Thomas K Girard, Resume, Vancouver, March 2024

1. THOMAS K GIRARD
thomas@thomaskgirard.com
Linkedin.com/in/onthomas
Vancouver, Canada
Master of Arts, Liberal Studies
Siimon Fraser University 19–22
Bachelor of Design, Communication Design
Emily Carr University of Art and Design 98–05
Sole Proprietorship Founder
UNIQUEWAYS Consulting 19–present
THE AUDIO PODCAST & THE MORE THAN AUDIO PODCAST The
podcast is called UNIQUEWAYS and is inspired by a series of talk/
workshops I give at conferences and universities and meet-ups. It’s had
broad appeal touring the international conference circuit, with hundreds
of participants at some amazing venues. But for the podcast, more than
just about design, it shines light on the human side, and specifically on
the unique angle that people have in doing what they do.
THE WORKSHOP This workshop is built around a method called role
play, which uses voice and writing to make, test, and iterate an idea.
Participants are first paired up and assigned roles. One person rep-
resents a user, and one person represents a product or service that will
be interrogated by that user. As a jumping off point, we might say that
the product or service is a voice user interface like Siri. Once the roles
are assigned to the pairs, they have a conversation based on their roles;
in this case, a conversation between Siri, and a person using Siri. This
often happens for a timed interval of ten minutes. After the ten minutes
is up, the second half of the workshop begins. In the same pairs, the
same conversation happens except this time, we focus on variations of
the product or service. The workshop concludes with a takeaway idea.
Next time, try this process instead of in pairs, in a group of three, where
the third person is a note taker who just listens to the interactive con-
versation between the pair and turns it into writing. In addition to voice
user interfaces, this can easily be adapted to interrogate the relationship
between users and mobile devices, or within more pioneering technolo-
gies like VR and AR.
College Instructor
Vancouver Institute of Media Arts 19–present
College Instructor
Emily Carr University of Art and Design 15–19
TEDx Speaker on the theme “Greater Than you”
translated into 18 languages with 100,000 views
EDUCATION
EXPERIENCE
DISTINCTIONS