Building Trust and Surviving Digital Disruption: Improving Your Product/Market Fit by Applying Design Thinking to the Sales Process

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We are in a period of digital disruption, and, as we like to say, “</span><strong><em>You are either being disrupted, or you are the disruptor.</em></strong><span style="font-weight: 400;">” During this segment of The Disruptor podcast, we discuss experiences and stories from the field that will empower any burgeoning entrepreneurs to deepen their design thinking practice and any naysayers to give it a second look.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jan and John interview Nicholas Jayanty, a Principal User Experience Researcher at Red Hat and former film maker. Jayanty’s human-centric focus began early on. As a kid, he was into writing and storytelling. Film and theater classes segued into deep dives into critical theory and gender and race studies. As a college student at the University of Texas majoring in communications, with a focus on radio, TV and film, he made a movie about identity called Young Mutt.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">After moving to New York City in 2004 and working as a freelance production assistant by initially “cold-calling at least 600 people,” Jayanty says, laughing, he co-founded a production company in Austin called Reversal Films with another producer, Victor Moyers.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jayanty was part of a major effort at IBM to boost IBM Design Thinking, a specialized approach to design thinking for large-scale organizations and businesses.</span><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /></span><span style= "font-weight: 400;">“I’m very sensitive to how people self-identify and socially identify. My own identity is really fluid. With interaction design, it’s all about finding the truth and shattering assumptions,” said  Jayanty.  “You talk to your users, and they either discredit or validate those assumptions. It’s not about designing an experience. It’s about designing for an experience.” </span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Learn more about Nicholas