Brand Strategy New York
Elevate your brand strategy skills in New York
Making Better Bets: A Field Guide to Product Strategy with Andrew Skotzko
Thu, Oct 29, 11:00 PM“Be more strategic” is advice every product leader has heard. But knowing what to actually DO? That's the hard part. Join us for an early look at *[The Strategy Cycle](https://thestrategycycle.com/)*, the new book from product leadership coach [Andrew Skotzko](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewskotzko), which is a practical guide to turning a messy set of research, goals, stakeholder opinions, and competitive pressure into a real product strategy. Andrew frames strategy as a theory of winning, expressed through a cycle of bets. Plans, roadmaps, and goal lists all have their place, but a real strategy gives them direction and makes planning season suck a lot less. Mind the Product founder Martin Eriksson says the book shows you what to do on Monday morning—and “what to do in week 7 when the strategy is quietly falling apart.” Andrew will walk through the two halves of the cycle: **Craft the strategy.** Start with a two-page strategy sketch, distill what’s really going on in your market, name the challenge that matters most, and define why customers will choose you and keep choosing you. Then turn that into a portfolio of bets with a clear line between what’s in and what’s out. **Live the strategy.** Crafting the strategy is only about 40% of the work. The rest is deploying it, keeping it alive when shiny new things start arriving in week two, and evolving it as you learn. You’ll walk away with: * A practical way to frame strategic choices as bets * A starting template for your own strategy sketch * Tactics for keeping strategy alive after planning season ends This session is built for anyone responsible for setting direction in a fast-moving environment. Bring your hardest strategy questions. **Sponsored by:** * **[Askable:](https://www.askable.com/)** the UX research platform that grounds fast product decisions in real human evidence * **[Pendo:](https://www.pendo.io/)** Product Context for your Apps and AI Agents
Strategic Influence for Human-Centered Leaders
Tue, Oct 20, 10:00 PM**Tuesday, October 20th, 6:00-8:00 PM EDT** **Presentation & Discussion** **Strategic Influence for Human-Centered Leaders** Presented by Misha Energí **Event Description** As service designers mature into senior leadership, our mandate shifts from advising on customer experience to defending headcount, budget, and bottom-line impact. This transition can feel jarring: leadership politics often seem counter to our core values like empathy and collaboration, while our classic defense, “the work speaks for itself,” no longer holds. To keep growing, we need to evolve how we position our work and our roles, and mastering peer advocacy is a key driver in this shift. But winning support doesn't require a ruthless posture. Nor do we need to abandon our human-centric values. In fact, as service designers, we already hold the tools for strategic leadership; we simply need to redirect our empathy, systems thinking, and co-design methods toward internal dynamics. This interactive session introduces **Strategic Influence for Human-Centered Leaders**: a practical advocacy framework to align user-centric goals, complex stakeholder interests, and our own aspirations. Aimed at senior contributors and team leads who are thinking about “what’s next” in their careers, the session will unpack four leadership personas: **Visionary, Driver, Partner, and Diplomat**. Interactive exercises will show how inspiration, persuasion, collaboration, and consultation come together to reposition service design seniors as valuable business partners. **About Our Speaker** **Misha Energí** Misha Energí is an executive coach, facilitator, and founder of Speak Human Studio. They partner with professionals in tech and media to transform high potential talent into impactful leadership. With almost two decades of advisory experience in organizations like Google, Deloitte, and Cognizant, Misha’s coaching empowers under-represented talent to navigate corporate politics, claim authority, and prevent burnout. Misha’s "full-stack" coaching method combines advanced degrees in psychology with trainings in applied emotional intelligence, and evidence-based adult learning. Beyond their coaching practice, Misha runs The Queens Well (a wellness studio in Ridgewood, Queens), is a professor at Parsons School of Design, and serves as Donor Relations Lead for QARAVAN, an NGO supporting LGBTQ+ refugees. **Agenda** * 6:00-6:30PM Meet & mingle over food and drink * 6:30-7:30PM Presentation * 7:30-8:00PM Discussion & Networking * 8:00PM - ? After-Party **Address** Intuit 51 Astor Place New York, NY 10003 **After-Party**: Cuna Bar The Standard 25 Cooper Sq **Financial Transparency & Scholarships** As a non-profit, we do our best to strike a balance between making our events available to all and ensuring we keep the lights on. For this event, we are charging $10. * If this amount is prohibitive for you to attend this event, please email [Barr](https://www.meetup.com/sdnnyc/members/267573171/)y at sdn.newyorkchapter@gmail.com as we may miss messages on this platform. * If you’d like to **provide** scholarships, please message [Barry](https://www.meetup.com/sdnnyc/members/267573171/) at at sdn.newyorkchapter@gmail.com and he will follow up with you. See you there :) David, Francesco, Yasmin, Lynn, Nicholas, & Barry
Games with Strangers
Sat, Oct 17, 11:00 PMLove board games? Looking for someone to play with or something new to play? Come play games with us! Every Saturday night we run Games With Strangers. Grab a drink or dinner, meet some new people, and learn a new game. Our game expert will teach you our featured games for the night and make sure that things are running smoothly. Come be a part of our community!
Making Belonging: Story, Design & Social Practice
Mon, Oct 19, 11:00 PMWhat does it mean to make a place where people feel they belong? And what changes when we make it together? Join us for an evening of experimentation as students from Columbia University share a series of prototypes exploring belonging. Through story, design, play, and participation, we'll look at social practice as an act of co-creation, making things with people rather than simply for them. The evening will move between prototypes, conversation, and collective experimentation, asking how the spaces we create—physical, digital, or somewhere in between can invite connection, agency, and a sense of belonging. We'll be joined by **Romy Nehme**, an experience and strategy designer, writer, and member of the Columbia Digital Storytelling Lab whose work sits at the intersection of storytelling, imagination, design, and systems change. Romy helped launch New_ Public, bringing a placemaking ethos to the design of digital spaces, and through her practice Beautiful Seams explores how narrative and experience design can help people imagine and shape different futures. Beautiful Seams. Come ready to experience, experiment, and make something together.
Free Funk Rock Jam Sessions Mondays - Random Strangers Jam at Shrine Harlem
Tue, Oct 13, 12:00 AMBring your instrument. Be a stranger. Join the jam. Mondays from 8-10pm with Random Strangers Jam at Shrine World Music Venue in Harlem! Online RSVPs get priority and in person sign ups start at 7:45pm. RSJ is a fully improvised psychedelic funk rock jam session led by Sky Demetri and his band. Come prepared to create new music on the spot - every 5-7 minutes, half the band takes a seat and is replaced by musicians from the audience, the new group of random strangers jams on a fresh key and concept - and the rotation continues! Join the email list at [RandomStrangersJam.com](http://randomstrangersjam.com/)! All jammers must sign in on the official sign up sheet in person. The sign up sheet becomes available in person 15 minutes before the jam. *Drums, keys, mics, amps, and a PA/DI are provided, please bring all other instruments.*
UX Happy Hour irl (open to all levels)
Thu, Oct 8, 10:00 PM######## You need to bring a physical Government Issued ID to be allowed to stay. It's the Law. ######## Whether you're a seasoned UX pro, just breaking into the field, or simply curious about design — this is your invite to pull up a chair and join the conversation. UX Happy Hour is a laid-back, no-agenda gathering where designers, researchers, product thinkers, and anyone design-curious can connect over drinks in a low-pressure setting. No slides. No networking theater. **Why attend:** • Meet new connection in organic way • Get feedback and fresh perspectives on your work (i.e. portfolio) or advice for your career • Stay sharp on what's happening in UX, AI, product, and tech right now • Meet potential collaborators, mentors, or future coworkers • Cheap drinks ($5 Guinness) **What to expect:** • Warm, welcoming crowd across all experience levels • Candid conversations about design, careers, tools, and everything in between • A great chill bar in the East Village to do it all in **Where to find us:** We're usually tucked in by the ATM at the back of Mona's. If you're not sure where we are, just ask the bartender — they know us! Come solo, bring a friend, or drag a coworker along. The more the merrier. Interested in sponsoring this event? Reach out to Danny (one of the organizers) for our sponsorship rate card.
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