We have just been through a pandemic. It has changed us, our ways of working, and the way we interact with each other. Now, more than ever, we need to be prepared when the shit hits the fan. We need our businesses to be resilient, and we need to be able to quickly adapt to a new way of living and new ways of working.
We need great leadership for this. And we need to come together and work closely, even if it’s from a distance. Regardless, designers and leaders need to know how to push the design agenda all the way up to the board meetings. And when we finally get there, what skills are needed to take charge? Probably not the same ones as we have today. Design Leadership is about turning uncertainties into opportunities and building resilient businesses. And even if you’re not the one walking into the boardroom, you can lead yourself and influence others to understand that great design equals great business value.
As designers, we need to take responsibility for the products we design, both when it comes to ethics, accessibility and sustainability. Technology evolves fast and we need to keep up. It might feel like you are always one step behind, because the contexts in which we operate today will not be the same as tomorrow. We all need to keep our eyes on the horizon, while focusing on what our reality actually is today. What can we change now to get a better tomorrow? How can we improve our day-to-day work so that our design doesn’t lose it’s “best before”-date? These are topics and conversations we must have – and will have – at the conference! Let’s talk about our future design work and HOW we make it work here, now, and tomorrow.
From Business to Buttons 2022 is about that and much more. For us, personally, it’s about meeting fellow designers and leaders. Face to face. We, the FBTB team, miss that a lot. And our team members do as well. But it’s also about developing as human beings and as designers. To learn from design advocates, be inspired by pioneers and get some hands on advice that we can apply to our work tomorrow.
/Lotta Gerdt & Sara Yxhage, and the FBTB22 Crew
From Business to Buttons is Scandinavia’s premier User Experience and Service Design conference, held every year in Stockholm, Sweden.
It is the meeting place for everyone who wants inspiration and hands-on advice on how to generate business value by creating great user experiences. We hope to see you May 13th 2022. Get your tickets today!
10 amazing speakers will join us in May 2022. All of them will be presented here during the fall.
Chief Product Officer, Great Minds
Kimberly Hicks recently joined Great minds – a company advocating for a more content-rich education for kids – after nearly 5 years at the Walt Disney Company where she was VP of Product, Games & Interactive for Disney Television’s Entertainment & Kids brands.
In her years at Disney she introduced Design Thinking into the organization. She has extensive experience on how product teams can leverage this creative problem-solving approach in their own work. The approach has change Disney at it’s core with a large inhouse team of UX designers.
Details about Kimberly’s talk will be announced.
Senior Product Design Lead, Microsoft
Allie has a background developing products at LinkedIn, Booking.com, and now as Senior Product design lead at Microsoft working on the Autonomous driving platform. With that, Allie has gained insights about leveraging UX skills in a machine learning-oriented environment.
She aims to provide actionable frameworks for designers and product managers wanting to utilize machine learning that focuses on the holistic human experience.
Details about Allie’s talk will be announced.
Sustainability & Circular Economy Expert and inventor of Disruptive Design Method
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu is an internationally known sustainability provocateur, sociologist, and award-winning designer. Among her latest accomplishments, she attended as a panelist at COP26 talking about the need for systems transformation around design, production and consumption.
Leyla Acaroglu was named Champion of the Earth by the United Nations, Change-Maker by Linkedin and is a mainstage TED speaker. She leads presentations with leaders around the world on activating positive change for a sustainable, circular and regenerative future. As a serial social entrepreneur, she founded The UnSchool, an experimental knowledge lab for adults, developed the Disruptive Design Method. She is also the CEO of the creative agency, Disrupt Design, which has worked with clients such as UN environment program (UNEP) and Oxfam.
Details about Leyla’s talk will be announced.
Founder of Clearleft and Design Leadership advocate
Andy Budd is the founder of one of UKs most famous design agencies, bestselling author, and Designer by heart. He might not have invented the phrase ‘Design Leadership’, but he sure is one of the individuals that marked it on the map for the rest of us. Andy is on a mission to teach the world how to build a world-class design team, with both tools and know-hows.
Since he left Clearleft, the design agency he founded back in 2005, he has spent his time coaching major clients like Virgin Atlantic and BBC. He is a regular speaker at international conferences, and he has kept busy founding and curating conferences like dConstruct, UX London and managing an online community of over 1,500 Heads, Directors and VPs of Design.”
“On most objective measures, the design industry is thriving. Our skills are in high demand, our salaries are rising, and companies can’t fill roles fast enough. Design leadership has come of age, we’re seeing companies invest in team development, and more and more designers are earning that hallowed “seat at the table”. So why, when I talk to designers, do so many of them feel burnt out and despondent; like all their hard work and effort has been for nothing. It’s as though the design industry is going through some sort of mid-life crisis.
In this session design leader, start-up advisor, speaker and coach, Andy Budd, takes us through some of the reasons why we’re experiencing this sense of collective Ennui, and what we can do about it. This talk may make for awkward listening at times. However unless we can have an open and honest conversation about the behaviours that are holding us back, we’ll never unlock the full potential of what design has to offer.”
Product Designer at Spotify and Creator at <Design Ethically>
Kat (she/her) is a product designer at Spotify with a passion for ethical, accessible and inclusive design. She is the creator of <Design Ethically>, a project which started out as a framework for applying ethics to the design process and has now evolved into a toolkit that helps teams forecast the consequences of their products.
She has presented her work in front of audiences all over the world, including tech conferences, government agencies, and academic lectures. She serves on the board of advisors for the YX Foundation, a hybrid coalition-design lab focused on the intersections of AI/ML and critical race theory. She is also pursuing a Masters degree in AI Ethics and Society at the University of Cambridge, with the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. She lives in Stockholm with her adopted husky.
Join Kat, the product designer at Spotify and creator of the <Design Ethically> project, as she dives into how she created an ethical design framework for product teams and the lessons she learned from piloting her methodology with teams at various companies and universities across the world. She also discusses what scaling the tech ethics movement entails for individual employees, companies and/or startups, as well as the entire industry.
The venue for the conference in 2022 is Cirkus in Djurgården, Stockholm. It was built in 1892 and has been renovated several times, but always remained a true landmark in Stockholm. Almost everyone – yup – from Kraftwerk, Soundgarden to Rolling Stones and Laleh, has made their mark at Cirkus.
How to get there
The easiest way to travel to Cirkus is by bus 67 or tram 7; the nearest stop is Skansen. If you want to arrive in style, you can also take the ferry from Slussen.
As a partner at FBTB, you’ll be able to share your knowledge and brand to 800 designers and business executives. It’s a unique opportunity to build your brand, raise awareness about your product, and meet the design crowd.
Wanna partner up for 2022? Contact Isabel Bjärnstöm.
Some of our previous partners during the years. One year we had bubbly drinks and colorful lounge area to sit in. Another year we had photobooths.