Business
Nam-ho Park Nam-ho Park is a digital strategist who always puts people first and technology last. Nam-ho first designed experiences for people as an architecture student at Columbia University. The appreciation he developed then for the importance of genuinely human-centered design practice serves him well today. In fact, he hopes that we'll someday drop the word "digital" and return to genuinely human-centered strategy and design practices. Nam-ho and I talked about: the giant spider that crawled across his desk as we began the interview his role as a teacher at the University of Washington's iSchool his work with Carina, a startup that connects Medicaid patients with home health care aides his consulting work, helping clients navigate the technology landscape the importance of resolving people issues before settling on a technical solution to a business problem his comparison of content strategy and digital strategy practices his original background as an architect - and insights he learned then about the importance of experience design how his architecture background helps him visualize design complexity, appreciate standards, and properly contextualize tech platforms how quickly the digital landscape is changing and the ensuing tension that that creates between established principles and new ways of doing things David Weinberger's book Everything Is Miscellaneous and its insights about the benefits of being able to categorize bodies of knowledge in different user-focused ways the "leakiness" of the logic around some kinds of knowledge the challenges of truly understanding user intent, especially in the era of AI and machine learning the implications for technology designers of the rapid change brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic his hope that we'll drop the word "digital" at some point, and return to genuinely human-centered practices dark design patterns that serve businesses more than their customers and users Nam-ho's Bio Nam-ho Park has been active in crafting compelling digital experiences for over 20 years. He is faculty at the University of Washington’s Information School and Senior Product Designer at Carina, a nonprofit platform that connects qualified caregivers with those seeking in-home care. He is also the principal of PLAIN Strategies, providing outcome-focused digital strategies for nonprofits and impact-driven organizations. Having lived and worked in London, Seoul, Hanoi, New York, Washington D.C. and presently in Seattle for the past 9 years, he draws his experience from a lifetime of learning and exploring how we relate to technology and harness it for good. He has worked with the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, USAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and has been a speaker at conferences including the Nonprofit Technology Conference, WebVisions and Drupalcon. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University. Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/GAzBxrnWEAU Podcast Intro Transcript When you think about digital strategy, you might picture someone orchestrating the bits of information that zip across the networks that connect computers and other technological gadgets. In fact, technology is just a small part of the story. Nam-ho Park and his fellow digital strategists actually spend most of their time focused on the human beings who plan, design, and use websites, apps, and other products. I really enjoyed talking with Nam-ho about his people-first, technology-last approach to digital experience design. Interview Transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 68 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Nam-ho Park. Nam-ho is a digital strategist and a consultant in that field in Seattle, Washington. He also does a lot of other stuff, including he teaches in the I School, the Information School at the University of Wa...