Chapter Two.
Erik:I'm Erik Cargill.
Rachel:And I'm Rachel Elnar. And this is Cheers and Tiers.
Erik:Design leadership tales retold.
Rachel:Erik, I am so excited. Our guest is a creative leader who thrives at the intersection of design, technology, and collaboration. He is the director of marketing at Penn Medicine Doylestown Health and previously worked as a software engineer at Amazon, where he also contributed design work to Glamazon, Amazon's LGBTQ plus group. He served on the Board of Directors for AIGA Philadelphia from 2007 to 02/2011, and again from 2016 to 02/2021. He's pretty much a lifer.
Rachel:With undergrad and master's degrees in graphic design from Philadelphia University, Temple University, and computer science from Drexel University, plus certifications in design thinking from IBM and typeface design from Cooper Union. He's passionate about streamlining workflows, bringing people together, and making big beautiful ideas happen. Please welcome Bernardo Margulis.
Bernardo:Oh my god. Gonna bring you along every time because I that's like, you made me sound way better than I am. Thank you.
Rachel:There's no way to sound better. I mean, you've got so many degrees Holy cow. Like, a lot of learning behind you, a lot of experience behind you. I can't wait to dig in and find out more about it.
Bernardo:Well, let's get to it. I'm excited to be here.
Rachel:Alright.
Erik:Yeah. I'm glad you could work us in.
Bernardo:I I'm not that busy. I just got long commutes, but, you know, I'm I'm I'm like, when Rachel says, like, can you join us? I'm like, hell yes. Hell yes. So Alright.
Rachel:AIGA Philadelphia, I've never heard about that chapter.
Bernardo:I You've never heard about us.
Rachel:Yeah. Let me tell me about it.
Bernardo:Well, we're we're it's contended, but we are the first official chapter. Sorry, New York. It's we've been oh my god. I lost track. 1981 is when we were established as the first chapter.
Bernardo:I don't know. Like, you're gonna be car blanche. It's such an amazing group of people. I don't know. Like, now I'm, like, blanking because I'm like, what do what should I say?
Bernardo:Well, you're some amazing people. You've heard of Christine Scheller a couple of episodes ago. Had Alina Wheeler. We had Rosemary Murphy, Frank Baseman, Lauren Dougherty. We had amazing people on the chapter board for many, many years.
Bernardo:We had the first mentorship program and Rose to establish it has spoken across the country about mentorship. I don't know. I I can just keep gushing about it. It's just like, card plan. What do I say?
Bernardo:Sorry. I repeat you for interrupting.
Erik:No. No. No. It's fine. It's totally fine.
Erik:Yeah. You keep talking, but I what were some of the roles that you that you had on the board?
Bernardo:So I started as a sponsorship, and we've changed the terminology. I don't remember sponsorship with chair or I think it was sponsorship with chair. Then sometimes we call them directors or whatever. So sponsorship chair fresh out of undergrad. I got a phone call a week before graduating from Maribeth Kradel- Weitzel, who was also one of the board presidents.
Bernardo:Hey, Bernardo. Give me a callback. It's Maribeth And I'm like, it's a week before graduation. My parents and my sister and my brother and my grandmother are here traveling from abroad to see me graduate.
Bernardo:Am I in trouble? Am I not walking next week? And then I finally told her. She was like, oh, no. We just wanna invite you to be sponsorship chair.
Bernardo:I'm like, I'm, like, minus a week from graduation. What do I know? So I did sponsorship for two years. Fantastic experience. And then after that, I I went to grad school at Tyler, and I was going to alright.
Bernardo:Let me step back. And at the time, Kelly Holohan, who was my teacher in grad school, I was like, Kelly, I should step down. He's like, you should step down. And then Alex Zahradnik, who was just the the ethics chair, he was like, do you wanna be my co chair? I'm like, sure, because grad school and AIGA at the same time are the best idea ever.
Bernardo:So I did that for two years, and then I I moved to New York, and I left it. And then a few years, I came back, and Lauren Lauren Dougherty, Chrissy Scheller, took me out for lunch. And, you should always know if someone from AIGA takes you out for lunch, dinner, drinks, they want something. So they invited me back as a partnership director, which was a great next step from my experience as sponsorship. I love sponsorship when I first did it, so it was a great next step.
Bernardo:And then Scheller asked me to be her VP, and I said, yes. And then, as VP, the way we do it in this chapter, the next role you are, president. So I was president for two years, including time in grad school because I didn't learn the first time I was on the board again during grad school because, you know, not sleeping is the best thing to do.
Rachel:Your second grad experience or your first one still?
Bernardo:Second. That was the second one. During grad
Rachel:eight k.
Bernardo:Yeah. Graphics was 25. Twice. No. Reputable 25, you're stupid.
Bernardo:Graphics were at, like, 30 something. Like, you should know better, and I didn't.
Rachel:Amazing. Amazing.
Bernardo:It was great. I loved it. Such a good experience. I learned so much. I met so many people.
Bernardo:Like Rachel, like, I wouldn't have met you and, you know, now Erica wouldn't have met you. So I love it.
Rachel:You were out with some AIGA boardies last night or the other night?
Bernardo:Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel:Oh, were you getting back on the board? Did they take you out to dinner?
Bernardo:No. No. No. No. No.
Bernardo:No. No. No. No. No.
Bernardo:I got an ultimatum when I finished grad school. I needed some time off from participating in things, and I'm not participating in things yet. But I don't know. Those sound very much, Rachel. That's dangerous.
Bernardo:No. We're just having fun. Jen Jericho was in town, And, originally, I thought of meeting her and two other people. And next year I know, there's, like, I don't know, like, eight people around the dining table. And I'm like, people haven't seen in years.
Bernardo:But that's the IGA. You think you're gonna see one person, then they're gonna party. So, yeah, they're not recruiting me yet.
Erik:That's great. I'm I'm I'm actually talking to Jen on Tuesday about a position. So I was I was just gonna Oh, there you talk with her and and see if there's anything I can do to help out. I wanted to ask you about sponsorship director as a former sponsorship director myself here in Seattle. I found it very exciting and very challenging, but oh my God, it was so scary for me.
Erik:I'm just curious about your experience. Was it already set up? Did the person before you have it all set up?
Bernardo:And it's funny. I told the story this week when when I met with, with, local people from Agate. I I so as I said before, was fresh out of school. I hadn't been walked through graduation, and I joined the board. I was 25 and stupid.
Bernardo:Like, what do I know about raising money for a nonprofit? And I think that was very helpful. One of first things I did so when they when Mary Beth offered me the the position, she was like, oh, and then you if you say yes, you get to go to Miami for the national retreat. And I'm like, yeah. I just finished school.
Bernardo:I need free vacation. Of course, I'm going to do that. So, I remember being at the retreat and being surrounded by adults who had jobs and knew how to balance a checkbook and all that stuff, and learning so much from them and just taking so many notes. And then I went back, and there wasn't really anything established. The the way we ran sponsorship at the moment, we had a paper show once a year, and that was our big fundraiser.
Bernardo:But this was when paper shows were declining, and I remember the first thing I had to do was apologize to our vendors for a show I did not participate in but didn't do so well. It was just the market wasn't was going down late. Like, the show was fantastic. The the person who did it did a fantastic job. The venue was amazing.
Bernardo:The food was amazing. It was just the trends for those kind of things were going down. So my first thing was doing that. The second thing was we had a, Martin Neumeyer was doing a tour around the country, and, we need to fundraise for, it was prepackaged, and they were like, alright. You should do this much sponsorship, and this was for paper, and this was for printing.
Bernardo:So the goal was $2,500, and I only got $2,000. And I got printing, and I got paper. And I remember walking into the board, like, the the board meeting so deflected. So, like, oh my god. I did not get the goal, and they're like, dude, you didn't get it.
Bernardo:Like, we never got any money before. Like, all all we only got money once a year and that was it. I was like, oh. So being I think, like, being naive and being young and not having that much experience was actually to my advantage. And years later, I learned I liked systems and processes, so I had nothing.
Bernardo:So I established systems and processes. I was like, oh, this is how we do tier sponsorship plan. You know? And, actually, Nick Presaleo, who was at dinner a couple nights ago, he's like, oh, you're the one who did gold, silver, and and and bronze. I'm like, yeah.
Bernardo:Like, how do we create tiers? How do we create value? How do we hey. I'm not begging you for money. Here's an opportunity to reach Thanos 60 650 designers who are your market.
Bernardo:So I think I think being young and naive and and also hungry to learn was very helpful. I definitely feel when I did partnership, I was a little older. I had a little more experience. I I I I feel like I was more fearless the first time around. And the second time around, it was like, okay.
Bernardo:I know better, so I'm more cautious. So I I I don't know. I think being 25 and fresh out of school was an advantage at the moment. But I loved it. Like, we were we've we've raised $50,000 over two years.
Bernardo:We got all this in kind partnership. Oh. And I'm like, you know, I did this. Like, I mean, it was a lot of help. I I it was great.
Bernardo:I I loved it. It was fantastic.
Erik:Oh, that's fantastic.
Bernardo:How was your experience? Because you said, like I don't know. You said it was daunting?
Erik:It was daunting just because asking asking strangers for money for for a cause that I believed in was a lot easier. But just just ask just cold calling businesses and asking for money was was difficult for me. But I was up to the challenge. Like I said, I had the organization behind me, so I felt very supported. But it was a stretch.
Erik:It was a stretch for me. And was I really surprised myself how much I leaned into it. I did not get $50,000 over two years with help. It wasn't just me. Yeah, I was there for two years and remember how much I got, but it 50,000, but it was very much like you're talking about that moment where you're going in and you have this goal in mind and you're sharing with everybody.
Erik:It's like, oh, you know, I'm sorry, you guys. I didn't quite make it. Oh, it's okay. We'll be we'll be fine. It's oh, okay.
Erik:Alright.
Bernardo:And we're volunteers. So Yeah. It's not like it's not like there are metrics, and if you don't hit 95%, you're fired. Like, we're volunteers.
Erik:Yeah. And and Gage was the president at the time, and he was very supportive and very helpful. He had a lot of great ideas too. And and so, you know, we we would just pivot when something didn't work. We would just pivot and try something else.
Erik:So
Bernardo:Yeah. And I think that's what again, because we're volunteers and and it's not like the business would fail. Like, could experiment. We could try things. Like, we the next year, we transformed the paper show into a resource fair.
Bernardo:And whereas before the paper show was our biggest fundraiser, the resource fair, we had web developers and and, agencies who provide services to other designers, and, I think we had an accountant. And the first year, we we did the Continental Constitution Center here in Philadelphia. The venue was super expensive. The food was overpriced for what it was. We didn't make any money that year, but because we had tried all the things that were successful elsewhere, it was fine.
Bernardo:And it was like, we're experimenting. We're trying, and it worked out, and we kept doing it. You know, the next year, we got the Urban Outfitters lend us their or Anthropologie lend us their space for free. Their catering was a lot cheaper. We had more vendors.
Bernardo:So had we not tried the first one and lost the money, we wouldn't be able to do the next one that was even bigger and greater. And after a step down, they kept doing it for a few more years.
Rachel:You have to take risks if you're gonna learn. Right? Yeah. The chapter as a whole cannot learn unless someone takes risks.
Bernardo:Yeah. And it worked out. Sometimes it doesn't, but it did.
Rachel:Speaking of risks, I'm gonna say, I met you in Omaha.
Bernardo:Which is apparently, like, the most renowned, the most mythical one or the ethical one.
Rachel:Well, it's only because this is the birth of the pyramid. Right?
Bernardo:Oh my god. And yes. Because I was trying to do the timeline and then we definitely did not have pyramids in Miami.
Rachel:No. Because pyramids started in Omaha with Lauren Langfitt. And then he
Bernardo:said Oh, yes.
Rachel:Do you remember her? Yeah.
Bernardo:And she was a cheerleader in school, wasn't she? Didn't she say she
Erik:was a cheerleader?
Rachel:That I don't remember.
Bernardo:I didn't remember her until you mentioned her, but yes.
Rachel:So taking risks, I was thinking, oh my god. I can I could see all my design heroes are here? Right? Debbie Millman was here. Brand new, fresh out of school, Lil Bernardo goes up to her and says, I love you, Debbie.
Rachel:And I was like, what are you doing? And then they just became like instant friends. And Debbie would always call on Bernardo. And Debbie would be on like Bernardo's podcast or whatever. I was like, okay.
Rachel:This is how you do things. You you communicate, and you talk to them, and it's okay. And Bernardo showed me that way.
Bernardo:I I appreciate that. So I'm actually an introvert. It's funny because you were talking about you also were singing about the Myers Briggs. I was an INTJ, but I play an extrovert in television. So it's it's I don't know.
Bernardo:It's like the whole thing. So my first my first border to you in Miami. So I first met Debbie when she was emcee for a conference in AIGA, New York. It was called Body Language. It was a community like, the the intersection of fashion and graphic design.
Bernardo:I never knew about her before. I just remember her having this amazing presence, and I had just befriended a small group of people, and everyone was like, oh my god. Debbie's amazing. Everyone's, like, fangirling about her. So I actually saw her in Miami, and then a few people were like, oh, there'll be moments there.
Bernardo:Let's, like and we're dancing with her. And but then, like, again, b 25, being in the bathtub with Bill Grant, like, how does that happen? You know? Like, the next year is going to Did
Rachel:say bathtub? Did you say
Bernardo:Hot tub. Hot tub.
Erik:Hot tub. Was like Hot tub.
Bernardo:Sorry. This is a family show.
Erik:I wanna hear this story.
Bernardo:No. No. They don't. Hot Top. Sorry.
Rachel:Okay. Yeah.
Erik:There's a
Bernardo:Hot Top tour. There are lot of people out there. It was family friendly. English is not my first language. Apologies.
Bernardo:Okay. And then, like, you know, Sean Adams, like, all these people who like, how do you know them? It's her IGA. Yeah. And pretending to be outgoing.
Bernardo:But it was fantastic. Yeah. And I love Debbie Millman and she's been so kind to me so many times. I'm I'm like, I go Gaga around her, and she's just so, like, precious to that because she's she's an amazing person. She's so inspirational to so many people.
Bernardo:But, yeah, like, couple years ago when I was on the board, and there were there were a few issues. This is around George Floyd and and pandemic and all that stuff. And I sent out the email on behalf of my chapter, and then Sean Adams just showed me a message supporting, like, oh, that was a great message. Like, thank you for so, like, the fact that I got to connect with this amazing design luminaries, it's all because of Adjib because it happened on the retreats.
Rachel:I definitely wanna have Sean on this podcast.
Bernardo:Oh, you should.
Rachel:He's not he has attended 19 retreats. 19, the highest so far. I thought it was gonna be Mike Jesse at 10, but no.
Bernardo:And the funny thing is, like, he's he's he's a pretty reserved person, but he's so giving.
Rachel:He's so nice.
Bernardo:Yeah. And, like, he does so well with any anything like this. So I yeah. I I definitely wanna listen and watch that not while driving.
Rachel:Okay. That's a good idea. I know. You're so funny when you're when you message me about Josh, and you're like, I'm driving right now, but you're texting me. Not a stop.
Rachel:Not safe. Not safe.
Erik:It was at a stop sign. So Miami was your first.
Bernardo:I'd Yeah.
Erik:I'd actually like to hear about that a little more just simply because you're fresh out of school. You're brought in on the board, now you're going to Miami. What was that experience like? And then beyond that, the the after parties, what were those like?
Bernardo:It was it was a it was a lot of fun and a lot of oh, it was great. I I had just spent four years learning, you know, learning design and and getting ready for my first job. And then I go to this weekend, and I'm doing even more learning. It's like, okay. There are no tests, so I can actually enjoy this kind of learning.
Bernardo:It was I I just remember sitting in a room. So there were some some some activities that everyone's in the in in the room and some activities that were, like, by by depending on your role. And I I I don't remember the general stuff, but I do remember the specifically the sponsorship things that we were talking about earlier and and just having at the time, and Andrea Pelligrino was who was the national partnership person and just talking to us, and this is how we can support you, what we can do for you, and, like, the resources. And and, like, you know, we're a little chapter in Philadelphia, but we have National telling us we got your back. And then hearing from other people who who had gone through this and and experiences, like, I I always take a lot of notes, but I remember coming back with pages and pages and pages and pages of notes.
Bernardo:So it's fantastic getting to connect with other people. And and, you know, I was 25, and there are people in their fifties and sixties and seventies, and it's like we're all and that's one thing I love about AGA. Like, wherever you come from, whatever your background, like, you're here, and you're here for a common goal. So I remember, you know, distinctly, you know, having that sense of belonging and mutual support. And then some people who I stayed friends over the years and some people who I never saw again in my life, but, you know, it was it was fantastic.
Bernardo:And then going out of the night, I probably did a little too much that I you know, more than I should have. I was the youngest one from my group. Although, they were like, oh, this party here, this party there, this party everywhere. I'm like, okay. Let's do this.
Bernardo:And and why not? I just I just graduated. Let's do it. So it was a lot of fun. It was fantastic.
Bernardo:It was great. I really enjoyed it.
Rachel:Part of the culture. And, again, I would love to hear more about the hot tub stuff because that's all I hear about Miami. Is that, oh, everyone was in the pool together.
Bernardo:There was a pool, there was a hot tub, and there's the sea right there. So Beautiful. You yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Bernardo:Yeah. So I remember being in the sea with, three, four other people in, like, 11PM. You know, you couldn't see anything, but, I mean, we didn't go too far in, but enough that, like, we could submerge. And then yeah. So when the party was done, you would go to the pool.
Bernardo:When the pool was done, you go to the hot tub, and people had beers. People have, I don't know, drinks. And there weren't room parties like there were in Omaha, but it was it was, yeah. It was a lot of fun.
Rachel:You know the room parties in Omaha were out of necessity. That was because we had nothing else to do, nowhere else to go.
Bernardo:But although I you you were saying with I forget whose episode you were saying how we drank the town dry. But do you also remember how Emily Carr convinced the DJ at one of the bars we had gone there one night? And this is the second part of the story. Maybe we'll get I hope we get as the first part of the story. But the second part of the story is that we landed at this bar, and we drank them dry.
Bernardo:But then Emily Carr convinced the DJ to convince the bar owner to let us all in the next night without cover. Do you remember this?
Rachel:No. I don't remember that.
Bernardo:Yeah. The DJ was, like, up, like, in a booth, and she climbed the ladder and talked to the DJ. It's like, hey. They're like I don't know. How many were we can we come like, we can come tomorrow if you, like, convince them to not not charge cover.
Bernardo:And we were there the next night.
Rachel:I was not, but I'm glad you guys did that.
Bernardo:No. You were.
Rachel:Okay. Never mind. You were. But
Bernardo:then we did the parties and the rooms, but I forgot about the Sharpies until you mentioned it. And then Sharpies, because we didn't have iPhones at the time. Yeah.
Rachel:Part of the markers were because we were trying to get away from security. Do you remember that the security would come around
Bernardo:Yes.
Rachel:The embassy suites and break us up? And so we all scattered like mice, try to figure out where to go next, and you had to write on the next the next number on everyone's arm.
Bernardo:Love that I forgot all the stuff that you started talking and everything, like, falls together into place. Yes. Until we found one room that was actually surrounded by other AIGA people. Okay. So no one could complain about the noise.
Rachel:Okay.
Bernardo:And we somehow lasted longer in that room. Someone lost a ring. Someone, like, was, I don't know, throwing up in the bathroom. The bathtub was, like, overflowing. But somehow, we found the one room to wrap, like
Rachel:This is three
Bernardo:rooms in your brow.
Rachel:This is it.
Bernardo:Was that it?
Rachel:I think it was an indie room. Yeah. Yeah.
Bernardo:Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel:I think this is all gonna get cut out. But yes.
Bernardo:But the part, you know, the part that I really wanna share, and I have this picture of you and Stacy p. And I don't know if you had you and I had met at that moment, but I see those just on the verge of us meeting and falling in love. And, you know, twelve years later, here we are. But we went to one bar, and the one guy did not his do you remember he did not hit it had his ID on him?
Rachel:Yes. I do remember that.
Bernardo:And the guy was clearly old enough to go into a bar. He did not look under 40, and they would not let him in. And there was, like, a 150 of us waiting at the door to get in, and they wouldn't let him in. There were, like, 30 people already inside. And what do we do?
Bernardo:Thank you. We're not giving you our business. We're standing with our guy. We're gonna walk out of here and go somewhere else. Do you remember this?
Bernardo:I We would not go in this place.
Rachel:Yes.
Bernardo:Because one person could get in. None of us got in. So we did not drink that bar dry because they were terrible to our friend.
Erik:I don't know a picture
Bernardo:of you and Stacy p on that walk to the other bar.
Rachel:So 02/2007, was Miami. Correct?
Bernardo:Miami. Yeah.
Rachel:Do you know that's is that nineteen years ago?
Bernardo:Moving on.
Rachel:I'm just saying. Just saying that you've been with AIGA for a very long time.
Bernardo:Yeah. And I was very involved in school. So Okay. A little more than that. Yeah.
Bernardo:Was I got involved, like, junior year of school. So I had been already involved two years.
Rachel:So you've been in a leadership position for a very, very long time, obviously, with AIGA and also prior to the leadership retreats. Was there any effect, with AIGA? Did AIGA influence or your leadership influence the fact that you that you kept going back to school?
Bernardo:Has AIGA affected me and my leadership absolutely? Has it affected my desires to go to school? No. They're unrelated.
Rachel:Okay.
Bernardo:So I'm I don't know which will be the more interesting story. I think the way so going back to school just because I'm a nerd and I love learning, and I I mean, undergrad in my family, that was a given. And then grad school, initially, I was always gonna go to grad school for so backpedaling. I grew up in Venezuela, and I I was I started computer sciences just because I couldn't get a, like, a valid design degree, but I wanted to do design. So I started design.
Bernardo:I always wanted to go to grad school for design, so I did it. But I I my work permit expired, so that's why I did it at 27 instead of at 30. And then many years later, I was working for university, director of university, and I it was almost free tuition. I just had to pay taxes on it. And I was like, what should I do?
Bernardo:It was like, oh, I started computer science, and then I quit. Let me finish it. So it was it was unrelated. It was just like, you know, who goes to school for fun? This guy.
Bernardo:Oh. Computer sciences for fun? This guy. Who has a major breakdown every ten weeks and still gets keeps going? This guy.
Bernardo:Thank you to my partner, Jason, because I wouldn't have done it without him. The the other question about AIGA, I mean, people keep saying over and over again, but, like, it's it's shaped my whole career. And, you know, being fresh out of school in the leadership position, and then years later coming back to it, first, like, in a very direct way, a lot of the jobs I got were because of connections through IGA. That Miami on the way back, I was in a cab with Kelly Mullahan and Susan VanderVeer who were in the chapter. And I was like, oh my god.
Bernardo:I have to get a job because I'm at work permit, and I only have one year. They're gonna kick me out of the country. And then Susan's like, oh my god. We can't find the right person for this position at our studio. How are we gonna do?
Bernardo:And Kelly was like, you stupid idiots. Connect. You're looking for a job. You're looking for a designer. Talk to each other.
Bernardo:But that was a lot. Like, grad school, tap Tyler I would not have gone to Tyler if it wasn't for all the people who went to Tyler from AIGA and say, you should go there. My job you know, a lot of the jobs I got, a lot of the dishes teaching happened through connections through AIGA. So a lot of my career has shaped on it has been shaped on it by it. But then also, you know, Eric, we're talking before to experimenting and trying new things.
Bernardo:And especially when as the vice president, Christine Schaller, who's the president, we partnered very beautifully together, and she you know, I I I see her as a mentor both formally and formally, and I I we a week doesn't go by that we don't text each other and, you know, I ask her a question. But also when I was VP, she she and I I learned a lot from her, and we were able to experiment a lot of things. So then when I became president, you know, we restructured how we did our our recruiting. So Steph Sutton, who was my vice president at the time, we sat together. We analyzed you know, we hey.
Bernardo:Let's look at the last ten years of data and figure out what's been working and hasn't been working. Recruiting has been a problem. Let's let's work on it. And, you know, I still get I still get messages from from the current board member, president, and, like, hey. We're using the method that you help us create.
Bernardo:I didn't create it. I hired someone who's an expert on it and help us do it. But we redid our we run our board meetings to be a little more participatory because, you know, participation hung it down a bit with the board. We were, experimenting with having, fewer events and, more focus rather than try to drive massive. Let's try and make it a little more focused.
Bernardo:So all of these, I was able to play and experiment. So I I was able to try my leadership skills. So then as a creative director, as a marketing director, I can hold on to the learnings. And I was able to not only learn on my job, but I had a second job at the same time. And by the way, I mean, you have to can I curse?
Bernardo:I don't if I can curse.
Rachel:Yeah. Fuck it.
Bernardo:You have to, like, you have to, like, fuck it up and really be an asshole to get kicked out. If you do your job right and you try, like, you're volunteering. You're helping your community. So it's different than when you're on the job where, like, if something doesn't work out, it's like, oh, you know, the metrics are down. Here's, like, something doesn't work out.
Bernardo:I'm like, let's fix it. Let's do something better. So in a very runaway way, yes. It's shaved my leadership. It
Rachel:sounds like a lot of program management, project management, iterations. You're playing with operations. You're you're trying to improve, and you're using, the chapter to learn along the way to just get better and to be more efficient.
Bernardo:And facilitating. I think, you know, I'm I'm talking about all the things that we did, but it was a lot of facilitating because you also have to work with your board. Like, I I said, you know, we tried small program to this. I just facilitated the conversation. I had my my programming people do it, and they took care of it.
Bernardo:You know, before I was saying about the recruitment process that, you know, I hired someone to do it and and learn from them. So, yeah, it's it's it's working with your board and your team and just creating the space, I think. It's more so than actually doing it.
Erik:I find your your your voracious learning very inspiring. As a product designer myself, I have actually taken to trying to develop things that I want to see and so I would wear the engineer hat and it would it would really piss off engineers. And I'm just curious about that, I guess I wouldn't call it the curse of knowledge per se, but now you have essentially trained, you know, both sides of that coin. I'm curious what the advantages and disadvantages of that are.
Bernardo:Still trying to figure it out myself.
Erik:Are you? Okay.
Bernardo:Okay. Fair enough.
Erik:I think
Bernardo:it's funny because I so I was an engineer for two and a half years. And when I was leaving, I talked to to one of my friends, and it's like, you know, oh, I'm leaving it, but I learned so much for the last two and half years as an engineer. And she's like, of course, you've always been very pragmatic. You always talk like an engineer. So I've always had that, like, how do we now I say analyze data and process data, but, you know, when Steph and I sat down to analyze the previous ten years of the board activities, I think that was a precursor to what I learned as an engineer and then coming back.
Bernardo:So now as marketing director, I'm I'm thinking a lot about, alright. What and I work for a hospital, so we don't really have a lot of metrics at the time, so it's really hard. You know, my web manager, we are trying to figure out how do we use data. Because before, I would sit with a social media person and, hey. Can you pull from Sprout these metrics and let's see what works, what didn't work?
Bernardo:But now what I you know, because I have that experience, I can think now just, like, pull data from Sprout, but what performs, but doesn't perform, what what to optimize, what not to optimize. So I think, in a way, I always thought that way, but now it's enhanced. And it's not in the you know, you say you pissed off some engineers. Like, yeah, I could I could code because I did it for two and a half years. But I think for me, it's more about that thought process and mentality more so than the coding part of it, but I'm still trying to figure it out.
Bernardo:Let's talk in a year.
Erik:Okay. Alright. Yeah. I'm I'm really curious about that. And I suppose, you know, I'm being a little hyperbolic when I said I pissed them off.
Erik:It was more like, oh, aren't you cute trying to do this? Well,
Bernardo:because it's funny because, like, I I don't know. Like, when you learn a code and when you're teaching yourself and it works, you're like, oh, that's great. But then an engineer will look at it as like, can you refactor it? Where are your unit tests? Where are your integration tests?
Bernardo:Can you, like, scale it? Can you generalize it? But then on the other hand, the interesting thing is when I was a as an engineer, I was working on on advertising products. Mhmm. Like, you know, it was for Amazon advertising.
Bernardo:So when you schedule an ad, like, how often do you see it, and then when do you stop seeing it? And sometimes I would see things like UI that was created by an engineer. And I was like, no. No. No.
Bernardo:No. No. No. Where's your letting? Can you indent the line so we can tell that it's a list if you're not including bullets?
Bernardo:Can you like, no. No. No. No. No.
Bernardo:I did it the other way around. I shamed the engineers for the UI. So, Eric, there is payback.
Erik:There is payback. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Thank you.
Erik:Thank you.
Bernardo:Didn't say anything, but I redeemed you proactively I am. Retroactively.
Erik:I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Are
Rachel:you involved in AIGA in any way, shape, or form right now?
Bernardo:I I well, I'm on the mentorship program as a mentor.
Rachel:Okay.
Bernardo:And I was a mentee last time. They they did a collaboration with Philly Kai, which is a UX, equivalent of AIGA locally. So as a mentee then, now my mentor, I have a frustrated dream of one of my initiatives that I never accomplished. And I spoke to, Keith, who's the current president. And I said to him when I was looking for jobs, like, if I get a job by January in creative, I'll do this.
Bernardo:I'm a little tired of my job search. That's not happening. Sorry, Keith. I it may not happen. It's not, but it's in the back of my head eventually.
Rachel:Always. Right.
Bernardo:Eventually. Yeah. Don't take me out for lunch, Rachel. When we had lunch last time, you didn't you you it didn't happen.
Rachel:Well, you know, there are a lot of projects in the back of my head. This being one of them, podcast.
Bernardo:How are you doing this?
Rachel:I know. It's it's, it's it's needed. It's definitely needed. I miss everybody. I miss the leadership retreats.
Rachel:I miss the connections. I miss the events. So just to be able to kind of document all the leadership retreats and the the experiences that we all had, and pulling those Yeah. Photos out of, Facebook groups, whether people are happy about that or not.
Bernardo:Because I gotta say, Rachel, like, I'm so happy that you're doing this, and you're putting a very positive twist on on the organization. And when I met you and Stacy, I was really excited to hear your thoughts because we did go through some dark times organizationally, and there there are a lot of issues. There were a lot of issues for the past five years, and I'm not gonna hash them out, but just seeing that you are on board and you're so optimistic about it, and then talking to Stacy. Stacy has always been, like, a shining light in the whole process. And then hearing from other people how there's a a research enthusiasm about the organization.
Bernardo:I'm so excited. I'm I'm very happy that there I don't know anyone on the board at the moment because I think that's a good thing. I think we were a little too too close knit. So I think it's a good thing that we I don't know anyone on the board. But on the other hand, I think it's also fantastic that you and other people are are shining a light on it because it's a great organization, and we need we need we need it.
Bernardo:Even if we're not involved, we need it. So I I in a long way of saying thank you because I think you're doing fantastic stuff, And a lot of people are doing fantastic stuff, and this is a great initiative. And, Eric, thank you by extension because you're doing it. Yeah.
Erik:You know, you could tell people are are uplifted by it. Now, you know, I, myself included, just I never realized how much I missed community Yeah. Until we started talking about it. It's like, oh, wow. Yeah.
Erik:Miss it. That was the
Bernardo:and that was a good thing about like, I was gonna say it's good that I don't recognize anyone. Like, I think what Sean always said, like, that was a golden era of, like, the retreats and all that. Like, the fact that we can have these conversations began, like, Rachel, I said twelve years later, but it's, like, nineteen years later, like, ten years later. But then, like, you were talking a couple of episodes. Who's the first episode?
Bernardo:Who's the first episode? Mhmm. I never met her, but it's a shared experience. So listen to her episode. It's like, I might as well have been in the room because it's a shared experience.
Bernardo:I'm connecting with her without knowing her. So, yeah, I love I love that. I love that, catching up and connecting.
Rachel:Yeah. And Bernardo, we're gonna need your help to gather data from all of these episodes. So it logs the names, how many people were mentioned, which which, retreats were mentioned the most? Like, I would like to see a graph of of popularity, of people, you know, because right now, you have to scrub through all of them audibly.
Erik:We didn't even have to ask him out for dinner.
Rachel:Yeah. Exactly.
Bernardo:I know. I know. And I thought breakfast was just for fun, Rachel. You're dope and recruited me. I I let's transcribe the episodes, and let's extract data.
Bernardo:There you go. You know, let's let's we weren't allowed to use ChatGPT at Amazon. It took a while until we were able to use Amazon queue. So maybe I'll just, like, use ChatGPT and
Rachel:Oh, very good.
Bernardo:Extract stuff, and then let's figure out who can do can do, like, the visualization. I don't know. Let's do it. Let's do it.
Rachel:Just facilitate it. Just don't have to
Bernardo:Although I have it although I have a challenge for the two of you. How are gonna do the pyramids for this group Yeah. For this podcast?
Rachel:This is really tough.
Erik:Good question.
Rachel:Well, thank you, Bernardo. This was so much fun catching up, and I it's been long overdue. I really appreciate it. And getting your insights on leadership and facilitation, I think, has been very insightful.
Bernardo:Thank you both. And and, seriously, thank you for doing this. It's it's community. You're building community again. I really appreciate it.
Erik:Bernardo, was pleasure to meet you.
Bernardo:And nineteen years later, we're gonna go back and be like, we've known each other for nineteen years. Went to show and I first. Thirty eight years.
Rachel:Cheers to Bernardo. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
Bernardo:Cheers to you.
Rachel:Cheers and Tiers. We'll be back next time with more design leadership tales retold.
Erik:Please subscribe, rate, review, and share this podcast with your creative community, design leaders, and friends.
Rachel:Cheers and Tears Design Leadership Tales Retold is a production of chapter two and hosted by us, Rachel Elnar and Eric Cargill. This episode was produced and edited by Rachel Elnar. Podcast graphics by Eric Cargill. Animation by Verso Design and Megato Design.
Erik:The theme music track is Loose Ends by Silver Ship's Plastic Oceans. Follow Cheers and Tiers on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube podcasts, or wherever you get your audio and video podcasts. Subscribe to our email list at cheers and tiers dot com so you don't miss an episode.