Honestly, business strategy is pretty straightforward: money in, money out. How do you reduce costs? How do you increase profits? At the heart of all businesses, that’s what it’s all about. If you can talk to a CEO or C-level people about how they can reduce or manage costs and increase revenues, or if they’re going to increase costs, increase revenue, whatever it is, that’s still business strategy. Tah dah! It’s not a black art. One of the ways that I’ve been most informed about business strategy happened in 2005 when Adaptive Path hired Brandon Schauer, who has a master’s in Design and an MBA. Brandon ended up running Adaptive Path before it was acquired by Cap One. By working with him and being exposed to his methods, I was better able to understand the opportunity that design and UX has within a business context. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, we had already squeezed as much efficiency out of every value chain we could find. It was a lot about just-in-time manufacturing, process engineering; just squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, until the point of diminishing returns, and continuing to do that work. And so the opportunity was, well, how do we realize whole new value propositions. And that’s where good design comes in to point the way to whole new opportunities or differentiation within a space. 4. Do you think it’s helpful for UX designers who are aspiring strategists to get an MBA or have a business degree? It’s not hurtful. Maybe it is moderately helpful. I’ve seen people who’ve gone through that experience and it’s been beneficial for them. But, you can also earn while you learn and come out in a very similar place. An MBA or business degree could be good for folks who are really transitioning from a craft form of a UX practice into something more strategic and need help making that shift. I feel like if you’re already doing it, even if it’s self-taught, an MBA isn’t going to get you much more. It could be useful depending on the school for making connections and meeting new people. Having a Harvard MBA or Stanford GSB certainly is not going to look bad on your resume. But that type of education is going to be a big financial investment too. 5. What types of products have you done the strategy for that were most exciting or fun to work on? A transformative experience for me was working with Brandon Schauer at Adaptive Path on a project for a financial services client (not Capital One). It was in 2005, just when he joined our company. This project was meant to be a