032 AI, Originality, and the Value of Expertise
Adobe's A.J. Wood joins Metsy and J to discuss originality, copyright, AI-powered workflows, and why human judgment still matters for designers and product professionals.
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031 Resilience Is a Practice, Not a Trait
Brandy Schade joins Metsy and J to explore how resilience develops through action, failure, career pivots, and community, and why navigating uncertainty requires more than individual determination.
030 Who's Responsible for AI Upskilling?
Brandy Schade joins Metsy and J to explore AI uncertainty, strengths-based learning, and why building AI capabilities requires more than individual effort. What can leaders do to help entire product and design teams adapt?
029 The Design Skills AI Can't Shortcut: Why Productive Friction Matters
Dallas College educators Lisa Gabriel and Sandy Harris join us to explore what happens when technology makes it easy to skip the difficult parts of learning.
028 You Can’t Learn This in Isolation
Dallas College educators Lisa Gabriel and Sandy Harris join Metsy and J to explore what tutorials, online courses, and AI can’t fully replicate: critique, collaboration, productive friction, and the human skills product and UX professionals need.
027 Four Roles We Play in Workplace Conflict
Nikhil Wadhera joins Metsy and J to explore four workplace conflict roles and how product and UX professionals can turn silence, tension, disagreement, and directness into healthier collaboration.
026 Turning Product Conflict Into Productive Friction
Nikhil Wadhera joins us to explore product conflict, roadmap trade-offs, difficult conversations, curiosity, and healthier decisions.
025 When Work Never Feels Finished
Whitney Schreck joins Metsy and J to explore how product and UX professionals can close the stress loop through completion, movement, play, connection, and small moments that help us move toward life.
024 Self-Trust Is a Career Skill
Whitney Schreck joins Metsy and J to explore self-trust as a career skills, workplace relationships, and how assessments like DISC and TriMetrix can become useful career tools instead of one-time exercises.
023 Product Strategy: Are You Allowed to Ask Why?
We explored Frederic Laloux’s culture framework as a different way to evaluate workplace culture: observe it the same way you would observe a product experience. The culture around your team can either fuel great product strategy or get in its way.
022 Workmares: Workplace Culture Follows You Home
Metsy and J share real “workmares” from their careers and explore what happens when workplace stress follows you home. We examine how the culture employees actually experience can matter far more than the values a company claims to have.
021 What Your Team Actually Needs From You
Anita Barraco, UX Manager at Goosehead Insurance, joins Metsy and J to explore what product and UX teams actually need from their leaders. We discuss impactful mindset shifts to help your people do their best work.
Creative Work & Career Growth
020 Remote, Hybrid, or Office: What Actually Works?
Anita Barraco joins us to explore the realities of remote work, return-to-office expectations, and hybrid teams. This is a thoughtful conversation about designing work around how people actually function.
AI in Product & Design
019 Burnout, Belonging, and Better Work
Dana “DeltaDana” Akins-Adeyemi joins us to explore burnout prevention and recovery. We also examine how bias, exclusion, and toxic environments intensify burnout for marginalized professionals, making supportive communities, allies, and workplaces where people genuinely belong even more important.
Creative Work & Career Growth
018 Burnout After Layoffs: The Cost of Staying
Layoffs do not eliminate work. Explore survivor burnout, AI-era job anxiety, unequal cognitive load, and the hidden human cost for product and UX teams.
Creative Work & Career Growth
017 When Everything Is Priority One
Explore how unclear priorities, constant realignment, context switching, and AI-driven urgency contribute to burnout in product management and UX design.
Creative Work & Career Growth
016 Networking in the AI Job Market
Shane Ward, Manager of Product Design at Storable, joins us to explore AI-era hiring, life after a layoff, authentic networking, and why trusted communities can advocate for product and design professionals in ways AI cannot.
AI in Product & Design
015 The Rise of AI Builders
Metsy and J sit down with Shane Ward, Manager of Product Design at Storable, to explore AI builders, product design roles, decision-making, quality, and why human judgment still matters as AI accelerates product and UX work.
014 When Product and Design Roles Blur
We explore how AI is blurring product and design roles, why trust matters more than ever, and how curiosity, communication, and feedback help teams move faster without losing perspective.
Creative Work & Career Growth
013 Build Your Network Before You Need It
Metsy Rose, J Schuh, and Brian Sullivan explore authentic networking, community building, introversion, career resilience, and why product, design, research, and strategy professionals need to get out of their bubbles.
UX Research & Product Strategy
012 UX Research to Product Strategy in the AI Era
Metsy Rose, J Schuh, and Brian Sullivan explore stakeholder empathy, UX research, product strategy, and why AI can surface signals, but human judgment still drives meaningful product decisions.
Human-Centered Leadership
011 Empathy at Work: The Hidden Pressures of Product and Design
Metsy Rose and J Schuh explore empathy in product management and UX design, including trust, emotional intelligence, team systems, design pressure, product playbooks, and cross-functional collaboration.
Modern Work
010 Unicorns, Humans, and the Future of Creative Work
Metsy Rose, J Schuh, and Kirsten Rourke explore the myth of the “unicorn” professional, the rise of AI in product management and UX design, and why deeply human skills remain essential for creative leadership and collaboration.
Modern Work
009 When the Plan Breaks: Trust, Pivots, and Real Leadership
What happens when good ideas hit organizational resistance? Metsy Rose, J Schuh, and Kirsten Rourke explore authenticity, emotional intelligence, trust, and leadership in product management and UX design.