002: Josh Silverman of AIGA Rhode Island

Chapter two.

I'm Erik Cargill.

And I'm Rachel Elnar. And this is Cheers and Tiers.

Design leadership tales retold.

Erik, if you don't know about Josh, our guest is a true bridge builder between entrepreneurship, design education, and the design community. And for over thirty years, he's been helping people discover their purpose and connecting talented designers with incredible opportunities. As a founder of PeopleWork Partners, he brings a human centered approach to recruiting and leadership coaching, placing emerging leaders in companies like Netflix, Target, and OpenAI. He's also been a trusted consultant for design teams, shaping critique, culture, and operations for trailblazing organizations like Sequoia Design Lab. From leading the MDes program at California College of Arts to running Schwa Design, a lean design business recognized by The Wall Street Journal.

Thank you so much for having me.

Welcome. Welcome, Josh.

Nice to Thank you.

I can't always remember how far back our friendship goes to, but we kind of like talking about the beginnings, how we started, why we have this shared love of community and leadership. So can you can you tell us a little bit more like, your leadership role within AIGA, which chapters, how long you served, and how you've been

Thank you for making this space to to tell these stories because that's one of the legacies that I think is leaving us quickly. There's no one organizational body. There's no backbone of the design community anymore. So I feel like it's up to us to preserve these stories and be be the ancestors that we need in the design community. So I really appreciate your making the time and inviting me, to share my story and and a little bit about how, to your to your very kind introduction, how all those things sort of make sense to me.

need a buzzer there. I think Erik and I should have had a buzzer to see who won that one because it was just like kind of tied.

Around that time, I was in Kansas So I knew Anne. So yeah.

So Michael, Anne, and I were the three co chairs. And it was an amazing conversation to to be part of. And I love how every chapter participated and that there was a role for me to reach out to more of the local leaders at that time, and it was a great result. I think that, like, honoring the the legacy of the organization was probably the pinnacle of my AIGA achievement, I think.

Incredible.

We've been to cities that we've never been to. Like, I was thinking, why would I ever go to Omaha, Nebraska? But now it's like one of my favorite places. Right? Just great memories that have been created there and still sit there with me. Relationships that we fostered there that continue to this day.

It's I think that's absolutely the most untapped value of any organization, especially an organization for designers who are most of us natural born networkers, most of us who want to be in community, most of us who want to connect with people for whatever reason, if it's creative or strategic or tactical or some support mechanism. I think the fact that AIGA was the back bone of the design community for so so so long, is is missing in our lives right now. And I think this is a super timely conversation because I have thoughts about where the design community is now. Like, where where is it physically? Where is the center mentally, emotionally?

Tell you the truth, the nature of our industry has changed so much. Fast forward and social media and phones, which we didn't have back then. I mean, I I was telling Erik and Amanda, we only had Sharpies to communicate, where the parties were. So there you go. There's the Sharpies.

I think that's okay. AIGA was a distributed organization, so it wasn't like distributed thinking was foreign. I think I don't know if this is on the agenda, but I think the the boat was missed for becoming a bigger tent, becoming a bigger organization that was inclusive of motion designers, interaction designers, UX UI, co like, engineers I'm gonna go out on a limb here. Engineers are designers. Engineers have to think in a designerly and and I don't know that engineers have a similar kind of organization.

Right. Yeah.

We're already not something that could be more innovative than we we allowed ourselves to be, even structurally. Like, I I loved the business model of AIGA having been part of two different chapters on the inside in terms of revenue and, you know, signing the paperwork and all that. Like, I saw what the financials were. And it's not just AIGA that has fallen, fallen from relevancy like a lot of other organizations that are not keeping up with the the demand for different kinds of connectivity. So it Right.

Do you remember when your first leadership retreat was?

Phoenix ninety seven.

Oh.

Phoenix '90 '7. '90 '7. I was really grateful that it might have been '98, but I'm pretty sure it was '97. I was really grateful that I went with a couple other folks from the Boston board. I remember a couple of things, one of which was meeting Samina Quraeshi, who, Shepard Quraeshi Associates was an architecture and design slash placemaking firm in Fort Point in Boston.

And

he was like, who are the extroverts? Who are the introverts? Who are the ambriverts? He separated all 200 ish of us by by our Myers Briggs type indicators. And I was with Debbie Millman in all four quadrants. Like, each of the things we were just, like, following each other, and I was like, you again. But at one point, the facilitator was like, okay. What frustrates you? Just shout it out. And I said, lines, like waiting in line.

Great.

Yeah.

That was Omaha, Two Thousand. Okay. Yeah. Nice. If you remember. I think it was one of the better managed sessions

Okay.

In a leadership retreat because it really got people up out of their seats and moving around the room. And it was small enough. I think it was maybe 200 people

Mhmm.

At the most that you could do that. I mean, leadership retreats after that actually got to like 300 people. So it got really big. But, yeah, that was amazing just to see the division or the groupings of people and how they define themselves and where they place themselves.

I'm I'm learning that Omaha's reaching this legendary status.

Was it

I mean, just just from talking to Rachel about it, you know, I I I feel like I've really missed out.

I I I do remember feeling bad about missing them as well. Like, there were there were years that I couldn't or years that, like, when Rhode Island, didn't have the budget to bring everyone. Like, I think I tapped out one year because I wanted someone else to have that that joy and that connectivity and that community. And I think it's it's it's still a need. The community part is still important, still relevant, still still necessary, but I'm still, like, hoping that there is some kind of plug in, some kind of maybe not an association, not a nonprofit, but some separate entity from Adobe, Figma, whoever the massive players are in design software that may change.

You know, was interesting. I just I'm in the middle of looking for new employment, and I had somebody review my resume as a recruiter and really knows nothing about design. Design is not his forte, but dressing up a resume is definitely his forte. But he got down to the AIGA part and I haven't been a part of it since 2017. He goes, I debate on whether or not to leave that in there.

them. Agreed. Agreed. Even if you were not in a leadership capacity, which sounds like you were, I think being part of a community that has been around for many, many, many decades is relevant to the right people who are gonna hire you. Sidebar, I'm a designer in recruiting, would love to see your resume, can help you.

The fact that I was a member of a larger community, something that was bigger than me, something that had roots in tradition and integrity. I think to me that was very validating and also made me feel like I was part of something just larger. Some an organization that had influence over how design was shaped in overall marketing business, blah blah blah. Like, you know, the way that we are perceived is is helped by being part of this organization.

%. I I feel like one of the biggest things that Rick Greffet, the former ED, used to do was education and advocacy. And not just within the design body, but outside, especially outside of the design body. To help business leaders and non designers understand what design can do for their business and how to work with designers, that was more valuable than anything to our clients, to our to people who wanted to hire us, to people who didn't know what they needed. And now I think design is so embedded in so many organizations, possibly not in the right space or this, you know, right spot in the org chart.

It can be reversed. It can be reversed. Like, the organization is still around. It still has a lot of supporters. It still has

It's not too late.

It is not too late.

I feel like a a different organization would be a good signal. Graphic arts is still part of the name. If you if you wanna go way back, like, it shouldn't be American, it shouldn't be an institute, and it shouldn't be graphic arts.

Muchasim. But Mhmm.

We wanna do something that is a design organization, I think it needs to be wholly different. Clearly, I still have passion for it. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here on a Sunday with you all. And someone something someone to be the bigger tent that could be bigger than product design, digital design, graphic design, visual design, engineering, architecture. Like, I I would be delighted if it was broader than design build.

Yeah. Erik and I talk about about the need for community all the time, that it seems to have disappeared since the pandemic. And that any ways that we can get it together, whether virtual, hybrid, or in person is much needed right now. So Yes.

Couldn't agree more. Yeah. For sure. And it has to be hybrid. I think I think the fact that the pandemic popularized and normalized meeting people in our rectangles before you got together to meet them in person, that was the start of the hybrid world in in a way bigger way than I think Zoom could have anticipated.

I love how much thought you've put into this. This is savage.

Thank you. Feels like little thought, but thank you. Yeah.

I mean, but there's there's a foundation there. There's a structure there. I could see it. I could visualize what you're talking about. There's definitely seeds that you're planting and I love that. I wonder if you'd let me switch gears just a bit.

Let's do it.

There's a lot of learning. There's a lot of growth. A lot of people there and then everybody goes to blow off steam. Is there one particular memory that you have that sticks out in your mind?

The post program, and when I was at Yale, the post learning when that Yale program that you're about to do, the post learning social component was just as important as the structured learning compore component. Unstructured community building in a way that is very hard to reproduce virtually. It's they're all kind of a blur, frankly, whether it was, like, taking Uber back to the hotel from a whatever because we were further afield than we thought, walking across the Lake Pontchartrain Bridge from New Orleans, like, all the they all sort of, like, hold the same experience in my head of, like, silly good times. Silly, silly good times. It's interesting though what when you started asking this question, the thing that came up for me was integration Mhmm.

I can completely relate to that. I can I can remember coming back from these retreats or, you you know, even seeing people that I was just on retreat with at the airport? And we still didn't want the party to stop. I mean, the party in quotes, and it was the exchange of those ideas continuing and then getting home and then kind of coming down from that high as it were of being around so many like minded individuals wanting the same things and then integrating. Going back to the job where I'm the sole designer in a 200 person company and oh, don't have anybody to

talk to about this. Yeah. Yeah. For a while, I'm just remembering now for a while in Boston, we tried to solve that. We had we had a program called AFTA, a f t a.

Mhmm. Yeah. I love that.

I had forgotten about after series, but it was fun. It was definitely a thing.

Here's something you might have forgotten about, Josh. How many pyramids have you been a part of?

I'm gonna say too many. Where did they start? How did that how where, how, what, how?

Oh gosh. First, starts with a cheer and then it goes into a tear. People are drunk and saying, we're at a bowling alley. You know would be really cool to do in our lane? Build a pyramid.

Yeah. That was so great. That was such a fun and weird randomly participatory thing. Yes. Alcohol had to be involved to feel like you could do it, to feel like you could just stand there or squat there and be climbed on.

Okay. So my last question. My last question for you, Josh, is basically how did what you learn in leadership throughout AIGA your experience, influence your career and what you're working on now?

Beautiful question. Many of the years of conferences, leadership retreats, phone calls. Many of the folks that I that I met along the way have become collaborators and friends. Randy Hunt is one person that comes to mind. He was incoming in Orlando.

Oh, wow.

And I picked up Stefan from the airport, and we went record shopping, and we went to we went to the radio station. We talked with my friend, the DJ, about design for music, and then I kept him in his hotel. And then we had the lecture, and then we went out to dinner afterwards. You can't pay to spend a day with Stefan Sagmeister. If you want to be involved in an organization that brings inspirational speakers to a community or multiple communities, that's the access that you that's the benefit of getting involved in something bigger than yourself that that has that opportunity for you.

Yeah. Opportunity. Sure.

And opportunity. But like yeah. No one else raised their hand as as as quickly and as as hard as I did for Cliff Stoltz's question about about the Sagmeister event. I think it's I think it's those two things for me. It's like the potential for not expecting the things to come back to you, but the potential for those things to come back to you tenfold was part of why I was involved for so many decades because those things just kept happening. And here we are, honestly.

Here we are. Yeah. They love that.

That's incredible. That that's a great story.

And there's many more. There's so many there's so many stories like that. You're not the only one, Josh. There's a lot of us who've met our heroes, obviously, through leadership retreats or events or just volunteering. So I totally agree. I think being part of something larger, a community, really gives you that opportunity. Yep. Yeah. Most definitely.

Yeah. I'm super grateful yet again for your time to record these.

Thank you, Josh. Appreciate it. Cheers. Just wanna say cheers to Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate the time.

Thank you both. Yeah. Cheers. Alright. See you see you on the interwebs.

That was great. That was awesome. That was fantastic.

It was good to meet.

It was great. A wealth of knowledge. Yeah. A wealth of knowledge.

And and fearless. I mean, like, who wants to do this? Me.

I'm looking forward to many more stories.

You too.

And just exploring them with you. Cheers and Tiers We'll be back to hear more design leadership tales retold.

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Cheers and Tiers. Design Leadership Tales Retold is a production of chapter two media and hosted by us, Rachel Elnar and Erik Cargill. This episode was produced and edited by Rachel Elnar.

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