For us, this includes how we connect with our community. We love to learn about others and how the world works in different contexts. We know these experiences and insights come back to our work and inform who we are as consultants. It helps us to be empathetic, to listen deeply, see other perspectives, and be open to new ideas or ways of being. And it’s about how we share that knowledge and our insights with others in hopes that we leave our clients, our community, and our world in a better place.
Read on to see how some of us are staying connected to the community and how we bring those human experiences back to our work.
Sharing Our Expertise
Fathom team members were busy bees this this year, presenting, writing, and talking about a wide range of topics to share their expertise and learnings with others.
In March, CEO Kate McRoberts was interviewed by Laura Best for the Passion Chats podcast, part of the Passion Collective. In this conversation, Kate shared her experiences with taking risks and “Beating Your Fears” by embracing her love for singing and becoming part of a local “dad band.” In doing so, she was able to overcome fears, showcase new aspects of herself, and connect with an audience in a new way — ultimately finding parallels with many other areas of her life. She leverages these personal insights to help others understand themselves in new ways.
“It's that quest to help people truly see, hear, understand their customers, each other, and themselves that really fuels me and all of us at Fathom. Human-centered design is the language that's currently being used around this work, but that's what we've been doing the whole time. And we're doing it at an ever-increasing level because, frankly, coming out of Covid, we lost so much understanding of others that we used to have. Walking in and out of so many work cultures like I get to do, what I have seen is that we're just really starting to get to know each other again. Human-centric facilitation has been one of our fastest growing areas.”
Want to feel inspired? Listen to the interview here.
Connect with Kate.
Also in March, senior consultant Aimee Vue spoke at Twin Cities World IA Day, where the conference theme was “CONTEXT.” Her presentation, “Understanding Context: Crafting Inclusive Designs through Liberatory Thinking and Identity Mapping,” explored understanding an individual’s context through the value of inclusive design, liberatory thinking, and identity mapping — topics she is personally and professionally passionate about. Her presentation explored how we understand our own identities and how we show up in the world in different contexts, and what that means for design and equity. By bringing together design thinking and liberatory design, we can “bring self-awareness and intention into the design practice,” which allow us to “find alternate ways of being and doing to expand our frame of reference for what's possible and inspire creative courage.”
Want to learn more? Check out Aimee’s presentation here.
Connect with Aimee.
In April, principal consultant Kat Jayne was a panel member for the session on Advancing Medical Device Development through Human-Centered Design as part of the University of Minnesota’s Annual Design of Medical Devices Conference. Here, she shared her experiences and those of Fathom in designing safe, usable, and inclusive medical devices via iterative user testing. This included case studies of user testing of both a smart watch to allow seniors to receive help in case of an emergency and a prototype of a new diagnostic test for respiratory illnesses. Students and industry professionals enjoyed hearing how Fathom’s inclusive recruiting efforts led to insights about how people with different literacy levels, wrist sizes, and, surprisingly, different facial piercings might use these devices differently than they had predicted.
Connect with Kat.
Consultant Lucy Hinton, one of the newer additions to the team, has been busy writing about burnout among those in design and technology for the site Design Thinking for All and talking about creating user-centric products for The Schmidt List podcast. Disparate topics? Not as much as you think. In these pieces, Lucy shares her personal experiences and insights in managing burnout and creating user-centric products, which both center on asking the right questions, understanding the context to define the right path forward, and knowing what matters to you or your users.
“As a UX designer, my skill is in figuring out how people think about what the problem is … getting people to tell me where they have pain points, where they are experiencing accelerators as well.”
Want insights and tips on burnout? Read the article here.
Curious about user-centric products? Listen here.
Connect with Lucy.
Elizabeth Sipple, lead consultant, authored a blog on the importance and value of formative evaluations. A product’s usability can only be determined by the actual users of the device. By conducting formative evaluations with these users, product teams can uncover opportunities to improve the usability and safety of a device during development, rather than finding out too late that they’ve missed the mark.
Want to learn more about formative evaluations? Read the article here.
Connect with Elizabeth.
Sharing Our Time, Energy, and Talents
One of the best ways to learn about others is to get involved. Fathom folks have a wide variety of interests and passions that we love to spend time exploring and sharing with others. Maybe you have seen us around in one of these places!
Anyone who has met Bret Busse, principal consultant, knows he has a wide range of interests and hobbies. One of these is serving as a mentor and judge for the next generation of business entrepreneurs through the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management’s MN Cup and University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship’s Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge and Fowler Business Concept Challenge programs. He loves learning about these students' creative new ways to solve big problems, and is inspired by ideas for making the world a better place. It is also an opportunity to share the gift of feedback and his professional insights as they continue to develop and grow their ideas. As he always says, “the kids are alright.”
Connect with Bret.
Senior consultant Emily Alexander is a human factors expert extraordinaire and avid quilter – two passions that require attention to detail, organization, and empathy. This year, these passions came together through the Loose Ends Project, an online database that matches volunteers who craft with people or families hoping to have a craft project finished after their loved one has either become unable to finish or passed away. In May, Emily was matched with a woman hoping to a finish a quit top, started by her mother while in hospice. Picking up a half-done quilt led to a few technical challenges, not to mention required attention to detail to complete the quilt to match the owner’s hopes and expectations. A few weeks later, she was able to present the completed quilt to the woman who told Emily that her mom always referred to quilting as a “legacy of love.”
“Crafting is how I de-stress, and I make it a part of my life on a weekly, if not daily, basis. So, it just made sense to me to sign up as a volunteer in case I could help someone out some day. Figuring out the quilt pattern was a challenge, but being a human factors engineer who naturally looks for patterns and how things come together prepared me to be able pick up an in-progress project. I feel honored that I was able to finish that project for her.”
Connect with Emily.
Ben Vargo, senior consultant, is just one of several avid bikers at Fathom. For several years now, he has been part of the Minnesota road racing scene. And this year, he brought home the state championship win! And while the win feels great, riding is about more than that. When you listen to bikers talk about their rides (did we mention we are enthusiastic listeners?), you will hear Ben and the others talk about how they prepare and train, their preferred equipment, the terrains, and of course, the things that didn’t go to plan. But they also talk about the camaraderie among the bikers, the friends they have made along the way, and lessons they have gained. All of these are skills they bring to our clients every day: showing up prepared, building relationships, navigating the terrain together, and finishing strong — however that may look.
Connect with Ben.
Senior consultant Daisy Morin loves to create a great experience for people. And not just with service design. Shortly after moving to Minnesota, she and her partner found a great bar in need of a great trivia night, and fired up Tipsy Fox Trivia (the only trivia night in Minneapolis where the mascot is a tipsy fox!). Every Thursday night, they showcase their creativity, strategy, research skills, and group management skills while bringing humor and fun — skills we witness Daisy bring to our clients on the regular. It is no surprise that one of Daisy’s superpowers is facilitating questions from clients and setting a clear path forward.
Connect with Daisy.
Follow Tipsy Fox Trivia
But not everything is done solo. Each year at Fathom we aim to find time together to give back to our community. This year we ventured to Open Arms of Minnesota and helped prepare medically tailored meals. We were drawn to the mission of Open Arms to fill a human-centric care gap for vulnerable patients. Many of us have personally experienced the challenges of having a loved one facing a health challenge and needing to adjust their nutrition as part of their treatment. This can prove to be a daunting need for many members of our Minnesota community, and our time Open Arms was a wonderful way for us to gain an understanding of the nutritional challenges faced by many patients during their treatment and recovery period. We loved getting to know the incredible team at Open Arms while learning about the process from beginning to end — and having some laughs and team bonding, too.
