Balancing Success and Failure in Your Narrative

Just like our 8198 [SOUND] showing, lets do it again. 0:01 [SOUND] I was doing so good. 0:05 It was so good. 0:06 [SOUND] I just spit, was that the. 0:08 [SOUND] We all make mistakes. 0:11 But let's face it, humanity loves a comeback story. 0:14 Where a return to favor is made by someone after a period of challenge or failure. 0:19 People care about redemption. 0:26 So it stands to reason, that is why it is a necessity for 0:28 you to address areas of struggle. 0:33 And resulting growth in your portfolio. 0:35 Taylor Aiken was a brilliant intern of mine a few years back. 0:38 Not only was she a skilled visual designer, but 0:42 she was also meticulous in her documentation. 0:45 As a result, Taylor's portfolio is a thorough and 0:48 thought out collection of content and case studies. 0:52 In particular, I wanna call out a very professional example of a comeback story 0:55 with her case study on IBM's award-winning Carbon Design System. 1:00 Taylor starts by explaining that Carbon is a visual design system 1:05 implemented company-wide across all of IBM and 1:09 was started for IBM's flagship cloud product, originally called Bluemix. 1:13 She goes on to explain, not only the history of Carbon, but 1:19 she diplomatically lets us know where she and 1:23 her fellow designers were failing before Carbon's existence. 1:26 She points out, although the various interfaces had some similarities, 1:30 they lacked a cohesive semblance and user experience across the product. 1:35 An additional challenge was that with so many different teams of designers and 1:40 engineers, it was nearly impossible to ensure that all teams across Bluemix were 1:45 implementing the updates and design changes in a timely fashion. 1:50 She then points out the needs of Bluemix's users and 1:56 how Carbon went about solving for those struggles. 2:00 The point here is that she was willing to discuss the areas that she and 2:04 her team had to overcome, in order to become successful. 2:09 She ends with, while we have three parts up and 2:14 running, we understand that this work is never done. 2:18 Carbon is a living, breathing product that grows and updates weekly. 2:22 It adapts with the product as needed and 2:28 any new IBM cloud products that may adopt it in the future. 2:32 The reason her approach is successful, 2:37 is that she is taking a judgement free stance in her narration. 2:39 Note that she's not calling out any one person or team, to make them look bad. 2:44 Instead, she's simply stating the reasoning behind her and 2:50 her team's decisions, while admitting what wasn't working. 2:54 Here's your takeaway. 2:58 Discussing where you went wrong isn't a weakness. 3:00 Instead, it's a sign of creative maturity. 3:03 However, it's extremely important that you understand 3:08 that it must be done with a judgement free stance. 3:12 And with the intent of explaining how you 3:15 are using that to become more successful in your process. 3:18 I'll see you in the next video. 3:21