S2E1: Abbie Walsh - How diversity and design can be a catalyst for change

Introduction

0:00Carla, I'm really uncertain at the minute. Can you help me? Yes, I can. I have a solution for you. You know what it's called? No, what is it? Designing for a new level of uncertainty. An amazing title that describes exactly what the content will be. I know. So, yeah, we're part of Repotify to interview lots of designers around the world, talk about how we can navigate this completely new level of craziness in the world.

0:32Cool. I guess I'll probably subscribe and listen to that as well. Yeah, definitely. Enjoy Season 2 of Design Untangled.

0:45I'm Chris Mears. And I'm Carla Lindarte. We're two UX designers. And we hate jargon. So, we're here to help you untangle the world of design. Cut through the crap and talk about what really matters. Yes, solving people's problems.

Welcome to Design Untangled

1:00Welcome to Design Untangled.

1:06Hello, everyone. Again, this is Carla Lindarte. I'm with Chris Mears, my friend Chris. And today we have a very, very special guest, Abby, who is the Chief Design Officer at Accenture Interactive, which was former Fjord. And Abby, I'm very, very excited about having Abby here because she's a voice for diversity, a very strong woman. She worked for the BBC before. She worked for the iPlayer.

1:36And she's also a DJ, a journalist, like amazing background. So, thank you, Abby, for being here. Did I introduce you? Oh, that was amazing. Fairly. I think that you've definitely picked me up there. So, thank you. Do we need to use your DJ name? I'll never reveal my DJ name unless you've found it out somehow. I try to keep that under wraps. Don't want anybody searching for me. There's probably one or two images that I regret somewhere. So, yeah, we've all got those. Chris is a DJ as well. Really? Oh, wow.

2:07Are you still an active DJ, Chris? If you consider in my office room active, then yes, very active. Fantastic. Oh, well, one day, one day we'll get together. We'll then do a back-to-back set or something. Definitely. That'd be amazing. So, Abby, thank you again for being here. And help us answer the question of this series, which is like designing for uncertainty. And, you know, we all know about like the times that we're going through at the moment.

Lockdown Experience

2:33And I just wanted to ask you how's been the lockdown for you, like having such a busy job and like juggling kits and stuff. How has it been for you? Yeah, it's, I mean, it's been intense, hasn't it? It's been a bit of a crazy one. I'm sure we're all feeling that. Luckily for me, I'm really lucky in that my partner, my wife, Lee, who is an amazing, I'm going to plug her now, she's an amazing photographer and art director, but she's a freelancer. So, she and I made the decision that she would pause doing any jobs

3:04during the time when there was homeschooling. So, obviously, we had the kids at home. And my job basically took a turn for the interesting. So, I've got this chief design officer title, but actually my role morphed into really genuinely heading up design across Interactive, so across Accenture Interactive in the UK in a new org structure. So, they brought together several teams and I then was taking on not just Fjord anymore, but three other teams.

3:35So, trying to form a new team of 150 plus people during lockdown, that was quite a challenge to say the least. Wow. It's kind of intense. Yeah. It's still, it's ongoing, obviously. But I needed, I was so grateful to Lee really for stepping in because I really needed that. Those first few months were just, you know, nonstop, basically. So, it was full on. Cool. And the kids, I think, just were missing me even though I was here. So, I felt, you know, now it's a little bit easier and I think, and they're at schools.

4:08I think it's a bit, we've got a bit more balance. But at the time, it was, it was a bit crazy. And for them, it's a bit weird, isn't it? Because you have your parents at home, but you're not allowed to talk to them. That's really weird. Or they'd just drift in, like I'd have a pitch or something. This did genuinely happen to me. And one of them would just drift in and you'd suddenly see their little face in the corner of the screen. And you can get away with it. People had to be, I think, quite nice about it, but it slightly puts you off when you're in the middle of a flow. There's that sale with a kit. Exactly.

4:39They're very cute. So, you know, I was trying to, trying to use that, obviously, to my advantage.

4:44So, just thinking then about, you know, the whole coronavirus thing, et cetera.

Client Requests

4:49Have you found you've been getting any different or, I suppose, like, trends of questions or requests you've been getting from your clients at the moment, like, that have changed maybe their outlook on how they're approaching things? Yeah, I mean, I don't, I mean, I'm sure a lot of people in my position were feeling the same way at the beginning of lockdown. I was a bit worried, you know, because would design be something that clients would continue to buy when really there's potentially a downturn coming? And that did concern me. But actually, the opposite was true.

5:21So, we are really busy, which is fantastic news. And so, I think just, I guess, in terms of what I'm seeing, and that this is by no means comprehensive, but some of the patterns that I'm seeing, there's kind of three. I think there's been a massive uptick in demand for customer insight and particularly the kind of methodologies that we use. So, design research, you know, using that, the kind of, the more of the qualitative approach, you know, doing ethno, understanding really the need to, the behaviour change that's going on because of, you know, because of COVID and because people have different needs now.

5:57So, I think a lot of our clients wanted to understand what that meant for their services and whether they needed to do anything or change or rethink the way they were meeting the needs of customers. So, our design researchers have been pretty much sold out, really busy, which is great because it's such an amazing and important part of what we do, I think. So, that's one thing. And then I think another is, actually, you know, over the past few years, quite a lot of companies have built their own design teams in-house, which is something that has happened quite a few times in the past.

6:31But right, you know, right at the tail end of that, I think, over last year. And what we've seen through COVID is really kind of an urgency around enhancing those teams. So, bringing in, you know, some experts, some designers to help drive and accelerate the pace at which those design teams can be effective. And I think that's probably because quite often what they're doing is they're designing digital products and services. And a lot of clients have needed to massively accelerate digitization, you know, as you can imagine.

7:04Things that didn't need to be online suddenly needed to be online. Yeah. So, that's another. So, you think they're going more like towards kind of in-housing a lot of this work and getting support from consultancies and agencies to do that rather than getting a third party to deliver or just build these websites very quickly? So, it's a combination. I think that is also happening as well. But I think where those companies have built in-house design teams, you know, quite often it's hard to scale that quickly.

7:36So, you know, to actually hire in that talent takes quite a long time. So, if they needed to upscale, which they have had to, then that's a time when they can bring in people like us. We know how to, not only how to enhance capability, but how to build it. So, we've got the skills really to be able to jump in and help them, you know, in this time when there's so much more to do in such a short period of time. It's really just drop teams in that can help basically. So, that's, I mean, it's something that I think, you know, is it helps because we can become part of their culture, but also we can bring our culture.

8:13I mean, come on to that a little bit later, but I think injecting that pace that you can get from a design agency can be quite impactful, I think, for these companies. Yeah, exactly. Because they can't, like as before, they don't have as much time. I mean, obviously, consumer needs have been changing so much and demanding so much from, you know, companies. But, you know, now it's actually even more important to be quick, isn't it? Definitely. I'm going to change a little bit of the topic.

Diversity and Inclusion

8:42Yeah. Talking about diversity. And I said at the beginning, like you're quite a strong voice for diversity in the industry. And so, I just want to know about your journey and why you're so passionate about this topic. Yeah. I mean, this could take hours. So, I'm going to keep it as short as I can. But if I pick one aspect of my journey, so being gay, right, and I've recently had to talk a bit more about this because I've taken on the LGBTQ plus sponsor role for Interactive. So, you know, really standing up and saying, right, you know, I'm here and if you need me and let's build a community has made me really think about why I'm doing that and why it's important.

9:24And I think if I look back over my career, it sort of started off with me probably carrying quite a lot of shame. And I think that's a word that we have to say out loud. From my childhood, you know, I didn't feel very comfortable in my skin. I think being, you know, a child in the 70s and 80s and north of England, it wasn't a great, it wasn't a comfortable situation to feel like, you know, I might be different from everyone else. So, I think that stayed with me into early 20s and, you know, my first forays into work.

9:58And there's probably been one or two particular things that have happened to me in my career that have given me the confidence to embrace that kind of otherness, if you like. But it certainly hasn't been easy. So, you know, whether that's been someone that's stood up and said, you know, I'll support you or here I can see an opportunity for you or whether that is somebody saying to me, you being visible and out as a leader in design has made me feel comfortable coming to work.

10:28So, I mean, that is just one aspect. Obviously, I'm also a woman. There's a whole intersectionality thing. There's a lot going on at work with the whole topic around diversity, particularly in terms of what's happening with, you know, Black Lives Matter. And all of that is we're in a situation now as an industry where we have to change and we have to be better. And I would love to be part of that. Yeah. So, I'd like to probe that a little bit. So, I think everyone's kind of accepted that the way things used to be done is not the way they should continue to be done, particularly at the moment.

11:05I'm interested to see how you see diversity actually kind of aiding that change and how having a range of different viewpoints and representations can actually help both deliver better outcomes to customers, but also like to the organizations themselves as well. Yeah, I mean, so, again, I think thinking about just the short sort of the last few months and the journey that I'm going on with my teams and bringing together quite different cultures, quite different mindsets.

11:38So, from everything from consulting to people to strategists, people with completely different backgrounds. That's not an easy thing to do, but it's absolutely the right thing to do for our clients and for the industry, I think, because it's in those intersections. So, it's in that kind of collision that you get when you bring those different mindsets together that you really do, I guess, I'm trying to think of the right word, sorry. So, it's in those collisions, in those kind of moments that creativity really is true in that you get something that is lateral or is completely outside of what you'd get if you stuck to a formula that you're used to or you had a group of fairly homogenous group of people or designers.

12:25If you actually force collisions, and sometimes it can be quite tense because you get people who've always thought in one way and some people have always thought in another and you're forcing them to kind of find a middle ground. And that middle ground means giving something up. But in doing that, you find something new, brand new, that is additive. And if I think back to your question, what I guess is important right now is that we have not seen this before. We haven't been in this situation before. Our tried and tested approaches are not going to work. We actually need to shake things up and enable the insight and the accidental outcomes that will bring us solutions by causing these collisions to happen, basically.

13:08So, it's a tough gig because we're doing it remotely. It's almost another level of difficulty. But I think if we can make it easy for people to admit that they are holding on to things and help them let go of those things in a new way, then really the benefit is there. So, from a client perspective, you know, clients are not stupid. If they see a team of, you know, straight white guys, sorry to call up the boys, working for them on a project, more often than not now, they're going to call it out because they know they won't get as good a solution as they would get if they had a proper diverse and mixed team.

13:50And I'm picking on, you know, gender and race there. But I think there's something about if you bring people who've got a real business mindset together with people who've got much more of a customer and craft mindset together, clients increasingly want that as well because they can see that there's benefit in bringing those two mindsets into one way of thinking. That's interesting because when I was working in consulting, I did it for many, many years. I kind of saw a little bit of that transformation. I mean, in this country, I'm like a woman.

14:23I'm not from this country. I've got an accent, et cetera. It was really tough. I remember being, you know, credible and especially when I had people reporting into me where, you know, there were like, you know, English guys. Sorry, again, to poke on the guys, but it was very, very, very tough. But it's, I mean, I think these problems some organizations still facing, but it's interesting that you say that things are actually changing. But what are the kind of common problems you see organizations having at the moment in terms of diversity?

14:57Because now, I don't know how you feel about this, but I don't know if it just becomes like ticking a box. Okay, yeah, let's just add a woman to this rather than really like embracing the power of diversity and just making it happen for the whole organization. I mean, again, a massive topic. But what I would say is I think underpinning all of this is unconscious bias. And that's a much bigger topic to handle. So, you know, I sometimes get myself into trouble for calling it out, but I do if I encounter it.

15:30And it happens quite a lot because people, you know, don't, the problem with unconscious bias is it's unconscious, obviously. We all have it, but it's particularly prevalent when you get certain groups of people coming together because there's nobody in the mix to say, actually, that doesn't work from this person's perspective. Just think about it. And when you do that, which I have done many times, it really, it kind of throws people because nobody wants to admit they've got unconscious bias. And also, you can't see it. If you're coming from a place of privilege, it's really hard to see that, you know, you're limited in your view by that.

16:07So, I think unconscious bias is a big one to tackle still. But obviously, the last few months, there's been so much action, actually, talk and action that more and more people, people who I think really didn't get it before are starting to, I think, really see it, which is positive. But I think we do have to tackle that mindset shift in organisations and we have to enable those difficult. We need to create a situation in which someone like me can call it out.

16:41And I think that's the thing. I'm quite senior now. So, I do it. But more junior people find it very difficult to call out when they experience, you know, the outcome of unconscious bias, whether that's sexism or microaggressions or, you know, all of those things. So, I do think we've got quite a long way to go. But I do have hope because I can see a lot of change happening. So, I know it's probably not something where there's, like, quick wins or low hanging fruit around this because it's, yeah, as you say, it's systemic change, essentially.

17:14But are there any bits of advice you might give to people who are either experiencing, like, on the bad end of this unconscious bias or those who are actively trying to make sure they are delivering projects more inclusively? Have you got any advice that they could follow to help? Kind of move things in the right direction? Yeah, I mean, so I think, and it's hard to place yourself into someone else's shoes sometimes, but I think that's where you start.

17:45And really talking about it has got to be the starting point. I think when it comes to the latter part of the question, which is about how do you avoid these kind of non-diverse situations, you've got to put that into your operations in a way. It's got to become something that's operationally normal for someone, you know, to not get away with creating a team that's very homogenized. So, what I mean by that is it becomes so part of the routine. You know, you'll basically have, maybe you start with, like, a checklist.

18:15And that sounds really obvious, but you have a checklist when you kick off a project, right? And you want to make sure that everybody has what they need. Part of that is, is our team reflective of the customer? You know, do we have a team that is diverse and therefore able to represent the customer that we're designing for? Or are we just in a bubble in an echo chamber? And I've intervened many times, you know, seeing, walking into a project team as they're about to kick off going, you can't have this team. We're going to have to start again because it's all men or it's all white or whatever.

18:52So, something like that is a bit more top down, I think. Like, you know, actually having that as part of the process. And that, you know, if you unravel that out, it's like having representation at all in the team. And that's a much bigger topic around recruitment and the industry. And the industry being quite, you know, difficult to enter. And that is a whole topic that needs to be addressed. And a lot of people are trying to work out how to fix that. But the way that then ends up, you know, in a company like mine is there aren't, there isn't enough representation.

19:26So, we do have to keep pushing and forcing that as well. But then if you go down to the project level, we have to do everything we can to make sure that we're not showing up. I mean, and genuinely, you know, have a brief, which is to create something for, you know, middle-aged women. And it's all men on that team. That's just not going to work. Like, so that's, that's one. And then the first bit, which was about how to deal with, was it how to deal with unconscious bias or how to call out?

20:00Yeah. What's really amazing, I think, and I'm always really impressed by this, is that the teams are so good at grassroots interventions. As in, there's a, I don't really want to call anyone out, but there's a team that I'm working with and they've created this kind of safe space for female designers, which they've invited me along to. And it's such a safe, open conversation, discussion. And they can talk about anything safely and not feel the pressure of, you know, is somebody going to judge me?

20:35And within that, I think you can build confidence. So I would encourage people that have teams to create safe spaces where you can talk about how they're really feeling and what they're experiencing and then work out together how to intervene. Because, you know, each case is very different. It might be that you coach them about how to deal with the situation themselves or you have to step in or, you know, something else. But I think creating safe spaces where people can start to voice some of these concerns is really important.

21:07That is really, really important. I mean, in my working experience, again, going back to that, I've experienced a lot of like, you know, sexism and racism and it's very subtle. But then you as a receiver, kind of like, you know, you can, you can feel it, you can feel it. And even I, as I said to you before, as I said before, being more senior than the people doing it, still, like, I was so scared of saying something because it's kind of like you show weakness.

21:38It's like, oh, they're going to think that, you know, I'm weak and I'm not strong enough and I need to put up with all these things. But since I started working at Google, they actually create all these spaces where you could go and say something. It's actually like lots of living channels where you can go and say something. I mean, it's so important to have that space because you don't feel like, you know, you're going to be judged. But still, you know, the organizations can listen to you and sometimes action it. I mean, sometimes they don't do anything, but at least you know that you have that space.

22:13Yeah, definitely. That is super important. And I'm glad that, you know, you know, all companies are trying to follow this because it's going to help a lot of, you know, people out there who, you know, for some reason, they think they're different or they are different. And it's OK to be different. So, yeah.

BBC iPlayer Experience

22:31Cool.

BBC iPlayer Experience

22:31I'm going to jump to a slightly different, well, marginally different topic and talk about your experience working on BBC iPlayer. For anyone that's not in the UK listening, that's essentially the video player or video consumption kind of app for BBC content. So, yeah, I'm just interested to hear a bit more about how you're involved with that and also how you tested with users, particularly as regards like making it accessible and inclusive and all that kind of stuff.

23:05Yeah, I'm totally happy to talk. I would just caveat the fact that this is a long time ago. So this is like 12 years since I worked at the BBC. But I can still remember, the thing is, it stuck with me because it was such an impressive setup, actually, and an amazing team. I learned so much from working there that I think I carried through with me in life in other jobs as well. But I think, you know, it was, you know, talking early 2000s here, I think the BBC were incredibly hot on this topic, probably way ahead of their time, actually.

23:39And what they were trying to do with the iPlayer, I think it's hard to realise now, but they were inventing something that didn't exist for an audience that was completely inclusive. So the iPlayer was for everyone that had a TV licence, which was, you know, a huge percentage of the population of the UK. So it had to be usable by everyone, which I remember at the time thinking that's just crazy, kind of flies in the face of, you know, everything you learn about how to design a product. But they did it, and they, I mean, so they, we, I was obviously part of the team, but we, you know, they have amazing access to audiences.

24:16So they really, you know, the user, the audience, as they call them, were part of the design process throughout. So it was tested in releases, and, you know, it would be tested with a panel, and they'd have, like, different versions of user testing throughout the entire product design and development process. So really impressive, more than I've seen, you know, since in lots of times, I never see anything as robust as that. And in terms of accessibility, every design that they ever did had to be accessible.

24:48So they had a team completely dedicated to accessible design. So, you know, they had to meet the highest standards of accessibility. So it was, wasn't an add-on. It was part of the design process, I'd say. And I just remember one really, I don't know if this is relevant now, but if you think about the interface today, I just remember so clearly they'd done all of the testing using basically wireframes up to the point where the UI was going to be designed. And I think they, I don't even know who it was, but they went out to tender for the UI design.

25:22And in the end, it was done by the in-house BBC team, because what was designed externally, because, again, I think it was so new, just was not accessible or usable enough for the audience. So they designed it internally. And that interface that they designed is pretty much still the basis of what you see today. And it was a really tiny team. So, I don't know, I've got a lot of praise for them. I think I feel really proud to have been part of that team. Yeah, it's surprising how little it's changed. It's almost like the iOS of video sort of content platforms, isn't it?

25:56Yeah, it really is. If you look at what's happened since, you know, nothing really has deviated that much from the idea.

26:05Yeah, that's amazing, isn't it? And that's how important it is to be inclusive. And, you know, because then you can future-proof products, and then they can be, you know, can be live for many, many years. Exactly.

26:20Obviously, with, you know, today's situation, again, like being flexible as an organization, like, it's not, it's super, super important to be able to respond quickly to customer needs. How have you been advising your clients to do that? And perhaps we can talk about a bit of, you know, live in business and, you know, tell us a little bit of what it is and how it's helped organizations, you know, going through this pandemic. Brilliant. Yeah, no, I think, thank you for that.

26:51I think living business is, obviously, it's something we've been building up for a few years. But, I mean, it's definitely really needed now in terms of, it's a bit of a, it's a framework, really. It's a kind of way of helping organizations think in a certain way. And it brings together lots of different design disciplines and methodologies. But, essentially, it's about helping companies, organizations to think about themselves much more holistically. And their people and their customers is being really, really interconnected.

27:21So, if you're trying to, if you're trying to do something for your customer, your people need to also feel the kind of same level. It needs to be that your brand purpose speaks to both your customer and your people in the same way. And that you need to connect those two things or all of the organization, really, in a kind of, in an organic way that's really flexible and that can shift and change in this kind of world of constant change that we're in today. So, I mean, there's, yeah, there's never been a more important time for people to be able to do that.

27:53And I think, you know, it's quite a big, I mean, the idea of it is quite big and it's quite a lot to take on all at once. But there are ways you can break it down. So, we've, you know, we've worked with clients over the years in lots of different ways. But I think where we would start is this methodology we have called the Vital Signs Audit, which is essentially working with the client to understand how well set up they are for change culturally. So, you know, what are the cultural barriers to change? And then potentially what are the biases that they have internally that are getting them in the way, getting in the way, sorry, of them being able to make change happen quickly and positively.

28:32And that kind of audit helps us understand then what interventions might be needed. So, you know, one of those interventions might be, okay, they need, they actually need to build an in-house design team to help them create better products and services for their customers. So, we can help them in that. Or they might actually need to shift their thinking from being quite product or business centric to being customer centric. Just another thing we've seen a lot of, you know, and how you do that is really about strategy and kind of getting them to rethink their strategy through a design lens and through a human lens.

29:06But, yeah, so just, you know, the topic itself is large, but essentially it's about stopping, you know, moving from being quite a mechanistic structure to being much more organic and human as a business. And that's why. Are there any common patterns or problems you see organisations having or is it generally quite unique to that specific organisation? I think there are. I mean, a lot of the time, and again, we'll probably see this now with the changes that are happening due to COVID, a lot of the time you get like a CEO or a C-suite that really buy into this change.

29:45And they really, you know, they can see it and they want it to happen. It's when you kind of move down through the organisation that you get quite a lot of stickiness. So, people who have run things in a certain way for a certain period of time or they feel, everybody feels like it's human nature. You feel a sense of self-worth by what you have control over. And essentially to do this and to make this change happen or to even constantly make change happen, you need to be able to relinquish control.

30:16And a lot of organisations, particularly at the kind of like, you know, below C-suite level, find that really difficult. It's a cultural stickiness, if you like. And that's quite hard to overcome. I think that that is underestimated when organisations want to go on this kind of change. And if you look, I mean, I don't want to mention any company names, but there are ones out there where you can see they've, probably Google is probably one of them, but where you can see that, you know, it's not just come down from the top. It's embedded in every aspect of the organisation.

30:47In fact, I will call out one company because I can, and that's Accenture. Accenture is amazing at this. Accenture has just launched its new purpose and strategy, which, you know, is accessible to everyone. But the way that manifests internally is the key to success. It's about everybody internalising that and then shifting behaviour to make that happen, which takes a huge amount of effort from everyone. It's interesting because, I mean, you would normally do this kind of process with companies, like just running lots of workshops and, you know, getting them to feedback, et cetera, doing lots of like research as well.

31:27And, you know, kind of part of that ethno approach is to be there, to observe, to kind of like, but now without that physical contact. Obviously, I guess you have the common challenges of like doing everything through Zoom, but is there anything else that you've seen as like current constraints in these new situation is bringing to that process for organisations? I mean, I think this cultural stickiness is really hard to overcome anyway. I think if you've got an organisation that is quite constrained hierarchically, so if you, you know, if your structure is quite rigid, then right now in the world of, you know, if you were a company where everybody was in the office and it was quite sort of top down and, you know, you had those hierarchies.

32:15I think I can imagine when that now suddenly has gone remote, that is really difficult to make that shift because it's not, it's not only necessarily about technology, although technology is probably a part of it for some of those companies. They're not as digitally savvy potentially, but even when they've overcome that, it's kind of that level of trust that you have to have in your workforce. So, you know, you're not seeing everybody every day. How do you, how do you, A, maintain trust between you and how do you influence people?

32:47You know, what are the, what are the ways that you do that? And I think if you've, if you've got that inherently in your organisation, then the COVID situation probably hasn't hit you as hard. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, if you just like wrap up now, what, if you were a designer, obviously you're a junior designer, like navigating today's complexity, you know, working from home, trying to do your job. So, what kind of advice do you give them to first to be able to navigate through these uncertainty and, and also to be able to embrace diversity and all these very important topics we talked about today?

33:29What advice would you give them? Yeah, actually, I think because we talk about coaching and mentoring and things a lot, which I think are really important and finding a coach or a mentor, someone that you, that you look up to or trust. I think it is a really valuable thing to do and I'd recommend it. But what I've, what I've done recently and what I think is really powerful is to find someone who can be a sponsor. So, in this time of, you know, being remote, is there someone who will help you still be challenging yourself and go beyond, you know, your comfort zone and actually put opportunities in front of you?

34:06So, not just kind of coaching, which is asking you, you know, getting you to talk about yourself and talk yourself into a situation. A sponsor should specifically put somebody in to a situation that will help them grow. And it sounds like an easy thing to do, but I think it is worth the effort to find someone that will do that, either within your organisation. And it doesn't have to be a boss, it can be somebody completely different, or outside of your organisation. I think looking for a sponsor that will, you know, not necessarily be your friend even, but will help you push yourself.

34:40I think that's a really important thing to do. Yeah, that's really, really important. I think throughout my career, I've found a lot of sponsors. And I think that's why, you know, I managed to do a lot of the things I wanted to do. Last question, and I always ask this question to all our guests. And sorry if I put you on the spot. Is there a book or a person to follow or a video to watch or a podcast to listen to, apart from Design & Tangle, which is the best one, that you could recommend designers right now?

35:15Yeah, anything can work. Exactly. So, I think, I mean, I have a few that I would suggest, but one that I keep going back to, it's nothing to do with design, is Anything by Mary Beard. I love Mary Beard. She's amazing. But the book, particularly the book called Women and Power, A Manifesto, it's very short. It's more of a lecture. It's incredibly powerful about, you know, how societal norms have formed us as women and how we need to overcome that. And then for leadership stuff, I love Simon Sinek and Adam Grant.

35:51So, Leaders Eat Last, The Infinite Game, Give and Take, they're three books that I would recommend. And then as a kind of handy guidebook, if you're a leader, I would recommend Create a Gender-Balanced Workforce by Anne Frank, which really gives you the – it sets you up with the argument and then it tells you how to go about it, basically. Oh, that's good. And I love Roxane Gay. So, Roxane Gay on Twitter is my inspiration. Oh, really? Okay. Have to follow that.

36:23Thank you so much again, Abby, for being here with us. For me, it's been amazing talking to you about all these very important topics. I wish we had more time to talk about it. But thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you very much. Absolute pleasure. Thank you.

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