In this episode of the NewyTechPeople Podcast’s Digitally Diverse Series, Ellen Bennett has an insightful chat with Ash Ivory, Head of Product at Askable. Ash shares how they amplify the collaborative culture at Askable, gives a peek into the projects their team have been working on, the key learnings they have acquired over their career, and the innovative ways they weave AI into their day-to-day workflow.

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Show Notes

Here you can source all the things we have talked about in the podcast whether that be books, events, meet-up groups and what’s new in the Newcastle tech scene.

• • Ash’s LinkedIn
  • Askable’s LinkedIn
  • Askable’s Website
  • Lenny’s Newsletter
  • Atomic Habits
  • Amie Calendar
  • Build Audiobook
  • What Every Body is Saying Audiobook

Find all local Newcastle Technology Events

• Event’s Page

00:00:20:02 – 00:00:40:09
Ellen Bennett
Welcome to another episode of Digitally Diverse, a podcast where we do a deep dive into the careers and journeys of influential tech and design leaders. Today we are joined by Ash Ivory and they are a head of product at Oscar. Thank you so much for joining us, Ash.

00:00:40:11 – 00:00:42:18
Ash Ivory
Thanks for having me, Ellen.

00:00:42:21 – 00:00:58:00
Ellen Bennett
Thank you. So I and probably our listeners as well would love to have a bit of background as to what what your journey so far has looked like and how you got to where you’re at Askable at the moment. Can you can you fill us in?

00:00:58:02 – 00:01:26:03
Ash Ivory
Look, I’ll do my best to keep the answers short because that’s a pretty loaded question and quite a long one. But my journey into product and tech has a really winding intro, so maybe we’ll cover that in some later questions. But right now I’m head of product at Askable, which means I essentially run our development team, our design team, and our product function all in one.

00:01:26:04 – 00:01:55:19
Ash Ivory
So it was really important for us at Askable when we were establishing this function to kind of have everyone in together. And yeah, I’ve been on this journey with basketball for about two years. They’ve been going for a lot longer than that. But yeah, I’m I’m quite new here. And when I arrived there was just myself and one of our founding devs, and at the moment we’re up to 12 products now, which is really exciting and still lots of plans to grow.

00:01:55:21 – 00:02:06:17
Ellen Bennett
Amazing. And for those that don’t know, obviously you guys are, you know, still in like that Start-Up phase, which is super exciting. But can you tell me a little bit more about what you guys do?

00:02:06:19 – 00:02:31:21
Ash Ivory
Yeah, good question. Probably should have covered that as well. But you know, the team structure is always the more exciting part, I think. So we are a software platform. We started out providing participants to a lot of brands and I guess really consumer facing brands who wanted to do a lot of discovery interviews and really kind of dig in with participants.

00:02:31:23 – 00:02:54:18
Ash Ivory
But one thing that we found is that it was quite tough for those companies or those orgs to really get clear on who they wanted to talk to and then actually get connected with those people as well. And I think a really cool part of basketball is that we were actually born out of an agency. So there’s an agency called Orange Digital, which spent a lot of time in, I guess, innovation as well.

00:02:54:18 – 00:03:24:19
Ash Ivory
And really gave their team at the time a lot of space to explore new opportunities. This came up as a really cool opportunity. A lot of their clients were looking for it and yeah, it’s kind of evolved to a full, fully fledged UX research platform today where we not only have the recruitment side of things with participants, but we’ve also built a nice suite of tools that complement our researchers when they’re running their research and going through that process as well.

00:03:24:19 – 00:03:57:23
Ash Ivory
So we’ve got our own version of video conferencing and a whole range of tools inside the platform that support those interviews and how basically the researchers extract the insights. So our vision or mission is to help accelerate product improvement around the world. But how it really manifests day to day for us in the product is that we’re supporting people to have really great conversations with their customers and extract really cool insights so that they can take those and make their products or services that are.

00:03:57:25 – 00:04:19:22
Ellen Bennett
Now that’s the fantastic. Like I am a very big advocate for good UX research and customer research. So any way that can allow that to be done more efficiently and just a better quality of research and findings is always going to be a good thing and have great results for people who are trying to build some cool stuff.

00:04:19:22 – 00:04:29:19
Ellen Bennett
So yeah, that’s, that’s awesome. And I know that you’ve recently expanded to outside of Australia. Can you tell us a little bit about that as well?

00:04:29:21 – 00:05:07:11
Ash Ivory
Yeah, we have really exciting part of our journey now, so we are self-funded, which we’re really, really proud of. So taking on a new location or expanding overseas is always, you know, quite a I guess a well thought through step. So we’re in London at the moment, which is really exciting. So we’ve got I think there’s five on the ground there now, so lots of customer support, sales growth and we’re really getting into the community and meeting lots of amazing UX researchers, product people and getting to know, you know, the UK client base over there.

00:05:07:18 – 00:05:28:24
Ash Ivory
It’s been awesome. I’ve done this kind of process before with Outfit a previous Start-Up I worked for, so it’s a really friendly market to enter into. They look and sound quite similar to us, which is really cool and a lot of the brands sort of look to us and we look to them. So that’s been a really great step.

00:05:28:24 – 00:05:48:21
Ash Ivory
We’ve obviously been getting in front of lots of people and chatting, which has been awesome. And then we are also looking at the states looking a little bit later down the track for that. That’s a really, really big move. So our founder has gone over John, and he’s been exploring the different areas that we might open up over there.

00:05:48:21 – 00:05:55:07
Ash Ivory
So yeah, everything’s really about expansion at the moment. It’s a super exciting time to be a part of the team.

00:05:55:09 – 00:06:25:19
Ellen Bennett
I love that. that’s super exciting. Especially start ups have those like big, lofty, meaty goals and you’re actually putting in the hard yards to try and figure out how to make that work. So yeah, super exciting. You speak so well, very eloquent, like really no ums and pauses. It’s just very like, yeah, it’s good to have you done like training on like public speaking or something, or you just, you just know, you just know your stuff now.

00:06:25:21 – 00:06:55:06
Ash Ivory
Weird story and it might actually be a good one. Ooh, When I started trying to think what year it was, would have been about 2011 and I was studying marketing. I had done my graphic design course and I sort of jumped into roles where I was working alongside a lot of marketing teams, knew graphic design really well, but I wanted to expand my knowledge around marketing.

00:06:55:08 – 00:07:20:07
Ash Ivory
At that point, I realised that designers and marketers are two sides of the same coin and I thought, I really need to learn more about this marketing side. If I don’t, I’m really not going to deliver on what my team or adjacent teams are asking me for. So I went to study marketing and my lecturer, her name was Georgia and she was fantastic.

00:07:20:07 – 00:07:54:03
Ash Ivory
So I’m actually from North Queensland. I was born in a little place called Moranbah. It’s a tiny little mining town and then I grew up in Mission Beach, which is a beautiful place. It’s up near Cairns. It’s just stunning, really tight knit, awesome community. But if you met me probably 20 years ago, I would have dropped a lot of my G’s and there would have been, you know, a little bit more of a twang in my voice and I remember the first day I got into class with Georgia.

00:07:54:03 – 00:08:19:18
Ash Ivory
So, you know, typical timeframe, computers where we’re studying after hours. So Georgia comes in, we start getting to know each other, answering questions. And I was dropping a lot of my J’s, and she said, we’re going to we’re going to work on that. And it’s something that I’ve been trying to work on since then. And I guess speaking for me is something I do a lot.

00:08:19:18 – 00:08:46:01
Ash Ivory
It’s a really cool part of, you know, whether I’m trying to communicate with the team internally about something or whether I get awesome opportunities like this to sort to tell my story, I really want it to be meaningful when I was speaking. So yeah, yeah. Big kudos to Georgia, my teacher who really helped me craft my sentences and try and not drop as many as my of my JS as I was.

00:08:46:03 – 00:09:09:10
Ellen Bennett
I feel like there’s so many people who would be in the exact same boat, including myself, like I grew up in Newcastle. I mean, I feel like it’s not as bad of a reputation like it doesn’t live up to. It’s like working class reputation anymore. It’s a lot better now. But when I first got to London, I didn’t think I had a super thick accent and so many people were like, What did you say?

00:09:09:13 – 00:09:37:15
Ellen Bennett
Like what? And I would just I didn’t realise how much was slang as well. So at least people would just be laughing at me because of all the things I was saying, like, how can you understand me? It’s not me. But yeah, it’s, it’s really interesting. Like when you have to communicate with such a wider, like a wider group of people, you do have to like tone things down a little bit, slow it down, be a little bit more aware of how you’re sounding.

00:09:37:17 – 00:09:47:09
Ash Ivory
Exactly. Exactly. And then as soon as we start talking about it, we’re even more hyper aware and then we fall into all the traps that we’re trying not to fall into.

00:09:47:12 – 00:09:54:06
Ellen Bennett
Definitely. Is there any specific projects or anything you’d like to mention that are coming up?

00:09:54:09 – 00:10:24:17
Ash Ivory
There’s a few things that we’re working on that we’re quite excited about. I think one of those is, I guess there’s a lot of hype at the moment around AI and chat. GPT and all of that crazy space and so we got very excited about it as well. But it was probably more from the perspective that it was solving a big problem for us technically that we were about to embark on.

00:10:24:19 – 00:10:50:18
Ash Ivory
So with our sessions tool, which is our video tool, we were looking at adding things like transcription. We wanted to do things like personal redaction, all of that really important privacy stuff as well for both our participants and our brands that, you know, conduct their research through our platform. So we had all these really big, meaty challenges around that particular product.

00:10:50:18 – 00:11:24:11
Ash Ivory
And AI and I especially just burst onto the scene at the right time. It’s been really, really interesting to see the way a lot of other platforms have just pick something up and jumped at that opportunity quite quickly. And I think that’s been a great approach to allow users all user types right, and all experience levels with a just start and start to understand what the, you know, what it can actually do and how powerful it can be with current platforms.

00:11:24:11 – 00:11:51:17
Ash Ivory
But we took a little bit more time to consider how we wanted to implement it, and we’ve got a really great approach now with a lot of the tech that we’ve built foundationally for sessions, adding things like transcription on top of that has just been a huge springboard into all of these amazing opportunities of AI being able to help summarise insights and speed up that analysis and synthesis process.

00:11:51:17 – 00:12:11:22
Ash Ivory
So we are only just really scratching the surface of where we can get to with that. But I would say for us, the next 12 months is really about getting the most out of those approaches as well as building to that view that we have of allowing research teams to do more with what they’ve got and the research that they’re conducting.

00:12:11:25 – 00:12:38:09
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, to me, sounds like you guys are just being able to make good research accessible to anyone really. Like. Gone are the days now where you had to have one or two in-house researches or you had to outsource to a to an agency who provides that service. Now, it sounds like you can just utilise the AI that you guys are offering and you get to go for sure.

00:12:38:09 – 00:13:16:21
Ash Ivory
There’s that side of things. So really building purpose built tools for that audience. But I guess educating the market on another one of our it’s kind of a feature, it’s a bit of a service, you know, it’s really robust offering that we’re quite excited about that possible plus is another layer on top of those tools, which means if research seems a lane or if product teams Alayne or if companies have never thought about research but they know it’s something that they really want to invest in, our plus platform allows you to be matched with a researcher who can conduct that research on your behalf.

00:13:16:24 – 00:13:46:26
Ash Ivory
You brief them, you got them, and then they go away. Do all the heavy lifting through our platform and and obviously their experience as well. And then you’re able to come back and, you know, connect back in with them. They present the report and the findings and it’s amazing. So there’s a few moving parts that we’re bringing together, not just with tech, but also really experienced researchers out there who are really keen on changing the way they work a little bit.

00:13:46:26 – 00:13:55:29
Ash Ivory
And it’s pretty cool. A lot of our researchers are working with brands that they’ve always wanted to, and they’ve got that opportunity to do that now through plus.

00:13:56:02 – 00:14:10:25
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, no, that’s great because yeah, you’re right. There’s there’s definitely still some projects and clients who need you know that that human touch and I don’t think that is ever really going to go away but I guess kind of like touching on that. Could you tell me a little bit more about like what the culture is like working with you guys?

00:14:10:25 – 00:14:17:29
Ellen Bennett
Obviously, you’re a you’re a small team at the moment, but how do you see that culture as you all grow?

00:14:18:02 – 00:14:48:15
Ash Ivory
It’s a really interesting question. When I joined Ask all the the size of our bowl is about the size that just the product team alone is now. So we’ve gone through a huge growth phase, but we’re still not at that really, really significant point where a lot of companies start to feel that their culture breaks down. And so we’re in a position where we can really be aware of what potentially could be coming with growth and expansion.

00:14:48:15 – 00:15:18:06
Ash Ivory
It’s just one of those things that you can’t really avoid. And I think every company is different. You can try to anticipate, you know, different things that may need to change or, you know, listen to others experience. But ultimately, I think every company has their own path as they grow. But for us culture, it really is one of the things that I, I picked up on quite early through even my interview process, and I had a slightly different one to what we do today.

00:15:18:06 – 00:15:43:26
Ash Ivory
But such is the growth journey. I think one of the biggest cornerstones of our culture, which is, you know, quite talked about at the moment, is we’re fully in the office. We don’t really do remote work. We have a team of 36 roughly now, and obviously some of those are in London. But the majority are here in Brazil and we’re all in the office.

00:15:43:28 – 00:16:22:28
Ash Ivory
It’s not that we’re against people working from home, but we felt that a point of difference or an advantage for us was to really get our team in the same space, connect and share ideas. Collaboration is is really, really key to the way that we build product. So having the team in the office, you know, we we joke about that part of your day when you are fully remote, when you need to ask a very simple 32nd question and the preamble either side on a Zoom call and the monotony of setting up a LinkedIn, you know, sort of going through that process can be a little bit intense.

00:16:22:28 – 00:16:47:03
Ash Ivory
So we do see a lot of advantages with our in office culture. There. The way that we’ve tried to build in, I guess, flexibility and sort of the the other side of it with work life balance is we have a about bonus day once a month, which is really cool. So it’s a day where the whole office just takes a break together.

00:16:47:06 – 00:17:11:14
Ash Ivory
It’s normally a Friday or a Thursday or a monday or Tuesday if it’s either sort of a public holiday and we all just take a break the same day, we see it as a way for you to, you know, go do you life admin or just chill out? And there’s not that pressure of, my God, I’m off that in Slack, just filling up and piling up with requests and things like that.

00:17:11:14 – 00:17:35:19
Ash Ivory
So for us, that’s a big part of, you know, giving back to the staff that way. They’re extremely committed and they come into the office. So it’s only fair that there’s some balance. We also have quite a beautiful office where we’re very, very lucky that our founder, John, took a lot of time to design the space and really think about what it would be like to work in the office.

00:17:35:19 – 00:17:41:17
Ash Ivory
It’s probably one of the biggest compliments I think we get any time we bring someone through, they kind of feel even just.

00:17:41:17 – 00:17:47:01
Ellen Bennett
Behind you, it looks lovely out there. What a lovely view. Yeah.

00:17:47:04 – 00:18:12:03
Ash Ivory
This is just a window, right? But yeah, it really is beautiful. And that’s just kind of, I guess the the logistics of working here is in office really strong on collaboration, that type of thing. But then there’s a whole raft of cultural parts that are far more ubiquitous that have just been here from the start and have been really cultivated by the leaders.

00:18:12:09 – 00:18:47:16
Ash Ivory
We’re quite particular about who we bring in to ask, though. We know that we’re at that phase where one person still can really influence the culture. So our interviewing process, you know, our values, all of that really stacks up to what I think is quite unique in in terms of hiring and culture. And it can be quite challenging as a leader to adhere to those those high the high bar that we set, especially when hiring is a little bit tough.

00:18:47:16 – 00:19:12:06
Ash Ivory
You know, the market’s been changing quite significantly over the last few years. So it’s been interesting to go through those peaks and troughs and sometimes there is an abundance of talent and other times, you know, talent is a little bit more lean and you’ve really got to stay pretty consistent with the way you’ve been hiring regardless of, you know, what those external factors that are happening.

00:19:12:25 – 00:19:40:23
Ellen Bennett
Yeah. Now that’s, that’s great. And I think it’s a really refreshing way to look at, you know, if you are expecting, you know, people to be in face to face, how do you make that an engaging and rewarding experience for your employees? And that in turn is just going to allow them to do their best work. And I think as well, if the culture is on point, people are going to want to come in and spend time with their colleagues and really get get amongst the problems.

00:19:40:23 – 00:19:54:23
Ellen Bennett
And yeah, no, that’s fantastic. I’d love to hear a little bit more back story on your journey and how you got to where you’re at, what was like your higher education and like your tertiary education getting into tech.

00:19:55:04 – 00:20:22:27
Ash Ivory
my goodness. Good question. And the the short answer is there was none. The the long answer is when I went through high school, it was still ERP. We were sort of on the the older system in Queensland. So I had my my choices. I enrolled in fine art at JCU, James Cook University. So that was sort of the, the uni that was quite close to me.

00:20:22:27 – 00:21:01:16
Ash Ivory
And at the time I was really hoping that I could stay around family, friends, that, you know, Townsville was a bit of a step in the right direction and that was just sort of at the end of my year 12. Yeah, right. So wrapping up high school, doing all that fun stuff and I in that little window found out my mum had lung cancer and that just kind of completely hit me for six, hit the family for six and it really, really changed my path quite significantly.

00:21:01:16 – 00:21:29:24
Ash Ivory
So I went and spent obviously a lot of time with Mum. She passed away about six months after I graduated, so it was a really, really quick diagnosis. But I was really thankful to have the opportunity to just be able to defer, take stock of where I wanted to go and spend sort of those last few months with Mum and from there it was then a really interesting journey.

00:21:29:24 – 00:21:57:05
Ash Ivory
I just just kind of went back to friends, family. I took the pressure off myself to make a choice and I just just sort of lived and a lot of time to recuperate, I guess, and just take stock of what was going on and where I wanted to go. And I eventually moved to Brisbane and when I got down here I had started in that little gap.

00:21:57:05 – 00:22:23:08
Ash Ivory
I had a little job at a sticker place like sticker and sign kind of place where I was literally, you know, installing vehicle routes and things like that and just kind of doing fun. But that quite low pressure work. So I’d done a little bit of desktop publishing, I think it was called back then as well, which I’m starting to show my age on, on things like this.

00:22:23:10 – 00:22:52:17
Ash Ivory
But did desktop publishing, enjoyed it, wanted to continue to build on it, but came down here a studied at Shillington, which was a private college and that felt more my pace. So it was like a monday to Friday. I basically came into the studio. It operated very much like a real studio environment. And one thing that they really emphasised was the ability to really work sort of to the timeframes that the industry was expecting.

00:22:52:22 – 00:23:21:21
Ash Ivory
And strangely enough, a lot of my peers in in Shillington with me were a lot of our uni groups who were going through the course to learn how to basically speed up the process in their workflow. So yeah, I studied graphic design, loved it like I discussed before or studied marketing and really enjoyed that as well. It gave me a really solid grounding in, you know, just business principles.

00:23:21:21 – 00:23:42:07
Ash Ivory
It was the first time I had really been exposed to that type of thinking that was great love to marketing, love design and just kind of stuck around roles like that for for quite a while. And I was being put in these positions where I could kind of do a bit of part. So they were getting a two fer.

00:23:42:09 – 00:24:18:05
Ash Ivory
They were getting a, you know, a marketer and a designer in one, which in some ways was fantastic. It gave me an edge, but in others it meant I was really, really overworked and overloaded and I was working in a lot of franchise organisations. I just sort of stumbled my way into that world. And so a lot of the time with franchise, you’ve got a central marketing team that’s basically servicing every franchisee at a market and that was a big, big problem for me in a lot of roles that I went into.

00:24:18:05 – 00:24:47:28
Ash Ivory
And I remember one day I had Googled, I was starting to kind of Google some solutions and I was thinking, Goodness, there must be a way for me to solve this. There must be a better way than just, you know, banging out artwork and making small changes over and over. And I stumbled on this product called Outfit, and I really, really wanted to buy it and bring it into the business I was in at the time, and that didn’t quite go to plan, but that was sort of the start of my tech journey.

00:24:47:28 – 00:25:10:11
Ash Ivory
So I went home after having that conversation with a few of the team at the place I was at before outfit, and I remember saying to my now wife at the time I really get this product. I get why this is completely going to change. You know, a lot of organisations, workflows and outputs when it comes to marketing materials.

00:25:10:11 – 00:25:32:11
Ash Ivory
And so I decided to message the founder, Bruce, and I just handed him four weeks and said, You really, really, really need to get me in. I’m going to change your business. I really get this kind of buyer persona. Please just give me a little bit of time and he did, and the rest is really history from there.

00:25:32:11 – 00:25:48:17
Ash Ivory
So that was my entry point into tech that I had no idea where I was about to go or what was coming from that point. But yeah, it really started because I understood the pain point that the software was solving and that’s really what got me in and got me hooked on software.

00:25:48:20 – 00:26:13:27
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, that’s such a common tale to, to hear someone who starts off in, you know, the finer art side of things and then or in the marketing side of things and then make their way into product. But you kind of had a double whammy. You kind of like a background in both, which is, yeah, I think it’s such a it’s so handy to have that foundation.

00:26:13:29 – 00:26:38:07
Ellen Bennett
Obviously you need to have a creative brain, but like being able to pair it with the marketing and the business side of things is super important. I guess I’d love to know. Would you recommend that journey to, to like perhaps students or younger people who are thinking about getting into, into tech and a product with a similar journey?

00:26:38:08 – 00:26:43:22
Ellen Bennett
Would you recommend that or would you recommend like a course or how do you see it going?

00:26:43:24 – 00:27:08:23
Ash Ivory
I think I mean, a lot of those things will work for a lot of different people in a bunch of different ways. So I think what’s more important when it comes to thinking about your career and where you want to go, especially in in the early years, where you really have a lot of flexibility, you probably don’t have a lot tying you down.

00:27:08:26 – 00:27:50:02
Ash Ivory
You may not have a house kids, you may not really care about where you’re living in 12 months as well. So I think using that early stage in your career to explore a lot, to work out what you’re passionate about, what what areas do you really want to learn more about that you may not be in a position to do that day to day in your job, sort of investing in those different areas and starting to carve out paths for yourself, I think is more important than thinking about Do I need to study this to get to that entry level role that will help me ladder up this way?

00:27:50:05 – 00:28:19:27
Ash Ivory
I think keeping your eyes and ears open when you’re looking at things that interest you, when you’re thinking about how you respond to certain topics, interests, those types of things. I think getting an understanding of yourself and how your natural skill set is really going to help you stand out in roles or positions or whatever later on in the future and then working out, okay, what else might I want to add to my skill set and round out?

00:28:19:27 – 00:28:42:07
Ash Ivory
And then being really practical and logical about am I the type of person that can sit down and study and go through that process? Or do I need to learn more through a hands on version of that? I think understanding that as early as possible is really important, especially because you need to learn, you know, your whole career.

00:28:42:07 – 00:29:19:10
Ash Ivory
So for me, I didn’t know it at the time, but I very much found a course that fit the way that I wanted to learn. And I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD and it’s this really strange thing. It’s something I’ve been hearing a lot of these adults. There’s something in the water or something’s going on, and we’re all suddenly, you know, we’re having these epiphanies of Maybe that’s why my report card said, you know, I was a little bit distractible or, you know, whatever it was that I’m putting those pieces together now.

00:29:19:10 – 00:29:44:10
Ash Ivory
But, you know, in in hindsight, looking back at why I may have chosen a shorter course river uni, you know, it’s it’s all starting to make sense now. But just naturally I, I wanted to learn through doing and so I tried to find courses and materials that were going to really fit with the way I wanted to learn rather than a whole uni degree.

00:29:44:13 – 00:30:02:21
Ash Ivory
There are now, I think, a lot of topics that I would love to go and learn quite deeply at university, but it’s certainly not anything to do with my day to day. It would just be a passion project to really sort of dive into.

00:30:02:23 – 00:30:34:21
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, a labour of love, so to speak. yeah. I think that’s so important as well, knowing your own like learning style because yeah, you’re right. Everyone’s different, right? Everyone. Everyone should have like a bit of a preference between like a four year degree. That’s a big undertaking. That’s a lot of focus. It’s also a lot of money like or you could get in there and do like a eight week intensive general assembly course and be just as well-off.

00:30:34:23 – 00:30:48:13
Ellen Bennett
So yeah, I think it’s important to figure out what you’re actually wanting to get out of whatever you choose to do and what how it lines up to how your brain works I think is super important to.

00:30:48:15 – 00:30:48:27
Ash Ivory
Totally.

00:30:49:00 – 00:31:07:21
Ellen Bennett
But I’d love to kind of just hear it sounds like you’ve we’ve got lots of passion about product and helping users and helping companies understand users and customers, but like what else lets you up and motivate you to be doing what you’re doing at our school at the moment?

00:31:07:23 – 00:31:39:07
Ash Ivory
It’s a really good question. I realised quite early in my career whether that was, you know, really early on when I was designing or whether it’s, you know, more recently where I’m sort of helping build the team here and also helping a lot of the emerging leaders at our school as well. People are this part of, I guess, my thinking, my interests that really drive a lot of my choices.

00:31:39:09 – 00:32:11:02
Ash Ivory
And with asking all the is this completely different approach to, I guess, the way that people communicate, the way that we speak quite openly about our goals, accountability, and, you know, all of all of those, I guess, core values around what makes us us and that really aligned with me. And for me, that is the other part of the whole equation.

00:32:11:05 – 00:32:37:28
Ash Ivory
You know, obviously I love design. I love, you know, elegant, beautiful solutions. But ultimately people have the other side of all of that. And so helping the team really develop their own skill sets that, you know, hit their goals, whether that’s career oriented to it or whether it’s personal as well. For me, people are the really, really key part of why I get out of bed.

00:32:38:00 – 00:32:59:07
Ash Ivory
And one of my big mantras, I guess, is I need to be building a team that is way smarter and way better than me. And if I’m doing that enough, if I feel like, you know, that’s that’s the general, I guess, consensus of myself as a leader and what’s going on around me, then I’m really doing my job.

00:32:59:07 – 00:33:10:17
Ash Ivory
So yeah, people nurturing and supporting, you know, really having I guess that servant leadership mentality is is really part of what makes my day awesome.

00:33:10:20 – 00:33:34:00
Ellen Bennett
And yeah, that’s, that’s fantastic to know that like, those values are not only going to take you from just your day to day life, but like in your work life as well. I would like to hear if have you had any speed bumps during your journey and like, how would they how have they shaped how you’ve career, how your career has turned out?

00:33:34:03 – 00:34:05:20
Ash Ivory
Definitely. There have been many. I think one is one of the ones that stands out quite a lot and not necessarily in chronological order, but in the last few months of being at outfit, I definitely experienced burnout, like quite significant burnout, and that was a big step up for me because it wasn’t something that I was really totally aware of at the time.

00:34:05:20 – 00:34:32:10
Ash Ivory
But it’s it’s almost a little bit like that old adage of, you know, boiling a frog and it kind of happens slowly and you don’t really understand what’s happening until you realise, my God, I’m I’m pretty much I need to get out of this space because it’s bad. And it wasn’t that the culture or environment was necessarily the key contributor as well.

00:34:32:10 – 00:34:55:27
Ash Ivory
There was a number of things going on there, but burnout for me took me by surprise quite a lot. And the other thing that really took me by surprise with burnout. Once I realised that it was happening and I needed to take a break was just how long it took me to recover the reset and get my confidence back as a leader.

00:34:55:29 – 00:35:26:24
Ash Ivory
It was quite a significant period and it lasted far longer than I thought. So that was a big statement, especially going into software and kind of changing careers and I guess roles and really changing my career trajectory at the time was a really good decision. But inevitably I put a lot of pressure on myself and that showing up as burnout wasn’t something that I really prepared for or honestly really understood the concept of.

00:35:26:27 – 00:36:02:24
Ash Ivory
So that was yeah, that was a big one. I think another potential statement maybe, or just something that I didn’t realise I was going to have to deal with as often as I have is probably around gender and how I show up in the workplace and sort of tolerance piece and knowing how to navigate that and starting to form my own opinions on it and stances on it has been quite interesting as well.

00:36:02:24 – 00:36:40:09
Ash Ivory
And I’d probably say that is a constant speed bump along the way. All the time, sort of. It never goes away, but that’s just another one of those facts of life, facts of, you know, who I am and how I sort of show up at work. That’s been pretty ongoing. Other than that, I probably haven’t had any other big, big, significant things in my career that I would say, is anything really worth calling out at this point other than, you know, Mum passing away quite young?

00:36:40:15 – 00:36:55:29
Ash Ivory
That was a little bit of a light speed bump. But in saying that it hasn’t it’s not directly related to my role or professional life. But yeah, they’re probably the, the, the, you know, that’s the short list of statements.

00:36:56:02 – 00:37:19:14
Ellen Bennett
The main ones. Yeah and that’s really interesting that you call that burnout at something that, you know, I really like asking that question to people who come on for a chat because everyone has speed bumps and I don’t want to you can’t really gloss over the fact anymore because everyone’s got something going on. And I think that we highlight that and normalise it.

00:37:19:17 – 00:37:39:28
Ellen Bennett
It’s better for everyone. And burnout comes up so often and even even with people outside of, you know, tech or any job, you can get burned out. How how did it turn out for you? Like was there any like major symptoms or were you just like ready to tap out one day?

00:37:40:01 – 00:38:26:06
Ash Ivory
It’s a Yeah, it’s a good question. I think so. I’m I’m absolutely a realist. I’m not someone that sugarcoat things, but I like to have a healthy balance of, you know, the reality of the situation. And then also, okay, what are we going to do about it? You know, how we how are we just going to kind of set our mind to it or what’s in our control that we can influence and I guess maybe of a situation forward with for me, when I started really struggling to see the next step or get motivated to solve problems that in the past I would have run up in our or been quite energised by, I could

00:38:26:06 – 00:38:52:28
Ash Ivory
feel that I didn’t have the resilience to get up and kind of go again when, you know, you you sort of go through a bit of a stumble or, you know, there’s challenges everywhere every day and there is a small and big. And I think when I was not able to get off again and solve problems or even chase opportunities that were put in front of me, that’s when I knew something was up.

00:38:53:04 – 00:39:30:10
Ash Ivory
I became, yeah, quite sort of withdrawn. I knew that there were key meetings that I really loved to go to, that I just was quite apathetic towards. So I think for me it yeah, it really kind of showed up in that withdrawal. And people know me. They know that I’m quite open. I generally wear my heart on my sleeve and that then I think definitely triggered in a lot of other people’s minds as well who were working closely with me or friends and family around me.

00:39:30:10 – 00:39:50:03
Ash Ivory
They could really see that that something was up. And it yeah, it sort of happened slowly and then all at once and I knew that it was time to start, you know, self-assess and, and work out what the next thing was. But I knew I absolutely couldn’t continue to do what I was doing at that time.

00:39:50:21 – 00:40:18:20
Ellen Bennett
Yeah. And to have that, like, that moment of realisation is sometimes, like, quite scary. I know for me that whenever I start to feel a little bit that way, the denial creeps in like that. Just keep going. Just keep going. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. That moment of realisation is like, no, we need to, we need to sit still for a second here and like, yes, reflect and see, see what the next step is.

00:40:18:20 – 00:40:49:19
Ellen Bennett
Because if you just keep on pushing it, it just is going to make it worse. So yeah, kudos to you for, you know, recognising it and just pressing pause. I feel like sometimes just taking a break, it sounds so self-help, but just take a break and then figure out where you want to go from that point. And also you mentioned before how you’re showing up at work around gender and how do you find being in a position of leadership?

00:40:49:21 – 00:40:59:01
Ellen Bennett
How have you stood in that role and how how has your experiences around that impacted how you how you show up as a leader?

00:40:59:03 – 00:41:23:22
Ash Ivory
It’s over my career, I think it’s been quite wide and varied. So very early on, like I came out when I was about 13, so I was quite young. I think it was definitely no surprise to a lot of people around me, but in my mind it was like the biggest announcement that I’d ever made and no one knew.

00:41:23:22 – 00:42:06:04
Ash Ivory
And it’s actually quite crazy how, how many people knew and they were fine and I was just sorry in my head about it. But yeah, at the time I didn’t really have language around this. And it’s something that I talk to my wife about quite regularly now as well. So I have two stepkids. Jen had Charlotte and Aiden in a in a previous marriage and they are growing up in a completely different world to what I grew up in, you know, And so that for me is kind of where my foundation started with identity and gender and sexuality.

00:42:06:04 – 00:42:44:18
Ash Ivory
And I was quite ashamed for for many, many years when I started, you know, getting into the workforce. It was something that I certainly kept at home. They were pretty casual roles. When you’re young and you’re working out how to make some money, But I definitely kept my relationships and my sexuality, you know, behind closed doors. I felt that that’s what I needed to do growing up in a small town, didn’t it didn’t impact me in a negative way.

00:42:44:18 – 00:43:07:07
Ash Ivory
It was quite good. We had a really close knit community. I had a lot of really great teachers around me that supported me that way. But it it forced me into this frame of mind where I thought, I’m never going to have that community or that safety around me again. So I should really kind of keep this stuff, you know, close to my chest.

00:43:07:07 – 00:43:34:15
Ash Ivory
And because the community was so safe when I would kind of, you know, when we would go on school trips or I would go places with my family, if we travelled to visit family or friends, I really noticed the difference at that age. And that, I think, set me up to be quite hesitant early on. And everything quite early in my career reinforced a lot of those negative experiences.

00:43:34:15 – 00:44:05:15
Ash Ivory
I think I one of my first jobs out of sort of study. So once I finished my graphic design and I was moving into my first position, I we had to wear uniforms and it was a very gendered uniform. The women wore skirts, the men wore pants. And it just it just absolutely just eroded my self-confidence, my sense of self.

00:44:05:18 – 00:44:44:25
Ash Ivory
And I struggled a lot because I couldn’t get the courage to speak to my manager or our CEO about what how I actually wanted to represent myself. And it was quite a learning curve over the years to work out how to speak up and have that voice in my head saying it’s important that the people around you and where you work wholeheartedly support you, believe in you back, you and I also after.

00:44:44:27 – 00:45:21:09
Ash Ivory
So after that sort of early experience with not knowing how to talk about uniforms and things like that, I had a good run in terms of my workplaces were okay, but I entered one that was I didn’t understand the full context of the arena and, you know, sort of those values. And I remember in my final interview, one of the teams said to me, you know, maybe I should just turn down, you know, your your relationship and your sexuality.

00:45:21:11 – 00:45:53:15
Ash Ivory
At that point, I was starting to be a little bit more open in interviews. I thought this is a better way to approach it so that they’re able to kind of make that judgement. And in a really strange way, it kind of backfired on me because they, they were aware of who I was. But yeah, it kind of then forced me into this conversation of like keep, keep that part at home, even though you’ve acknowledged it and you’ve been quite open with it, we would prefer you kind of keep that behind closed doors as well.

00:45:53:15 – 00:46:33:13
Ash Ivory
And that was that was a big turning point for me when I realised that that was something that I’d allowed to happen. I should probably get out and I never want to sort of be in a in a workplace like that ever again. And from that moment I was quite adamant about being out, being open and honest, and not only being open and honest, that being vocal about who I was as a leader and really making sure that I was, you know, using my voice where I could to encourage the right conversations in the workplace.

00:46:33:13 – 00:47:03:03
Ash Ivory
So I’ve had various experiences where I’ve been really uncomfortable and I’ve, you know, I really want to make sure that in our school and anywhere else I’m able to, that I’m really emphasising openness. But one area that I obviously know a lot about is sexuality and gender. So I’m I’m definitely far more open and honest and more of an advocate in that space than than I was when I first started my career.

00:47:03:10 – 00:47:35:04
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, what a, what an amazing evolution of how, how you show up and your, your views on it. It’s it’s, it’s really inspiring, honestly, because in a time where like when I first started in the design space, leadership was just primarily a lot of men. And we’re seeing a time now where a lot of a lot of designers especially it’s it’s pretty 5050 people getting into the industry, which is really great to see.

00:47:35:06 – 00:48:02:29
Ellen Bennett
But in leadership positions, it’s still quite leaning more towards the male side of things and to to like have that representation of women and people that are gender diverse in leadership roles and bringing diverse thoughts and perspectives and views into, you know, some pretty influential products, I think is only going to be a good thing. So, yeah, thank you.

00:48:03:01 – 00:48:13:29
Ellen Bennett
Thank you for sharing that because I really appreciate that. For a lot of people, it’s, you know, it can be a super touchy subject. So I just I’m really grateful that you’re able to share that now.

00:48:13:29 – 00:48:49:28
Ash Ivory
I appreciate it, Ellen. And it’s a good point about, you know, not just myself and my career, the product as well, because, you know, we we have this really amazing part of our product where we get to talk about this really tangibly. And that’s in things like out demographic filters and, you know, our participants kind of information. That’s a really big part of what, you know, researchers are looking for, because we want to make sure that diversity is is very much at the forefront of what they’re thinking about when they’re choosing audience that they want to talk to.

00:48:49:28 – 00:49:14:02
Ash Ivory
And so I guess thankful part of me when we’re having these conversations is a product team where I can all of a sudden say that my pronouns are in, you know, our simple screen of questions. And that’s it’s that just completely blows my mind. And it goes back to that, you know, the part of the conversation that I mentioned around, you know, the language that I think young people have today.

00:49:14:02 – 00:49:38:17
Ash Ivory
That’s what I hadn’t. It’s a bit crazy to think when I was growing up, you know, we there was no spectrum for gender. It was, you know, you’re in the boys line or the girls line, and that’s about all there is to it. And so I knew that I didn’t fit into just one of those that, you know, for me it was what I wanted to how I wanted to express myself in and how I wanted to show up.

00:49:38:17 – 00:50:01:23
Ash Ivory
But I didn’t have that language. And so it’s really exciting that we’re having all these conversations. You know, the kids come home now and and they have just just so much conversation and so many initiatives at school and all of these amazing little, you know, just bits and pieces that the student body does just because they know it’s, you know, the right thing to do now.

00:50:01:23 – 00:50:20:06
Ash Ivory
And it just completely blows my mind. And I’m really thankful that I’m in a position now where I can make sure a lot of that conversation is being fed through into our product in a really tangible way. And people can kind of find themselves, you know, in our in our screening questions and things like that. It’s as simple as that.

00:50:20:06 – 00:50:25:08
Ash Ivory
But it actually goes a really long way, I think, for a lot of people.

00:50:25:24 – 00:50:44:11
Ellen Bennett
No, I love that. It’s, yeah, you doing some really important work and you know, it’s, it’s, you’re right, it’s so rewarding when you actually do see the few changes, you know, and they kind of hit you when you least expect it, right? It’s like, well that’s, that’s, that’s nice. I’ve never noticed that before. Have they recently changed that?

00:50:44:11 – 00:51:04:03
Ellen Bennett
And I’d love to hear like, are there any like media or content that you like to absorb any podcasts or any other podcasts or books or, you know, thought leaders around design that you that you love to absorb?

00:51:04:13 – 00:51:33:05
Ash Ivory
my God, I’m a bit of a podcast slash audio book slash content fiend. I so my morning commute I, I ride a motorcycle to and from work and I have about 40 minutes on the bike sort of each way and so I have a whole lot of time to really get my my hands into this stuff. So a couple that I listen to religiously is Lenny’s podcast.

00:51:33:05 – 00:52:05:04
Ash Ivory
So he started Lenny’s newsletter. It’s a he’s quite a well known sort of product mind, and I listen to that one every single week at the moment in an hour. So I started a book club initiative at our school, which is super fun. So we’re reading continuous discovery habits together. Theresa Torres It’s not a super new, I guess, framework, but the way that she presents it and the backing that she’s got from people like Marty Kagan as product leaders is is pretty awesome.

00:52:05:04 – 00:52:32:02
Ash Ivory
So we’re reading that at the moment. We also read Atomic Habits, very popular book, but one that would say is popular for the right reasons. It definitely marries together a bunch of just, you know, productivity hacks and things like that of that have been really handy for our whole team. I am a big just scroller of product hunt.

00:52:32:02 – 00:52:53:19
Ash Ivory
I think one thing I really try and do in my role is just see what new products are out there, you know, looking at new patterns, new ways of working, all of that type of thing is is super fascinating to me along the same lines of, I guess, reading and podcasts, there’s another app that I’m a little bit obsessed with at the moment called Amy.

00:52:53:19 – 00:53:16:04
Ash Ivory
So it’s a new calendar app, and I’ve been using that quite a lot. And that’s really helped with sort of the productivity and I guess all of those hacks. It’s a really great app to put in place. So that’s one that I recommend a lot. Cool. Yeah, it’s it’s pretty cool. And then I’m big into, like I said, audiobooks as well.

00:53:16:04 – 00:53:33:25
Ash Ivory
I’ve got a pretty long list of ones that I’ve gotten through in the last 12 months. Builds what everybody is saying. That’s a really interesting one about body language. I’m happy to provide a list at the end, Ellen. Otherwise we’ll time to just talking about audiobooks.

00:53:33:27 – 00:54:05:16
Ellen Bennett
It’s super interesting to hear. It seems like people that I chat with are either in one in one of two camps, one of which is that they just read everything around a whole bunch of forums like our amongst everything product and tech and or they’re in the completely opposite side of the spectrum where they have like a pretty clean break between work stuff at work, home life and like fun other stuff at home.

00:54:05:19 – 00:54:28:20
Ellen Bennett
So it’s really interesting to see that there’s not too many people that are right in the middle. Definitely sounds like you’re in camp, Which is great. Obviously it’s, you know, if you’re interested in something and I super passionate about it, you just want to absorb all of the information. So know, that’s that’s awesome. And do you have like any mentors or like business leaders that, that inspire you or.

00:54:28:23 – 00:55:00:20
Ash Ivory
So I do. I have a pretty consistent mentor that I work with here in Brisbane. His name’s Peter Laurie. He’s amazing. We have a fairly informal sort of mentor mentee relationship where, you know, if I need him, he’s on the phone with me and I think that’s what a good mentor is like. I also have quite a number of people that I like to read about and follow along with.

00:55:00:20 – 00:55:30:03
Ash Ivory
Leonie is is one of them from Lenny’s podcast. So Lenny Rich, ASCII, he’s pretty phenomenal. I think he’s got a really amazing story. Recently. I’ve been just doing a lot of reading about the NSA as well, which is a little bit left of field, but I think there’s this really interesting part of people who are quite successful, you know, in that they’re different areas.

00:55:30:03 – 00:56:02:11
Ash Ivory
And I really love just reading about people’s journeys and their approaches. And I think especially with leadership and people who are quite successful at insane level, you can kind of find patterns and trends and try and understand fundamentally what is it about that person or their approach that has helped them succeed. The music industry is insanely competitive, so if you can sort of have a look at why people have succeeded or what’s what’s manifested in their lives, to get them to a point where they’ve been able to take advantage of opportunities.

00:56:02:11 – 00:56:25:19
Ash Ivory
I’m pretty obsessed with those types of stories. I’m a a very proud Taylor Swift fan and not just for the music. I think she’s a brilliant case study on brand and, you know, audience engagement, you name it, She’s you know, she’s done it. She’s a fantastic kind of case study in so many different areas like that as well.

00:56:25:19 – 00:57:03:21
Ash Ivory
So I have a very eclectic, I guess, resource collection, you know, that I like to look at and draw from. So I’m quite, quite lucky on that side that I have really, I guess, diverse interests and then really strangely my other sort of mentor and I guess person that I look to is our founder, John. He’s incredible. He’s a great leader, you know, not just as a as a CEO, but also as quite a personal friend.

00:57:03:21 – 00:57:10:11
Ash Ivory
So for me, that relationship is really important as well from a mentoring perspective.

00:57:10:16 – 00:57:33:18
Ellen Bennett
Now that’s that’s great. I think the more diverse the better, because then you just get a bit of a different a different flavour from everything, right? So you’re able to draw, draw on different things from different people and different perspectives. Thank you very much for coming on today. I really enjoyed having a chat. I feel like we could have gone on for a lot longer.

00:57:33:20 – 00:57:37:10
Ellen Bennett
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story.

00:57:37:12 – 00:57:41:23
Ash Ivory
Thanks for having me, Alan. It’s been amazing to chat. Thanks.