"Doing one great thing a year" with JoRoan Lazaro, ECD at Experience.Monks

Multi-hyphenate creative legend JoRoan Lazaro, ECD of Experience.Monks joins us to talk all things emerging technology, career lifecycles, and getting his start AOL in a time when UX design was still a nascent discipline.

Our favorite stories:

• One of the odd birds in both product design and brand communications
• Going against the grain: started in client-side and transitioned to agency
• "Instead of choosing one major I chose three. Computer science, psychology, and art - it didn't make sense at the time. It goes back to the Asian experience because you're afraid to tell your parents that... I want to do art..." 

Big moments from doing the work:

• "One of the first things I did was the actual concept of the yellow running guy with a pencil... the idea was an easily identifiable icon or visual." - it changed how people use technology and helped usher in social
• "There was no usability testing. We just did it." 
• "In general, I already know all the questions I want to ask, but I'm always still really really surprised when I land."
• Pitching: receiving a standing ovation but losing the pitch. It is about relationships and it is about chemistry. There's just so much you don't know.

Career advice we'll live with: 

• Financial safety-net to take risks; "if I don't like it, I could always move again." 
• "Nothing replaces doing it."
• "A little bit of luck, a little bit of bravery" - the idea of working in a space that is deeply unsexy to designers, but makes a gigantic difference for every day people. 
• "The following your passion sounds really obvious but it makes more sense the older you get, because if you are doing something you are deeply interested in, you're gonna stick with it and work hard, and that's important for longevity." 
• "The contact in America is... you have a job. They will pay you for the work you are supposed to be doing. Everything else is up to us to make great or wonderful... nothing is entitled." 

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