Professional “Soft” Skills Matter

I was invited to be the keynote speaker at San Jose State University’s UX Association 2nd annual event (Apr 18, 2015). The title of my presentation was “Roles, Values, and Process”, and it was about the importance of “soft” skills within a corporate environment. Many designers (especially new graduates) focus mostly on technical design skills, not recognizing the value of professional soft skills.

The response to this topic has been fantastic. I’ve been asked to go deeper and write more about it. Well, in the meantime, here’s a PDF copy of the presentation itself. It’s not entirely self-evident as I did fill in a lot more detail during the talk, but perhaps there’s enough here to get you thinking.