it will be for you too. Related Links and Resources
Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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| Polytechnicast - Memory of organizations - repeating other people's stories | 11 Nov 2021 | ||
Have you been part of an organization that seems to repeat projects that don't learn much from one another? It's a thing I've wondered: why do companies forget? This episode of the Polytechnicast I journal about group memory and wonder if it would be helpful to remember what different teams have tried and learned in the past. Is it because we resist repeating other peoples stories? Related Links and Resources
Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast
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| Polytechnicast - Making your own art journal prompts #artsoundoff | 04 Nov 2021 | ||
Any path that brings you to journaling about your art, here I share some context around planning what you'd want to get out of your journaling plus choosing and creating prompts that are a good fit for what you want. Related Links and Resources
Rob's Products and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast
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| Polytechnicast - Improving Communication Skills as a Product Engineer | 08 May 2021 | ||
Something I'm grateful for is to be on a learning adventure together with folks I've worked with. At times I get questions from folks who listen to the show and folks I've been on teams with in the past. I'm going to include all this in a category of listener questions and make a few Polytechnicasts based on these questions. In this episode I get a question from a colleague who is wondering about practicing communication skills coming from a product team and engineering perspective. How could this help with understanding and communicating your own philosophy and values in a collaboration? Related Links and Resources Rob's Products and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast
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| Polytechnicast - Emotional Effort of Design | 08 Feb 2021 | ||
The emotional work of discovering, including, representing, and collaborating in design is what I explore in this think aloud journal. This recording didn't start as a Polytechnicast or even an exploration about UX Mindset but that's where I found myself going. Since the beginning of 2021 I've been blogging every day on my Interactive Storyteller blog. I hope you'll join me there too as I talk about illustrating, making games, and UX design. It's very much the prose form of the Polytechnicast. Related Links and Resources Rob's Products and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset - Creative Roadblocks Then a Book Outline #artsoundoff | 29 Nov 2020 | ||
Here I explore some of the reasonable and unreasonable goals I had for this month of journaling and developing the UX Mindset series. Practicing this kind of thing helps you meet your own creative process quirks and explore ways to change and work around those quirks. I recorded so many more rough draft journals than I posted, at least 2:1 if not 3:1. It helped me explore the big topic and discover a concept for a UX Mindset book. We'll see where the UX Mindset series goes from here. Probably be back on the Polytechnicast, certainly will be in upcoming workshops, and a good chance I'll persue developing a book. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset - Active Learning is Certain-enough Instead of Overconfident #artsoundoff | 13 Nov 2020 | ||
Actively learning is a lot like using applied research. It's a very useful place to work from, you can be confident enough to proceed making things yet not too confident to prevent learning as you go. We setup teams and organizations to sink or swim based on too much certainty. We're certain often from a combination of ego and efficiency seeking without adapting until expensive mistakes happen. What if we practice being confident enough and setup teams to actively learn instead? And the UX Mindset series continues! Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset - Misunderstanding and Misuse of UX's Power #artsoundoff | 13 Nov 2020 | ||
Where does UX go wrong? Whether a system is broken at the surface or takes deeper understanding to see how it's not serving the health of its audience along with it's other constituencies: UX can be used to help fix or to make things worse. How can that be? Organizations have a lot to do to just exist and maintain exsistence. Some are not questioning things they could question to fix what's broken. Let's pay attention, be curious, inclusive and move what we make toward collective health. And the UX Mindset series continues! Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset - Mental Model You're Working Toward #artsoundoff | 13 Nov 2020 | ||
It's useful to have even a rough concept of what you're working toward, things you know are important or likely to encounter, or at least are worth checking to see if they'd be helpful. For example, a mental model like a creative progression going from rough concept to refined to complete. You can have a UX Mindset informed mental model of getting your work done so that you are working toward including your audience. And the UX Mindset series continues! Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset - Groups of People Interconnected #artsoundoff | 12 Nov 2020 | ||
Any product we make connects a variety of groups of people. UX Constituencies are groups of people I find relate to most any project/product/system/endeavor: your audience, your team, your organization, the world, and you. Here I explore why considering each of those groups helps you make more meaningful things whether you're a UX expert or any person with a UX Mindset. And the UX Mindset series continues! Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset - Listening to be present, lead, consult, coach, or journal #artsoundoff | 12 Nov 2020 | ||
Listening is the most powerful thing you can do to understand. Here I share a few ways of listening that work individually or combined to meet the needs of you and your team in the moment. And the UX Mindset series continues! Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Word Turtle Island - Available Friday June 21 | 18 Jun 2024 | ||
A new ask me anything form. Some example topics to ask me about like why I made a game for 2.5 years without publishing a whole lot about it publicly. And most important - it's official that Word Turtle Island is going to be available publicly as an early access game on Steam and Google Play June 21, 2024! Related Links and Resources
Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset Tool - Lists to Include Others and More #artsoundoff | 10 Nov 2020 | ||
Being open to including others is a big start to making something more meaningful. List making is one of the best tools you can use no matter if you identify as a ux designer or not. This episode continues the UX Mindset series! Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset for Artists | 07 Nov 2020 | ||
Audiences learn about your work, then what's it like for them to learn more, to support your work. If you offer a variety of products how do they find the one they need in this moment? UX Mindset for artists has two distinct and useful concerns:
This episode continues the UX Mindset series! Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset for Designers | 07 Nov 2020 | ||
Advocate for design in order to advocate for and include learning about our audiences. We designers practice many useful skills to help us and those we work with to make inclusive decisions that shape products and systems. Something that can get overlooked along the way: helping others see the value of this including of human context. It's useful to practice helping others learn from their audience and include human centeredness. This episode continues the UX Mindset series! Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset for Software Engineering | 06 Nov 2020 | ||
As someone who's worked both as a software engineer and ux designer I want to share the value adding human centered design tools for making engineering decisions. This episode continues the UX Mindset series! Related Links and Resources Rob's Products and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset for Business | 06 Nov 2020 | ||
Continuing the UX Mindset series, I share why I think it's so useful for anyone running, planning, or leading a business to see user experience design and human centered design tools as so worthwhile to include in decision making. Related Links and Resources Rob's Products and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mindset | 03 Nov 2020 | ||
Something I've been considerering for a number of years: how can I help spreat the tools of ux design far and wide. Human centered design + understanding systems and situations where the things we make connect with the audiences we serve are useful mechanisms for so many. Here I talk about how I started with "UX for all" then "Practicing UX" and am thinking how "UX Mindset" may be even more approachable as a way to choose to involve people and see situations differently to be able to make better things. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Creative Challenge Worksheet | 02 Nov 2020 | ||
Since I'm taking part in a creative challenge called Art Soundoff (http://artsoundoff.com), I decided to use the workbook from my Customizing Your Next Creative Challenge workshop. Customizing Your Next Creative Challenge is available on Gumroad and Skillshare. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - 4 Weeks Instead of 4 Days to Refine the Game Guitar Fretter | 18 Aug 2020 | ||
Guitar Fretter is 10 years old and I still have more ideas to add and refine. Some of those ideas I'm putting into a new game, some I'm putting into the classic version of Guitar Fretter. Recently I thought I'd make a quick art update and I expected to be ready to publish in about 4 days. Did things get out of hand where it took 4 weeks instead? Analyzing the list of what to improve and testing along the way, it felt it best to make more improvements. This episode of the Polytechnicast journals my thought process and highlights what happened as I worked on the latest udpate. Also: a brief overview of what is Guitar Fretter. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Minimum Viable Product as Jargon for Learning | 20 Jun 2020 | ||
In this Polytechnicast I consider how I've found MVP useful. Also how MVP and any highly celebrated business and design concept will go through a cycle where the name for the concept draws more and more negative takes. And I share the news that I'm launching a Patreon of news and special episodes of the Polytechnicast and more! Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Being There When a Team is Starting Their Design Journey - Additional Thoughts About the Article | 16 Feb 2020 | ||
I wrote this article called Being There When a Team is Starting Their First Design Journey, my first Medium article. So many organizations in the recent 10+ years have asked: what if we explore if we should build something for our audience instead of just can we build something. They may not have intended to ask that question at the start, but they're asking this when they invite human centered design. Like I shared in the article "Even though UX design is becoming more common, the tools and skills of UX are not yet everywhere". Great opportunity for human centered designers to contribute. In this Polytechnicast I share a summary of the article and explore some additional thoughts surrounding. It would be faster to read the article but then you'd miss out on all this extra commentary. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Word Turtle Island Coming Soon to Early Access | 20 Apr 2024 | ||
Wort and Portia from Word Turtle Island About 2.5 years. That's how long I've been working on Word Turtle Island to get it ready to publish as an early access game. It's about the right time to be getting the word out and to get myself into practice with showing up social. Practicing being more present even if it's chaotic and inconsistent. Such as this 20 some minute audio podcast. Hi. Related Links and Resources
Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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| Polytechnicast - Something Ate My Goal Notes | 23 Jan 2020 | ||
Today I annotated 11 double sided physical pages of goals and what happened next is I left them at a bagel place. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Rapid Visual Storytelling for Designers | 29 Nov 2019 | ||
As a guest instructor I recently taught a class about making use of visual storytelling to serve the product design process in a variety of ways - especially through sketching the stories and visuals as quick doodles. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Outlets to Decompress | 28 Nov 2019 | ||
As part of the Art Soundoff creative challenge, I explore this journal prompt "Outlets". I consider how guitar, drawing, and playing games appeal to me in some contexts as a way to wind down or decompress. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Three Things About My Art | 27 Nov 2019 | ||
As part of the Art Soundoff creative challenge, I explore this journal prompt "3 things about your art". Fantasy art, comics storytelling is something I found later than sooner, and sketching are all building blocks for my work. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - UX Mentoring Revisited and Guest Teaching Design | 26 Nov 2019 | ||
Sharing your time to listen, learn, and help connect others to the community you've been part of is a worthwhile endeavor. In this episode of the Polytechnicast I reflect on some recent volunteering I'm doing to support those studying systemic minded human centered design. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Perfectionism in Making Video Games, Comics, and UX | 26 Nov 2019 | ||
Considering how I related to perfectionism in my creative projects making video games about 15 years ago. This influenced things I explored in UX design and in making comics and carry with me to this day. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - UX Portfolios as a Design Problem (Practicing UX for All) | 25 Nov 2019 | ||
What's sharable, useable, and useful to put in your portfolio? Your UX portfolio is an interesting challenge. Doing the work that leads to a credible conceptual foundation for a product or service doesn't always come with sharable artifacts to curate as a gallery in a portfolio. In any case, finding the story, the goals of your audience, and your goals is a place to consider your portfolio as a design problem. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - 3 Ideas About Getting Useful Data from Conversations (Practicing UX for All) | 25 Nov 2019 | ||
Thinking about some things I've found helpful for building a useful shared understanding through conversations with your audience, your organization, and your team. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - UX vs Creative Voice (Practicing UX for All) | 24 Nov 2019 | ||
Thinking about creativity, the label of being a creative, and the relationship between service and expression as a designer. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - How is Art Soundoff 2019 Going So Far | 24 Nov 2019 | ||
Even though there's a few more days to go in this year's Art Soundoff creative challenge, I'm looking at my experience of this year's challenge asking what went well and what could be better. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - A Place to Practice Spelling | 16 Aug 2023 | ||
This is Spell, the magical cat who hosts a save place to practice spelling words. In the middle of working on my next big game Word Turtle Island, where you use words as weapons to battle creatures taking away the books of power, the idea for Spell's Spelling came to me. In this episode of the Polytechnicast I reflect on how this came about and how sometimes a project that takes time away from another project can be worthwhile. Related Links and Resources Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast
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| Polytechnicast - Creative Work and Health Thoughts and Replies to the Slow Dooown Podcast | 22 Nov 2019 | ||
This summer indie creator and publisher Jaques Nyemb shared and 8-episode fascinating thoughtful and fun micropodcast series called Slow Dooown. Each episode Jaques asks a question of the audience and in this episode of the Polytechnicast I share some replies and thoughts about collaborating, social presence, and being sustainably creative. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Drawing Some Posters | 20 Nov 2019 | ||
While exploring the Art Soundoff journal prompt "what are you drawing?" I describe some of the drawings I'm working on now and how they are based on holiday gifts I created last year. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Learning for Business and for Casual | 19 Nov 2019 | ||
While exploring the Art Soundoff journal prompt "what are you learning?" I share a few things I'm learning in both a business context and casual play context. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Plausible Introvert, Extrovert, or Ambivert | 19 Nov 2019 | ||
In a recent conversation I shared with someone that I can identify with being introverted though in recent years consider myself an ambivert. As I've noticed in previous conversations, the term ambivert is not as well known. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Beginning a Project | 17 Nov 2019 | ||
At the start of a project I've already gathered things that help me commit. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Choosing a Favorite Tool is Difficult | 17 Nov 2019 | ||
I share a few options for my favorite tool and consider how I probably have a bunch of favorite things that help me with understanding, considering, and solving problems. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Human Business Endeavor Sim (Practicing UX for All) | 17 Nov 2019 | ||
I share an idea about making a game of exploring options and scenarios for combining different parts of a business to solve problems for the audience. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Stuck and Unstuck Creative Projects | 15 Nov 2019 | ||
Thinking about how I get moving again on creative projects feels related to how I got stuck in the first place. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Serving Four Groups to Practice UX for All | 15 Nov 2019 | ||
Continuing the UX for All series I talk about how the series is evolving beyond offering a starting point for UX tools. I describe four groups who each have goals that affect your UX design work: your audience, your organization, your team, and you. Then I describe some of the worthwhile conflict you can uncover through including all four and what might happen if you choose to avoid it. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Intentional Planner Tools | 14 Nov 2019 | ||
Two mini-worksheets I made recently in collaboration with Kate Shields Stenzinger help simplify describing the goals and projects you're working on. We call them the Intentional Planner Tools. The Goals and Actions planner is about reflection to help plan what's next combined with asking what you're big goals are for the next 5 years. Then the project concept and project status mini-worksheets help you collect those things you're building and sharing with the world and make it easy to describe why they're important to your audience. Both are available to download as PDFs. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Minimum Viable and Minimum Lovable Product Strategy Question | 20 Apr 2023 | ||
In the overlapping circles of feasible, viable, desirable, what is the emphasis and culture practiced? I received a question via my Mastodon account about minimum lovable product vs minimum viable product. @Nycteris@mastodon.art: "So @robstenzinger I was just reading about “minimum Lovable product” vs “minimum Viable product” because you want to have enough features to maximize love of a core group of users - do you think this is a real strategy?" Related Links and Resources
Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast
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| Polytechnicast - Crispy Baked Tofu | 12 Nov 2019 | ||
My approach and steps I take for making very yummy baked tofu you can add to so many kinds of dishes or eat as-is. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Video Games I'm Playing | 11 Nov 2019 | ||
Video games have been and continue to be an influential life long interest for me. In this Polytechnicast I talk about what I'm playing lately which includes some really old games. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Celebrating Finishing Big and Small Tasks | 09 Nov 2019 | ||
A few weeks back I noticed how I've developed a habit of moving past completing tasks big or small without celebrating and since then I've been talking with others about how they celebrate finishing things and doing some reflection on it all. In this Polytechnicast I share where I'm at so far with working on celebrating more. Related Links and Resources
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| Polytechnicast - Teams as Sustainable Learning Machines (UX for All) | 07 Nov 2019 | ||
Continuing the UX for All series, I describe attibutes to build into a team so it serves the needs of who's funding it, the audience it's helping, and the people who comprise it. Related Links and Resources
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