Make Things Better, Not Just Different with Erin Weigel

Have you ever thought about the similarities between art and science? Or about how math is the language of the universe? No? Welcome to a perspective shift. Ultimately this episode is about making things better, not just different. But how we get there is through a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with the witty and philosophical Erin Weigel. Erin Weigel wants us to make things better, not just different. But how do we get there? Lou had a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with Erin, always witty and philosophical—and often funny as hell. Join them on a perspective-shifting conversation that bridges disciplines and challenges conventional thinking, all in the pursuit of genuine improvement. Erin is the author of the recently published Design for Impact: Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments. She brings a fresh, accessible, and humor-filled take on what may seem like a dry topic: experimentation. Erin digs into the role of experimentation in design, advocating for always defaulting to experiments even if they’re the quick and dirty kind. Erin and Lou also cover the following: Wonky stuff like normal distributions, the central limit theorem, and what can be learned from outliers The power of experiments to unite multidisciplinary teams by getting away from opinions and finding the truth How professionals can use the principles of experimentation to navigate uncertainties and drive meaningful improvements Discerning the impact of changes made What You'll Learn from this Episode: How Erin, with a fine arts background, became the principal designer at Booking.com and the Senior Group Product Design Manager at Deliveroo The fundamental similarities between art and science Why you should never skip the experimental phase How experimentation unites people across disciplines The difference between making things different and making them better Quick Reference Guide: 0:32 - Introduction of Erin; similarities between art and science 4:05 - Barriers between art and science 5:58 - Statistics is fun! 12:37 - Defaulting to experimentation 18:06 - Break - 5 reasons to use the Rosenverse 20:36 - Experimentation as a uniting force 25:49 - Make things better, not just different 28:32 - Erin’s gift for listeners Resources and Links from Today's Episode: Design for Impact: Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments by Erin Weigel Ologies Podcast with Allie Ward Rosenverse Factfulness: 10 Reasons We’re Wrong About the World and 10 Reasons Why Things are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling Quotes: “There's a closer connection between art and science than people typically see on the surface.” “The second I reframed math as a language in my brain, it became a lot less scary because I love learning languages. . . Math is the language of the universe.” “Experimentation does have a language of its own and it uses all these different parts of your brain.” “Make things better, not just different.”