Jaime Levy, Ux Strategist, Speaker and author of UX Strategy: Product Strategy Techniques for Devising Innovative Digital Solutions

available in 6 languages and now also on Audible

You can find Jaime on LinkedIn and on jaimelevy.com

-----------------

Katty: I’ve been watching your career trajectory, and I was super excited to see that you had written a book, UX Strategy and that the audio version has just come out. So I wanted to have a conversation about you, about the book, and how you started your path.

One thing that I've noticed is this trend of reinvention with you from a designer to a strategist to an author to a public speaker to a professor, and how all of that's going to come together for you. I just found that fascinating, so I'd love for you to talk about your origin story and what's steps you've taken to come here.

Jaime: Let's see. Well, I guess it started even before the browser when I was creating my floppy disk magazines, and I was a graduate student at NYU, and just really interested in nonlinear storytelling. 

And then trying to invent this new medium like it was just this total insane dreamer thing. And I guess because of the floppy disk I made, I actually finished it, and then I successfully brought the product to market by selling it. A floppy disk that opened into a HyperCard or Director presentation. I know for all the newbies, they're like, “What are you talking about?” Don't worry, you don't need to know this old-school stuff. 

But you know it used to be really hard to make interactive presentations, but the upside of all of that was that you could be the first or you could do something that is only mediocre in design. But because it was the first it was like “yay.” 

That was how I started out. I was a horrible interface designer and a horrible coder. But I just kept pounding on these floppy disks, and then, the short version of it is Billy Idol bought one, and then it got launched as a commercial endeavor and then I got my gigs at EMI records and Viacom. And it all just kept going from there you know to eventually, doing an online magazine, and then getting a creative director role and just constantly working. 

I really believe that if you just keep working, and applying yourself, and learning new things, that eventually you'll connect and get whatever it is that you want. Some job, or some gig, or an opportunity. And I think that relentlessness to persevere was something that has stayed with me, and I actually need to kind of manifest it now as I'm starting the next chapter of my career. 

Before UX, it was called interface design and then after interface design, then it was web design and then after web design, then we had information architecture and interaction design. And by the time I got back to LA after 9/11 and the dot com thing crashed in New York, as well as, San Francisco and LA, I came back here and it seemed at that point I needed to focus. 

And I should mention early on as a result of the (floppy) disk I was asked to be a part-time professor at NYU, and I did get flown around the country and the world, to speak at conferences, and I think like when you have that success when you start out you think that's normal. And so for me, it's just been catching up with my old normal, and it's a curse and a blessing, and the blessing is obvious because you're like, oh, I just want to continue to be a public speaker, I want to continue being known or recognized for my work. But the negative consequences, it's an addiction, it's like a high that you set here and you think, Oh, I always have to be at this level of an overachiever. And so, you know, in that sense I feel like I didn't engage in my own personal life, you know because I sacrificed it for my career so much and didn't really like relax into it until my 30s when I got back to Los Angeles.

Katty: Interesting. I saw you actually speak about it in one of your talks. I think was your Brazil talk about being an overachiever and what that means and constantly trying to do things, new things, or do things in a new way. I found that fascinating, it went through that same reinvention theme that I recognized in what you were talking about. So thanks for sharing that. So you mentioned, the new chapter, a new iteration of Jaime.

Jaime: New? It's in progress. So, you know, I did my first book and I did really well with the first book. I was insane to write a book. That was so crazy. But I just felt like UX strategy was so interesting and even though nobody was paying me to write it, you certainly don't make money off of the book. I just was like okay I'll take a year and a half and spend my savings and write a book and sit in the library. And it was really rewarding. 

And so then when it came time to do a second edition, if I want to be current I did that. And I did it during the lockdown so that was kind of a good thing to do when you can't really go teach in a classroom or go run workshops in a public space. But basically, my book is now out in the second edition and is being translated into languages, and I just found out it's in German and Italian, and Portuguese this time, you know, on top of the other six languages and that's really exciting. 

But the thing with the book is you need to promote it, and you know and you need to go do things to market it. Whenever you make anything whether it be a floppy disk or a website or an app or a book or you're marketing yourself as a public speaker, it's one thing that you do it, but the other half of it is in order to be successful, you just got to market yourself or your product. And it's fine when I get paid to do growth design and markets and run experiments to market other people's products. But I think, I'm kind of at least right now, I feel I'm just kind of over-marketing myself. All of a sudden I feel like, ah, can't life just be simple again? Let me just get a job ideally as a UX strategist and, you know, and that's it, let things quiet down. 

And so you can say it's an existential post-midlife crisis, or maybe it's a phase but I just had a job interview with a company that I hope I get, and they were telling me that they just had written an article related to this subject about so many people basically looking at their careers and saying, “Do I even want to do this?” 

I feel like COVID Hit the reset button for a ton of people and so now I'm less killing myself about, “Oh wow, I'm really not going to go crazy promoting this book because I don't feel like it? Is there something wrong with me? Or is it just like maybe I just have to accept to let people read the book. I hope they like it.” And if people ask me to speak fine, but you know, I think it's like at a certain point you have to say okay where's friction and friction is trying to go tour and do workshops at what we hope might be the end of the pandemic but isn't. You know, it's like I suffered the same fate as people who, you know we're in an orchestra, you know, or who had movies that came out. So I'm in great company of people who made their money by doing things for the public and in person and now that you know, there's no UX conferences really planned. I'm speaking at the one in Estonia, one, this year, zero last year zero the year before, you know. So it makes you say what am I going to do now?

Katty: You're right, it definitely has been a reset button on many fronts. We've seen this so much with so many other candidates that we work with who are re-evaluating “I've been doing XYZ until now, do I still want to do it, do I still want to live here?” Just really evaluating everything, but I totally hear you about the book because I also wrote a book during this pandemic. I had been working on it for three years, which was far too long but that's just the length of time that it took. The circumstances where we found ourselves allowed me to finish it, so I am grateful for that. That was the silver lining in this crazy year and t it allowed me to finish it and get it out. But it's just sitting there and it's nowhere near where it needs to be... but it is what it is. It's a story I needed to get out. I got it out. Now, if people find it, awesome, and if they don't then we’ll cross that bridge. 

Jaime: What's your book called?

Katty: It's called The Butterfly Years, and it's just my personal story dealing with grief and has nothing to do with Artisan Creative and it has everything to do with me. Obviously, as somebody who's running a company, it is going to have to come to grips with having to manage grief and make that work otherwise it permeates everything.

Katty: If it helps people out there, it's there. If somebody is going through it and they need to hear somebody else's story who's been in the same boat. Then I've done my job. 

Katty: Yeah, So when I heard that you had done your second edition and you had just done an audiobook. I thought you know I want to talk to her and see how that whole process was for her. 

Katty: Congratulations on your interview and I hope that it ends up being the right next thing.

Jaime: I hope so too. That would be great if my first interview turned into a job offer.

Katty: Putting out the good vibes.

Jaime: They were very surprised because it was a UX strategy position and I didn't have anywhere in my portfolio that I wrote it. I didn't want to say that I literally wrote the book on UX strategy because then t