Building Product Teams of the Future In Africa

Eldad Nutako, Dumebi Iwuchukwu, Camille Kramer-Courbariaux, Edem Kumodzi at UXDX Community: Africa. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpm7lLEkMC0

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Who actually builds the product?

[00:00:00] Eldad: The last session was incredible, and I think if you were in product management or product development you would hear a lot of things that are quite critical to just thinking about and building intentional products. But then there is the big elephant in the room: who are the people who are actually going to do all these things? Ann was talking about getting information from users, Jeff about talking to designers and developers. So the question is, who are these guys, who's the team that is behind actually executing all these interesting things? That's the session that we're going to have today, talking about building product teams. We'll get to know each of the panelists as we get into it, we have the conversation to expose a bit more of their background, but I want to jump right in.

[00:00:44] I'm going to start from Edem. I think you are one of the few people who've actually had the primary responsibility of building teams. People come to you and they go like, hey, I have a product, I have something I want to build, I need to build a team. What's your perspective on building product teams in Africa? What are your thoughts based on the experience? What was the perspective of, hey, I want to build a team in Africa? Where do you stand on that?

[00:01:09] Edem: So I think that we have a very unique set of challenges when it comes to building products in Africa generally. In my experience, having done consulting for a wide variety of companies across the world and everything, what I find always interesting is how all of the experience that I've had from everywhere else means nothing here. It's completely, it means nothing. And it's always interesting how we try to be like, oh, but this worked here so it should work here as well, and almost always it never does.

[00:01:55] And then the second thing that's also interesting is how we also don't seem to have an inventory, or a resource library of best practices for properly building products for the African markets. So then what you end up seeing is a cycle of people making the same mistakes and then learning the hard way, and then eventually getting it right, and wishing that somebody had told them about these things when they were starting. And then the cycle just keeps going on and on. And it also means that when you do want to find people who have, or who can actually build products successfully, then you have to always find people who have already gone through that cycle, just to make sure that they know what they're doing. Because even if they're really experienced in product design and building products and everything, a lot of their experience might not really be relevant when it comes to building in Africa, for a whole bunch of reasons that we can talk about later.

[00:03:02] Eldad: Yeah, so I definitely want to drill into a little bit more of that, but I want to talk to Camille first. I think you and Edem's experience are quite the opposite. Edem is more of an independent consultant that is tasked with building teams for different projects. You on the other hand are within an agency, and people come to you and go like, hey, I want you to solve this problem for me, then it's your responsibility to go build a team and you take ownership of that team through delivery. So what's your perspective on the idea of building product teams in Africa? Where are you coming at that conversation from?

Seniors, juniors and explaining the process

[00:03:36] Camille: Thank you so much. Well, I think for us, and we're an agency that's lucky enough to be more than 30 people strong today but we started just three and we grew, first of all I want to say that there is that importance of, you're always going to be, especially if your initiative is growing, you're always going to be challenging your current processes to grow with your team. So it's a never-ending sort of process of looking at where you do what you're doing and improving it.

[00:04:09] But one key aspect I think that we definitely are more and more aware of at UX[?] is the sort of junior versus senior ratio and balance that you need to have. I'm sure we'll talk about it a lot later, but one key element of building product teams I think is that you're also training your team as you're working with it. And so you have to have that sort of core of people who are experienced, but you need to have people who are learning from them at the same time, because the best way to learn in our environment is to actually be working on projects. So you can't have this sort of sandbox, I mean you have to have a sandbox for them, but you also need to have them work on real projects, and they need to be in a secure environment where there's maybe a senior person.

[00:05:01] So I think for us the key is to have a few super motivated, well-intentioned seniors who are willing to give the time to mentor and to be around more junior and mid-levels, and have this real teamwork happening, so that as you go along, a year forward, two years forward, they're starting to gain that confidence, that experience, because a lot of the problems that we see are linked to confidence.

[00:05:37] So I think something I could add is just about being very explicit about explaining the process, because I think we see a lot of people who are very motivated, who've heard about tools and methods, but it's very different to apply a process as to be able to use a specific tool. So one thing that we're really trying to push as much as possible is laying out the process, explaining what steps we're going through, so they get the sense.

[00:06:09] Eldad: Yeah, I'm sure Dumebi was very happy to hear what you're saying, because his talk was on why apprenticeship is the way to actually build teams. So I want your take on this. If I'm starting a team, from your perspective, aside from some of the things that Camille and Edem pointed out, what is the one thing that I should be thinking about? Especially as an internal agency, as a design lead, which means from time to time you need to bring different people on, so you also have the responsibility of assembling teams. What was the primary thing on your mind when you're thinking of, hey, I need to build a team? Or if somebody wants to build a team, what's the one thing or the first thing they should be thinking about, or one of the first things?

Start from the goals of the team

[00:06:50] Dumebi: Okay, hi everyone, good evening. Interestingly, the first thing I would do wasn't mentioned in my talk. The first thing I would do would be to define the goals of the team. What are the objectives, what are the key results, what do we want to accomplish? Why this is important is because this helps me to know the skills I need to have in the team. What kind of designers do I need? Even as I think about getting senior designers, and like I said, when Camille was talking I was really happy and I was really impressed that the agency does that already, and also has an academy to actively train designers.

[00:07:38] But even before bringing in these designers, it's very important to define, for example, which products do we need to deliver, what goals do we need to accomplish, and then bring in designers to help. Because even when you're being productive, sometimes you need brand designers, sometimes you need motion designers, sometimes you need designers with 3D expertise, depending on the product or depending on the service that needs to be designed. So that's the number one thing that helps.

[00:08:11] And then critically, it's important to get in senior designers who are, so, there's this conversation and argument about generalists versus specialists. I just think both are important. Generalists more as leaders, to lead the team, to lead the projects, because they do have a better understanding of all the different areas that the projects are involved in, and I do know you yourself, Eldad, are a generalist. But then you might also need some specialists who have core expertise in certain areas. And then of course bring in a couple of juniors, so you could pair, that would work, under supervision and in teams with the senior designers. And of course there are aspects of design that are monotonous and don't require a lot of skill, so some of these junior designers could help with those, and then also engage and get involved in higher level tasks under the guidance of senior designers.

The opportunity on the continent

[00:09:15] Eldad: Yeah, that's really good perspectives. So I want to drill down to a very, very specific African context. Because I think Edem jumped right in in terms of talking about, hey, if you're thinking about building a team in Africa, here are the things you should be considering, the rules don't work, which is something we're going to spend a lot more time on. But something that I've noticed is that on the continent there is an increasing number of startups, an increasing number of people who are trying to build businesses. But also from outside of the continent there is a very interesting perspective that Africa is to some extent, or could be, the next place where you find good design and just good development, or digital product talent. I want to talk a bit more about that. Edem, what are the opportunities? We'll delve into what the challenges are later on, but as it stands right now, what are the opportunities for anybody, even within or without, who's trying to build a team? What opportunities exist for you when it comes to building teams?

[00:10:18] Edem: Sure. So it's two-sided. On one side, we are beginning to see a trend of startups building for the African markets, and also bigger companies are sort of looking to expand their products into Africa, because, young population, more and more people are getting more internet savvy and things like that. And so what that means in terms of opportunities is that if you are looking into getting into product design or UI UX and all of these disciplines and stuff, now is a good time to do that.

[00:11:03] Because on the startup side, companies are understanding that presentation does matter. I guess it depends on the kind of product that you're building, but more often, long gone are the days when you could just have some very crappy, no thoughts put into your user experience, and then think that you can get away with it. Your users are going to just delete your app or never open your website again and jump to the next competitor. So there's this thing where the very first impression matters a lot, and you want to make sure that you get it right. And I'm actually very happy to see that, because a couple of years ago it was not like that at all. Engineers were responsible for design, which really sucked because that's not their strong suit, but they just kind of do whatever they want to do and everything. But nowadays we're seeing that that's changing, so that's a really good thing.

[00:12:07] And then on the other side you also have the large companies. They're doing it for two reasons. Number one, they're beginning to understand that diversity on their team when it comes to user experience and things like that, if they want to target Africa as a continent for their next set of customers, is really important. And they can't build these experiences if they don't have designers from those places who can give them the insights that they would never get unless they are there. And some of these companies are opening up offices on the continent. You've seen them, Microsoft, Facebook, Google et cetera. It's not by mistake.

[00:12:47] And then also, these companies are also seeing, well, you know what, we've learned all these things over the years across the world and doing these things, but then we are seeing that when people try to use our products in this part of the world there are a lot of things that we don't know about. And so obviously it makes sense to have people who have experience building for those markets to work in our teams. So whether you're interested in doing work for startups or you're interested in doing work for established companies, there's a lot of opportunities, and it's only going to keep growing. It's not going to stop. It's kind of setting the bar really, really high. And so both startups are understanding that, and they're looking for product designers and UI designers and motion designers and all these people, and then established companies are also feeling the heat, because they know that the fact that you've been successful in the northern parts of America and Europe and all that doesn't mean that you'll be similarly successful down here, because there is a completely different set of challenges that you would not know. And so it makes sense to have people with that local context to be a part of your team.

[00:14:04] Eldad: Camille, I'm curious. I think Edem has spoken a lot about the employer side, which is really cool, the incentives that these businesses have to expand into the spaces that we're in, and kind of what things to look out for. But from the agency side, because I know you also have some very interesting partnerships, what was the thing that would make me as an agency and as a company go like, I think Africa is a place where I could build my team? So outside of the fact that maybe there are competitors, are there any other things just making me go like, okay, I think this is a place I should look at, and it's a place I should think about putting a team, because it has certain advantages?

[00:14:52] Camille: So, apart from the huge amount of motivation from people to get into the space, so you have a lot of candidates that of course you're going to need to train, but the good side of that is that you can train them to be how you want them to be. And that's amazing. As an agency we onboard people, so we have our academy, which is a pipeline for us to recruit. But for many people that we recruit apart from the academy, they didn't have any prior experience of design, so we're really training them to become the best designers that we need. And that's an amazing opportunity today, to be able to do that.

[00:15:46] I think another very obvious opportunity is that there's a huge need right now and there isn't a lot of offer. So being in this space today is really great, because you're going to be one of the first, and if you work your things right and you build, you train, you structure, there's no reason that you won't be one of the design agencies or product teams of reference, because there's so much to be done. I think that's one thing that we all agree on, is that there's a huge need for good design on all types of products, on all types of services. So the need is only going to be growing. I think we're all feeling the pressure today from companies, from agencies, from NGOs, to like, oh we want designers, we want designers. No one has enough designers. So I think that's a really good opportunity that anyone should be able to identify. And as someone mentioned, the best designers for any local context are local designers. So go out and do it.

The challenges: standards, culture and context

[00:16:59] Eldad: Yeah. So Dumebi, I want to move the conversation forward with you, to something that I think is probably going to take a lot of time, I hope you don't spend too much time on it. What challenges should I look out for? Because you've admitted this is the wild wild west when it comes to just getting these technical skills. And I'm not talking just design, I'm talking design, product management, it's the last panel where we're getting into product management, which is really cool to see, developers. What's the number one challenge in your opinion that you're like, hey, you better brace for this, because if you're going to build a team here there's going to be these set of challenges I should watch out for?

[00:17:38] Dumebi: Okay, so I think the first challenge, which is a bit universal, is that there are very few universal standards for design education. What I mean by this is, you could meet two designers talking about design thinking, and you tell them to tell you about design thinking and they're saying two different things. So for example, what Camille said, that the opportunity the training they offer gives them is that you can train designers, they train designers to fit into the way their company works. Because of the fact that many designers learn design informally and through different channels, it means that when you're building a team, say for example you're building a team of five to ten designers, they all have ten different perspectives on how a product should be built. So one of the things that is important to establish from the beginning is a process that works for the organization.

[00:18:44] And I think it's also important to maybe start from building a design system, having a design language, defining, within the design team, design principles that must be adhered to. For example, within my team at Big Cabal we had to, from time to time, have fundamental design trainings, like go back to fundamentals, go back to typography, go back to colors, go back to layout. Just so that there's a level of consistency across board, because we noticed that this person sets text differently, this person organizes their layouts differently, and we want consistency across board. So defining that does help a lot.

[00:19:36] Another thing is building a culture. Of course I've talked about mentorship a lot and that's important, but even beyond mentorship is building a culture of what I'd call brave exploration. Designers should be willing to make mistakes. For example, on Twitter many times we post designs, maybe on Dribbble, we put them out for critique. Now it's good to critique design, but it needs to also be positive, in the sense of, oh you got this right, but this is how you improve. Because there's always this fear junior designers have when presenting their designs. They want to impress, they want to show you that you didn't make a mistake hiring me. But it's important to create the environment where they are not afraid to fail, when they know that, when I make mistakes I'll be guided to grow and I'll be guided to improve on my process, improve on my skill level. So that culture is important, the culture of allowing people to feel, creating that culture of, well, I don't know the word to use, just maybe a positive feedback loop.

[00:20:47] Eldad: Yeah, you can give feedback, encourage failure essentially, right? Encourage that.

[00:20:51] Dumebi: Exactly, exactly. And also one of the things I notice is that there's no one size fits all process. Even the proponents of design thinking say that for some contexts you might have to start from the end, or you may start from the middle, or start from the beginning. So one important thing to do is not to be dogmatic in the sense of, this is how design must be done. And also, especially when, for an organization coming from Europe or coming from anywhere in the world, it's important to learn the local context, learn what works for the people, and design accordingly.

[00:21:36] I know one of the frustrations a lot of people coming into Africa experience is the fact that, why is everyone relaxed, like everything is moving slowly, is that safe? You want someone to jump on something immediately, for example. I know in Ethiopia everyone goes for lunch, and if people are meant to be working on something at the same time, everyone stops working and goes for lunch. And for someone from another culture that might be confusing. So it's important to get to know about these peculiarities and build the team around it. And also be inclusive, inclusive and allow people to express themselves.

If the rules don't apply, where do you start?

[00:22:23] Eldad: So Edem, you mentioned something that I think is really interesting that I want to talk about. If the rules that I know don't apply, where do I start from? Because for anybody building a team, you rely on the experiences that you have and the commonalities you know and the space you're in, to kind of give you a good guidance on where to start from, where to go next. But you're essentially telling me, hey, you're coming into a space where everything you know is basically not going to work. So in that case, where do I start from?

[00:22:52] Edem: I think you just have to look at the people who are doing it before you. And I think that's where the apprenticeship thing that Dumebi is talking about sort of makes sense. And I don't think that apprenticeship applies just for a senior person who is mentoring a junior person. It also applies for you being a senior person from some market and having no experience in this market and just learning from people who have been doing it before you. You may have a lot of experience, and it doesn't necessarily mean that everything that you know before coming is completely useless. You may have a lot of experience on tooling, processes, management, things like that. And then you have to kind of learn to adapt the things that you know and make it work for the market in which you are operating. That's kind of how I think about it.

[00:23:45] I think one of the mistakes that I see many people make when they come from other markets or other domains and try to work in our market is just kind of jumping straight in and then thinking that, oh yeah, this is how we did it here and stuff like that. And the one that even is quite interesting is how, oh yeah, I used to work in India and we did this and that and this and that, so, you know, Africa is also global south so it should work. Things like that. And you quickly realize that cultures are different, and the way people do things here are different. Even when you see two people using a product and think that, I mean, they're using it and it looks like it's similar, but you might end up realizing that it's actually not. And so there's a lot of things that you just have to learn and stuff like that.

[00:24:37] So I feel like one of the things, Africa is actually such an interesting continent, and it has happened so many times that we are very good at leapfrogging. Which means that there is never enough time to sort of build enough domain expertise and then have, let's say, transferable knowledge that somebody can just pick up from a book and then get familiar with. It's like, by the time that we understand something well enough, we are jumping onto the next wagon. So it's just easier, or it's just more efficient, to simply seek out the people who have been there before you, have done it before you, and then learn under their mentorship or their apprenticeship. Yeah, that's for me, that's what I've seen has worked pretty well.

Culture inside a pan-African team

[00:25:35] Eldad: Yeah, that's very interesting. So you mentioned something that I think Camille would be excited to talk about, because she's probably the one person that's experiencing the most: how does your cultural context affect the people that you put onto your team and how they operate? Because one of the things that I'm saying is, if you come from some other market, getting here there's so much difference in culture and how people think about things, and that's eventually going to affect your team, how they operate and how they interact with even the processes that you have. So you could come from wherever you are with already established processes, like Dumebi was saying, of how things are done in that space. But how does culture affect that? How does culture affect just your team and how they operate?

[00:26:12] Camille: Yeah, I mean, just within Nukes[?] we have, I think, I don't know currently what it is, but between 8 and 12 nationalities, African nationalities, and francophone and anglophone, and Muslim, Christian. And there's also the remote factor. But definitely, sometimes you'll have someone say, oh let's go out and have a drink, and all the Muslims are like, hmm. Or there's just these different things. In terms of also speaking up, I think our English speakers are a little bit more comfortable with that, whereas in the francophone space it's a little bit more codified. So even internally there's a lot of things that we learn.

[00:27:08] Also something that we saw, though, that's amazing, is that a lot of people who come to UX[?] are actually attracted to that, they want to discover that, they want to learn more. We offer people the possibility to come to Dakar[?] to live for a few months and to move around, and a lot of people have been using that as opportunities to discover the continent and discover other cultures. So I think that's something you should definitely encourage.

[00:27:29] It gets fun though when the client comes in, and the client is maybe a western cultured, sort of Anglo, and they're discovering all of this. They have no idea of the nuances, the subtleties. They sort of just go, oh, Africa. And you have to be very patient about explaining, give examples, try to, don't be condescending or anything, but you need to very calmly explain how things happen here. And just, I think examples are the best to be able to help people understand the diversity of experiences on the continent, the extremes that we have, that also make design so challenging here, because you're designing for such a huge variety of, like you were mentioning, Dumebi, the ways people use things, and digital literacy levels.

[00:28:34] So my answer I think to all of that is, take the time to know your team personally. We do one-on-ones all the time, and we don't talk only about work. It's really, I think one key to be able to build teams today is to have that closeness with your team members, to know them, without being intrusive, but just sharing about things, taking the time, hey are you okay, what's up right now, what's going on with your life right now? There's Covid, there's all these health problems. Work isn't the only thing in their life. And so I think for us, one of our pillars actually is to try to be the best place to work at, and that means a lot of different things in terms of work-life balance, mental health, feeling like you have a space to fail and still be protected by your manager.

[00:29:37] So all of those things that have been mentioned previously I think are really important. But going back to your initial question, like what challenges do people have, I think one challenge that you'll see is that probably the first year or so you'll be pulling the heavy weight on your own essentially, and you'll be spending a lot of time building that team. But once you have that team, once that link is made, once people trust each other, they know that all you want is for them to progress, that it's like, if you put in the effort, we know that you're trying to grow, we're feeding you what you need. So once that bond is made, I think people, I mean, we've seen amazing trajectories at UX[?], of people who started really at the bottom, they had no previous skills, and now they're managing teams, they're managing projects on their own. But it took two, three years, four years now, and they're seniors. So yeah, I'd say one challenge is, expect to do the heavy lifting yourself the first year or two, but if you're also putting in the time to build that bond with your team quickly, you're going to see that people are giving you so much more.

Greenfield teams and rescue projects

[00:30:54] Eldad: Right. And so Edem, I want to go to you quickly, because I know again you've had to build some really interesting teams from the ground up for a vast number of projects, and also because you come primarily also from the development side more than the design side. Do you have any experience with having to do the heavy lifting when you start a project? If so, how did you get on it, if not, how did your experience play out at that very beginning stage when you're putting the team together?

[00:31:22] Edem: You have to. So I've had to build teams around two types of projects. The first type is completely greenfield: the project is brand new, requirements are being gathered from the very get-go and everything. And so for such a project, the most important thing, and Dumebi touched on this earlier, it's being able to get the entire team aligned. The conventions, the best practices that everybody has to go by, what the process looks like, everybody has to come, because when you're getting people together, people have a set of things that they already know from where they have worked or what they have read online, and the best practices that they have seen. And that may be good for other markets, but again, in our markets it might not be what actually works. So you have to figure out a way to get everyone on the same page, whether it is design, engineering, product, etc.

[00:32:30] And I've learned the hard way that simply telling people what to do doesn't work. You have to do it yourself and show them why it works. And so unfortunately you have to do the heavy lifting. It's easier if you just go ahead and tell somebody, hey, no, don't use this and use that instead because that's what I want. If that's not what they are used to doing, they would find it very difficult, because people just might naturally resist change. But then if you go ahead and actually walk the walk and show them, oh no, I know this is how you do things, but then let's try this approach instead, and this is what the results are going to look like, and they can see the benefits by seeing you do it yourself, then they will be more likely to adopt that and then become even advocates. You want to make sure that everybody on your team is an advocate.

[00:33:15] The second type of project that I've had to build teams around for is typically a project that has already been going on for a while, and then they get to a stage where they are now having these crazy issues and stuff like that, and then I get called and they say, hey, come help us fix that. That's a lot harder to do, because you are not starting from a greenfield project, where you have the luxury of picking the tools and picking whatever everybody wants. In this case you have to be more pragmatic and then say, okay, what do I do that gets me the maximum results that I'm looking for? And you have to do them in very incremental changes and stuff like that.

[00:33:57] And again, because people are naturally resistant to change, you can't just assume that by just telling them they're going to go ahead and do it. Let's say I wanted to improve some design somewhere. I can't simply go and tell the person who designed the thing that, hey, your design is terrible, let's do it this way. You have to be able to either say, hey, can we try an experiment and change this, and this is what we are looking to get, knowing in your head that yeah, that's going to give you the result. But if you just tell people they might not do it. You have to do it yourself, track it, and then show the result and say, this is what the data is telling us, so this experiment was actually successful. And then once they see that, then you can go ahead and say, okay, let's go ahead and do this also in all these other places.

[00:34:44] So it's very, very difficult from the very beginning to take a very laid back approach and then expect things to work. You would have to do a lot of the heavy lifting, whether it's your own project or an already ongoing project. I think there might be an exception. Let's say, and that's an experience I've had quite recently, the only exception to the rule would be if you're putting together a team that is made of people that you have worked with before on other projects. So these people are already very used to the way you run things, you trust them and stuff like that, then from the very get-go you can sort of take a step back, because you know that they're going to do things in a way that you would do it if you were hands-on. And so that would be the exception. But then how many times would that happen? I don't know, you have to get really lucky.

[00:35:36] Eldad: Yeah, exactly. So it's always going to be hands-on in the beginning for a couple of months, before people find their step and then can go ahead.

Positioning yourself as an individual

[00:35:46] Eldad: Yeah, no, that's true. So I want to flip the tables a little bit. The next question is something that we've touched on a little bit throughout, which I'm grateful for because we're almost out of time. But it is the thought of, okay, if I'm the individual who is interested, so we've already established there is opportunity, there's demand, it's only going to keep growing, if I'm the individual who's interested, how do I position myself so that I can be a more suitable candidate when people like yourself are like, hey, we have this incredible project, we need a team? I think I'll start from Camille, and then Dumebi, and then Edem. What should I do? We don't have a lot of time, so quick fire, like one minute, and then we can move on.

[00:36:29] Camille: Get some field experience, even if it's on your own projects. And then I think there's a big question around ego. Curb it. Be open to learning, because that's probably what your manager is going to be asking of you. And take that as a huge opportunity, not as a personal attack. I think position yourself as someone that's motivated, energetic, passionate, and that reads a lot of the literature, but that also wants to learn. I think that's the key.

[00:37:11] And of course, in terms of building experience, it's always sort of like the snake eating its tail, you need to get work. But try to work on your portfolio, even if it's just passion projects. That's actually really good. When we see someone who worked on a passion project and tried to take it as far as possible, that's a really good indicator. So yeah, don't flip out because you haven't landed a job yet. There's a lot you can do on your own that will help us see the potential that you have.

[00:37:42] Eldad: Yeah, Dumebi, what would be, I know this incredible opportunity exists, I'm out here trying to get myself positioned for these things, where do I start from, what do I do?

[00:37:53] Dumebi: Okay, something just happened, you know, laughing in class when someone asks the question you have in mind. Camille just took the words out of my mouth. But in addition I would say, yeah, of course portfolio is important, and like she talked about ego. For my example, myself, I came from a medical background before I switched to design, and that was like six years in medical school. But by the time I switched to a design career, I had to take a pay cut[?] to get my first job. So I had to humble myself, I had to get the training required. And even though I think at that time I had like four years' informal experience, because I had been designing as a hobby, I had to really put myself down and learn proper design principles, learn proper ways to do design, without any assumption of, oh I can do this and I can do that. And then build a portfolio.

[00:38:58] And I think one important thing to learn too is how to sell yourself as a creative or as a professional. Learn about the business, pay attention to the business, and learn what you do, the value you can offer to the business. Maybe in the place[?] of research, or it could be your network. So, portfolio, humble yourself, learn.

[00:39:27] And I would say network, network, and engage in communities. Because in the creative and the tech industry it's like a small world, so to speak. A lot of jobs don't get posted on job boards, a lot of the recruitment goes on within networks. So it does help to join design communities, or be visible in design communities. I know in Nigeria there's something we call Nigeria design Twitter. You can literally come and say, hi, I'm such-and-such person, here's a link to my portfolio, and it's like maybe design ninja, some hashtags, and senior designers will get on it and comment on it. And I think it's similar in Ghana too, I'm not sure all around Africa. But design Twitter, the design space, is like one place that is not toxic on Twitter. So I think that's something that young designers can leverage to get their foot in the door.

[00:40:27] Eldad: Yeah, thank you. I'm not happy to see it, but I think Nigeria is more active on all fronts than Ghana is. Because I remember, like a couple months ago I put out a tweet, like hey, I was looking for designers to work with in Ghana, Nigeria, and my DMs were flooded with Nigerians. I couldn't catch a break. Like three months after, and I've already filled the role, I'm still getting people who are like, hey bro, it's like this thing I sent you like three months ago, what's up? So Nigeria is definitely one of those countries, so my respect to you, because just the energy and the enthusiasm is really, really high. And the things you are talking about, mentorship.

[00:41:04] Dumebi: Yeah, sorry to come in, but something that is important to note, and Camille has talked about it, is culture. A lot of African cultures have this thing about hierarchy, like there's a high power gap, where people of a junior status don't really speak up. And I think that may be the case in some of the cultures, because in Africa Nigerians are outspoken, so that might be a factor right now and that may not really apply. So for someone coming in, I think it's good to know that you might have to be proactive in communicating, because they might not reach out, because of that power gap.

[00:41:44] Eldad: Right, yeah, that's interesting. But I think you concluded my thought nicely, because when you're Nigerian, someone practicing, they're more out there, they're coming for it whether you want them or not, and they have no chill.

Case studies as a way in

[00:41:55] Eldad: So Edem, your thoughts. I want to position myself to get this thing.

[00:42:00] Edem: Honestly I don't know what else I can add. You're taking the wind out of, the pretty much hit everything. The only thing I would say, I mean obviously I'm not a designer, I'm an engineer, so obviously I would not understand the technicalities of pixels, you know what I mean. I can see a design and tell you, oh yeah this looks good, but I will not be able to critique it and give you feedback. I just know it looks good or it doesn't look good, that's it.

[00:42:34] So one thing that I really like, some of the designers that have come on my radar that I definitely took notice of, are people who did what you guys call case studies, where they take some existing product and then they sort of talk about all the issues they have about it and then they present a proposed better design and stuff like that. So for engineers, it's a really good way to showcase your skills. Because you have to remember that, more often than not, if you are going to be working on a project, the likelihood that you're going to be joining an existing team that already has an existing product is going to be a lot higher than joining a team that has a brand new product. Because for a team that's starting out from scratch, they are most likely going to look for a very experienced person to come and join them. So if you're getting started, you're most likely going to be joining a team that already exists, that's now looking to add a junior designer or something like that. And the best way, I think in my opinion, if you are trying to get the attention of people who may not necessarily be designers or understand all of the technical things that make one person a better designer than the other person, is to do case studies.

[00:43:59] Pick something that already exists, whether it is already good or not, and then figure out what are the ways that you can make it better. Because when you do that, from where I stand I can be like, oh, I've seen this person do this in this domain and that's very relevant to the kind of work that I'm doing, and then I kind of take note of that in my head. You know what I mean? So I've seen a bunch of people do that. I wish to be able to see more, especially in our context in Africa here. People are always doing the same things, it's always the banking apps. I want to see fresher ideas and different takes on different products. And it doesn't have to necessarily be, you don't have to go after Facebook for 100 times, everybody's doing that. So case studies are definitely a good way to really showcase what you can do, especially if you're trying to communicate or showcase yourself to people who are not necessarily designers, because it's a very clear way for them to understand what you are capable of.

[00:45:11] Eldad: Yeah, no, really interesting stuff, and I really hope guys are taking notes and listening to some of this stuff, because I personally would say some of these things have contributed to getting in front of people, getting to know people, building connections. And the case study bit is very interesting to me because it's something that I've also noticed, but I have the same sentiment of like, yo, I think we need to start doing something fresh. I've seen a Facebook redesign for the hundredth time and I've seen another take on Google for like 500 times. But I think another way to do case studies is also just to look for problems in your space that you want to solve and then do something about it.

[00:45:51] Edem: A proposal. I mean, think about it, for instance, in Ghana right now everybody is complaining about the fact that this SIM card registration thing is completely horrible, there are long queues and everything.

[00:46:03] Eldad: Exactly, perfect time for you to go like, this is how I'm going to fix this problem.

[00:46:07] Edem: Exactly. So it doesn't have to necessarily be a case study for an existing mobile app or a website or anything. It could literally be a problem that you see in your community, and then thinking about designing something to solve that, and then how that process looks, because design is not just visuals and stuff, it's also process and how all of that ties into it. And so that's what I mean. I think it's going to be out of the niche group of people who are designers. You don't see engineers going around, and then when they want to showcase what they do they just put screenshots of their code. They show up with working prototypes, with their GitHub links, and then say yeah, because that's what people can see and then relate to. So I want to see the reverse of that being applied to designers, taking an actual problem and then coming up with a solution, and then showing how a regular person can read through and understand what they are doing and then be like, oh yeah, that's actually pretty clever. Things like that.

Wrap-up

[00:47:15] Eldad: Yeah, that's amazing. So we are out of time, but I had fun in the session. Actually we should have another one, because there's so much that we could talk about. But yeah, so for everybody listening, just want to go over some of the things that I heard that I think are pretty interesting. I think the first thing is, Africa is a lot worse[?] when it comes to building a team. So whether you're from within or without, understand that the knowledge you're coming in with, or what you've read online, is not going to work. So you need to hit the ground running, you need to find people who've actually done it before. Three of them are on this call, so stalk them wherever you can find them and ask questions, and just get to learn how they did it and how you can do it as well.

[00:47:53] And the second thing is, there's incredible opportunity. There's an increasing amount of startups who are looking to hire. I could take about five designers. I'm currently looking for a senior designer for a product of my own, so I know people who are always looking. So if you're a designer or even a developer, there's incredible opportunity. So you should start doing some of what we just spoke about: having networks, positioning yourself, talking to different people, making sure you're putting case studies out. That stuff will get you noticed.

[00:48:26] And the last thing is, if you're a team coming in, or a person coming in, know that, one, you're going to do a lot of lifting, like everybody has now said, so prepare your mind for that. And also understand that the best designers for the thing you're trying to build in this context are the ones in the local context, which is also incredible for you as the designer, because the companies want you, you're the only person that can actually do the things they want and bring that understanding to what they're trying to do. So it's a really huge advantage and I think we should leverage that all that we can. So thank you very much, Edem, Dumebi and Camille, for the session. It was fun, learned a lot. Jovi, over to you.