Elias Lind, Product Designer | Spotify Design

I’ve at all times been very into folks and the internal workings of their lives. I used to be actually near changing into a psychologist or anthropologist, nevertheless, the strategies and processes of design pulled me in by being a kind of “applied psychology/sociology” — the place understanding folks and their issues go into creating options for them within the type of merchandise, options, providers or techniques. 

It is the processes and strategies of design that get to me, and the truth that most of them contain different folks, in a method or one other, makes it a great match for me. However, I often say that my midlife disaster goes to be me going again to high school for psychology — we’ll see. 

I work for the groups that oversee how we acquire information contained in the group, or “event delivery infrastructure” because it’s referred to as. When speaking to folks outdoors of Spotify, I often say that I don’t contact something they see as Spotify. Instead, I see myself as a plumber of types, working far under the floor and ensuring the whole lot runs easily. 

My job consists principally of operating analysis on our customers, who’re inner engineers at Spotify, to grasp how they make use of our merchandise and what we are able to do to make their lives simpler. It is all about understanding their on a regular basis technical wants and developing with new options or merchandise that make the engineers sooner, extra environment friendly and extra productive. It is a substantial amount of enjoyable and I’m so spoiled to have all of my customers a Slack message away.

1. ZOOM H2N microphone — I’ve beforehand used this to document choirs and track vocals. When I spotted I may use it as a USB mic as properly, I bought an inexpensive arm to connect to the desk and began utilizing it in all my conferences. It makes an awesome distinction in sound high quality.

2. Bose Quiet Comfort 2 — A pair of previous headphones that I can line into the microphone to listen to my very own voice clearly. 

3. External webcam — Allows me to work on the large display screen while additionally wanting into the digicam.

4. My associate’s do-it-yourself trellis — She could be very pleased with this one, particularly the truth that she used her highschool math expertise (did I hear pythagoras theorem?) to get it up. We have a ton of crops rising on it and it makes my workplace really feel slightly extra like a jungle. By workplace I imply the 5×5 ft house subsequent to our kitchen, it does not get extra dwelling workplace than that.

5. Water bottle — This is my favourite water bottle — and that claims rather a lot since I’ve about 10-15 of them. I often preserve slices of lemon or lime in it and refill it with water all through the day.

6. Coffee thermos — About 2 fillings final me by the day. Since I began working from dwelling I bought actually large on decaf. Now, once I’m feeling harmful, I make my very own mix of caffeinated and decaffeinated to spice issues up.

7. Standing desk — When beginning to do business from home I started having again pains (good day maturity) so I made a decision to put money into a great standing desk and an honest chair. I don’t stand as a lot as I ought to nevertheless it’s nice to have the choice.  

When I first began at Spotify, I labored as a summer season intern within the Podcast Research division making an attempt to grasp how customers created habits round listening to podcasts. It was an enormous mission that concerned the entire spectrum of customers, from individuals who had by no means listened to a podcast to customers listening every day. I ran the mission as a diary research, which is if you let your individuals full every day duties and write about or document their expertise from every day. I had a whole lot of video snippets after accumulating information from individuals. 

In the tip, I got here up with an fascinating behavior formation framework based mostly on the findings from the customers. Putting the findings into one thing digestible took a very long time, however I lastly bought there with a ton of assist from my supervisors, Adam Winer and Christina Mosti (thanks, you two). I’m really fairly pleased with the work wanting again at it and it’s nonetheless used within the group as a manner of understanding podcast habits. 

Leah Reich — My former supervisor, who as soon as instructed me “we’re not trying to cure cancer, get your insights and get moving”. This is one thing that has stayed with me and a mantra I inform myself each time I’m hitting evaluation paralysis. (If you’re employed with curing most cancers, don’t take this as your mantra.) 

Daniel Bark — Daniel is a good buddy of mine who ALWAYS does what his coronary heart tells him, it doesn’t matter what. Doesn’t matter if it means beginning an entire new profession, staying as much as 4:00 am to observe tons of YouTube movies about strolling on a straight line throughout Wales, beginning his personal coding channel, or constructing a potato chips tree for his wedding ceremony. Stand up man that evokes me — at all times. Check out his stellar content material.

Luke Leighfield — Luke, like Daniel, is a endless artistic soul. A musician and UX-writer by commerce, he creates challenges for himself to make life larger. It will be something from studying a e-book every week, going vegan for a yr, writing a musical or producing a track every week. The manner he and his stunning spouse do life evokes me. Go observe his weekly publication and tag alongside!

Think extremely of different folks — most individuals you’ll ever encounter are your pals and need the most effective for you and themselves.

Don’t be afraid of placing your self on the market. If you hear one thing inspiring in a podcast, or learn a cool article on Medium — write to those folks on LinkedIn or stroll as much as them after a keynote. Get to know folks, inform them what you’re dreaming of and the way you assume they may help — you by no means know what would possibly get your foot contained in the door.

And lastly, one in every of my favourite quotes from a Norwegian teenage television sequence referred to as SKAM — “Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be Kind, always.”

Sending a great deal of like to my associate (Hi, Anna 👋 ), and my household and pals who make my life wealthy.