Newsletter 2.0 (now with links, quotes, memes, videos, and events)


Dear Reader,

Jeff here...Today, we're trying something different with the newsletter.

For the last two years, Hannah and I have been writing this weekly advice column for you and over 5,000 designers.

It's been a wild ride...from late-night cramming to early-morning writing sessions to beautiful feedback and encouragement that makes it all worth it.

This advice letter has been a weekly reminder for us to keep innovating, but the Fountain Institute is becoming more than just Hannah and I...

The community of designers around the Fountain Institute is our real value so we thought--it's time for our newsletter to grow with the community.

Introducing the newsletter2.0...(final_final_but_not_really)

🦾 AI-powered post-its
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Today, Miro launched an AI version of its popular white-boarding tool (shared by Jerome Bertrand)
​Learn more​

🌅 Non-managerial career path
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Staff Design explores how individual contributors are exploring careers at the highest level and has some great resources
(shared by Anja Lena)
​Learn more​

💰 Paid Figma plugins
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Figma just launched a section in their resources page with paid items
​Learn more​

🧠 How to be a facilitator
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Hannah Baker just published an article on how and why you should build skills as a design facilitator
​Learn more​

Apply to join the Guild of Working Designers here.

from Henry Mintzberg, an excellent source for design strategy
​
Share this quote on Instagram​

​Source, shared by Rana Fathi in the Guild​

Learn to create a winning strategy in UX

Learn how to initiate systemic change within an organization, whether a small team or a large city.

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Learn how to build a winning UX or product strategy that aligns design with business.

April 17-May 8, 2023

Until next week!

Jeff Humble
​
Designer & Co-Founder
​
The Fountain Institute

P.S. We'd love some feedback on the new newsletter. Hit reply and let us know what you think!

The Fountain Institute

The Fountain Institute is an independent online school that teaches advanced UX & product skills.

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Why Decisions Feel So Hard Right Nows By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, Over the last few months, I’ve been talking with design and product leaders across very different organizations, large companies, smaller teams, fast-moving environments, and slower ones. And I keep hearing the same thing. Their teams are being asked to make decisions faster than ever, and yet, deciding feels heavier than it used to. Not slower, exactly. Just harder. At first, people often explain this in familiar ways: too...

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When Speed Stops Being the Bottleneck by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, Quick question: What happens when the thing that used to take 12 weeks now takes 4 days? I've been watching this play out across the industry, and it's wild. Lots of companies aren't sharing their new speeds, but a few are: Code and Theory (an agency that works with Microsoft and Amazon) is building dashboards in 40 minutes that used to take a week. They report cutting time-to-prototype by 75%. Coinbase reports a 2-5x increase...