How Service Design and AI Can Fix the Frontlines with Bethany Brown
frog North America's Head of Service Design, Bethany Brown, joins Lou to explore the intersection of service design, operations, and AI. With roots in industrial design and global experience across firms like EPA and Engine, Bethany brings a unique lens to tackling large-scale organizational friction.
She walks us through a real-world case study from her upcoming talk at the Advancing Service Design conference (November 19-20), where her team used service design principles to help a company identify costly operational breakdowns, before applying AI to streamline processes and improve financial outcomes. Instead of leading with technology, Bethany’s approach centers on deeply understanding human workflows, mapping them visually, and uncovering where systems are failing frontline workers.
Through this lens, “operations” becomes less about rigid systems and more about the connective tissue of a service experience. And service design becomes the glue that aligns people, technology, and strategy. It’s a talk—and a conversation—not to miss.
Plus, Bethany shares the best career advice she ever received, and pays tribute to the educator who helped her realize design is an ever-evolving discipline, not a fixed path.
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Behind the Scenes of Advancing Service Design with Shreya Dhawan & Gustavo Vieira
What do a Brazilian retail strategist and an Indian industrial designer have in common? A passion for transforming complex systems through service design—and a shared mission to push the profession forward. In this episode, Lou welcomes Gustavo Vieira and Shreya Dhawan, two of the curators behind the upcoming Advancing Service Design conference, for a behind-the-scenes look at how service design is evolving—and how they’re helping shape that evolution.
Gustavo shares how his early work in franchising sparked a fascination with aligning brand strategy, operations, and customer experience, eventually leading him to service design as a more holistic lens. Shreya’s journey began with product design in hospitals, where she realized the real challenge wasn’t just designing a better object—it was improving the entire system around it.
Together, they reflect on the emerging trends in the field, including the move toward systems-level thinking, new contexts like journalism and B2B, and the rich global collaboration shaping this year’s conference. The conversation is full of thoughtful insight, heartfelt reflection, and a few unexpected gifts—from Ken Wilber to Picasso.
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Designing for Learning and Complexity with Jen Briselli
Jen Briselli’s journey into service design didn’t start with design at all—it started in a physics classroom. From studying the fundamental workings of the universe to teaching high schoolers how to grasp complex physics concepts, Jen’s interdisciplinary curiosity has always driven her path. That same intellectual agility eventually led her to discover information design, dive headfirst into Carnegie Mellon’s legendary design program, and eventually rise to executive leadership at Mad*Pow. Now co-founder of Topology, Jen continues to explore how systems thinking, complexity science, and human-centered design intersect to build adaptive organizations.
In this episode, Jen and Lou preview her upcoming talk at Advancing Service Design 2025 and unpack why learning—not certainty—should be the North Star of design practice. She shares how service designers can operate more effectively by zooming out to see systems-level patterns and zooming back in to take practical action. From breaking down spatial and temporal complexity to explaining how constraints inhibit organizational learning, Jen reframes service design as an adaptive, constantly evolving practice. Whether you're a seasoned designer or simply service-design curious, this episode will stretch your thinking about what service design is—and what it can become.
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Elevating Design and Scaling Expertise with Scott Zimmer
Scott Zimmer’s career arc spans from dreaming big at Disney to reshaping design inside massive enterprises through acquisitions like Capital One (AdaptivePath) and Verizon (Moment Design)—and now, to scaling expert knowledge with AI through his startup, Tmpt.me. In this episode, Lou and Scott dig into what it takes to earn design a seat at the table, how to read a company’s culture before you join, and why expertise shouldn’t disappear when the expert leaves the room.
If you’ve ever wondered how to build design credibility in a skeptical organization, how to scale expert mentorship without burning out your top people, or how AI might actually amplify—not replace—human wisdom, this episode is for you.
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The Staff Designer with Catt Small
What if your next big career move didn’t involve managing people—but managing impact? Catt Small joins Lou to unpack the rise of the staff designer: a role that's redefining what senior-level growth can look like for designers who want to lead without becoming managers.
Catt shares insights from her forthcoming Rosenfeld book, The Staff Designer: Grow, Influence, and Lead as an Individual Contributor, where she draws on her own experience at companies like Etsy, Asana, and Dropbox—alongside interviews with nearly 30 other design pros—to clarify a path that’s increasingly relevant in today’s flattened organizations.
Catt explains why staff designers thrive at the intersection of strategy and execution, influence and diplomacy. Staff design isn’t about hierarchy; it’s about navigating complexity, guiding quality, and mentoring others, all without direct reports. Whether you're a senior designer wondering what’s next or a leader trying to support IC career growth, this episode reframes design leadership for the modern era.
Lou Rosenfeld talks with a LOT of brilliant, interesting changemakers in the UX world and beyond. Subscribe to the Rosenfeld Media podcast for a bird's eye view into what shifts UX faces, and how individuals and teams can respond in ways that drive success.
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