Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work
		The book is available online at SafariBooksOnline.com.   They give you a 10 day trial of the service, so if you sign up now, you can read the book for free for 10 days. --------------- Conventional product development focuses on the solution. Empathy is a mindset that focuses on people, helping you to understand their thinking patterns and perspectives. Practical Empathy will show you how to gather and compare these patterns to make better decisions, improve your strategy, and collaborate successfully. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Business Is Out of Balance Chapter 2: Empathy Brings Balance Chapter 3: Put Empathy to Work Chapter 4: A New Way to Listen Chapter 5: Make Sense of What You Heard Chapter 6: Apply Empathy to What You Create Chapter 7: Apply Empathy with People at Work Chapter 8: Apply Empathy Within Your Organization Chapter 9: Where Do You Go from Here? Index About the Author

for empathy, not against

for empathy, not against

for empathy, not against

A book called Against Empathy came out in late 2016. Author Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology and cognitive science, has consequently gotten a lot of exposure for such an eye-catching title. I’ve found contradictions in what he says. (e.g. empathy means many things vs. empathy is feeling what the other person is feeling)  I got a chance to speak with Steve Paulson of Wisconsin Public Radio’s To the Best of Our Knowledge about using cognitive empathy in product design. Podcast: Does empathy have a design flaw?(21 minutes) Transcript below.

Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work (Webinar with Indi Young)
"We recently hosted a webinar with Indi Young, author, UX consultant, and founding partner at Adaptive Path. Check out the video to hear what Indi had to say about empathy, or read the full transcript of the session below!"

"Indi: Great! Thank you, Martha. That was a great intro. Hi everybody, presumably you’ve already found the little door in your brain that lets new things in, and you’ve opened it, because we’re going to talk about empathy. Yeah, empathy. That word means a lot of things to a lot of people, and quite frequently it gets associated with little hearts, hearts everywhere. I even see them when other people try to talk about empathy in relationship to the book that I just finished writing."

Indi Young: Enabling Empathy

Through her talk, Indi Young explains how we must ask and listen more as a means to get past our assumptions. Absorbing eclectic ideas, understanding varied work patterns and incorporating different ways of thinking will help broader ideas sprout. She categorizes Empathy into Emotional and Cognitive Empathy, giving us examples of both.

Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work - Indi Young & Edwin Rutsch

This is a sample chapter from Indi Young’s new book Practical Empathy.

Chapter 2: Empathy Brings Balance
"Going deeper than assumptions and opinions in your understanding of people is powerful. If your organization is captivated by metrics, empathy will balance out the numbers. Being honest about what you don’t know, being interested in the simpler underlying philosophies that make people tick—these characteristics are what can catalyze your creativity and your collaboration."

Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work
Free On-Demand Webinar

 

"The best product managers, designers, product teams, and leaders are experts at practicing empathy. But empathy is not what you think. Ask anyone what empathy is, and they'll say it means to walk in someone else's shoes. And that is part of it. But walking in someone's shoes is how you apply empathy. First, you need to develop empathy. In this on-demand webinar, Indi Young shows you practical ways your team can develop and practice empathy to help understand your users and make better decisions. This webinar is for anyone who is working to deliver useful products, content, and experiences that delight their customers."

Practical Empathy [On-Demand Webinar]
by Jennifer Winter on April 27, 2015

In our recent webinar, Indi Young, UX consultant and author of “Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work”, shares some helpful insights on using empathy when soliciting feedback. Here are our top 4 takeaways:

• 1. Collaborative and creative empathy doesn’t equal sympathy...

• 2. Schedule time to listen, not interview....

• 3. Ask ‘why’ not ‘how’....

• 4. Be present....

IxDA 2015: Make the Case for Empathy - empathy, person-focused research, product strategy
(A video of my presentation at IxDA 2015 will be available shortly.)
"If you listen to many people, you'll start to see patterns in how they reason, react, and guide their decisions. These patterns are what you use to balance big data. It's pretty simple, but mention to your boss that you want to go listen to how people think, and he'll assign you three new projects just to avoid that fuzzy qualitative data you might bring back. In an atmosphere where "hard numbers" and "scientific approaches" are held in greatest esteem, you have your work cut out for you to demonstrate that words are not useless fuzzy concepts. Your best weapon in this struggle? Understand how your bosses think. Understand the reasons numbers are held so dear. Develop empathy with your bosses, then address the underlying goals confidently with your qualitative data."

2015-02-18 - A New Way to Listen

"A note from the editors: In Practical Empathy, Indi Young underscores the importance of developing empathy—and helps us improve our listening, gain perspective, and balance our business practices in the process. We're pleased to bring you this excerpt from Chapter 4 of Practical Empathy."

"To develop empathy, you need to understand a person’s mind at a deeper level than is usual in your work. Since there are no telepathy servers yet, the only way to explore a person’s mind is to hear about it. Words are required. A person’s inner thoughts must be communicated, either spoken aloud or written down. You can achieve this in a number of formats and scenarios."

2015-02-18 - Apply Empathy Within Your Organization:

 An excerpt from Practical Empathy explains how to make change on the inside | UX Magazine

"Each organization exists for a purpose: to bring something to the world, make it available to people, and enable those people to capitalize upon it. Many organizations exist to also make
 a profit. Whether for profit or not, all organizations seek to sustain themselves, so they can continue bringing their things to the world. Within each organization, there is usually a healthy awareness of the purpose, as well as a focus on being sustainably successful."

 

2015-02-18 - Webinars: Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work, Indi Young
"The best product managers, designers, product teams, and leaders are experts at practicing empathy. In this webinar, Indi Young will show you practical ways your team can develop and practice empathy to help understand your users and to make better decisions. ... This webinar is for anyone who is working to deliver useful products, content, and experiences that delight their customers."