Being a sociologist means that there often are only so many opportunities to “do sociology” in a way that has impact. It is not that sociology doesn’t have value and practical applications. On the contrary, I would consider it one of the most useful and practical disciplines. But it can be hard to combine the opportunity to do practical application while working in an academic environment. I am very lucky that I found one such place to work.

My guest today on Experience by Design had similar fortune. Dr. Ashley Guajardo first fancied a job as a marine biologist due to a love of dolphins. But a fear of the ocean and aversion to being in the water curtailed that path. Lucky for us, she found sociology instead. While at Brunel University she studied with a professor who worked at Ubisoft as a user researcher. This, along with her own love of video games, led to a research interest and career in the design of video games. As well as the current President of the Digital Games Research Association. Additionally she was recently inducted as a Higher Education Videogame Alliance Fellow. Finally, she has recently left the University of Utah and will be starting at New York University as a professor and joining the Games Center faculty and staff.

We cover a lot of ground around applied sociology and public scholarship, since along with her academic work, she also is a livestreamer on Twitch and content creator through her new effort “The Research Left Behind Podcast.” We cover how there can be fun in frustration and forming positive social relationships through gaming. We talk about how gender is portrayed in and how genders approach gaming. We talk about the perils of livestreaming as a woman, and what female content creators say about how they are perceived and targeted by viewers. Finally we talk about how academics need to make their content more accessible to broader audiences and disseminate our findings though alternate formats.

Dr. Ashley Guajardo Webpage: https://amlbrown.com/

Ashley Guajardo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-ashley/

The Research Left Behind Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@TheResearchLeftBehind

Professor_Ashley on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/professor_ashley

Stories are the ways that we can relate our experiences to others. It is the most primary form of human communication, which makes it kind of ironic that people seem to be discovering the importance of storytelling. Through stories things become memorable, or more easily remembered. Growing up going to Catholic school, I might have a hard time remembering the Ten Commandments or the Beatitudes, I could remember the gist of the parables. A good story can be transformational, changing the ways that we look at the world and ourselves.

The importance of story is at the center of my conversation with today’s guest Diane Kahn of the Humans of San Quentin. If you are not familiar, San Quentin is one of the state prisons in California. It houses approximately 4000 inmates, which is over its original capacity of 3,084. It is the state’s oldest facility, founded in 1852. In March of 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom announced the future transformation of the prison to focus on rehabilitation rather than just incarceration.

Diane started Humans of San Quentin with a similar goal in mind. She has a background of an educator, which involved going to the University of San Francisco. That led to an opportunity to engage with inmates at San Quentin. Through that opportunity, she heard the stories of those behind the walls, and knew that she had to do what she could to bring them to the outside world.

As she relates, the program aspires to educate and build compassion by sharing the lives of humans living behind bars. The inmates feel affirmed in realizing they have something worth saying, and that people want to learn about them. We also talk about her educational experiences of teaching in San Quentin, having an audience that wants to learn, and not having to compete with the distraction of electronics in the classroom. We explore how by demystifying inmates we can create programs and heal both victims and offenders.

Finally, we talk about how the program is not in over 100 prisons in the US, as well as around the world, showing that there is a broader need to have people’s stories told and heard.

Humans of San Quentin: https://humansofsanquentin.org/

The Prison Podcast: https://humansofsanquentin.org/connections/the-prison-podcast/

Diane Kahn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane-kahn-1a04b1b4/

The Employee Experience MBA class that I'm teaching this summer is in full swing, with a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time. One of the things that I emphasize out of the gate is that employee experience is about optimizing the organization for the employee. Or, put simply, treat your employees like human beings, and treat them well. Shocking I know. But there is something about some organizations and business that can be dehumanizing in their own unique ways, as well as in the ways that they can replicate larger social dynamics that exist. Taken together, these elements can be unhelpful when trying to create better experience and more inclusive environments. As a result, the simple idea of treating people as people can at times not be so simple to execute.

Thus for the next 6 weeks we’ll be going over how we can conceptualize, integrate, and execute employee experience. Not that any of this is going to be mastered in six weeks. Mastery isn’t achieved by taking a single course. It is in the doing of work, of applying concepts, of developing experience that we can start to reach the point of mastery. It is through the dedication to the concepts introduced, and the examples presented, that the students can be in the position to make for better employee experiences.

One of the things I enjoy about this course is the way in which it is directly connected to applying the concepts that are learned. We might think of academia as a place where there is a lot of conceptualizing, and industry as a place where there is a lot of doing. It would then make sense, at least to me, that there is more partnership that takes place between industry and academia. But we don’t often see that. Rather, at least in US society, we see more of a divide between academia and industry which precludes this kind of collaboration.

Luckily, today on Experience by Design, we have someone who can talk about improving organizational culture, employee experience, and academia and industry collaborations. Josee Tremblay has a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering, a certificate in Strategic Decision and Risk Management from the Stanford School of Engineering, as well as other educational achievements. She has worked in the energy industry and is now a Principal at Strategic Decisions Group. In addition, she serves on the Schulich Industry Advisory Council for the School of Engineering at the University of Calgary. So she knows something about integrating industry and academia.

Also, she has written a book called Us and Yet and Yet. It is a fascinating examination and discussion of gender in the workplace. Her focus was on genders in nontraditional roles. Think male nurses, female engineers, and the like. In her book, she shares her experiences of transforming organizations through leadership, removing biases, and nurturing a positive multi-gender environment. Her goal is to give people a roadmap to collaboration and working together.

We talk about all these elements in our conversation, along with the key message of no matter your background, you are bringing in a contribution which is essential. The role of leadership is to create an environment to bring that out.

"Us and Yet and Yet" - https://usandyet.com

Josee Tremblay LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/josee-tremblay/