Episode 44 - Interview with Kat Vellos: Cultivating Connected Friendships

I am so excited to have Kat Vellos on the Still Becoming podcast this month. Kat is a user experience designer with a passion for helping people connect authentically. ⁣ ⁣ In this episode we talk about Kat's incredible new books, and all about the topic of adult friendship. We dive into so many topics, including loneliness and the important work necessary to cultivate connected friendships. Kat describes for us a term she created: "platonic longing," one I am sure will be helpful. We discuss deep conversations over superficial ones and the more accurate meanings under the overused word "awkward." We discuss conflict in friendship, and how our friends change over our lifetime as we change. Finally we discuss showing up for your friends, and the world, in regards to racial injustice.⁣ ⁣ As a user experience designer, Kat has worked for Slack and Pandora, as well as with the creators of Siri designing the first iteration of Bixby. Kat has been profiled in Forbes and quoted in FastCompany for her work as the founder of Bay Area Black Designers which is a professional development community for Black designers and UX researchers. She’s researched, designed, and advised on the user experience of countless flows in digital products serving millions of people. ⁣ ⁣ With her debut book, We Should Get Together, she turned her expertise in user research and experience design towards helping people live healthier lives through the cultivation of deeper, more fulfilling friendships. Her next book, Connected from Afar provides the tools to breathe new life and fresh connection into your existing faraway friendships.⁣ ⁣ When she’s not posting doodles about friendship on Instagram, you can find her on the hunt for the Bay Area’s best tacos.⁣ ⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katvellos_author/⁣ ⁣ Twitter: https://twitter.com/KatVellos⁣ ⁣ Books and events: weshouldgettogether.com⁣ ⁣ Work: katvellos.com⁣ ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ For more Still Becoming, please follow Monica on Instagram: @monicadicristina.