IBM Patterns Winter 2019

After graduating from SJSU’s BFA Graphic Design program, traveling Asia for design workshops, completing my first freelance project, and doing a good ol’ fashioned job search, I landed at IBM. I had applied on a whim, not fully understanding the “Early Career Design” requisition and only knowing IBM for its perfect streak on the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.

Still, one design challenge and two interviews later I found myself on a plane to Austin, Texas. I lived out of a quaint hotel room for six weeks in order to attend Patterns, “an immersive onboarding and career development experience designed to set designers up for immediate and lasting success.” As a first generation chicana, I was nervous, excited, and grateful. Not only had I graduated from university in four years, but my first full-time role revealed itself to be with a global corporation willing to invest in me despite my limited product design experience.

The first week of Patterns involved setting up our laptops, getting acquainted with the Austin Design Studio, and a 3-day design thinking activity to prepare us for the 5-week “Incubator” project to be completed in a group of two product managers, two UX designers, a visual designer (me), a front-end developer, and three stakeholders (one mentor and two Cohort Coaches).

The IBM-sponsored project that I called my own for over a month turned out to be Guardium, a data loss prevention tool. The project required our group, Vulcan Mid-Meld, to present four thorough milestone playbacks (Hills, As-Is/To-Be, Design Progress, Final). We began by defining the problem and researching how we might fit Guardium into the middle market, before creating personas, defining our goals, and coming up with concept designs.

Sprinkled throughout the time we dedicated to our project were learning sessions. If we weren’t split up to attend presentations geared toward our specialty, then all 50+ designers in our cohort were sat in an open space to hear about the Patterns structure, our schedules, IBM Design, and more. I adored the learning sessions, especially the visual-focused ones because my group lacked a dedicated Visual Design mentor from which I could learn. I also greatly enjoyed the crafty and/or social activities that took place throughout my time in the Austin Design Studio, from the reception at Top Golf and making Vulcan Mid Meld Buttons, to screen-printing during Craft Con and the Austin Food Tour we were all taken on to celebrate our completion of Patterns.

All in all, Patterns was a fantastic and memorable experience. I came away from the program with new collaboration skills, design resources, and a little digital bling (Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner + Patterns Design Program Graduate). I’ve continued that intense learning streak by earning four more badges since, thus achieving Super Learner status for the second time in 2020, and becoming Champion Learner Bronze in 2021. Suffice to say, what I learned during Patterns three years ago is still relevant to the growing and designing I do for my home studio at the Silicon Valley Lab.

“Good design is good business”

–Thomas J. Watson Jr.

Six badges were issued by IBM via in person and online learnings from January 2019 through December 2021. In addition, Super Learner status was achieved in 2019 and 2020 for completing over 80 hours of learning, while Champion Learner Silver status was achieved in 2021 for completing over 160 hours of learning and earning 2 badges.

Badges include: Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner, Patterns Design Program Graduate, Data Science Foundations - Level 1, Enterprise Design Thinking Co-Creator, Enterprise Design Thinking - Team Essentials for AI, Data Ops Methodology, IBM Virtual Collaborator, IBM Cloud Pak for Data V3.5.x Essentials, Design & User Experience (D&UX) Essentials.