Author Archives → David Hoang

Eight episodes in and I\’ve loved every single moment of Andor. It\’s so refreshing to have a show without space wizards that all are one degree from separation of the same family. Diego Luna all the things!

Three years at Webflow

Today marks my three-year anniversary at Webflow. It feels like yesterday when I was returning to work after a short sabbatical after my tenure at One Medical. My desire was to take a longer sabbatical to explore what a “Product Me Fit” would look like. I didn’t want any product and design role, but one where I would love the product’s mission the the people working towards it. In all the best ways possible, Webflow cut the sabbatical short, and I found a place with purpose and intention.

In my 20s, I explored a lot of different jobs and roles, as I think one should. Aside from starting my own product studio and running that for five years with my co-founder, I was never at a company for longer than two years. I’m now in a different arc of my career odyssey, and find myself at two companies for the last seven years: One Medical and Webflow—a stark contrast of my early career.

Approaching the forth year at a company might have felt closer to the end in the early arc of my career, but now it feels like the beginning. A mentor of mine once told me that as a leader, it takes year-over-year effort to see the desired outcomes of your work come to fruition, and I see what she means. The senior designers on my team at One Medical are now Staff Product Designers or Product Design Managers either still at the company or at new opportunities. Products I thought that would never see the light of day have now shipped.

I would be lying if I told you there were no hard moments. Hyper-growth is hard and there are many lessons I learned that required taking a hard look in the mirror and facing reality. Our team comprises of 25+ incredible Product Designers and Content Designers, almost twice the size of the team of Product Design, Brand Design, and User Research that I started in the first year.

I’m grateful to work with all the incredibly talented people here—current team members and alumni. You all are such a joy and the reason I am bullish that Webflow’s Product Design org can become the team of the decade with the most thriving alumni group.

Thoughts on the Light and Magic documentary

I spent last night binge watching the new documentary Light & Magic on Disney+. It’s a six-episode series on the story of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the company filmmaker George Lucas founded. Along with the General Magic documentary, I love hearing stories about creatives and innovators. Light & Magic is a great documentary and I’ll bet you learn something new even if you’re familiar with the story.

*Spoilers..? I’m not sure if you’d consider if you can spoil a documentary, but if you’re not familiar with ILM the a documentary*

Reflections

Proof of concepts are very lean

One of my favorite moments in Episode 6 is when they were talking about how the team was approaching the first Jurassic Park, which was a blend of Computer Generated Images (CGI) and practical effects. For obvious reasons, the team did not have reference photos of how Apatosaurus dinosaurs stampede. The crew decided to set up props in the back of the studio and filmed themselves running to get more references. It also resulted in one of the team members falling and breaking their arm, hence the name of the episode: No More Pretending Your Dinosaurs.

Even when you have incredible technology, ideation starts by storyboarding, body-storming, and conveying the concept. In Star Wars, Lucas put together stunt reals from other films to put together the story (Lucas is not known for originality).

Work with multi-disciplinary people who push you

A studio is one of the most sacred places in the world to me. ILM was comprised of incredibly talented people who push themselves. There was autonomy to go work on other departments: sound, writing, second unit direction, film editing, etc. ILM created an amazing alumni group and people who directed films in their own right. When Joe Johnston was going to quit ILM after burnout, Lucas offered to send him to USC and work part-time so he could go to film school. Johnston ended up being a director in his own right, including titles such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, and Captain America: The First Avenger.

Effects serve the storytelling

I loved the details of effects to tell a wonderful story. The effects should serve the storytelling, and not technology for the sake of technology. As much as we make fun of the Star Wars prequels, Lucas was pushing the technology to tell stories at such a higher scale.

Imagination pushes technology

Okay, so the Star Wars prequels weren’t great. I remember seeing The Phantom Menace in high school and was so disappointed. What I did not realize is this movie that introduced Jar Jar Binks was the reason theaters started switching over to Texas Instruments’ DLP projectors. This kicked off the revolution of movie theaters and evolving the industry to digital. As much as I appreciate a movie in film, digital let’s people see movies at a broader scale and more accessible.

It’s incredible to think a company like ILM helped inspire innovations to spin out Pixar as its own animation studio and John Knoll creating Photoshop for The Abyss and Terminator 2.

Industry methods will evolve, and you need to

This one is top of mind for me as we think about how AI and ML is going to exponentially evolve the way Product Design is done. Computer graphics accelerated the industry: from The Abyss, to Terminator 2, to Jurassic Park, and beyond. Inevitably the model shop was shut down in order to move towards a new paradigms.

Notes

Below are some unstructured notes of what resonated with me:

Light & Magic is available on Disney+ and highly recommend watching it!

‍

Individual point of view and collaboration

Originally posted on Proof of Concept

Without question, collaborative document editing for teams building products is here to stay. This shift has to do more with how companies operate than the product development process. When you think of collaborative software like Google Docs, GitHub, and Figma, they took the model of local-first software and make gave more access to people in the org to do work together. 65% of Figma’s users are non-designers, 3x’ing the amount of people using the design tool1.

Collaboration has revolutionized the way work is done. However, what I see get lost in the midst for doing work together real-time is time for people to think and develop a point of view. Frank Bach articulated this well in a tweet.

My hypothesis is by increasing the contrast of developing your personal point of view combined with collaboration can result in better team outcomes. Let’s cover some details of each one and what you (and your team) can do to mature these practices.

Individual point of view (POV)

Having a strong point of view develops conviction what you believe in. Having a strong point of view doesn’t mean you need to act like the former CEO of Bolt. It’s about shining a beacon on what you believe and your point of view. People who have a strong POV can also be very open to collaboration (avoid binary thinking). It’s a way to share your observations on and your ability to pass on what you learn and share your point of view faster while embracing diversity of thought.

Individual POV: You gather your own inputs and share an artifact with others

Pitfalls of individual POV

Though a strong POV is important, being open to integration points and feedback is key. This could be design critique, a pull request on GitHub, or product review. It’s critical to remember to share your POV as you’re working on it to ensure it can be integrated.

Tools I use for individual POV purposes

I use tools that are local-first or physical, and I may share snippets of the content to form an artifact vs. sharing the the entirety as an artifact. Some tools I enjoy:

  • Pen and paper2
  • Excalidraw
  • Muse
  • Obsidian
  • MindNode

Collaboration

Collaboration is the action of working with someone to produce or create something. Whether it’s a sports or product team, teamwork and collaboration is crucial in teamwork and achieve a shared outcome. As the African Proverb goes, ““If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together”. The super power of collaboration is thinking through ideas together, getting inputs, and unstuck.

When you’re stuck or needing a lot of inputs, there is no better way than putting everything on the desktop to work together. I’m a huge believer in pair programming/design, workshopping, and diverging to de-risk.

Collaboration: Bringing people together to generate an artifact together

Pitfalls of collaboration

The biggest challenge in collaboration is what I call “The Convergence Melting Pot.” This phenomenon occurs when individual points of view get lost in collaboration and all inputs blend together. Avoid shipping “yes and…” whenever possible. Over-collaboration can result in unclear next steps or decisions. Who out of the entire group is the decision maker to move the work forward? Who will be held accountable for the outcomes?

Tools I use for collaboration

The properties of great collaboration tools is a shared canvas, the ability to comment, and early visibility. A few collaborative tools I enjoy are:

  • Figma
  • Figjam or Miro
  • Google Docs
  • Eraser
  • Gather

Using both effectively

Developing an independent POV and collaboration are effective tools to use and works better when the contrast between them is clear. Here are two suggestions on how to use the two effectively without blending them.

Inputs over infusion

What occurs frequently in collaboration is what I like to call “the melting pot effect.” Like a fondue, a melting pot infuses and mixes everything as one thing. What results is what were clear inputs are blended in a something less intentional. Don’t build the car Homer Simpsons tried to build.

Instead of a Convergence Melting Pot, keep in inputs clear and work together to make decisions. The power of collaboration occurs when there are inputs and diverse points of view. Without diversity of thought, you’re no considering everything. Instead of a melting pot model, I prefer an input model.

POV + Collaboration
POV + Collaboration: Teams bringing their POV to the desktop and collaborating on possibility and next executable step.

Build your POV doc

On habit I’m forming is building my POV doc on topics to share with people. It’s specific and personal—used for an input for people to consider and make decisions. The nice aspect of a POV doc is often we are verbalizing our point of view without it being memorialized anywhere. I call the POV doc my Credo, the latin word for “I believe.” Your POV/Credo can be an input that influences a decision made and there is a clear correlation to it.

When crafting a POV doc:

  • Your values and philosophy
  • Objective observations captured
  • Your point of view on how to move forward (backed with rationale)
  • How strongly you feel (ex: I’m 90% confident in this direction)
  • Where you’re unsure and open to debate

Your POV doc can be a high level concept, such as “Visual Programming” or can be part of a Design Brief you generate.

Develop a POV, share before collaborating, and decide

In a world of easy access to multiplayer and real time collaboration, it’s easy to forget to establish your point of view. Developing your point of view and collaboration are both important. Make time to balance both and use them when they are most valuable.

I highly recommend reading the book Design at Work by Joan Greenbaum and Morten Kyng. Warning, it’s a great ready but heavy—making Thinking Fast and Slow seem breezy like a one-sitting read of a Goosebumps book.

Collaboration isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s essential. That said, get the right inputs, ensure perspectives are heard, and make the decision.Maximize it by developing your own POV to understand your perspective and those of your colleagues.

I loved the new Predator movie, “Prey.” Hope they continue funding this as a series at a higher budget. I would absolutely watch an Anthology of Predator period pieces where they hunt and wreck colonizers from world history.

Treat Life Like a Video Game

I recently had a conversation with my friend Leslie about a professional decision that had to be made. One thing in question was that I would have to live in two cities. Leslie is a talented art director from Toronto, and she also lives in New York City part time. I asked her to share her experiences. She said she loves it because there is “always has a deadline”, whether it is personal or professional. She constantly has a friend to see, a project to finish, or a plane to catch. It is exhilarating to her to always have something to accomplish like this. She then gave me some wonderful advice:”Treat life like a video game.”I initially was a bit confused about what she meant, but after pondering about it more, that saying made total sense. In a book or movie (I like books and movies, so this isn’t to bring them down), you are being told the narrative in a very linear fashion and the result is already determined for you. You are consuming vs. interacting. In a video game, you have to make decisions and figure out ways to achieve your goals in the game.As an avid video game player, I understood it. Surely Leslie didn’t mean treat life like Call of Duty or a third person shooter, but any game with an open world environment.Definition of an open world game on Wikipedia:

“An open world is a type of video game level design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in choosing how or when to approach objectives. The term “free roam” is also used, as is “sandbox” and “free-roaming”.

Some of my favorite open world games: Far Cry, Fallout 3, Saints Row, Grand Theft Auto, Wing Commander: Privateer, and Borderlands. Note that Skyrim isn’t on there because I have not played it yet. (I know, I know)Here are some aspects of video games (particularly open world games) that translate well into life:

Persistent Effort After Failure

I don’t think there is anything I fail more constantly in and continue to try to achieve a goal than in a video game. If you play games, you have been through that part of the game where you are stuck and fail 100 times. Yet, for some reason, you keep trying, even sometimes almost peeing your pants because you won’t go run to the bathroom until you beat this part.(Number of times I’ve actually peed my pants while playing video games: zero)Why is this? It is because a challenge has been set and it is something you have to do in order to beat the game. In contrast, people often seem to give up on dating or looking for a new job after a few failures, or sometimes, one. Why don’t we put that same effort in life that we do in video games? We should.The way we learn how to beat that aspect of the game is to remember what we did before that did not work and adjust accordingly. That, or we just use sheer will to overcome it.

Level Up

In a lot of open world games, your character (which you often customize) starts with a limited skill set. After achieving a set amount of goals and gaining experience points (XP), a player will be able to level up their character, usually with improvements on certain skills, unlocking new skills, or the ability to access more areas on the map.This is life. You don’t start playing Diablo and go straight to the boss when you’re a Level 1 Warrior. You have to gain the skills and prove your ability to accomplish such a thing before. Take this to the workplace. You’re a junior designer and have the goal of being a creative director someday. What you have to do is figure out what skills you’ll need to level up in and how to go about getting those experience points.Let me take a moment to remember how traumatized I was from that Speeder Bike level from Battle Toads.

Interact And Get Invested With Characters

I often feel I am more invested in video game characters than in a movie. For me, it’s the direct experience the character (you) and others around him or her. I can’t tell you how many times it has made me truly sad when a character dies in a game. Hopefully without giving anything away, Metal Gear Solid is a prime example of that.In a lot of open world video games, there are characters that you interact with that help you or stop you from beating the game. You quickly find out who is a positive experience for you and negative experience for you.Yet, in real life, we often hear people complain about having toxic people in their life. In a video game, these people would appear as a red dot on the map and you are told to avoid them.

Explore The Open World

When I moved to New York City two years ago, I did not know the area at all. However, I actually recalled certain general areas because of playing Grand Theft Auto, which takes place in the fictional version of New York—Liberty City.Remember that exploring can lead to achievement points or new characters in the game.In fact, that is how I met Leslie. She was visiting a friend at the co-working space I was at and we started talking and exchanged contact information. We have kept in touch since. I would never have guessed she would inspire me to make a significant decision in my life a year later upon meeting. I walked up to her and pushed the X button to interact.

Conclusion

The key to life is participation. You can engage and interact with it as much or as little as you want. Treat life like a video game. You can either treat it like a movie where someone is telling the story for you or you can grab that controller that’s called Life and start playing! Remember, there is no reset button though so live life like it is Nightmare Mode on Diablo.P.S. Don’t cheat.P.P.S. I wish money worked the same way in video games as it did in real life.